But a good one. I like his ideas.
I doubt anyone at NASA will listen to him though.

I found this line to be especially enlightened (and enlightening)!
How very (and unfortunately) true!

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Zubrin's got a lot of good ideas.

And sad to say he's completely correct on the time frame being too lengthy, and none of the "right" people in charge.

Like his comments about Apollo mode vs Shuttle mode. I have made numerous posts about what the Apollo technology could have been adapted to do.

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Mixing urine with paint?

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

Ah yes. NASA would be better if it had the experts running the show.

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Is he confusing X-38 with X-33? I thought X-38 was the CRV project.

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Wow am I out of touch! I didn't realise JIMO was dead. I thought it was still in the conceptual stage with a future.

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What a complicated moon mission? To recap for those not in the know, there were three seperate concepts for the Apollo moon mission.

Direct ascent
This would use a single spacecraft made for travelling to, landing on and ascending from the lunar surface and returning to Earth. This vehicle would obviously be pretty heavy and as such would require Nova to launch it. Nova couldn't be ready for Kennedy's timeline so this idea was rejected. It had the benefits of being very simple.

Earth Orbit Rendezvous
This would use a similar spacecraft, but launch it in two second to LEO on Saturns. This had the benefit of being ready in time and reasonably safe, but expensive, because it required two launches.

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous

This seperates the spacecraft into two seperate vehicles. The first would be used be a mothership to do most of the travelling and the second would be for lunar landing and ascent to rendezvous with the mothership for return to Earth. Because the lander was purely for one task, it didn't need to be designed with Earth return in mind and as such it could be made very light. Because the mothership wasn't going to land, it didn't have to be equipped with that stuff. The result is that the two spacecraft together were lighter than the one single vehicle. The problem was that rendezvousing in lunar orbit would be considered too dangerous.

The idea proposed seems to combine the expense of EOR with the danger of LOR.

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We need a big honkin' rocket.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

So did I.
Like ROMBUS or Sea Dragon. I don't see why we would have to build a completely new booster when all of these designs are laying around.

Well the ideas are still around, but I don't think any meaningful documentation is. Trying to fill in the blanks would be more difficult than a clean sheet design. Of course, the lessons learnt are still valuable.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

I think the Zubrin's point is illustrated by Apollo Applications. Apollo technology was essentially all the package that was needed for Mars with the exception of NERVA. Once NERVA had completed the puzzle, we would have been ready. Of course, things like MOLAB and the mooncopter would also be nice, but they were minor. Skylab and variations on the theme of the LM would have given all we would need for a lunar base, and Skylab and NERVA would have made Mars happen.

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Yeah, like a slightly-modified (blasphemy alert!) Saturn V (which von Braun originally wanted to be recoverable), or perhaps the Nexus, with Krafft Ehricke's recovery scheme.

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I do not think that the concept that there is " something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark" struck any of us as a surprise. NASA dropped the ball many years ago with the complacency of many high ranking politicals. As a Canadian, I am not pointing fingers without a mea culpa: My government is just as, or, more short sighted as the people south of the 49th.

Zubrin makes a great case. Seems too me he is the Chris Columbus of the 21st century. I hope that Ferdinand and Isabella Bush play the roles that they have been given: perhaps destined to enact.

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One only has to look at Gemini to illustrate the point that Zubrin was making. Here we have an entire space program devoted to one thing: developing the technologies and techniques necessary for Apollo.

One question: What is the opposition to developing a HLV? The Saturn V not only allowed trans-Lunar payloads, but allowed Skylab. We shouldn't abandon the concept so readily of turning boosters into space stations.

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One answer: too expensive.
The reason is that an HLV can only be used cost-effectively to launch really big things, Like a Mars mission or a spacestation. Even in optimistic scenarios this means half a flight per year (on average). Meanwhile the HLV does nothing, but still costs a lot (factories, productionlines, workforce). On the other hand, small boosters like the Delta-II can be used to launch all sorts of payloads, most of which on a commercial basis. You can even make a profit with small boosters, simply because you can fly them dozens of times per year.
So, an HLV will always be very expensive. This doesn't mean we shouldn't build one. But you must make it very clear what is on the other side of the equation. What do we get in return for such a massive investment? This part of the story is what I am missing, both in todays NASA, as in the Bush vision, as in the vision of Mr. Zubrin. Surely, you cannot justify spending so much money just for the sake of getting from A to B. The point is, you should tell me why we have to go to B in the first place.

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More to the point, given the plan calls for the development of an MLV for this objective, why not develop an HLV and do it properly?

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