Oh god. If I want to hear the state of union address I’m going to have to put up with my president saying “nukular” over and over. :rolleyes: :o
As much as I like the idea of a manned mission. I don’t think we’re ready yet. Sure it could be done, but I think waiting a bit longer would probably decrease the cost. I think we keep focused on lowering the cost and increasing productivity.
Wouldn’t it benefit society more if that money was given to schools? Or to clean up air, water, and soil? Or to put food in a starving child’s mouth?
Sure, I like space, but not nearly as much as I like the earth and the people who live on it. Am I still “a stick in in the mud,” then?
The big difference between the ISS and a Mars program is that the ISS was a political football for decades. And, it didn’t really break a lot of new ground other than helping perfect space assembly techniques. A Mars program would require developing the technologies that would be just as useful for future unmanned missions. I mean, let’s say Cassini discovers something incredibly exciting around Saturn. Do you want to wait another four years for another traditional probe to get there? A nuclear rocket brings everything in the Solar system much, much closer.
A nuclear rocket can burn all kinds of propellants. If there is significant water ice on the moon, it could be used for rocket fuel. That would give us an incentive to put a fuel processing facility on the moon.
The Mars mission itself would be incredibly exciting, but I would agree with jshore that you could probably to a lot more and better science if you spent an equivalent amount of money on unmanned probes. But that ignores the fact that there’s one thing manned missions get you that’s very important - they teach you how to get people around the solar system. Unless you are content to just look at the solar system remotely, we’ll eventually want to send people to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc. And you’ve got to start somewhere.
Sure, the ISS has been a boondoggle. But a manned Mars program would also revitalize the ISS, because cheap propulsion from Earth orbit means the ISS could become a major staging facility for manned and unmanned missions.
jshore said:
And why would anyone be surprised that it would be conservatives championing this? Conservatives have always been champions of space exploration. Most of the ‘hard’ science fiction writers are conservatives (Heinlein, Anderson, Niven and Pournelle, Sheffield, Ing, etc.) Most of the ‘citizen space’ initiatives have been started by conservatives. The citizens advisory council on space is stacked with conservatives. The X-Prize foundation is mostly made up of conservatives. Reagan had very ambitious space plans. George Bush I wanted to fund a nuclear rocket.
On the other hand, look at where the opposition to space exploration has been coming from. Cassini was almost scuttled because of protests from the left. There’s a significant streak of ludditism on the ‘green’ left. And lots of people on the left think it’s immoral to spend money on space exploration while people still starve on Earth. I know - I’ve debated enough of them.
By the way, I must admit that my first reaction was based on Sam Stone’s description and not the articles themselves. Now, having read the articles, I will note that the “manned mission” part of it is significantly more prominent in Sam’s description than in the article, especially in the more detailed of the two articles. (In particular, I seem to have missed the part where they say that the 2010 voyage would be a manned mission! If we send a manned mission to Mars by 2010, I’ll send a check to Sam for $2000 in 2002 U.S. dollars. [And, I’m being cautious here.])
So, my feelings are:
(1) Manned mission to Mars: dumb idea.
(2) Develop Prometheus rocket that could be used for both unmanned and conceivably manned flight: Don’t really know enough about it to have strong feelings one way or the other.
This pro-nuclear power liberal is all for it! 'Bout damn time, I say. The greatest part of the space program, IMHO, is that it beats swords into plowshares–it uses technology usually reserved for destruction for exploration.
Unfortunately, lots of my ideological brothers and sisters are going to have a cow over this. This is because they do not know the facts and haven’t looked at the big picture.
Mars or bust!
Sam:
I didn’t try to argue that the conservatives haven’t supported the idea of manned space exploration. I was just questioning how it aligns with their other values of the government not wasting money, of doing cost-benefit analysises to compare this option with other options that will be waycheaper (unmanned flight), etc.
No to all of the above. I think the schools hemmorage money. The air is cleaner than it was, except over China. The water should be protected, not to the exclusion of a manned mission to Mars. The soil, where dirty, should be cleaned. Starving children do not starve because NASA finally has a good idea.
I’m not sure how you quantify the value of getting living humans to Mars and back - historically speaking - with actual hand picked samples and observations - scientifically speaking.
Not to mention the opportunity to start terraforming and putting dog-like robots with embedded attack programs on the surface. Or, was that a stupid movie?
jshore: You’re right - the article doesn’t explicitly say a manned mission to Mars by 2010. I missed that the first time I read it. And I agree that it sounds like an amazingly tight deadline for a manned mission. It sounds almost impossible to me.
But then, I’ll bet landing a man on the moon by 1970 sounded impossible when Kennedy committed the U.S. to that goal.
And if this does in fact make it into the State of the Union address, I’ll bet that Bush calls for a manned mission by then. This would give him a great historical parallel - Kennedy called for the U.S. to go to the moon in his state of the union address exactly 40 years earlier, and the time frame would be identical. The symbolism would have a lot of value. It wouldn’t be quite the same if Bush just committed the country to developing a better unmanned rocket. Anyone other than us space nuts would yawn and go, “So what? And you want to spend HOW much?” But a manned mission to mars - that can inspire people in a way that unmanned missions can’t.
And Bush thinks big. He’s certainly not timid.
I am wholeheartedly in favor of any new propulsion research. If anything can make it cheaper and faster to move around our solar system, it will eventually lead to space industry (such as asteroid mining) which will allow us to reduce industry’s impact on Earth.
If we had a cheap and easy way to get to and from the asteroids, why would we even bother with mining on Earth? There’s uncounted teratonnes of valuable material out there.
Now, if only Congress, lobbyists, the Administration, or NASA itself can avoid obstructing such a plan. I don’t have high hopes.
Putting humans on Mars, hopefully, will be a truly peaceful scientific venture. I saw 2010 on a movie channel recently. It is refreshing that the view that the U.S. and the Soviets would be squaring off in space appears not to be true.
I think, moreover, that this is a brilliant foreign policy move. The world hates fat, lazy America. The world loves the America that has the kind of vision, guts, and work ethic embodied in Apollo.
I can even predict the rhetoric. Last year, he opened the SotU with a list of all the things that were going wrong, and then said “The State of the Union has never been stronger.”
This year’s is just an extension of that. "We are under threat from those who see us as decadant, interested only in luxury and pleasure; those who say that the best hope for humanity is a return to the past, to autocracy, to less freedom, not more.
Fuck 'em. We’re going to Mars."
Now, were he really to say that, my respect for Bush would increase immeasurably. 
I’m all in favor, regardless of its origins, but I share the skepticism about Bush’s real commitment to it. When there’s more shown than Reagan did about the “Orient Express” hypersonic airliner, a more-discussed feature of one of his SOTU speeches, then we can start to discuss it as more than a fantasy.
Space, nukes and Mars, all in the same setence. Yay!
Another nice thing Bush did for NASA: he approved the purchase of plutonium from Russia for the purpose of building new Radioisotope Thermal Generators, which can be used to power spacecraft in environments or applications where solar power isn’t feasible.
I think you’re neglecting gravity.
Gravity is kinda important. 
jshore:
It’s not so much conservatives as libertarians who would oppose a gov’t funded spaceship to Mars. But you probably know that. I’d count myself among those (small “l”) libertarians. This is a tough one for me, though, as I’d love to see more space exploration. I guess I wouldn’t love it enough, though, to spend any of my hard earned $$ on it. And that’s the real test.
I support the project, if it’s real, and give Junior credit, if it’s real.
Here’s the latest news from [url=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/nuclear_power_030117.html]Space.com**
The rest of the article is backing off a bit from the claim that there would be a major announcement during the state of the union address, although that’s still uncertain.
I think the most accurate summary of what we know so far is that the Bush administration has re-activated the nuclear rocket program, and is funding it to a greater extent than was previously suggested. Any talk of a State of the Union speech setting a time frame for a Mars mission appears to be speculation.
Don’t be so cynic- never mind, I just read your name. Carry on.
Marc
If Bush backs off Mars we should open a pit thread. I might go to DC to protest. The Million Space Geeks March. [sub]Nice coding, Sam[/sub]
On the other hand, there’s this article today:
Definitely a story worth following, and the State of the Union speech is going to be very interesting.