S
signalhill
Guest
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>even being optimist, when I see those decades being thrown about as targets for going to Mars, I don't have any faith it will happen in those time frames and not even with some five or ten year added to it (as with initial plans for ISS for example) but more like fifty or what putting is safely beyond my expected lifespan and therefore care, point is US public doesn't see space exploration as any priority at all and today's plans may happen but also may not (or happen way too much later)<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Exactly my point.<br /><br />This once in a while press-release 'throw a bone' thing, purporting "25 to 30 years" to Mars is absolutely, unequivocally, false. My decadal breakdowns shed stark light on this. There is no way in nine ways to Sunday such a timeframe is at all realistic. 25 years? Who are we kidding? It will take an additional decade to just "figure out" what further use the ISS will make. Then another 20 years to "go back to the moon." <br /><br />This is just to go back to the Lunar program. An actual functioning Lunar "trailer park" will not be realized for probably a time frame beyond all of our lifetimes or useful segments of our lifetimes. <br /><br />A Martian outpost for a first rock collecting vacation will not happen for at least fifty years. With anything related to space funding through NASA or any other chain of government bureucracy, add five, ten, fifteen years to any publicly stated estimate, <i>then double that figure whatever it is.</i> <br /><br />To then "practice" in-situ "Martian conditions" on the moon to gain "knowledge," assuming such an outpost is ever even made functional (the Lunar surface equivalent of the ISS --something NOWHERE near being made reality as the ISS itself is nearly TEN YEARS old and not even finished) would require <i>decades of "research" and funding for Lunar surface "missions."</i> And then how many manned Lunar stays/projects must elapase over h