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How Close Are We To a Mars Mission? (thenewstack.io)
destinyland writes: NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s," reads the official NASA web site. But National Geographic points out that "the details haven't been announced, in large part because such a massive, long-term spending project would require the unlikely support of several successive U.S. presidents." And yet on November 4th, NASA put out a call for astronaut applications "in anticipation of returning human spaceflight launches to American soil, and in preparation for the agency's journey to Mars," and they're currently experimenting with growing food in space. And this week they not only ordered the first commercial mission to the International Space Station, but also quietly announced that they've now partnered with 22 private space companies.
I'm going to guess about 225 Million km. (on average)
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
We should not be in such a hurry that we are sending people in fragile tin cans reliant on chemical rockets. Instead we should be working on building an actual Ship in orbit.
What is a "Ship"? First, it is a vessel with ample power: some kind of reactor that can run all the ship's systems, plus a magnetic shield. The other systems a reactor would power is the engines...Ion or those EM drives (should they pan out. I expect the truth should be sorted out by the time they get around to building something like this). Sure...they are low thrust, but you can have a lot of them. And they have some pretty powerful ones in development.
Another thing it would have to be is big. Room for rotating sections for artificial gravity, hydroponics, a workshop (because AAA doesn't serve Space yet). Storage for fuel, water, a lander of some sort, etc.
Sure, it sounds all futuristic, but we have the essential technologies or they are on the drawing boards, or can be with just a bit of political will. It's time we took the next step in Space Travel...the step where it's actual travel and not just joy rides to lower orbit. We can put off Mars for a decade or and instead focus on building something that is safe, reliable and not a one and done soda pop can.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Sad to say, that has become the U.S.'s battle cry. Unless an immediate short term profit can be had the funding should be put elsewhere. Let the next guy worry about investing in the future, I need my profits now!China, on the other hand, has a history of investing for long term gains. They are a much more patient people,
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
While we're undertaking the timely and expensive process of terraforming a dead planet I hope we divert a little effort into protecting the one we're currently inhabiting ;)
My guess is that absent any major change on this planet, no group or combination of groups that has enough money is willing to spend it on the trip.
So the answer is far away.
Why is Snark Required?
I wish you were modded up because you are interesting, but you are oh so wrong.
Prions are scary because they don't seem to have a solution- like Ice-9 in Cat's Cradle, they convert everything that is like them, into them, until nothing is left. But, they require full biological access- you pretty much have to eat them in order for them to be permitted access to the things that are "mostly" like themselves. In many other places, the immune system would be able to stop them (for instance, cell membranes), because they would recognizably change the surface You couldn't ruin yourself by just inhaling a prion, like you could a virus.
A virus is probably more likely as a threat, and we (maybe) understand how unlikely it would be that a virus capable of infecting humans would be on Mars.
Your post also has an interesting implication- it implies that the "Great Filter" is that a terrible anti-life thing evolves faster than defenses for it can, in most situations. It hypothesizes (whether you did or not) that life on Mars both existed, and met its end at the end of some molecular grim reaper, that we risk contaminating Earth with. I would argue that such a Grim Reaper (molecule or construct) would have reached Earth at some point already- and if not, that we would likely find such a Grim Reaper on pretty much ANY planet we looked, and were just spared for no reason. This seems unlikely (but interesting).
Finally on the "Mars contaminates us" point, it is MUCH more likely that we find something inimical to human life here on Earth- for instance, very deep in an ocean, or near the top of a mountain, or buried in ice. Do you raise your FUD Flag against such a threat? Or is it only confined to space travel? Reminder: Our species will ultimately go extinct without space travel- this is a fact!
On your other point- "we contaminate Mars"- fucking fine. There's nothing amazing on Mars right now, life-wise, and if there is, we can keep it in a tiny Mars zoo. It's totally worthless to dedicate a whole planet to whatever random bacteria Mars happens to host right now, if indeed it hosts anything. A few score petri dishes will do nicely.
Humans are still more concerned with blow each other than exploring other planets.
Too bad your typo isn't true. But yes. Humanity is not the space-faring species we are looking for.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I'm a guy who stared up, glassy eyed (mostly because I was a kid in the middle of a serious sunstroke) as Armstrong stepped down that ladder, I had my plastic model of the Saturn V and scrapbook after scrapbook of the Apollo missions,so I guess you could call me a fan of exploration, science, engineering - all the things that had to come together for that moment to happen, but I honestly think those days are gone or at least disappearing. Two things end up driving exploration - a romantic ideal of the need to know, and the chance for someone to make a whack of cash. I think like after the "discovery" of North America, it's the investors that will drive the future of space. Nobody with any control over the sort of money this is going to cost believes that we are genuinely on the edge of destroying Earth - no "Interstellar scenario" is forthcoming - so what it will end up being is profit. Mining, most likely. As robotics advances the arguments are fewer and fewer for putting humans in harm's way. Maybe Mars will end up being on the list, my bet is the asteroid belt, though.
"Except going to Mars is propaganda and not science. "
Actually it's both -- and more. Is the goal to JUST send robots to probe our solar system? Or to actually make a human presence? I believe the latter and I believe it's important for many reasons which should be obvious.
Except going to Mars is propaganda and not science. No scientific value in sending man to Mars.
That's not true at all. We would learn a tremendous amount from sending a man to Mars. There would have to be great advances in medicine, agriculture, life support, power, shielding, and much more. Much of it would be technology we are unlikely to develop any other way. We would learn a tremendous amount by sending a man to Mars or even to the Moon.
Lots of scientific value sending probes and what not to explore the galaxy. Cheaper too.
Of course there is value in probes. But there are things you cannot learn by sending probes. That's like saying you can learn everything about Earth by using satellites and ROVs. It simply isn't true. You cannot learn anything about human physiology for one. You learn nothing about life (ours or alien) in these remote places. Probes have their value but the idea that they can completely replace sending people is absurd.