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People on Mars in 30 Years?
lucabrasi999 writes "Yahoo is running a Reuters story in which Arthur Thompson, the head of the NASA 'rover' missions, says that people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years. If that is true, I estimate that within 50 years, Mars will need women."
Of course, thats assuming that no short-sighted leaders come about in the future that see space exploration as a waste of money. I for one am all for stuff like this. It brings out the best in us.
From the posting: Arthur Thompson, the head of the NASA 'rover' missions, says that people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years
NASA is a very slow working group. Without private industry being involved we're doomed. If we do get a solid private space industry I can see this number being as low as 10 years.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
As a teen in the early 70's, I heard that we would be on Mars by the end of the '90's. So we would be there in only 20 years into the future. During poppa Bushs term, it was within 25 years.
Now it 40 years later, and it will by in less than 30 years. Hell, by 2100, it will be only 50 years if we keep up with leaders like these.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I really wish it would become a primary priority.
People forget how much we need to support programs like this in order to advance mankind. I mean, look at all the innovation that came about during the times leading up to putting a man on the Moon. Its challenges like this that push the brightest minds of the world towards something other than who can build the best weapon.
I wonder if there will be people on *Earth* in 30 years.
Of course, I remember growing up in the early '80s and hearing about how we would be on Mars soon after the turn of the millenium. Well, my ship never did arrive. I would rate this up there with the "fusion power is just around the corner" mantra.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
And depending on who is our next president might affect how much funding NASA gets.
I doubt that. Even with Bush's desire for NASA funding congress shot it down. So even a president in the same party as the majority of congress isn't going to have his way on this. The current consensus of the American people is that space is a waste and they want more tax dollars thrown at ghetto waste and trailer trash in the hopes that it makes for a brighter future... As if.
Until Joe Taxpayer accepts that money is not the solution to every social ill I doubt we will have a serious tax-payer funded space program. Which will be never by my calendar.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
At least not America, they couldn't afford the effort. Way too costly with that defecit they've got.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Why? Because all three can live off of stuff we can't, and are small enough to fit inside a habitat. We eat animals because they're machines that turn grass into meat. (Why we feed cows grain is beyond me, but that's a story for another time.) Goats can eat corn stalks and carrot leaves and other such produce waste. They can also be milked, which solves the 'dairy group' problem.
Now we just need to breed a goat that doesn't grow to a very large size, but has a good amount of meat and makes a lot of milk.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years.
Sure, if we can make a "business case" for it. Otherwise people will say "what do we need that for?" and go back to their reality shows and home improvement projects.
Some people would say this is a stagnant society. The phrase "unwiped ass" is a better description of a society obsessed with suburban paradise at the expense of every last shred of dignity and wisdom.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Until we have some political will, or an oscenely rich private explorer (Bill here's a hint: do something cool with all that booty you've plundered from the hard-of-thinking PeeCee users over they years) to start the process, I'll remain skeptical.
Stick Men
It's a tough call. We all know a biosphere-killing rock is headed our way sometime soon (at least in geological terms.) We also know that Mars is our best shot at terraforming an emergency fallback position quickly (100-200 years, less than an eyeblink in geologic terms.) We also all know that Wernher von Braun (a guy whose judgement I trust on such things) drew up realistic Mars exploration plans based on early 1950's technology.
So, why haven't we done it yet? The short-circuited race to the moon and the space shuttle? an anti-imperialistic self-loathing? This is a starker choice than guns vs. butter; it's a bon-bons versus houses kind of thing. It looks like we've got a hillbilly mentality: when it's raining, we can't work on the roof and when it's not raining, the roof doesn't leak.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
twenty, thirty years? How long did it take us to get to the moon? And what have we done since then? It's quite possible, if we really want it done, give NASA a decent budget for a while, etc. However, thats got about the odds of a snowball in hell. Space just isn't sexy any more, and it's unlikely any president will give any more than nominal support. I predict space progress will be slow and relatively unspectacular for at least twenty years. Its a damn shame, too.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
I know this is off topic, but I cannot stand when people make such arguments as the one you just made.
The war in Iraq was not a dichotomy in which we got to war and Iraqi civilians die or we don't and Iraqi civilians live. It was a choice between going to war and risking the lives of thousands of Iraqis or not and leaving 25 million to the whims of Saddam. Even the most conservative estimates had Saddam killing tens of thousands of Iraqis every year. Amnesty International estimated 24,000 dead Iraqis every year from a combination of Saddam Hussein and crippling sanctions.
So, we could go to Mars and leave 25 million people in abject tyranny at the hands of a crazed madman with ambitions to become the next Saladin, or we could remove that dictator and give the Iraqi people a chance at freedom and save far more lives than were lost.
This sort of simplistic dichotomy on the war is exceptionally disgusting, akin to Holocaust denial. I've met Iraqis who have suffered under Saddam Hussein, and they will all tell you that as bad as Iraq is now, the horror of living under Saddam's totalitarianism was far worse.
Besides, who knows - in 30 years we could be launching Mars missions from the Baghdad Cosmodrome thanks to an Iraqi scientist who beforehand would have been working on designs for dirty bombs or chemical munitions.
And why? Among other reasons, one of the biggest in terms of setbacks has been relying on Russia for technology, manpower, and funding. This is not a let's-bash-Russia troll, I think this points to directly to serious project management issues at NASA, and if we can't get a sealed stable environment orbiting our planet, how do we expect to pack a crew into a ship and send it 36 million miles away and be anything other than an extraterrestrial coffin?
I love space exploration, I want people on Mars, I want habitats on the moon, I want shuttles flying weekly between the ISS and MoonPod 1, but it's never gonna happen if NASA can't get its act together enough to do something as obvious and QA process basic as asking "Gee, Yakov, I've never seen an oxygen system like this before, do we have the specs on that?"
Granted, in space just about every system is critical, but I'd put O2 scrubbers pretty damn high on my list of priorities, why wasn't it on theirs?
We need to do this thing smart, and to do that we've got to do it incrementally. Speaking as a software engineer for complex automated systems, if you skip design phases you're guaranteed to have problems down the line. So let's not skip phases, let's fix the shuttle fleet, to fix the space station and get it on track. Let's go back to the moon and run some long term sorties, build a moon base, shuttle between base and station. We need real world (moon) experience with extraterrestrial habitation before we pick 6 of our country's finest minds to asphyxiate in the cold black of interplanetary space.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
"We can be on Mars in 30 years"
There is nothing physical, technological or financial (yes, it won't break the bank if done smart) stopping us from visiting and settling Mars.
The roadblocks are politics and motivation. Shit, we could be on Mars in 15 years if we really wanted to.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Don't bother. Somebody's set up a pleasure planet in orbit midway between the two. It has gorgeous tropical beaches, mountain hideaways, lakes full of fresh water. It even has a large moon for moonlight strolls.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Would it be thought that after landing on Mars it would take 20 years for women to be needed. Many of us would feel that need immediatley.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
we make getting to the moon regularly a reality before we try to go to mars.. I think when we can get to the moon and back, we will have developed the things we need to go to mars, not to mention it will make building the things needed to get to mars alot easier. any attempt at mars should be launched from the moon, or very close too it. We wont need to carry the fuel to escape the earth for one. we need to: #1) Perfect a method for getting fuel, water, oxygen, building materials and food etc etc into earths orbit cheaply. a large cannon, or rockets. what ever it is should be cheap, wholely reusable and be able to be used 2-3 times a week to keep the supply of vital materials running. #2) Have a space "tug" that goes out from the ISS and retireves the cargo we "shot|rocketed" into space. The tug never actually re-enters the earths atmosphere, its just used for retrieving capsules shot or rocketed into orbit. #3) Build the things we need to get to the moon in space at the ISS. #4) colonise the moon. Lets test our colonisation process before we run off to mars, make sure our habitats/eco systems etc etc are going to work just fine. #5) when we are shootign stuff into space.. building things.. and making regular trips to the moon, THEN lets start applying some of that to getting us to mars. Lets walk before we can run.
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
A better use of the energy required to evacuate the Earth would be to simply keep it in orbit and move there. If Earth's particular location is bad, strap on some engines and you can move our "Super Platform (or better yet a couple of them)" somewhere else.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Congress-critters are unlikely to fund NASA enough to support that timeline unless we get some serious competition. We need a space race! By someone who will scare the constituents into demanding Congressional action and funding! Mars Needs China!
We all know a biosphere-killing rock is headed our way sometime soon
Earth after a global-extinction level asteroid hit is still a more habitable place than Mars right now.
If you're really afraid of an asteroid wiping out humanity, then build a dozen self-sustaining Vaults. The'd be done in 3 years, at a fraction of the cost of "terraforming" Mars.
It is an interesting comment. I have always hoped we would travel to another planet within my life time. I remember as a little kid going to the library and reading all the books I could on Astronomy, Space flight, etc. The first thing I wanted to be was an Astronaut (then when I grew up I realized how freak'n hard it was to become one) Even then they figured we would be on Mars by 2000-2010. And that was in the late 80s early 90s.
...flame away now.....
At any rate I don't think we will get to Mars anytime soon, if at all. Our world as a whole is too caught up in all its little bickering to actually come together and do something that incredible. We could have created gigantic ships to travel in space a while ago if all our countries could actually get along, but that will never happen. IF it does and you are an avid christian believer you know we won't be around much longer after that to really go anywhere.
My point is that unless we get along ala Star Trek (ie: no money, reduced global war) it will take ages for any real sort of space travel. I mean its been close to 50 years and we haven't visited the moon again. We could have colonized the moon 10 years ago with the technology we have. It seems NASA has turned into a college science lab rather what it was meant for (space exploration) this crap of trying to solve trival questions needs to be done by other people. I refer to questions like the beginning of the universe, etc. Those are so trivial and a waste of money.
I mention the money part because that is what the largest factor is. The government decides how much NASA gets, then with whatever NASA gets they decide what gets cut and what doesn't. From what I've seen they pick a handful of projects and cut the rest. Crap like the genesis thing doesn't get cut, but Mars does...makes real sense NASA. I just don't see why all this money has to be paid out. Instead of paying out a crap load of money for materials I think it should be donated for free or given for free. And the workers get compensated with food, clothing, and a place to live, which the government would provide in order for the people to live, instead of taxes. (But that is all in an imaginary world) That just shows how bent up people are with money. Yes I use it and need it, and rely on it, but its not by choice I'm forced to in the world/civilization we live in. Maybe some of you don't understand or comprehend what I'm trying to say. I just think it would be easier/quicker if we had a plan close to that.
Not a popular sentiment with the Slashdot crowd, I'm sure, but "because it would be cool" isn't a good reason to send people to Mars. Learning more about the universe we live in is a noble goal, but sending a small group of people to Mars as primarily a publicity stunt is a colossal waste of money.
Neither is it reasonable to suggest that a colony on Mars would be good "insurance" against a global catastrophe, as one loony did above. We are so far away from being able to build a self-supporting colony on Mars that it's laughable.
Nearly all of the money that NASA has spent on "human exploration" programs since the 1970's has been wasted. Some of the research on the effects of micro-gravity on human physiology are worthwhile, and need to be done IF long-term manned space missions are going to be considered. Unfortunately, the USSR (and later Russian) government was doing essentially the same research at the same time, for orders of magnitude less money.
The choice isn't necessarily between space research and social programs, although I'd argue that investing in affordable higher education for all qualified students would do much more to advance the state of human knowledge than a mission to Mars ever would.
The choice is between spending billions of dollars on keeping "astronauts" in space for PR reasons, rather than focussing NASA on basic research into the "hard problems" of space exploration.
NASA needs to focus more on basic research into self-contained environmental systems, better telerobotics/telepresence, more-sophisticated onboard intelligence for robotic spacecraft & rovers, automated materials processing, etc. All these things are prerequisites to getting people "out there" for a period of time where they might actually be able to accomplish something useful.
If they dropped support for the International Space Station and just de-orbited it into the sea, they could USE the money they saved on maintaining that albatross, and on re-fitting the Shuttle fleet, to increase basic research activity by several orders of magnitude.
There's nothing that would be accomplished by sending humans to Mars that couldn't be achieved more simply and vastly cheaper by a flotilla of robots.
-Mark
I don't suppose I need to point out to
You sure don't.
Google for Biosphere II. It's tougher than one might think.
Yes, it's very hard. But however tough it may be, terraforming Mars is 10,000 times tougher.
PS. The Biosphere project is irrelevant. It depends on solar energy, which is something that a Mars base would have, but that would be lacking for the 2 years following a major asteroid strike on earth. (That's the whole reasoning behind global extinction events- dust blocks sunlight) An earth-based survivability vault would need only stored food + water supplies for 3 years, and then plenty of tools to restart agriculture topside. A long-termed contained ecosystem isn't what they want.
Soviet Mars -- the Red Planet.