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U.S. House Wants 'Sustained Human Presence On the Moon and the Surface of Mars'
MarkWhittington writes "Politico reports in a June 18, 2013 story that House Republicans have added a Mars base to its demands for a lunar base in the draft 2013 NASA Authorization bill. Both the Bush-era Constellation program and President Obama space plan envisioned eventual human expeditions to Mars. But if Politico is correct, the new bill will be the first time an official piece of legislation will call for permanent habitation of the Red Planet. The actual legislative language states, 'The [NASA] Administrator shall establish a program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon and the surface of Mars.'"
Since the planet does not have a strong magnetic field, the surface is lethal.
Sure, if you're naked. But that's true anyway since it doesn't have an atmosphere worth mentioning, unless you're mentioning dust storms.
As has been discussed elsewhere, at the time of arrival on Mars a person would already have received a lifetime's radiation dose.
As has been discussed elsewhere, that assumes using an existing space vehicle design, with jack for shielding. But since you'll need to take water with you in order to bootstrap the mission, you can use it for shielding.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hubble
Kepler
Cassini-Huygens
COBE
WMAP
Spitzer
MSL
GRACE
GRAIL
Chandra
Galileo
SWIFT
We've been mapping the cosmos. We've studied the cosmic microwave background in great detail and discovered that that crazy inflation idea is basically correct (COBE, WMAP). We've determined the Hubble Constant within 9% - we didn't know it within a factor of 2 when I was in grad school (WMAP). We've mapped the large scale structure of the universe, voids and bubbles. Not to mention the numerous theories that have died in the face of experimental evidence from NASA probes, or crazy ideas that have been confirmed.
We've discovered that almost every star we've looked at has multiple planets (Kepler). When I started in this biz, we literally had no idea what \eta_{planet} might be, and now we're closing in on \eta_{earth}.
We've landed probes on Titan (Huygens) and Mars (Rovers, MSL). We're driving robots around on Mars. We've mapped the gravity fields of two planets (GRACE, GRAIL). We've studied the outer planets in great detail (Cassini, Galileo). We've discovered that we don't know what 96% of the universe is made of (HST/Chandra).
Not to mention mapping out gamma ray bursters (SWIFT), x-ray and infrared cosmology (Chandra, Spitzer), and detailed study of the planet we live on (GRACE, numerous others).
We're living in a golden age of cosmology and earth science. You think no one is going to care about these discoveries in a hundred years? Two of those, dark matter/energy and the discovery of extra-stellar planets are paradigm-shifting.
We have the capability to do much more. Give NASA the price of a couple of B2 bombers or an aircraft carrier (or an ISS) spread out over the next decade, and we'll determine the spectra of the atmosphere of other planets light years away (and perhaps find evidence of life), and study the universe in the gravitational wave spectrum. And a dozen other great ideas that simply aren't going to be funded in my lifetime.
The house thought they had the funds already, but it turns out they were looking at the NSA budget, not NASA.