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NASA Releases 'Journey To Mars' Plan -- But Not a Budget (nasa.gov)
MarkWhittington writes: NASA released a document describing the steps involved in its Journey to Mars program (PDF). But, as the Wall Street Journal suggests, the "plan" has a conspicuous lack of specifics. It doesn't go into how much the program will cost or what intermediate steps have to be taken before human beings set foot on Mars in the 2030s. This is likely because of the upcoming and subsequent changes of governing administrations — the space agency's deep space exploration goals are likely to get a reevaluation. The plan serves as a public relations document more than anything else.
Let's ignore how cool it is to go into space. Let's ignore the benefits of aerospace technology on our daily lives. Let's teach our kids to uphold the status quo and be good little slaves to their corporate overlords. Let's let the MBAs and their accountant lackeys use their spreadsheets and declare this a waste of money.
I hope an asteroid GUTS this worthless planet. We as a species deserve to die if we're too stupid to see the value of getting off this damnable rock.
"..or what intermediate steps have to be taken.."
This is always a problem: incrementalist thinking, the idea that one can achieve the revolutionary through small intermediate steps with an evolutionary process. This is very limited (and limiting) thinking, and people who think that way will never achieve anything truly revolutionary. If you think like this, you should probably get the hell out of the way of those of us who don't. We'll come back for you. Some day. Maybe.
If we wanted to send humans anywhere that would pay the most benefit, I really think Venus (cloudtops) would be best. Venus is so under-studied that any mission (manned or otherwise) has the potential to yield huge scientific benefits, and the ability to real-time control probes exploring the surface (aka, where their time that they can spend near the surface is limited before they have to head up to re-chill their cooling reservoir and recharge their batteries, and you don't want the lag time of commands sent all the way from Earth) would be of significant benefit. And in terms of future mining potential, Venus probably has the most useful geology - the types of lava flows found by the Soviets, and the additional potential of carbonatites, combined with the "high radar reflective" precipitated minerals, all are very promising signs for enrichment of rare and economically valuable minerals. Phase-change balloons can descend to the surface and bring minerals up to the cloudtops, and are eminently achievable with current technology - hardly more complicated than the old Soviet Vega probes. Since you're floating, you can move anywhere on the planet in a relatively short period of time (due to superrotation, you really have no choice in the matter ;) ), so you're not limited to whatever resources happen to be close to your base. And the cloudtops are a very hospitable environment to humans - at 52-56km a person may even be able to step outside with nothing more than a mask on (oxygen provision and eye protection are a must, but the CO and SOx levels may be low enough to not be problematic to bare skin - the pressure and temperature are fine). The significant atmosphere overhead provides a good deal of radiation protection, even though there is no dynamo-driven magnetic field.
The moon is nearby and a conveniently low gravity well, but as far as minerals go, it's pretty boring - to the point that the best people have come up with is "helium 3 fuel" to power reactors which don't exist and which probably will never be an idea fusion fuel (if you can fuse it and can make an economic case for it, you can probably also fuse P-B which is much better and cheaper). And it will always suffer from "been there, done that" syndrome.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
The footprint photo at the end of the brochure is 50 years old and we haven't been back. NASA has been talking about a manned mars mission 20 years in the future for the last 50 years. OK to be honest it was 10 years in the future 50 years ago.
The space age is over.
Eventually some civilization, mayl find the Apollo landers and and wonder why we gave up with the stars withing our grasp. We won't be around for them to ask.
Yet, it's by slow steady intermediate steps and evolutionary processes that practically every one of mankind's major breakthroughs, advances, and achievements have been accomplished. They're not visible to the narrow minded or the the clueless - but they're there none the less.
The problem isn't with "limited (and limiting) thinking", it's with idiots who have no patience and no grasp of how the world works... who think things just happen magically.
"..or what intermediate steps have to be taken.."
This is always a problem: incrementalist thinking, the idea that one can achieve the revolutionary through small intermediate steps with an evolutionary process.
But that's where revolutionary ideas come from. Progress is a long series of small intermediate steps and some of those steps turn out to be the revolutionary ones. That's why you get things like Alexander Graham Bell's "race" to the patent office, or Darwin finding out that Wallace had also discovered natural selection. Revolutionary ideas need a solid foundation of incremental discoveries.
But that's actually kind of off-topic for this story, we have all the revolutionary technology already, it's simply a matter of cost and will, and "incrementalist thinking" is a great way to make each of these easier.
This is very limited (and limiting) thinking, and people who think that way will never achieve anything truly revolutionary. If you think like this, you should probably get the hell out of the way of those of us who don't. We'll come back for you. Some day. Maybe.
I suspect you have it backwards. If you're only interested in the revolutionary you'll never get anywhere because you'll be missing all the intermediate steps. If you want to move forward start by doing all the incremental things, eventually you'll have done enough that the revolutionary is in sight.
I stole this Sig