Why Mars Is Not the Limit For Human Space Flight

"Mars is not just the next or most accessible human destination, it is the ultimate one," writes Louis Friedman, executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society. He says the concept of manned spaceflight is progressing so slowly, and robotic developments so swiftly, that Mars will be the first and last planet humans set foot on. "By the time human spaceflight technology is theoretically capable of journeys beyond Mars, humans in modern space systems will be virtual explorers interacting with the environments of distant worlds, but without the baggage of physical transportation or presence." Mark Whittington disagrees, saying Friedman is demonstrating Clarke's First Law, and that the history of human exploration is rife with periods of stagnation interrupted by technological achievement that led to swift progress.

Comments

Dead wrong

[Spy Handler]

if it's possible for humans to go somewhere, they will go there. History has proven that. Only reason we haven't been to Mars or Titan or Ceti Alpha V is that we didn't have the means to. But Elon and others are trying to change that...

Re:Dead wrong

[crutchy]

the reason why we haven't gone anywhere in space is that we're drowning in greed and corruption

"we" haven't even really been to the moon... only a very small select few astronauts went on very short demonstration trips, in which each only went once, and all on a defense budget

if we ever are to have any chance of getting anywhere in space, it will require a catastrophe that falls barely short of complete human extinction to make people realise that survival is more important than money and power... the problem isn't that space is too expensive or that we can't develop the technology... the problem is simply human nature

unless some robotic thing finds some kind of mineral that will make some corporation a lot of money (akin to the gold rushes of yesteryear or the oil rush of today), no government will bother investing in it. even the space "exploration" going on the surface of mars at the moment is probably a mineral hunt under the guise of searching for ET; the US government (that provides NASA with funding) doesn't give a fuck about ET... all they care about is money and power, and not for the US in general, just for themselves because many politicians have stock in the corporations that would benefit

until the nuclear winter of post-ww3, when all the fat greedy politicians, welfare bludgers, corporate CEOs and stockholders die of starvation and there are no corporations, and government is actually run by the people for the people (for their very survival), "we" will never have any hope of ever getting to the moon or mars

Utter BS

[gweihir]

It seems this person has never heard of the speed-of-light limit to communication delays....

Re:Utter BS

[crutchy]

It seems this person has never heard of the speed-of-light limit to communication delays....

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

even you can't be sure that ftl communication is impossible... you just believe it because you were told that it was the case and because of peer pressure (if you say otherwise you're afraid your friends and colleagues will think you're a kook)

Earth

[Weaselmancer]

Mars will be the first and last planet humans set foot on.

I believe Earth would be the first planet humans set foot on.