I have to question the logic of terraforming Mars. First your trying to produce an environment exactly like Earth, an uncontrolable environment. The whole of human civilization has been an effort to produce a controled environment. Nearly all of human technology is dedicated to isolating us from our environment. We work in hermeticaly sealed buildings, travel in airconditioned cars, fight natural ailments with manmade drugs. Let's face it, we really don't like living on planet Earth, why would we want to build another not as good?
A better use of Mars would be to use the material Mars represents for the construction of Space Colonies. There you would have a totally controled environment and the freedom of space would be a short elevator ride away.
Mars, a cold dry dead planet, leave it that way.
I am constantly amazed by the great lengths
that government bureaucrats will go to to
avoid the hated specter of free enterprise
capitalism in Space. It must be the terror
that haunts their nightmares. Rich Robins
proposal is just one more in a long series of
ideas to "fix" NASA, none of which fix the
basic problem of socialism in space. I will
admit that I do support transferring all
unmanned deep space science missions to
the National Science Foundation, I also
propose transferring Earth observation
satellites to NOAA and USGS, but I do so as
part of a much larger scheme to dismantle
NASA, reducing it to the status of a manned
space flight institute. Further, I propose that
NASA or any other government agency not
own or operate any space asset, but rely
totally on a private commercial space
industry. The Idea is to spread space
knowledge and operational ability
throughout industry and society. The
original concept of "one NASA" was to
concentrate all knowledge, expertise, and
assets into one organization to beat the
Soviets into Space, avoiding competition
and duplication of effort. I think we won that
race, the Russian space program is now
almost totally dependent on NASA support.
Having won the war however, we need to go
back to our normal operational method of
free enterprise capitalism, with government
agencies restricted to non operational basic
research, which is the right way to do things.
NASA bureaucrats, take a deep breath, trust
in the American Free Enterprise System,
and take that bold step OUT of the space
transportation business.
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I have to question the logic of terraforming Mars. First your trying to produce an environment exactly like Earth, an uncontrolable environment. The whole of human civilization has been an effort to produce a controled environment. Nearly all of human technology is dedicated to isolating us from our environment. We work in hermeticaly sealed buildings, travel in airconditioned cars, fight natural ailments with manmade drugs. Let's face it, we really don't like living on planet Earth, why would we want to build another not as good? A better use of Mars would be to use the material Mars represents for the construction of Space Colonies. There you would have a totally controled environment and the freedom of space would be a short elevator ride away. Mars, a cold dry dead planet, leave it that way.
I am constantly amazed by the great lengths that government bureaucrats will go to to avoid the hated specter of free enterprise capitalism in Space. It must be the terror that haunts their nightmares. Rich Robins proposal is just one more in a long series of ideas to "fix" NASA, none of which fix the basic problem of socialism in space. I will admit that I do support transferring all unmanned deep space science missions to the National Science Foundation, I also propose transferring Earth observation satellites to NOAA and USGS, but I do so as part of a much larger scheme to dismantle NASA, reducing it to the status of a manned space flight institute. Further, I propose that NASA or any other government agency not own or operate any space asset, but rely totally on a private commercial space industry. The Idea is to spread space knowledge and operational ability throughout industry and society. The original concept of "one NASA" was to concentrate all knowledge, expertise, and assets into one organization to beat the Soviets into Space, avoiding competition and duplication of effort. I think we won that race, the Russian space program is now almost totally dependent on NASA support. Having won the war however, we need to go back to our normal operational method of free enterprise capitalism, with government agencies restricted to non operational basic research, which is the right way to do things. NASA bureaucrats, take a deep breath, trust in the American Free Enterprise System, and take that bold step OUT of the space transportation business.