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On to Mars
Russ Paielli writes "The always brilliant Charles Krauthammer has written a great article in The Weekly Standard on why we should forget the space station and head for the moon and Mars. But space funding will have to be increased. The recently lost Mars Polar Lander cost $165 million, which seems like a lot--until you realize that the movie Waterworld cost more." Update: 01/30 11:38 by E : Link became broken, now it's fixed. Enjoy.
This sounds nice, but this is a real dumb idea (sorry to say). Only someone who doesn't understand space technology would have suggested this. To start with, we currently do not have any vehicle capable of breaking Low Earth Orbit. It would be at least 10 years before we could return to the moon. The only other alternative for going to the moon is using a Saturn V rocket. And I doubt NASA would use 20+ year old technology to send a group of astronauts to the Moon. As for Mars, this is just dumb. We still know nothing about this planet. Hell, more than half of our probes have failed (I know about the faster, cheaper idea...). But without a few more major successes in the probe category and certainly a method of escape for astronauts venturing to Mars, it would be little more than suicide for anyone to think about going up there now. However, one of the more feasible plans would be designing Space Stations for the Moon and Mars. Originally, the Apollo missions were for man to go to Mars, not the Moon. However, due to the race to the Moon, something got lost, and Mars and all 3 space stations (Earth, Moon, and Mars) got canned. The Saturn V was designed to be a Space Station as well as a "Space Ship". When we made it to the moon and the Russians had already spent all of their cash getting there. It didn't hold the same place for the politicians as it did when we were "beating the communists". Budget cuts and a perceived failure with Apollo 13 caused NASA to kill all outer space (as opposed to inner space...low orbit) missions. BTW, it's not costed, it's cost.
Station:
Microgravity/Freefall. This is useful, makes interesting things such as growing crystals and studying the possible effects of a prolonged space voyage possible.
Moonbase:
Gravity. Its easier to work with some gravity.
Raw Materials. Hopefully there'll be sufficent amounts of raw material to make building craft on the moon viable. This could reduce launch costs greatly.
The trouble is, I dont think that the shuttle is capable of landing on the moon. In AC Clark's stories he mentioned shuttle-type rockets to get into orbit, then simple, non-atmosphereic shielded ships to go from an orbital station to the moon.
IMO we need both.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Perhaps not as many people would be starving in the Thrid World if they didn't breed like rabbits.
Bangladesh - Smaller than Wisconson in the US. 127,000,000 people living on a flood plain. Fertility rate 2.85 children
India - 1/3 the size of the US. 1 billion people. Fertility rate 3.18 children
Thats just two examples of wild population expansion without any responsability.
It's not America or Europes fault that alot of the starving peoples in the Third World have dangerous ideas about family size due to religion.
The only way, I'd say, to mobilize public support needed for 'going outer space' the old-fashioned, exploring way, is when there's another war or semi-war were 'we' need to get 'there' before 'they' do (whoever and where-ever). That, not the spinning off romance, was the reason for the Apollo Project in the first place.
That's also why, contrary to what the article says, it isn't at all surprising that people lost interest, once having beaten the Sovjets to the moon. It has indeed cost huge amounts of money and not all people are fascinated by science fiction.
Was there meant to be a link to the article and not just the mag? No missing this time either. Anyway.../ mag_5_19_00/krauthammer_cov_5_18_00.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
I have never in my life heard such pitiful ignorance combined with such overweening arrogance. You clearly understand nothing about poverty so I'd advise that until this changes you either show a little tolerance and humility or else keep your mouth shut.
People for whom bare survival is a continual struggle cannot afford the luxury of treating children as little princes and princesses. In those communities, children are a precious resource. They are more hands to work on the rich man's land, or to go begging on the streets of the city. Sons will grow up to provide for the family when you are too sick or too old to go on. Daughters will grow up to be a source of dowry payments. I don't want to say how else they might be used to contribute. But that is how it is when you have no money, no food, no hope and no future.
Because children are so vital to this way of living it is mandatory to produce enough babies so that some will survive to adulthood. When the risk of infant mortality is so high this necessitates a high birth rate.
As the original poster had it, so it is. If one wants to end overpopulation one must end poverty.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Mars has a much shallower gravity well than Earth - it takes a lot less gas to get from Mars to Earth orbit than it takes to get from Earth to Earth orbit. These days, there's a market for supplies delivered to orbit - gas (or hydrazine or whatever) is needed to stabilize satellites, etc. It takes less energy to ship gas from Mars to earth than it does to ship it from Earth. Plus, there isn't the pollution issue. Actually, Mars could use a little more pollution in its atmosphere, to keep the heat in.
:-) All you care about is whether you earn enough currency to import the stuff you need from Earth and can't make for yourself.
What I'm saying is - you could actually make money being a Martian, shipping fuel, and oxigen, say, to Earth orbit. Too expensive to produce such stuff on Mars? No - how to explain this - you've got a whole planet worth of resources at your disposal, you only have to worry about costs of production and transportation, the resources are bascially free until your population increases. And, as a Martian, you don't worry if those costs are high - everything costs more on Mars
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
- Fund a trip to the Moon out of pocket. (He who pays gets a window seat).
- Invite six twenty-somethings of diverse lifestyles, races, and sexual orientations to join the crew.
- Film and web-cam everything.
- Earn even more gazillions marketing this thing.
- Use the profits to fund "Out of the Real World II" -- the trip to Mars.
billg are you listening? This would do wonders for your PR.$165,000,000 = one lost space exploration device.
$165,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for a decade. These kids will not eat lunch otherwise.
Well if we're going to throw out numbers...
$1,300,000,000 = one Stealth Bomber that we never use or probably even really need (or just the one that crashed).
$1,300,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for over 75 years.
Which is more important to YOU? Really now, if people are going to start bitching about Government spending, I hardly think NASA is the place to start.
PBS (I believe) recently aired an excellent documentary on the *real* history of the "space race." That history explains why the "66 years from Kitty Hawk to lunar landing" is totally irrelevant -- and highly misleading.
I tell you three times: the lunar landing was a military act in the third phase of the 20th Century War. After the second phase (fighting National Socialism) both the US and USSR were aware of the potential of using missiles to lob the new nuclear weapons, but the captured V-2 missiles weren't close to being able to lob nukes across intercontinental distances. Both countries dragged their feet, but one Soviet scientist did manage to get enough resources to launch Sputnik. The Soviet leadership didn't think much of it... until it saw the shockwave it sent through the free and third worlds. The *next* day the stunning superiority of Soviet science was the lead story on Pravda.
N.B., a lot of revisionist history says that everyone was shocked at the idea of a man-made moon, just like everyone was shocked when Columbus "proved" the world was round. Both are lies. People were deeply disturbed because if you can launch something into orbit, you have the ability to put the missile down anywhere below that orbit. The only questions were the weight of the payload and the accuracy of the targeting.
Over the next few years the Soviets had a long run of public triumphs. First dog in man in space _and_ orbit. First woman in space. The first man-made object to land on the moon was designed to shatter and spread little hammer-and-sickles across the surface. (The Soviets also had failures, but they were quietly airbrushed out of the picture.) The Americans had a series of widely seen failures. The Soviets were relentless in using this clear evidence of the superiority of the Soviet system to bring neutral countries into their fold. The US had to do something, but the rules of the "cold war" limited the options.
*That* is why JFK announced a manned lunar program. It was arrogance writ large, and a tremendous gamble, but if successful it would eliminate the growing perception that the west couldn't handle modern science. Nobody in power cared about science - but they *did* care about ICBMs and the newly developed thermonuclear weapons. If the Soviets have Q-bombs (whatever follows "H-") and ICBMs, and the US doesn't, the 20th Century War would be over.
So JFK got an incredible level of funding for the Apollo missions (a trick Reagan later repeated with an overt military buildup, but by then the world had already soiled its pants over Cuban missiles), why the Soviets had their own manned lunar program -- and buried it once it was clear the US would beat them -- and why the US lost official interest so soon afterwards.
Unfortunately, this means that many arguments for going to Mars make a fatal assumption - in many important ways we haven't been to the moon yet! The grand total of time spent on the lunar surface is still measured in days, as is the total time spent by humans outside of LEO. To use this as "proof" that Mars is the next goal is ludicrous.
Before we even begin to think about heading to Mars, we need to have lunar experience, not just LEO experience, that lasts at least as long as the first Mars missions. Preferably several times as long. We need to have experience with people having major medical emergencies in space. (Even healthy young adults have a significant risk of a major medical event during a two-year mission.) Then, and only then, can we make an informed decision about what we need for a Mars mission.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I read somewhere that the most popular IMAX movies generally gross a lot more than the hollywood films do, and that many of them (the Antartic one, I think) do better than even blockbusters like Titanic did.
So why not privately fund a mission (manned or unmanned) into deep space and make an Imax movie about it. I mean, imagine the visuals of a space probe who's purpose it is to bring back visually stunning footage, who would not want to see it?
I realize that such a mission would probably not get as much done scientifically as the NASA missions do, but at least it is something. But, if you ask me, it seems like a much more viable way to commericially fund space travel than space tourism.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Ok, while we are at it lets not do any science research because we need to feed the poor. NOT this is one of the most moronic arguments I have ever heard. Space Exploration and science in general helps us become more then what we are now. These are the most importent stuff we can do period. Now, I admit it's not good that people starve, but the 20 billion for a mars trip (or even one trilion) will not help.. people starve becuase of politics. How would you spend that 20 billion? a) paying all the dictators to be nice to there people. b) paying american soldiers to go kill the dictators?
The truth is science is the best investment a government can make. Ultimatly, it is more importent then the poor, the military, and the various corperate / individual subsidies which eat 70% of our budget. Why? It changes who we are.
Technology is also the solution to the thirdworlds problems because it forces the governments to support skilled labor (computers, etc.) which creates a middle class who are sympathetic to the poor. It also forces the countries well-to-do to send their children to the US for education where they become sympathetic to the poor.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The article mentions a figure of around 20 billion. Not cheap, but over a few years not that much out of a 1.7 trillion dollar/year budget.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
$165,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for a decade. These kids will not eat lunch otherwise.
Which is more important to you? What does that say about your priorities and your humanitarianism?
Since when do we not have the resources to do both? It's not like this is an either-or proposition. "but what about the needy children?" We can feed them _and_ go to mars!
--
I dunno, color me silly... but it would seem to me that if the chance of my child dying were greated, I'd be LESS inclined to want to suffer through that.
As well, I do suggest that it is irresponsible to bring a child into a situation you can't handle. If you're impoverished, then I think it wrong to bring a child into a situation that it can only make worse.
I'm not saying there aren't instances that mark the exception to the rule, and I'm not stating that it should be illegal... But if you're having a hard time making your ends meet, adding more ends isn't the way to take care of it.
As far as If you don't want over population, end poverty! statement goes. Bullshit. There's no way to make me believe that because they are poor, they are somehow less responsible for how many kids they have to feed. The reverse of that statement, "If you don't want poverty, end over population" while not accurate, is more true than yours. By reducing population, you are likely to create a more even distribution of wealth. This is not always the case, so I won't argue for it, but it is more right a statement than you made in your post.
I remember looking in the encyclopedias and finding the layouts to a space craft that can fly to mars. It looked like a lawn dart. And was supposed to launch in '80.
A few years later, I remember reading about a sister craft to the shuttle that will allow landing on different planets and large supply transfers. The plans were canceled when the 5 other shuttles were canceled.
Back in '85 I remember reading about a new craft that was the size of a VW bug. It was to fit in the shuttle and transfer supplies and people to the moon. Looking at the X-37, I can see that this might have been feesible.
Currently we are planning for a Space Station. Which has been redesigned and reviewed about every 6 months since 1985. Problems with this plan spring anew like water through a sock.
As the article states, we need a goal. And require the government to back that goal without grandstanding.
I belive that a country that can set priorities, like Australia or Japan, will create a colony on the moon. And the US culimination will be a few token flags painted on the side of their spacecraft.
My hope is that the X-Prize will pull commercial interest onto the moon.
There is no technical reason that we could not establish permanent bases on the moon, Mars, or on an asteroid. The fact that we could send manned missions to the moon with less than 10 years lead time (from the idea being first proposed) suggests that we can develop the technology.
It is unlikely that NASA would be able to execute such a mission. Unfortunately, the space agency is no longer the can do group it was in the 1960's. Instead, it has grown into another Bureaucratic monster, more concerned with maintaining its funding that searching out new, expansive goals.
We can expect privately funded space launch services such as Rotary Rocket or Cerulean Freight Forwarding Company within the next five years. With these and other companies providing access to low earth orbit, there will be a ten fold decrease in the cost off access to space. This will allow more activity in space, which in turn will encourage more launchers to provide access. It is quite likely that Space Vacations will be available for the affluent inside the next ten years, with costs as low as $100,000 per person for a two week stay in a space.
There are groups who want to move permanently into space. Eventually, we will be going to the moon, Mars, the Asteroids, and elsewhere. If you are interested in promoting space, I recommend that you join one or more of these organizations.
Do you really have any idea how much a pain that would be for me???
You Linux nutzoids are WAAAAY to eager to spend my money on frivolous junk. Who wants to go to Mars? ME??? No way... I'm happy owning one planet thank you very much. I'll leave Mars to Linus, or whoever, let them Open Source THAT! Maybe then they'll leave me alone... Sheesh
There is a very constraining limit as to how much science interplanetary probes can actually do. Taking the state-of-the-art Nomad robot for example (the one looking for meteorites in the Antarctic) - you might think that's a shining example of how much science a robot can do.
When you realise that it's dozens if not hundreds of times slower than a human, then you'll be able to put things into perspective.
This also goes for the Mars probes - we can only do so much science when we've got minutes of lag between communications and robots that can't even move at walking pace.
Think about the loss of the MPL, most likely because it landed in the wrong spot. Humans could have avoided that - hell, Neil Armstrong avoided it on the Moon.
Certainly unmanned flights are economical - NASA's new strategy has proved that, but sooner or later we're going to reach the bounds of what can economically be done without humans.
Really? With 20 or 30 billion, you could feed the world? Are you aware that we can already feed the world quite comfortably right now, if we just distributed the food around a little better?
We spend 20 or 30 billion, if not more, on aid to third-world countries every year. Do you see conditions improving? No.
People say that we should spend money on getting rid of the homeless, curing cancer, building more hospitals, and all the rest. I've always replied that any amount of money will not make these problems go away, and certainly not the relatively small amounts used to explore and colonise Mars. Yes, we shouldn't ignore the problems we have now, but it's just not practical and it's not possible for us to make sure that conditions are perfect at home before venturing outside.
The problems of the third world, the disease, wars, famine, global warming and terrorism are not caused by lack of money. They are caused by human 'nature'. I certainly don't want to say that we shouldn't do anything about them because, at heart, we are all scumbags (which we aren't. At least, most of us aren't). But we can only find the answer to these problems within ourselves, not within our wallets.
And your implication that a mission to Mars would be merely 'Flag and footprints', like the Apollo missions, is woefully uninformed and out of date.
Folks, if you really care about this subject, posting your response here isn't going to help. For the most part, you're 'preaching to the converted' and the people who need to read your words aren't reading this.
NASA's, ESA's, CSA's, NASDA's, etc. budget has been slashed to ribbons over the past decade and albatrosses like Space Station are just going to keep making the situation worse. If you Really Care(tm) about seeing space technology move forward (ie: if you're sick of the 1970s Space Shuttle dog-and-pony show and "Faster, Better, Cheaper - Work Smarter Not Harder" stuff) and would prefer to see something more useful than a foreign aid package parceled up as a "science project" be the result of decades of brilliant engineers' work, then write your government representative and let THEM know.
Writing isn't the only thing you can do (and by writing, I mean a physical piece of paper with ink or toner, placed into one of those foolish envelope things and given to the postal service of your choice -- a disk full of 2k e-mails doesn't quite have the same impact when furiously waved about in Congress). You can also:
Visit schools and give a classroom presentation on technology (it can be exclusively about space technology, if you'd like -- you probably know more about it than the teachers). Why not call the principal of your local high / public / middle school and ask for a half-hour of lecture time? I was surprised, when I first asked, at how happy they were to have an outside visitor stop by to tell the kids a bit about the 'real world', and not have it involve drugs or 'anger management'. I was also shocked when bright 17 year olds were asking me if there were already human bases on Mars! Keep in mind: in just a few years, these are the people who will vote in your next rep.
Ask to visit your local member of parliament, congressman, senator, etc. in person. It sounds like a long-shot, but they're often open to the idea of taking a half-hour to speak with 'regular folk' when they have the time, and if you're not ranting about saving the spotted Albanian tree-toad or asking for cash, they're surprisingly open to hearing about your world-view. Why not take an afternoon to have a pleasant chat with a politician about the practical applications of space technology and the means by which it will help the nation and (in some cases) their district? Try to tone down the 'human destiny in space' schtick though - most people will just think you're a loon.
Suggest that others do the same! Suggest to them that instead of watching another episode of Star Trek, they can spend the hour crafting a letter to their government representative and make a step towards seeing the fiction become real. If we each do that (maybe even once every few months), a few billion bucks might find themselves tossed into a useful program.
Remember folks: More and more of us weren't even born when N. Armstrong set foot on the Moon. Let's do something to ensure we're not all dead before it happens again.