 site for a permanent Mars base. The company envisioned that NASA would launch a series of three split/sprint missions by the end of the first decade of the 21st century. In fact, while the first crew explored Mars’s surface and worked in orbit to prepare their spacecraft for the trip home, the cargo spacecraft for the second Mars crew would depart LEO boosted by the same large aerobraking OTV the first mission’s cargo and piloted spacecraft had used. The second crew would leave Earth orbit in early 2007 and return from Mars in early 2008. The final crew in the series would depart for Mars in early 2009 and return home in early 2010. After that, establishment of the Mars base – Phase III of SAIC’s program – could begin. The company provided few details of Phase III.
With their surface mission completed, the first Mars explorers would lift off in their Mars Lander’s ascent stage. SAIC explained that the ascent stage would make up about half the mass of the Lander. The piloted spacecraft would rendezvous and dock with the ascent stage in Mars orbit to collect the surface crew and their Mars samples. On 2 August 2006, shortly after casting off the spent ascent stage, the astronauts would fire the piloted spacecraft’s twin engines to begin a five-month return to Earth.
Nearing Earth, the astronauts would enter the ERV capsule with their samples and separate from the crew spacecraft. The ERV, which would resemble one of the early designs for NASA’s planned Space Station lifeboat, would slide out of a radiation shield housing that would remain behind on the crew spacecraft. The abandoned sprint spacecraft would then fire its engines a final time to miss Earth and enter orbit about the Sun.
The ERV would aerobrake in Earth’s atmosphere, then an automated OMV from the Space Station would retrieve it. After physical examinations and a period of quarantine on board the Station, the first Mars crew would return to Earth on board a Space Shuttle.
SAIC wrote that its piloted split/sprint Mars mission could open the door to international space cooperation. Other countries, both allies and rivals, could contribute crewmembers, precursor missions, services such as propellant delivery, funds, spacecraft components, or even entire spacecraft. For all the countries involved, piloted Mars missions would “provide an effective catalyst for significant advances in automation, robotics, life sciences[,] and space technologies. . .[and], through direct experience, address and answer key questions about long-duration human space flight and the role of human beings in space exploration.”
NASA did not much care for the Ride Report; in fact, the agency at first refused to publish it. Perhaps this was because Ride acknowledged that NASA could not hope to lead in all areas of space endeavor. In addition, Ride proposed a manned Mars program after Space Station with no intervening manned moon program, placed robotic programs on a par with their piloted counterparts, and implied that NASA might not need a new piloted space initiative after it finished building its Space Station.
In addition, her report’s matter-of-fact tone probably annoyed some within NASA. Ride, who by the time she completed her report was nearing the end of her nine-year NASA career, felt free to express herself. She was quick to point out when NASA’s actions apparently belied its enthusiasm for piloted missions beyond LEO; for example, she noted the uncomfortable fact that Fletcher had committed only 0.03% of NASA’s budget to the new Office of Exploration. This, Ride wrote, gave the appearance that Code Z had been established merely to quell critics who had complained that NASA had no long-term goals.
“Piloted Sprint Missions to Mars,” AAS 87-202, J. Niehoff and S. Hoffman, The Case for Mars III: Strategies for Exploration – General Interest and Overview, Carol Stoker, editor, 1989, pp. 309-324; paper presented at the Case for Mars III conference in Boulder, Colorado, 18-22 July 1987.
Leadership and America’s Future in Space, Sally K. Ride, NASA, August 1987.
Piloted Sprint Missions 