NASA: Planetary Exploration, Or Better Coffee

6EQUJ5 writes: "I sighed bitterly when I read the headline at MSNBC_SpaceNews_Front: "NASA voices 2020 vision for Mars" (OK, let's hope I live that long!) Bitterness gave way to sheer comedy when I read the next headline: NASA craft to watch coffee crop. Dan Goldin has the worst sense of priorities if he thinks 20 years is an acceptable time frame for a manned (and/or womanned) Mars mission -- in the meantime NASA picks up odd jobs like watching coffee grow." While these stories make a funny contrast, a) I'm sure there's a lot to learn (and plan) before sending a mission to Mars and b) if NASA's going to test cool new tech, like that solar wing, perhaps giving it a practical earthside purpose is a good idea.

Comments

Take the time to do it right.

[marcsiry]

We rushed to the Moon for political purposes, and all we have to show for it now is some grainy footage and a bunch of lucite encased rocks.

Our trips to Mars should serve as the beginning to the eventual human expansion into space, and not some cheap theatrical stunt. They should be accomplished in a considered and sustainable manner.

All us dot-bombers know what happens when you throw together a grand plan in too little time. Think IBM, not eLaundryBasket.com.

Mars by 1977

[Animats]

In the late 1960s, NASA made serious plans for manned flybys (not landings) of Mars and Venus in 1977. Mission lengths were two to three years. The astronauts probably would not have survived that long in zero G. The zero-G record is 438 days in Mir, and that cosmonaut had lost bone mass, lost blood volume, and sustained other injuries.

If this is ever tried, it either has to be a faster trip (which would require something other than chemical rockets) or a big spacecraft that rotates to provide gravity. Nuclear propulsion would work, but the political problems are tough.

Og: Travel to Neighboring Valley Waste of Time

[reallocate]

We don't need to risk lives travelling to the next valley, We are doing just fine here in this valley. Besides, the young males would try to overthrow Chief Wug if he sent a team to go to the next valley and they were killed by the Giant Fire-Breathing Invisible Ape that lives just beyond our valley.

Yes, we have everything we need here in Olduvai, so we don't need to do anything like explore what's over the horizon.