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318 The Medusa Approach to Mars Exploration and Settlement This paper attempts to set a reasonable lower limit for the investment required to send the first manned mission to Mars. The author discusses the factors that affect the required investment level of various space missions, citing the VSE, DAWN, New Horizons, SEI, and Mars Direct as brief case studies. Along the way, a common media myth about space mission investment estimates is exposed. The author then develops a simplified model for mission price reduction, considering factors like mission requirements, new technologies, in-situ resource utilization, bureaucratic overhead, intelligent innovation, mission complexity, mission risk factors, and overall level of investment. The relationship between these factors is explored, some basic trade-offs are established, and one factor is proposed to be the glue that holds everything else together.
The latter half of the paper moves from the realities of cold, hard engineering into the speculative world of sci-fi. A "Medusa List" of 15 items is presented - detailed Mars mission trade-offs that are discussed within the realm of the author's breakthrough mystery/sci-fi novel, Shadows of Medusa. Some of the trade-offs were used in the novel, while others were discarded or replaced as needed for dramatic purposes (i.e. for an entertaining story). Taken as a whole, the Medusa List offers a new, unique, and valuable approach to planning ultra-cheap manned missions to Mars, and possibly to other destinations as well.
The implications of the Medusa approach are quite startling. While NASA has proposed a VSE implementation requiring an investment of $104 billion over the next 13 years (an average of $8 billion/year) PLUS whatever it takes to someday add-on Mars exploration, the Medusa List opens up a pathway straight to Mars with a total first-mission investment of around $4 billion. Using radical techniques beyond the Medusa List, closer to the realm of sci-fi, a stretch goal of $1 billion for the first mission might even be feasible.