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Europe Goes To Venus; Mars Comes to Us
JamesO writes "The BBC says that the ESA is going to Venus, reusing the Mars Express design.
Also here. Launch seems to be expected in 2005." And knownsense writes "Space.com is reporting that Mars is coming to closer to Earth. It will be closer by around 191 million miles and will end up 85 times brighter about August next year. This apparently is the first time it's been this close since the Neanderthals."
But will any geek actually get off his/her ass and look outside?
Also, now that Life may exist on venus, will this lead to more interest in the oft' forgotten planet?
Well, Mars isn't necessarily more interesting, it's just more accessible.
We can see the surface of Mars pretty well, probes that we send to the surface Mars will survive for more then a few hours, and it's possible that humans may go to Mars in the next 20 years.
With Venus, sure she's pretty, but she'll turn you into a cinder really quickly.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Aren't we sending people there?!? If we're so close, then wouldn't this be an opertune time to take the next step in human exploration of space? I've gotten to the point where I seriously doubt the intent of NASA to ever send a manned mission further than the moon. They've become so addicted to safe, academic research in orbit or from afar that they've forgotten how to take that leap into the unknown which was (in my opinion) what made the early space program (Murcury, Gemini, and Apollo) truly great.
Narrative
yeah, that was a real shame what happened. It would be nice if the USA caught up with the rest of the world and started using the metric system.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
One, it's not that much closer than usual. It's not a big enough deal to merit immediately sending humans. (But, the two sweet Mars rovers the US is sending next year, and probes from Europe and Japan, will take advantage of the close proximity of Mars to Earth on this orbit to increase data rates slightly.)
:) (I'll settle for routine travel to Mars, though. :)
Second, NASA doesn't set the priorities for what it does. It doesn't have much flexibility in how it uses its budget. Its missions and expenditures are determined by Congress in each year's budget. I assure you that there are many people inside NASA who are chomping at the bit to break humans out of Earth orbit (including many very high-ranking people inside the agency). But, Congress has to unleash NASA, and fund any mandate it approves.
I'm with you, though, man. I want Americans to have the capability to go whereever the hell we want in the Solar System.
Always with the "what are the long term effects of space travel" argument... You know the only way we'll ever know about this is to *gasp* send somebody on a long mission.... I don't know about you, but I'd be very happy to be a guinea pig for such science, and I'm damn sure there's a pile of people actually qualified to do it who feel the same way.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
If you want to send people on the most fuel-efficient path to Mars possible (which is almost necessary just to get them there at all, unless you're using a rocket better than anything we've ever built), you use a Hohmann transfer orbit, an ellipse which is tangent to the inner circular orbit (Earth's) at one end and to the outer orbit (Mars') at the other end. Even with a nuclear or better propulsion system, you wouldn't just point the rocket towards Mars and fire, you'd take advantage of your existing velocity in Earth's orbit to cut a sort of diagonal path between the two.
Either way, an extra-close approach of Mars wouldn't cut very much time off the trip.
They've become so addicted to safe, academic research in orbit or from afar that they've forgotten how to take that leap into the unknown which was (in my opinion) what made the early space program (Murcury, Gemini, and Apollo) truly great.
Although I agree that NASA isn't what it used to be, I think you're missing the most important difference between 1960s' NASA and today's NASA: funding with blank checks.