Slashdot Mirror
NASA Wants Astronauts on Mars by 2010
FeloniousPunk writes "According to
this article
in the UK Guardian, NASA intends to send a manned mission to Mars by 2010, using nuclear propulsion. President Bush may announce this project, called Project Prometheus, at the State of the Union address." Here's
good background and context;
for technical background, I recommend
Zubrin
or
Stern.
The JPL will be involved in developing the nuclear propulsion tech, intended to cut the interplanetary trip from six months to two. Apparently the theory is that this proposal won't get shot down like the last Mars proposal because the shorter mission will save money. Here's hoping public response has progressed beyond "oh no! did he say nuclear?!"
In related news,
jkcity writes:
"according to this article by the BBC, the Chinese plan to have a man in space by October 2003."
We won't know what we will learn until we get there -- much as we didn't know what we'd learn on the moon until we got there.
Yes, we did learn *a whole bunch* by going to the moon, even if most of it wasn't evident until recently (technological gains).
By going to Mars, I'll be looking a few decades later for another kevlar, microchip, or similar coming out of it.
Really, what we learn from mars won't be so big. What we learn from the trip itself could be huge.
Rod Taylor
Because it's not about sending people to Mars. It's about sending millions/billions to defense contractors. It will be canceled a year or two before 2010.
Two words for those that say I am wrong. "Superconductor Supercollider".
As far as the US is concerned, if it doesn't pay for itself or get someone reelected, then it doesn't happen. A manned Mars flight does neither, therefore they are not going.
Those in charge of China have a different agenda and a different set of values. They have the basic makeup to succeed in this.
Yes, Mars will be red.
I like how you stated this as if there is some official book on how technology based societies are supposed to act. I'm guessing that you either got this idea from Star Trek or from the Civilization games.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Who, the Democrats? Let me show you a quote from a town hall meeting with Al Gore in '99That right there is why I didn't vote for Gore. Bush has essentially been mute on the top of space exploration to this day.
"Think of it as a distraction from the pending war,"
The same could be said about the Apollo program (Vietnam). Does that make it any less signifigant?
"Some of GW's closest friends and allies are going to reap billions from the program."
By all accounts, GW's "closest friends and allies" are in the oil industry (where he's originally from). But he seems to be pusing a nuclear solution, and nuclear power is oil's greatest foe.
"Defense companies love space projects"
They're already quite happy with the current missile defense program. A Mars mission has little (if any) defense-related spin-offs. At the very least, none of the spin-offs will be defense-only. We'll see things like more efficient nuclear reactor designs, faster/smaller computers, and other things that benefit not only the military but the private sector and consumers as well.
The only way there could possibly be military-only spin-offs from a Mars mission is if we have to fight a bunch of Martians in the near future.
"good for the local economy for years after he's out of office."
Name one president that has gone into state government after having served as president.
"There's no way that the program can be finished before 2010 (we'll be VERY lucky to get it by then)"
"There's no way that the program can be finished before 1970..."
And the nay-sayers then had better reasons to nay-say as well. Unlike the NASA of the early 1960's, we can reach LEO.
Rousseau once said, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." Mars is the opportunity to break these chains, and regain what freedom we may.
:) free software. :) Than has ever existed before.
Mars is our destiny. That is, outward. The possibilities for new expressions of freedom and humanity, and economic systems, lie in building new civilizations. On earth there is a gigantic infrastructure of economic powers that RESIST change. The best ideas are not readily implemented, or are practically impossible to implement.
America became, in some sense, what it was BECAUSE we had a frontier early in its career. That frontier, and the spirit it developed among its settlers gave America its sense of independence, innovation and a GREAT sense of self-empowerment.
To the point, a paucity of western infrastructure westward of this expanding America better empowered the formation of a culture radically different than its predecessors. Not wholly, of course, as old money still existed.
But now, America has few or no frontiers within its borders. America's infrastructure has become stiff in every corner. The people at Slashdot.org know this. Microsoft's infrastructure is outstanding. Oil industries pull our strings. We cannot fundamentally change what America is, how it conducts its economics, without a fight. The root is dug in and will not give up its space as long as it lives.
Mars has no infrastructure and therefore new social, economic, and political ideas implemented by colonists there are more apt to emerge into their natural designs undistorted by the effects of competing institutions.
Like the original colonists of America, cultural artifacts, physical and ideational, brought over to the frontier will be freely reinterpreted without undue outside influence. However, the opportunity of social self-determination on Mars is unparalleled by any in history, for none has had at its disposal the vast library of knowledge and technology available today. The coupling of knowledge and self-reliance will allow the best ideas to flourish. The culture of the second and third Martian generations has the potential of being truer to the ideals of social justice, equality, and
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
The only other reasonable thing you could do in space would be to mine asteroids and start building things in orbit and on the moon. But going to Mars at this point doesn't make sense. It's going to cost too much. I am all behind nuclear rockets but I think going to mars is premature. Let's put a city on the moon, and start sending politicians there.
I'll start voting republican if republicans start putting money into space research. I shit you not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"