Posted on 12/26/2018 11:34:23 AM PST by jazusamo
Sending astronauts to Mars would be stupid, says ApolOne of the first astronauts to orbit the Moon said on Wednesday that it's "stupid" to plan human missions to Mars.
Bill Anders, who was the lunar module pilot for NASA's Apollo 8 mission, told BBC Radio 5 Live that sending crews to the Red Planet would be "almost ridiculous."
The U.S. space agency's goals include sending humans to Mars for exploration and scientific study.
"What's the imperative? What's pushing us to go to Mars?" Anders, 85, said, adding: "I don't think the public is that interested."
Still, the retired astronaut did explain that he's a big supporter of NASA's unmanned programs to Mars — "mainly because they're much cheaper."
NASA's InSight Mars Lander, which reached the Red Planet in late November, has been listening for "marsquakes," has 'heard' Martian winds and has beamed back a range of awesome images.
In a statement, NASA told the BBC that it was "leading a sustainable return to the Moon, which will help prepare us to send astronauts to Mars."
"That also includes commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities," the statement said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Super interesting program, but with no magnetosphere, how would a terraformed Mars retain an atmosphere..?
You would make one, and it would float off into space.
I’m still very interested.
I think the biggest barrier to a habitable Mars would be this new, vaguely Khymer Rougian notion that any mancentric effort to improve a place —any place— is disruptive or infectious, making in some sense worse; damaged and made somehow unfair:
“Earth as a fever and the virus is MANKIND”
I think the minute they try to exploit and USE Mars, you’re going to have tons of insane people caterwauling about “man is DESTROYING Mars”.
Forget about Mars. Just look at the moon. The Apollo program was terminated and nobody has been back there in decades because THAT was not a worthwhile pursuit, either.
Cost seem to be around 400 Billion for a Mars trip. In Governmentspeak that means around 2 trillion. Or about a third of the cost of our retarded wars or convenience with the camel jockeys.
The Mars trip would be better for humanity and America than pissing it away down the Afghan/Syrian/Iraqi/Libya/Pakistani/Ukrainian rathole.
Sending a solar monitoring station there could be of some benefit to get climate forecasting here. But that need not be manned.
A thirty mile diameter crater with a mile thick glacier is a starting point.
Almost no atmosphere is a benefit in applying a mass-driver to fire metal shipments to a cargo destination.
Walk around the local neighborhood?
I wondered how many billions of dollars the government spent on saving one man while millions are homeless and sick and hungry.
“Ship the Stupids to Mars,...”
Exploration, esp. for recoverable water and oxygen that us cheaper to find and use than what is shipped from our gravity well, is another matter. IMHO, explore everywhere in the Solar System, but colonize near-Earth orbit and the Moon first. Much greater return, it allows for perfecting the tech and proving the concept, all to make later colonization if the planets feasible. This isn’t about next week we are talking about the next couple hundred years.
This is going nowhere until the Mason Interstellar Drive is fully perfected.
Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607. They started with wilderness and began building from that point.
Antarctica is reserved as a scientific preserve by international agreement. Outside of a century old whaling station, there wasn’t interest in other settlements.
You have apparently never read more than one of my 79,000+ posts.
The people who master manned space travel will rule the next century, and our grandkids will work for them.
Yup, the Wright brothers were not the ones that invented the jet airplane but their flight at Kitty Hawk was the first step.Just as the moon landing and a flight to mars would be the first step to space travel.
It's not as if they can work the numbers that will reveal that the tin can will eventually drop into the Corona... Then, PHIIFFF...
We can pretend that we didn't know the resultant, if someone gets a case of the guilts.
Ummm, because its there?
"I don't think the public is that interested."
Maybe, but Anders doesn't speak for me. I'm always interested in stuff like this.
Its curious how Anders has lost his explorer's mentality.
He was CEO of General Dynamics Corp when I worked at the Convair Division. Many of us did not think highly of him or his style. But, I have to agree with him on this one.
Still cheaper to shoot them than to launch thousands of rockets to space. Plus, mass participation by the populace will ensure greater support for the program.
It will take a geologist with a hand lens to determine if there has ever been any life there.
I suspect there has, but the biological imperative drives our collective need to know, one way or another.
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