From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Sep 08 2003 - 11:33:34 MDT
Jay,
Re:
> Can anyone provide a reference for the estimated cost of
> NASA's Mars Reference Mission?
It isn't clear to me what report you are referencing (in the
future it might be nice to post a URL)...
But Zubrin, in Chapter 3 on pgs 46/47 of "The Case for Mars"
documents the "90-Day Study on Human Exploration of the Moon and
Mars", otherwise known as "The 90-Day Report".
He says, "The 90-Day Report did not include a published cost
estimate; however cost estimates for the program were generated
that were eventually leaked to the press. The bottom line:
$450 Billion."
How accurate this is, I don't know. You might want to check
the references. The numbers I've seen thrown around for something
more simple tend to be in the range of $50-$100 Billion.
But it seems to me that if a Mars robotic explorer mission costs
~$500 million that one could fund a heck of a lot of AI research
for the difference between 10 Robotic/AI missions to Mars ($5B)
and the cost of sending a few humans there. We just simply weren't
designed for space -- so one either needs redesigned humans
(comfortable in zero G, radiation tolerant, able to withstand
long periods of colder temperatures for reduced metabolic
requirements, perhaps smaller as Spike has argued) -- or one
needs to forget the idea of Mars colonization/terraforming
entirely. Instead go with migrating O'Neill colonies that
can swing by Earth and pick up their passengers.
Robert
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