Zubrin on C2C -- he doesn't like Obama Mars plans.

[neutrino78x]

Coast to Coast AM is a radio show that is syndicated across the USA and around the world. Last night -- 29 April 2010 -- they had Robert Zubrin on, who created the idea of Mars Direct. He said he doesn't like Obama's speech, because Obama said the plan would be to go to an asteroid in 2025 and orbit Mars in 2030, in other words, nothing beyond LEO while he is in office.

You can download the interview from the KSFO 560 AM archives here:

Thursday 10-11 pm -- Coast to Coast AM, Robert Zubrin interview

Steam the hour by clicking here and clicking on Play.

The actual interview starts at 19 minutes and 31 seconds into the file.

This file will be online until next Thurday at 11 pm, when KSFO will replace it with a file holding their broadcast from 10-11 that night.

--Brian

 

[menellom]

While the timeline is too slow for my taste, it should be noted that it's based on the current economic situation (which ain't good). As the economy picks up over the next couple years expect that deadline to be pushed left.

 

[kelvinzero]

I thought it was zubrin himself who had mocked certain NASA short-stay mars missions as merely "setting distance records". I had totally agreed with him when he said that so of course I totally disagree with him now.

 

[neutrino78x]

I thought it was zubrin himself who had mocked certain NASA short-stay mars missions as merely "setting distance records". I had totally agreed with him when he said that so of course I totally disagree with him now.

Well, his position has not changed. Mars Direct would involve staying on Mars for about a year per mission.

--Brian

 

[kelvinzero]

Well, yes. And I really liked the sound of that. I loved that mars underground DVD. But constellation and even flexible path were not going to do that.

I have just actually listened to the broadcast. The problem is that Zubrin just makes far too many highly disputable statements, and that eugenics conspiracy stuff was just weird.

It would be good to hear a debate between zubrin and a credible supporter of the new approach. Anyone know of one?

 

[danhezee]

Coast to Coast AM is a radio show that is syndicated across the USA and around the world. Last night -- 29 April 2010 -- they had Robert Zubrin on, who created the idea of Mars Direct. He said he doesn't like Obama's speech, because Obama said the plan would be to go to an asteroid in 2025 and orbit Mars in 2030, in other words, nothing beyond LEO while he is in office.

--Brian

Of course Zubrin doesn't like the plan. IMO, Zubrin is a highly educated selfish baby. He only wants *HIS* plan with no compromises. Because *HE* came up with the idea for *HIS* plan.

I think the biggest flaw with Mars Direct is.... We either go to Mars or we do nothing at all. We aren't building infrastructure for a space fairing society. What if the first Mars Direct mission ended fatally? How long would it be before the public felt safe enough to try it again? I personally think it would be a century or more.

Now that rant about Mars Direct and Zubrin are over. By reading in between the lines I agree with Zubrin, anything that is outside of the current administrations term isnt going to happen. The dates will slip and the next president will cancel it.

But both Bush's and Obama's administrations are and were taking critical steps for a space fairing society with COTS and CCDev. Programs like that will get us to mars and the rest of the solar system.

 

[Polishguy]

Coast to Coast AM is a radio show that is syndicated across the USA and around the world. Last night -- 29 April 2010 -- they had Robert Zubrin on, who created the idea of Mars Direct. He said he doesn't like Obama's speech, because Obama said the plan would be to go to an asteroid in 2025 and orbit Mars in 2030, in other words, nothing beyond LEO while he is in office.

--Brian

Of course Zubrin doesn't like the plan. IMO, Zubrin is a highly educated selfish baby. He only wants *HIS* plan with no compromises. Because *HE* came up with the idea for *HIS* plan.

I think the biggest flaw with Mars Direct is.... We either go to Mars or we do nothing at all. We aren't building infrastructure for a space fairing society. What if the first Mars Direct mission ended fatally? How long would it be before the public felt safe enough to try it again? I personally think it would be a century or more.

Now that rant about Mars Direct and Zubrin are over. By reading in between the lines I agree with Zubrin, anything that is outside of the current administrations term isnt going to happen. The dates will slip and the next president will cancel it.

But both Bush's and Obama's administrations are and were taking critical steps for a space fairing society with COTS and CCDev. Programs like that will get us to mars and the rest of the solar system.

I must disagree. The Mars Direct plan would result in numerous technologies that would be extremely useful for establishing a Space-faring society. For example, heavy lift rockets (which the Flexible Plan has pushed back), and the Mars Direct modules themselves. Zubrin proposes a secondary use of the Mars Direct Habitats and ERVs as Moon modules. Zubrin also suggest a Mars-Direct mission with Nuclear Thermal Rockets, which would be far more useful than orbital fuel depots.

And Obama's 'plan'...

Well, right after cancelling a heavy-lift rocket (Ares V), he proposes an asteroid mission that would require a rocket of Ares V capability. That doesn't sound logical. He should have kept Ares V R&D going.

As for developing technologies for building a space-faring society, isn't that what we were supposed to be doing with Shuttle and Station? The only significant benefit of the Space Station programme is the urine recycler. If we get a goal, we'd develop far more technologies that are useful to expansion into outer space. For example, in the sixties, we built RTGs, Heavy-Lift, life-support systems, lunar landers, re-entry capsules, and the technology for a space station (Skylab). In Shuttle/ISS era (1980-2010) we developed the urine recycler. Not exactly a comparable leap.

What Obama's plan should be is a program for a quick-and-cheap Return to the Moon in 5 years or less (I dunno, use Delta-IV and Proton rockets, and the Soyuz capsule, with landers based on the Surveyors and the LK), while developing Heavy Lift (Ares V or greater) with Nuclear Thermal upper stages for the Mars mission.

 

[halman]

Coast to Coast AM is a radio show that is syndicated across the USA and around the world. Last night -- 29 April 2010 -- they had Robert Zubrin on, who created the idea of Mars Direct. He said he doesn't like Obama's speech, because Obama said the plan would be to go to an asteroid in 2025 and orbit Mars in 2030, in other words, nothing beyond LEO while he is in office.

--Brian

Of course Zubrin doesn't like the plan. IMO, Zubrin is a highly educated selfish baby. He only wants *HIS* plan with no compromises. Because *HE* came up with the idea for *HIS* plan.

I think the biggest flaw with Mars Direct is.... We either go to Mars or we do nothing at all. We aren't building infrastructure for a space fairing society. What if the first Mars Direct mission ended fatally? How long would it be before the public felt safe enough to try it again? I personally think it would be a century or more.

Now that rant about Mars Direct and Zubrin are over. By reading in between the lines I agree with Zubrin, anything that is outside of the current administrations term isnt going to happen. The dates will slip and the next president will cancel it.

But both Bush's and Obama's administrations are and were taking critical steps for a space fairing society with COTS and CCDev. Programs like that will get us to mars and the rest of the solar system.

I must disagree. The Mars Direct plan would result in numerous technologies that would be extremely useful for establishing a Space-faring society. For example, heavy lift rockets (which the Flexible Plan has pushed back), and the Mars Direct modules themselves. Zubrin proposes a secondary use of the Mars Direct Habitats and ERVs as Moon modules. Zubrin also suggest a Mars-Direct mission with Nuclear Thermal Rockets, which would be far more useful than orbital fuel depots.

And Obama's 'plan'...

Well, right after cancelling a heavy-lift rocket (Ares V), he proposes an asteroid mission that would require a rocket of Ares V capability. That doesn't sound logical. He should have kept Ares V R&D going.

As for developing technologies for building a space-faring society, isn't that what we were supposed to be doing with Shuttle and Station? The only significant benefit of the Space Station programme is the urine recycler. If we get a goal, we'd develop far more technologies that are useful to expansion into outer space. For example, in the sixties, we built RTGs, Heavy-Lift, life-support systems, lunar landers, re-entry capsules, and the technology for a space station (Skylab). In Shuttle/ISS era (1980-2010) we developed the urine recycler. Not exactly a comparable leap.

What Obama's plan should be is a program for a quick-and-cheap Return to the Moon in 5 years or less (I dunno, use Delta-IV and Proton rockets, and the Soyuz capsule, with landers based on the Surveyors and the LK), while developing Heavy Lift (Ares V or greater) with Nuclear Thermal upper stages for the Mars mission.

Maybe we should look beyond our own goals for space exploration and consider what the people with the real money would like to see come from it. They are NOT interested in colonizing other worlds, or any such romantic crap. They want to make money. Manufacturing in space has tremendous potential for products which simply cannot be made on Earth. But we have to learn how to manufacture in space, which is what the International Space Station is really about. We don't hear about new processes which have been developed, because they are not considered 'newsworthy', all we get are the sensational items, like one of the first steps in a closed-loop life support system, waste recycling.

Space enthusiasts generally seem to be interested in only one thing: Mars. But no government is going to pay for a bunch of people to go live on Mars, at least, not in the foreseeable future. However, the technology needed to get to Mars will be developed by private industry intent on finding raw materials where they are easiest to harvest, in asteroids. Doing so will require new propulsion systems, closed-loop life support systems, and methods of keeping people not just alive, but able to do work, after months, or even years, in space. All of which will make an eventual journey to Mars much more likely, and affordable, because the various technologies needed will have already been developed.

 

[neutrino78x]

Well, yes. And I really liked the sound of that. I loved that mars underground DVD. But constellation and even flexible path were not going to do that.

Flexible path is what the President is doing...there is no reason Mars Direct could not be used in the context of Flexible Path. I say that because the Mars Direct Modules can also be used on the moon, or as a crew module for going to an asteroid. They can also be used without creating Heavy Lift; you assemble very small ships in LEO using EELV or similar commercial rockets.

I guess what I'm saying is that I support both the President's plan and Mars Direct, and I do not agree with Zubrin that they are necessarily incompatible.

It would be good to hear a debate between zubrin and a credible supporter of the new approach. Anyone know of one?

Yeah, the CEOs of the various New Space "Merchant 7" companies.

--Brian