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Could We Abort a Manned Mission To Mars?
StartsWithABang writes: The next great leap in human spaceflight is a manned mission to a world within our Solar System: most likely Mars. But if something went wrong along the journey — at launch, close to Earth, or en route — whether biological or mechanical, would there be any way to return to Earth? This article is a fun (and sobering) look at what the limits of physics and technology allow at present.
If you're interested in a hard sci-fi, near-future look at how a catastrophic Mars mission might go, you should read an excellent novel called The Martian by Andy Weir.
Perhaps. But this urge has driven the human race out of Africa and brought us to the edge of space. We're only going to stagnate here as we fill up the planet with people and fight each for the remaining resources. We're even better at killing each other than we are at exploring. Why not direct that energy to kill each other toward expanding our territory into space.
[citation needed]
I think we will never achieve a great leap forward until we come to terms with the fact that what is holding us back from leaping forward is the irrational notion that we need to send flesh for a mission to be legitimate. Sending human flesh to another planet is about as useful long term as sending frozen steak or a banana. We don't insist on using only our hand when building a house: we use tools and machinery. In fact, it is said that the thing that separates us from other species is our tool making. We make tools to achieve the things we want to do, and to advance and make our lives better. The tools for exploring outer space are unmanned probes, robots, machines. Machines that don't require flesh in situ to make them work. 10000 years ago, flesh was needed to dig a hole. Now, we use a back hoe. We don't think of a hole dug by a back hoe as somehow suspect because we didn't dig it by hand. Why is space travel subject to these artificial constraints? Sure: Before the age of computers we didn't imagine machines could be sufficiently autonomous to enable them to be effective, long term in space. But now, we know better. In the 1960s, it was thought the future lay with sending humans into space to move levers. Now, we know better. The humans are just inert luggage. Let's go luggage free.
We still don't have a station orbiting the moon. We don't have a station on the moon. We don't have a sustainable system within our own lunar orbit.
The only reason a Mars mission is one way is because we insist on building the vehicles and launching from Earth.
The cost of launching from earth is much higher than from space because we have to break Earth's gravity and pass through the atmosphere.
We picked on India for making it to Mars by basically cutting corners and just slingshotting a chunk of cheap crap at Mars and then said "ours costs more because we're more conservative". What's our response? Throw a huge expensive chunk of metal at Mars to prove we do it better.
Build the next space station already. Build it big and ship it people and supplies and do it there. If we cat accomplish that, we don belong in space.