60+ Years of Humans to Mars Mission Planning

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60+ Years of Humans to Mars Mission Planning

Rapp, Donald

60+ years of planning for a human mission to Mars are documented, based on Portree’s superb history. Starting with von Braun’s vision of the 1950s, many attempts were made to define a feasible human mission to Mars. Development of nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) began in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1968, Boeing published a detailed design of a human mission to Mars making extensive use of NTP. Mission concepts continued to appear through the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, NASA produced Design Reference Missions DRM-1 and DRM-3 that became standard bearers for Mars planning. These DRMs introduced use of ISRU and continued to rely on NTP. In the same time frame, Zubrin developed the Mars Direct concept and Caltech developed the Mars Society Mission concept. In 2009, NASA published a summary of an extensive mission study known as DRA-5. In 2014, NASA announced the Evolvable Mars Campaign. The EMC appeared to be mainly vague and ephemeral notions based on glossy viewgraphs, with a lack of detailed engineering calculations. In the period 2015–2021, NASA made significant progress on designing the Mars Ascent Vehicle. In 2022, under assignment from the Administrator, NASA began investigating a short-stay mission with nuclear propulsion that is unlikely to be feasible, and in any event produces a small return on investment. After 60+ years of planning, we still don’t have a plan.