MARS is coming closer…by August 27 it will only be 35million miles away! I’m a bit sad, because I thought by now ,we would have a manned expedition to the planet.
Many years ago, the late Wehner Von Braun actuially drew up plans for a massive expedition to mars…and determined that evne with the technology of the late 1950’sit was feasible.
So, when will we spend the 200 billion $ (or so) that it will cost to send a manned expedition to Mars (I hope to seeit in my lifetime).
What makes you think we want you people around here?
Don’t get me wrong! I got nothing personal against you Earthlings.
But, everytime you move into a neighborhood, the property values drop!
And, there are guys around here who are less reasonable than me, & some o’ them got PU32 Explosive Space Modulators.
Now, 'scuse me, I gotta get the Tripod to the mechanics for a tune-up.
“What’s the hurry?”. I usually reply when this topic comes up among my circle of friends.
In most “Let’s go to Mars, kids, and put on a show!!!” scenarios (this quote should be squealed aloud in a voice somewhere between Mickey Rooney’s and Judy Garland’s), there are two technological packages to be considered:
- The ship that takes the crew to Mars, and, it is hoped, keeps them alive and functional – if not happy – during the trip; in several scenarios, this is the same ship that will make the voyage back to Earth.
So much function must be built into this package, which must work the first time and literally never have a problem, that I must ask: “What’s the hurry?”. If we are sure of the package, let’s put it into orbit around the earth for a couple of years – maybe around the moon. Let’s see if it really works with real people. We can even simulate real problems and see how the gang handles them. We can tinker, improve, adapt – both the equipment and our people.
- The habitat that must be used for the humans who land on Mars – this could be something simple like the ship that took the crew there, or a different habitat installed and set up remotely before the humans get there.
Again, this is quite a collection of different technologies which must work nearly flawlessly the first time and for the duration of the stay, and again I must ask: “What’s the hurry?”. Let’s put it in some god-forsaken place on earth for a year or so, before placing a testbed on the moon for a couple of years. We can iron out bugs right from the start, and also look at problems that will arise months into the stay.
We aren’t really in a space race any more with the Russians – maybe the Chinese are shaping up – but we don’t have to prove anything at the moment. No one else has a Mars module ready to go. Let’s take our time and do it right.
I used to be a big fan of a Mars mission, but now I think the priorities have shifted (unless life is found, then it’s a different story).
These are the big things that urgently need to be done in space:
[ul]
[li]Large Orbital Interferometry Telescopes. Hubble has been perhaps the most successful space program in history, when judged by the amount of pure scientific knowledge it has given us. Certainly it’s given us by far the biggest bang for the buck. But Hubble is just a drop in the bucket. We can build huge arrays in orbit and directly image earth-sized planets. At extreme sizes, we could image them so well we could spot artificial structures. We should be accelerating development of these telescopes.[/li][li]Big-time exploration of the Jovian and Saturnian systems. The more we learn about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the more startling they are. I predict that Cassini is going to show us some incredibly exciting things next year when it gets to Saturn. We should be drilling on Europa, maybe with a nuclear-powered melting probe or something. There may be great discoveries waiting on Titan and other large moons. We should be planning a lander mission to Europa and a large, high resolution, high powered nuclear mission to Jupiter.[/li][li]Tether technology. We should be spending a bundle on tether designs, now that we have a material strong enough to build them. Building a tether on Earth would make all these other missions an order of magnitude cheaper. With a space tether, we could move enough material into orbit to build a really big, high-class Mars ship.[/li][/ul]
I’d put all those programs ahead of a Mars mission, unless the landers scheduled for early next year discover signs of life.
I’m convinced we could have done it by now if we really wanted to; it’s just that there were other things we wanted to do instead.
I think it’ll be a hundred years or more before humans set foot on Mars. Just too many obstacles, and too many other, more appropriate, tasks to do first, as has already been pointed out.
The major problems with the Mars mission right now, IMO, is the radiation bath of space. Figure all astronauts on the mission will have major cancer issues within a decade. Unless there’s a solar flare during the 6-month trip, at which point they’ll be dead in a half hour.
More robots is what we need. Robots, I tells ya!
I wish I could find a cite, but I recently (a few months ago?) read an article that stated that the thin Martian atmosphere would most likely allow so much radiation in that anything remotely resembling terrestrial life would be be killed off pretty quickly. Unless we want to transport heavy radiation shielding or transform the atmosphere of Mars, I don’t think we’ll be going there any time soon.
As an aside, I’m guessing the international space station doesn’t have much in the way of radiation shielding either. Does anybody know if the “long-term” residents of the station have suffered any damange from radiation?
Barry
The same could be said for the moon, which has NO atmosphere, godzillatemple yet we went there with little issue. While I don’t think a long term stay on mars would be a good Idea yet, physiologically, a landing and short exploratory mission should be possible as far as radiation is concerned. Health wise, the affects of having 0 gravity for a long period of time, then 1/3 g (IIRC that’s mars’), then 0 gravity for a slightly longer period of time, then multiple g’s, then back to earth normal are more problematic. We would need to be more worried about those than radiation, imho.
BTW for the record the earth’s atmosphere only blocks as much radiation as would be blocked by about 13 feet of concrete. Any permanent or semi-permenent structure should be able to get much the same shielding using various shielding materials and some space.
To the OP:
I don’t think that the US will be planning a manned trip anywhere (besides the space station) any time soon. I would like to see us build a permanent space station (with some way to compensate for free fall) and a hubble array first. Also like others mentioned a drone trip to europa might provide evidence of life, and from a scientific standpoint is HIGHLY profitable.
However, China plans on putting a man in space very soon. There have been many leaked rumors that they also plan a moon landing by the end of the decade. There are also plenty of X-prize orbital contestants, unmanned mars landers from the EU, and a couple of private companies with unmaned moon landers in the works. I think it is possible that by 2020-2050 there may be enough interest (especially if we start finding more evidence of life on other planets, whether through an unmaned probe, or from a space telliscope array) to constitute a conglomeration of forces for a manned mars mission. It would be about the best way to practice for possible future inter-stellar ones, should we determine them to be necessary or warranted.
Wouldn’t a pointless Mars trip produce more apathy towards space programs? I’m sure a successful Mars trip would make people very excited for a short time (5 years maybe), but if it didn’t acceive anything other than burn a few hundred billion dollars for some bleak landscape footage and dust samples people might react badly and money for more useful projects could be lost. If it failed, and thats not unlikely, dead astronauts and wasted money would harm space exploration for decades.
If some clear proof that life existed (or does exist) could be found from the robot probes then the agrument would be much better, that kind of discovery could launch a new space age.
IMO, if we’d spend half the money and manpower for a Mars mission as we’re doing for the whole Iraq invasion/occupation fiasco, we could have Martian vacation packages for sale inside of five years.
Humans will step on the surface of Mars within 20 years. Times be changing fast and it will get much faster.
We are just about to enter the Age of Robots. From there the rules completely change.