[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Corruption everywhere.

[SunkenCiv]

Reason 3 — Old-line aerospace contractors.

Reason 4 — Richard Shelby.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

Another thing I would add to my list if I were Emperor of the USA; defund NASA. We no longer need them as the Left has destroyed that organization.

[ctdonath2]

Gonna be a moot point when a rich madman sends significant numbers of humans to live there as a private hobby.

[Red Badger]

Leftists ruin everything they touch.....................

[Chainmail]

Ah, Mars - but before you start thinking about your retirement home there - please note that everything going there has to be radiation-hardened too, since you'll pick up way more than the maximum allowable dose of ionizing radiation on the trip there and during your stay: something like 2KRads/20 Sieverts per year.

1 Rad is considered dangerous to human life, and 20 Rad/400 Sieverts is considered lethal, when absorbed over the same length of time.

Enjoy!

[Carl Vehse]

Don’t trust NASA until it is sanitized free of leftists.

[Honorary Serb]

.....2. Many of the parts and assemblies, by demand from the racially pure leftists involved in the project, must be ordered from women/minority/approved (not white male) companies and that is causing delays/cost overruns.......

We would NEVER have made it to the Moon in 1969 with those stipulations!!!!

[sanjuanbob]

If they can’t use electric rockets, they should scrap the mission. Calling Elon….

[plain talk]

The intention behind no. 1 is valid. We should ensure if we later find life on Mars it wasn’t because we brought it along with us. One can argue about how to best do that etc.

At this point Mars missions should continue to be unmanned. Less expensive and faster.

[Wuli]

There is no need for manned flights to Mars at this point in our exploration of the solar system. We are still at the baby step stage and usually you begin to walk before you run. The learning to walk stage at this juncture would be a manned base on the moon. That would be the training ground for best techologeis, methods and operations for “off-world” manned bases, and it would be cheaper than Mars for rotation of personal and resupply operations.

The next phase would be using the moon and orbit around the moon as the departure point from which long range manned spacraft leave for - and return from - other points in the solar system - avoiding the fuel demands for the heavy lifting just to get off the earth. Do it once, up to the mooon or moon orbit, and return it there where it would await its next trip.

After that we MIGHT be ready for a manned base on Mars, but no one should think that will mean a Mars “colony”. At most it will be a scientific base, and it will be duration limited, as we know already from the experience of long term stays on the International Space Station.

[Organic Panic]

But what is MOST important for NASA is to make Muslims feel good about themselves.

[Whatever Works]

“Gonna build me a spaceship...go to the moon and salvage all the junk left up there.....”

Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold the Moon”.....Delos D. Harriman = Elon Musk

[Paal Gulli]

"Two facts about the Mars mission that people don't know"

Apparently MeneMeneTekelUpharsin isn't a "people" because he knows these things (or at least thinks he does).

[nagant]

Environmental whackos crashed two space shuttles and murdered their crews.

1. The Challenger crashed in 1986 because environmental whackos forced the elimination of asbestos from the engine cone sealant.

2. The Columbia crashed in 2003 because environmental whackos forced the elimination of CFC-blown foam from the Columbia’s belly.

Isn’t using dangerous space exploration missions as platforms for social experiments great?