I originally posted this as an almost off-handed reply to Laurele on
Yet another solar system question thread. It really belongs on "Space Exploration" forum, though -- hence the re-post. Romanus and Ken G obviously agree with me; I suspect some people will disagree strongly.
There are several reasons for my pessimism. The biggest one is this: NASA can not admit that space is dangerous. Normally in any dangerous activity, be it soldiering, firefighting, or test-flying airplanes, the people in charge decide what level of risk is acceptable, and plan their budgets, training, and operations accordingly. The lower is acceptable risk, the less operation can be carried out on a given budget, and vice versa. The risk level decisions are almost never publicized – on your local fire department’s website you won’t find "we expect X deaths and Y injuries over next decade", - but you can be sure fire chief has that information, and brings it up at the next municipal budget hearing. And both fire chief and city council know that the only way to bring X (let alone Y) to zero is not fight fires at all. So fire departments balance expected deaths, expected number of fires and available money, and when someone dies they grieve, do their best to learn from the experience, and carry on.
The quandary of NASA’s Office of Manned Spaceflight is that it is too much in the public eye, yet does not have a clearly defined purpose. A city can not live without a fire department; nothing drastic will happen to USA if Office of Manned Spaceflight closed tomorrow. Mike Griffin knows that space is dangerous and every once in a while people will die – but he wouldn’t last a week if he went before Congress and said "This mission architecture cost X dollars, has Y percent chance of landing on Mars on schedule, and Z percent chance of killing one or more astronauts. Double the X, and Y will increase such and such, and Z will decrease such and such." Even though it would be the truth. Far too many people who for whatever reasons do not want a Mars mission (or even just do not care about it) would seize on Griffin’s words and demand to know "Why are we risking astronauts lives?" Which, BTW, is as legitimate a question as "Why are we risking firefighters lives?" or "Why are we risking test pilots lives?" The difference is that the latter two have clear, generally accepted answers, and the former one does not.
Hence we get slogans such as "Safety first!" and "Failure is not an option", which sound good, but really do not make much sense. If safety really is your first goal, you should not fly at all. If you do fly but claim perfect safety, you are perpetuating a fraud. Without a fixed, admitted level of acceptable risk NASA is forced to minimize risks endlessly – which causes delays and cost overruns, and never ends, and always fails sooner or later. And when it fails (Challenger, Columbia) there is hand wringing, and Congressional investigations, and design changes, and projects put on hold, and ultimately nothing changes because the fundamental philosophy is fraudulent.
So I expect VSE, or whatever Mars mission, to get endlessly redesigned and delayed in the name of safety, because you can never get safe enough
without the honest quantitative definition of "enough". Which ain’t gonna happen.
While all this drags on, two other developments will continue. One, improvements in robotics will keep giving more ammunition to proponents of robotic science (who can and do apply realistic risk analysis). Two, private spaceflight will strip NASA astronauts from what’s left of their heroic aura. Both developments will make manned Mars trip harder and harder to justify as time goes by – especially when (as I expect will happen) private operators will begin selling seats at competitive prices and no red tape to researches who need manned presence in space. This will undermine "No Buck Rogers, no bucks" argument of government-sponsored manned spaceflight.
So I expect NASA manned Mars mission to die eventually burdened by all these difficulties. First person to walk on Mars will not be paid for by US (or any other) government. He or she will do so when Mars trip is within scope of private companies. And for all my hopes on private spaceflight, I do not expect it develop fast enough to make a manned Mars trip profitable (big dfference between
doable and
profitable) before 2100 or so. And by that time I expect the said person to be adapted for space through biotechnology and/or cyborg implants -- put as much life support as possible inside the astronaut.
Unless either a) life is unambiguously discovered on Mars*, or b) military-related reason to go there comes up. Then all bets are off.
* In fact, if life is unambiguously discovered on
Europa, I would expect a manned expedition to Jupiter BEFORE one to Mars.