Mars: going to the wrong place at the wrong time [gag alert]

U$C Daily Trojan ^ | 1.26.04 | U$C Daily Trojan

[ambrose]

From the editors

Mars: going to the wrong place at the wrong time

An $820-million mission to Mars was punctuated by a second safe Mars rover landing on Sunday.

In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush declared that NASA's focus should be on human exploration of Mars and discovering other life in space.

The recently passed spending bill authorized $1 billion in startup funding to plan a lunar base and human exploration of Mars. Projected costs of the total project, though, range from $500 billion to $1 trillion.

Discovering new life is a noble long term endeavor for humanity. The emphasis, though, is on long-term. Should exploration take precedence at a time when city and state governments are still trying to "discover" how to provide public services?

In the past, the space program's benefits extended beyond the abstract, with numerous spinoff technologies that could be employed in the civilian sector. The Mars initiative does not hold the same technological promise.

The nature of the initiative itself is also suspect. Many critics of the plan have argued that a trip to Mars could be better, and more cheaply conducted directly from earth rather a lunar base as proposed.

Police, community leaders, businesses and City Hall have yet to resolve the homeless crisis downtown. California is still in contentious debate about which social services should be cut to deal with the recent, heavy economic blows to its municipalities. While such complaints could be always be made, they should not be treated any less seriously.

For a space agency still tied to Low Earth Orbit (with the International Space Station) and still reeling from the Columbia disaster, Mars seems awfully far away.

With doubts about the plausibility of Mars exploration being raised since the botched trips of British scientists, and more recently, NASA's Mars Spirit rover, the United States should concentrate more on dealing with the nit and grit of everyday explorations in education, health care and diplomacy.

[Always Right]

It is largely a waste of money.

[samtheman]

I'd rather spend the same money on more military in space.

[Gefreiter]

Yup. There should be no further exploration of space until every social problem in America is fixed.

And guess who'll be paying for all that fixin'? You and me, taxpayers.

I'd rather spend my $$ pushing humans into the deep unknown, learning and exploring, than spending my $$ on social ills that families should be fixing themselves.

[Phil V.]

If you'd like to be on or off this MARS ping list please FRail me

[Brett66]

Projected costs of the total project, though, range from $500 billion to $1 trillion.

That's simply untrue. If he doesn't even verify basic numbers such as this, then he isn't informed enough to even comment on where/how NASA's money is spent. I wonder why he wastes ink on the tiny,insignificant budget of NASA when there are huge government programs that waste more money than NASA's budget several times over?

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

I agree, we will never solve every social problem. So maybe we should look elsewhere?

[af_vet_rr]

This isn't all about discovering life, etc. (and the article is pretty quick to consider Spirit to be botched at this point). A lot of what President Bush said (not just the State of the Union) appeals to those in the aerospace industries in Texas, California, and more importantly, Florida. Those are industries that are not being outsourced to India or China (yet) and in the case of Florida, it may help with the election. It could be a boost to getting kids interested in science and technology again as well (think about what a boost it was to those of us around for the Apollo missions, I know I wasn't the only one).

Putting all of that aside, we are Americans. I've always thought it was very un-American to get to the Moon and then just stop. We're pioneers, not people who complete a goal and then go no further.

[Gefreiter]

Well, Americans can continue to explore space, cure diseases, challenge ourselves, better ourselves, and evolve.

Those who just want to stay home and fart into the couch all weekend, waiting for that next handout, will continue to do so.

Others will continue to dream and achieve, and leave the ash and trash behind.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

In the past, the space program's benefits extended beyond the abstract, with numerous spinoff technologies that could be employed in the civilian sector. The Mars initiative does not hold the same technological promise.

Why not?

[RightWhale]

In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush declared that NASA's focus should be on human exploration of Mars and discovering other life in space.

This article is bogus.

[Professional Engineer]

The nature of the initiative itself is also suspect.

Halliburton is behind it all! /tin foil

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!