Expert Warns NASA Can't Afford Mars Plan! (Urges immediate action!)

Yahoo News via AP ^ | 1 hour, 25 minutes ago ( Wed, Feb 11, 2004 ) | By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

[irv]

THUS FAR, hie "Opposition" has NOT "Made a Case" why "W's" "Vision" is "Impractible/Impossible!!"--& They CANNOT!!

I agree with you completely, but do you think you could tone it down a little? I have a headache.

[farmfriend]

Yes, I saw this as a we see your bid and raise you ploy.

[Don Joe]

I wonder where that expression came from...

Hell, Michigan, probably.

Rural Michigan in the winter has been described (during the soviet era) as being like Siberia, but without the intellectuals.

[Don Joe]

How does one become an expert? Do you fill out an application for the title? If you are an expert is there any one above you who issuses your credential? And if so whats thier title? And finnaly do experts know everything including the future?

gaming_the_system_mode:ON

Well, as an expert in my field, I urge NASA to recognize that it is imperative that they ensure that photograpic exploration include the use of medium format Kodachrome. With that in mind, they will need to compel Kodak to overrule the beancounters, and once again begin the production of 120 Kodachrome, and, restart the medium format K14 processors.

As long as everyone is gonna demand their own cut of the pork, I may as well get something I wanna see, right? Isn't that how the country runs these days?

[Don Joe]

I agree with you completely, but do you think you could tone it down a little? I have a headache.

So Do "I"! What an Amazing COINCIDENCE!"

I Wonder Why "THAT" Is?

"LOL!"

[irv]

As long as everyone is gonna demand their own cut of the pork, I may as well get something I wanna see, right?

Does that mean you're one of the 6 people Kodak hasn't laid off yet? (Note: If I sound a touch cynical, it's because I've been watching Kodak layoffs for a lot of years. I'm from Rochester.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Don Joe]

Does that mean you're one of the 6 people Kodak hasn't laid off yet?

Nope. I'm one of the six people with rolls of 120 Kodachrome in the freezer, that can't be used, because they can't be processed. (I did get 18 rolls in for the "last run" on 10/01/01 at Wimbledon, UK. Big adventure hoping Fedex would be shipping again (post 9/11) before the deadline.)

I'm also worried that they'll drop Kodachrome and K14 processing completely, before I've managed to use my stash of 35mm Kodachrome 25. I wasn't happy when they stopped making the ASA 25 version, and I'll be really unhappy if they stop processing it. As of April Fools Day, there'll be only two places in the Western Hemisphere that handle it: Kodak, Fair Lawn NJ, and Dwaynes, in Kansas. A&I will stop at the end of March, and I'm sitting on a bunch of their mailers. Argh...

[Frank_Discussion]

""They looked like Silicon Valley did a few years ago: young, innovative, imaginative, creative people. They weren't people of my generation, for sure," the 68-year-old Augustine said, tapping his chest."

Norm's senile. YES Norm, they were people of your generation.

He posits all hit off-the-cuff dreck without any real research into the issue, that's not how you act as an "expert".

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

It will cost tens of trillions of dollars.

The moon missions cost $6 trillion.

[irv]

I'm also worried that they'll drop Kodachrome and K14 processing completely

Be very worried. Kodak is trying desperately to get out of the film business entirely. They want to do everything digitally as soon as they can figure out what that means.

[cogitator]

Regarding your comment on the Shuttle and the Space Station: at least to 2010, they have to use the existing shuttle fleet to finish the Space Station, partly due to international commitments. So to get started on the Moon/Mars plans, you have to have funding over and above the shuttle + space station budget. So basically the "new" money for Moon/Mars is about $1 billion a year, or $10 billion. That's hardly enough to draw the plans for the next-generation manned vehicle.

If this was truly a realistic plan, funding would be equivalent to waging a small-scale war. I'd say $20 billion a year minimum for the next 10 years to get started, and THEN you ramp it up (just when the boomers are retiring en masse, natch).

[Iris7]

Actually, the manned Mars program is fairly easy, and can be done within the NASA current budget, and be on the way within five years. No reason not to see a few years later two ships an earth year making the trip, each with maybe 10,000 ton payload. A sizeable earth orbit industrial capacity, where the Mars ships are built, based on 200,000 tons to orbit per year from the earth.

Still can be done within existing NASA budget. First thing needed to make this happen is firing all NASA employees. The second is to build a new enterprise, with all new people, and make sure it contains no one with a pilots license. Airplane pilots are to space ships as steam locomotive engineers are to airplanes.

[Iris7]

Actually, the manned Mars program is fairly easy, and can be done within the NASA current budget, and be on the way within five years. No reason not to see a few years later two ships an earth year making the trip, each with maybe 10,000 ton payload. A sizeable earth orbit industrial capacity, where the Mars ships are built, based on 200,000 tons to orbit per year from the earth.

Still can be done within existing NASA budget. First thing needed to make this happen is firing all NASA employees. The second is to build a new enterprise, with all new people, and make sure it contains no one with a pilots license. Airplane pilots are to space ships as steam locomotive engineers are to airplanes.

[Don Joe]

Be very worried. Kodak is trying desperately to get out of the film business entirely.

Film is where they make their money. It's their cash cow. Little to no R&D necessary, it's mature, proven technology, they can do it in their sleep, and it's high margin. The opposite of digital. They claim they're committed to supporting it; they're expanding into China and other venues, and they just rolled out the "dry process" machine they got via the ASF acquisition. (It uses a proprietary goo to develop the film, makes multiple scans of each layer as it's developing, then, rolls it onto a big spool, for eventual silver recovery. The customer never gets any negatives; there aren't any negatives. The customer gets prints, and a CD.)

They just sent me a couple of free samples of their new Ektachrome to try out, so they're still pushing film. I'm not happy about them not pushing Kodachrome, though. It's unique, it's incomparable, and until the "under new management" crew took over, it was their flagship product.

[Don Joe]

I don't know why they don't buy the Ruskies' shuttle. Looks like better tech, and it's not a worn-out rust bucket like our "fleet". I doubt the passengers would be sitting in abject terror each time they transitioned from here to there and vice-versa, like they do with our designed-by-committee flying pigs.

[Iris7]

Sorry about the double post, had a internet connection failure.

Don't worry about how much a space program will cost, since the $6 trillion the Apollo project cost was mostly administrative overhead. Government work always expands until all of the money is used up, and then some. To ask government to actually do something is stupid unless what you want government to do is send you a check. Yeah, I am saying people are stupid. Well, aren't they?

[Doc On The Bay]

--"I Have a Headache!!"--

SORRY;--There are "Numbers of Us" who "Suffer 'A Headache' due to the Lack of a "Minimal Vision" of Humankind's potential Future!

Either We "Go Out,"--Continue to explore our "Near Space," & make plans to explore "as Far as we can Go,.."--or we accept some, "Arbitrary Limit,"--, & INVOLUTE,--& DIE.

Humans Were Not "Constructed to be 'Static Creatures;" Humans are an EXPLORING CREATURE--we are Built to "Expand!!"

If We don't get "Off-Planet,--& Survive,--" then Some Other Life-Form (Maybe 10 Million Years from Now) will accomplish that Task.

I Believe that "Humans" are "EarthLife's" attempt to get "Off-Planet!"

If WE DON'T succeed, "Earthlife" will eventually find another way.

But it WOULD be "FUN" to "Be the One's" that "Make It??!!"

Doc

MANY of Us--'Raised on the Appollo Program--would feel EXCITED & Gratified if we were Privileged to see "Humankind" "Go to the Stars," while we are still around!