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71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033

astroengine writes "In a recent poll funded by the non-profit Explore Mars, 71% of respondents agreed that the U.S. will send a human to Mars within the next two decades. Unfortunately, on average, the sample of 1,101 people surveyed thought the U.S. government allocated 2.4% of the federal budget to NASA — in reality it's only 0.5%. With this in mind, 75% of the respondents agreed/strongly agreed that NASA's budget should be increased to explore Mars through manned and robotic means."

266 comments

  1. In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    99% Percent of U.S. See Flying Cars by 1985.

    1. Re:In related news by isorox · · Score: 4, Funny

      99% Percent of U.S. See Flying Cars by 1985.

      October 2015. And jaws 27 at the same time.

    2. Re:In related news by segedunum · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm sure that most of the population in the 60s and 70s thought we'd had bases on the moon by 2001. That was twelve years ago.

    3. Re:In related news by Hadlock · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To be fair, we had the tech to put a base on the moon starting around 1979. The ISS (with landing gear) would do just fine on the surface of the moon (except, ya know, the whole 15 days in the shade part).

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    4. Re:In related news by heypete · · Score: 1

      ...that, and the abrasive lunar regolith playing hell with the door seals.

    5. Re:In related news by Razgorov+Prikazka · · Score: 2

      You mean that regolith dust that is blown everywhere by the gale force winds we all know tortures anything on the moon?
      Yes that might be a problem indeed. We better go to Mars instead, there is hardly any wind nor dust there you know?

      --
      rm -rf --no-preserve-root / ...and let /dev/null sort them out...
    6. Re:In related news by Dr.+Tom · · Score: 2

      27% think humans have already been to Mars

    7. Re:In related news by backslashdot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We had the tech, but not the money. Are we going to have the money by 2033? I sure hope so, but it looks iffy. A Mars shot would probably take 20 years nowadays (the moon shot took 20 years too if you count the time that the Saturn V engines were in development when Kennedy announced it). That means it would have to survive 4 presidential elections and 8 congressional elections. Space is one of the easy budgets to raid money out of. In essence we'll need 20 years of sustained prosperity. It will probably be 2020 that a Mars shot will be announced. Probably around the time China announces a moon shot. Or maybe their own Mars shot. I hope they announce it. Maybe we need that to get up off our butts. There's no way in hell we're gonna watch someone else get there first.

    8. Re:In related news by drankr · · Score: 2

      But what would be the benefit of "bases on the Moon"? That kind of effort has to be motivated by something greater than Cold War bragging. Unless natural resources can be pillaged and slave labor secured there is no real incentive for anyone who can to go to space., and as we know, there is sadly no evidence of slave labor, aka aliens, despite some claims. As for natural resources well Google seems to be on to something, minerals something..?
      Anyway, Americans need to watch less bad television and put more faith in Google and less in NASA.

    9. Re:In related news by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Half the population believes in creationism and alien abductions.

      I'll pass on putting any stock in their predictions or beliefs.

    10. Re:In related news by blackpaw · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No he probably means the highly abrasive regolith dust that is kicked up and tracked in by every person using the airlocks.

    11. Re:In related news by Razgorov+Prikazka · · Score: 0

      Sigh...
      I see...
      That is what you get if parents aren't firm when raising a child. I can almost hear mothers say:"Dont worry dear, I'll clean it up, just leave your dirty boots outside next time okay?"
      Even years of training becoming an astronaut didn't teach them what everyone else knows.

      Take! Your! Filthy! Regolith-ridden boots! OFF! before entering the ISS!

      Man, what's next? All the passwords on ISS computers are 123456? :-)

      --
      rm -rf --no-preserve-root / ...and let /dev/null sort them out...
    12. Re:In related news by Muad'Dave · · Score: 2

      Surely you mean 1999?

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    13. Re:In related news by guzzirider · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't believe that a manned mission to mars could ever be achieved from international competition. It would require international cooperation on a massive scale.

      Costly, expensive does not even begin to cover it. A program for a manned mission to Mars is at least a magnitude of order more difficult than the Apollo program. A starting guess would be 10x of the cost of the Apollo program in adjusted dollars for inflation. One figure I found was $135-billion in 2005 Dollars (cost of the Apollo program).
      Now if it is 10x harder to do mars, are we talking about 1.3 Trillion?

      Personally I would like to see this seriously pursued in my lifetime, however ..
      We have gotten good at robotic missions and I would like to see more exploration and science missions. I know that a sample return mission would get some level of excitement, but it is likely that placing more science on the surface is of more benefit. Maybe rovers with an ability to find samples to be sent to a surface based robotic lab instead of / in addition to of self contained rovers.
      We also must ask if Mars is to use so many resources would we be neglecting other robotic planetary missions?

    14. Re:In related news by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      It will probably be 2020 that a Mars shot will be announced. Probably around the time China announces a moon shot. Or maybe their own Mars shot. I hope they announce it. Maybe we need that to get up off our butts. There's no way in hell we're gonna watch someone else get there first.

      It worked in the 60s, and I see no reason it wouldn't work today.

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    15. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The dust has a static charge. It will stick to the spacesuits no matter how well they brush off. But the door seals shouldn't be a problem as long as they are maintained (wiped down). My worry would be the effect of periodically inhaling Moon dust when reentering and doffing spacesuits. The Apollo astronauts noted that it had a gunpower-like smell and at least one astronaut experience hay fever symptoms.

    16. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is the same old argument that has been used for millennia to deter exploration. My recommendation is for you to play the game Civilization. Then tell me how important exploration is compared to building more granaries and city walls. The answer is that they are both important and you need to do both to survive.

    17. Re:In related news by crazyjj · · Score: 1

      When I was a kid, we all thought that moonbases and Mars were just around the corner. And we thought that the Space Shuttle was going to live up to its initial promise of being a truly "Take off and land, then take off again" spaceship (not a super-expensive splashdown pod with a cargo bay and wheels). When I became an adult and really started to appreciate the politics and science, I realized that these were far from just around the corner, and how much of the initial incredible progress that NASA made was driven exclusively by the Cold War.

      Now I know that the modern NASA is little more than a jobs and graft program for Congress and contractors, and how promises of Moon and Mars from modern Presidents are just political bullshit that they know no one will ever hold them accountable for.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    18. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Care to base your estimations of costs on anything more than just a round number that sounds good?
       
      I agree that it'll be pricey. I'd say that Backslashdot is being pretty optimistic considering the Most Progressive President of Our Times(tm) and the one of the lowest rated legislatures of my lifetime are too busy trying to ban guns instead of finally worrying about government waste and the economy. But your numbers just seem to be made up.

    19. Re:In related news by crazyjj · · Score: 1

      It worked in the 60s, and I see no reason it wouldn't work today.

      The 60's had a Cold War space race and booming U.S. economy.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    20. Re:In related news by Snotnose · · Score: 1

      All the passwords on ISS computers are 123456? :-)

      That's clearly insecure. They're 12345678.

    21. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      48% percent voted for a douchbag with a moneypoisoning for president ...

      (yeah, fine, vote me troll, see if i care.)

    22. Re:In related news by dontbemad · · Score: 1

      Half the population believes in creationism and alien abductions.

      I'll pass on putting any stock in their predictions or beliefs.

      Isn't the creationism problem only present in a handful of southern, hyper-conservative states? Yes, I know that many believe it, but the majority of Christians who believe in Creationism aren't trying to force it down everyone's throats. In fact, many of them are open to modern science for the most part, and may even be studying evolution to find the link between the two. Also, I would be hard pressed to believe that half of the US population honestly believes in alien abductions.

      Granted, you've stated statistics as fact without any sort of backing proof. Stop playing into the slashdot hivemind of "bash fundamental Christianity, get upvotes".

      Did you not stop to think about the fact that if most of the country thinks a Mars mission is possible and/or plausible, then most of the country might vote favorably for a Mars mission in congressional and presidential elections? Sure, it is a long shot, but I'd rather be talking about how we can make that happen rather than making snide, uninformed comments about the dismal state of the American populace.

    23. Re:In related news by N!k0N · · Score: 1

      Man, what's next? All the passwords on ISS computers are 123456? :-)

      That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

    24. Re:In related news by arth1 · · Score: 1

      My recommendation is for you to play the game Civilization. Then tell me how important exploration is compared to building more granaries and city walls. The answer is that they are both important and you need to do both to survive.

      Life != Game
      For one thing, you can't restart life when things go pear shaped.
      And you don't have Leonard Nimoy narrating.

      (And the key to winning in Civ IV (V doesn't exist) is to settle as much as you can early on, everything else be damned, and build the Great Wall of China as quickly as possible. Then you don't need city walls except later, to build castles. Exploring is only useful if you discover settlers or technologies - else it's a drain.)

    25. Re:In related news by spiritplumber · · Score: 1

      That's a coincidence. I have the same combination on my luggage.

      --
      Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
    26. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 2

      We had the tech, but not the money. Are we going to have the money by 2033?

      We have the money, it is just that we prefer to spend it on other things.

      Seriously, what is a moon base good for? Low G golf?

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    27. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 1

      You are seriously using a game to assert the truthiness of space exploration? Well in that case I think we shouldn't go because the of the Zerg.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    28. Re:In related news by Kartu · · Score: 1

      Considering The U.S. Military Spends $20 Billion on Air Conditioning for Troops 135 billion $ doesn't sound like much for Appolo program.
      I'm afraid Mars program is much more expensive than 10 times. I recall engineers that were involved in Soviet space programs say that going to the Moon was more than 100 times more difficult than bringing man into space. So should be the Mars mission.

      1) Spaceship will be much heavier and it has to travel to much longer distance
      2) You can't keep people in small capsules like it was possible in the Moon mission, since it will take
      3) Gravity on Mars is much stronger and it has an atmosphere, so taking off Mars will be so much more difficult.

      PS
      One way flight is much easier to do and there is even a non profit organization planning to land for humans in 2023 for permanent settlement.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One

    29. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      I don't believe that a manned mission to mars could ever be achieved from international competition. It would require international cooperation on a massive scale.

      International cooperation hasn't proven that valuable.

      Costly, expensive does not even begin to cover it. A program for a manned mission to Mars is at least a magnitude of order more difficult than the Apollo program. A starting guess would be 10x of the cost of the Apollo program in adjusted dollars for inflation. One figure I found was $135-billion in 2005 Dollars (cost of the Apollo program). Now if it is 10x harder to do mars, are we talking about 1.3 Trillion?

      If we are talking over a trillion dollars, then it's not worth doing whether as a rich dude project or an international cooperation project. Fortunately, there's no reason it would have to cost that much. Cut two to three orders of magnitude off that price and you'll have a viable project which doesn't need the veneer of international cooperation in order to work.

    30. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So when is the next economic boom scheduled to start?

    31. Re:In related news by dywolf · · Score: 2

      um...
      Kennedy's speech: May 25, 1961
      Appolo 11 Landing: July 20, 1969
      Saturn design was begun in 1961.
      The best you can do is claim the engine itself (F-1), because one of the ways the Apollo / Saturn projects were so successful so quickly was they used a lot of off the shelf or existing tech to cut time. The F-1 engine that was the core of the Saturn V (note: not the earlier Saturn rockets) rocket was one example, with individual components being tested in 1957, and the complete engine being fired in 1959 (though the engine shared components with another design, and both were halted for some time before NASA picked up the tab). It was conceived originally because the Air Force wanted a really big rocket engine, not for any specific purpose, but because they were predicting a need for the technology even if they weren't quite sure for what yet (good forward thinking...develope the tech first, the mission will come later). It was only later after teh AF canceled the project, that NASA saw how such a rocket could be useful for extremely heavy lifters, rather than going the russian route of using a lot of smaller engines (example: N-1 used 30 small motors compared to Saturn V's 5 motors)

      But even that was only 10, maybe 12 years. Not 20 years. And the final F-1s bore only superficial resemblence to the original prototypes, as they continually refined it with each Saturn V / Apollo launch. So the idea that it took 20 years to do the moonshot is fallacious. It took a bit over 8 years from publicly making it a national goal, to accomplishing it. The fact they used an existing motor design that someone had the foresight to conceive a few years prior matters not. Some of the other components were similarly off the shelf and probably as old or older, but that doesn't mean the program itself was that old or inherits that time as part of its own.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    32. Re:In related news by dywolf · · Score: 1

      People rarely think the economy is booming in the present tense. Even back then you'll find politicians and pundits bemoaning the "poor state of the economy".

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    33. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I think Kartu and Guzzirider are correct, going to Mars is AT LEAST 10x harder than going to the Moon, and may well be 100x harder. Meanwhile our technological capabilities are only modestly improved over 1969. We have slightly better rocket technology (we were already bumping up against the practical limits of what is possible with Saturn V). Clearly we have improved our ability to conduct space operations, somewhat, but there's nothing we are doing now that was impossible back in the 70's and none of it has gotten appreciably cheaper.

      If you just 'cut two or three orders of magnitude off that price' what you end up with is not a cheap program, you end up with failure. I know it is all fashionable to suppose that NASA etc are all just vast money-wasting organizations that can't do for a buck what they should be able to do for a dime, but the truth is that stuff is hogwash. It is VERY expensive to do the vast amounts of trial-and-error iterative design work required to get an engine or a guidance system, or a life support system right. Each of these things has 1000's of details involved, each and every one of which MUST be perfect. If you skimp on modeling how your plumbing works then 5 weeks out in deep space when your water system screws itself everyone DIES. It is that simple. I've worked on these systems, I KNOW what I'm talking about. Systems engineering is HARD, and labor intensive, and slow.

      You're going to get ONE shot at Mars. The truth is once you start it gets expensive, and then you need to protect that investment and it gets more expensive, etc. This is why the larger projects run over and fail or achieve only limited success so often. The COMMERCIAL ventures, like SpaceX, are simply riding the coat tails of 1000's of man lifetimes of work done by NASA. Yes, for a very limited specific set of capabilities they will deliver, NOW as the 3rd generation, a significant cost savings into the niche they understand, delivery of materials into Earth orbit. You cannot extrapolate their cost structure to unknown open-ended goal activities like a manned mission to Mars, it simply won't scale that way.

      PERSONALLY I think Mars is out of practical reach of current technology for a manned mission. We need 20 more years of space operations expertise, a dozen more rovers, and we need to develop a much more capable type of spacecraft propelled with nuclear energy. A nuclear-powered VASIMER-like 'tractor' that can drag large payloads back and forth to Mars with turn-arounds on the order of 3 months would vastly simplify the problems involved. Each such simplification then redounds back to lower risks, which inherently creates lower costs as you can work with greater error margins. Build a couple of these nuclear tractors, haul lots of tons of stuff over there (launch costs are still NASTY but not insurmountable). Now you can do things like put men in orbit and have a backup return vehicle, establish an orbiting base, try out landers, prove them out, preposition them on the surface, keep spares in orbit, repair things, etc. Eventually landing itself becomes a much smaller stepping stone. Whether this stuff happens in this century or not is a good question. I think it could be possible in the late 21st Century, but it may still slip into the 22nd. Frankly Mars isn't going away. There's no specific time constraint.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    34. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That paper on using microwaves for propulsion seemed interesting. But wouldn't shorter wavelengths like UV have more energy?

      http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/shawyertheory.pdf

    35. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      99% Percent of U.S. See Flying Cars by 1985.

      It was 2015...but the craziest part of that future was the cubs winning the world series

    36. Re:In related news by ranton · · Score: 1

      75% of the respondents agreed/strongly agreed that NASA's budget should be increased to explore Mars through manned and robotic means.

      Unless they were also asked what programs to cut to pay for NASA's budget increase, this question is meaningless.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    37. Re:In related news by dyingtolive · · Score: 2

      Approximately 48% continually votes for a douchbag with a moneypoisoning for president. It's the one issue the political parties come together upon.

      --
      Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
    38. Re:In related news by Kjella · · Score: 3

      A program for a manned mission to Mars is at least a magnitude of order more difficult than the Apollo program. A starting guess would be 10x of the cost of the Apollo program in adjusted dollars for inflation. One figure I found was $135-billion in 2005 Dollars (cost of the Apollo program). Now if it is 10x harder to do mars, are we talking about 1.3 Trillion?

      Why exactly is a mission to Mars "at least an order of magnitude more difficult" and at 1969 prices to boot? Let's take a look at what it would cost to return to the moon, no we no longer have a Saturn V but since then we've perfected rendezvous operations in space both ship to ship and ship to station enabling us to put the ISS in orbit that is 4 times what Saturn V could lift to LEO. With about 2.3 launches with a SpaceX Falcon Heavy we can put the same weight in orbit for roughly $230 million. You know how much of those $135 billion the Saturn V was? About 47 of them. So already there you have a $46.77 billion savings. Russia has been making fairly serious moon program plans, they estimated the cost of putting humans on the moon starting now to about $15 billion USD.

      Elon Musk of SpaceX has been pulling out some rather ambitious plans for a Mars colony for $36 billion, even if we include a certain level of exaggeration and optimism I feel quite confident that with another Apollo program in cost we'd already be on Mars and then some. It's certainly not "another order of magnitude" away. But the thing is, there's no interest in another Apollo program or even half of one, it's trouble enough finding a billion or two for rovers, probes and telescopes. And it's rather hard for anyone private to see the ROI in funding it themselves, and not for a lack of trying. SpaceX is doing great building rockets but there's a commercial market for that, Mars crew capsules/landers/habitats/launchers not so much.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    39. Re:In related news by guspasho · · Score: 2

      I think you underestimate our apathy. We've been watching them do all kinds of things first for decades, from green energy investment to bullet trains. We just don't care anymore, our national pride is gone. It's been replaced with "Always low prices, always". That is most important to us now. And guess who that ends up helping most?

    40. Re:In related news by guspasho · · Score: 1

      Indeed, what good were satellites or manned space flight in 1956? What good was air flight before 1903? What good is looking at the stars at all? One could go on and on, but the point is that you don't understand how invention and exploration benefits humanity. You can't know until you do it.

      So what good is a moon base? We'd have a low-G depot, for one, with no atmospheric drag. It would be far easier and cheaper to base our spacecraft there than on Earth, with 6 times the gravity and a significant atmosphere to deal with. Helium-3 mining, for another, since the moon is supposed to be rich in the stuff and it's supposed to be useful for fusion research, cryogenics, and some medical uses. It can be a useful training ground for astronauts preparing for bigger missions like Mars, and we can build and deploy far more powerful and advanced telescopes there than we could on earth, due to the lack of atmosphere or geologic activity. These are just a few things I pulled off of the Wikipedia page, and these are all things we thought up before we built any kind of moon base. Who knows what other benefits we could discover once we start building them there.

    41. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 1

      Satellites are not manned, flight had clear uses right from the start. Manned space flight has been a waste of time and money. It was and is nothing more that a international pissing contest. That is why you can fly around the world for a reasonable price, but space is still inaccessible. It currently has no purpose. Neither does a manned moon/mas base. There is nothing that machines can't do better, cheaper and more politically secure than manned anything in space.

      Do you even know how much 3He is up there. Its like an average of 1ppb. You need the biggest mining operation ever, on the moon and you need to process billions of tons of material with 100% efficiency, and after all that you only have enough 3He for a few power stations, oh and these are imaginary power stations because 3He fusion is about 50x harder than DT fusion that we *can't* do. Its a made up reason because even the manned moon based fans can't come up with anything better.

      Seriously... if that is the best list you can come up with, then you have only proved my point. This is not the same as exploring the new world. We are not talking about "manned missions or no missions", we are talking about bases on mars or the moon with people in them that need lots of heavy, fragile life support equipment that get cancer with a few measly months basking in the cosmic ray background. And for what? What will they do that a person here on earth can't do with the correct application of teleoperated and autonomous robotics?

      We are a tool making species. Use the right tool.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    42. Re:In related news by guzzirider · · Score: 1

      "International cooperation hasn't proven that valuable"
      That has been absolutely true.

      However it would be necessary to overcome that to achieve a meaningful mars mission.
      Mars is not the moon, you can't go there and hang out for 3 days and go home.
      To be cost effective, may need to look to China as a resource.
      Again it would not be an easy road to achieve International cooperation
      It could become we (the US) pays for the bulk of it, but big pieces are outsourced.

      Politically that could prove most difficult.

    43. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've moved beyond plaid, to ludicrous

    44. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 1

      That is pure 100% pseudoscience. It violates quite a few fundamental laws which we don't believe can be violated. Like the conservation of energy and momentum. It also doesn't even stack up to plain old math and experiment. Or emag theory is pretty rock solid. Its why your cell phone works as well as it does. Also we have things like this floating around (microwave cavities), and yet we observe no such magical force. Case in point no experiment has. Its right up there with the latest cold fusion fiasco.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    45. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 1

      Going to mars really is that much harder. For one your crew will be almost dead by the time they get there without some serious radiation shielding magic (don't forget we have about 10 metric tons of air per m2 for shielding on earth). Then there is life support etc for the much longer duration. Completely closed system have not been demonstrated at all. Even for one way trips, mars is a much much harder challenge. Delta V doesn't even get close to considering how much harder it is. And yet already that makes it look quite a bit harder.

      A quick BOTE calculation give a deltaV of 19.5km/s for mars compared to 15.7km/s for the moon. Assuming 4500m/s LOX/LH rocket we need mass ratios of 76 for mars compared to 33 for the moon. And that is without any return trip. Including a return trip makes these numbers far worse. Of course this is why its suggested to create your own local rocket fuel.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    46. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've already spent 1.3 trillion elsewhere. Look what it's got us...

    47. Re:In related news by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      The ISS has been such a resounding success that the Russians said they're taking their toys with them and moving to a different (and higher) orbit starting in 2021-2022. Hopefully we'll have a manned spaceflight program again by then (Orion is supposed to have a single test flight in 2019 and Dragon hasn't officially started it's human-rated certification yet). Right now we're renting seats on the Russian's Soyuz to the tune of $60 million a pop.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    48. Re:In related news by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      The radiation wouldn't kill the astronauts, not even on the return trip. The biggest immediate problem to their health is providing some sort of partial-G environment to prevent their bones from turning to dust. Now as for the radiation issues, you're almost certainly going to lose most of your sight within 10 years of returning home, and probably die of leukemia or some other horrible type of incurable cancer. It's a high continuous dosage of radiation, but it's not enough to dramatically weaken, let alone kill you. Unless you get stuck in a CME, in which case you're boned no matter what :)

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    49. Re:In related news by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      The purchasing power of the average american was about 20% higher than it is today, particularly for males. Decline of the middle class isn't a myth, it's a fact.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    50. Re:In related news by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      The purchasing power of the average american was about 20% higher than it is today, particularly for males. Decline of the middle class isn't a myth, it's a fact.

      Hmm, don't remember being able to buy a 50" HDTV for $900 back in '70. Or a desktop computer for $400 or so. Or a cellphone at all....

      Seems to me that for all the wailing about the decline of purchasing power, etc., etc., etc., that we're still managing a much higher standard of living....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    51. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'll find using logic and reason on a Space Nutter achieves nothing. They have their own religion with their own made-up doomsday scenario and they have the answers to everything if you'd just listen!

    52. Re:In related news by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      flight had clear uses right from the start.

      Well, no.

      "From the start", flight was useful for covering distances measured in hundreds of yards, at speeds comparable to a horse.

      The Wrights flew at Kittyhawk at the end of 1903. It wasn't till 1905 that a plane managed to go 24 miles (at 38 mph)....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    53. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, and all it took was a few years for it to "take off" as it were. The Space Nuts have had decades to deliver just a tiny fraction of what they keep promising. Still nothing.

    54. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 1

      The radiation wouldn't kill the astronauts, not even on the return trip.

      Eh... yes it would... with pretty high probability especially with a 3+ crew. At least one is going to have a bad time of it, its not like you spend only a week on the surface. Cancer treatments would be hard to take with you.. Its a really big dose and that is without a CME or flare. The actual dose is hard to predict without a space craft design. Turns out the thin outer layers increase the dose inside. But its really marginal with the most optimistic dose rates.

      And yet we still don't have a reason do send a person. Seriously what can they do that a teleoperated/autonomous robot can't. Other than die horribly and painfully on international tv?

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    55. Re:In related news by delt0r · · Score: 1

      A what does that have to with it clear application? The prototype wasn't a 747 so there was no clear use?

      Flight did have clear applications right from the start (aka it wasn't the first manned flight...). Just because the first plane did not realize all those applications is irrelevant.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    56. Re:In related news by crazyjj · · Score: 1

      An HDTV doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you can't afford to pay rent.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    57. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I think Kartu and Guzzirider are correct, going to Mars is AT LEAST 10x harder than going to the Moon, and may well be 100x harder.

      So what? Hardness doesn't correlate with cost.

      The COMMERCIAL ventures, like SpaceX, are simply riding the coat tails of 1000's of man lifetimes of work done by NASA.

      So what? I imagine you can credit a few thousand lifetimes of work here and there to ancient empires and cultures as well. It's a sunk cost. Might as well use that work rather than let it wither under vastly overpriced government programs.

      I think it could be possible in the late 21st Century, but it may still slip into the 22nd. Frankly Mars isn't going away. There's no specific time constraint.

      Procrastination and your own limited life spans makes their own "time constraints". The same argument could hold now or a few million years from now. But we might not have any descendants kicking around in a few million years.

    58. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      However it would be necessary to overcome that to achieve a meaningful mars mission.

      It's never been necessary in the past.

      Mars is not the moon, you can't go there and hang out for 3 days and go home.

      I guess we'll have to hang out longer then.

      To be cost effective, may need to look to China as a resource.

      To be cost effective, one needs to look to economies of scale. China has some nice ones, but so do most other countries.

      Again it would not be an easy road to achieve International cooperation

      Hence, why we don't make that a requirement for going to Mars.

    59. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      Actually hardness corresponds EXACTLY to cost in engineering. How else would you measure it? Obviously if we were talking about making a starship then we might have a 'scientific breakthrough' sort of hardness to talk about, but going to Mars is a purely engineering challenge without any real need for anything beyond incremental applied science and incremental aerology study, etc.

      You miss the point of my reference to things like SpaceX. They got to orbit fairly cheaply because 95% of the work was done already and could simply be applied. Sunk cost indeed, but the point is if you measured the TOTAL cost of going to orbit reliably and relatively cheaply by what SpaceX spent then you would underestimate the total investmeny by a factor of 20 (at least, I'm pulling that number, it is probably much higher). Thus any argument that by analogy if NASA needs $1 trillion to go to Mars that SpaceX needs only say $100 billion to do the same thing is fatally flawed because it is not an analogous situation (IE NASA has been to orbit already, but not to Mars). As for sending men to Mars there are no sunk costs, 95% or more of the cost required is ahead of us, so it makes perfectly good sense to consider whether we should spend those funds.

      My point with "do it later, Mars will be there" is that things always get cheaper. In 50 years we'll have even cheaper launch costs, much more experience with cost-efficient manned space operations, etc. We can also spend those 50 or more years gathering all the needed information and doing all the studies we could possibly need. This will reduce the number of engineering dead ends and re-directions that are required along the way when you do the science and the engineering in parallel. At some point the unknowns will be much smaller, the costs smaller, and the risks smaller. At that time the cost will be GEOMETRICALLY less because you can then leave off many redundancies and use more of a standard off-the-shelf approach using Nth generation perfected commercial technology, which clearly will itself be an order of magnitude cheaper. Thus the cost in corrected $ of a manned Mars mission conducted in say 2080 could well be $50 billion, vs $1.2 trillion to do it now. Is it really worth pushing it that hard? It is one thing to argue that the high cost is worth it in some sense if that's the cost and it can't be reduced much then that's simply the cost of the human race 'being human' and going there. BUT if you instead consider the huge costs now against all the other lost opportunities that need not be lost at all if we wait a few decades then we have to seriously wonder if it isn't better to just pace ourselves and take carefull measured steps in a fiscally prudent fashion. We can use the $1+ trillion to solve our energy problems today and STILL get to Mars, maybe one generation late, at a trivial cost.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    60. Re:In related news by wallsg · · Score: 1

      I'm sure that most of the population in the 60s and 70s thought we'd had bases on the moon by 2001. That was twelve years ago.

      Didn't the nuclear waste dump on the moon knock it out of orbit on September 13, 1999? All those poor people on Moonbase Alpha...

    61. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      Actually hardness corresponds EXACTLY to cost in engineering.

      There is no such correspondence. To build a single blue LED requires a vast amount of knowledge and infrastructure. But an actual blue LED costs a lot less than the oh, trillions to tens of trillions of dollars of infrastructure and knowledge required to make it.

      Plus, I think the cost of a Mars mission is vastly overstated despite its difficulty. Apollo is not a good choice for a comparison because it was a rushed, prestige project (unless of course, a Mars mission becomes a rushed, prestige project as well). There was almost no interest in controlling costs till by the first manned landing in 1969 (by which most of the money had been spent).

    62. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      But a Mars mission is not an assembly line produced low-cost consumer item like a blue LED. There isn't even any analogy to be made there. A Mars mission is more like building a tunnel under the English Channel. Yes, there are other things you will do with the technology and other projects which will contribute technical knowhow, but it is a project unto itself. "Engineering" a Mars mission IS going to Mars, pure and simple. The end result of the engineering process is footprints on the surface. There's no assembly line where you amortize the costs.

      Again, this cost thing is going back to the "Government can only waste money" silliness. Trust me, when you do something for the first time it is EXPENSIVE. Could going to the Moon have been cheaper? I doubt it. In fact the real lesson with large projects is that once you get into the implementation phase the cheapest way to do them is sustained forward effort directed towards soonest results. Dabbling along slowly is a recipe for project failure and massive cost overruns which has been proven again and again during the space program as well as in every other branch of engineering where it is relevant. It is of course possible that with 20/20 hindsight we can see where slowing down and making a few different decisions etc would have actually been better, but the forward momentum of the project would have failed and it wouldn't have panned out that way. Hindsight is basically worthless, which is why Epimethius was Prometheus' idiot brother. So, I reject the claim that Apollo isn't a reasonable cost basis. Even supposing it is not, what is, the Space Shuttle? ISS? Ummm, you ain't got a lot of examples to go on there and NONE of them points towards things costing less than anticipated, ever.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    63. Re:In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I see Mars people..."

    64. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      But a Mars mission is not an assembly line produced low-cost consumer item like a blue LED. There isn't even any analogy to be made there.

      I don't expect millions of Mars missions at a time. But low mission frequency is a fundamental problem of all current space exploration.

    65. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      It is hard to see how that will be overcome. Its a catch-22, and again it implies that the probable development of manned spaceflight is that we'll continue with smaller limited operations with things like the ISS, maybe some other near-Earth missions (lunar, NEO, LaGrange points, etc) plus possibly space tourism. That might gradually lead to some limited manned commercial operations of other types, salvage, some manufacturing of propellants or volatiles, maybe SPSes, and at some point operations will be cheap enough that repeat Mars missions and such will be inexpensive enough that it will be attractive and we'll cross over that hump. I'd expect another factor would be the tapping out of automated missions. The 20th unmanned rover is going to be pretty marginal and at that point all that will be left is to actually send people to sort out the stuff those missions can never really resolve. That could easily be 50 or more years down the road though.

      Again, I just don't think the time is ripe. Mars is a bridge too far with current technology and expertise. We COULD do it, but it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to do it now vs building up to it over at least a few more decades. Of course my sense of how fast that build up is going to happen could well be off. Maybe the next 15 years holds some massive amount of orbital activity that will drop the bottom out of prices or something. However, judging by how overly optimistic people have been historically about space flight it seems more likely to me that things will go slower than one would niaively imagine.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    66. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      We COULD do it, but it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to do it now vs building up to it over at least a few more decades.

      While I disagree strongly with parts of your argument (such as the claim that cost corresponds to difficulty). I don't fundamentally disagree with your prediction here. I too consider a Mars mission to be something that can happen many decades from now, but perhaps much earlier, if a large drop in cost to orbit (the oft desired "cheap access to space") happens over the next couple of decades.

      It is worth noting that while the optimists have been thwarted, so have the worst of the pessimists. Even excluding the effects of SpaceX (which even in the absence of substantial launches has encouraged competitors to drop their prices), orbital launch has steadily declined in price while simultaneously increased in capability. It's just doing so slower than we would like.

    67. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      You miss the point of my reference to things like SpaceX. They got to orbit fairly cheaply because 95% of the work was done already and could simply be applied. Sunk cost indeed, but the point is if you measured the TOTAL cost of going to orbit reliably and relatively cheaply by what SpaceX spent then you would underestimate the total investmeny by a factor of 20 (at least, I'm pulling that number, it is probably much higher). Thus any argument that by analogy if NASA needs $1 trillion to go to Mars that SpaceX needs only say $100 billion to do the same thing is fatally flawed because it is not an analogous situation (IE NASA has been to orbit already, but not to Mars). As for sending men to Mars there are no sunk costs, 95% or more of the cost required is ahead of us, so it makes perfectly good sense to consider whether we should spend those funds.

      It's worth noting here that a NASA group got access to SpaceX financial numbers and estimated that SpaceX developed the Falcon 1 and 9, three engine designs, and half a dozen launches on about ten times less than NASA would have contracted the bid for.

      So instead of a factor of 20 or whatever, divide that by ten.

      My opinion is that we can drop two orders of magnitude off your cost estimate for a Mars mission, if a) we don't use a national space program, and b) we don't have "international cooperation". Each of those factors adds a zero to the cost of doing things. Ten billion dollars is still a bit too much for a single manned mission to Mars so I think we'll have to wait till it's a bit cheaper than that.

    68. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      It is getting cheaper, and since launch to LEO is a fairly high expense it is generally encouraging. My understanding of the economics of space launch though is it will never get a LOT cheaper. It might drop by another factor of 3, maybe with really high demand 5, but rockets are just EXPENSIVE, they exist at the very limits of the maximum performance of physical machines. Other launch technologies are intriguing but clearly many decades, possibly centuries, from realization (IE we could probably build a rail gun type system, but it would have only limited application for small payloads with very high G acceleration tolerance). Things like towers, bolos, elevators, etc are pretty out there still, with largely unknown engineering challenges. Laser/microwave launch systems may be the most feasible, but would still seem to be at least 30-50 years from maturity (its possible a crash program could develop such a system in say 20 years maybe, hard to say).

      I'm not sure who the worst pessimists are. It seems to me few people predicted a slower or more limited manned entry into space than what we have actually had, aside from pre-Sputnik era scoffers who insisted that space flight in general was impossible or infeasible. It seems to me that since then there's been a pretty consistent underestimation of the time and money required. My experience as an engineer and working some in aerospace is that engineers generally underestimate by a factor of at least 4, sometimes up to 10. So the guys like Zubrin et all are probably short by AT LEAST 400% in their cost estimates, though time estimates are more variable. These kinds of prognostications are of course hard to empirically validate, but they have proven out fairly well experientally.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    69. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      Again though, SpaceX is doing something that has been done HUNDREDS of times before. NASA and the USSR/Russia have developed almost a dozen manned spacecraft and literally 100's of boosters. Every single element of the design of Falcon and Dragon are highly conservative. No team designing a booster would even blink an eye at anything SpaceX has chosen to do. The most radical technical advance they've made are some advances in using composites in rocket nozzles. I'd also note that SpaceX has yet to demonstrate that they can man-rate their launch systems economically. IMHO they will do it, but what they've done so far is not the whole enchillada, even in just getting a man into orbit. Costs increase dramatically at that point due to the huge expense of the incremental costs of higher reliability systems (once costs escalate somewhat it is even more necessary to use more conservative design to protect those investments, causing even more cost increases).

      The point is Mars is a whole new beast. It isn't simply doing what someone else has done before. There is NO indication that any such thing as 10x cost savings can be achieved in such a project. In fact I simply reject the notion that this is possible. Its a popular notion amongst some groups of people, but it has no basis in reality. Once manned travel to Mars has been achieved to a degree that it is ALMOST routine then I would fully expect SpaceX to reproduce that technology for 1/10th of the initial cost and operate it at 500% discount, but not until then. Doing something for the first time is just much riskier and thus impossible to fund economically, and simply requires large amounts of time, large resources, and the ability to try out many approaches iteratively and incrementally. Commercial ventures simply lack the structure for that kind of effort, and as soon as you marry them to a public venture you have basically NASA. I mean it isn't like NASA directly developed most of its own hardware, it was all supplied by contractors at the lowest price they could bid. It was expensive because things had to be overengineered for unknowns, most designs had to be tossed out or iterated 3-5 times, etc.

      Obviously time will tell. I'll be thrilled if prices for all sorts of space ventures come down a large amount. I am just skeptical that cutting edge ventures will ever be much cheaper than they are now.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    70. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      Again though, SpaceX is doing something that has been done HUNDREDS of times before.

      No. It's doing that "HUNDREDS of times before" thing (which actually is about a dozen times, considering we're speaking of developing working commercial orbital launch) for far cheaper than it's been done before. That makes it a first time. There's a number of manufacture and operations innovations that SpaceX has employed as well (small launch teams, the friction stir-welded tank, new take on engine clustering, etc).

      The point is Mars is a whole new beast. It isn't simply doing what someone else has done before. There is NO indication that any such thing as 10x cost savings can be achieved in such a project.

      I already gave one such indication. SpaceX has control over development (and actual operations of a launch vehicle) costs that NASA can only envy. That's a factor of ten right there.

      Once manned travel to Mars has been achieved to a degree that it is ALMOST routine then I would fully expect SpaceX to reproduce that technology for 1/10th of the initial cost and operate it at 500% discount, but not until then.

      Why would you think that? It's worth noting here that, unlike NASA, SpaceX has a proven development team for launch vehicles and spacecraft and it is not the only one in the private world.

    71. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      My understanding of the economics of space launch though is it will never get a LOT cheaper. It might drop by another factor of 3, maybe with really high demand 5, but rockets are just EXPENSIVE, they exist at the very limits of the maximum performance of physical machines.

      I believe they will drop to a multiple of propellant costs (about a factor of three like it is in the air passenger industry). Currently, fuel costs are about $30 (kerosene/LOX) to $100 (liquid H2/LOX) per kilogram of payload. So maybe $100 to $300 in launch costs per kilogram of payload. It'll require almost perfect reusability of the launch hardware, just like it does in the air passenger industry.

    72. Re:In related news by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 1

      What spacecraft? SpaceX has built one spacecraft, which is the what, 5th craft of basically the identical type that does the same job? Sorry, they've got a tight focus, a good management structure, and a good eye for incremental cost cutting and understanding system cost issues, but none of this is revolutionary. Nor are their costs 1/10th of those of other vendors. In fact ULA charges currently between 150 and 200% of what SpaceX charges, but they also have an unbroken string of launch successes going back a couple decades, vs what 6 total launches for SpaceX, which consequently charges a discount price. Clearly Falcon CAN be operated more cheaply than Delta, but its nothing like 10x cheaper.

      So, frankly I just reject your numbers. You can go look up the actual pricing on ULA and SpaceX launches if you want. Given that NASA doesn't currently directly operate any launch systems there's no way to equate a cost there. However it is notable that the Russians fee structure is pretty similar to ULAs. SpaceX is definitely undercutting existing vendors in a market that is transitioning to a commodity. This is simply totally different from executing a cutting-edge one-off like a manned Mars mission. Trust me, I've worked on this sort of thing, I know a lot of people that have worked on this stuff. It is ludicrous to believe that anyone will do it 10x cheaper the first time around. Even if you handed the project to SpaceX how would you know it was 10x cheaper? Cheaper than what? Nobody has done it before. I guarantee you it will be REALLY expensive. $200 billion IMHO is pretty optimistic given the actual costs incurred for things like ISS and Shuttle.

      --
      "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
    73. Re:In related news by khallow · · Score: 1

      SpaceX has built one spacecraft

      And that's one more than NASA has built in recent decades.

      Sorry, they've got a tight focus, a good management structure, and a good eye for incremental cost cutting and understanding system cost issues, but none of this is revolutionary.

      Nor does it need to be revolutionary. My view is that the biggest obstacles to cheap space flight, manned or unmanned, are economical, mainly not exploiting the economy of scale for higher frequency of use of the thing in question, be it orbital launch, space probes, etc.

      In fact ULA charges currently between 150 and 200% of what SpaceX charges, but they also have an unbroken string of launch successes going back a couple decades, vs what 6 total launches for SpaceX, which consequently charges a discount price.

      The ULA sells to the federal government (the Delta IV is exclusively to the federal government) so they have little reason to cut costs.

      Also there's have been 9 total launches for SpaceX of which 3 have failed outright (the first three I might add) and 1 which lost a secondary payload. Further as SpaceX launches more and at a higher launch frequency, they will charge less. That's a little different than how the ULA does things.

      So, frankly I just reject your numbers.

      You can reject whatever you'd like. But in one of the few comparisons between an efficient space business and a government space agency, spending money in all the right congressional districts, the former outperformed the latter by at least an order of magnitude.

      Note that the costing for the NASA contract equivalent would have been a factor of ten higher. The actual amount paid would have probably been even higher than that. I think people don't understand just how inefficient space programs are.

  2. Mad skillZ by Dutchmaan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Two things man is exceptionally good at with great consistency; overestimating his progress in the future and underestimating the resilience of nature.

    1. Re:Mad skillZ by mythealias · · Score: 1

      Yup. Polls like this should also include few questions to gauge the understanding of the voter on the subject. I would like to see a poll of how much do people think we can improve the car engine efficiency in next decade or two.

    2. Re:Mad skillZ by neyla · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the trend is to overestimate the short-term changes, while underestimating long-term actually.

      And long-term gets shorter all the time. We've made more technological progress in the last 50 years than we did in the 100 before that, or the 200 before those, or the 500 before. (i.e. 1963-2013 has seen more technological progress than 1163 - 1663 did.

    3. Re:Mad skillZ by backslashdot · · Score: 2

      You sound like one of the people who told the Wright brothers they'll never fly. Or maybe you're that 1920s New York Times editor who said that rocketry is junk science and would never get us to space let alone the moon.

    4. Re:Mad skillZ by locofungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Getting someone to Mars (and presumably back again) is an engineering problem. We know how to do it in theory - we know multiple ways it could be done and all that remains is to decide the "best" way to do it and find the funds to achieve it.

      But "the funds" will be eye watering sums to the average man in the street and the payback is hard to define, certainly in the short term.

      We can't even find the funds to seriously research nuclear fusion. That is currently a physics problem rather than an engineering problem, we don't currently know how to build a working commercial fusion power plant but it seems likely that one should be possible and the payback is pretty obvious.

      I don't foresee a man on Mars or a working commercial fusion power plant in my lifetime - I'm just old enough to have been alive when there were men on the moon but not old enough to remember it. I've some hope that China might spur on the US and EU eventually but I think there's another 15-20 years before Chinese accomplishments go beyond the "well we did it in the past and we could do it again now if we really wanted to but there's no point" attitude of the majority of the electorate in the West.

      So I don't see a man on Mars in 20 years - just possibly I see the start of a race to put a man on Mars in the next 20 years.

      Tim.

      --
      God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
    5. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two things man is exceptionally good at with great consistency; overestimating his progress in the future and underestimating the resilience of nature.

      At least it's still wonderful to see a great optimism in the results.

    6. Re:Mad skillZ by javilon · · Score: 2

      I agree, it is too expensive, and not enough payback.

      The only reason to send a human to Mars would be if he is going to stay there and found a colony. Anything else can be achieved in a way that is better and cheaper by robots. And we already know we can send (and recover alive) people to space, so no need to do it again unless it is for good reason.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    7. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Besides, lack of options. No CowboyNeil option, which should not be optional.

    8. Re:Mad skillZ by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Two things man is exceptionally good at with great consistency; overestimating his progress in the future and underestimating the resilience of nature.

      Hey, the survey only talked about "sending" a human to Mars.

      "Sending" is the easy part. It's the actual travel, landing, and staying alive that is going to be difficult. May be we should just let Russia, China, or India, figure it all out for us. The US has become too risk adverse these days.

    9. Re:Mad skillZ by balsy2001 · · Score: 2

      Exactly. The costs aren't even close. You could probably send over 100 robot missions for the cost of sending one manned trip. The payback is basically bragging rights. The humans would just push the start button for the equipment the robots have. There are some drawbacks too, we already have difficulty distinguishing between earth contaminants and potential signs of life on mars, imagine how much harder it would be with people actually there. People suffer fatigue, robots don't (some of the early rovers were thought to have effective life spans of a few months, and they are still operating years later. You don't get that out of people). Everyone gets bent out of shape when a human dies, but basically when you crash a robot people say better luck next time. It would be totally cool, but until we have tons of money and have completed all possible robotic research, the cost benefit will always be with robots.

      --
      GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
    10. Re:Mad skillZ by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. And consistently ignoring that all these predictions from the past have not materialized...

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    11. Re:Mad skillZ by Grave · · Score: 2

      Sending and recovering people between the Earth and the Moon isn't the same as another planet - it's a good start, but the logistics are different. It's a bit silly to think we're going to go from sending a few robots here and there to building a colony in one fell swoop. In theory, it could be done - but the thing about a Mars colony is that it will absolutely require long term funding. If all nations abruptly decided to stop funding the ISS today, the astronauts on board could come back down to Earth using the escape shuttle. That's not such a simple prospect for a Mars colony. The nations who have both the political will to stick to something long term and the money are.. what, China? Maybe? The US will only develop that political will if we feel threatened, or start celebrating science and discovery like we do music and movies.

      I'd be ecstatic if we have a prime-time awards ceremony watch by millions of Americans some day in which the company that broadcasts it has to send a warning to the award nominees not to dress to provocatively.

    12. Re:Mad skillZ by cheesybagel · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Depends on how you measure progress. Transportation is not any faster. Energy is not any cheaper to generate.

      The computers are better and communications are more pervasive and ubiquitous.

      It is laughable to dismiss the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration like that.

    13. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF - France has 350+mph trains. Try that in 1963.

    14. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, if 46% percent of America believe in creationism, then what value is a poll like this?

      But when half of your sample can't follow science, your opinion poll is just random noise.

      I bet half or more of Americans believe all sorts of stupid shit.

    15. Re:Mad skillZ by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

      You sound like one of the people who told the Wright brothers they'll never fly. Or maybe you're that 1920s New York Times editor who said that rocketry is junk science and would never get us to space let alone the moon.

      The NASA timeline for a manned mission to mars is 2037 if is very possible that the time line will slip and miss the next two decades mark. It's not that we can't do it it's just that many things must go right for us to achieve this goal by 2040.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    16. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on how you measure progress. Transportation is not any faster. Energy is not any cheaper to generate.

      No, neither transportation nor energy have seen great increases themselves, but damn near every single thing that uses energy in our lives or transports has seen massive increases in efficiency. In that sense, yes, we have seen considerable progress.

      The computers are better and communications are more pervasive and ubiquitous.

      Uh, your wristwatch used to take an entire room (and a couple dozen amps of power) to operate. This is a bit of an understatement.

      It is laughable to dismiss the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration like that.

      As is equally as laughable as your points here. Progress can be measured in many ways. As it relates to this article, I really don't see one of those being anywhere near Mars, but hey anything to beat the Russians in the mad space race...

    17. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is little pressure to improve the speed of transportation presently, but I reject that it hasn't improved from the 1500s. I can get anywhere in the world in half a day. I was unable to locate a source in my quick search for historical energy prices, so I can't say anything on that point. However, electricity production has gotten much cleaner, electricity efficiency has improved, and capacity for energy production has increased.

      It's not at all that there was no, or even little, progress during the Renaissance or Age of Exploration. Indeed, the GP argues that there was comparable progress made during those periods to the incredible progress that we've (except the youngsters) observed within our lifetimes. It's not even surprising that the pace of improvement increases over time. Consider the population of the world has been increasing dramatically, and the efficiency with which we provide for our basic needs has also improved dramatically. Both of these trends act to free up many more people for the task of creating technological improvements.

    18. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      amps measure current, not power.

    19. Re:Mad skillZ by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      And long-term gets shorter all the time. We've made more technological progress in the last 50 years than we did in the 100 before that, or the 200 before those, or the 500 before.

      So logically, we're going to asymptote and know everything about everything and do anything we want to in 2063. Or so the singularity believers claim.

      The trouble is, it's based on a phony idea. The last 50 years of technological progress are impressive, but so were the previous 50 years: Some of the major developments between 1913 and 1963:
      - Mass produced cars
      - Widespread use of AC electric power
      - Widespread use of telephones
      - plastics
      - nuclear power
      - radio
      - television
      - significant air travel
      - vacuum tube computers
      - vaccinations
      - intravenous anesthetics

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    20. Re:Mad skillZ by cheesybagel · · Score: 1
      Airplanes were faster than that. The Boeing 727 had a cruise speed of 599 mph. In 1955 there were electric trains capable of 206 mph in France. However the absolute land speed record in 1947 was 394 mph.

      The modern electric train record speeds are due to two factors: automated signaling systems which makes such speeds practical (i.e. electronics and software), and lighter passenger trains.

    21. Re:Mad skillZ by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      What I reject is the parents notion that we made more progress in the last 50 years than in the 100 years before that. That is simply laughable. The difference between having some faster computers or whatever (even integrated circuits were invented over 50 years ago) compared to actually having electricity, telephone, radio, automobiles, aircraft, nuclear power, for the first time is simply enormous.

      No the rate of technological progress is not greater. Impact varies widely across technological areas. The other claims are also pathetic. Just another person who has been drinking too much Kurzweilian cool-aid.

      There have been advances made since then of course but the advances are often in totally different areas. Even in the XIXth century there were many advances made in logistics and tabulating machines which could be comparable to the earliest computers in terms of impact. In fact this is the reason why million men armies in WWI were logistically manageable for the first time.

    22. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If by "underestimating the resilience of nature" you mean that biodiversity will be restored within 50-100,000 years after the extinction of mankind, then sure! Super-resilient!

    23. Re:Mad skillZ by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      I agree, it is too expensive, and not enough payback.

      Same could be said for our military adventurism, but we still do it. It's just a sociological problem of how to present space travel to the public so they go along with the spending of the money.

    24. Re:Mad skillZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously? What have we developed in the last 50 years that compares in impact to the introduction of electrification, or the telephone, or radio? The railway is what made cities as we know them possible - before that, you had to live within a few hour's walk of herds of cattle and fields of crops. What have we done since 1963 that compares with that?

    25. Re:Mad skillZ by neyla · · Score: 1

      Transportation is *tons* faster. No, not *every* type of transport over *every* conceivable route, but on the average, things have improved a lot. Roads have improved quite a bit, and air-travel have become extremely much cheaper, thus while 50 years ago people would spend 15 hours driving Stavanger to Trondheim, today they take a plane instead and spend one hour in the air, and a total of perhaps 2 - 3 hours city-centre to city-centre.

      Yes, planes existed 50 years ago too, but their cost was extremely much higher thus the average person used them much more seldom.

      Similarly, yes you could place a phone-call to USA from Norway 50 years ago too, just like you can today. But it's the same story: the price has dropped by 2-3 orders of magnitude thus what was a rare luxury is today something you can do for hours every day without even noticing the financial hit, if you're so inclined.

      Energy ? I get 4 megawatt-hours for a days pay. How much energy did you get for a days pay 50 years ago ? Furthermore, I can do much more with that energy since my car, my house and my appliances are *much* more energy-effective.

    26. Re:Mad skillZ by neyla · · Score: 1

      Sure, but look at the average speed people, or goods, actually travel at, not what's in principle possible.

      What did it cost to be on the 727 in 1963, relative to what it costs to be on a fast train today ?

    27. Re:Mad skillZ by neyla · · Score: 1

      I don't think we'll hit a singularity, no. But yes, I think that we'll see a lot of progress, more than we have in the previous 50 years.

      You're right that a lot of things happened even 1913-1963. Now you do the same thing for 1713-1763. I think you'll find you agree with my claim that progress is speeding up. Precisely how -much- it speeds up, we can debate.

  3. And half the population are alien abductees. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Damn Martians. It's payback time.

  4. And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    76% of the U.S. population believes an invisible guy in the sky watching them all the time too.

    Unlikely doesn't get more likely just because you got the majority to believe it...

    1. Re:And... by turp182 · · Score: 5, Funny

      That would be the drones flying overhead, and they are in fact real...

      --
      BlameBillCosby.com
  5. How will we bypass the radiation to get there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just wondering? It's a long flight with a lot of exposure.

    1. Re:How will we bypass the radiation to get there? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      It's probably actually less of an issue than you'd think - the ISS is already dealing with most of what we'll encounter on the trip. The Earth's magnetosphere primarily shields against the solar wind - high velocity ionized atoms. And by virtue of their atomic nature that will be stopped by pretty much anything, though dissipating the charge may be an issue.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  6. Physics for Future Presidents by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 0

    And 57% of respondents agree by 2053 we will be flying around the galaxy in faster-than-light spaceships. You know, like the Millennium Falcon. They saw it in a movie. And most of those believe Obama is a Secret Muslim Nigerian. What are we trying to prove here?

    1. Re:Physics for Future Presidents by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Funny

      And 57% of respondents agree by 2053 we will be flying around the galaxy in faster-than-light spaceships. You know, like the Millennium Falcon. They saw it in a movie. And most of those believe Obama is a Secret Muslim Nigerian. What are we trying to prove here?

      (emboldening, mine)

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like we're simply trying to prove the validity of a certain method of business...

      Hello, I am the Nigerian President of the USA,
      As you know, my countries are in turmoil, so I need your help to smuggle my Secrit Muslim inheritance of pressious diamounds from Nigeria into the USA to solve this dire $16.5 trillien nashonal debt problem.

      Unfortunately, only the Millennium Falcon is capable of transporting these valuables through the Evil Galactic Umpire's diplomatic sanctions, and they will not accept my payment of carbonite crystels, which is all I have access to in my current situation.

      Please, you must help me save my people from Finance Oil Wars so that we may and purchase safe passage from the NASA smugglers. I only need All Social Security Benefits more to pay the smugglers. Please do not forward this message to the police of The Repelican Party or we will surely be found and executed, and our people will suffer great deals. For your assistance with this trouble I am willing to wire transfer you Peece on Earth and Goodwill dollars once this matter is settled.

      To help, please make arrangements for payment at this website.
      Please also reply and include your bank account and routing number and your All Pursonal Online information so I can send you compensation for your good deeds.

      I sincerely Thank You in advance for help in these troubling times.
      Signed,
      Obama Hussein Jong il Bin Laden III.

  7. Meanwhile in the UK ... by ciderbrew · · Score: 2

    Developing a new high speed rail network - London to Birmingham..
    "Construction along the line is due to start in 2017 and be completed by 2025. The first train services will run between London and Birmingham from 2026." https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/developing-a-new-high-speed-rail-network

    Add in the delays and 2033 looks possible! - Would you believe England used to rule 3/4 of the planet?

    1. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by grimJester · · Score: 1

      And do you think the US will have high speed rail by 2033, let alone a man on Mars?

    2. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Add in the delays and 2033 looks possible! - Would you believe England used to rule 3/4 of the planet?

      I hear there are still 22 countries on Earth that have never been invaded by the British...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    3. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      I hear there are still 22 countries on Earth that have never been invaded by the British...

      Or vice versa.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    4. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      If California gets theirs built, yes.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    5. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would anyone not believe that, on the basis of a few facts about a specific project which is scheduled in order to optimize the annual funding burden?

      The fact it's being built at all, at this point in the economic cycle, is fairly impressive, but you think we're less of a country for not doing it on timescales you approve of? Wow. If you live in England, please leave now.

    6. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by RaceProUK · · Score: 2

      Add in the delays and 2033 looks possible! - Would you believe England used to rule 3/4 of the planet?

      I hear there are still 22 countries on Earth that have never been invaded by the British...

      As a country, we do pine somewhat about the loss of the Empire... maybe it's time to rebuild it.

      j/k :)

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    7. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      By the time it is running Japan will have a super-super-high-speed maglev service going. Even when we try to build something like this we have no ambition.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wish I could mod this up (as an immigrant to the UK)

    9. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by foniksonik · · Score: 1

      Do it in space. There's no one to stop you. It'll be like the old days but even greater. A couple of planets, some moons, hell colonize a few big meteors too!

      If it was my country I'd build some robot slave labor to do all the dirty work, at least until population pressure kicks in on the home world (no we're not there yet, give it another hundred years).

      --
      A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
    10. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you believe England used to rule 3/4 of the planet?

      Depending on how you count: yes.

    11. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by ciderbrew · · Score: 1

      Not really the point; but well done.

    12. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by ciderbrew · · Score: 1

      Have you live out side of the UK? They are building something that is out of date for now.

    13. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The same happened with the EuroTunnel. And with a simple bypass road in the North-East of Scotland. They rule out building tunnels as too expensive, then in the time it has taken to conduct a review, resubmit planning permission, the costs have risen so much that it would have been cheaper to build the tunnel in the first place.

    14. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Considering how the first leg is being built tween 2 shit cities in the fucking desert, don't hold your breath.

    15. Re:Meanwhile in the UK ... by ciderbrew · · Score: 1

      There are so many projects like that. It should be made criminal.

      Just found this - CROSSRAIL - 1880s?!?!?! WTF!
      http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/crossrail-from-its-early-beginnings

  8. In a poll by Peak Oil For Climate Change... by mdm42 · · Score: 0

    74% of respondents expected to see no humans on Earth by 2032.

    --
    New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
    1. Re:In a poll by Peak Oil For Climate Change... by rmdingler · · Score: 0

      Funny. No mod points. Apparently riding the dog like a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment. Since I'm here, I hope you won't take umbrage if I offer a tweak to the new mod. Drunken Rambling should like the Ace of Mods...it could be used as in poker as ace high or ace low. 'Cause you know, sometimes drinking makes you real smart.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

  9. A Reality TV Show will pay for it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The team at http://mars-one.com/en/ plan to send 4 people to mars late 2022 and they will arrive in 2023. That is a decade ahead of the poll.

  10. I wonder how many of those see Americans on Mars.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're not going to get there by slashing NASA's budget. A joint collaberation between China Russia and the ESA will probably do it first.

  11. Unsurprising by slimdave · · Score: 3, Funny

    Poll sponsored by Boeing and Mars exploration group finds public opinion agrees with their own wishes. Here is essential information on how polls work, courtesy of "Yes, Prime Minister": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

  12. Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by Viol8 · · Score: 0

    The medieval explorers usually had a fairly good idea that if they found new land there would at least be something to eat, wood to fix the boat and if they were lucky someone to trade with. And failing that there was always fish in the sea to eat plus they didn't have to take their own air.

    So humans go to mars - carrying everything. And do what? Sure, exploring is fun for a while but theres notalot to see and then what? Current rocket technologies are woefully inadequate - far worse in comparison to a sailing ship on the ocean - for any sort of exchange of people or goods from earth to mars. So other than doing some scientific research which in 20 years will probably be able to be done just as well by robot - whats the point until we develop faster space drives?

    1. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You might be able to build a space elevator on mars, gravity is lower there, that should make it a lot easier to send stuff home.

      We're not that far from having the tech to be able to colonize Mars f'real. But we're not there yet, and I doubt we'll be there in 20 years either. I think we could be, but only if we put aside childish things, and BWAHAHAHAHA

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by slimdave · · Score: 1

      You might be able to build a space elevator on mars, gravity is lower there, that should make it a lot easier to send stuff home.

      Ironically, as gravity reduces and the ease of building a space elevator increases, the costs of the regular alternatives to an elevator decrease.

      I wonder if we would ever find anything on Mars that is so rare and expensive that it would be worth fetching it from there? It seems doubtful.

    3. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      Exactly. What is the actual cost/benefits ratio here?

      Saying we made it there? So what? What's the point if there's nothing there of use of value that we can bring or make use of back here on Earth?

      Are we out of human suffering and everyone has enough food, water, shelter, medical care, and jobs that we can piss away money into space?

    4. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Die! Cold and alone.

    5. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by slimdave · · Score: 1

      Does the phrase "Bread and Circuses" mean nothing to you?

    6. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by spiritplumber · · Score: 1

      Elerium-115, obviously.

      --
      Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
    7. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      How well did that turn out for Rome? ;)

    8. Re:Ok , humans go to Mars ... and do what? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Ironically, as gravity reduces and the ease of building a space elevator increases, the costs of the regular alternatives to an elevator decrease.

      It doesn't change the fact that if you bring down as much as you send up it's basically free to operate, which distinguishes it significantly from pretty much everything else.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  13. And in other news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Do you think this poll is stupid?:
    Yes [x]
    No [ ]
    And in other news, 100% of Humans agreed that this Poll was stupid.
    The poll was taken by one person, but I just scaled it up to the entire human race because why the hell not? All glory to the statistics toad.

    Statistics doesn't work that way. Not even remotely.
    1000 people barely even represent an entire region, never mind a damn country, especially if it is one local group of people in the same area!
    Not to mention the types of people who typically take polls in the first place!

    I am sick of these stupid polls that do this. STOP IT, STOP RUINING MATHS. GO AWAY. GO TO MARS!

  14. 71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh this means something! Woohoo! 70% probably see us merging wit some sort of unprovable god being as well weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

    1. Re:71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Translates to "71% of humans wish humans could be on Mars by 2033"

      More like "71% of humans wish some other humans could be sent on Mars by 2033." I'm proposing a certain brand of fundies to have the honor of the first shipment. You know, to bring the Word to the savage planet or something. Or maybe the Access.

    2. Re:71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033 by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      "More like "71% of humans wish some other humans could be sent on Mars by 2033." I'm proposing a certain brand of fundies to have the honor of the first shipment. You know, to bring the Word to the savage planet or something. Or maybe the Access."

      So when you check into your room on Mars check the nightstand and you will find a Bible open up the front and you will see a stamp "This Bible Placed at the Mars Hilton by The Gideons"

      http://www.gideons.org/

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  15. Gravity! by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1, Troll

    Given that Mars's Gravity is roughly 39% that of the earth a manned mission seems unlikely unless great improvements are made in rocket efficiency. Unless they intend it to be a one way mission in which case can I volunteer Piers Morgan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Morgan

    --

    Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    1. Re:Gravity! by jouassou · · Score: 1

      One-way mission to Mars, you say? Then this is relevant.

    2. Re:Gravity! by findoutmoretoday · · Score: 1

      Given that Mars's Gravity is roughly 39% that of the earth a manned mission seems unlikely unless great improvements are made in rocket efficiency.

      So? The escape velocity from Mars is two times that of the moon.

  16. 71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033 by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Translates to "71% of humans wish humans could be on Mars by 2033"

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  17. We can't organize that well by cshotton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What those 77% of people fail to realize is that we can no longer organize ourselves well enough to accomplish this sort of task. NASA, as an institution, long ago stopped being about technical successes and exploration. During my years working with NASA, I discovered that a NASA manager's career success is measured solely by the number of people they manage and the size of the budget they control. Not by how many successful missions they achieved, not by the technology breakthroughs they fostered, and not by any other rational measure beyond their org chart success.

    So we have no government agency capable of focusing on such a complicated goal as landing humans on Mars. They immediately get distracted with project management issues and politics. If private industry were to try and undertake this effort, there would have to be some financial incentive for our largest private spacefaring corporations to try and cooperate, since none have the resources alone to achieve the goal within 20 years. And the only model they have for organizing themselves is NASA today. No one still working in the industry knows how NASA of the 1960's worked, and society has changed to the point that the technical people required for such an effort are no longer motivated to make the selfless sacrifices needed to achieve such a goal. All the good engineers left aerospace for the Dot.Com world in the '90s. Those remaining few are motivated by commercial and personal financial success, and that requires a much shorter planning and gratification cycle than 20 years.

    Sorry, we won't be going to Mars. We're a bunch of greedy, self-absorbed, small-minded apes that have reached the pinnacle of our organizational skills at the bottom of our gravity well.

    --

    Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
    1. Re:We can't organize that well by osu-neko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We're a bunch of greedy, self-absorbed, small-minded apes...

      ...with a bad habit of glorifying the past and forgetting that there's never been a time where this was even one iota less true than it is today. "The pathetic culture we've devolved into today could never even accomplish today the great things our ancestors did, much less progress even further." This has been the common wisdom since... at least since we've been capable of writing it down. It was certainly the common sentiment among the Greeks (well before they actually accomplished the things we know them for today).

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    2. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The latest Mars rover benefited from a lot of hype. Unwarranted hype at that. It's just a rover, it's not doing anything new, only something old and a little extra. Also, it's probably NASA's last important mission for the next few decades. Considering how it kept on getting butchered by every president in the past 20 years, it will take just as long to recouperate, let alone move ahead.

      Then again, maybe we'll see people on Mars in 2033, they just won't be Americans.

    3. Re:We can't organize that well by CaptainLard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The latest Mars rover benefited from a lot of hype. Unwarranted hype at that. It's just a rover, it's not doing anything new, only something old and a little extra.

      I don't think I'm supposed to respond to AC's but...what we got with the MSL is a small car sized (car analogy eh?) robot that can largely think for itself placed on another planet by the world's largest supersonic parachute, a set of rocket engines used to hover for several seconds, and a crane capable of gently lowering this giant robot from said rocket hover ship without damaging what is by far the most sensitive equipment ever to leave orbit. Oh yeah, all of that was operated by 70+ explosions that all worked exactly as intended. Streamed live for the whole world to see. The fact that jerks in basements can bemoan that as hype shows how many great engineers there are working today. If you spout out "it's not doing anything new, something old and a little extra"* to a feat of that magnitude, it means that there are so many engineers cranking out awesome shit everywhere that you're numb to the amazingness of human achievement. If you think that was easy, but a microcontroller dev kit, switches and motors for under $20 (a miracle in itself) and try and do a simple project like a garage door opener or anything interacting with the physical world and see how long it takes you. Is there a problem with bureaucracy? Sure but don't use that as excuse to spit on all of the greatness that is still currently being accomplished. You guys are as bad as hollywood when they brush off all of human invention as being given to us by aliens in whatever stupid scifi movie because thats easier to comprehend than "smart people exist".

      *This deserves its own rant because its 100% bullshit. MSL is doing plenty of new things and the "a little extra" approach is ALL OF SCIENCE...see the development process from mecury to gemini to apollo. Cause really that was nothing new either. I mean the Chinese had "rockets" ~800 years ago.

    4. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'd like to subscribe to your blog.

    5. Re:We can't organize that well by Ferretman · · Score: 1

      Wow, that's a pessimistic outlook.

      I'd rather focus on the positive.....though you partially put your finger on the nub of the problem. Quite frankly, the government (any) is poorly suited at *best* to conduct space exploration.

      Fortunately private companies are stepping up and stepping in. Right now they're in their infancy, but if they can work out the kinks and bring down the costs they'll rapidly surpass the various governments at Getting Things Done.

      NASA (or China, or Japan) may well get the first mission to mars done, but the astronauts will be wearing Nike patches and drinking dehydrated Pepsi ("The Official Drink of the Mars Mission!") products.

      Ferret

      --
      Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
    6. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I agree with most of the gist (if not the tone) of your rant, I do question whether what MSL's approach is "ALL OF SCIENCE." Sure, what it discovers over there is science, but its development, construction, and operations are more of engineering feats (and here I agree it is an amazing feat of engineering).

      I think it is just as dangerous to confound science and engineering as it is belittle science or engineering advancements based on hollywood expectations.

    7. Re:We can't organize that well by spiritplumber · · Score: 1

      I have noticed this behavior at NASA too on a small scale. A coworker of mine first tried to claim that he was supervising me (and was believed by a few people), then essentially tried to stall my work in order to show that progress was slower than expected and he needed more people under him. I just wanted to build sensors and remained oblivious to the politics until they were pointed out to me. My solution was to deliver the first production batch of sensors, complete with test rig happily blinking, to a meeting that was supposed to discuss said lack of progress: the fun part was watching the guy trying to pretend that the stuff on the conference room's table wasn't there the whole time. I eventually quit because I got tired of this sort of thing and they weren't paying on time.

      --
      Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
    8. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >We're a bunch of greedy, self-absorbed, small-minded apes...

      "Greedy" and "self-absorbed" are ingredients necessary for the spontaneous organization of the economy. If humanity consisted of Mother Teresa's, we'd still be living in caves and digging for grubs.

      And people are not "small-minded apes" because they want to preserve their own wealth instead of spending it on a pointless trip to Mars and sustaining financial losses. In fact, it's the bureaucrats who steal other people's money whose behavior is ignorant and beast-like.

      >The pathetic culture we've devolved into today could never even accomplish today the great things our ancestors did, much less progress even further.

      Culture is irrelevant. It's the accumulation of capital that enables us to do things our ancestors can't imagine.

    9. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So as someone said, we have the technology, will we do it? Nope, too many pinheads out there. Too many Koch brothers, too many nuts, too many religous crazies, too many who want to control, to many unfuterists, too many in death cults. Not enough people in the day after tomorrow thinking.

    10. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >We're a bunch of greedy, self-absorbed, small-minded apes

      Don't worry. NASA will always be ready to orchestrate financial losses for the dim-witted proles who greedily cling to their own money.

      >I discovered that a NASA manager's career success is measured solely by the number of people they manage and the size of the budget they control.

      Sounds like the BLS:

      "The primary reason for this lack of drive is the elimination of incentive to do your best. There is no reward for either effort or success. Promotions are not based on the quality of your work, but on how useful you are to the powers that be in building their empires." - https://mises.org/daily/534/My-Life-in-the-BLS

    11. Re:We can't organize that well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >there are so many engineers cranking out awesome shit everywhere that you're numb to the amazingness of human achievement

      As Bastiat explains, there is that which is seen, and that which is not seen.

      You see engineers cranking out awesome shit. What you don't see are the goods, services, and inventions that would have been brought about had the funds not been stolen from the public and diverted toward satisfying bureaucrat's whims.

    12. Re:We can't organize that well by kakaburra · · Score: 1

      robot that can largely think for itself

      thats not correct.. all the rover does by itself is keep itself in operational condition (maintaining temp., etc), all other stuff like operating instruments, driving, etc is performed by sending commands through radio. http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/rover/brains/

    13. Re:We can't organize that well by Gameless · · Score: 1

      And it appears that some of us have already been defeated. Bummer...

  18. It's worse than that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    76% of the U.S. population believes an invisible guy in the sky watching them all the time too.

    98.6% believe in an invisible force that causes objects to fall to earth when released.

    1. Re:It's worse than that by gutnor · · Score: 1

      Actually that's a visible force. What you meant is that the majority of people believe that there is an invisible attraction between any 2 objects that pull them together.

  19. I'd just prefer the Moon by Virtucon · · Score: 2

    You may as well be on the Moon for all the good it does. Mars may be a great goal on some scientific agenda however we have the Moon and it's much closer. The only thing however that comes to mind in both cases for colonies or even some manned outpost is what would you do with it? Yes, there's the scientific exploration aspects of it but as World History would point out, Explorers were in search of riches, trade routes or room to expand. The technical hurdles would certainly mean more expansion in terms of possibly new technologies that we can use here on Earth, new material science, new electronics or new discoveries on Physics. Other than that, I would submit that the Moon or Mars don't really represent much other than commercial mining opportunities. In order to have the remotest chance of being economically feasible, this would mean that there would have to be some new or unknown mineral lurking out there, or something so rare here on Earth that the astronomical (pun intended) costs to retrieve and process would make sense. Now, if it were purely for expansion would could always find a planet like Pandora and just send in the Military to fight blue giant cat people or if you're of the Star Trek genre, then you could find Orion Slave Girls and bring them back for fun and profit!

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:I'd just prefer the Moon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Other than that, I would submit that the Moon or Mars don't really represent much other than commercial mining opportunities.

      The fact of the matter is that we don't know what commercial opportunities will be there. Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was once asked by William Gladstone, then British Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance), in 1850 what the practical value of electricity was; Faraday replied that he did not know, but that "One day sir, you may tax it.".

      We do not know the practical value of space colonization, but the best way to find out is to do it.

      That's how all 'progress' has been made.

    2. Re:I'd just prefer the Moon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about building huge solar arrays on the Moon from local materials ? Should get you quite a lot of energy to either build more arrays (and get more energy...) or pursue some quite grand & lucrative endeavors.

  20. nah and meh by drankr · · Score: 1

    First of all, the U.S. will be sending (uniformed) humans to Africa, Middle East, and such places. There are wars to be fought there, forget about space exploration.
    And then, what's on Mars? For what reason would any country "send humans" to Mars specifically?
    Finally, as a species we are clearly intellectually and consequently technologically unable to become what they call "space-faring".
    On the bright side, at any second of any day we might be contacted by aliens who will be generous and kind to share their knowledge with us. Like in a movie.
    Yeah I think that's our best bet for a bright future.

  21. How are we getting there? by HangingChad · · Score: 1

    71% of respondents agreed that the US will send a human to Mars within the next two decades.

    The other 29 percent know we don't have a launch platform capable of getting us there.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    1. Re:How are we getting there? by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 2

      Number of humans that have been to the moon : 12
      Number of humans that have been as far as the moon 24 (Including the 12 above)
      Number that have been out of near earth orbit in the last 40 years : 0

      In 1970 we were landing on the moon, could travel as a regular commercial passenger at Mach 2, had a plane that cruised for long distances at Mach 3+ (Although we did not know it at the time), and now we don't ....

      Forget Mars we can't even get to the moon anymore ...

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    2. Re:How are we getting there? by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 1

      We landed a one ton robot on the moon with a fucking sky crane, and will be flying by Pluto in two years. The moon is easy, nobody is going because there's no longer a stupid flag-planting pissing contest to motivate it.

  22. humans on mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    if any humans get to mars by 2033 they wont be american, theyll be chinese.

  23. The price of tea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunately, the Mars Landing will never take off under the combined weight of tea baggers, so no reason to party yet.

    1. Re:The price of tea by LQ · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the Mars Landing will never take off under the combined weight of tea baggers, so no reason to party yet.

      I'm guessing you're taking a different meaning of teabagger than the one that comes to my mind.

  24. "a nationwide survey of US citizens" by Swampash · · Score: 1

    Just like that 2012 Gallup survey of US citizens, the one that found 46% of American respondents believe an invisible superhero who lives in the sky created humans in their present form.

    Forgive me if I consider US citizens something of an unreliable group when it comes to science.

    1. Re:"a nationwide survey of US citizens" by zippo01 · · Score: 1

      I'm sure this number is low compared to some places and higher then others. Everyone is talking about the Chinese, they do just as much crazy and weird stuff, there society justifies....

  25. Always take backup by jouassou · · Score: 2

    During the past 540 million years, there have been five major events which killed over 50% of life on Earth. Do you think humanity will survive the next mass extinction? What if a supernova goes off some hundred light years away, an asteroid heads towards Earth, a global pandemic breaks out, or a third world war erupts? If we make it our long-term goal to establish a permanent colony on Mars, at least we'll have a backup of humanity in case disaster should strike.

    I also believe that we'll benefit from developing the technology to settle on another planet. For instance, you mentioned faster space drives; if we don't continue to explore space, where will the motivation and funding for heavy propulsion research come from? If we settle on Mars, can't we use similar technology to populate more arid regions on Earth? If we eventually manage to terraform Mars, wouldn't that revolutionize agriculture on Earth too? And I bet such an expedition will be accompanied by thousands of minor breakthroughs in materials technology, medicine, etc. that we don't yet know how will benefit us.

    1. Re:Always take backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > During the past 540 million years, there have been five major events [wikipedia.org] which killed over 50% of life on Earth. Do you think humanity will survive the next mass extinction? What if a supernova goes off some hundred light years away, an asteroid heads towards Earth, a global pandemic breaks out, or a third world war erupts? If we make it our long-term goal to establish a permanent colony on Mars, at least we'll have a backup of humanity in case disaster should strike.

      But who cares what happens to 'humanity'? I like to care about individuals, but the survival of the species as a whole doesn't seem that important.

    2. Re:Always take backup by Viol8 · · Score: 2

      "What if a supernova goes off some hundred light years away,"

      If that happens the people on mars will have even less of a chance than everyone on earth because of the thin atmosphere.

      "If we make it our long-term goal to establish a permanent colony on Mars, at least we'll have a backup of humanity in case disaster should strike."

      How will a colony that depends on earth for survival be any sort of backup? You talk about terraforming but that will literally take thousands of years if it can be made to work at all. Sure, there'll be some spinoff tech as there always is with these things but the returns won't even come close to matching up to the outlay.

      Terraforming mars would cost trillions if not more - with that sort of money spent on earth today we could probably come up with far better tech in the short term than any mars trip will give rise to.

    3. Re:Always take backup by jouassou · · Score: 1

      If that happens [a supernova goes off] the people on mars will have even less of a chance than everyone on earth because of the thin atmosphere.

      That's true... To be safe from gamma ray bursts or nearby supernovas, we'll need to colonize other stellar systems. But the first step towards leaving our solar system, will be to leave our planet. And there are still lots of calamities that could affect Earth, but not Mars; supervolcanoes, pandemics, wars, asteroid impacts, etc.

      How will a colony that depends on earth for survival be any sort of backup?

      I agree, a backup should not depend on Earth for survival. That's why our long-term goal should be to create a self-sufficient colony with local mines, power plants, factories (the new 3D printers seem promising), greenhouses, etc. The colonial population needs to exceed around 200 residents to prevent long-term inbreeding; but if Mars One succeeds, we can reach that limit in about 100 years.

      You talk about terraforming but that will literally take thousands of years if it can be made to work at all.

      Are you sure about that? There are already polyextremophile bacteria and microorganisms on Earth that can withstand cold, drought, low pressure and radiation; see this and this for examples. Wouldn't it be possible to gene-manipulate these to perform photosynthesis, and breed them in laboratories to survive in a martian climate? In that case, we can ship them off to Mars, and let evolution do the rest. Sure, it'll take a while, but it's a good start.

    4. Re:Always take backup by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      After each of those events, Earth was still more hospitable to life than any other known planet. We might have the technology to travel to Mars (barely), but we have no precedent for creating a sustainable environment for supporting life. Given the choice between staying on Earth and riding out a cataclysmic event or trying to survive on another planet without outside supplies, the rational choice is to stay put.

    5. Re:Always take backup by jouassou · · Score: 1

      After each of those events, Earth was still more hospitable to life than any other known planet.

      Life will probably survive, but I doubt that it will be human life. For instance, what survived the event 65 million years ago was not the dinosaurs that at the time dominated the Earth, but small creatures like cockroaches and rodents.

      We might have the technology to travel to Mars (barely), but we have no precedent for creating a sustainable environment for supporting life.

      At present, no. But if we don't try, we will never know if it's possible.

      Given the choice between staying on Earth and riding out a cataclysmic event or trying to survive on another planet without outside supplies, the rational choice is to stay put.

      There are more than enough people that want to stay on Earth, but projects like Mars One have already gotten over 1000 volunteers for a one-way mission to Mars. I think the rational thing is to do both.

  26. Mutinous Crew by slimdave · · Score: 1
    Didn't see this linked on /. but that long Mars sol takes its toll even on Earth-bound humans. I wonder if the experiments on isolating astronauts for the duration of a Mars mission took this into account?

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=step-into-the-twilight-zone-can-earthlings-adjust-to-a-longer-day-on-mars

    1. Re:Mutinous Crew by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      The length of the natural circadian rhythm varies between people. Most longer than 24hrs, some shorter. People generally adapt to 24hrs, some better than others.

      There will be two groups who adapt best to the Martian Sol, those who have highly adaptable circadian rhythms, and those who have a natural cycle which is already 24hr40minutes long. For the latter group it will be like coming home.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    2. Re:Mutinous Crew by slimdave · · Score: 1
      Yeah I've heard that, but I wonder how true it is. You'd think that the "sleep scientists" referenced in the article would mention it if it was, as they'd be advising that Nasa seek out people who match the longer rhythm, and it'd be something of a slam-dunk to include that in the article.

      I'm suspicious that it's one of those scientific urban legends.

    3. Re:Mutinous Crew by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      My circadian rhythm is about 25hrs long. So hardly an urban legend to me.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    4. Re:Mutinous Crew by slimdave · · Score: 1
      You sir, have just bought yourself a Ticket to the Grand Canyon*!

      Next stop, Adventure!

      * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valles_Marineris

  27. Without landing on the moon? by TwentyCharsIsNotEnou · · Score: 1

    How many of those surveyed believe humans never landed on the moon?

    If other polls are to believed, there's more than likely some overlap between the two!

  28. I wonder ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... if that's the same 71% that believe in a deity that gives a damn about every little thing you pray for, or the 71% who don't believe in evolution, or the 71% who think arming everyone in the country with semi-automatic weapons somehow makes things safer.

  29. Budgeting by jjohn · · Score: 1

    I am a big proponent of NASA. I would like to see the budget increased. I would do it with cuts in the military and corporate subsidies (particular to oil companies).

    Then next time a stupid survey asks "would you like to increase spending" I really wish there were a follow-up question "what would you give up to see this happen."

    Heck, I give 110% at my job and SO SHOULD THE BUDGET!

  30. The US is outsourcing our Mars landing by paiute · · Score: 1

    The Chinese will be the first humans on Mars, but that's okay because we are paying for it. Just hit that WalMart up again - the brothers need another oxygen tank.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:The US is outsourcing our Mars landing by Gameless · · Score: 1

      Chinese scientists are going to need oxygen tanks just to continue researching.

  31. Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Jumping the gun is not necessarily the best way to get things done.

    The most oft-discussed and visible triumphs of manned space have been by necessity "get there, plant the flag and get out."

    But the ultimate goal should be not just to visit space or establish some dangerous and isolated outposts there (though there is no shortage of volunteers!)...it should be to move into space in a series of self-sustaining stages.

    This means we first need to build a space colony here on Earth, and decide on some practical steps to take that will achieve the ultimate goal. And each step should be of immediate practical and commercial value.

    I would like to call attention to Marshall Savage's amazing project and book, The Millennial Project. another synopsis and at Amazon. Some have picked fun at Savage's priorities, but frankly until this book/project arrived on the scene there had been nothing like it.

    In that plan, terraforming Mars is step 6 of 8. In this scenario we are not just landing on Mars to establish an outpost... at that stage we have already perfected the technology for habitats in space. If our focus is on 'the next logical (small) step' instead of some ultimate goal and devote our complete effort to these steps, by 2033 we could be moving outward in all directions... instead of just one.

    --
    <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
  32. Last Time I Checked. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We don't even have a manned space program. We could not put someone into orbit, let alone the moon or mars.

  33. Predictions by Murdoch5 · · Score: 1

    And in the 60's we though by the 70's we'd be living on the moon

    Clearly this doesn't hold a lot of valor.

  34. Manned spaceflight: over in 10 years by gelfling · · Score: 1

    In ten years manned spaceflight with be over. Quite likely for more than an hundred years if not more.

    1. Re:Manned spaceflight: over in 10 years by Transparent+Ghost · · Score: 1

      What makes you think it will be over ?

  35. No, we need more technology first ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It has no sense to make this travel to mars with our olds technologies. If we do it like the moon program, it will be a one shot project.

    What we must do ?

    Create a space ship powerfull enough to travel on the solar system in few weeks, a one like the Enterprise (of course, smaller without warp technology ;>) that can handle ALL exploration projects in our solar sytem.

    We need a spaceship that can visit the moon of Saturn, mars, Jupiter, Enceladus, Europ, Titan, Io

    Means first we have to invent a completely different propulsion method if we’re sending humans, because 300 days is too long, dangerous and inefficient.

    Antimatter is the most dense fuel we could possibly use, and now it is the way to go.

  36. It's a lovely idea, sure by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    ....as long as we're allowed to continue to spend money we don't have, why not?

    Of course, I suspect that when you ask the question differently, you're going to get a very different response:
    "Assuming that whatever % of budget goes to NASA comes directly out of services you receive, what % of budget should NASA get?"

    --
    -Styopa
  37. Kickstarter by ScaledLizard · · Score: 1

    OK, anyone up for raising the money for a flight to Mars as a Kickstarter?

  38. Sign me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OK i'll be in my late fifties by then but Id go, Give me a one way ticket some e books to read and Id start work on a colony for others to come latter. Might miss WOW and what ever expansion it is on by then but 15 to 20 minute lag isn't that bad....Cough BT cough

  39. Who knows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do they need to be alive when they reach mars?

  40. Quacky Yanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yet more proof that the US is the dumping ground of the world's mental asylums.

  41. boondoggles and tourists in space by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see three reasons for so much interest in sending man to Mars:

    Romantic - With ice, wind storms and ancient flood plains, it is easy to fantasize that Mars is a virgin territory ready for colonizing, by the first country or company with the balls to do it.
    Political - Now that the incredibly wasteful, self serving Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs have imploded, politicians are looking for some other long term trillion dollar boondoggle to keep their constituencies happy and to justify the taxes we pay.
    Scientific - there may be remains of early attempts at organic life on Mars, long gone from Earth. These traces could be possible Rosetta stones, to help us to better understand how life works on Earth. I suspect that this understanding will be essential, for the long term survival of homo sapiens on Earth.

    The facts however are:
    Mars is hardly more hospitable than the Moon - with no foreseeable military, industrial, commercial or tourist value whatsoever..
    Man in space programs are primarily military aggression by other means, but I admit preferable to starting small wars here and there. Oops, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, .... whose next? Iran, Venezuela, North Korea ?
    Sending men on one way trips to Mars, would irreversibly contaminate and destroy whatever we might learn about early life on Mars. At least we have the moons of Saturn as a backup.

    I do believe however that space WILL be colonized and industrialized, but not by us, but by our ever more capable machines and robots.
    I am also sure that people will also go, as extra baggage, probably to low gravity playgrounds and retirement homes in lunar caverns. I expect DisneyMoon in Orlundo Gardens will be very fancy and profitable.
    Tim

  42. Benefits are a given but which flag flies over it? by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    Any possible scenario for a lunar (or Martian settlement) involves eminent loss of life and hardship, especially at the outset when our learning curve begins. One of the difficulties an American expedition would encounter is the high price placed on each American life. The Chinese might have an edge here, and could perhaps design equipment and housing without the quintuple safety redundancies that have made NASA projects so time consuming and expensive. Backslash is onto something though...nothing would fire up the US government's interest in off-earth exploration faster than a threat to national security.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  43. The remaining 29% might agree by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1

    but just don't see them on planet Earth anymore by that time.

  44. Breaking News... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    71% of U.S. are idiots that tend to strongly believe in fantasy scenarios that fail to materialize. In an almost religious manner of circular self-fulfilling logic, these people blame the fact that these fantasies do not materialize on non-believers who are labeled obstructionists, old and, most damning of all, Republicans.

  45. Go SpaceX! by Su27K · · Score: 1

    Well if SpaceX can get the reusable Falcon working, 2033 is about right for a Mars landing powered by cheap commercial space transportation.

    1. Re:Go SpaceX! by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      Well if SpaceX can get the reusable Falcon working, 2033 is about right for a Mars landing powered by cheap commercial space transportation.

      The obstacle to getting to Mars is not in the first 22,000 miles of the trip (we did that in the 1960s). It's the next 36 million miles. Plus, whoever goes, will probably want to come back home, so really it's a 72 million mile trip.

    2. Re:Go SpaceX! by Su27K · · Score: 1

      In term of technology, you're right, but in term of economy the cost to launch the Mars spacecraft to LEO is a major expense, if you check the cost breakdown at the end of this article, it shows the launcher is the most expensive part of the mission. Given cheap access to LEO, I think it would be much easier to design the rest of the mission since mass constraint would be greatly reduced.

    3. Re:Go SpaceX! by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

      In term of technology, you're right, but in term of economy the cost to launch the Mars spacecraft to LEO is a major expense, if you check the cost breakdown at the end of this article, it shows the launcher is the most expensive part of the mission. Given cheap access to LEO, I think it would be much easier to design the rest of the mission since mass constraint would be greatly reduced.

      No, the cost to protect the crew for the multi-year journey and stay on the planet is the major expense when looking at the total cost of the program. Cost to launch is applicable per mission, but not overall. Look at it this way. A heavy launch vehicle launching a satellite versus a manned capsule uses just as much resources to reach LEO, so the cost to launch is equivalent. However, the actual cost to put a capsule into space is much more than a satellite. Why? Because protecting the human cargo is more costly than protecting integrated circuits.

      Now that is just to LEO. Extend that for a 76 million mile round trip, plus a 12 month or more stay on the planet and see what happens to the cost. If cost is the primary concern, unmanned exploration is always cheaper.

      We are on the verge of having cars that can drive them self in everyday traffic. Surely the AI that is advanced enough for that is advanced enough for exploration on a distant planet. The question that needs to be asked is what does sending people to Mars and the associated extra costs get that sending sophisticated machines doesn't provide?

    4. Re:Go SpaceX! by Su27K · · Score: 1

      "However, the actual cost to put a capsule into space is much more than a satellite.": Not really.

      Russians are selling Soyuz seats at $60 million per seat, this gives the entire Soyuz mission price at $180 million, including the launcher.
      Compare that to the $50 million to $250 million price tag of a communication satellite, the crewed spacecraft is not at all expensive.

      It would be helpful to actually read the article I referenced when doing discussions like this, otherwise we're just talking over each other.

    5. Re:Go SpaceX! by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      It would be helpful to actually read the article I referenced when doing discussions like this, otherwise we're just talking over each other.

      I did read the out-dated article you referenced. Of course all of the shuttle references are no longer valid as the shuttle is no longer flying. IIRC most of the article was not about the costs themself but about the discrepencies between NASAs figures and Europes figures.

      As for the launches you are referring to in your post. Yes, the Russians are selling Soyuz seats at $60 million, about 1/3 what they were just a few years ago. One has to wonder why so cheap since none of the costs have come down. Most analysts believe it is because they are in desparate needs of funds and like the airlines, an discounted seat brings in more revenue than an empty one.

      Comparing the Soyuz to another group is like comparing apples and oranges. You are comparing different lift vehicles, different launch sites, different capitalization patterns and a host of other things. A Cessna and a 747 can both take you to your destination, but their cost structure is not an even comparision, either. A valid comparison would be what would summitridgegroup charge to launch a human into space and return them safely versus a satelite. Instead of Soyuz, you could have just as easily picked the shuttle, which had an average mission cost of $450million. Using those numbers would indicate that it is much more expensive for humans than satelites. Of course, like your comparison, that one is also meaningless.

    6. Re:Go SpaceX! by Su27K · · Score: 1

      "IIRC most of the article was not about the costs themself but about the discrepencies between NASAs figures and Europes figures.": Sure, but that doesn't make the data any less valid, I just picked the first reference I found on Google, if you have reference to prove your point, you're free to share them.

      "One has to wonder why so cheap since none of the costs have come down. Most analysts believe it is because they are in desparate needs of funds and like the airlines, an discounted seat brings in more revenue than an empty one.": I'd like to see this analysis, because SpaceX is estimating their crewed Dragon would be priced at $140 million, which is even cheaper.

      "Comparing the Soyuz to another group is like comparing apples and oranges. You are comparing different lift vehicles, different launch sites, different capitalization patterns and a host of other things.": I didn't start the comparison, if you have an apple to apple comparison please just make it.

      "Instead of Soyuz, you could have just as easily picked the shuttle, which had an average mission cost of $450million": But the Shuttle orbiter is reused, which means most of the mission cost would be launch cost to send the orbiter up there, what you should use is the orbiter price tag of $1.3 to 2 billion, which is indeed much more expensive than a satellite, but the orbiter is also so much bigger than satellite (100 tons vis a few tons).

    7. Re:Go SpaceX! by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      "IIRC most of the article was not about the costs themself but about the discrepencies between NASAs figures and Europes figures.": Sure, but that doesn't make the data any less valid, I just picked the first reference I found on Google, if you have reference to prove your point, you're free to share them.

      By definition, using old antiquated date does make it less valid. Plus, I don't need a reference to prove my point. I'm not even trying to prove it. You are trying to disprove it, so the burden is all yours. Good luck, too, because you will find that with valid data, the numbers won't work out.

      "One has to wonder why so cheap since none of the costs have come down. Most analysts believe it is because they are in desparate needs of funds and like the airlines, an discounted seat brings in more revenue than an empty one.": I'd like to see this analysis, because SpaceX is estimating their crewed Dragon would be priced at $140 million, which is even cheaper.

      Ok, first you were saying the Soyuz was the way to go at $60M to LEO, now you are saying that Dragon is cheaper at $140M. Last time I checked, $140 is not less than $60M. Also, as you point out, SpaceX is estimating their price at $140M. Even the outdated study you used talked about the price sensitivity of launches and it is forseeable that a launch could be 50% higher in cost than the estimates show, so that would bring it to $210M. Even still, that is a small craft going to LEO, not something able to sustain a crew for three years round trip to Mars, where you have to take everything with you.

      "Comparing the Soyuz to another group is like comparing apples and oranges. You are comparing different lift vehicles, different launch sites, different capitalization patterns and a host of other things.": I didn't start the comparison, if you have an apple to apple comparison please just make it.

      "Instead of Soyuz, you could have just as easily picked the shuttle, which had an average mission cost of $450million": But the Shuttle orbiter is reused, which means most of the mission cost would be launch cost to send the orbiter up there, what you should use is the orbiter price tag of $1.3 to 2 billion, which is indeed much more expensive than a satellite, but the orbiter is also so much bigger than satellite (100 tons vis a few tons).

      You are going to need to lift into orbit enough food and supplies to last at a minimum three years for the crew. In addition, you will need a lot of water, not to drink but for shielding from cosmic radiation as that is the current preferred strategy. Think of launching enough water to enclose a room big enough to house the crew for 18 hours or longer surronded by a meter of water all the way around.

      Look at the ISS. Assuming you are sending a similar sized crew to Mars, you will need similar sized quarters plus storage space as you won't be able to send resupply ships (although you could send them now and meet them on the way, but has costs, too). Face it, no matter how you do it, to house humans for 3 or more years you are going to need something much, much larger than the Apollo program ever envisioned. To get all of that into space costs money. To add everything you need for the crew protection costs money. And finally, since we are talking about large masses, the energy required to get it moving and to stop it will cost money.

      The Mars landers were small crafts lifted out of orbit on relatively inexpensive rockets. Why? Because they didn't need food and water and habitats and all sorts of other things that human beings need in the hostile environment of space. While we may have the technology to send a person to Mars, it doesn't mean it is the most efficient or effective use of limited space exploration resources.

      Face it, the whole man on mars push was a

  46. 71% of Americans pig-ignorant, innumerate morons by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  47. Remember it's not if, but when... by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    Multiple variant linear regression analysis is inclusion-free on the order of flawless a life changing asteroid impact with our rather inhabitable little rock will occur. Whether it is an extinction event or merely teleports us back to the Stone Age is irrelevant with regard to the loss of all human technology and scientific progress. A robotic presence during exploration is invaluable. Robotic slaves at the off-planet human settlement will be handy like a pocket on a shirt. Without a human presence, well, there goes our entire legacy.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Remember it's not if, but when... by balsy2001 · · Score: 1

      Yes, it will occur (just look at mass extinction events like at the K-Pg boundary). This reality doesn't change the problems of funding. Until this becomes a culturally important thing to strive for (probably on a global scale) it won't happen. We can't even convince the general population that global warming is happening (let alone caused by humans and a real threat). Also, I still think Robots first is the way to go. They can figure out most of the stuff that needs to be known about Mars before we start dropping the big bucks.

      --
      GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
    2. Re:Remember it's not if, but when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Barring extinction, I really can't see us going back technologically further than about the 1900s. There's just too much technology and knowledge lying around to be found and put to use. Nobody needs to come up with the idea of the transistor or photolithography, and that sort of knowledge would give us a huge head start getting back to present day even if some of the details need to be worked out again.

  48. eyesight THAT good? by yagu · · Score: 1

    I, for one, can't believe that people will ever be able humans on Mars. Heck, I can't even see people on airlines flying at a measly altitude of 35,000 feet! Sheesh.

  49. Taxes by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

    I'm sure most of them certainly would allocate more money to NASA. Ask them though if they're support a tax increase in order to bolster NASA's budget. Almost all would drop their support in a heartbeat.

    Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-tax and I PERSONALLY would have no issue with paying a little more if I knew it'd go to NASA. I'm just saying that most people probably wouldn't. Most operate under the impression that the government just has all this free money to send where it wants with no clue that those resources and funds have to actually come from somewhere.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    1. Re:Taxes by santiagoanders · · Score: 1

      Most operate under the impression that the government just has all this free money to send where it wants with no clue that those resources and funds have to actually come from somewhere.

      Most in the government operate under that assumption. But, hey, we can always print more money.

      --
      "There can be little doubt that union activities lead to continuous and progressive inflation." F. A. Hayek
    2. Re:Taxes by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

      Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-tax and I PERSONALLY would have no issue with paying a little more if I knew it'd go to NASA. I'm just saying that most people probably wouldn't. Most operate under the impression that the government just has all this free money to send where it wants with no clue that those resources and funds have to actually come from somewhere.

      Yeah, just think if NASA had been allowed to keep the patents and royalties from teflon, velcro and any number of products developed through the early space program. They could probably be fully self-funded by now, but instead, taxpayers payed for the research and private companies got to profit from it.

    3. Re:Taxes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd happily support allocating a greater percentage of the budget to NASA, but only if I could specify from where else in the budget the money would be taken.

      My first candidate would be The Office of Faith Based Initiatives. My second would be.... The Office of Faith Based Initiatives.

      As for raising my taxes to increase funding for NASA? Not a chance I'd support that, unless NASA's mission statement were changed to reflect the need to devote all those big brains and engineering efforts to question pertaining directly to exploring, understanding and solving the problems Man has created for himself right here in the good ol' biosphere.

  50. We could get there by medcalf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But NASA can't. If we do get to Mars in that time frame, it will be the Chinese or, more likely, one of the New Space companies like SpaceX.

    --
    -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
    1. Re:We could get there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good. Let 'em have at it. The Chinese can use the income they derive from the U.S. imbalance of trade and debt buying spree, their monopoly-money monetary policies they've learned to emulate from the West and savings they've incurred during their ballooning industrialization period from their lack of environmental protection. Space-X can raise capital from market capitalists who have money to burn, only the best of intentions that "enlightened self interest" can provide and the profit motive, laser focused on creating new exotic places for their friends to vacation.

      The combination of Space-X technical expertise and the Chinese neo-capitalism could provide development opportunities for companies who seek to offer luxury accommodations to retiring business and governmental officials as they gracefully cede power to their successors. There must a developing market opportunity afforded by heads of state from countries like N. Korea, Zimbabwe or even Italy.

  51. Re:Benefits are a given but which flag flies over by drankr · · Score: 1

    In your comment I detect touching faith in American government’s care for American lives and security. But let’s not go as far as China is search of expendable human beings to be sent to Mars. Let’s scoop up those south Asian families that have been dying in their dozens, and in their sleep, in American drone strikes. I think they would prefer a trip to Mars anyway.

  52. Never underestimate the power of national pride by rocket+rancher · · Score: 1

    Hmmm...assuming that national pride is going to be a motivator ("no way in hell..." is how you actually phrased it) then we can restate the problem in terms of preserving national pride. When you look at the problem from that perspective, it becomes a matter of *preventing* the Chinese from getting to Mars before the US does. In order to prevent the Chinese from getting to Mars, the US will have to be able to project their national will on the Chinese, and the way one nation projects its will on another nation is by force. This force is applied by military and economic might. Finding funding for military might (at least in the US) has been pretty much independent of political or economic issues. Defense budgets routinely survive presidential and congressional elections, and are less affected by economic slumps. (Not untouched by, but certainly don't suffer as much as other government programs do.) So -- in a bucket, beating the Chinese to Mars becomes a matter of delaying the Chinese long enough for the US to get there first. Overt or covert military ops, industrial espionage and economic warfare to sabotage the Chinese Mars effort become plausible when you look at the problem this way. I'm not saying I want it to happen this way, or that it will happen this way, but it is a plausible scenario that is fairly independent of politics and economics in the US. It only requires that the US be more concerned about national pride than the consequences of using military or economic force. As events have showed us over the past dozen years, the US seems to be more than willing to go to war (on multiple fronts, if necessary, and at a severe cost to their economy) when their national pride has been damaged, so I would conclude that some kind of action by the US to prevent the Chinese from reaching Mars first has a probability approaching unity of occurring.

  53. Mars Direct Program by tiemenhakvoort · · Score: 2

    Do you guys know the Mars Direct Program? It was developed by Rober Zubrin. The point of the program is that we are technically able to go to Mars. We were it 15 years ago en today we still are. We can do it relatively cheap (20 billion) and without need of in-orbit build spaceships. I recommend reading The Case for Mars by Rober Zubrin. wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

  54. Even sooner than that: Mars one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once they launch in 2033 they will be able to visit the Mars one colony: http://mars-one.com

    They plan on sending people on a one way trip to Mars by 2023..

  55. Money not the problem ... by notpaul · · Score: 2

    The resource that is lacking is WILL.

    Call it "political will" ... "moral fortitude" ... whatever. Once the tech is available, the only thing preventing any group from making a large project like this happen is the will to do it. Which is precisely why we probably WILL have a Mars mission (manned) by 2033 ... but it WILL NOT be the government doing it.

    Private enterprise has the will, the stated goal, is gathering the money, and refining the tech. Elon Musk is not the only one, either.

    People routinely OVERestimate how difficult this will be once the will is in-place.

    (Note: having the will to "do it" includes the acceptance of the RISK involved. Kinda like Everest climbers and cave divers.)

    --
    See you space cowboy ...
  56. I don't get the point of this poll by TheBitterTruth · · Score: 1

    "They thought the budget allocated 2.4% instead of .5%" Okay...so? No one knows what the actual percentages are that the government allocates to organizations. In general, people will have an idea of what something should be, but to ask them on the spot how much NASA or any organization gets allocated is a pointless question. Doesn't prove someone's stupid, doesn't prove someone doesn't care.

    Also, everyone wants everything to get funded more. Unfortunately, there are limited resources. People thinking NASA should get more money is not the same thing as them saying "take 2% from healthcare and move it to NASA".

  57. Measuring stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    71% of respondents agreed that the US will send a human to Mars within the next two decades.

    So 71% of the respondents think they can predict the future.

    That's simply a measurement of the stupidity of the respondents.

    A 71% stupidity rate sounds about right to me.

  58. poll says americans like services, dislike taxes by mothlos · · Score: 1

    If you ask people 'do you like generally non-controversial policy X', they will support it in droves. The public's ability to understand how much things cost, how much they are willing to pay, and how they should prioritize their concerns is a completely different matter. I couldn't find it in three minutes of searching, but Pew had a poll a couple of years back where the only category the US respondants could agree on is cutting foreign aid to cut the defecit, which is only because the budget doesn't have a line item for 'waste and abuse' which seems to be how most people think we will get most of the way to making debt payments. When it comes to public policy, most voters seem to be deluded, but we are particularly gifted in the land of the free.

  59. Space X or someother Private Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe Space X or some other private corporation will get there by that time.

    The US Government is a mess financially and politicians per say have no vision.

    What will drive a race is that the Chinese, Russians & Indians will be aiming there and will be companies like Space X that will target Mars.

    My two cents.

    1. Re:Space X or someother Private Company by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 1
      How much would it cost, who would put up the money and in exchange for what, how long would it take, and what useful or compelling purpose would it serve?

      "Studying the effects of space travel on humans" is a dumb piece of circular logic, so it is an incorrect answer. "Because humans need/want to explore blah blah blah" is also incorrect because the cost of manned space exploration is so high that it drastically reduces the amount of exploration that can be done, so it too is an incorrect answer.

      Hint: It would have to be done with robots over a period of at least 100 years with the construction of numerous intermediate way stations.

    2. Re:Space X or someother Private Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Human arrogance will push this forward -- agree with the original poster -- Chinese will sacrifice their own to get there faster -- goal is mineral resources and colonization and political arrogance.

  60. Mars support by Immerman · · Score: 1

    Another big difference though is that, precisely because of the greater transportation times, a Mars base would be designed to be far more self-sufficient than the ISS. Consider that the ISS is a sealed can that must get all it's replacement supplies from Earth, while a Mars base will have ready access to essentially unlimited quantities of water (assuming it's built near the icecap or other source), carbon dioxide, and sand. Assuming the sand is non-toxic all you need is some big, tough, transparent bags and probably some mineral supplements and a bit of insulation from the ground beneath you to create bubble greenhouses and grow all the food and oxygen you could want. At that point all you need from Earth is replacements for things that break and perhaps mineral supplements for anything that gets leeched out of your ecosystem and you can't find locally - from Biosphere 2 though I believe the biggest problem on that front was carbon, and with unlimited CO2 delivered to your doorstep that's not really an issue.

    Couple that with the fact that almost every serious Mars-base proposal involves them making their own fuel from water for the eventual return trip and you don't really need massive ongoing support - a care package of non-renewables every now and then and they should be golden, and once you've got such a package in orbit getting it to Mars is only a small additional expense unless you need to get it there quickly for some reason.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    1. Re:Mars support by dryeo · · Score: 1

      You need nitrogen to grow plants in a form that plants can take up. You also need a couple of feet minimum of radiation shielding if those plants are going to live long enough to be useful. Of course people are even more sensitive to radiation exposure so more feet of radiation shielding. Simplest is dirt, so you need heavy machinery to burrow into Mars, a means of powering that machinery etc. Might be possible to find caves but have to be lucky to have easily accessible water in the same location.
      As Mars has approximately the same land area as the Earth the first step is lots of exploration to find some ideal places to even attempt a colony.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    2. Re:Mars support by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Yes, and I would assume some form of fixed nitrogen would be one of the primary supplemental minerals brought along, assuming an accessible local source couldn't be found. As for radiation shielding - the crew could presumably continue to use the ship as their primary residence for some time, and it would have to be shielded for the trip anyway. Plenty of time for even a single small autonomous bulldozer to scrape out a large hole and then fill it in again once a structure was built in it. All you'd really need would be one of those big greenhouse bags and a binding agent to create a "concrete" dome capable of supporting the weight piled on top of it. If suitable pressure suits can be made you wouldn't even need a small rover - you could do the work by hand. Your colonists are presumably fit, and moving large quantities of sand in 1/3 gravity is likely no worse than clearing farmland and building log cabins like our ancestors did.

      The greenhouses would be a separate question - worst case you could create the same buried domes and use artificial light, but it's quite possible they could survive on the surface. It would be be easy enough to reflect UV from an inflated dome, and ionizing radiation tends to cause long-term problems due to genetic damage rather than short term harm, and as long as the plants don't produce lots of toxic tumors before we harvest them that's not actually a problem. If exposure were high enough subsequent generations might not be viable, but it's easy enough to run a small shielded "Seed farm" to reseed the larger exposed production farms. Solar storms might be a problem - I don't know just how much shielding Mars' atmosphere provides. Worst case there though is you lose the current crop, but you can probably still eat the remains since unless I'm much mistaken charged-particle radiation typically doesn't induce lingering radioactivity. As long as you keep a granary, oxygen reserves, and don't get hit too often you should be okay.

      Bottom line - yes, colonizing is likely to require a lot of hard work and the acceptance of a high risk of death for at least the first few waves. But then so has pretty much every previous colonizing attempt in history. We really have two choices - accept the risks and hardships, or sit around on our asses until our knowledge and technology reaches the point where colonizing an alien world isn't significantly more difficult or dangerous than going down to the corner bar for a drink. I know which choice I'd rather we take, and I'm pretty sure someone will take it before too much longer, the real question is just who it will be.

      As for finding an ideal location, well sure, and we're doing it. We've got detailed satellite maps of pretty much the whole planet that contain a heck of a lot more information than just what it looks like, and are improving all the time. But really how "ideal" do you expect it to be in survival terms? We'll have to bring most of our ecosystem with us, and of the the resources we know we can find on Mars (co2, water, sand) only water isn't available pretty much everywhere which makes somewhere near the ice cap an obvious destination. Beyond that, well, perhaps we can find a convenient source of nitrogen, or perhaps pumice (pumice-crete is a pretty good thermal insulator with decent structural strength and uses a lot less binder than sand). Having something particularly interesting nearby would probably get you better volunteers and PR, but when you get right down to it the primary purpose of the first base would almost certainly be just to establish a sustainable presence and perhaps produce fuel so that return trips become possible.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  61. Consider the source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A Mars exploration advocacy group conducted a poll, and they claim that most people agree with them. There is absolutely no reason to believe in the validity of this poll--even if Explore Mars intended to get honest results, there are too many ways for bias to creep in.

  62. Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doormats?

    Cheaper than electrostatic repulsion.

  63. Good! Now... by MatrixCubed · · Score: 1

    ...get your ass to Mars.

  64. Re:In related news --- let me Hazzard a guess... by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 1

    Or we could land 71% of a person on Mars, today!

    Actually some in the USA were accustomed to seeing flying cars as early as 1979. But most of our attention was drawn to the possibility that Daisy Duke might explode out of her jeans.

    --
    <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
  65. Re:71% of Americans pig-ignorant, innumerate moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's why, "All efforts were made to ensure a representative sample of the U.S. population 18 years and older given normal standards of statistical sampling."

    If you had to qualify by proving some level of intelligence or technical background or even basic education in the sciences, you'd be less likely to give answers that support the goals of the clients, Boeing and Explore Mars, Inc.

    TFA article went on to mention that the average survey respondent overstimated the percentage of the U.S. federal budget by 500%.

    But take heart! None of the survey questions asked who would pay for it, what budgetary trade-offs they consider acceptable or whether their fear of WMD played any part in their belief system. And all this took place before the Pope resigned from his position as God's representative hear on Earth.

  66. The US can't even get into orbit right now by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

    Our space program is going backwards. About the only salvation we have is the Chinese trying to land on the moon and inflaming nationalism.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  67. Old guy's view of things by paulxnuke · · Score: 1

    I remember the 60's: I believe now that they were the peak of western (if not human) civilization this time around. We have fallen farther as a culture than you young folks can imagine since then, and it was our culture that landed on the moon. Given the will, money and technology can be managed; I see no sign now of the sustained will needed for a Mars trip. The only place to even look nowadays is maybe China, and while they don't have popular elections all the time they're still not stable over the time frame involved.

    The one way paradigm lowers the cost and difficulty tremendously, but I doubt any government will go for it and I just don't see a commercial enterprise making the first trip; once their people land (assuming they could still return from Mars orbit), the company is locked into supporting a colony. Given the current legal climate, the astronauts would face more danger from bankruptcies and lawsuits back home than living on Mars.

    The fundamental problem is energy. Our civilization may yet fail for lack of it and there is little prospect of that changing. Virtually all fusion research is going into tokamaks, a dead end at best; fossil fuel has unmanageable supply and pollution problems; renewables and fission have serious (at our level) scale problems. We've also have no way to use energy efficiently for space travel: getting people to the surface of Mars with chemical propellants amounts to admitting that we're making a one shot attempt to look at a few rocks and say we did it; putting (enough) nuclear power in orbit is politically impossible, especially for the US.

    I fear it is already too late for a moon base; the cost and difficulty of the ISS makes a Lagrange point station look pretty unlikely. An asteroid mission, even a close one, relies on gear we haven't built yet and which changes every election. Unless a major breakthrough happens soon, I'm giving no thought to Mars.

  68. News Flash! 71% of Americans are uninformed idiots by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 1, Interesting

    25 % of Americans consume fast food every day

    20% of meals are eaten in the car

    88 percent of young Americans couldn't find Afghanistan on a map, 75 percent couldn't locate Iran or Israel, and 63 percent couldn't identify Iraq

    More Than 40 Percent of Americans Believe the Rapture Is Coming

    That 71% think we have an extra trillion dollars or two to go to Mars for no useful or compelling purpose is no great surprise. Depressing? Disconcerting? Tragic? Sure, but not surprising.

  69. Monkeys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Monkeys

  70. like all government funding by micahraleigh · · Score: 0

    Taxpayers want it until they realize who is paying for it.

    0.5% is too high.

  71. More Monkeys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More Monkeys

  72. 71%... by dragon-file · · Score: 1

    71% of Americans don't pay attention to past events (History)

    --
    Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
  73. incapable of safely operating manned spaceflight by pngai · · Score: 1

    Challenger showed that NASA was incapable of safely operating manned spaceflight programs.
    Columbia showed that NASA was incapable of changing for the better.

  74. Multiple Choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This survey was obviously multiple choice and therefore tainted.

  75. Please ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ensure that politicians, lawyers, iPhone users and telephone sanitizers will be the first inhabitants.

  76. Yipee by ryan81 · · Score: 1

    According to Back to the Future 2, we will have flying cars in 2 years as well.:)

  77. Actually... by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

    Actually I just see dead people.

  78. Rather go to Europa than Mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Realistic chance of finding life on Europa in the liquid ocean beneath the surface and can be done robotically using current technology.

  79. Why the US think trip to mars is possible. by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 1

    Because they will send astronauts there ... by prayer.

    --
    Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
  80. Bet they don't if they had to pay up... by wakeboarder · · Score: 1

    So, if there are 300million people in the us and a mars program would cost 20-100 billion, then that would be ~1000$ per person, sound like such a good idea now? (I guess its not too bad, that's only ~50$ a year.)

  81. Re:incapable of safely operating manned spacefligh by darenw · · Score: 1

    So, what do the other 130 or so space shuttle missions show? Was it some amazing luck that they didn't crash or blow up?

  82. Re:incapable of safely operating manned spacefligh by pngai · · Score: 1

    Did you read the reports of the Accident Investigation Boards?

  83. we should have it high priority by Jefftoe · · Score: 1

    When else are we going to get a chance at terra forming a planet that may be possible as practice? We might need that knowledge. Hell I'd go witha group for free. Just have enough members of the opposite sex for everyone (or whatever ...) and keep the booze flowing. Not to mention just cool to even try?

  84. Dreaming! by Dabido · · Score: 1

    Tell them they're dreaming!!!

    --
    Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
  85. Re:71% of Americans pig-ignorant, innumerate moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You want pig ignorance? You should try southern Europe sometime. I'm specifically referring to Greece and southern Italy, those people know NOTHING. Centuries of non-development, poor goatherders and fishermen has begat .... yet more non-development, poor goatherders and fishermen, but these ones are in debt. I'm not saying that they're not nice people or that there isn't amazing culture in those countries as a whole, it's just that they know dick about shit. Believe me, north Americans are well educated by comparison.