Is anyone exploring modeling an unmanned sample return mission after Zubrin's Mars Direct plan?
It seems like something that could be done with little fundamentally new technology. Demonstrating the real-world application of the synthesis and use of fuel off-planet would be a major milestone in space exploration. To top it off, bringing back the first samples from Mars would be a major feather in the cap of any nation or corporation.
Is ISRU refueling really ready for this? (Methane I assume, as hydrogen sounds much harder.)
To me, getting that set of technologies to an operational level is one of the biggest reasons to go (back) to the Moon. It's cheaper to send demonstrators there, and easier to troubleshoot them.
Once we can do ISRU refueling reliably, the solar system will become dramatically more accessible (to robots, and eventually humans).
Yes, because we are sending an ISRU demo on the Mars 2020 rover which will convert the CO2 atmosphere into oxygen and carbon monoxide (which could be used as a fuel).
You'd have to use a completely different type of ISRU for the Moon, and mining for it on the Moon (i.e. scraping a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar pole) is a lot harder than on Mars where you can just suck in some of the atmosphere. There's not nearly as much commonality as you might think.
I thought the typical Martian ISRU called for heating soil to extract water vapor and using the hydrogen in that to make fuel. Oxygen is still interesting, for sure, but that robotic mining sounds a lot more difficult.
Zubrin's plan is specific to Mars in that it relies on chemicals present in the Martian atmosphere.
The only equivalent option I know of for the moon would be to collect water ice and break it down to oxygen and hydrogen. The process involved would be quite different.
NASA's Mars 2020 is set to collect samples and place them in a capsule for later pickup; NASA and ESA have announced collaboration on a separate sample return mission to pick up the samples left behind. Lets them save collection hardware weight on the return mission.
NASA has been working on it, more or less, for at least a decade. I think the latest (and IMO much less risky) proposal doesn't involve any in situ fuel creation.
It seems like something that could be done with little fundamentally new technology. Demonstrating the real-world application of the synthesis and use of fuel off-planet would be a major milestone in space exploration. To top it off, bringing back the first samples from Mars would be a major feather in the cap of any nation or corporation.