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'Sending Astronauts To Mars Would be Stupid' (bbc.com)
One of the first men to orbit the Moon has told BBC Radio 5 Live that it's "stupid" to plan human missions to Mars. Bill Anders, lunar module pilot of Apollo 8, the first human spaceflight to leave Earth's orbit, said sending crews to Mars was "almost ridiculous". From a report: NASA is currently planning new human missions to the Moon. It wants to learn the skills and develop the technology to enable a future human landing on Mars. NASA was approached for a response to Anders' comments, but hasn't responded.
Anders, 85, said he's a "big supporter" of the "remarkable" unmanned programmes, "mainly because they're much cheaper". But he says the public support simply isn't there to fund vastly more expensive human missions. "What's the imperative? What's pushing us to go to Mars?" he said, adding "I don't think the public is that interested". Meanwhile, robotic probes are still exploring Mars. Last month, the InSight lander, which will sample the planet's interior, successfully touched down at Elysium Planitia. Further reading: Bill Nye: We Are Not Going To Live on Mars, Let Alone Turn It Into Earth.
Anders, 85, said he's a "big supporter" of the "remarkable" unmanned programmes, "mainly because they're much cheaper". But he says the public support simply isn't there to fund vastly more expensive human missions. "What's the imperative? What's pushing us to go to Mars?" he said, adding "I don't think the public is that interested". Meanwhile, robotic probes are still exploring Mars. Last month, the InSight lander, which will sample the planet's interior, successfully touched down at Elysium Planitia. Further reading: Bill Nye: We Are Not Going To Live on Mars, Let Alone Turn It Into Earth.
Communications to Mars have stupid high latency. 4 to 24 minutes depending on where Mars happens to be.
As a result, the robots have to be incredibly paranoid and drive at a snail's pace. Put some people there and with good equipment they could get stuff done 20 times faster, not to mention doing things the robots aren't equipped for.
Put a small fabrication shop on Mars, and they'll be able to craft whatever tool's needed for the job on the spot if anything unexpected comes up.
Did somebody put something in the entire western world's drinking water, or why is everyone so ridiculously overly cautious and scared of literally everything nowadays?
Seriously, not trolling or anything... Hasn't anybody else noticed this trend?
Where's the spirit of "Worth it!"? ;)
I won't impose my maybe crass view on anyone, but IMHO a bit of pain or even dying isn't *that* bad, compared to never having actually lived at all. It's not like we are bad at making even more humans until we die in our own waste.
I'd rather live suicidal 40 years, than boring 120.
was the reason for climbing Everest and is a good enough reason for going to Mars.
We also need to get off this planet before we are wiped out by an asteroid or something. Doing that in large numbers and creating a self sufficient colony on some other rock (preferably circling another star) will be very hard, a toe hold on Mars would be a great start.