Future Visions for Scientific Human Exploration

Today, humans explore deep-space locations such as Mars, asteroids, and beyond, vicariously here on Earth, with noteworthy success. However, to achieve the revolutionary breakthroughs that have punctuated the history of science since the dawn of the Space Age has always required humans as "the discoverers," as Daniel Boorstin contends in this book of the same name. During Apollo 17, human explorers on the lunar surface discovered the "genesis rock," orange glass, and humans in space revamped the optically crippled Hubble Space Telescope to enable some of the greatest astronomical discoveries of all time. Science-driven human exploration is about developing the opportunities for such events, perhaps associated with challenging problems such as whether we can identify life beyond Earth within the universe. At issue, however, is how to safely insert humans and the spaceflight systems required to allow humans to operate as they do best in the hostile environment of deep space. The first issue is minimizing the problems associated with human adaptation to the most challenging aspects of deep space space radiation and microgravity (or non-Earth gravity). One solution path is to develop technologies that allow for minimization of the exposure time of people to deep space, as was accomplished in Apollo. For a mission to the planet Mars, this might entail new technological solutions for in-space propulsion that would make possible time-minimized transfers to and from Mars. The problem of rapid, reliable in-space transportation is challenged by the celestial mechanics of moving in space and the so-called "rocket equation." To travel to Mars from Earth in less than the time fuel-minimizing trajectories allow (i.e., Hohmann transfers) requires an exponential increase in the amount of fuel. Thus, month-long transits would require a mass of fuel as large as the dry mass of the ISS, assuming the existence of continuous acceleration engines. This raises the largest technological stumbling block to moving humans on site as deep-space explorers, delivering the masses required for human spaceflight systems to LEO or other Earth orbital vantage points using the existing or projected fleet of Earth-to-orbit (ETO) launch vehicles. Without a return to Saturn V-class boosters or an alternate path, one cannot imagine emplacing the masses that would be required for any deep-space voyage without a prohibitive number of Shuttle-class launches. One futurist solution might involve mass launch systems that could be used to move the consumables, including fuel, water, food, and building materials, to LEO in pieces rather than launching integrated systems. This approach would necessitate the development of robotic assembly and fuel-storage systems in Earth orbit, but could provide for a natural separation of low-value cargo (e.g., fuel, water).