Posted on 04/24/2017 2:33:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
What we are reporting here isn't fake news. But it doesn't feel exactly like real news, either. It's in that foggy realm of Trump news in which everything is slightly ambiguous and wobbly and internally inconsistent and almost certainly improvisational and not actually grounded in what you could call “government policy.” What happened was: Trump called the International Space Station and talked to astronauts and, in passing, mentioned that he's going to send Americans to Mars, and soon, like really lickety-split.
Trump was marking the historic achievement of astronaut Peggy Whitson, the commander of the International Space Station, who set a record for most days in space by an American astronaut. (Also on the call from the Oval Office were Ivanka Trump, who spoke about the administration's efforts to encourage women and girls to get involved in STEM fields, and astronaut Kate Rubins.)
During the call, the president asked Whitson and fellow American astronaut Jack Fischer a question:
TRUMP: “Tell me: Mars, what do you see a timing for actually sending humans to Mars? Is there a schedule and when would you see that happening?”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In collusion with the Russians.
Stalking and the ad hijacking ...
Anything to drive away those that expose motorcycle gangs for the murderers and pedophiles the are.
was I advocating killing babies? I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d have remembered. None of which has anything to do with how going to the moon will pay for itself
It WON’T happen.
Not enough Martian voters.
(i.e. There is no constituency for that level of expenditure)
It takes five years to get there
Most people here say it takes 6 months I believe.
The expenditure wouldn’t be that great. NASA’s budget is tiny compared to others, and the lethargy of the manned space program has disillusioned us into thinking it can’t be done. You’ve hit on something: the public will just isn’t there anymore. It’s too bad, because we are a nation built by explorers—not afraid to go into the wild frontier and expand our horizons. Is the safety of never venturing beyond our comfort zones better?
Good post!
It costs a hell of lot of money to get pounds on Mars. To put man on Mars the vast majority of the payload would be dedicated to keeping the crew alive and then returning them to earth. Without humans on board all this payload would be useful robotics to explore the surface of Mars.
In the future when it is cheaper and I mean very much cheaper to put payload on Mars we might consider humans.
The Apollo program that put humans on the moon was an engineering marvel. Actually considering It was in 1969 it was a miracle of engineering and scientific excellence. However, the entire weight of the Lunar excursion module could have been robotic exploration. Actually more than the weight of the lunar excursion module as we also had the return module in orbit around the moon. All of that weight could have been robotics and our gains in the science of the moon would have been far greater.
When it cheap and I mean really cheap to put a lot of weight to the moon and mars it makes sense to put a man on board. That is not today.
“The expenditure wouldn’t be that great.”
Perhaps you’d like to put a number on that?
You have no idea how the costs have compounded with a bunch of wanna-be engineers more focused on CYA than success.
Watchers, watching the watchers, and nobody defining hard requirements.
Test results with more unqualified second guessers than can fit in 747.
Dream if you like, but tell your grandkids to mark the “planned” launch date on their tombstone.
I'm confused.
You appear to be saying that those who expose motorcycle gangs are murderers and pedophiles. In English, that is... 😀
A manned mission to Mars was already budgeted in the 90’s but rejected because of alternative goals. At the height of the Apollo landings we were paying a little less than 5 cents of every tax dollar to NASA. Today we’re paying a little more than half a cent. We’ve gotten much better at keeping people alive for long periods of time in space. There is a water reclamation system on the ISS. With a source of water, astronauts on Mars could produce their own food and oxygen as well. They wouldn’t need kilotons of supplies. And scientists on the ground could research in a matter of days what would take years for robotic probes to do. Robots can’t think. They can’t adapt to answer questions raised by more answers resulting from research in the field. But all this aside, if we don’t do it someone else will. Then they’ll have the high ground and we’ll be stuck following their coat tails. Is this America’s future?
>A manned mission to Mars was already budgeted in the 90’s but rejected because of alternative goals. At the height of the Apollo landings we were paying a little less than 5 cents of every tax dollar to NASA. Today we’re paying a little more than half a cent. We’ve gotten much better at keeping people alive for long periods of time in space. There is a water reclamation system on the ISS. With a source of water, astronauts on Mars could produce their own food and oxygen as well. They wouldn’t need kilotons of supplies. And scientists on the ground could research in a matter of days what would take years for robotic probes to do. Robots can’t think. They can’t adapt to answer questions raised by more answers resulting from research in the field. But all this aside, if we don’t do it someone else will. Then they’ll have the high ground and we’ll be stuck following their coat tails. Is this America’s future?
Stepping foot on another planet would be huge. I bet the Chinese would try to beat us there as well. Space races are great motivations that create lots of useful tech.
Yes and also opens up new possibilities. It starts with one small step....
“I’m confused”
Yes, you are.
I must disagree with the second part of your statement. You are absolutely correct in saying that getting stuff out of earth's gravity is very costly, but you are dead wrong in saying that getting stuff out of the moon's gravity well is cheap. It's actually MORE expensive than just getting it from the earth to the moon.
How can I make such a statement?
Easy. The fuel needed to get something off the moon's surface HAS TO COME FROM THE EARTH FIRST. Not only do you have the cost of getting it off the earth, but you have the added energy cost of slowing it down so it doesn't make another little crater on the moon's surface. Sorry good buddy your statement about the moon paying for itself remains unsubstantiated.
Nobody voted for him because we thought he’d waste our tax dollars on this pipe dream.
“Look what the Wright brothers did for aviation.”
Do it on your own dime then, like the Wright brothers did.
Of course, everyone knows that is where the secret Nazi base is.
“Subsurface ice probably is abundant.”
“Probably” is not really something you want to hear in mission critical parameters.
“Robots can do as much or more for 10% of the cost of sending manned craft.”
Yes but sci fi fans don’t want to hear about that. They want to keep their pipe dream that we’ll all be living in space soon, even though there is no practical reason to do it.
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