I was just (and still am) working on a massive update for my website and I was working on the MER current events section when I came across this quote from NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Garvin:

[quote]"Mars lures us to explore its mysteries. It is the most Earth-like of our sister planets, and many believe it may hold clues to whether life ever existed or even originated beyond Earth. ... We will continue to explore Mars robotically, and eventually with human explorers."

Hence the poll question.

__________________
"If not now, later." -- me

Useful astro site (yes, it's mine, but it's still quite extensive) ~ http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/index.html
My Astrophotography/Photography site ~ http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/me/photos/index.html

I think there's no question that we'll eventually get there but right now
I don't see that happening before 2030. The problems with long time exposure to low gravity and radiation have yet to be resolved. Of course if they were to put all their energy and resources into it who knows...

2020 just seems too early.

Look at the tentative plans NASA has now, Mars 2005 Missions and Beyond:

I can't see them just 4 years later trying to do something one or two orders of magnitude more challenging. Even 14 years later, 2030, would be a stretch, unless they were fabulously motivated and flush with lots of cash. I can't see that happening.

Maybe some other outfit will want to try, or maybe some technology will come along that makes it more doable, but I'm not holding my breath.

It wouldn't surprise me if the first person to walk on Mars hasn't been born yet.

__________________
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0....

Well, it certainly requires the political will to go there. Bush senior made it
a project that was since discarded. Let's hope Bush jr's successors won't do the same. But I think your right 01101001, 2030 would probably require them to abandon other missions which wouldn't be good.

Can we get to Mars in 30 years? Absolutely. Will we? Probably not.

No government would be willing to spend the money needed without proper incentive (ie, a space race, etc.).

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

I thought the option was 2030... move 1 from the "maybe" to "no" column. Heck, I think we'll be hard pressed to make the moon by 2020. Sure, Bush promised it, but 2020 is 2-3 administrations away.

What we really need is for just one of the woo woos to be right; if we actually did find a pyramid on Mars tomorrow, I might change my vote. :wink:

I think it will happen when the time is right, when it makes commercial sense to send people to Mars. But I no longer see that happening in my lifetime, alas.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I agree with ToSeek, not in my lifetime (I'm 55)!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the telerobotics technology industry will always outpace the "human living in space " industry; there is too much commercial crossover benefit from those technologies. Not much market incentive for keeping people alive in a can and sheilded from cosmic rays for 6 month stretches.... but everyone wants a robot!

So it will be feasible to send squadrons of virtual astronauts that we don't have to worry about bringing back alive, or providing with anything other than electricity, long before the general public clamors for real humans to walk on Mars. For most of us who only see the pictures anyway, that IS going to Mars.

And I don't think the classic line that "A human geologist in 2 days could have done what the rovers took a year to do" has as much merit as some would hold, if you look at it realistically. Those 2 days are tacked on the END of a 15-30 year massive and expensive program to enable that person to be on Mars in the first place. So it takes the human scientist tens of billions of dollars and 20 years (and two days) to make the same discoveries that the MERs made for less than a billion and in 5-7 years, program start to finish.

Just like the exploring the bottom of the ocean, it is so much easier and cheaper to send machines that the general public will need a tremendous incentive (a la life or such) to be convinced to pay for a manned mission. And with HDTV quality near real time video in the future, what else could human astronauts bring back (other that apocalyptic microbes - eeek! 8-[ ) that would engage imagination of the great percentage of non-space-geek population? I for one thank the bots, else we wouldn't be going there at all!

I think I will see humans walk on the moon again in my lifetime, but even at 41, I doubt that I will live to see us walk on Mars given my actuarial odds.

__________________
Lyford Rome
"Zis is not nuts, zis is super-nuts!"
Mathematician Richard Courant on viewing an Orion test

Well, my strictly personal opinion is that there is no economical, militairy or even scientific motivation to send humans to Mars. The only motivation to do manned spacetravel at all is pure politics. (not neccesarily a negative thing) Has been so (Apollo) and will be so for a very long time. As politics is not a rational system it is impossible to predict when (or if) a manned mission to Mars will happen. It could happen tomorrow, technology is definitely not a problem, if you're willing to throw some serious money at it.

__________________
Our Moonshot: join the One Campaign.
please visit: www.one.org

Not for a looong time, I think. Considering how much better our technologies are getting with better and more sophisticated remote sensing, probes look like the best cost vs gain method for some time to come.

__________________
"It's time to receive our missions from The Head."

I'm 43. Sadly, I have to agree with you.

You know, this whole thread is kinda a downer....

Here's to walking on Mars vicarously through our robot masters!

__________________
Lyford Rome
"Zis is not nuts, zis is super-nuts!"
Mathematician Richard Courant on viewing an Orion test

What about me? I've got till mabie 2110

__________________
If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

I think there's actually a pretty decent chance of it happening in our lifetimes (I'm 15), Mickal.

__________________
Moraliser Overtax Porn

Cool

__________________
If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

I don't even see us going back to the moon before 2030. The money just isn't there. Just one extra billion dollars over the next five years to build a replacement for the Shuttle seems to be a bit thin for one thing. With the cancellation of the Venture Star, we really are starting from scratch again. Looking back and having regrets is futile, however, (just my personal opinion) if we had pushed the X-15 and NERVA to their logical conclusions, we would already have a reliable SSTO and a viable solar system exploration program today.

Agreed! But I may be a bit prejudicial there. I helped build and then "flew" (was on the flight team) an interplanetary mision at JPL back in the late 80s. :-)