Posted on 04/27/2017 2:29:39 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Case in point: NASA has been developing the Orion capsule for the last 14 years. Fourteen years ago SpaceX hadn't even launched a rocket. NASA hasn't accomplished in fourteen years something that only took them eight years in the 1960's.
NASA hasn't launched Orion yet. SpaceX has launched Falcon 1, Falcon 9, the Dragon capsule, made the Falcon 9 first stage reusable, and is on the cusp of launching Falcon Heavy.
NASA would ask for a trillion dollars for a Mars mission, but if they ever accomplished it, they would spend far more. And at the end all we would accomplish would be flags and footprints.
More likely they would miss the deadline, overrun the budget, and the next president would simply cancel the whole thing.
Just imagine the level of technology in 1962 and the Moon landing happened in just 7 years.
If not for the end of the Cold War people would be present on Mars for a decade and Moon could have had multiple colonies and military bases.
Likewise for the Cassini probe, et. al.
In addition to its cargo, the X-37b carries a highly-skilled midget engineer-astronaut who fiddles with experiments enroute. Few know this.
Going to the moon was easy compared to a Mars trip. The distance to the moon is relatively constant and is less than a light second away making communication similar to a slightly delayed phone call. The distance to Mars is highly variable being anywhere from around 4 to well over 20 light minutes away. The crew would have to deal with any emergency on their own since you could not have a simple back and forth chat with mission control like the good old days.
check that just over a light second to the moon not less
He is advocating their profession: exploring space and they still sneer at Trump. Sad.
Fixed - NASA hasn’t done anything in decades.
“” “Going to the moon was easy compared to a Mars trip. The distance to the moon is relatively constant and is less than a light second away making communication similar to a slightly delayed phone call. The distance to Mars is highly variable being anywhere from around 4 to well over 20 light minutes away. The crew would have to deal with any emergency on their own since you could not have a simple back and forth chat with mission control like the good old days.”” “
Nothing of the above it impossible. Long orbital missions is the evidence that the man can autonomously stay in space for long enough for a Mars flight.
Getting there is not an awfully impossible task because it is now exactly 47 years since first controlled soft landing on Mars.
Getting back is rather akin to getting back from the Moon with Apollo with the exception that the larger booster needed.
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