Discussion / Analysis FAQ Humans-to-MARS

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planetling

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I am a proponent of landing humans on Mars. There is much heated debate whether it is possible to do so within a 10 year time frame. My interpretation of the NASA budget combined with nonsensical and selfish political motives lead me to believe that a manned mission to Mars will not really happen for at least 50 years, if slight luck were to even prevail.

I have been a long time follower of Robert Zubrin, along with many other humans-to-Mars supporters. Though I have a deep passion for astronomy, the search for ET and learning about everything space, I consider myself an amatuer/novice. Everything that is explained in The Mars Society Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) seems to make sense, thus I can agree to all of it, but I am curious as to what others think about the FAQ?

I would like to open this up for debate. Line by line, do you agree or dispute what the FAQ states, technologically and financially (please give reasons for your statements/opinions)?

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/faq#how_much_cash
 
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a_lost_packet_

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Staring at that black background and tiny white text makes my eyes bleed... Until they change it, I'm not going to bother reading it any more. I read a good deal of it, but the contrast is too much to bear with in any sensibly detailed discussion. Not going to do it... I've got to keep these eyes with me for another forty years or so.. hopefully.
 
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planetling

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I am disappointed that nobody wanted to express their thoughts on this subject. While I'm sure that Zubrins statements are well-founded in his opinion (many of which I as a novice can agree), there are still yet many other opinions that could be debated/contributed to the goal.

I guess that society, no matter how intelligent, no matter the industry, no matter the hobby, has a long way to go in the evolution process in order to alter methodology of the status quoe.

There are many threads on this forum that I find hugely interesting, even the ones that have been debated elsewhere and many times before. I had hoped that as others stumble across this forum that more engaging interest would spread, wishing that we can someday collectively persuade our political respresentatives (even though in my opinion politics should have NO place in exploration) that like the moon landings of decades ago, we can achieve such fantastic dreams within prompter set periods of time. But if the bright and knowledgable on this very forum lose steam and decide that such posts/discussions are ultimately useless maybe we as a species really aren't ready to travel the stars after all?

As senseless as everything has been proven to be, I still choose to never lose hope.
 
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a_lost_packet_

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planetling":6e292vn3 said:
...But if the bright and knowledgable on this very forum lose steam and decide that such posts/discussions are ultimately useless maybe we as a species really aren't ready to travel the stars after all?

As senseless as everything has been proven to be, I still choose to never lose hope.

Ah, it's everyone else's fault, eh? "Society is to blame, it's going down the crapper!"

Perhaps if you added some structure to your post, asked specific questions and focused on very specific points, you'd get more responses than simply writing:

"Read this webpage and then write an essay on each point in your response."

I read a great deal of the page. But, sorry, it's terribly done and it literally hurts my eyes. So, I'm not going to consider getting into a conversation about it because it simply isn't worth the pain to have to flip back and forth between sources.

If you have a question and would like to know what people think, why don't you simply write out that question and ask for responses instead of referring people to a painfully illegible webpage filled with a bazillion separate points?

It's not our apathy. It's your lack of effort.
 
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MeteorWayne

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It's also that you posted it in Free Space instead of a more appropriate forum....

In Free Space, you get what ya pay for ;) :lol:
 
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Gravity_Ray

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planetling":1ti5yfi0 said:
I am a proponent of landing humans on Mars. There is much heated debate whether it is possible to do so within a 10 year time frame. My interpretation of the NASA budget combined with nonsensical and selfish political motives lead me to believe that a manned mission to Mars will not really happen for at least 50 years, if slight luck were to even prevail.

I have been a long time follower of Robert Zubrin, along with many other humans-to-Mars supporters. Though I have a deep passion for astronomy, the search for ET and learning about everything space, I consider myself an amatuer/novice. Everything that is explained in The Mars Society Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) seems to make sense, thus I can agree to all of it, but I am curious as to what others think about the FAQ?

I would like to open this up for debate. Line by line, do you agree or dispute what the FAQ states, technologically and financially (please give reasons for your statements/opinions)?

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/faq#how_much_cash


The problem (if you want to call it that) is that nobody here is really "against" going to Mars. Heck I’m a go to Mars guy" myself and have read most of that page and happen to agree with almost everything written there. However we are struggling to get it together to go to the Moon and that’s our backyard. Mars is an order of magnitude harder. Can you imagine if Obama says OK we are going to Mars. You know what will happen? People here will say this guy has lost touch with reality. Here we are trying to make jobs so families can have dinner and not lose their homes and he is talking about sinking Billions into going to Mars... So I really dont think there is a technical reason why we cant go to Mars. There is just a lot of socio-political reasons not to go.
 
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planetling

Guest
To all, points well taken.


Q: Sending humans to Mars is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
I can't blame only Obama or only Bush for the bailouts, but if govt can require taxpayers to bail out private industry while industry is slashing jobs/moving abroad then I see no reason why the administration can't shift gears, educate the citizens and return to what has worked historically.

The Great Depression: Henry Ford reduced hours while at the same time increased pay. People were able to pocket extra money and spend time with their families. Families had more free time, purchased Henry Fords cars which help Fords bottom line, more gasoline was purchased, hotels/restaraunts saw an increase in profits, etc. etc.

If the govt. used the same approach with the space program with a clear vision to send man to Mars or even the Moon (again) this would help to stimulate the economy much in the same way Ford did during the depression. Govt. and private sectors as well as the working people in AMERICA would all benefit as this would require enormous resources which would trickle down to everything including buying extra toilet paper.

Q: Won't sending humans to Mars distract NASA from other important work?
With layoffs just announced and no specific plans or goals since the ISS, my response is: what important work?

Q: Do we need to go to the Moon first to prepare for a Mars mission?
1. Everything in the FAQ makes sense. But this is an example of where I would have like to see responses from everybody on this forum. We've been to the Moon, but we have not been to Mars. If Mars used to be more Earth-like, would it not make sense to learn everything about it, with the possibly of finding microbes beneath the surface?
2. If concentrated efforts were performed could we realistically provide the technology required to actually send man to Mars within 5 years (2015)?
3. If we could obtain Mars would this not allow us to advance even further so that we could possibly send up a space station in Mars/Jupiter orbit so that in-depth research could be performed on the various moons? IMO this would in turn create added job growth as well as technologies that would eventually trickle down to society.
 
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cosmictraveler

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What is better to do, explore 100 space objects to understand them better or just to explore Mars? I'd think that the more we can learn about the universe the better off we will be. By just spending everything we have to perhaps make it to Mars and back is , to me, a waste of allot of time and money now. By carefully planning robotic missions, building better telescopes, advancing astrophysics , to me, would be much better not only for jobs but for the growth of the understanding of space. About 35 missions have been sent to Mars and ony 13 of them made it! That's not a very good average is it. We need to advance safety, speed and lower costs in order for humans to venture off to Mars. We still cannot stop the radiation from bombarding a spaceship and hurting the crew over a 2 year time table , which is what it will take today to go to Mars. So many problems to work out. Perhaps in 30 to 50 years we can find a faster way to get to Mars which would be the best thing for everyone involved. I do want exploration to continue but let us not put all of our monies into one project that could end up in disaster.
 
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Smersh

Guest
Gravity_Ray":d83hjiqg said:
... The problem (if you want to call it that) is that nobody here is really "against" going to Mars. Heck I’m a go to Mars guy" myself and have read most of that page and happen to agree with almost everything written there. However we are struggling to get it together to go to the Moon and that’s our backyard. Mars is an order of magnitude harder. Can you imagine if Obama says OK we are going to Mars. You know what will happen? People here will say this guy has lost touch with reality. Here we are trying to make jobs so families can have dinner and not lose their homes and he is talking about sinking Billions into going to Mars... So I really dont think there is a technical reason why we cant go to Mars. There is just a lot of socio-political reasons not to go.

I would very much like to see a manned mission to Mars asap as well, but I agree with all those points about the socio-political problems. However, I view it as "glass half-full" and remain hopeful that the world economy will improve enough in the coming years to make such a mission much less politically controversial. We are all currently trying to emerge from a very deep worldwide recession caused by the irresponsible actions of the "banksters" and in my opinion it's not a normal state of affairs. I believe this recession has been very bad indeed, even when compared to other similar periods over the last hundred years or so.

Therefore I'm optimistic that ambitious plans for space travel, such as going to Mars, will be back on the table as soon the economic situation makes it viable once again, which hopefully will happen reasonably quickly.
 
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TheAnt

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Hello Smersh.
Good to hear that you're optimistic. I am sadly not.
Even when the Apollo program still were running, president Nixon drafted a budget that would put one end to a working and aggressive space program. Public interest were not exactly supportive for the ideas of von Braun and associates at the time either. And I think that the support from the public in general is even more feeble today.

Yet if we should consider a Mars mission, and I do like the idea as much as Gravity_ray say we all do. I'd say we should dust off the Flyby-Landing-Excursion-Mode proposal type of mission http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2010_04_04_archive.html

Marrying the FLEM idea with in-situ resource utilization for a Mars surface to the interplanetary transit craft which according to the old FLAM proposal only do a flyby at Mars we could have simpler and more lightweight mission and still get 1 to 2 weeks for exploration on the Martian surface.
 
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