Visiting Our Red Space Neighbor

Enthusiasm for visiting our red space neighbor seems to be growing. m4dm4n writes "A study carried out by MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics department has concluded that getting men to Mars in the 2020 timeframe is possible. The intelligent re-use of crew habitat modules, propulsion stages, and engines in various missions will enable NASA to significantly reduce their initial timeline which was well past 2030." Relatedly, ErikPeterson wrote to mention a Space.com article where Neil Armstrong says getting to Mars may be easier than getting to the Moon was back in the day, because of the hurdles they had to overcome. From the article: "It will be expensive, it will take a lot of energy and a complex spacecraft. But I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) in 1961." We're starting to understand more about the red planet as well, as madstork2000 writes "The BBC is reporting on the possibility of active volcanoes on Mars. So now there is water, heat, and soon big business when 4Frontiers gets there. Hopefully we'll get a Google Mars soon to check it out up close."

Comments

Business on Mars

[geomon]

So now there is water, heat, and soon big business when 4Frontiers gets there.

What will they make and who are they going to sell it too? I'm open for making money on Mars, but I haven't read one proposal that looks like it would make money.

I can see why a country would want to go to Mars. There is always the national honor, staking territorial claims, etc. for a Mars landing. I just can't see spending billions of dollars for no financial return at all.

How much money has a business made from the US landing on the Moon?

Re:Business on Mars

[techrolla]

What about the UAC?

Re:Business on Mars

[ReVeL75]

Didn't they invent Velcro when landing on the moon?

Re:Business on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

What will they make and who are they going to sell it too

Wasn't Pizza Hut interested in advertising on the moon at some point? If they also do it on mars, they have the pepperoni-cheese combo.

The all new Houston pizza with galactic cheese and deep space pepperoni*.


* There may be a small supplement for drinkable water.

Re:Business on Mars

[oogoliegoogolie]

I think that was teflon. Imagine a world without it.

Re:Business on Mars

[flyingsquid]

I think that was teflon. Imagine a world without it.

According to Wikipedia, "Teflon is the brand name of a polymer compound discovered by Roy J. Plunkett (1910-1994) of DuPont in 1938 and introduced as a commercial product in 1946." As for Velcro, "The hook and loop fastener was invented in 1948 by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. The idea came to him after he took a close look at the seed pod burrs which kept sticking to his dog on their daily walk in the Alps."

Re:Business on Mars

[jackbird]

Yes, Teflon came out of the Manhattan Project, specifically the gas uranium enrichment work at Oak Ridge, TN. Uranium Hexafluoride is nasty, nasty stuff, and Teflon was the only material they found they could make workable valve seals from.

Re:Business on Mars

[arbitraryaardvark]

How much money has a business made from the US landing on the Moon?

About 16 billion? The company is known as Halliburton, aka Brown and Root.
See also Mohole, Vietnam, TVA nukes, Iraq...

Re:Business on Mars

[IWorkForMorons]

As for Velcro, "The hook and loop fastener was invented in 1948 by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. The idea came to him after he took a close look at the seed pod burrs which kept sticking to his dog on their daily walk in the Alps."

No it wasn't. It was sold to a businessman in a big city near Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania, by a strange woman with pointy ears in the late 50's.

Yup, I know I'm going to get modded down for referencing that, but I've got karma to burn...

Re:Business on Mars

[TinyManCan]

How much money has a business made from the US landing on the Moon?

_A_ business? Try entire industries. For example, how many companies fortunes have been made with digital computers?

Apollo brought a massive boost to the technological knowhow and capabilities of the entire world.

Re:Business on Mars

[nunchux]

I can see why a country would want to go to Mars. There is always the national honor, staking territorial claims, etc. for a Mars landing. I just can't see spending billions of dollars for no financial return at all.

The most obvious is all of the tech that will be discovered along the way, which would be valuable both to private industry and the military. And that company would hold the patents. This would also establish that organization as the premier space exploration/transport company... Think what it would mean to their earth-based enterprises.

The second answer is marketing. This company would be in the news every day for years, and they would certainly be in every schoolchild's history books for centuries to come. Doesn't Coke have a roughly $1.5 billion advertising budget? Not saying they'd be the one to do it (though Virgin does have a cola, too...) Putting this kind of money into the greatest technological accomplishment in history may be worth it...

Re:Business on Mars

[flyingsquid]

The most obvious is all of the tech that will be discovered along the way, which would be valuable both to private industry and the military.

You could do the same thing far more efficiently by directly funding research through the National Science Foundation. Unfortunately, the NSF has seen its budget cut while funding for NASA has been increased.

I think that NASA's unmanned programs do some valuable research and they should continue, or even be expanded, but the manned program is just a publicity stunt. I mean what did the Shuttle program ever discover, other than a bunch of science-fair projects along the lines of "does classical music make plants grow better... in SPACE?" Their biggest single contribution to research has been repairing a robot- the Hubble Space Telescope. I think that says something about where space exploration is going. The sooner we get humans out of space exploration entirely, the more progress we'll make. Likewise, if there really is any way to make money from going to Mars, it will doubtless be cheaper to send robots to do it, instead of sending humans.

Re:Business on Mars

[Ingolfke]

How much money has a business made from the US landing on the Moon?

I can't quote you the exact figure, but the sound studio where the Moon Landing was staged surely made a hefty sum for use of their facilities and an agreement to keep quite.

Re:Business on Mars

[geomon]

For example, how many companies fortunes have been made with digital computers?

So you are claiming that, without the Moon landing, digital computers woudln't have been invented?

Re:Business on Mars

[britneys 9th husband]

There's already business on Mars.

Re:Business on Mars

[Inspector Lopez]

For example, how many companies fortunes have been made with digital computers?

Many. But what evidence is there that digital computers would not exist in their current form without the Space Program? Roughly speaking, the "robustness" needs of spacecraft lead to the use of ancient, low performance, extraordinarily well understood, mature, technologies.

As prior comments have indicated, "teflon" and "velcro" were invented long before the Apollo program, and were invented to address very terrestrial applications.

Just what technologies do we now depend upon that were developed to support manned space flight? Certainly there are many technologies associated with unmanned spacecraft that we rely upon, such as GPS, satellite phones, NOAA solar wind measurements, etc. The horrifying ground truth here is that "science" and "technology" have been far more rapidly and inexpensively advanced by unmanned spacecraft than by manned spacecraft.

I'm in the space science business myself, and I see red whenever I read "space science" and "manned spacecraft" in the same sentence, because a hardnosed accounting simply cannot justify "manned space flight" for science reasons.

On the other hand, I'm very much in favor of manned spaceflight, and I'm in favor of going to Mars. But not because of a Science mission --- but rather, because this is the kind of challenge that humans should set for themselves.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

  --- notorious Massachusetts liberal John F. Kennedy, Address at Rice University on the Space Effort, September 12, 1962 http://www.rice.edu/fondren/woodson/speech.html

-----

Can anyone imagine W speaking such words (thank god that "nuclear" doesn't appear within)? W's idea of space flight seems to have more to do with Rapture than Noble Endeavor. Perhaps we should attempt to persuade W that Osama bin Laden, and huge oil deposits are on Mars. It is not inconceivable that he'd believe it --- this is, after all, the same president who thinks that Intelligent Design is a reasonable alternative to the modern theory of evolution; the same president who remarked that no one expected the levees to break.

Okay, that was a karma damaging late hit: sorry.

Re:Business on Mars

[king-manic]

I can see why a country would want to go to Mars. There is always the national honor, staking territorial claims, etc. for a Mars landing. I just can't see spending billions of dollars for no financial return at all.

How much money has a business made from the US landing on the Moon?

If you count the techonology the US had to invent to get ther,e billions upon billions.

Re:Business on Mars

[markass530]

The technology that came about because of our push to land on the moon is considerable.

Re:Business on Mars

[Tony Hoyle]

Yeah but think of the patenting opportunities!

Method for locking a door... IN SPACE!
Method for input of data... IN SPACE!
etc.

Then you have the meta-patents...

Method for input of data.. ON A COMPUTER! IN SPACE!

Re:Business on Mars

[geomon]

The technology that came about because of our push to land on the moon is considerable.

Well, Teflon, Velcro, and digital computers have been debunked as being spin offs of the Apollo mission. Perhaps you could itemize the "considerable" innovations from the moon landing.

Re:Business on Mars

[markass530]

the ability to use duct tape as a lifesaving device (apollo 13!)

Re:Business on Mars

[geomon]

the ability to use duct tape as a lifesaving device (apollo 13!)

You got me. I concede.

Re:Business on Mars

[bonehead]

Someone made 16 billion bucks just from us sending a few guys to the moon?

Damn, that's fuckin' cool.

I wish I was a good enough businessman to make that sort of coin off of such a pointless project...

Holy shit, thank you for posting that... I now have a newfound respect for Halliburton.

Re:Business on Mars

[WilburCobb]

By the way, Mestral was the name of the other vulcan that stayed on Earth to study mankind as the woman and the the other vulcan with Moe's hair were rescued.

Re:Business on Mars

[fbg111]

The sooner we get humans out of space exploration entirely, the more progress we'll make.

Our problem isn't putting humans in space, our problem is attempting to put them in space without an efficient enough energy source to propel and sustain them for the long distances meaningful space travel requires. Our ships are too slow and our fuel doesn't last long enough and takes too much space to store. There's nothing wrong with putting humans in space, but we shouldn't be spending all the money to do so right now, when instead we could be diverting those resources to finding more efficient methods of energy generation and propulsion.

Re:Business on Mars

[patternjuggler]

The most obvious is all of the tech that will be discovered along the way, which would be valuable both to private industry and the military.

I think this is a very frequently overstated benefit of space projects for several reasons:

Surely there are serendipitous inventions that may reduce costs and increase reliability, but ideally you would want to avoid having to invent something to finish a project you are starting right now- newly created or discovered things are typically much more expensive, are difficult to schedule around, and are more unreliable than tried-and-true materials and machines.

The second thing is about the ability to transfer the technology to other industries- this is very difficult to do, even assuming that the technology serves any purpose in other industries at all and would be cost-effective in those industries.

For instance, there are very significant divides between space electronics vs. consumer electronics- if I invent a chip that can withstand all sorts of solar radiation, will run for 20 years without error, withstands 10s or 100s of g's of shock, and tolerates an extraordinary temperature range- nobody is going to care in the consumer electronics world because my chip is going to cost 100 times as much as theirs and all those benefits are useless to them.

Re:Business on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

ATKBoeLockMart made billions out of the lunar program.

Re:Business on Mars

[FrostedChaos]

In many cases tried-and-true materials and machines simply are not good enough for space.
The vast pressures and temperatures experienced during re-entry, for example, are far beyond what most materials can endure. So new materials and techniques were invented for this purpose.

To consider your example-- if you invented a chip that could tolerate the extreme conditions you name, people in the manufacturing business might be interested. There's a lot of blast furnaces that need to be controlled, and maybe a chip that could withstand large temperature variations would be good for that.

The bottom line here is that any space program will generate a lot of new technology, and that will get used in other places. Even if you are not imaginative to see the applications of some of the new tech, there will be someone who is.

I'd rather see the money go into this, than go into new and more efficient ways of creating a police state (DOD projects.) But I guess nobody asked me, anyway.

Re:Business on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

This would also establish that organization as the premier space exploration/transport company... Think what it would mean to their earth-based enterprises.

Yup, and if they're smart they will call it the "Liandri Enterprise"...

I just knew things would go this way after we got that article about the lightning gun.

Re:Business on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

A little off-topic, but...

"Yup, I know I'm going to get modded down for referencing that, but I've got karma to burn..."

Things like that seem to be a sure-fire solution to get at least a +3.

Re:Business on Mars

[Floody]

So you are claiming that, without the Moon landing, digital computers woudln't have been invented? Don't be obtuse. Obviously, nobody's claiming that. Technology has been an evolution, demarcated by the occasional revolutionary breakthough that ends up being a core component years later (tube, transistor, integrated circuit, etc). These are important, sure, but they aren't really what makes advances. Advances are made through necessity, real or imagined. Right now the "necessity" seems to primarly be entertainment driven, which is why you see so much R&D going into high-density storage.

In the 60s though, there was a different necessity: Beat the soviets to the moon. It was very important to a lot of USians, and the Kennedy administration had made it a big focal point. Science of course, had a different aim, but the political and social pressures drove funding.

There was a big perceived problem at the time, though. The soviets had "won" every aspect of the race in 1960. And they had the N1 on the horizon, whose heavy lifting capability easily surpassed anything that NASA or the army (redstone, vanguard, etc) had on the drawing table. Nobody knew, of course (or at least the public didn't), that the N1 had some serious design flaws that would later result in the worst disasters in the history of manned space flight (and that includes the two lost orbiters).

The workload of actually performing a moon landing was so intesive that it wasn't thought possible for two or even three men to do it with any reasonable safety or confidence. They knew they were gonna to use those new-fangled digital computers for guidance systems, control, environment, etc. Problem is, of course, nobody had ever built a small computer that was up to the task and there was certainly no software capable of handling all the tasks (often more than one simultaneously). Keep in mind, the overwhelming engineering pressure at all times was payload mass. Every kg you take up is another kg of fuel you can't burn, plus you have to add fuel to push that kg, so dropping a kg of payload is worth more than its weight in fuel.

In 1961, NASA formally chose the MIT Instrumentation Lab to produce the AGC (apollo guidance computer). This is in an era before the term "software engineering" had been coined. Nobody had ever written a piece of software like this before, its scope, at the time, was literally inconceivable. The were no development procedures, testing models, best practices, etc. Everything had to be created from scratch.

It almost didn't happen. In 1964, NASA came close to pulling the plug on MIT, because MIT was behind schedule and beginning to fully understand that the details where much more sophisticated than they had originally thought.

During this project, the MIT Instrumentation Lab operated as nearly a pure research facility. They documented their procedures and they shared knowledge with other research facilities. It was there, in that lab, that software development as we know it today was born.

Would it have happened otherwise? Probably. Not in the same way of course, and not at the same speed. Some of the conceptual leaps that were made w.r.t. software development might never have happened, because they might not have been perceived as necessary. One thing is for sure, the apollo program did change the face of the world in an area not directly related to space-flight. Speculating what might or might not have happened without apollo seems largely pointless.

Re:Business on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see why a country would want to go to Mars. There is always the national honor, staking territorial claims, etc. for a Mars landing. I just can't see spending billions of dollars for no financial return at all.

There are some endeavours that produce intangible benefits. I think the emotional and inspirational returns of exploration are justification enough. However, the act of exploration tends to produce tangible benefits as well.

Re:Business on Mars

[tftp]

In other words, it's like crossing the Atlantic ocean on a wooden raft. It can be done, once, if you really like taking risks, but it is completely impractical.

Re:Business on Mars

[patternjuggler]

The bottom line here is that any space program will generate a lot of new technology, and that will get used in other places.

Your attitude isn't as bad as some who think 'new technology' is worthwhile for its own sake, but you still have to realize that even if a technology has multiple uses it still may not be as worthwhile of an investment as another technology. The same argument can be made towards any technological endeavour at all- an entirely ground based industry could claim it is deserving of r&d dollars because some unforseen development may benefit space exploration.

Way to go slashdot!

[Anonymous Coward]

How much did http://eriksonlinestore.com/ pay you?

CowboyNeil

[cnettel]

Repeat after me: Neil Armstrong, but CowboyNeal. They are, repeat, they are NOT, one and the same.

Re:CowboyNeil

[cnettel]

This may just seem offtopic when zonk corrects his spelling mistake without noting it in the summary. It originally said "Neal Armstrong", which was the basis for my crude joke about confusing the two.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[geomon]

What about getting women there ?

Geeks can't get women here, so isn't that a rhetorical question?

Re:a question of priorities

[mrchaotica]

My priorities include being as happy as possible, and learning about the universe (via space exploration) makes me happy. Got a problem with that?

Kuato

[jeffvoigt]

Does this mean that soon, I too could wake up next to Sharon Stone and lead a martian revolution?

Re:Kuato

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it, your frail geek body would snap after the first kick in the face.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[Dire Bonobo]

> What about getting women there ?

Because, as we learned early in the space program, Mars Needs Women...

Sure, if they get the budget

[Cerdic]

Considering that the government has severely increased spending (Iraq, Katrina) while decreasing money input (less taxes taken in), something is going to suffer.

Education is almost always at the front, and I'd say that NASA is second in line for the big axe.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[Anonymous Coward]

>
>Considering that the government has severely increased spending (Iraq,
>Katrina) while decreasing money input (less taxes taken in), something
>is going to suffer.
>
>Education is almost always at the front, and I'd say that NASA is second
>in line for the big axe.

    This /., so I don't expect much rational thought, but:

Tax revenues have significantly increased since tax cuts were instituted. And, after shoveling increasingly large amounts of money at public schools for 50+ years, Johnny still can't read - in fact, education is worse than ever. One might be tempted to reach the conclusion that your underying concept of taxing people to get more money to improve education is simply wrong.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[daemonenwind]

Total income at the federal level is up.

The tax cuts enabled economic growth, which put people to work which allowed.....more incomes to be taxed!

Tax cuts are actually, at certain taxation levels, a way to INCREASE net income. It has been made clear that the Bush tax cuts were made at this level.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[fish8719]

Your facts are kinda sketchy, buddy.

• Yes, federal spending is up under GWB. Way up--partly due to miscellaneous wars and partly due to big expansion in social security.
  
• Federal tax revenues are also up, despite decreases in the income tax rates. Whether our joyous economic growth is due to tax cuts is a matter of much debate, probably not best done by us geekers.
  
• Education spending is rarely a target of budget cuts, for obvious reasons--nobody wants to be held responsible on cable TV for Harming the Children. School funding is up signicantly under Dubya, although some states are now complaining about the apparently __massive__ cost of giving every student at least one test per year.
  
• NASA is not in line for the big axe--if anything, it tends to be a fairly popular programme with the 'publicans. The pressure on them now is mostly to retask towards (gasp) human space exploration; the budget is semi-adequate, but they're doing too much Other Stuff with it right now. (Earth Science? Climatolography? We were promised flying cars!!)
  

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[tsotha]

Education is almost always at the front, and I'd say that NASA is second in line for the big axe.

You must already be on our "red planet neighbor". Here on Earth (well, in the US, anyway), Education funding has doubled in real terms over the last thirty years, although there hasn't been any appreciable increase in test scores to justify it. It's gone up 50% since Bush (damn liberal) took office.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[2short]

Total income at the federal level is up, yes. Total spending at the federal level is up much much more, and this is what I would credit with the increase in tax revenues.

If we simply paid the additional spending to someone, and taxed them, we would realize a bigger increase in net income than we have. Of course, we'd still have this completely unsustainable, crushing debt that we're running up just stupidly fast, but hey, net income is up! Want to increase your net income? I'll pay you five bucks if you let me borrow 500 in your name. Your net income will be up.

It is not remotely clear whether the Bush tax cuts would increase revenues without the spending. It is abundantly clear that the Bush spending is not sustainable. Let's assume that the tax cuts cause the economy to start growing at the fastest yearly rate it ever has (not exactly what we've seen by a long shot), and it continues to do so forever (a prediction hopefully even a Bushite would consider overly-optimistic). It still wouldn't increase revenue fast enough to support Bush's spending.

Bush's policies are completely trashing the economic future of this country, over the increasingly near term. Your defense of them tells me you can not, or at least have not, done the math.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[dryeo]

Glad to hear that all those rumours of your government running a huge deficit are false.
Revenue is up spending (in keeping with republican ideals) is down, great. Perhaps you could return that 5 billion you stole from us (illegal softwood lumber tariffs)

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[Cerdic]

Education spending is rarely a target of budget cuts

Scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Programs proposed for elimination include:

Comprehensive School Reform $205.3 million
Education Technology State Grants $496 million
Even Start $225.1 million
Safe and Drug Free Schools Grants $437.4 million
School Dropout Prevention $4.9 million
Smaller Learning Communities $94.5 million
Teacher Quality Enhancement $68.3 million
Vocational Education State Grants $1.19 billion

On the college side, they changed Pell grants so that fewer students could get them and they also didn't increase the awards with inflation.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[Anonymous Coward]

50% increase? How about citing a source. All I've read about is projects like Head Start being cancelled.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[hvatum]

RETARDED CANADIAN ALERT - MAKE WAY!

Do you realize that United States consumers also suffer from increased lumber prices caused by those tariffs?

Instead of buying high quality cheap lumber it must be imported from Brazil and Africa which costs an arm and a leg. So Kanuck softwood clear cutters might be losing 5 billion - but American consumers are probably losing 10 through imported prices.

In other words: YOU should be paying US 5 billion you damn greedy Canadian.

BTW: Please smash your computer with a hockey puck so we don't have to deal with your retarded postings anymore.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax revenues have significantly increased since tax cuts were instituted.

Which is of no consequence given that federal spending is up far, far, far more. You'd have to be an idiot not to understand that a relatively small portion of this pork is making its way back into the tax revenue stream, leading to the observed increase in tax revenues. None of this represents real economic growth.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[Anonymous Coward]

Total income at the federal level is up.

The tax cuts enabled economic growth, which put people to work which allowed.....more incomes to be taxed!

Are you really this gullible? Income at the federal level is up because the federal government is borrowing money like mad, and a small percentage of those borrowed funds come back in the form of increased tax revenue. That is not growth.

Re:Sure, if they get the budget

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're the idiot, AC. The grandparent was refering to a well-known concept in economics, known as the Laffer curve. Look it up.

Red Space Neigbor?

[AaronStJ]

"Visiting our Red Space Neighbor?" What the hell? That's a terribly headline. What's wrong with saying "Mars?"

"Excuse me honey. I have to go to the big toilet room neighbor."

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[agraupe]

If only I had mod points for this....

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was going to be about communism

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you are the reason the internet sucks.

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Visiting our Red Space Neighbor?" What the hell? That's a terribly headline. What's wrong with saying "Mars?"

Indeed. I thought they meant the Russians.

(And you have terribly grammar.)

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all I thought that was some old time cold war news...

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[Guppy06]

Would you rather "Red State Neighbor?"

Re:Red Space Neigbor?

[istewart]

It's a reminder of what Mars really represents. Think about it. The hazy red tint to atmosphere and surface alike, the uniformity of the boundless desert, the complete lack of any obvious habitation at all... the planet Mars obviously depicts the end stage of a Communist takeover. After all, all the workers will finally be equal when they're DEAD. And the means of production will be well out of the hands of exploitative capitalist pigs once they're blasted into to small bits of rock.

Face on Mars? Heh. Those fools should've been looking for a hammer and sickle on Mars.

Re:a question of priorities

[CynicalGuy]

If you want to be as happy as possible, I suggest you experiment with drugs. Start off with weed or ecstacy, and then work your way up to more potent substances.

It's much cheaper than actual space exploration.

Internet on mars

[ReVeL75]

What would be the ping time to some server on earth?

Re:Internet on mars

[CriminalNerd]

I don't know. Because all pings will time out. XD Just play CS with bots or something. XD Too bad there's no Internet on Mars yet. If there IS access to the Internet on Earth, you can download all the music you want and the RIAA can't come after you for it. XD

Re:Internet on mars

[CynicalGuy]

Depends on where the Earth and Mars are in their orbits. Also depends on where Earth and Mars are in their daily rotations, as for a lot of the day your servers would be on the wrong side of the planets. You would need to set up a satellite relaying system, and a global radio network in order to be able to have constant communication. And even with that, there may even be times when the Sun is in the way, and communication doesn't really work. That is why some people propose using the Lagrange points as good places to put communications relays.

This is all actually important for if we ever want to actually send astronauts there.

Re:Internet on mars

[Chocolate Teapot]

Well, based on this

"...Depending on Mars's distance from Earth, which can vary by as much as 200 million mi. (322 km), radio signals from the planet can take anywhere from 4 minutes to 21 minutes to reach Earth...."

YMMV I guess.

Mars, shmars

[pauljlucas]

I'd like to see this happen sooner. Even if there is life on Mars, it's probably only at the microbial level. However, on Europa, there could be bigger things swimming around in the ocean under the ice.

Re:Mars, shmars

[varmittang]

They might be micro, but even microbes can still kill if the immune system that can stop them. Do you want to go first, be my guess.

Re:Mars, shmars

[king-manic]

They might be micro, but even microbes can still kill if the immune system that can stop them. Do you want to go first, be my guess.

They can onyl kill you if they have some way to itteract with you. The reason why most plant diseases don't harm people is because they have no significant way to interact with our biological systems.

Re:Mars, shmars

[MarkusQ]

However, on Europa, there could be bigger things swimming around in the ocean under the ice.

Which Europa would that be? Are these things that might be swimming in it alive? Do they know they are swimming? Are they wearing swimming trunks, and if so where did they get them? What are they bigger than? Are they bigger than Europa? Or just bigger than each other? Are there more than two of them?

I'd love to reply, but your post brings so many questions to mind, I don't know where to start--or rather, where to stop. So I guess I'll just stop here.

--MarkusQ

P.S You asked for it (and I quote):

If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.

Re:Mars, shmars

[Hognoxious]

microbes can still kill

As the Martians would find out if they invaded Earth. But what are the chances of that happening?

Re:Mars, shmars

[iwan-nl]

A million to one, he said.

Excuse me for being skeptic...

[JetFox]

But I'll have to believe it when I see it. It was also said there would be colonies on the moon before I was even born...but that never happened. I'd like to see it happen, I really would...but as far as I have seen no one can back this up.

Re:Excuse me for being skeptic...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was also said there would be colonies on the moon before I was even born

Well get your lazy ass in a flying car and freaking start a colony yourself, sheesh.

Re:Excuse me for being skeptic...

[Rei]

Colonies? The level of required infrastructure is staggering. Visits during our lifetime, yes. Bases? Perhaps. But colonies? Real, honest to god colonies (i.e., some degree of self sufficience? I doubt it. Follow, say, the entire process for producing aluminum from bauxite, and then trace back each of the chemicals that you need, all the way to ores, and you'll get the picture of just how extensive of a manufacturing base we have here on earth for producing the things we need.

Re:Excuse me for being skeptic...

[Hognoxious]

It was also said there would be colonies on the moon before I was even born...but that never happened.

Posting from mom's basement is one thing, but her womb...?

Re:Excuse me for being skeptic...

[Dyolf Knip]

That assumes that a colony in space must maintain a bleeding-edge level of technology to survive. Honsetly, what is the _absolute_ minimum they need? A power source (nuclear or solar), lighting (powered is less efficient, solar requires transparency to outside), airlocks & suits, and digging equipment (a pickaxe if need be) is all comes to mind. The power source is obviously the hardest, both choices have their own (admittedly) extensive list of dependencies. But it's certain that the colonists don't absolutely need even 1960's electronics or other advanced tech.

Many of the aspects of surviving in space are similar to that of living on a submarine. And we've got a century of experience there. Nuclear sub crews could stay under until they ran out of fuel if they could also grow their own food (which would also solve any air supply problems).

It's also not as though a fledgling colony is going to have to exist in a vacuum (haha), totally independent from the industries on Earth. A colony as a microcosm of western culture would very quickly notice that anything that had to be shipped from the homeworld would be expensive as all hell, and they'd certainly come up with local alternatives.

So yes, it would be difficult, and the colonists would have to survive with mostly early to mid-20th or even 19th century technology for a time. But so what? I'd jump at the chance. So would a lot of others. The only thing holding us back is the price tag to get to LEO.

Lastly, bauxite (Al2O3)? With no free oxygen to react with, might it actually be possible to find chuncks of pure aluminum under the lunar soil or in an asteroid? Even if not, if my memory serves me correctly, the Bayer process is highly dependent on abundant electricity, something not available until the 20th century. But otherwise, it's a relatively simple process.

Re:Excuse me for being skeptic...

[Rei]

bleeding-edge level

All I assume is that they want to be able to build bulk structures without requiring imports from Earth. If they want that, it requires a disturbingly large chemical industry.

The power source is the *easiest*, because it's imported. A *self-sustainable* power source, however, is incredibly difficult. It's almost amusing to picture everything they'd need to, say, produce uranium fuel rods or solar cells on Mars. Just to get your hydrofluoric acid alone involves mining fluorspar, transporting, crushing, grinding, liquid separation/jigging/etc, baking in a kiln with sulfuric acid, gas collection, condensation, additional purification with sulfuric, other optional purification steps; this doesn't cover the sulfuric acid production :). Sulfuric acid will be needed in bulk for most mars production steps, by the way - it's a pretty fundamental industrial chemical, and has been that way for centuries. Of course, if you want fertilizers, you're going to need nitric and phosphoric acid production as well, just to start the processes. Note that we're not even getting into what's needed for construction.

Solar thermal is about all that they could manage domestically, and, again, unless the bulk structural materials are to be imported, they need a sizable chemical industry.

Similar to living on a submarine

A submarine is a base, not a colony. I'm talking about a colony, as I repeatedly stressed. Submarines do not build more submarines with raw materials that they mine on the bottom of the ocean and process onboard, while never returning to port.

With no free oxygen to react with, might it actually be possible to find chuncks of pure aluminum

No. Aluminum bonds preferentially to oxygen compared to most other common planet-crust materials. The moon, which has about as static of an environment as you could get since its formation, has no detectable free aluminum. It does, however, have free iron, in small quantities. No free iron has been detected on Mars that I'm aware of, apart from a meteorite discovered on the planet.

the Bayer process is highly dependent on abundant electricity

It's most dependant on available hydrogen. The Bayer process involves compressing air to several hundred atmospheres, raising the temperature to several hundred degrees Celcius, and injecting hydrogen. On Mars, you'd have to freeze out the CO2 first and do much more intensive compression. Thankfully, hydrogen is one of the *easiest* things to get on Mars :) (water electrolysis).

Why is the return trip always ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny this is hardly ever addressed, but AFAIK no spacecraft ever returned from Mars. This is not surprising as the gravity of Mars is much stronger than that of the Moon. I would reckon that the deal of escaping gravity that's about 40% that of Earth would be a non-trivial problem when all you have at your disposal is the spacecraft itself minus the fuel spent on the away trip and whatever you can make use of on Mars.

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[CynicalGuy]

You could send extra fuel and supplies there before the humans and hope they aren't destroyed. Or it would be easy enough to send an extra rover with cameras to make sure the supplies aren't broken by the landing.

It would suck to get there and realize there's a hole in the tank that was supposed to store your return fuel.

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[Chocolate Teapot]

That's a very interesting question, and you are right, it does often seem to b conveniently ignored. I did find a couple of rather woolly links here and here. There are of course many other links , but they seem largely preoccupied with managing food, oxygen and human waste rather than actually getting the astronauts back off the Martian surface.

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

Huh ? Your claim that "the return trip always ignored" is completely bogus. Any serious mission study deals with ascent and return (well, a few people have proposed 1 way missions, but they tend to not be taken very seriously). If you haven't seen it discussed, it is because you are reading fluff pieces in the popular press, rather than the actual studies.

Getting off mars is harder than getting off the moon, but it's a lot easier than getting off earth. Like any other part of a mars mission, it presents technical challenges...

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[Ingolfke]

I would reckon that the deal of escaping gravity that's about 40% that of Earth would be a non-trivial

Um, can you say portable space elevator?

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[scavok]

They would do it just like they did on the Moon. They would put a spacecraft in orbit around Mars, and have a martian lander that can manuever between the surface and the spacecraft in orbit. Regardless, any extra fuel and supplies that are needed could be sent well before any humans arrived.

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[quellen]

You're right. That is always ignored because basic physics shows its absurdly difficult. Suppose you had the following simple trip: (1) leave Earth, (2) land back on Earth without further assistance, (3) leave Earth once again without further assistance. To accomplish this feat you would have to carry on your back the equivalent of a Saturn V rocket full of fuel into orbit for the 2nd launch. You would need many times (hundreds) a Saturn V of fuel for the 1st launch. On the moon landings we had to carry a lot of fuel, leave a lot of gear behind, and there was still very little margin for either the landing or the takeoff. It was really a PR stunt that could have very easily resulted in an expensive death. We got some rocks out of it. As a gravity well, Mars is about midway in depth between the Earth and the Moon. You would have to slingshot past the moon, coast to Mars, brake without a moon carrying a lot of fuel, land (in atmosphere) with a lot of fuel, take off again (in atmosphere), escape Mars local gravity without a slingshot maneuver, coast home, brake at Earth, and re-enter the atmosphere here. With current technology it is quite close to impossible, current science fiction notwithstanding. Quite a magic trick. And all that just to ship some sacks of warm meat to Mars and back. The same amount of budget could pay for every single graduate student to get their PhD, some of whom might come up with very important stuff. Or pay for hundreds of small, cheap robotic probes to the entire solar system. The cybernetics could have incredible payback. Or pay for decent science and math education at the primary and secondary school level, rather than teach our kids "intelligent design".

Re:Why is the return trip always ignored?

[neonsignal]

Perhaps we should ignore it. If sending people instead of robots is worthwhile enough, I'm reckon there'd be a few volunteers for the honor of being the first to Mars, even if it is a one way trip!

Efficiency

[TopSpin]

the study suggests that the most efficient scheme for lunar exploration would involve sending a spacecraft non-stop to the Moon's surface, and then back again

This conclusion is probably 100% accurate. Direct shots are, in general, probably more efficient. Efficiency, however, is not the only criteria.

Griffin's plans involve launching large interplanetary payloads into LEO to which a manned CEVs are docked prior to interplanetary injection. The very large benefit of this design is crew safety. The mass goes up using immense, dripping wet, snarling 100t+ boosters. People go up in small, simple, reliable systems.

Rockets fail frequently. Dramatic detonations on the pad, missed orbits due to failed stages, etc. Why are most people oblivious to this? Because there are no people on board when it happens.

NASA has got to stop killing astronauts. Griffin intends to launch people using the simplest, safest system he can come up with. That intention will probably lead to something other than enormous non-stop direct flight vehicles.

would actually increase mission safety, by decreasing the number of critical maneuvers required, such as orbital rendezvous and docking

There have been a lot of rendezvous and docking maneuvers in space and no one has yet been killed as a result. Mir was almost lost due to a fender bender with a Soyuz, but that's as close as it has gotten. I question the risk value assigned to these events in this analysis.

Re:Efficiency

[DerekLyons]

Rockets fail frequently. Dramatic detonations on the pad, missed orbits due to failed stages, etc.

They do so about .1% of the time - which is not 'frequently' except in the most extreme mis-use of the term.

Why are most people oblivious to this?

Because almost none of them make CNN.

would actually increase mission safety, by decreasing the number of critical maneuvers required, such as orbital rendezvous and docking

There have been a lot of rendezvous and docking maneuvers in space and no one has yet been killed as a result. Mir was almost lost due to a fender bender with a Soyuz, but that's as close as it has gotten.

ROTFLMAO. MIR was almost lost because of a collision with a Progress - not a Soyuz. But let's review docking problems; Apollo 14 - undocked in lunar orbit with a known bad docking mechanism, and had problems redocking. Two different Soyuz flights nearly exhausted their batteries trying (and failing) to dock with a Salyut. One Soyuz recontacted ISS after undocking - hard enough to make the station vibrate noticeably. (And that's just off the top of my head.) The evidence overwhelming support the notion that docking is risky. It equally supports the conclusion that we've been lucky to have only had LOM accidents.

I question the risk value assigned to these events in this analysis.

I suspect that is because the folks at MIT, utterly unlike you, have a clue.

Re:Efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Direct shots are, in general, probably more efficient.


No they aren't. A direct shot has to land on the moon the heat shield and the fuel for the return trip, and the fuel for lifting off these two items.

Staged missions are more efficient, but more complex. They are probably *less* reliable as there are more things that can fail.

The people who designed the Apollo missions weren't fools. They were severely energy limited and selected the best mission profile possible.

Re:Efficiency

[imthesponge]

There have been a lot of rendezvous and docking maneuvers in space and no one has yet been killed as a result. Mir was almost lost due to a fender bender with a Soyuz, but that's as close as it has gotten. I question the risk value assigned to these events in this analysis.

What about Soyuz 11?

Re:Efficiency

[PostItNote]

Ideally, mass would go up in our new sexy space elavator and people would go up in very safe and small rockets, and then rendezvous up in orbit.

Re:Efficiency

[Dyolf Knip]

Compared to any other mode of transportation we have, especially when coupled with the fact that nearly _any_ failure at all is totally and completely fatal, 0.1% is astonishingly high.

IIRC, 0.1% is also about the casualty rate in skydiving. Not encouraging.

.sig

[Morosoph]

(Of course on /. I get modded down for pointing out sexism.)

Unfortunately, there are a few who will mod down anything that doesn't fit their world view. I expect that you username is a 'red flag' for many such people, as is anything that is clearly 'left-wing', or, for that matter, 'right-wing' (different people).

To get modded up, you're competing with everyone. To get modded down, consider the mind-set of those who mod posts down: "I disapprove" in some form. Such a mentality isn't so likely to be strongly correlated with open-mindedness.

Re:.sig

[n54]

Although you are right that there are such people I doubt it is the case here; some simply get modded down because they're stupid.

A woman being stupid is no different from a man being stupid, it's still stupid, and thinking it is not sexist. And just how are we meant to be sure the poster was a woman? Trust the posters name? Who cares? It might just as well be a pimply teenage loser getting his kicks out of trolling people.

Yes I think the grandparent was stupid to the point of being a troll, there are female astronauts and unless one lives in a cave one should know that. Guess who was Commander for the last shuttle flight? STS-114 Commander Eileen Collins http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/multimedia/elli ngton_field_gallery.html and she didn't get the job because she was a woman, she got it because she's the best - and that's an example not an exception (read the page and you'll see another female crew member on the same STS-114 flight: Mission Specialist Wendy Lawrence).

Oh that's right maybe she doesn't count as she publicly states that she thinks the sex issue (the fact that she is a woman) is totally irrelevant! How that must hurt for those who love to play the subject to their own ends and like to pretend that women like these don't exist: http://www.astronautix.com/articles/womspace.htm

(start sarcasm) Oh my god! They're not even all white! How is that even possible? (end sarcasm)

1 mission, 2 women one of which is the Commander + grandparents trollish whine = a fair mod down.

Fossils

[Buster Chan]

I'm more inclined to trust the exploration instincts of a human, to search for fossils on Mars, than to trust a robot probe that's being remote-controlled by someone at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. No offence to JPL if they don't deserve it, but if humans get back from Mars and say they -- not under civilian monitored lie-detectors -- that they couldn't find any fossils, I'd be more inclined to believe the conspiracy theorists of the world, but that's just me.

Re:Fossils

[Rakishi]

I like human space travel however humans are inferior to robots in one important area: cleanliness. You simply can't sterilize a human you send onto another planet like you can a robot, unless they never leave their habitat/lander (if nothing else then because dragging such sterilization equipment to mars isn't feasible).

The only "fossils" we're likely to find on Mars are microbes, and even those are probably rare which means w need every advantage in finding them. Humans simply increase the risk of contamination orders of magnitude which makes finding such microbe remains a much greater challenge.

Re:Fossils

[king-manic]

I like human space travel however humans are inferior to robots in one important area: cleanliness. You simply can't sterilize a human you send onto another planet like you can a robot, unless they never leave their habitat/lander (if nothing else then because dragging such sterilization equipment to mars isn't feasible).

The only "fossils" we're likely to find on Mars are microbes, and even those are probably rare which means w need every advantage in finding them. Humans simply increase the risk of contamination orders of magnitude which makes finding such microbe remains a much greater challenge.

Thank about it as doubling the known number of planets with life. Scientifically it may be bad to do this but in the long view of things, it won't matter that much.

Re:Fossils

[Rakishi]

I doubt any of those human borne microbes will actually "live", rather they'll simply "pollute" the environment with their dead/hibernating selves.

Finding fossils of organism which evolved on Mars, or better yet living specimens, could provide some rather interesting biological insight. This is also what the original poster seems to be wanting in terms of human exploration. It's kind of hard to find byproducts of Martian life when you're dropping byproducts of Earth life wherever you go. As I said, if a main reason for exploring Mars is to find potential signs of ancient life then robots are potentially much better at finding it until we know more.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[Eric604]

>> What about getting women there ?
> Geeks can't get women here, so isn't that a rhetorical question?
You shouldn't reply if you think it's a rhetorical question.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[geomon]

You shouldn't reply if you think it's a rhetorical question.

I wasn't sure it was rhetorical, but you are correct.

Armstrong is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't be easier to get to Mars than to the Moon because the US manned space program is no longer run by engineers, but by greedy defense contractors, paper-pushers, and ass-covering PHBs. In short: NASA no longer has the Right Stuff.

And this talk of "the" CEV is disturbing. Sounds like the same "let's-make-one-spaceship-that-can-do-it-all" approach that gave us the Shuttle.

PS - Am I the only person in this country who thinks putting a manned spacecraft (the new CEV) atop a solid rocket (Thiokol SRB; as used by Shuttle) is a really bad idea?

Re:Armstrong is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

PS - Am I the only person in this country who thinks putting a manned spacecraft (the new CEV) atop a solid rocket (Thiokol SRB; as used by Shuttle) is a really bad idea?

I guess so. Solid-fuel rockets are usually very reliable. The only failure of the Thiokol SRB that I know of is the Challenger disaster, and even then the Thiokol engineers told NASA the rocket wasn't safe to fly under those weather conditions.

I don't know how reliable the proposed CEV is going to be, but assuming it's reasonably safe and reliable, I suspect a CEV on top of a Thiokol booster is about as safe a ride to orbit as you're going to get.

Re:Armstrong is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this whole "the CEV can do it all" thing is really dumb. The CEV is designed for low earth orbit missions. You would need to seriously upgrade the radiation protection and recycling capabilities to be able to survive several months of space travel. In short you would need to have some sort of extra attachment on to it. Thats not to mention how the astronauts feel about sitting in something so small for so long. The CEV is by no means large enough to carry the amount of supplies needed, the technology and tools needed and to ensure the mental health of the astronauts.

I believe that the current CEV designs would need to be seriously rethought and redone. None of the current candidates have the capabilites to do such a thing as a trip to mars. I hope they are seriously talking about a heavily modified and enlarged CEV. But thats just my opinion, I didn't actually see the conference and that artcile was really short on details.

Re:Armstrong is wrong

[Guppy06]

"It won't be easier to get to Mars than to the Moon because the US manned space program is no longer run by engineers, but by greedy defense contractors,"

You do realize that Apollo was the first US space program that didn't use a stock ICBM from those "greedy defense contractors," right?

Re:Armstrong is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they learned what caused the Challenger disaster, but are they even trying to anticipate the next disaster? I envision some kind of emergency where it's necessary to shut down the engines to prevent the situation from getting worse. Whoops -- solid rockets can't be shut off once ignited.

The single engine also represents a single point of failure. Russian rockets have multiple liquid-fuelled engines, and they can still reach orbit if one engine fails.

I suspect a CEV on top of a Thiokol booster is about as safe a ride to orbit as you're going to get.

I really think we could do a lot better...

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

What about getting women there ?No Tang jokes!

Look, a blimp!

[N8F8]

Ever wonder is this fantastical stuff is an attempt to distract from their current manned mission problems?

Re:Look, a blimp!

[flyingsquid]

Ever wonder is this fantastical stuff is an attempt to distract from their current manned mission problems?

You raise an interesting point, but- Hey, look! Bigfoot riding a unicorn!

Re:Look, a blimp!

[Ingolfke]

You raise an interesting point, but- Hey, look! Bigfoot riding a unicorn!

Fair enough, but hey look an intelligent rationale comment on /.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -- PARENT IS A TROLL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What parent? I think YOU'RE the troll.

--
Trolling all trolls since 2001.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[Eric604]

I wasn't sure it was rhetorical,

I know what you're doing, you are trying to de-funnify my post.

Re:Armstrongs comments sounded familiar

[CynicalGuy]

Do you think you might be taking all of this a bit too seriously?

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point - they will need someone to cook and clean during the trip and while the men do the science. Not to mention sex servants.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[geomon]

I know what you're doing, you are trying to de-funnify my post.

Shit! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to step on your line.

CRAP!!! I think I just did it again!

Re:Armstrongs comments sounded familiar

[pokka]

Yeah, Fark had this 3 days before slashdot (as usual), and the headline was funnier too:

Neil Armstrong says a manned mission to Mars will be easier than his mission to the moon, which in his day was uphill both ways, through six feet of snow, barefoot.

Spacecraft

[ajwitte]

I suggest building one of these and sending an entire city to Mars. Why visit when you can colonize?

Re:Spacecraft

[Ingolfke]

I suggest we all get ponies. Why can't the cost of any future space projects be measured in the # of citizen who could be given a pony if the money was used for pony purchases instead?

NEAL Armstrong?!

[lampiaio]

Well, come to think of it... at least it's not "Neo Armstrong".

Re:NEAL Armstrong?!

[lampiaio]

looks like they corrected it. Maybe it was a subliminal reference to CowboyNeal?

How soon until this happens?

[GWBasic]

How soon until someone proposes that we not worry about the return trip and leave the astronauts there permenently?

Re:How soon until this happens?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Heck, if I weren't married, I might take that trip. I don't know. Dying doesn't exactly appeal to me, but I could do a lot of really useful research, set up stuff so future expeditions don't have to be one-way...and see Mars. I'm no astronaut or scientist or millionaire, so I doubt I'll see it any other way in my lifetime.

I know it sounds crazy. But to walk just once under an alien sky...darnit, our children deserve the stars, and someone needs to claim that inheritance for them. IMO, if you've never looked up at the sky and wondered why we're stuck here, well, call God and see if you can get a refund or warranty repair job on your soul.

Re:How soon until this happens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, if I weren't married, I might take that trip.

Well look on the bright side, you can always go after you're dead.

Re:How soon until this happens?

[Ingolfke]

How soon until someone proposes that we not worry about the return trip and leave the astronauts there permenently?

Once they're on their way.

Re:How soon until this happens?

[WindBourne]

Considering that you and I have had this conversation several times, I will.

ppl here seem to always forget that Greenland was colonized by the vikings. They went there on their first mission and stayed. Likewise, ppl came to America and stayed. If you send ppl to Mars on a one-way mission (or least with out a planned way back), you will still find millions of ppl who are willing to go. That is the pioneer spirit that settled America. That is the same spirit that is needed to go to Mars and the stars. It will not be the "hey lets go visit alaska for a week and then come back to the hottub" person.

In fact, I am guessing that the company that is looking to do mining on mars will send them for no less than 10 years stints, with return trips designed in the future i.e. after they get to mars.

Re:How soon until this happens?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't married, you might go. Do it for the children. Fucking hypocrite.

But will my treo work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will I still be able to SSH into my box back on earth during the journey? Forget mining Mars, first someone going to have to wire it. (what happens to CAT5 at those extreme tempoerature variations/radiation)

Tourism

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars is where you'll go for the legal three-breasted prostitutes and monkey knife fights.

What happens on Mars stays on Mars.

Re:Tourism

[bonehead]

That's not a good business to get into...

Once you've had your first three-breasted prostitute, it's just never the same anymore...

The real market is in the two-breasted "girl next door" types... Funny part is, the bio-engineering geeks don't "get" that....

Google Mars is Now!

[IanDanforth]

Google Earth Hacks has overlays of all the planets! So if you have Google Earth, you can have Google Mars!

Re:Google Mars is Now!

[ArtStone]

No need for a "hack" to see Mars in Google Earth.

Just click on the dropdown listbox at Login. Choose "Mars Database".

Shame the submitter tried to make an attempt at humo[u]r and never realized that Mars has been available in Google Earth since the beta.

space elevator

[s0rbix]

I wonder what role (if any) the sapce elevator will play in getting supplies/people to Mars...

we need a spaceship

[GrmpyOldPgmr]

It'll never happen by 2020 to 2030. Why? Because first humans have to design a real spaceship, not some skinny ass 1960's style rocket or some slightly modified space shuttle with the heat shielding falling off every third takeoff. I'm talking at least on a level with something like the ships in the original Alien movie or something on that level. It's a lot farther to Mars than to our moon. Sure we've come a long when since then but I don't think people realize there's a hell of a long way to go before we're zipping around our solar system much less our galaxy in a real spaceship. A whole new type of propulsion system needs to be designed at the very least. Also, I don't recall hearing about anyone solving the problem of astronauts being bombarded with cosmic radiation both on the way to Mars as well as once they're on the surface of Mars. I'd love to watch people strolling around on the surface of Mars as much or more than anyone else but let's face it. It's a long ways off and thinking we'll be there in 2020 or 2030 is kind of ridiculous. Just because this is the 21st century doesn't mean we're living like the fscking Jetsons yet.

Re:we need a spaceship

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

Actually, any near future mars 'spaceship' will look a lot like ISS or Mir. Most of the technology is there. New propulsion technology isn't required. Chemical rockets, or scaled up versions of existing electric propulsion systems can do the job just fine.

As long as you have a shelter for solar flares (which you can make with water and fuel that you are going to need anyway) radiation isn't a show stopper. Yes, your crew will take an above average lifetime dose, and expose themselves to increased risk of cancer in the long term. Compared to the risk of riding on existing launch vehicles, that's a minor point.

Re:we need a spaceship

[RevengeOfPoopJuggler]

Can't we just use all the alien technology that we have collected and hidden at Area 51? All they have to do is get that stuff de-classified and we're set!

Re:we need a spaceship

[MtViewGuy]

I can understand your concerns but the Mars Society (which has a lot of space engineers as part of this interest group) has been studying the very issues of how to get humans to Mars safely and living on that planet for a year or more in a single spacecraft.

Thanks to advances in very small (and very safe!) pebble-bed nuclear reactor technology in the last 20 years, with a concerted multinational effort we could build a spacecraft powered by descendants of the NERVA nuclear rocket engine tested during the 1960's to early 1970's. Because such engines run at very low power for long periods of time that will eventually mean extraordinarily fast transit times between Earth and Mars; under the right conditions the travel time will be no more than six weeks, vastly shorter than the 6-9 months more normal means of transit require. With only six weeks transit time, it also means a vastly less expensive design for crew habitation, since we no longer have to factor in the needs of the astronaut crew for a 6-9 month trip.

Once on Mars, the lander will likely sport a small pebble-bed nuclear reactor to provide power--probably enough not only to power the lander's crew habitation module but also provide power to extract liquid water from beneath the surface of Mars.

If we take Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct ideal and combine it with a nuclear rocket engine, we could see such a mission done as early as 2020.

Re:we need a spaceship

[ScrewMaster]

Nah ... none of that stuff works. Nobody can figure out the root passwords.

Re:we need a spaceship

[biscayne07]

I'm sure people were saying the same thing back in 1961 when Kennedy made his proposal, but look what happened.

I'll be perfectly honest, I haven't been following this very well outside of /. and the mainstream media, but from what I've heard, we're not as far off of this as you believe.

Apollo proved that, when the right minds get together with enough money, anything can be accomplished, even going outside of Earth orbit. It's time for the next step, and I think we have the technology, the people to put it together, and the astronauts to fly it, all we need is a public willing to put billions of dollars on the line to make it happen.

Do I think 2020 is a good, safe estimate? Yes. I'd love to see it by the end of the decade, and I think that, if we put enough energy into it, it could happen. But, unfortunately, there's no space race to push progress anymore, and so it won't happen in 5 years.

What we need is a competition, a few space-capable countries (luckily there's 4 (or is it 5?)) to group up with a common goal-to be the first country to land a man on Mars.

Mars has women...

[digitalghost1]

At least that's what I read.. The most beautiful of them is named Dejah Thoris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_of_Mars_( film) http://www.johncartermovie.com/movienews.shtml

Huge waste of money.

[zymano]

Robots do a better job. And they can stay and work there longer than humans.

I would only agree with it if it were permanent . That's right . Build a station with robots first and then send people to live there for 5 or 10 years.

That would make sense. A short term trip is stupid and just flag waving , index finger pointing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism .

Real science please.

Re:Huge waste of money.

[TopSpin]

I would only agree with it if it were permanent.

Perhaps we'll be able to count you onboard then. Look here:

"The NASA brass is considering reworking the Prometheus program to develop a nuclear reactor to serve those purposes."

That "NASA brass" bit is Griffin. The existing Prometheus program is an attempt to design a nuclear propulsion system. Griffin is, right now, redirecting funds for Prometheus to the US Navy. Why the Navy? Because they are really good at building and operating small nuclear power plants and Griffin wants to put one on the moon! Permanent habitation of the moon.

Re:Huge waste of money.

[Ingolfke]

Robots do a better job... Build a station with robots

Robots do a better job driving around on the terrain collecting samples, but I haven't seen any examples of robots doing a better job constructing or repairing any type of physical structure. The latency alone would be a serious challenge to overcome for anything other than a mostly autonomous building robot(s).

I frankly think the whole thing is a big waste of money, unless we're tapping into the innovations that these big relatively useless challenges provide us. They're big goals that produce a bunch of auxillary benefits, but honestly walking on the moon, close up pictures of Mars from rovers, even scientists testing soil there for 5-10 years is of no real benefit to anyone. It's the technology produced as a derivative of these attempts that of value.

Re:Huge waste of money.

[king-manic]

Robots do a better job. And they can stay and work there longer than humans.

I would only agree with it if it were permanent . That's right . Build a station with robots first and then send people to live there for 5 or 10 years.

That would make sense. A short term trip is stupid and just flag waving , index finger pointing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism .

Real science please.

Expendable and capable robots will require 20 to 50 years of reserach, but expendable people are here now! lets start shipping lawyers, and middle management to mars first.

Re:Huge waste of money.

[L0C0loco]

Actually, it is a whole lot easier to get people to Mars if you never plan to bring then back. There is a much simpler set of technologies required and you have to throw a lot less mass to the planet if you don't have to have the send the fuel to return to Earth. Also, there are a lot of gung-ho types out there that would be happy to volunteer for a one-way mission. Even so, I thin the MIT study has over looked a few of the obstacles in arrivng at the conclusion that it could be done by 2020. Not the least of which is the lack of funds. The most massive thing we have landed safely on Mars was under 1000Kg! We do not currently know how to deliver 20 or 30 metric tonnes to the surface yet alone with G-forces that would allow the payload to include humans. If we want to go to Mars, we had better forget about the Moon - that is just an uneccessary diversion.

Re:Huge waste of money.

[Hognoxious]

lets start shipping lawyers, and middle management to mars first.

Don't forget the telephone sanitisers & the marketing executives.

Re:Huge waste of money.

[Anonymous Coward]

A manned trip is stupid ... Real science please.

The ultimate purpose of science is to help humans do the things they want to accomplish; whether this means making a trip to Mars or to understand the origins of the universe. Space-faring is not there so we can do better science; science is there so we can go space-faring in the first place.

Google Mars? I laugh at thou!

[Man in Spandex]

Google will probably claim that Mars is made of Cheese like The Moon

Re:Google Mars? I laugh at thou!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Mars is made of chocolate. Willy Wonka is responsible for that.

Only half the problem

[MontyApollo]

The other part of the problem is maintaining public interest. The mission would last a minimum of a year, and the general public would get their fill of Mars coverage. Trying to fund the *2nd mission* to Mars would be just about impossible.

I can imagine the public response: "It costs a billion dollars, and we've had people already spend a year there. Why spend any more?"

I personally don't think it is worth the effort to go to Mars unless we already have the technology and infrastructure in place to maintain a permament settlement. Otherwise it will be the Moon program all over again: Plant the flag, hit some golf balls, come home, cancel the follow-up missions.

Re:Only half the problem

[Ingolfke]

From a practical perspective the benefits from going to the Moon or Mars is in the trip itself. Actually sucessfully getting someone there and back requires a huge amount of spending (economic stimulas) and develops residual technologies that can be used in day-to-day industries. The public is right to question spending billions of dollars to go back to the Moon or Mars to do what... collect rocks, dirt, troll around for a bit looking for something? Even a permanent settlement is of no real practical value... except for the residual technologies that are developed to sustain human life in an inhospitable climate over a long period of time. That's a big deal, but the actual value provided by the settlement itself doesn't justify the costs alone.

Re:Armstrongs comments sounded familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Well more like uphill both ways, in a vacume, sitting in a tin can.

duh

[HBI]

What makes you think that it wasn't back then, too?

They made it work in spite of all of the above, not because they weren't there.

You know this was coming.....

[CDMA_Demo]

Inhibition of Mars will change the 2048 electoral map?

Why we need China to get to Mars

[popo]

It wasn't just American ingenuity and willpower that got us to the moon. It was the threat of the Soviet Union beating us to the punch. The Soviets had already beaten us into orbit with Sputnik (a secret development project) and to put a human in space.

All that is necessary for our mission to Mars to happen in record time is the threat of China getting there first.

Hell... since I'd love to see us get to Mars in my lifetime... I suggest we all start the rumour that China is working on a secret Mars project....

Re:Why we need China to get to Mars

[Ingolfke]

Hell... since I'd love to see us get to Mars in my lifetime... I suggest we all start the rumour that China is working on a secret Mars

Actually, we've just outsourced our program to them... much cheaper you know.

Let the stars come to us.

[qualico]

After the news that the shuttle will be delayed for yet another ride around the Sun, I'm certainly not about to buy Mars for 2020.

Unless of course some drastic positive changes come to space exploration in the near future.

My question is, why are we not pouring all these billions into gravity research?

Master, what we have here on Earth first.
  Then the stars will come to us.

Mars pathfinder

[kayen_telva]

Maybe we can finally get that picture while we are there ??

plenty of people would take that

[Bad Ad]

Id go in a heartbeat, immortalised in history forever.. more than most could ever dream of accomplishing.
 
im sure theres a queue of people who feel the same.

Re:plenty of people would take that

[WindBourne]

In fact, I would rather have 20 year lifespan in Mars, then to have a 1 month lifespan fighting in Iraq, Afghanastan, or North Korea. Some of you will see this as being a slam, but it really is saying that you can die today or tomorrow. Why not make it something useful for mankind?

How many of you know Grissom, Chaffe, and White are? Many here will.
But do you know who Gunny Tom Welch? I did somewhat, but I would be shocked if anybody here did.

Google Mars in 2010ish

[qwerty shrdlu]

They could do it now with the images on file from US, ESA, and Soviet spacecraft but for the zoom-way-in effect we all love we'll have to wait for the Mars Reconnaissance Observer to build up some data. Details here: http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/

At the expense of current science

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could be more positive about manned missions, but the reality of funding is that manned flight is at the expense of scientific programs. If we go to the moon or mars it will mean the dismemberment of the scientific part of space exploration. This is alrady happening with the ISS.

What's the point?

[PhysSurfer]

Before we get to Mars, we need to stop and ask why we want to go. As far as I can see, our reason is pure conceit. We want to say that people have reached Mars. What does reaching Mars accomplish? Mars is an inhospitable desert. We can't do much research there that wouldn't be better done here, except for investigating Mars itself. Aside from research, why go? It's not profitable, and earth is still inhabitable enough so that establishing colonies on Mars isn't necessary.

All the money spent on making Mars spaceships and reasearching how to protect the astronauts, etc, would be better spent on improving our earthships (cars) and figuring out ways to make civilization much more energy efficient. This HAS to get done in the near future with Peak Oil and the end of cheap energy approaching. Unfortunately, we definately don't have enough money to do both types of research. With the current trends, we could be even a lot worse off by 2030.

Re:What's the point?

[Xyrus]

"We want to say that people have reached Mars."

That is a gross oversimplification of the reasons behind exploring other worlds.

"Mars is an inhospitable desert."

So is the moon. So are several areas on our own planet. That doesn't mean it's worthless to go there and explore. Or even live.

"We can't do much research there that wouldn't be better done here, except for investigating Mars itself."

Not true. Mars has about a 1/4 of Earth's gravity. That makes doing a bunch of sustained low g research extremely easy to do on Mars, while on Earth it is much harder to simulate for years at a time. Building observatories on Olympus Mons could yield very impressive results. The low g's would make it much easier to build giant telescopes, and the extremely thin atmosphere would allow very clear views. And that's just an appetizer.

"It's not profitable, and Earth is still inhabitable enough so that establishing colonies on Mars isn't necessary."

You're making a statement that you don't know for sure is true. Mars could indeed be very profitable if the right resources are there. But we won't know that until we get there.

Earth's inhabitability will quickly diminish if the population rate doesn't slow down soon. We'll see Earth hitting theoretical max capacity within our lifetimes. Whether we want to or not, at some point soon we'll need to expand off this rock.

That is unless you don't mind draconian laws regarding reproduction.

~X~

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the spirit of your comment, but I want to point out that overpopulation is not likely to be a problem in the near future. First of all, the reproduction rate in the developed world is declining, not growing, and people don't live forever -- so we'll see continued increase for a time followed by decrease in overall population, at least in these areas. Australia, for example, has negative population growth. So does Singapore. I realize these are small places, population-wise, but in general there's a strong negative correlation between literacy/economic well-being, and the desire to reproduce.

Then, there's the China issue (I live in China.) Currently, roughly 1/6th of the world's population lives in China, but due to the one child policy, the population is demographically skewed. Most people are old. In 20 years, the vast majority of these will be dead: China is facing a massive population drop in the next two decades.

Further, and also as a result of the one-child policy (coupled with entrenched sexist views), people (especially in the poorer, agricultural districts) overwhelmingly prefer male children to female ones. As soon as the sex of the child is determinable, many couples opt to abort if it is obvious the child will be a girl. This is slowly changing, due to efforts by the central government to educate people and a general awareness on the part of the people that having more boys than girls is a bad thing, but the fact remains that there is a whole generation of children where males outnumber females significantly.

This means that there will be a large number of males that will never be given the chance to reproduce. China has recently relaxed its one-child policy, allowing many families the option of having two children, but two child families cannot result in population growth in the long term, for obvious reasons.

All of this is important, obviously, because most of the people in the world live in China. If a they suddenly lose 30% of their population due to old age, and then in 20 years we see a large number of males not reproducing, we're looking at a statistically significant decrease in the world's population.

And anyway, transportation between the Earth and Mars (or the Moon, for that matter) will probably never be cheap enough to make colonization a reasonable possibility. Instead, we will seed a colony, and they will grow by reproduction.

Putting people on Mars will not significantly decrease our population here. We're debating whether sending two or three people there is feasible; to make a difference here we'd need to send a billion or more. Think about that number for a second and you'll realize that population control is the only way to deal with the too-many-humans problem. Luckily (for the reasons I outlined above), it may never become a problem.

I see sending people to Mars as useful in terms of exploration, in terms of technology acquired in figuring out how to allow people to live on such a hostile planet, and possibly in terms of a future trading partner. But most of all, it ensures (or at least greatly increases the likelyhood) of the survival of the human race, should earth get pelted by a huge rock. It's happened before, odds are, it'll happen again.

Just some thoughts.

Re:What's the point?

[PhysSurfer]

"Mars has about a 1/4 of Earth's gravity. That makes doing a bunch of sustained low g research extremely easy to do on Mars, while on Earth it is much harder to simulate for years at a time."

By "here" I mean Earth and environs, ie where we now have the capability of going. Zero G and Low G research is just as easily, if not more easily done in Earth orbit and on the Moon as on Mars. Also, I challenge you to find some proposed "low-G" research that can't be done better in zero-G.

"Mars could indeed be very profitable if the right resources are there. But we won't know that until we get there."

We can easily determine what is there using probes. But that's beside the point. There are no resources there that would make up for the cost of going there and bringing it back. Unless it has dilithium crystals...

"Earth's inhabitability will quickly diminish if the population rate doesn't slow down soon."

The population growth rate is slowing. However, I agree with you that overpopulation is a major problem. Therefore, I advance that we spend money on researching solutions/stopgaps rather than spending it on silly trips to Mars that accomplish little besides the noble goal of exploration.

"We'll see Earth hitting theoretical max capacity within our lifetimes."

Oh yeah? What is this "theoretical max capacity"?

"Whether we want to or not, at some point soon we'll need to expand off this rock."

.

Soon? So instead of trying to solve the problems we have, we should just abandon the planet? Where are we going to go after we ruin Mars? (Not that it can be ruined).

That is unless you don't mind draconian laws regarding reproduction.

I dont' understand your plan here. How does us going to Mars help overpopulation? Are we going to send everybody's third child to Mars? All the poor people?

Save a nuclear war or other catastrophe, we're going to have to institute population control on Earth eventually whether we go to Mars or not.

OMG...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Visiting Our Red Space Neighbor

That is a hell of a way to talk about a visit to China. Damn.

Re:OMG...

[cnerd2025]

Ah, remember from our pointy-eared friend, "only Nixon could go to China."

Well that's just great!

[RomanySaad]

I, for one, welcome our new red space neighbor overlords!

Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I hate the partisanship in this country. The liberals are tearing Bush apart because he wants to "waste" money on sending men to Mars. Anyone who has such a thought crossing their mind really does not belong to the slashdot community. No geek would ever say that exploring a new planet in person is not worth cutting a few pieces of pork on the transportation bill.

That would be odd given the NASA budget increased

[SuperKendall]

Well, the NASA budget did increase last year - so it would be odd to chop it apart after increasing it before, especially now (as others have noted) tax revenues are up.

Are you also of the mind that little girls selling lemonade on a corner for $20 a dixie cup will make more than ones selling cups at $.25C each? But one clearly is collecting more money!

Real estate

[SuperKendall]

Anyone with even a half of ounce of vision knows the real (and very profitible) reason to go to Mars - first dibs at real estate.

Funny or insightful? Your choice!

Re:Real estate

[CffnDwllr]

BZZZT, WRONG. I've already taken 1st dibs at owning real estate on Mars. :P

http://www.marsshop.com/

PS. If NASA lands on my property I will be charging them rent. :D:D:D

--Ads half ounce of vision to his inventory--

PIGWAD

[amitofu]

Who needs Google Maps when we have PIGWAD?

But...

[idlake]

Mars needs Women, not men.

Yes, but how do we get there?

[serutan]

The articles linked aren't specific about mission details, but NASA planners acknowledge that a major problem on any Mars mission will be radiation exposure. Getting to Mars and back at all with chemical rockets requires either taking a long slow trajectory or using gravity assist from other planets, making any Mars mission more than a year-long prospect and exposing the crew to radiation beyond the allowable lifetime limits. The shielding method that stands head and shoulders above others is plain water. A double hull spacecraft with about a foot thick layer of water between the hulls would cut radiation exposure by more than half -- far better than anything else proposed. The water hull would also provide micrometeorite shielding. The outer few inches would freeze. If a micrometeorite penetrated the hull, water leaking out through the hole would freeze re-seal it immediately. The water hull would also provide an enormous heat sink that would eliminate the need for a complex refrigeration system to get rid of heat from human bodies and equipment. But to haul that much water weight around is beyond the current capabilities of chemical rockets.

One possible solution is to use nuclear rockets to get there and back. For sheer power they leave chemical rockets in the dust. A nuclear powered rocket would enable "point and shoot" missions, essentially aiming at the spot in the sky where the destination will be in a few months, overcoming planetary gravity by brute force. Here's an interesting article about a design for a fully reusable, non-polluting nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could lift one thousand tons of payload into Earth orbit and return intact to a powered landing. No solid fuel boosters, no jettisoned fuel tanks. Just a big rocket that takes off and comes back.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have child support payments to prove your wrong.

Re:Getting men to Mars by 2020 ?

[deglr6328]

How fucking stupid can you get? Heard of Sally Ride, genius?

Re:share your email address

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok here's mine! john_pervan@hotmail.com

Breeder reactors

[CiXeL]

Why is it in the peak oil discussion noone brings up the concept of breeder reactors? you can make endless more fuel with breeder reactors enough to run the whole world on nuclear power. you can then save all that other oil for all our consumable goods made of plastic.

Re:Breeder reactors

[cr0sh]

In case you are not aware, what breeder reactors do is take low grade nuclear "fuel" and turn it into high grade nuclear "fuel". This new "fuel", which can then be reused, is also, unfortunately, real close to what is needed for weapons-grade nuclear material. In other words, a breeder reactor can just as easily be used to manufacture weapons-grade nuclear material as it could energy.

It isn't so much that people don't bring it up in discussions of Peak oil, it is that there isn't a political or technological solution to the issue of the near-weapons grade material that comes out of the other end. Perhaps, if everything was rosy and nice here with humans (fat chance of that happenning - people are angry poo-flinging monkeys, most of the time), breeder reactors would be something worth discussing. As it is, they don't get discussed because for the moment, they won't be built because of the issues surrounding them.

Likely, they won't be built until there isn't any other options left. Hopefully, the technology stays tightly controlled by western countries (though that isn't any guarantee either - western countries can go "insane" just like any other), and that the technology and knowledge doesn't find its way to countries which simply want it for the weapons production capability. There are are ton of countries out there which do, who want to use nuclear weapons to destroy the "west". They (and increasingly, we) don't understand the kind of destruction these weapons cause. Nuclear weapons are true doomsday devices. With them, mankind has built a system which could easily destroy the planet and make it uninhabitable by humans, possibly even destroying the species, along with a host of others. With the end of above ground tests, we have lost an important thing: perspective. I am not saying we shouldn't have ended such tests, but what such tests provided (for the observers, at least) was the knowledge and understanding of just what monstrous capability and destruction these weapons provided their wielders. In many case, this understanding was humbling to those witnesses, who then went on to provide a check against wanton use of these weapons. With the loss of that perspective, I fear that one day we will see their use again, despite all the past has shown us.

Of course, though, hasn't history shown us that this is the way of us animals?

Then

[CiXeL]

Where is the growth? Where are the jobs so they can tax us? Everywhere I go i see people desperately clinging to their jobs both in california and now here in florida.

Re:Then

[dreamchaser]

I love it when people judge the state of the economy based on their own anecdotal experiences. There are plenty of jobs out there, just go look. The GDP is also steadily growing despite the high energy costs.

NSF

[CiXeL]

"I mean what did the Shuttle program ever discover, other than a bunch of science-fair projects along the lines of "does classical music make plants grow better... in SPACE?"

Do you know how many of those useless projects were paid for by the national science foundation?

Re:NSF

[flyingsquid]

I can say for a fact the NSF does fund useless projects- they've funded me to study dinosaurs, after all.

But the thing is, the NSF is a bargain. It costs about 5.5 billion a year and funds things as diverse as biotech, computing, and fisheries management. It funds undergrads, graduate students, and professors, and it buys equipment and pays for research projects. In the process it cultivates basic research in the United States, in all areas of the sciences. Yet NASA gets over three times that- 16 billion this year.

But you have to question whether the $150 billion dollars we've spent on the Space Shuttle is really worth it in scientific terms. It's not that I object to the research- some of it, like the Hubble, I'm very much a supporter of. And I could think of worse ways to spend the money (that billion a week in Iraq isn't buying us very much) But what it comes down to is return on investment. If our goal is research and exploration, funding the NSF and NASA's unmanned program will allow us to get more out of each tax dollar.

Re:NSF

[RubberDogBone]

So it's a late reply...

NSF, is that National Sanitation Foundation, National Science Foundation, National Sleep Foundation, or something else?

There are too many groups with that same acronym.

Most "NSF things" people encounter in their everyday lives are related to National Sanitation rather than National Science.

So thats the time frame for sending men to Mars.

[JollyFinn]

When we are sending women to Venus?

Guardian article on a mission to Mars.

[teh kurisu]

A manned flight to Mars means up to three years of discomfort and isolation - how would the cosmonauts cope?

Going to Mars now would be stupid

[Elrac]

I submit that sending people to Mars at this point in time would be a most illogical thing to do. Here are some reasons:

• We've barely been to the moon. Went there a long time ago, stayed there a day or two each time, ran back and were happy not to have had too many casualties. That's like saying you've been to Iraq, when you take a flight to Baghdad airport, stay at the airport and take the next flight back out.
• We barely manage near-Earth space. These days, missions to terrestrial orbit are knuckle-gnawing adventures. If we have trouble getting people above the atmosphere and back, we have no business trying for other celestial bodies. Technology and procedure need to be improved to the point where near targets are routine.
• We need more practice. I feel this kind of thing needs to be done in stages. We need to set up a permanent base at the Lagrange point between the Moon and Earth, we need to set up a permanent base on the Moon and commute there routinely and safely (with possible attendant benefits like mining for spaceship-building materials there). Before we've "conquered" the Moon in those terms, it makes no sense to shoot further - a Mars mission becomes nothing more than a daring publicity stunt.
• We need better technology. Especially in terms of energy efficiency. At the moment, putting a spacecraft into space involves burning the monthly energy budget of a small country in a big, controlled, chemical explosion. That works, but is decidedly inelegant in a Flash-Gordon-y way. We need to develop better alternatives for getting out of Earth's gravity field, such as
  • a space elevator
  • a railgun space cannon
  • fission or fusion powered propulsion
  • anti gravity (if it can be done)
  • some other, as yet undiscovered tech
  
  Of these alternatives, I consider the space elevator the most realistic, but I could be proven wrong by future developments. But regardless of the method, something needs to be done to improve on the current process.
• We need to make the process safe and idiot-proof. I'm not talking about idiot astronauts, I'm talking about idiots in the specification, management and implementation of the whole enterprise. We need a process that doesn't result in purchasing O-rings from the cheapest bidder, in safety tests being short-circuited, in plans being altered without proper signoff, in political or budgetary compromises that threaten mission safety, etc. In other words, we need to move away from the way things are currently being done at NASA.

Only when all those prerequisites are met - and this might be in 2010, 2020 or later - are we really ready to send humans to Mars. Before then, whatever is done will be reckless grandstanding.

My personal opinion, which may or may not meet with agreement, is that Bush has no real interest in getting people to Mars. I think this project is just a bid for getting his name into a possible future history book. In other words, a long-view PR stunt. I hope humans don't end up being sacrificed for the glory of the President.

Invented by Vulcans

[Danathar]

EVERYBODY knows that Vulcans introduced velcro to an unsuspecting American banker as shown on the documentary program "Enterprise" on UPN.....

Ingenious Astronaut Testing

[ngr8]

Sweet melting icecaps but 4Frontiers has one studly site design. F u cn nvg8 ths u cn b n rbt!

We do NOT have the technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The biochemical understanding of bone and mineral metabolism, and our ability to substantially alter it, will be necessary before such a long trip in microgravity can take place. Astronauts would lose too much of their skeletons to be able to survive on earth upon their return. And that is with constant weight bearing exercise and with pharmacological doses of bisphosphonates daily.

We do NOT have the technology

[umass2ucr]

Before humans can engage in a microgravity trip of the duration required to visit and return from Mars, we will need a vastly better understanding of bone and mineral metabolism and also be able to alter it substantially. Astronauts lose too much of their skeleton in extended periods of microgravity to make it possible for them to survive on earth upon their return...and that is with the constant exercise and bisphosphonates during the trip.

Use Energia!

[AaronLawrence]

We can save a lot of money and time by re-using the Energia designs for a direct shot, instead of puddling round for years making a new launcher.

http://k26.com/buran/html/energia-mars.html

Well, it's an interesting idea anyway, and it would be great to see the Energiya booster reused.

But of course that would make less money for the precious aerospace companies.

Visiting our Red space neighbor ...

[ScrewMaster]

Let's see ... would that be Russia or China?

Re:Visiting our Red space neighbor ...

[chawly]

Lets do China - they have such a wonderful selection of "carry-outs" - since I have to read Slashdot in the evening most of the time.

Re:kmod 3own

[ScrewMaster]

Somebody mod this -1: Semantically Void