Mars

[NoahL]

Why aren't we sending people to Mars? isnt this a disgrace to NASA? Someone tell me why 30 years after the Nixon NASA report on sending people to Mars, we still havent done it, does nasa want to do it, and if so, what time frame?

[Insp. Clue!So?]

Because it is extremely expensive.

Because it is very dangerous and may well turn out to be impractical without killing the people we send. How do you protect the astronauts from long-term exposure to cosmic radiation? You can't at the moment:

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/jun/cover

Because we can learn almost as much by sending probes, at a small fraction of the cost, and faster to boot, plus with no human risk (which is also further a political risk).

Because people would rather spend money invading innocent countries to placate their simplistic demands for revenge, and other stupidities.

Because many people in and out of power don't think today's NASA could pull this off.

What you meant to ask was, why aren't we sending exploratory probes to Europa and Enceladus? These two moons, of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, could harbor life today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus_(moon)

[CORed]

I, for one, don't think we should give up on manned space travel, but I think it has to be acknowledged that a Mars mission, or any manned interplanetary mission, is 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more difficult than a moon landing. A manned Mars mission using chemical rockets would be extremely expensive and dangerous, and the benefits questionable. Nuclear fission rockets don't improve it a whole lot. We are going to need something much more exotic to make manned interplanetary travel feasible. Solar sails? Solar and/or nuclear ion rockets? Laser assisted rockets? Fusion? Something we haven't thought of yet? Minimum delta-V orbits are fine for unmanned probes; we don't care if it takes 5 years to get there. If we are going to make manned interplanetary travel anything but an expensive and very dangerous stunt, we really need technology capable of supporting constant acceleration missions, and we are not anywhere close to achieving that yet.

I think we were extremely lucky that we got to the moon with only three deaths (I'm counting the Apollo 1 crew, even though that accident occurred during a test rather than an actual mission). We came very close to losing 3 more on Apollo 13, and, for that matter, Apollo 11 came pretty close to disaster (Almost ran out of fuel during the landing, and a broken circuit breaker that almost kept them form launching off the moon). A solar flare during any of the moon missions could have killed all three astronauts.

As proud as I am of the accomplishments of the Apollo program, I think we have to realize that, in the final analysis, it was a stunt. A bold, extremely impressive stunt, but, in the end, of little more practical significance than circling the earth in a balloon. We pushed the technology of the time to it's limits and spared no expense, but we were so focused on the single goal of putting somebody on the moon that we built no infrastructure that could support sustainable manned space travel.

I sincerely hope we get back to the moon some day, and beyond. If our species is to survive in the long term, we need to find a way to expand beyond this planet. But we need to do it in a way that is sustainable, economically.

In the Apollo program, our reach far exceeded our grasp. That is not entirely a bad thing, but we need to realize that doing it for real will probably have to wait a little longer.

[2OuterJitsu]

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we really need technology capable of supporting constant acceleration missions, and we are not anywhere close to achieving that yet.

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If this was false, how could money be made? Do you charge universities/governments for the trip? What's on the Moon/Mars that people would pay to go get?

[NoahL]

Would you rather go to Europe and be given 50k for 4 months traveling or pay 1million to go to the moon for 10 minutes?

[mjkidd]

Europe, and it's not close. I wouldn't pay a dime to go to Mars. In fact, I'd have to be compensated rather handsomely to become a Martian astronaut in an Apollo-type program; ten million dollars or so seems fair for 3 years of my live and a >1/4 chance of dying.

If we developed a constant acceleration spacecraft I'd totally be down for a trip to Mars. I still wouldn't pay anything though.

And if we weren't such pussies about nuclear fallout, we'd probably already have a permanant base on Mars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29

[luckyme]

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What's on the Moon/Mars that people would pay to go get?


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The moon would make a neat base for rockets or powerful lasers ( for good or evil). Mars could turn into a dirty manufacturing zone for things too dangerous for earth but expensive enough to warrant doing. Or a safe-from-attack neutralizing base. or..

who knows. Maybe if China had active stations on both the attractiveness of those rocks wouldn't be doubted anymore? The "I want it 'cause he wants it" justification.

luckyme