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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."
Is that is freakin awesome. I am glad we are finally moving beyond our own little blue ball again. Something I would like to know though... aren't there easier/faster ways of propulsion already in existance than even nuclear? I mean sure, they don't accelerate very quickly, but hey. Those NASA guys know more than me...
;-)
Although, I am pretty sure GW doesn't.
Karma this down if you must, but this is a serious question:
Why do we want to spend that much money on going to another planet? Is there that much more we can learn by sending people there? There is probably more useful information to be learned by studing physics and space here from earth, don't you think?
I read a book in which a guy from NASA was being quizzed on the benefits of manned space exploration. He said you cannot make a rational case for sending people rather than robots on scientific or economic grounds. But that's not the point. As long as it is possible to go, people will want to go. There's no scientific or economic reason to climb Everest, travel to the poles, or circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon either, but that's not stopping people.
You also can't beat the inspirational value of the Apollo program. There's something about spaceflight that galvanizes people like nothing else on Earth.
Within the next few decades, launch costs will decline by an order of magnitude. Within our lifetimes, I believe we will see the wealthiest tycoons finance (and possibly participate in) private space exploration, in much the same way that they financed earthly exploration in the past.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
This is a ploy on GW's part ... it's 3-fold:
... it increases their coffers AND their public relations. Plus, one of the 2 largest space centers is in Texas ... good for the local economy for years after he's out of office.
... it always reaps rewards in the private sector long after the completion of the trip and for much more than the cost of the program. It's just too bad I really can't see this as anything other than a political machination.
... while I believe that Kennedy -also- used it as a political device, at least Kennedy was trying to boost our national pride and point out to the world that we have the best defense technology. I don't see Bush as doing this for anything other than personal reasons and pork barrel politics.
1) The people who are most decisively against GW's politics are also those who are most for space exploration. It gives those folks something positive to see about the president. Think of it as a distraction from the pending war, which is a distraction from the fact that he has no idea how to run foreign policy.
2) Some of GW's closest friends and allies are going to reap billions from the program. Defense companies love space projects
3) There's no way that the program can be finished before 2010 (we'll be VERY lucky to get it by then). That means it gives the voters, if they are pro-space, incentive to re-elect him (this is corrollary to #1 I suppose) since anyone running against him is going to be likely to point out the budget pratfalls in such a program.
Unfortunately, I really like the idea of exploration
Worse
Here's hoping NASA at least finds a way to do it the right way, rather than turning this into a further mess like the ISS turned out to be.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
No. The next logical step would be getting a working fusion reactor so we can power the planet with 'cleaner' energy.
I think the government has better things to do with our tax dollars than "entertainment". Why not concentrate on making sure our own planet is habitable before we waste billions trying to put people on another one? If you think terraforming is cool, find a way to halt desertification in Africa.
I watched a Discovery Channel special on this.
They proposed that a nuke could be detonated in front of the craft, and a giant sail would capture the energy from the blast and rapidly accelerate the craft. Do that a few times, using nukes with small enough yields to not break the astronauts necks, and it should accelerate them nicely without having to lug around shitloads of fuel.
Talisman
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
NASA spokesman Glenn Mahone acknowledged that O'Keefe did talk generally about the upcoming State of the Union but did not make a prediction that Bush would use it to make any NASA-related announcements."
So don't start packing your bags, yet. There is also the question of how to keep the people making the journey alive and healthy. Even on relatively short space missions, there is a significant (~20%) muscle loss, and measurable bone loss.
I hope it works.
Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer
I think what he meant was, where we go will be limited only by our imagination, and the speed of light.
So long as you can get close to the speed of light, it's not really a problem. What matters is subjective time (time as perceived by a spaceship's crew). If you average 0.1c over the voyage, 10n years to get anywhere, where n is the distance in lightyears. But (and someone who can do the math will have to answer this) if you can maintain 1G acceleration to the midpoint of your journey and 1G deceleration after that over say 50 lightyears, while your voyage might take 100 years realtime, it will take a fraction of the time subjectively. Think about the difference between wall clock time and CPU time. That means, if you have a drive technology that can maintain 1G, you don't need to worry about generation ships or any of that sci-fi stuff (altho' some sort of anti-aging tech, or suspended animation might be useful). And you sidestep the physiological problems of bone density and muscle mass for free.
Once you have the drive, the rest is an airtight box. We already know a lot about food storage, recycling, the psychology of confined spaces - nuclear submarines do 6 month voyages as a matter of course. I think a sufficiently motivated crew could spend (subjective) decades on a mission without insurmountable problems occuring.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the light speed limit is a blessing in disguise.
Perhaps they have been watching too much Stargate SG-1, seeing as though the ship they were building was also named Prometheus. Weird coincidence maybe?
Either way, it seems to be a weird name for the Mars mission.
I would like to go to Mars.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
I can't say that a great deal of people are impressed with America's past frontier and their dealings with the original inhabitants and owners.
Still, that is all in the past and your main point prevails. Most people have always been like this. If you look at Chinese personality types earth is the most common along with fire, and the earth types are very resistant to change. The slashdot readers are more likely to be one of the types that love change and live for it (I certainly am one of those). I think there will always be fighting, but I think it creates a healthy balance.
I can't help but wonder about what moving to the stars will do for society and culture as a whole. Our boundaries have by and large been limited to earth - but there are enough of us that which to escape its borders that such a program will eventually take place, it will have to. After all, the pioneers are the ones who foster progress, the ones who start businesses. They cannot resist us for long!
I do think that going to mars before putting a permanent base on the moon (I'm thinking cities on the moon, personally. That would definitely get people excited and willing to spend money) is dumb. I also think that going to mars before putting together a larger and more useful space station and mining asteroids is dumb. Asteroid mining is the very FIRST thing we should be doing. If this mars trip is really just a test for a nuclear motor that can be adapted to be efficient enough to use for mining, then I'm okay with it, though :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
also this: the cost or chance to come to america was availale to only a few Europeans. It wasn't totally cheap or anything. But those who did come and landed on the shore of the "new world" were able to expand farther west cheaply, and the masses did so.
Going to mars is like going to the Americas from Europe. Not widely available. But the expansion from the east coast to the west coast IS analogous to MARS. Those who are already there can travel and expand at will. That is if the colonists can harness resources, set up factories etc.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.