The Case for Mars (48 page)

There are other advantages to this approach as well. Economic growth would be spurred, prior to any government expenditure. Moreover, posting multibillion-dollar prizes for breakthrough accomplishments in space would call into being not only a private space race, but a new kind of aerospace industry, one based on minimum-cost production methods. The existing aerospace industry does not work that way. Rather, the major aerospace companies contract with the government to do a job on a “cost plus” basis, which means that whatever it costs them to do the job, they charge the government a certain percentage mor
e, usually 10 to 15 percent. Therefore, the more it costs the major aerospace companies to do a job for the government, the more money they make. For this reason their staffs are top heavy with layer after layer of useless, high-priced “matrix managers” (who manage nothing), “marketeers” (who do no marketing), and “planners” (whose plans are never used), and whose sole apparent function is to add to company overhead. Of course, since the government needs proof that the expenses claimed by the aerospace companies are actually being incurred, vast numbers of accounting personnel are also employed, to keep track of how many labor hours are spent on each and every separate contract. To give you an idea of how bad it is, at Lockheed Martin’s main plant in Denver where I used to work, and where the Titan and Atlasprizes offch vehicles are produced, only a small minority of all personnel actually work in the factory. The fact that Lockheed Martin is cost competitive with the other large aerospace companies indicates that the rest of them are operating with similar overhead burdens as well.

The prize system would change all that, because the company’s profit would be the value of the prize, minus their costs, period. They would have no incentive to run costs up. Quite the contrary, they would have every reason to drive costs down. Furthermore, their actual base costs would be lower, since their accounting and documentation burden would be much less. By creating new aerospace companies based on these principles, or forcing the existing ones to drastically reform themselves, the Mars Prize would end up saving the government and the commercial satellite industry billions of dollars, as they soon would be able to get all of their required space and launch system hardware much cheaper.

But how could the Mars Prize be set as low as $20 billion? Didn’t I say that a Mars Direct program would probably cost the government more like $30 billion? Even with another $10 to $20 billion of secondary prizes thrown in, that’s hardly a deal that a private organization is likely to chase.

But my estimate of $30 billion for Mars Direct is based upon a J.F.K.-like model for the program—NASA funding existing major aerospace contractors to get the job done within their existing overhead structures, and NASA spending a lot on itself for “program management
” costs in the process. If the Mars Direct or Semi-Direct missions were done on a truly private basis, with the people undertaking the effort being free to buy whatever they want from whomever they want to build whatever they want, I believe that the cost of the effort would be in the $4 to $6 billion range. This sounds incredible when compared to the $30 billion estimate for Mars Direct, to say nothing of the $450 billion estimate for the 90-Day Report, but if you look at what is actually needed to fly the mission and total it up, taking advantage of things like cheap Russian launch vehicles and other cost-saving measures, it’s hard to see why the program should cost more than $4 billion or so. In the real world, you can buy an awful lot with $4 billion.

Consider the following: as a general standard, aerospace engineers will figure a $5,000 per pound cost for developing a new, high-performance jet fighter. Thus, the cost per tonne of hardware for development of such aerospace systems, which are every bit as complex as the habitats, Mars ascent vehicles, entry capsules, and other Mars Direct hardware, is about $10 million per tonne. (The McDonnell Douglas DC-X single-stage-to-orbit test vehicle came in at $6 million per tonne.) The total amount of dry hardware needed for Mars Direct or Semi Direct, excluding launch vehicles, is certainly less than 100 tonnes. So budget $ 1 billion for that. To launch everything you need to Mars, you would need to lift about 300 tonnes (this latter figure includes a lot of trans Mars injection propellant, which is cheap stuff, less than $1,000 per tonne). Three hundred tonnes could be lifted to low Earth orbit (LEO) by three Russian Energias, which would cost about $300 million each.
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for a total of $900 million in launch costs, plus may be $500 million in startup expenses to revive the Energia production line. The total cost for all hardware development a
nd launch would thus be $2.4 billion. Toss in another $600 million for mission operations, program management, legal costs, and other odds and ends and you’ve got yourself a $3 billion Mars program. Even if Energia or other Russian launch vehicles (such as Proton, which is in production and whose ls about $4 million per tonne to LEO) are not available or allowed, the mission still doesn’t have to cost that much. Current launch costs using existing U.S. boosters such as Titan’s, Atlas’s, or Delta’s is about $10,000 per ki
logram, or $10 million per tonne to LEO. At those rates, which are extremely conservative since a heavy-lift launch vehicle such as a Shuttle C or an Ares would show major economies of scale relative to these medium-lift boosters, launching the required 300 tonnes would cost $3 billion. Add that to the $1 billion for hardware development and, once again, we find a total program cost of less than $5 billion.

So if the real cost of the mission is $4 to $6 billion, a $20 billion prize ought to be able to mobilize the required capital from the private sector. No doubt there would be any number of people who would be skeptical that a manned Mars mission could be flown for $5 billion—but that wouldn’t matter. If the Mars Prize bill were passed, the only thing that would matter was whether a few investors think it could. We wouldn’t have to convince a majority of Congress that a humans-to-Mars program can be done cheaply; we would only have to convince a Bill Gates. This is important: The private sector is often vastly more innovative than the government because a consensus is not necessary to start something new. Rather, all it takes is one innovator and an investor who is willing to take a chance.

But if nobody takes up the challenge, what then? In that case the whole exercise would have cost the taxpayers absolutely nothing.

Would offering the Mars Prize damage NASA? I don’t think so. Rather, it would result in an infusion of capital into the best groups at the various NASA centers, as the private consortia chasing the prize sought to subcontract expertise in particular areas of interest. This would have a very healthy influence on the technologists at NASA, as they would then be driven to develop technologies that those seeking to fly a Mars mission actually want, instead of indulging themselves with research into technologies that are not relevant.

Here’s the series of prizes to drive the development of a humans-to-Mars program that I worked up for Gingrich. Note that though these prizes can be viewed as a series of steps toward an ultimate goal, a single organization need not undertake all of the challenges. A company could choose to accept one challenge and leave it at that, it could take the challenges on in succession, or it could skip the easier challenges entirely in an effort to get a crew to Mars first and win the grand prize.

CHALLENGE 1: Accomplishment of a Mars orbiter imaging mission.

The Prize:
$500 million

The Conditions:
The mission must successfully image at least 10 percent of the planet with resolutions of 20 centimeters per pixel or better. All images must be made available to the U.S. government, which will publish them.

The Bonus:
An additional $1 million for imaging (with 90 percent coverage or better) each of the 200 sites of interest selected by NASA’s Mars Science Working Group.

CHALLENGE 2: With a robotic lander, collect a sample of Martian soil and transport the sample to Earth using propellants of Martian origin for the return flight.

The Prize:
$1 billion

The Conditions:
The soil sample size must be at least three kilograms. At least 70 percent (by weight) of the propellant mixture used on the Mars-ascent and Earth-return legs of the mission must be produced on Mars from Martian resources.

The Bonus:
$10 million for each distinct rock type returned, up to a maximum of $300 million.

CHALLENGE 3: To demonstrate a long-term life-support system in space.

The Prize:
$1 billion

The Conditions:
A crew of three or more must be sustained in space for at least two years without resupply from Earth.

CHALLENGE 4: To deliver a pressurized rover to Mars.

The Prize:
$1 billion

The Conditions:
The vehicle must be proven capable of sustaining two humans on Mars for one week by means of a one-week test conducted on Earth during which it is driven 1,000 kilometers over unimproved terrain. The vehicle must travel at least 100 kilometers on Mars. Cabin pressure during the Mars excursion must be maintained between 3 and 15 psi. The cabin temperature must be maintained between 10° and 30° centigrade.

CHALLENGE 5: To demonstrate the first system that uses propellants of Martian origin to lift a 5-tonne payload from the surface of Mars to Mars orbit.

The Prize:
$1 billion

The Conditions:
At least 70 percent (by weight) of the propellant mixture used must be produced on Mars from Martian resources.

CHALLENGE 6: To demonstrate the first system that can produce more than 20 tonnes of propellant on the Martian surface in the course of a 500-day stay.

The Prize:
$1 billion

The Conditions:
At least 70 percent (by weight) of the propellant mixture must be produced on Mars from Martian resources.

CHALLENGE 7: To demonstrate the first system that can generate at least 15 kilowatts power (day/night average) for 500 days on Mars.

The Prize:
$1 billion

The Conditions:
A minimum of 2 kWe must be available at all times.

CHALLENGE 8: To demonstrate the first system that can deliver 10 tonnes of payload to the Martian surface.

The Prize:
$2 billion

The Conditions:
The demonstrator must provide a soft landing exerting no more than 8-gravities deceleration on the payload during any part of the trip.

CHALLENGE 9: To be the first to demonstrate a system that can lift at least 120 tonnes to low Earth orbit.

The Prize:
$2 billion

The Conditions:
The booster must launch from U.S. territory. Past history of the Saturn V is not eligible. A revived Saturn V system is eligible.

CHALLENGE 10: To demonstrate the first system that can put 50 tonnes onto a trans-Mars trajectory.

The Prize:
$3 billion

The Conditions:
Hyperbolic velocity for Earth departure must be at leas 4 km/s. The system must be launched by a booster or boosters with a capacity of at least 120 tonnes to low Earth orbit per launch. The booster must be launched from U.S. territory.

CHALLENGE 11: To demonstrate the first system that can deliver 30 tonnes of payload to the Martian surface.

The Prize:
$5 billion

The Conditions:
The demonstrator must make a soft landing exerting no more than 8-gravities deceleration on the payload during any part of the trip.

CHALLENGE 12: To be the first to send a crew to Mars and return the crew members safely to Earth.

The Prize:
$20 billion

The Conditions:
A majority of the crew must be Americans. At least three crew members must reach the Martian surface and remain on the planet for at least 100 days. One or more of the crew members must make at least three overland trips of at least 50 kilometers from the landing site.

The Bonus:
In addition to the $20 billion, crew members will receive $1 million per person for each day spent on the Martian surface, up to a maximum bonus of $5 billion.

Some general conditions would apply to all prizes, since some challenges encompass accomplishments covered by other tasks listed. For example, any system that can deliver 30 tonnes of payload to the Martian surface can also deliver 10 tonnes. If the more difficult mission is accomplished before the less difficult one, the organization performing the mission wins both prizes. To ensure that “home-grown” flight systems are developed, it would be required that at least 51 percent of the cash value of all hardware used to win any of the prizes must be manufactured in the United States. This does not mean that every subsystem must be 51 percent U.S.-made. For example, a successful mission to Mars using a Russian heavy-lift booster can still claim the $20 billion mission prize, provided that 51 percent of the total mission hardware is made in the United States, but that mission will not be eligible for the heavy-lift launch system prize. Finally, the winner of any prize would be required, at the government’s option, and at a cost per copy no greater than 20 percent that of the prize, to sell up to three additional copies of the winning flight system to the U.S. government. The U.S. government, in turn, would support all missions competing for the prizes with the communication services of the Deep Space Tracking Network’s 34-meter-diameter dishes provided at cost, and would also provide support for all launches with the ground support and tracking systems available at the Kennedy Space Center and other potential launch sites, and make properties at these sites available at reasonable costs for launch pad construction.