Too many have gone old and gray waiting for people to go to Mars.
I will not be the next one!

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Maybe it's just me, but I do not believe that the first manned mission to Mars will generate as much passion "across the globe" as did Apollo 11.

The first landing on the Moon was the first human touch ever of another heavenly body. It was something totally unique.

Mars is farther away, it's stone-strewn desert has a somewhat different colour than the ashen-gray desert of the Moon, but if it wasn't for the possibility of finding LIFE there, I don't think most people would care as much about a manned Mars mission as they did about the first Moon landing. Maybe the life-thing will do it.

But maybe the first men on Mars will be Chinese, and the Chinese will be passionate as *** about the landing, while the west has other interests.

Too many people around here seem to forget about the money aspect of a Mars trip. Boat loads of it to boot. I would suspect these same people do not have any children a house or other financially draining things to contend with. I remember those carefree days.
The day they open their property tax bill after depositing the remains of their pay check due to child support deductions. That is when they will think about the new school levy coming up for a vote the same day the car insurance is due. Oh did I remember to pay the credit card bill? It’s going to be a bit higher this month due to the hospital deductible for little Billy’s cast. Wasn’t there a news article about Mexican women coming across the border just to have their baby so it would be an American citizen? That’s right so they could stay here for a better life. But I get stuck with the bill!

When I was in my twenties I would support tax increases for what I thought would be good causes. And some of that tax might trickle down to NASA. But now I can’t afford any new taxes. And all my vote does in November is get me into the list of the local jury pool candidates.
Sorry unless Spirit or Oppy shows me some bones or a couple of greys I can only support robots to other planets.

So you are content to limit human endevours on Mars to the handful of activities that such unmanned missions can perform?

There is no evidence that commitment to a crewed Mars program would involve an increase in your taxes.

Jon

Not only NASA, but the government itself does admit [or used to]. I remember Kennedy saying that Americans should go to the Moon because it was hard - implying that Americans get a kick from doing difficult things.

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"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

Boy; I really hope that comment was made tongue-in-cheek.

If not, then I suspect that you don't know the speech. He left nothing up to be "implied". He explained very explicitely why to do those difficult things.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

The fact that the speech was made in the context of the cold war does not invalidate my point. He expressed many points clearly, and implied many others.

Special Message to Congress, 1961

(...)but as shown by the feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.(...)
Now it is time to take longer strides--time for a great new American enterprise--time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.(...) But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.(...)

JFK Address, At Rice University, 1962

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

But let us not fight about this, ok? I think you got the point [or are you saying that Americans do not appreciate challenges?]

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"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

No; it's only the implication that the only reason we like to do hard things is for the kick of it.
It may be a factor, but the speeches show that there are benefits other than the thrill.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

If there will be a component of competetion or threat in it (eg the Chinese) America will go manned to Mars fairly soon (20 years or so). If not - I think clever robots will do the work until we possibly get faster rockets etc (100 years?). But by then "robots" will be veery skillful. What's the point then with humans? Except för emotional reasons..

An international effort? Well, maybe if they (robots) find life on the red one.

Actually we don't need faster rockets to get to Mars. Current levels of rocket technology is quite adequate. The only barriers to higher performance rockets are to do with actualisation and operation, and the need to build them.

And robots are not clever and skillful, only their designers and operators. Which is why having people on the surface will always be much more productive. Until we do, we have to make do with the robots. But exploring the Martian surface with robots alone is a bit like trying to eat a meal with chopsticks a million kilometres long.

Jon

And yet the money for things like wars are there. It's just a matter of priorites, the cost of a couple of stealth bombers could do it.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

And the public is quite fickle when it comes to which deaths they care about and which they don't. If they took the same attitude towards astronaut deaths as they do towards deaths from malnutrition, NASA could lose a full shuttle crew every minute of every day without registering much of a blip on the public consciousness.

Not anymore. Ambition is dying at the hands of the collectivist scum transforming the place into a nanny state.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Gee, good thing we're allowed to discuss politics here, eh? Oh, wait...

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Faster and more powerful (relative to weight) machines would lessen the risks related to human psychology and radiation. Maybe the "they must stay for 18 months" could be more flexible as well.

What we need is a Space Bush, someone willing to fund the Space Program to military levels. Imagine if the American space program had HALF the military budget right now.
Sweet.
In my view, if we don't get our butts together SOON, we are going to run out of resources before the space-based infrastructure gets rolling.
We must advance into space, for not only living space and materials, but as an active frontier, a new dream. That which does not grow, withers, rots, and dies. Some may complain of the evils of civilization, hearkening back to a simpler, fictional, past. But civilization has given us for the first time effective medicine, and fed the hungry billions. On the other hand, we are hurting this beautiful blue marble, hanging in a great soundless void. But isn't it better to take from that which does not have that miracle of the cosmos, life, then to destroy what we have here? Space could offer both growth and preservation, if we act quickly.
I just hope we are not too late.

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"Faster and more powerful" rockets would be useful, not they are not essential. We don't need perfect technology to put people on Mars, only good enough. Magellan did not wait for steam ships to be invented before circumnavigating the globe and Alock and Brown did not wait for jets or even monocoque monoplanes before flying the Atlantic.

I would hate to see the 18 month surface stay cut back too much. After all, we will go to Mars to explore, and that means time on the surface.

cheers

Jon

According to David Icke, we already have one...


(If you need to explain the joke, it's not funny. But even on BAUT, there are probably a lot of people who don't get the reference. David_Icke, world-class wacko Conspiracy Theorist, believes that the Bush family, the British Royals, and most of the world's leaders are shapeshifting aliens. I'm not making that up. He publishes books about it and everything.)

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Even with the explanation it was still. . .amusing. Thanks for the smile, Noclevername! But still seriously, imagine if the space program got that kind of funding. With that and competent leadership, we could finally make the Space Dream a reality. And that would SO kick righteous hiney! Like KaiYeves said, Me neither, We must refuse to let this dream die!

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