Manned spacemission to Mars? Yeah, right.

[TartPops]

In this thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=233029) there is talk of a manned spaceflight mission to Mars. I believe there were some other threads about it on the boards a while back, but wasn't able to find them.

Anyway, Forget about it.

For a couple of reasons.

1) We no longer possess a rocket powerful enough to send humans even as far as the Moon, let alone Mars. The last rocket that could, the Saturn 5 was retired more than 30 years ago and has never been replaced. Nor could we quickly build a new one because, amazingly enough, the plans for Saturn launchers were destroyed as part of a NASA housecleaning exercise.*

2)President Shrub's father, also called for a manned mission to Mars in a moment of passing guiddiness, but the idea was quietly dropped when it was worked out that it would cost at least $450 BILLION and probably result in the deaths of all the crew (their DNA torn to tatters by high-energy solar particles from which they could not be shielded.)*

So, give it up, 'cause it ain't gonna happen, not with Shrub having dropped us down into the deepest pits of debt thanks to his fabulous combination of tax cuts and spending increases.




















*Citation for these is Bill Bryson's book A Short History Of Nearly Everything

[The Mad Hermit]

I just gotta say, I love your optimism...

Why couldn't you say this in the thread? Why is Bill Bryson right and many experts wrong?

[elucidator]

The whole idea of manned missions is stupid. The only worthy purpose is to gain information, which robotics can perform as well if not better. The only thing a person can do on Mars that a machine can't is die.

[Tars Tarkas]

Puny humans, you will never reach my planet!

[Brutus]

So to sum up TardPops post:

1) A mission to Mars is highly impractical. There is extreme danger to the crew, and estimated cost (a decade ago) would have been 450 billion dollars.

2) It is GW's fault.

[Nanoda]

Odd nobody noticed they didn't have Saturn rockets before the US started their lunar missions. Someone shoulda called it off right then! :rolleyes:

A manned martian mission is certainly unnecessary and unfeasable for the next few decades, but it is (barring global disasters) inevitable. When our technology is judged to be sufficient, it will be done.

Besides, a Mars mission would be an international effort - I'm sure the world can afford 450 billion or whatever it would come out to be.

[threemae]

So, somebody tell me again, why?

Why do all these Star Trek geeks get their panties all wet and lose all sight of reason whenever somebody starts talking about manned missions to other planets? Why are we going? What do we want? What do we hope to achieve?

[Eternal]

Originally posted by threemae
So, somebody tell me again, why?

Why do all these Star Trek geeks get their panties all wet and lose all sight of reason whenever somebody starts talking about manned missions to other planets? Why are we going? What do we want? What do we hope to achieve?

I dunno, Why did we go to the moon? How much return did that investment give off?

Bah, it probably has something to do with the indomitable nature of the human spirit or some such.

[An Arky]

I agree that at the current (and near future) level of technology, a manned flight is incredibly risky and likely unneccessary. Kind of like when there's a landing party on a strange and (eventually) hostile planet and there's Kirk, Spock & McCoy. OK You're risking the 1st & 2nd in command AND the ship's doctor? Sheesh!

Having said that, there's no reason to believe we couldn't overcome those technological obstacles eventually.

[TartPops]

Originally posted by Brutus
So to sum up TardPops post:

1) A mission to Mars is highly impractical. There is extreme danger to the crew, and estimated cost (a decade ago) would have been 450 billion dollars.

2) It is GW's fault.

TardPops.

Ooooooo, what a stinging and deadly insult. And how original.

Tell me, Brutus, did Mommy help you come up with that one? I bet she did.

Christ, that's the kind of namecalling that one should be done with by the 4th grade. but then, this is Brutus we're talkin' about, so allowances have to be made.

Let's see what else of your pointless post is there to deal with... oh yeah, your 2) point is bullshit in that I never made that claim, you just pulled that one right out of your stinking ass.

[Early Out]

Even the newbies manage to get Brutus' number pretty quickly, don't they?! He's the grade-school bully, grown up and plunked down in front of a PC. If you dare to criticize the current administration, he'll try to steal your lunch money. Don't be too hard on him. He's doing the best he can with what he's got.

[paulberserker]

Well, seeing as they lost Beagle 2 on landing, I wouldn't get my hopes up about a British manned expedition to Mars.
They might find a pyramid there though, and Tim Robbins floating about in the atmosphere.
:D

[Brutus]

Tardpops, you will find many fellow hypocrites here at SDMB. You'll get along famously with them, I wager.

[Early Out]

See what I mean?

[TartPops]

Originally posted by Early Out
He's doing the best he can with what he's got.

Which isn't saying very much, is it?;) :p

[smiling bandit]

I'm afraid Brutus has a point this time.

Anyway, humans expand, find new places, and live there. That's what we do. Its our history. If we can find a way to live in the antarctic, we'll do it. If we can find a way to live on Mars, we'll do it. The hard part is getting there.

[Swampwolf]

Originally posted by smiling bandit
I'm afraid Brutus has a point this time.


::blink, blink::

Where? Where he makes fun of a poster's name 'cos he doesn't agree with him?
Where he throws out the unfounded hypocricy jab?
Where he unnecessarily re-states part of the OP?
or where he mis-states the other part?

Or did he admit that he's a putz, and I missed that? 'cos then he'd have a point.

[JRDelirious]

Back to your OP, TartPops -- is your argument that it's not a serious proposal NOW (fully agreed), or that it's not gonna happen EVER?

[Michael Ellis]

Originally posted by threemae
Why do all these Star Trek geeks get their panties all wet and lose all sight of reason whenever somebody starts talking about manned missions to other planets?

Yup, because only Star Trek geeks care about space exploration. :rolleyes:

[Brutus]

Originally posted by blessedwolf
::blink, blink::

Where? Where he makes fun of a poster's name 'cos he doesn't agree with him?
Where he throws out the unfounded hypocricy jab?
Where he unnecessarily re-states part of the OP?
or where he mis-states the other part?

Or did he admit that he's a putz, and I missed that? 'cos then he'd have a point.

Do you know what 'hypocrisy' means? Apparently not, but since it is a fairly big word, I won't hold it against you. An example of 'hypocrisy' would be taking umbrage at namecalling, when a few posts/threads back you refer to 'President Shrub' and 'Troglodyte'. See how that works? Decry a certain act, then perform the very same act (or vice-versa), and voila! 'Hypocrisy'!

And I misstated nothing. TardPops clearly blames GW. If any of the words in the following quote befuddle you, ask your teacher for help!

So, give it up, 'cause it ain't gonna happen, not with Shrub having dropped us down into the deepest pits of debt...

See? If only it weren't for that pesky GW, by golly, we would be well on way to Mars!

[Merijeek]

Originally posted by Tars Tarkas
Puny humans, you will never reach my planet!

My god, I laughed so hard I think I peed a little.

-Joe, needs a towel

[Swampwolf]

Originally posted by Brutus
Do you know what 'hypocrisy' means? Apparently not, but since it is a fairly big word, I won't hold it against you. An example of 'hypocrisy' would be taking umbrage at namecalling, when a few posts/threads back you refer to 'President Shrub' and 'Troglodyte'. See how that works? Decry a certain act, then perform the very same act (or vice-versa), and voila! 'Hypocrisy'!

Ah....see, I don't follow posters around, keeping tallies of everything they do, so that I can be a prick to them.
But yes, you're right. Someone who, as you say, "take[s] ubrage at namecalling...refer[s] to 'president shrub' and 'troglodyte'" is hypocrisy.*
a word which I've known since I was 5 years old, thank you very much...or is your debating technique such where if someone disagrees with you, then they must be uneducated, and with a vocabulary of 100 words? I've got a larger vocabulary than the majority of English-speakers. But I only need a vocabulary of 15 words to say that just because you were right on this point, it doesn't mean you're not a putz.

[Brutus]

Since I like wolves, you are off my list! ;) For now. Having just written a total of $76,000 and change in checks over the past few days, I am rather grumpy and persnickity...

[mhendo]

Originally posted by paulberserker
Well, seeing as they lost Beagle 2 on landing, I wouldn't get my hopes up about a British manned expedition to Mars.
:D Don't forget, the Americans have also lost a Mars orbiter (http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/), mainly because some folks at Lockheed Martin forgot to use the metric system.

[gobear]

Sorry, guys, but you Pubbies have to blame physics, not the Bush-haters, for the extreme difficulty (if not impossibility) of a manned Mars mission. (And I have no doubt that Brutus believes science to be a Democrat conspiracy anyway).

I wouldn't use Bill Bryson as an authority because that book is chockful of errors, so let's consult some other sources, shall we?

First we have to consider propulsion--can we send men to Mars in the first place?

According to NASA (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mars/marslaun.html), conventional chemical rockets used for the space shuttle will carry the payload into low earth orbit.Once in orbit, the payload will engage in what is euphemistically called Nuclear Thermal Propulsion, which space enthusiasts know as Project Orion. Developed in the 1960s, Orion calls for a series of nuclear bombs to be detonated behind a metal plate. This is workable on the drawing board, but it is fraught with difficulty in practice, not to mention that anti-nuclear Luddites will do their best to enlist Congress against the use of nukes in space.

So then we come across the problem of radiation shielding. Unfotunately, the NASA Web site pretty much ignores the question except to say that it is risky. This [b]New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/science/space/09RADI.html?ex=1073624400&en=b961bf45491a07f2&ei=5070) explains exactly how risky. Astronauts on a Mars mission would get hammered from all direction by particles moving at nearly the speed of light. The shielding need to protect the astronauts from radiation and emergency shelter from solar flares would be cost-prohibitive. And that's not even getting into food, water, the decalcification of bones in zero-g environments, and a myriad of other difficulties that need to be sorted out before a mission could be sent.

Consider the dangers of the space shuttle and the overrun expendu=itures of the International Space Station, which is a stroll to the corner shops compared with sending people out to Mars, far beyond the hope of aid or rescue if anything could go wrong. Multiply the dangers and the costs several-hundred fold, and ask if taxpayers will be willing to foot the bill.

[Brutus]

Originally posted by gobear
Sorry, guys, but you Pubbies have to blame physics, not the Bush-haters, for the extreme difficulty (if not impossibility) of a manned Mars mission. (And I have no doubt that Brutus believes science to be a Democrat conspiracy anyway).

That is my point, sort of. There was no valid reason to bring up GW for the lack of manned missions to Mars.

[Bricker]

TartPops - looking back at the Apollo program, do you believe it was wise to take on, and ultimately accomplsih, the goal of sending humans to Luna?

[Squink]

Originally posted by Brutus
That is my point, sort of. There was no valid reason to bring up GW for the lack of manned missions to Mars. Well sure there is. Bush decided to spend the nation's disposable income conquering Iraq. It'll be rough conquering Mars without that big pile of green.
It's not a great argument, but it's not totally irrelevant either.

[Grey]

The original Mars proposal presented to President Bush Sr. relied on massive space building facilities, ships and refueling stations. The newer proposals come in around 20-50 Billion, and rely on living of the Martian environment to reduce costs. Not a small amount but any stretch but hardly the back breaking financial burden that the OP presents.

The Ares (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ares.htm) , based on the Shuttle C concept, could be built to throw 40 tons to Mars. The flight time to Mars could be considerably reduced through the use of NTRs though a slower flight time using chemical rockets could likely be done. The NTR does not depend on detonations as the Orion Project does. Instead it relies on the propellant being passed over/through the reactor core, heating it and so surpassing the temperatures (hence energies) achievable through chemical reactions. The questions of radiation is a good one though once on Mars there is an atmosphere, lander and the full mass of a planet to provide shielding to the more energetic particles.

Off world exploration/exploitation forces us to learn how to deal with harsh environments; it forces us to adapt and to change. Contained environments, closed loop cycles, fusion power and new political systems are all potential benefits from a Mars program.

[Grey]

Oh and since I'm a shameless shill for Mars... :)

Mars Direct (http://mars.nw.net/)

[Early Out]

Originally posted by Grey
Off world exploration/exploitation forces us to learn how to deal with harsh environments; it forces us to adapt and to change. Contained environments, closed loop cycles, fusion power and new political systems are all potential benefits from a Mars program. We could achieve much the same benefits by trying to figure out how to live in our own oceans. We haven't even mastered that, yet! It's a much less hostile environment than Mars - there's water (has to be desalinated), oxygen (has to be extracted from the water), and food (got a speargun?). And, if things started going horribly wrong, rescue isn't too far away. Yet, there are no colonies there.

Having said all that (and what I've said in other posts on the subject), I've got to admit that I think it would be really neat to go to Mars. If they offered to take me, I'd go in a heartbeat. In fact, even though I think the shuttle missions have little or no purpose, and are expensive and dangerous, to boot, I'd accept a ride on one of those, too!

There is something irresistible about space travel, ain't there?

[Grey]

The good thing is that it's not an either/or proposition.

[Ike Witt]

Originally posted by gobear
So then we come across the problem of radiation shielding. Unfotunately, the NASA Web site pretty much ignores the question except to say that it is risky. This [b]New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/science/space/09RADI.html?ex=1073624400&en=b961bf45491a07f2&ei=5070) explains exactly how risky. Astronauts on a Mars mission would get hammered from all direction by particles moving at nearly the speed of light. The shielding need to protect the astronauts from radiation and emergency shelter from solar flares would be cost-prohibitive.

I think that RST (http://www.radshield.com/) may have solved the problem of radiation shielding and the weight thereof.

As far as the cost of a manned journey to Mars being prohibitive- so what? How much did it cost for Columbus to reach the Americas? How much did it cost for Magellan to take his little trip? The fact is that there is a higher cost for the trailblazers but over time the costs drop as the technology improves. It happened to ocean going shipping and it happened to air travel. Why should spaceflight be any different?

[JohnBckWLD]

They could save a few $ following the example of the Spirit Rover. Instead of an Eagle-type moon landing vehicle, they could try something like:

Dropping him down (http://www.ecrannoir.fr/dossiers/ete2001/bubbleboy.htm)
or
Sending Him (http://www.cdf.org/cdf/atissue/vol3_1/michelin/michelin_man_01.jpg)

They could even call it the Carl Rove-r.

[The Mad Hermit]

This will probably brand me a total geek, and draw flames, but it's what I feel is the truth behind the need for manned spacefight- the "eggs in one basket" approach.

Astronomy shows us that history (in a cosmic sense) is full of cataclysms. Supernovae, black holes, galactic collisions and more have been sighted and the effects analyzed. Any one of these could destroy the Earth, and our whole race with it. On a local level, there are asteroids, comets, and variance in solar radiation- all which could wipe out life. We could even do it to ourselves, with nukes, or our planet could burp out enough volcanism to wipe us out. In any event, it's possible that all life on Earth could be wiped out- and by cosmic time scales, it's almost a certainty that one of these disasters will happen.

The only solution is to begin seeding other planets with Terrestrial life. It will take generations at our current level of technology, so there is no short-term benefit. But we need to begin working in that direction, if only to ensure the continuing existence of Man.

Mars just happens to be the best first target. Europa and the other icy moons in the outer system will be next- then generation ships (see Heinlein) can move out to the new solar systems we are discovering even now.

[TartPops]

Originally posted by gobear
I wouldn't use Bill Bryson as an authority because that book is chockful of errors, so let's consult some other sources, shall we?


First I've heard of this. It's been on a number of Best of 2003 lists. You have some evidence to back that claim up, right?

JRDelirious, If it does happen, it isn't going to be in my lifetime, and probably not in my kids lifetime either. Grey says that current estimates put costs at $20 - 50 billion.

I have a seriously hard time believeing that in the space of a mere 12+ years, we have made such great strides scientifically as to cut costs from $450 billion all the way down to $50 billion. There is just no way that is possible. Uh-uh. hell, the US can't even get it's vaunted Star Wars Missle defense system to successfully pass a test unless they doctor the tests itself while raising costs astronomically, so I have very little hope for them pulling off a manned mission to Mars on a shoestring.

And it would be really stupid to even think of doing so.

After the Challenger and Columbia incidents, I'm fairly sure NASA would want to do whatever it took to make sure the mission had the highest possible chance of success and that would mean giving them a virtually unlimited budget.

Bricker, well for all of the talk about how the whole Moon program was going to give us so many marvelous new tools/toys/gadgets etc, from that point it was a failure. Things like Velcro which have been touted as being invented for the Apollo program, actually came about in a completely unrelated way. The scientific experiments didn't really give us all that much new information.

They gave a tremendous sense of pride to the country, which is great.

I'm not really sure that I can answer that one right now. I'll have to think about it for a bit, if that's okay.

[Grey]

The 90 day study launched by NASA for Bush Sr's Space Exploration Initiative included a large orbital and lunar base infrastructure to provide a base for launching to Mars. Battlestar Galactica type stuff.

The Mars Direct approach goes for a live off the land/straight to Mars to some serious on planet time approach. Fire off a seed ship to manufacture water, oxygen and fuel to return to earth straight from the Martian atmosphere. Its basically 19th century chemistry with a 20th century nuclear reactor to provide the energy.

[gobear]

First I've heard of this. It's been on a number of Best of 2003 lists. You have some evidence to back that claim up, right?

It may well be on many Best of 2003 lists, but I read it and found several factual errors, so I wouldn't cite him as if he were an established authority on space flight. He's a travel writer, not an aerospace engineer. "A Short History. . . " is an entertaining book and I'm sure it's informative to people who have never read a book on science before, but it's meant to be a light survey written by a non-scientist for a general audience, so it's hardly authoritative.

Grey, thank you for the correction.

[WILLASS]

Originally posted by paulberserker
Well, seeing as they lost Beagle 2 on landing, I wouldn't get my hopes up about a British manned expedition to Mars.
They might find a pyramid there though, and Tim Robbins floating about in the atmosphere.
:D

The Beagle has landed!

Or not as the case may be.......

WTF? Why do the Americans get all the cool names and we choose all the shit ones? 'The Beagle', it really could not be less awe inspiring. Back to the OP, I agree that it is not feasable at the moment but i'm hoping that maybe we will see that the future of space exploration lies with world wide co-operation. I was promised lunar bases and off world civilisations as a kid and I damn well want them!

[Squink]

Originally posted by WILLASS
The Beagle has landed!
WTF? Why do the Americans get all the cool names and we choose all the shit ones? 'The Beagle', it really could not be less awe inspiring. IMHO, the reprise of the name of Darwin's ship is actually much more appealing than a probe styled after a seventy's drug-rock band.

[Algorithm]

Originally posted by TartPops
President Shrub
How fucking clever.

[Baldwin]

"Shrub" has been a nickname for George W. Bush since before he was Governor of Texas. Not really very clever, but it's stuck.

Much as I'd personally like to go to Mars, I'd like to wait until we can do it right -- with a properly shielded ship with a rotating section and a plasma drive. First I'd like to spend a couple of decades getting back to the Moon, establishing a permanent presence there, exploring for volatiles, and mining material to be tossed up into orbit with mass drivers, to build some freaking huge stations in Lunar orbit and around the L5 points. What the hell else is money good for?

[Miller]

Originally posted by WILLASS
The Beagle has landed!

Or not as the case may be.......

WTF? Why do the Americans get all the cool names and we choose all the shit ones? 'The Beagle', it really could not be less awe inspiring.

Oh, stop whining. You get to have Charles Darwin on your currency. Try putting any scientist, much less an "evil-lutionist" on US currency. The whole damned Bible Belt would probably secede from the Union.

[Windwalker]

Originally posted by Miller
Oh, stop whining. You get to have Charles Darwin on your currency. Try putting any scientist, much less an "evil-lutionist" on US currency. The whole damned Bible Belt would probably secede from the Union.

So... your printing press or mine?

[smiling bandit]

Where?

This part:

1) A mission to Mars is highly impractical. There is extreme danger to the crew, and estimated cost (a decade ago) would have been 450 billion dollars.

2) It is GW's fault.


That's my reading of the OP, which seems to be more or less a petty and worthless partisan reaction. Not the worst we've seen here, but hardly wirth the wordage.

[gobear]

Nah, the OP isn't saying it's GW's fault. He's saying that GW's unwise taxcuts would make a Mars mission even more unlikely and expensive--which you can't really deny.

But extreme radiation in space and the distances between that planets are nobody's fault, not even the Republicans'.

['possum stalker]

I wish GW would irradiating interplanetary space.

Asshole.

['possum stalker]

"would stop irradiating..."

[Bricker]

Originally posted by TartPops
Bricker, well for all of the talk about how the whole Moon program was going to give us so many marvelous new tools/toys/gadgets etc, from that point it was a failure. Things like Velcro which have been touted as being invented for the Apollo program, actually came about in a completely unrelated way. The scientific experiments didn't really give us all that much new information.

They gave a tremendous sense of pride to the country, which is great.

I'm not really sure that I can answer that one right now. I'll have to think about it for a bit, if that's okay.

Take your time. And you might also consider what your reaction would be if you were to learn that there were, in fact, marvelous toys/gadgets/tools that may be traced directly to the Apollo program.

- Rick

[TartPops]

Originally posted by gobear
It may well be on many Best of 2003 lists, but I read it and found several factual errors, so I wouldn't cite him as if he were an established authority on space flight. He's a travel writer, not an aerospace engineer.

What "factual errors?"

It's not like he just copied the book out of an encyclopedia. In fact, in the foreward, he states that he didn't like textbooks because they didn't tell him why stuff was the way it was, just that it was. So, he talked and asked questions of experts in the fields covered in the book, and many of them read proofs of the book so as to catch any errors Bryson made.

[Grey]

So you're previous points have been refuted and you're holding onto this?

[gobear]

I'm not saying that it's not a useful book--I already praised it as an informative survey of the sciences, but as I said, he is not a scientist so he is merely regurgitating what he has been told and not all of it accurately. I'm no scientist either, but I caught errors in dates and numbers, not many but they are there. It's a fine book, but treating it (or any single book) as infallible is an exercise in credulity.

I don't have a copy in front of me, so I can't give you page numbers, but a survey of the readers' reviews on Amazon might help you see what I mean.

However, as a physicist I must criticise the accuracy of some of the material. Some of the physics discussed is either poorly explained, with Bryson missing the point as he attempts to rehash material he's read elsewhere, or it's simply wrong. The mistakes aren't limited to the physics; other topics have errors too. As another reviewer points out, for example, controversial issues are presented as fact in the discussion of evolution.



I am qualified to comment on the chemistry, physics and astrophysics sections and, unfortunately, they are almost perfunctory compared to the others, skating over just about everything at a high level. I feel the author understood his limitations - hardly surprisingly given the arcane nature of the subject matter - and backed off; there are many better individual books if you really want to know what relativity, quantum mechanics or high energy physics is about

You keep missing the bit where I agree with you on the difficulties of sending a manned mission to Mars--I just think that claiming any statement on science from a pop science general survey as authoritative reveals a certain naivete.
Instead of trying to defend this one, very general book, why don't you read more books on astronomy and aeronautics so you can get a stronger background on space flight?

With respect to Grey, Mars Direct is a multiple mission project that would cost far, far more than $20-50 billion. I work in DC, I know from cost overruns on simple projects, let alone the runaway costs of long-term exploration and colonization. It's a worthy project, but the will and the finances have to be found. Look at the ISS, for example, for costs gone mad and flawed engineering. Think about how sound the engineering would have to be for a mission that will take 6 months in space just to get to Mars.

The goal of getting off this rock and becoming a multiplanet species is one that must be achieved, but that will not happen until we assess the risks and the costs realistically and understand that real-life space travel is never going to be like Star Trek.

[Grey]

Fair enough gobear. Though the focus of a Mars Direct derivative is a lot tighter than the 90 Study. That had 4 or 5 schedules with orbital, lunar, mars exploratory and mars landings all placed together. The opportunity to have feature creep is staggering when compared to the Zubrin approach (launch to Mars). It also has the advantage of developing HW able to be used on the moon, should we opt to prepare ourselves that way.

Personally I like the idea of shooting for Mars and getting the Moon as a secondary benefit.

[Ilsa_Lund]

I'm afraid Brutus has a point this time.

Other than the one on his head?

[SpaceGhostofArrakis]

Originally posted by Ilsa_Lund
Other than the one on his head?

In all fairness, that does seem what the OP boils down to.

Bias report: I think it's a damn shame we haven't sent a man to Mars, and people overestimate the difficulty.

[Michael Ellis]

Originally posted by 'possum stalker
I wish GW would irradiating interplanetary space.

Asshole.

:confused:

[Ogre]

See, and the thing about textbooks not "explaining why something is, but simply that it is" is unadulterated bullshit. The reason textbooks (science textbooks in particular) are so dry and complicated is that they tend to go into great, overwhelming detail about precisely why something is the way it is, often down to the mathematical level. Simply because Bryson may not have understood the explanation does not mean the explanation isn't there.

If you're disposed to ask the larger "why" questions (and who isn't?,) I'd advise you to look toward philosophy and (not my bag, but others seem to like it) religion.

As one of my favorite physics professors used to say, "There are an infinite number of levels of the question 'why?' In physics, we only seek to answer a few of them."

Bryson's book is on my bedside table right now, unread, for precisely this reason. I know of Bryson's tendency toward arrogance (the godawful "Lost Continent"), and I can well imagine that he might take the tone of "I'm better at this than the pros are," an attitude that always gives me an unpleasant itch.

I'll read it eventually. I just have to get my skeptically raised eyebrow to climb down out of my hairline first.



As for the OP, my opinion is that it won't be for a while, but a manned mission to Mars (and hell, even colonies) is absolutely inevitable, barring a global Dark Age.

[Ferris]

Originally posted by elucidator: The only thing a person can do on Mars that a machine can't is die.

I'm sure neither you, or anyone else really believes that man is inferior to machine as an exploratory tool.

[SPOOFE]

Am I the first to point out to our oh-so-intelligently-brilliantly-smartly-brainy OP that any such Mars proposal would be set over the course of MANY years? Most likely beyond Bush's presidency?

[TartPops]

Originally posted by Ogre
[ I know of Bryson's tendency toward arrogance and I can well imagine that he might take the tone of "I'm better at this than the pros are," an attitude that always gives me an unpleasant itch.

Well, boy will you be in for a surprise, as that is the exact opposite of the tone of the book. But you seem fatally prejudiced gaainst Bryson anyway, so oh well.

[Ogre]

Fatally? Not hardly. I said I'll read it, and I will. If he changes my mind, wonderful.

But you do seem to be rather a pugnacious asshole.

[Michael Ellis]

Yo, Tart! (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=234014)

[Weirddave]

Originally posted by 'possum stalker
I wish GW would stop irradiating interplanetary space.


Asshole

Yea! And then we can stop all those fucking stars from irradiating interplanetary space too!

[Typo Negative]

So, give it up, 'cause it ain't gonna happen, not with Shrub having dropped us down into the deepest pits of debt thanks to his fabulous combination of tax cuts and spending increases.Damn you for making agree with Brutus!!

My paraphrasing of the OP is as follows:

"We ain't going to Mars (not that it's possible anyhoo) and it's Bush's fault."

Inconsistant, at best. If it's not possible to go to Mars, than it can hardly be Bush's fault.

But wrong on both counts. I agree that Bush's war on Iraq and it's cost is an obstacle, but we will go to Mars. When? No idea. Why? Because, as was stated on The West Wing, "that's what's next". We figure out how to get a man on Mars, then figure out how to go out farther. It's a big universe with a lot to teach us.

[Paul in Qatar]

Difficult, but doable. Wouldn't be any fun to go if it was easy.

[prisoner6655321]

Originally posted by gobear
So then we come across the problem of radiation shielding. Unfotunately, the NASA Web site pretty much ignores the question except to say that it is risky. This [b]New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/science/space/09RADI.html?ex=1073624400&en=b961bf45491a07f2&ei=5070) explains exactly how risky. Astronauts on a Mars mission would get hammered from all direction by particles moving at nearly the speed of light. The shielding need to protect the astronauts from radiation and emergency shelter from solar flares would be cost-prohibitive. And that's not even getting into food, water, the decalcification of bones in zero-g environments, and a myriad of other difficulties that need to be sorted out before a mission could be sent.


I love (and hate) this argument. I did a project on a spaceship (at the Sasekawa International Center for Space Architecture at the University of Houston*) that could go to Mars. You answer the problem in your own statement. The answer to the radiation problem is WATER! A mere 6" of water provides enough radiation protection to shelter the crew during periods of solar activity, more than lead and concrete do (by weight). And water has a short half life so it becomes safe to drink only hours after it has been exposed. The solar storm shelter will simply be encased inside the water.

Food is not a problem.

A (large) ship spinning at Mars gravity, or 1/3 Earth g (one rpm) would be enough to prevent bone density loss.

Of course water still is VERY expensive to get up into space. Yet another reason for a moon station. I am very optimistic about this.


*We worked with Bob Bigelow, who was planning on building a hotel in space. link. (http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/) Our design could be used as a hotel to go around the moon, or to go to Mars.

[Lynn Bodoni]

This thread was started by a returning troll, so I'm closing it. Y'all can continue to debate the merits of the space program and how it should be funded in GD, or continue to bash Bush in the Pit, but not in this thread.

Lynn
For the Straight Dope