Academia makes its first comprehensive attempt to plan science missions to Mars using Starship
Figure 2-2 from the National Academies
of Science report
A new report released today by the National Academies of Science, entitled “Highest Priority Science for the First Human Missions to Mars,” is essentially the first attempt by the planetary science community to plan its future science missions to Mars using the gigantic capabilities that SpaceX’s Starship is expected to provide them.
You can download the report here.
Even though the report made the search for life on Mars its big priority — a bugaboo that NASA and the science community trot out repeatedly to garner clicks from the ignorant propaganda press — this report is radically different then all previous similar NASA studies proposing future Mars exploration, as indicated by the graphics from figure 2-2 of the report to the right. Unlike those past studies, which were badly limited by the inadequate capabilities of any spacecraft NASA could send to Mars, this new report recognizes how much the game is changed by SpaceX’s Starship.
First, the new panel did not attempt to place any limit on any landing zones. Earlier reports had forbidden landings in the high latitudes or high altitudes because of the risks to NASA’s proposed landers. Starship overcomes much of those risks, giving researchers much greater flexibility.
Second, the focus of the missions will not be solely devoted to scientific or geological research, as had been the case for all previous similar reports by NASA and the academic community. Instead, the proposed research goals includes important engineering and human exploration requirements outside of science, including efforts to use the resources on Mars itself as well as find locations better suited for human habitation. Once again, the vastly greater capabilities of Starship influenced this change.
Even more important, the study doesn’t assume the future missions will be unmanned, as all previous NASA reports have done. In fact, it does the opposite, proposing multiple 30-day manned missions, as shown in the graphic. One set of three missions would go to three different locations, while another set of three missions would focus on one place in particular.
Much of this shift towards manned flight I think stemmed from the presence on the panel of representatives from the private companies SpaceX and The Exploration Company (a French startup), as well as an engineer from the National Academy of Engineering. Previously studies were almost always entirely dominated by planetary scientists, so the goals outlined were always focused on their interests. Now the idea of human exploration has become prevalent.
The panel’s work was clearly also influenced by the realization that SpaceX’s Starship is not only far more capable, its first flights are just around the corner. SpaceX plans sending it numerous times to Mars in the very near future, as shown in the graphic below that Elon Musk released during a presentation in May 2025.
The Musk game plan for Mars exploration over the next few years.
While that plan is probably going to see some delays, it is also probably going to play out more or less as Musk envisions it. NASA and academia had better get its pins in order to take advantage of that capability, or it will miss out. Today’s report is its first stab at doing so.
In this context the panel recommended two things that are quite ambitious. First, a real research laboratory should be sent on Starship to Mars, “consisting of a variety of geologic, astrobiologic, and biomolecular analytical tools and analysis capabilities.” No more robots. Put a real lab on the planet with the scientists there capable of analyzing samples on a daily basis.
Second, the panel recommended that Starship bring fully capable drilling rigs to the planet so that actual deep cores could be obtained from multiple locations. Imagine, we might soon be seeing drilling crews obtaining cores from the polar ice caps, allowing scientists to finally and precisely map the entire geological history of Mars, which in turn will help map the solar system’s own history, and the Earth’s as well.
The report also notes a major political obstacle to this ambitious human Mars exploration, the limitations placed on human activity on other planets due to the planetary protection rules imposed by international interpretations of the Outer Space Treaty. Those interpretations actually forbid much human exploration on Mars out of fear of disturbing or destroying any possible life that might be there, as well as contaminating Earth life with that theorized alien life.
The problem is that there is no evidence any life exists on Mars. In fact, the data so far suggests if it ever was there, it is now long gone. Furthermore, the rules are simply impractical for future generations, as they preclude any real colonization anywhere in the solar system.
Though this report is very diplomatic about the issue, it makes it clear that changes are going to be required. As it notes:
Although today’s planetary protection guidelines are inconsistent with human exploration, the world-class science to be conducted by human explorers of Mars is an impetus for continued investment in the tools and knowledge that address contamination risks and inform these guidelines. By integrating this work early in the mission development process, human Mars exploration campaigns can achieve the required levels of scientific integrity and backward contamination risks.
In other words, the rules are going to have be changed. Humans are going to Mars, whether or not the international globalist bureaucrats in the UN and at NASA like it.
All in all, this report is a refreshing change. It signals the coming revolution in human space exploration, and lays out with courage some of the ambitious things that will now possible due to Starship. And rather than see Elon Musk’s company as an evil villain who must be stopped, the panelists instead viewed his company as a wonderful resource to be mined. For everyone’s mutual benefit.
Or as they say in science fiction: Ad astra!
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This is truly an exciting time.
Robert, thanks for this summary, and the link to the report! This is going to be a fascinating deep dive.
We certainly are, living in the Future.
I’m still totally unclear on; radiation shielding en-route, atrophied muscles at the surface, and what is the risk of tipping over at landing?
Something along the lines of “the map is not the territory.”
I am pleasantly surprised they didn’t try to limit Starship landing zones…I guess they figure than any Earth cooties could just as easily hitched a ride on China’s probe as easily as Viking, or whatever.
One more reason I am (quietly) glad about China’s space push…it helps keep America’s momentum going.
The Eager Space site has me scratching my head. I expect the usual SLS bashing there as well as here –but he seems to have it out for the ideas of space markets.
“Why Space Reality kills Space Dreams.”
At 15:57 he says there is no space market… orbital server farms alone may open the doors to space Solar –and the energy sector is a whale of a market.
He does get my frustration with VCs at least.
Perhaps the overall nature of this report is due, at least in part, to a dawning appreciation on the part of the legacy planetary science apparat that they are no longer immune in their ivory tower fastnesses from changes in the larger culture. There have been dismissals in plenty at both JPL and Goddard since Trump took office and the prospect is for more. The planetary science grandees can no longer do whatever they like with entirely too much of the public’s money. SpaceX and the US are going to Mars for quite a variety of reasons. Science can certainly be one of them, but it is not going to have unrestricted control of the steering wheel.
I think Peter Hague is likely right in speculating that SpaceX just isn’t going to make the 2026 Mars launch window for that first batch of Starships — they’re moving lightning fast on everything, but it just looks less and less likely that they’ll have nailed down orbital refueling or have enough launch pads in operation in time.
But 2029 looks entirely possible. That won’t get Trump his Mars landing before he leaves office, but the actual launch and Earth departure would happen in his final weeks.
There is, however, the pendulum. Republicans are talking affordability–but no one believes it with stagnant wages. Trump’s tiff with healthcare prices would have gotten him red-baited.
My fear is that NASA gets more cuts–the DNC gets in–and attacks NewSpace but doesn’t really restore NASA funding except for Green nonsense.
That’s the one-two punch AmericaSpace’s Jim Hillhouse warned us about when he called for OldSpace and NewSpace to have each other’s back.
It is easier to destroy than create.
Someone tell Elon:
“Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons, is on a collision course with the planet. It is nearing Mars at a rate of six feet (1.8 meters) every hundred years. At that rate, the moon will either crash into Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring.”
I will say it, again. There seem to be an awful lot of plans for a system that has yet to demonstrate a complete flight. Then there is the small detail of orbital refueling. There is not a reason that I am aware of that it can’t be done; we just haven’t actually done it. Projects have to be planned ahead, and Starship will likely work as anticipated. I would just like to see some demonstrated capability before I put resources into a Starship-based project.
Blair Ivey: You points are well taken. However, read the report I link to. It is remarkable lacking in specifics. Its purpose was to outline general goals and concepts, centered around Starship and the new capabilities expected from it.
In other words, this report is simply the first stab at the early design and concept work. Nothing is concrete, and all depends on how Starship evolves. Nonetheless, NOW is the time to begin this, because it would be foolish to bet against SpaceX’s engineering goals.
I find it interesting that the National Academies of Science thinks anything they say is of the slightest interest to Musk.
Saville: You are very very wrong. SpaceX made it a point to put a representative on this committee. It has also worked extensively for years with the scientists who use the orbiters to determine good landing zones for Starship.
Musk is smart (What a revelation!). He ain’t going to reject all scientists just because some are leftwing nutjobs. And most are not, and eager want to work with him to reach and explore Mars. He has therefore been glad to forge alliances with such people.
Robert Z:
Well ok, perhaps you are right. But remember that putting a representative on the committee works both ways: certainly the rep can report back what they are saying and certainly is there to protect and promote SpaceX’s interests. NOT having a rep there would be a foolish mistake. Even if Musk eventually rejected everything they said, it’s good to have an inside rep. And occasionally accepting an NAS recommendation – provided it doesn’t interfere with the Musk Mission – is good politics. So having a rep there isn’t necessarily a statement of obeisance to the NAS. And if they do have any good ideas it is wise to listen to them. I don’t think that left wing nutjobbery would the only – or even “a” – reason for Musk to ignore them.
However I still think that when decisions have to be made, Musk will do what Musk always does…follow Musk.
While I agree it’s not wise to bet against SpaceX, I have serious doubts about their ability to make the next 3 or 4 launch windows.
So much of the tech required is still very much in development and unproven… Super heavies are still rapidly disassembling on the launchpad. I believe that even a moon landing is still a ways away…
For robotic missions I think red dragon would have been a good stop gap… Starship is still in diapers, all that refuling worries me.. imagine the damage if a starship full of fuel goes boom on the pad… Even worse in orbit.
I can’t help but think that the timelines are WAY overoptimistic. I hope I am proved wrong.
In assessing the probabilities of SpaceX achieving Mars goals, I suggest we consider whether SpaceX will apply AI technology to accelerate Starship development. So far I have not seen direct evidence of this (that I noticed), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it rather suddenly begins to emerge!
Or should I say “Gradually, and then suddenly.”
Saville wrote: “And if they do have any good ideas it is wise to listen to them.”
The tale is that Elon Musk got his start by attending Mars Society meetings, and when he suggested private Mars exploration he learned that the problem was not so much the cost of the probes but the cost of the launches. This is why he is so adamant about reducing the cost of access to space. So much can be done if the cost is low.
Now that his idea has graduated from exploration to colonization, he may be very interested in what can be done to make the colony successful and profitable. Studies such as this one can put ideas into everyone’s heads so that they know what to work toward. It does not benefit only Musk and SpaceX but everyone who wants to explore or otherwise use Mars with a colony in place.
Lee S wrote: So much of the tech required is still very much in development and unproven… Super heavies are still rapidly disassembling on the launchpad. I believe that even a moon landing is still a ways away…”
Super Heavies don’t just explode, they also make it into orbit. What you are seeing is the development of improved launch vehicles, and now is the time to make those innovations. The technologies may seem like they are years or decades away, but look how fast SpaceX made their Starship land after a rapid flip (two, actually). Look how fast they managed to catch a fly with chopsticks. Development of new technologies looks messy, and the best development pushes the envelope to the point of loss of vehicle (and sometimes loss of launch pad or loss of crew, such as the development of the jet fighter in the 1950s).
Advancement in new areas is difficult and dangerous. Air travel learned this the hard way, and spaceflight is also still learning it the hard way. With SpaceX’s development, they are not putting anyone in harms way. The Dragons work fairly well, with early lessons learned during development. For a while it may have looked like Dragon was a deathtrap, but it is better than the competitor’s version, which only showed its problems during multiple flights rather than during development or ground test.
Technology development has several stages, and SpaceX is well along the path with all the technologies that they are developing for Starship. The Russians have been performing low quantity propellant transfer for decades. On one of the recent Starship test flights, SpaceX tested propellant transfer in free fall in the quantity of multiple tons so even that is a concept that has been proven.
There is the technology readiness level concept, and SpaceX seems to have completed the tech demonstration level for most or all of the technologies that we have seen. At this point they are in the system/subsystem development level, which is most of the way to the operational level. It only looks like it does not work, because a few of the subsystems do not yet perform as needed, and in aerospace when something does not perform correctly, then catastrophic results are possible.
I believe that the problem most people have is that they see other rockets go onto the launch pad without as much visible and spectacular testing, but these rockets are mere incremental evolutionary improvements (posigrade) to the old rockets, or in the case of SLS, retrograde* development. When most people see an apparent failure of a Starship development test, they think the worst, that the rocket is a bad idea and is not getting any better than the previous development test. However, just as with the jet development programs of the 1950s, SpaceX is pushing the envelope and determining how far they can go in their new designs. Other rockets do not do that, so they look successful, even though they have not advanced the technology by much. It is one reason why orbital launch vehicles were so expensive for so many decades. American engineers were satisfied with the technology that they had rather than spend resources, that they they would have had to beg for, in order to make revolutionary innovations.
SpaceX developed the Starlink constellation specifically so that they could use its profits on Starship’s revolutionary innovations. Most people think that time is of the essence, but it is innovation that is of the essence. We had been severely limited in our capabilities for Mars exploration. Robert Zubrin came up with an idea for using pre-Falcon tech to get man to Mars for short stays of exploration, with the hope that eventually we could find a way to colonize Mars. Musk is skipping the “hope” part and going straight for developing advanced tech to colonize Mars now, not later.
SpaceX sets aggressive schedules, but that pushes everyone to work with a sense of urgency. SpaceX has been moving faster than most other companies, because the aggressiveness achieves objectives more like aspirational schedules, which are harder to achieve than the optimistic schedules that we usually see in the space industry. SLS had set realistic schedules, rather than optimistic ones, and they could not even meet those schedules.
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* Thanks to Dick Eagleson for using this word, last week.
Edward: We must also note something that I am certain Musk and Shotwell both know without doubt: The planetary scientist community is one of Starship’s primary future customers. They might not have a lot of money of their own, but they are well positioned to convince governments to allocate funds for Mars missions. SpaceX has the product, they have the need, and from that formula you get all of capitalism.
It behooves SpaceX to do everything it can to sell Starship to them. And that sales job really isn’t that hard, considering the company’s track record.
Robert,
Yup. I forgot to say it was marketing research.
Ray Van Dune,
I don’t see any major near-term path to direct use of AI tech for Starship design/operations. But AI may well play a considerable financial role in advancing the scale of Starship operations and provide another Starlink-or-larger source of future funding for the entire Musk-iverse. At some Tesla-related doings a few days ago, Musk revealed that he thinks the idea of putting AI-oriented data centers in space has considerable merit. He even suggested that these would best be built using materials sourced on the Moon.
Musk has, in essence, two AI companies now – xAI and Tesla. Tesla, which began as a purely electric vehicle company, then transitioned to also being an energy products company is now further transitioning to being an AI company that also makes vehicles, energy products and autonomous robots. This is analogous to SpaceX’s transition from a space launch company to a telecom company that also does space launch.
Both xAI and Tesla are scrambling as fast as they can to establish more and ever-larger terrestrial data centers with which to pursue their various goals, but there are obstacles. All of these could be avoided by moving such activity into space. If Musk pursues space-based AI data centers, this would cement a major future SpaceX presence on the Moon, guarantee the development of the SLS-Orion replacement version of Starship to dovetail with HLS and also answer the long-standing question of “What is there on the Moon that could support an economy there?”
Robert Zimmerman,
All good points about SpaceX-planetary science collaboration. Sending a few scientists to Mars to conduct in situ science has been analogized to the Antarctic research stations. It is worth noting that the scientists at those facilities do not get to and from them on their own but on transport – ships and planes – provided by other entities. In the case of US Antarctic researchers, those entities are the US Coast Guard and the USAF. In the case of Mars, it will be SpaceX. Different sleeve patches, same deal.
Edward,
You’re welcome anent retrograde. And thanks to you for clearly explaining much that I now don’t have to.
Lee S,
I wouldn’t let B18’s test stand mishap overly concern you. I think SpaceX figured out the reason for that failure almost immediately after it occurred. Were matters otherwise, I don’t think we would see B19 going together at roughly four times the pace of its predecessor.
I agree that it seems improbable any Starships will be departing Mars-ward next year. But the 2029, 2031 and 2033 windows will be very different cases. On-orbit propellant transfer, at scale, will prove, I think, much less daunting than many now assume. Broken down, such on-orbit transfers are simply the autonomous rendezvous and docking of two large spacecraft followed by a multi-tonne cryo transfer. Semi- autonomous rendezvous and dockings of two large spacecraft are old news. Shuttle-Mir and Shuttle-ISS are the relevant exemplars. SpaceX already has considerable experience with fully autonomous rendezvous and docking via the Dragons and ISS. And SpaceX has already demonstrated a multi-tonne cryo prop transfer within one spacecraft. I simply don’t see where the huge difficulty with putting all of these well-established pieces together anent a pair of Starships is supposed to lie.
The real constraints anent a 2026 Mars squadron departure are pads and production. Starbase Pad 2 should be ready for operation by 1Q 2026 and the clone pad at LC-39A not much later. But the clone rebuild of Starbase Pad 1 and the scratch-build of two additional clone pads at Canaveral’s SLC-37 will not likely be complete before the end of 2026 or early 2027. The Gigabays in TX and FL should be in full service by then too and the second Gigafactory in FL should also be at least partially usable. By the middle of 2027, SpaceX should have two massive factories and five Starship pads – all with on-site propellant production – fully operational. That provides plenty of margin for preparation of a Mars-departure Starship squadron for the 2029 window. It could well include both more ships and a lot more cargo than the numbers previously penciled in – aspirationally – for 2026. Human crews might go to Mars as soon as 2031.
@Edward
I of course understand, ( and admire ) the developmental process SpaceX uses… It works… To a point. The return of heavy and ship use navigation and manovering tech that has been honed with falcon. Landing safely in much lower gravity on rough terrain, then launching back to earth, to say nothing about the in orbit refuling are different animals all together. If a Super heavy goes bang on the launch pad… No problem, roll out another one. If one goes bang in orbit, on the moon or Mars then there is no way to examine the remains to learn from what went wrong, ( telemetry can only reveal so much ), and getting a replacement up is going to take weeks or months….
As I said, it’s not a good idea to bet against SpaceX. I hope I am wrong, but I just don’t see super heavy/starship being ready for prime time anytime soon
“There seem to be an awful lot of plans for a system that has yet to demonstrate a complete flight.”
Successful launches, insertion into planned Earth orbit (just happens to intersect atmosphere at perigee), booster return and re-use, successful demonstrations of upper stage re-entry and precision landing. All been done.
What do you expect? They are in the improve vehicle performance stage now.
Still to go: upper stage catch and re-use, full orbital flight, orbital re-fueling (don’t know why this will be more difficult than running huge quantities of fuel from tanks to engines – the rendevous and docking part is well demonstrated.
Lee S,
Super Heavies will never go “bang” anywhere but on Earth or near it. They never reach orbital velocity. They’re strictly homebodies. Starships have gone bang in space but that is always a possible outcome when testing quickly and aggressively.
Any Starships going to the Moon or Mars, will be much more mature specimens so the likelihood of future such “bangs” will be quite low. Further mitigating the consequences of such an event – however unlikely – should it occur, is the intention of SpaceX to dispatch Starships to Mars in swarms of increasing size. Thus, there would be people – or at least some Optimus robots – around to forensically examine the aftermath of any such incident.
The same could easily be made true of lunar operations as well. I suspect standard lunar Starship ops will quickly be done in pairs or more for exactly this reason – resilience in the face of unexpected anomaly. That might even prove true from the very get-go. Starships are being designed as pack animals to run in company.