I can’t seem to find a link, but I’m sure you’ve all heard the news by now: President Bush has proposed establishing a permanent manned station on the Moon, and a manned expedition to Mars. What do you think? Greatest thing ever? Good idea but impractical? Cynical election-year ploy? If we get a Democrat in the White House next year, would he follow the same policy or not?
I think it’s a dumb idea.
But, speaking of good ideas, it is always a good idea to check carefully to see if your thread topic is unique…Here is another thread on the same subject.
What, no quote from Michael Lind? 
We covered a lot of this in Sam Stone’s thread over the last week or so. But these plans, from what I’ve read, will span a decade or more, meaning that they’ll need to support of successive adminstration. Good luck.
I was part of a long-winded debate here on this topic a couple months ago, and I still can’t vote in favor of it.
The moon shots were created mostly for the PR value during the Cold War. I’m sure that a number of things made it “from tactical to practical”, but I just can’t see taking that much money and using it to employ people to do things that don’t increase production of things that people really need. You can’t eat or wear Mars landings.
No, I don’t buy the idea that we should do it “because it’s there”. The difference in cost between this and Hillary’s climb must be a factor of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions.
If not now, when? If we wait for a perfect world before going back to the Moon, we’ll be waiting forever. I think that thirty years of waiting is long damned enough. Ad Luna!
This is one project that we can make the project of our species. That would be worth the effort.
I still remember well July 20, 1969. All people from the 4 families in our apartment house staircase were sitting (late at night, our time) in the living room of the one family who had a TV. We were so proud that we (=humans) had reached the Moon.
Mankind needs to do things that transcend our consuming more and engaging in rivalries that future generations will wonder why anyone wasted their life with them.
The whole Apollo program cost $ 25 billion (1960s’ dollars, presumably - i.e. very roughly equivalent to six times that in today’s dollars), over the course of more than a decade. That’s the sort of money that the world’s rich countries can easily afford together.
(This is taken from an essay I wrote last year, but it is still applicable)
In Defense of Space Exploration
After the Columbia tragedy (the use of the word “travesty” in the title of the aforementioned editorial, defined as “a grotesque or farcical imitation for purposes of ridicule” was either a typo or an extremely skewed interpretation of the incident), the worst possible way to honor the dead would be to cancel the space program that they risked their lives to advance. The loss of life is a tragedy, but it is an inevitable consequence of any program that seeks to expand the human race beyond its boundaries. Human history has been a series of these advances; the lack of any of them would have dramatic consequences for life as we know it. Imagine what would follow if a television broadcast in 15th century Spain had read “Contact with Expedition 17 to find a western route to the Indies has been lost, presumably due to man-eating sea monsters. There has been an enormous backlash against the exploration program, resulting in the royal family of Spain turning down a request for funding by one Christopher Columbus. And now on to sports …”
The editorial dismissed spin-offs from the space program, mentioning only MRI, which it claims often does not work. Actually, MRI is a very powerful and accurate tool, allowing high-definition “slices” of the body to be shown without surgery. The other products that the space exploration has produced are legion. Miniaturization of myriad appliances (cell phones are one example) is the most evident. Satellites are another example of products generated by the space program; they are indispensable for the aforementioned cell phones, as well as for information transfer, GPS, and weather forecasting.
But these are small potatoes compared with the possibilities offered by space exploration. After all, the main products of Columbus’ expeditions were not new ideas for ship design or a stronger material for sails. There is a finite amount of many materials on Earth, and space could be an answer to the eventual lack of some of them. Asteroid mining is one of the most promising sources of metals such as iron and nickel, and could provide other useful and more exotic materials such as iridium, one of the densest, hardest, and rarest, elements, which could have widespread uses, such as radiation shields (as from computer monitors). The possibilities of other space products are quite literally beyond the imagination. Many useful materials can be manufactured best in zero-G, such as carbon nanotubes, tightly coiled rods of carbon “thread” which are hundreds of times stronger than steel.
It is not only beneficial to go into space, but the alternative, remaining on Earth, is also dangerous. Space is the only way to assure the survival of humans. A species that cannot adapt and spread as conditions allow is eventually doomed to extinction. Having all humans on only one planet is truly putting all eggs in one cosmic basket. Earth is approached by approximately 1,500 asteroids that are large enough to cause global catastrophe if one was to strike the earth. The resources delegated to near-earth object spotting are not sufficient to prevent this (Murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong, eventually will). Astronomers were taken by surprise when a meteoroid passed within a few million kilometers from Earth, a very small distance in space. We do not want to meet the same fate as the dinosaurs – becoming extinct through the collision of a meteoroid. Setting up colonies on other planets can help to minimize the effects of this inevitable occurrence on the survival of our species.
This essential endeavor cannot be advanced by canceling it as the editorial suggested, any more than hunger or war will end if we simply let them simmer for a few decades. What will happen that will magically make a casualty-free, 100% efficient, warm-and-fuzzy space program? The only logical answer would be Vulcans coming to Earth. Just as one cannot jump from arithmetic to calculus, it is not possible to expect problems with spacecraft to solve themselves over a half-century. After all, the entire point of the space program is to test out space-related technology, something that cannot be done in a laboratory. If anything, the spacecraft after the proposed hiatus will be less safe, because the newer technology that would have been developed would not have been tested in the demanding conditions of space. Imagine what would happen if the first humans abandoned making canoes because they couldn’t get to another continent, fishing was not yet profitable, and people – gasp – actually die on these early missions. Abandoning canoe-making for a half-century would not miraculously create a fleet of functional galleons. No pain, no gain.
Saying that we should not pursue space exploration because there are still problems in the world is akin to a parent saying “Don’t eat all your food because there are starving children in the world”: not eating the food will not help one starving child. The amount of NASA funding is currently chicken feed compared to the national budget, and diverting its few billion dollars will not make a significant difference in any major endeavor. In fact, colonizing other planets or the moon may eventually increase food production and alleviate world hunger, since almost all arable land in the world is farmed. Hydroponic agricultural colonies on the moon or on Mars can provide the needed food. Additionally, while eliminating the ills of humanity is an important (though not totally attainable) goal, to say that we must either abandon the space program or give up all hope eliminating these problems is to present a false dichotomy.
It is clear, then, that humans must continue their outward push into space. The benefits are too great, and the consequences are too dire, to stop such an endeavor. Let us, therefore, not flinch from the future, but shoulder the burden and continue our trek to the stars.Going to Mars has proved to be so problematical I think it’s premature to think about it. If we don’t know yet how to make an earthbound Biosphere self-supporting, then good luck doing so on a planet hundreds of millions of miles, and in the spacecraft needed to get there. But I do think returning to the Moon would be a good idea. It doesn’t seem like it should be so much harder getting to the Moon, and building a base there, than doing the same in low earth orbit.
The space project is probably well worth it in the scientist engineers etc. it help educate and train and attract. Yesterday in the Danish news, there was a story wherin company leaders complained that the American Mars project had “vacuumed and brain-drained” (their words) the Danish labour market for the young skilled scientist and engineers they desperately needed themselves. The space project is so much more interesting to work in than anything they could dish up with. These people are not for the most coming back to Denmark, but will remain in America even after the stopped working at NASA. They further very much suggested Denmark jump on any space wagon NASA may have, for our own benefit.
- Rune
Only if you’re trying to make the habitat “self-sustaining” in the sense Biosphere 2 was supposed to be self-sustaining – i.e., as a closed ecosystem, with the plants providing enough breathable air for all the humans and animals, etc. I think it would be possible, with currently existing technology, to build a habitat in which a dozen or so astronauts could live, eight months on the journey to Mars and eight months back. We would just have to provide the habitat with sufficient stores of compressed air and freeze-dried food. The real problem is that all that storage space, plus adequate living space that the astronauts don’t go crazy with cabin fever, plus adequate fuel stores for the return trip, would make the ship BIGGER than any spaceship or space station yet built. Ben Bova’s sf novel Mars, about the first manned expedition to Mars, painted a pretty plausible picture of how it could be done.
Personally, I wish we’d devote all that Mars money toward a national initiative to come up with a safe, environmentally-sound, cost-efficient alternative energy source, and watch with satisfaction as our Saudi friends go broke and return to the desert as nomads, and we can quit kissing their asses.
I can dream, can’t I?
The space program so far has just wasted money.
What if there had never been a scientific space program (I won’t argue missles, not when USSR and even Hitler had them)
But what if all that “science” money had gone into feeding the world?
I’m all for going to Mars, but why return to the Moon?
It’s a dumb idea as a launch or assembly point. It takes energy to get into and out of the Moon’s gravity well. Is there anything else to be learned from the Moon?
You are mixing up the concepts of “space exploration” and “manned space exploration.” Yes, there have been a lot of benefits to space exploration but nearly all of them have come from the unmanned programs. If you then look at it in terms of value (i.e., benefits/cost), the difference between the manned and unmanned is even greater because manned programs suck money like mad.
Here and here is testimony before Congress by Robert Park, a physicist at University of Maryland who was Director of Public Affairs for the American Physical Society for many years. I particularly direct your attention to the discussion of growing crystals in microgravity. (Perhaps growing carbon nanontubes is the latest “idea” since the myth of the virtues of crystal growth in zero-G has been debunked?)
More recently, here is what Park had to say last Friday regarding the rumors of Bush’s initiative:
I’m going to need some sort of cite on this to know what you are talking about. What is the “American Mars project”? Was this the proposed manned program under Bush Sr…which I doubt since it never went anywhere. If it was the unmanned program, it doesn’t prove anything about the virtues of pursuing manned missions. Few people would argue about the scientific value of the unmanned space program.
Here, by the way, is an official statement from the American Physical Society from 1991 in regards to the space station:
(Although it doesn’t speak directly to the issue of a Mars mission, it does discuss the fact that there has been a tendency on the part of those advocating for manned missions to exaggerate the scientific benefits.)
Perhaps you can show me how “all that” money spent on science and space has kept one person from being fed.
:rolleyes: Oh, dear, not again…
The current world population is 6 billion, give or take a few mil…
NASA’s annual budget is $15 billion, give or take a few mil…
What’s anyone going to eat on $2.50 a year?
By the way, the Bush Administration’s decision to pull out of the International Space Station at this point is basically an open acknowledgement that the critics of it such as Park were absolutely right. How much did we waste on that thing?!?!
You would think that the fact that these critics were right would give policymakers a little humility so that they would at least feel compelled to listen carefully to what these same critics are saying this time! I suppose that would be too logical.
No cite, just something from the tellevision I heard in passing. The ”Mars Project” was the current rovers. The post wasn’t intended as a proof of anything to do with the science part. Just to point out an additional benefit of a space program. Supposedly an even larger manned moon / mars project would be able to attaract even more talented scientist from all over the world to America.
- Rune
We need to go so that those damn moonmen don’t develop WMD and pass them on to terrorists.
If we do nothing now the first sign might be a mushroom cloaud over a US city