Excellent article from Spaceflight Now describing the multiple missions being collaboratively planned by the United States and Europe to discover and excavate samples from the surface of Mars, launch them in to Mars orbit, rendevouz with a return orbiter, fly them back to Earth and land them safely on Earth's surface.

Mars sample return mission could begin in 2018
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
July 20, 2010

Not too far from our home, on Salt Road, there lies Beeman Cemetery, an old frontier graveyard, with the tomb of one Nathaniel Gallop (1760-1843), my sons' Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather. He was born in Rhode Island Colony before settling in Clarence by way of Bennington, Vermont. Nathaniel Gallop begot Asa Gallop (1794-1881), also buried in Clarence, who begot Mary Gallop (1823-?) who begot Olive Boyer (1843-1911) who's last born Bessie Hetherly (1889-1975), after her  spouse passed away during her second trimester, gave birth to my wife's grandma Thelma. Along with their two direct ancestors, dozens of dead fifth or sixth cousins, five+ times removed, lie buried in the same old cemetery.

If one follows the interrupted path preceding the design of the NASA Human Spaceflight Exploration Systems Architecture Study, you’ll find the NASA actively discarded advanced technology and highly innovative architectures in favor of those internal NASA concepts and technology that depended on the the existing capabilities of NASA Centers (Heavy Lift from Marshall, for example) and preserved requirements for the existing Shuttle workforce.

Successful adoption of innovative concepts inside of NASA requires exceptional leadership. Otherwise, parochial Center and Contractor interests will prevail.

Comment originally posted at Centauri Dreams' post NIAC Redux: A Visionary Future.

Now that Shuttle's development costs are far sunk, it is a much more affordable launch vehicle than Constellation's Ares, by almost any measure - total life cycle, average and marginal cost. The $2 billion average cost per flight of Ares 1 blew me away.

To start comparing Shuttle costs to commercial launch, NASA's 2008 budget for Shuttle was $3.2 billion and in 2009 was $2.9 billion. Divide that by an average of five flights per year and you're looking at $580 million to $650 million per flight.

However, if you disaggregate the requirements for delivery of crew and cargo given the demands at Station, the Shuttle lift capacity is oversize and the launch cost less affordable - once Station assembly is complete.

Compare with the $3.5 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) for cargo delivery to Station from 2011 to 2016. NASA could try to keep Shuttle flying at a low rate instead of pursuing CRS, but, given the reference cost of the stand-down post Columbia (Shuttle was still burning up $2-3 billion a year without a single launch) the Shuttle would still not be cost effective given the operational resupply demand of Station.

For crew transportation to Station, using a conservative price of $50 million per seat on Soyuz, let's assume NASA needs to fly ten astronauts to Station each year. That would still only amount to $500 million per year at Russia's extortion pricing.

I suppose if NASA could minimize Shuttle program costs to below $1.5 billion a year from the remainder of Station operations, it could be the more affordable option.

"The Committee concludes that the ultimate goal of human
exploration is to chart a path for human expansion into the
solar system. This is an ambitious goal, but one worthy of
U.S. leadership in concert with a broad range of international
partners."

Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee Final Report

This illustration by Sean McNaughton at National Geographic shows all interplanetary missions since the dawn of ths Space age.

Large version: http://www.stevey.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/50-years-exploration-huge.jpg

Space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. Awesome program.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Today The New Atlantis published A Space Program for the Rest of Us - the best space policy paper I've read this year. Author Rand Simberg plans for a civil space program that is affordable and scales towards opening the high frontier for the rest of America, potentially the lead nation in a embryonic spacefaring civilization. Key passage:

The critical requirement of a reusable space system is refuelability. Consider a thought experiment from an earlier frontier. Imagine that, on the settlers’ hard trek to the western United States, there had been no vegetation along the way for the wagon-pulling horses or oxen to eat. To get across the country, each Conestoga would have to carry enough hay to feed the animals (not to mention supplies for the pioneers for months). The wagon would have been so large that the animals wouldn’t have been able to pull it. The longest distance that could be traveled would be dictated by the largest size of wagon that they could pull when it was full, and the initial speed would be very slow, picking up as the wagon grew lighter. Once the final destination was attained, the wagon and the animals would be useless without more fuel, so presumably the wagon parts would be used to build a cabin or saloon. In reality, of course, such a system would never have been affordable; had the settlers not been able to avail themselves of food and water along the way, the West would never have been settled.

Now apply that logic to space. The vast majority of the payload for heavy-lift launch vehicles is the propellant needed to send a relatively miniscule spacecraft to the Moon (or Mars or whatever destination) and back. Recall the Apollo missions’ gargantuan Saturn V rocket; the tiny capsule atop it was all that came back. And much of the propellant used by Saturn V was needed just to deliver into space the propellant that will be used for the trip back, since there were no gas stations on the Moon. The Apollo missions’ marginal costs were astonishingly high—but acceptable in the context of a race, since we did not have the time to set up the infrastructure, the needed service stations for fuel and food, along the way.

My son and I really enjoyed the large scale reenactments of the French & Indian War battle at Old Fort Niagara on Independence Day earlier this month. Uploaded a few photos of Old Fort Niagara to Flickr.