Posted on 03/09/2006 7:43:59 PM PST by KevinDavis
(Business 2.0 Magazine) - Attention, people of Earth: We are going to Mars. This is no sci-fi fantasy; for the past two years, NASA has been gearing up to meet the Bush administration's goal of landing humans on Mars by around 2030. The agency plans to set up a base on the Moon by 2020 to act as a staging area; that effort alone is projected to cost at least $104 billion. Throw in the round-trip voyage to Mars, and John Edwards, space systems analyst at Forecast International, estimates that the total cost of the program will top $400 billion--making it history's largest government-backed science project.
Money is already being spent: NASA's 2006 budget allocates $16.4 billion, much of it for the development of a new spacecraft, called the crew exploration vehicle, that will replace the trouble-plagued space shuttle and carry humans "to the Moon, Mars, and worlds beyond." The candidates to design and build the CEV are familiar names--Lockheed Martin (Research) and a combined Northrop Grumman (Research)/Boeing (Research) team are the leading contenders right now--but NASA's multibillion-dollar shopping spree will create unprecedented opportunities for companies that haven't traditionally been involved in spaceflight. For example, heavy-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar (Research) has worked with the space agency to develop "regolith-handling" construction machinery. ("Regolith" is the geologists' term for extraterrestrial dirt.) Hundreds more contracts will be signed in the decades ahead as the space agency seeks to address the basic needs of deep-space astronauts--oxygen to breathe, food to eat, fuel to burn, and communications networks to stay in touch. These three companies are already positioning themselves to secure a lucrative spot on the launchpad.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
cool
The spacecraft arrives at Mars on 17 January 1972. As it nears the planet, 9.4 tonnes of trash and sewage is jettisoned.
gotta love that, making tree huugging heads go "whirrrrr"
it's pretty cold out there ...
not really. absent matter-to-matter KE transfer, heat-loss must be accomplished radiatively. that's pretty slow.
what if you sprayed it with 9.5 tons of poop
Well, great. And then what??
The problem I have with going to Mars is that beyond being a very expensive publicity stunt, I have yet to see anything that addresses what the benefits will be.
Just what are we getting for the money we are spending on launching a Mission from the bottom of a very deep gravity well, to go touch down at the bottom of yet another deep gravity well? Even if the first thing Mars Explorers found was a 100 Trillion barrel resevoir of the purest Sweet Crude Oil ever found, just how would we get it home??
We know that we can support human life in longterm low Earth orbit. It's time to build on that, and figure out a way to build an ISS that can get underway and go explore something practical, like the Asteroids to see what there is to be used for orbital manufacturing. Why not build a solar powered aluminum smelter at one of the LaGrange points and feed it asteroids to make metal?? A steady supply of relatively cheap metal products, without the need to fit it into the cargo bay of a Shuttle, would be invaluable.
I look at what a single techological achievement, like the Wright Brothers made a century ago, can do to completely revamp our civilization and the way we think about solving different problems. Everything was "impossible" at one time or another...
Shhhhh, 'conservatives' have their pet projects. Like all good Republicans, they don't mind if money is wasted, as long as it's wasted on something 'we' want.
I look at what a single techological achievement, like the Wright Brothers made a century ago, can do to completely revamp our civilization and the way we think about solving different problems. Everything was "impossible" at one time or another...
Well that should give you a hint right there. The Wrights were not being funded by the government. They had to produce viable results that would provide a return on investment. This space jaunt? It's just more waste to revitalize nationalism in space exploration. The only result you'll see are packs of nerds with foam 'We're #1' fingers running around in the streets
Of course convincing someone to get on one of these ships, built on 40 year old technology by government contractors trying to get as much as they can out of the government, will be another thing. Will need a couple of real 'true believers'
> I have yet to see anything that addresses what the benefits will be.
Alaska.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.