{"id":19601,"date":"2015-09-29T23:01:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T15:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/destination-phobos-humans-orbiting-mars-report-goes-public\/"},"modified":"2015-09-29T23:01:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T15:01:20","slug":"destination-phobos-humans-orbiting-mars-report-goes-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/destination-phobos-humans-orbiting-mars-report-goes-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Destination Phobos: \u2018Humans Orbiting Mars\u2019 report goes public"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mars
An artist\u2019s conception shows as astronaut\u2019s-eye view of Mars from Phobos, one of its moons. (Credit: Planetary Society)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The nonprofit Planetary Society has laid out a detailed blueprint for sending astronauts to the Martian moon Phobos in 2033 and then touching down on Mars itself beginning in 2039.<\/p>\n

The blueprint released Tuesday is based on a \u201cHumans Orbiting Mars\u201d workshop that was conducted in April \u2013 and it\u2019s probably already out of date, due to last month\u2019s announcement that NASA\u2019s first crewed flight of the Orion deep-space capsule is likely to be put off until 2023. Nevertheless, the Planetary Society\u2019s Casey Dreier says the full study can serve as a realistic yardstick for NASA\u2019s Mars exploration timetable.<\/p>\n

\"pluto\"
\nScience journalist Alan Boyle<\/strong> is the author of “The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made A Big Difference.”<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we don\u2019t have a metric to apply to NASA\u2019s progress,\u201d he told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

The study\u2019s proponents, including experts from NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, say it\u2019s more affordable to send astronauts to Phobos\u2019 low-gravity environment first, and then down to the Martian surface. They say the 25-year sequence of missions can be structured to fit within NASA\u2019s current budget, adjusted for inflation.<\/p>\n

NASA says it intends to send astronauts to Mars and its moons starting in the 2030s. The space agency\u2019s \u201cJourney to Mars\u201d plan covers roughly the same time frame as the \u201cHumans Orbiting Mars\u201d plan \u2013 but it isn\u2019t nearly as detailed.<\/p>\n

Critics, including NASA Watch\u2019s Keith Cowing, say the Planetary Society\u2019s \u201corbit-first\u201d blueprint is too timid and relies on hardware that NASA has not yet budgeted for. \u201cI am trying to picture how Congress is going to fund a program for 20 years that almost<\/em> puts humans on Mars,\u201d Cowing wrote on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\"Phobos
A graphic from the \u201cHumans Orbiting Mars\u201d website shows the components that would be required for a mission to Phobos. The elements would be sent toward Mars using NASA\u2019s yet-to-be-flown Space Launch System. (Credit: Planetary Society)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dreier, however, was doubtful that a more accelerated schedule would draw enough political support. \u201cIt\u2019d be great if we could do it in 10 years,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that will take a lot of money over not a lot of years, and I don\u2019t see any pathway to making that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the full report at http:\/\/hom.planetary.org. Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver will discuss the future of space exploration and the opportunities for commercial space ventures in Seattle on Thursday at the GeekWire Summit.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist\u2019s conception shows as astronaut\u2019s-eye view of Mars from Phobos, one of its moons. (Credit: Planetary Society) The nonprofit Planetary Society has laid out a detailed blueprint for sending astronauts to the Martian moon Phobos in 2033 and then touching down on Mars itself beginning in 2039. The blueprint released Tuesday is based on a \u201cHumans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[367,190,2573],"class_list":["post-19601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-planetary-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}