13.08.2024

These AI images of a “Cybertruck on Mars” were created by the Stable Diffusion image generation program, running on Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer in 2022. (Tesla via YouTube)

Tesla’s Cybertruck may look ungainly on Earth, but a pressurized version of the vehicle might be just the thing for gathering up samples of Martian rock and soil for return to Earth. That’s one of the way-out concepts that was discussed in Seattle during the past week’s convention of the Mars Society, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Robotically controlled Cybertrucks could be part of a Mars exploration system that also includes SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket as well as spaceworthy versions of all-terrain vehicles and humanoid robots built by Tesla, according to mission plans suggested by Mars Society co-founder Robert Zubrin, retired NASA engineer Tony Muscatello and business analyst Kent Nebergall.

Zubrin said the Starship-based concept could even accelerate progress toward crewed missions to Mars.

“We use Starship to deliver a robotic expedition that has already examined thousands of samples on Mars, gathered from hundreds of kilometers away by helicopters, and tens of kilometers away gathered by rovers, and then we land the crew to do follow-up exploration, including drilling in well-characterized sites to bring up water and see what the life on Mars is,” he said during a Thursday night session at the convention.

How way out is that? It sounds like science fiction, but theoretically, at least some elements of the plan could show up in SpaceX’s proposal for reworking NASA’s Mars sample return strategy.

More than two dozen samples have been collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover over the past three years, and they’ll be stored for pickup and return during a future series of missions. In April, NASA acknowledged that its previous plan for returning the samples was unworkable. “The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away,” said Bill Nelson, the space agency’s administrator.

In June, NASA said it would explore alternative concepts for Mars sample return missions and would fund concept studies by seven industry proposers. SpaceX is one of those companies, and it’s planning to propose using Starship. (Other proposers include Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quantum Space and Whittinghill Aerospace.)

But what about Martian Cybertrucks? In a 2019 posting to his X social-media platform, Elon Musk, who’s the world’s richest person as well as the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, said that a pressurized version of Tesla’s Cybertruck would be the “official truck of Mars.” And in a 2022 AI Day presentation about Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer, engineers said one of their test prompts for Dojo’s generative-AI capabilities was “Cybertruck on Mars.” All that suggests Musk has given the idea some thought.

Muscatello told GeekWire that he’s passed along his plan for Starship and Cybertrucks to a contact of his at SpaceX — but he doesn’t know whether it’ll show up in SpaceX’s report to NASA. “They’re welcome to it,” he said.

The 90-day concept studies are due to be delivered to NASA this fall. “We’ll assess the timeline from there, depending on what we see in the reports,” Tiffany Morgan, deputy director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters, said during a Friday session. “We want something that is reduced risk, but reduced price.”

It’s not clear how much of SpaceX’s specific proposal will be released after it’s handed over to NASA, but Morgan wouldn’t mind hearing more about the Cybertrucks. “That sounds awesome,” she said when she was told about the idea. “I haven’t heard that one before. I would like to get a copy of that paper, because that sounds so intriguing.”

Mini Wadhwa, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University who’s also the principal scientist for the Mars sample return campaign, said she was also intrigued by the idea of having Cybertrucks driving around on Mars. But she favored using a more tried-and-true method for gathering up the samples already cached by Perseverance. “Probably for the first time around, it would be great to just bring the samples back,” Wadhwa said.

A commercial role on Mars

In addition to the studies aimed at reimagining the procedure for bringing back Martian samples, NASA is funding a dozen industry studies looking into the feasibility of using commercial services to support missions to Mars.

One of the studies is designed to lay out how the technology behind SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation could be adapted for a Martian communication network. Two other studies are looking into adapting Blue Origin’s Blue Ring orbital transfer vehicle for Mars-bound payloads and for communication relay services.

NASA’s Mars Exploration Commercial Services program could use the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, as a model.

“I have heard a lot of people talk about the ‘Mars CLPS’ program,” Morgan said. “Right now these studies are investigating whether that’s feasible, whether there’s enough interest at the surface of Mars,” she said. “It certainly seems like there’s a lot more interest than there ever has been in the past. But is there as much as there is at the moon? That’s what we’re doing the studies for.”

Like the sample return studies, those early-stage “Mars CLPS” studies are nearing completion. NASA promises to release summaries of the study later this year.

When will NASA send humans?

What about crewed missions to Mars? NASA is currently focused on the Artemis program to send astronauts to the moon’s surface starting as early as 2026, but mission planners say Artemis is meant to set the stage for Mars odysseys.

“We’ve been studying Mars architecture for well over 50 years now — lots of different studies, lots of different ways that we can obviously send humans to Mars, but at some point we have to come together and make strategic decisions on some of these key things,” said Patrick Chai, deputy Mars architecture lead in the Strategy and Architecture Office for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. Chai said the next round of architecture definition documents, known as “Rev B,” is likely to come out in the January time frame.

Meanwhile, Zubrin and the Mars Society are pressing to accelerate the progress toward crewed missions. Zubrin said he plans to write a draft bill for Congress’ consideration that would require NASA to present a plan to send humans to Mars and begin crewed exploration within 10 years.

“The bill does not require Congress to appropriate money,” Zubrin said at a Saturday night banquet. “The bill has Congress demanding that NASA present it with an option. … And what we want to do is to mobilize Mars Society chapters in every part of the country, or individuals, to go and visit your congressman in their home offices and sit down and talk with them, and show them the bill and say, ‘We want you to be a co-sponsor of this bill.'”

Zubrin argued that such a program would help answer the big questions about life on Mars and prepare the way for human settlement. And because the value of space exploration is typically an issue on which Democrats and Republicans agree, Zubrin said there’s another potential benefit that’s closer to home.

“It also is potentially a means of healing this extremely toxic partisan rift that is now literally tearing this country apart — and must be cured,” he said.

Quelle: GeekWire