Just a reminder: One of the goals of the Mars Odyssey Mission is to analyze the radiation environment. Why? To know what risks future human explorers will face, and allow scientists, engineers, and planners to make certain our human explorers are as safe as possible.
Another example, in the NASA Human Spaceflight Gallery are a series of Mars Exploration artists' concepts. Why? Let me quote: "the art work represented here serves as a comprehensive study of various concepts and ideas developed as possibilities over a period of years." People are being paid to dream of a manned mission to Mars--and are sharing that dream with us to inspire us to share that goal (and open our wallets when the time comes).
Now, I don't know about you, but what I see in these examples is a ramp-up to send actual human beings to Mars, they just haven't set it in stone yet.
For now, until the commercial potential of space exploration is realized, we need NASA to continue its efforts. We're already seeing a "boom" in space tourism, but that would not have happened without the Space Station (and the Russians willing to explore the capitalistic potential of space travel). I think for the private sector to truly get involved, we need NASA to develop the base technologies and create an infrastructure for the private sector to build upon. NASA one day may become a regulatory body along the lines of today's Department of Transportation, but that time has yet to arrive.
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Just a reminder: One of the goals of the Mars Odyssey Mission is to analyze the radiation environment. Why? To know what risks future human explorers will face, and allow scientists, engineers, and planners to make certain our human explorers are as safe as possible.
Another example, in the NASA Human Spaceflight Gallery are a series of Mars Exploration artists' concepts. Why? Let me quote: "the art work represented here serves as a comprehensive study of various concepts and ideas developed as possibilities over a period of years." People are being paid to dream of a manned mission to Mars--and are sharing that dream with us to inspire us to share that goal (and open our wallets when the time comes).
Now, I don't know about you, but what I see in these examples is a ramp-up to send actual human beings to Mars, they just haven't set it in stone yet.
For now, until the commercial potential of space exploration is realized, we need NASA to continue its efforts. We're already seeing a "boom" in space tourism, but that would not have happened without the Space Station (and the Russians willing to explore the capitalistic potential of space travel). I think for the private sector to truly get involved, we need NASA to develop the base technologies and create an infrastructure for the private sector to build upon. NASA one day may become a regulatory body along the lines of today's Department of Transportation, but that time has yet to arrive.