Refuelling on Moon the Best Shot to Take Humans to Mars: Study

As the world anxiously awaits for the first
human mission to Mars, researchers at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) have developed a model that
suggests refuelling on the moon on way to
Red Planet will minimise the mass and
streamline cargo by 68 percent.
Previous studies have suggested that lunar
soil and water ice in certain craters of the
moon may be mined and converted to fuel.
Assuming that such technologies are
established at the time of a mission to
Mars, the MIT team has found that taking
a detour to the moon to refuel would
reduce the mass considerably.


According to Olivier de Weck, professor of
aeronautics at MIT, their plan deviates
from Nasa's more direct "carry-along"
route.
"This is completely against the established
common wisdom of how to go to Mars,
which is a straight shot to Mars , carry
everything with you," de Weck noted.
"The idea of taking a detour into the lunar
system ...it's very unintuitive. But from an
optimal network and big-picture view, this
could be very affordable in the long term,
because you don't have to ship everything
from Earth," he explained.
The group has developed a model to
determine the best route to Mars,
assuming the availability of resources and
fuel-generating infrastructure on the moon.
Based on their calculations, they
determined the optimal route to Mars, in
order to minimise the mass that would
have to be launched from Earth - often a
major cost driver in space exploration
missions.
They found the most mass-efficient path
involves launching a crew from Earth with
just enough fuel to get into orbit around
the Earth.
A fuel-producing plant on the surface of
the moon would then launch tankers of
fuel into space, where they would enter
gravitational orbit.
The tankers would eventually be picked up
by the Mars-bound crew, which would then
head to a nearby fuelling station to gas up
before ultimately heading to Mars.
To make this happen, water ice - which
could potentially be mined and processed
into rocket fuel - has been found on both
Mars and the moon.
"There's a pretty high degree of confidence
that these resources are available," de
Weck added.
"Assuming you can extract these
resources, what do you do with it? Almost
nobody has looked at that question," he
pointed out.
The new mathematical model improves on
a conventional model for routing vehicles.
"We adapted the model for the more
complex scenario of long-term missions in
space -- taking into account constraints
specific to space travel," said Takuto
Ishimatsu, now a post-doc at MIT.
The model assumes a future scenario in
which fuel can be processed on, and
transported from, the moon to rendezvous
points in space.
"Our ultimate goal is to colonise Mars and
to establish a permanent, self-sustainable
human presence there," Ishimatsu
emphasised.
"However, equally importantly, I believe
that we need to 'pave a road' in space so
that we can travel between planetary
bodies in an affordable way," he noted.




Culled from gadgets360