Posted on 05/09/2013 4:28:00 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The Apollo-era astronaut says NASA should be working manned Mars missions
The second man to set foot on the moon wants to see NASA send people further into space than he ever traveled. Buzz Aldrin trashed NASA's plan to bring an asteroid into lunar orbit in a speech, advocating for a Mars colony.
Aldrin, who recently published the book "Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration," said at the Washington, D.C. Humans to Mars summit Wednesday that President Barack Obama's asteroid mining plan is merely a distraction.
"Bringing an asteroid back to Earth? What's that have to do with space exploration?" he asked. "If we were moving outward from there and an asteroid is a good stopping point, then fine. But now it's turned into a whole planetary defense exercise at the cost of our outward exploration."
The Apollo-era astronaut, now 83, has devised a plan to "cycle" spacecraft to Mars, continually launching humans to the red planet to expand on its colony. Aldrin advocates using Phobos, a moon of Mars, as a sort of home base for landing on the planet.
"Going to Mars means permanence, we'd become a two planet species. In Mars, we've been given a wonderful set of moons … where we can send continuous numbers of people," he said. The trips would be one-way.
"Their ultimate destination will be six feet under Mars," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Yes, it reminds me of the days some four decqades ago when the Saudi Army threatened to shoot down Saudi Air Force aircraft overflying Saudi Army installations, and Saudi fighter pilots ejected from their expensive fighter aircraft rather than troubleshooting the problem and landing safely.
Has it ever been proven that a Mars colony would not produce hazardous materials in that environment? Does Greenpeace have its own watchdog spaceship? They’d be easy enough to lose in those asteroids. We probably couldn’t mine the same asteroids we’ve dumped on. Fleets of specialized vehicle types would have to be developed and their operators might be responding to Mars-based or Earth-based traffic control. Maintenance and Quality Management would be a HUGE priority in eliminating cycle downtime and in enhancing process performance. “Cybernauts” and astronauts would have to work together because there’s no code to write for installing and running courage and bravado (Apollo 13) on a computer when you need it.
You have apparently lost your ability to think critically if you ever had it. The FACT that you space kadets always ignore (or lack the wit and the will to understand) is the prodigious EXPENSE of space exploration and the lack of economic value in it. There is NOTHING in space worth the expense of going there and getting it. And spare me the bullsh!t about columbus.
Anyone who opens his yap in the political arena advocating spending of my hard earned tax dollars is fair game.
This man is a National Treasure-
Total Buncombe. He's as much of a "national treasure" as Jimmy Carter.
he was in the first flight to land on the moon, with no more computer power than what we have in a common wristwatch
So What? You think he did it by himself? The reality that you are ignoring is that he was one of a few hoisted on the shoulders of tens of thousands of engineers and scientists who actually did the work and tens of millions of taxpayers whose money was taken from them to pay for it.
Space kadets are no different that militant welfare moms or amnesty for illegals advocates. They whine and pine for some grandios thing that they read in a science fiction book someplace, and they want someone else to foot the bill.
That was untrue when I saw a university professor make such claims at his seminar in 1966, and it is far less true today. once you have developed self-sustaining or self-sufficient habitats in asteroids, humans can trale anywhere abord their habitats.
By the time human interstellar travel becomes necessary, there will likely be a means to do so at sub-light or faster-than-light means. Meanwhile, the human species may be able to provide the means for its survival in the Solar system for as long as billions of years, with or without interstellar travel.
Actually, the cleanup would be quite simple and highly ffective. You would simply deorbit the trash into the Sun for disposal and de-molecularization.
Mars, however, would make Redpeace a very ahppy parasitic environment.
Sounds like a plan!
Well at least you have an open mind, but let me look in detail at what you said
Yes, private commerce should bear the vast majority of the costs and reap the majority of the rewards for the human colonization of extraterrestrial habitats.
This is a good concept, but corporations can do the math as well as I can, and they aren't going to risk vast sums (and more to the point stockholders aren't going to put their money into it) when there are such huge upfront costs well known, and NOTHING of any sufficient value there to pay back the upfront costs. Look at the cost of returning the moon rocks from the Apollo project. The Congressional Budget office estimated the cost of the Apollo project at $109 billion in 2010 dollars. They brought back 830 lb of moon rocks and dirt. they would have brought more if they could. That was the maximum that the could collect and return with. That works out to $131,325,000 per pound or $290,000 per gram. (a dime weighs about 2.25 grams). There isn't ANY material that cannot be obtained on earth for far less money, and that was simply for the return of rocks with the same INTRINSIC VALUE as rocks you'd pick up anyplace.
for the government to promote, protect, and defend the private human colonization of space before another Extinction Level Event (ELE) reoccurs
Again while not theoretically impossible. you have to assess the risk vs reward ratio. What is the risk that on any given day the earth will experience a KT event? Mighty low. We haven't had one for 65million years, and don't come up with the roulette players fallacy that we're due. Doesn't work that way.
But suppose you really want to prepare. Which is more cost effective? Secure well stocked bunkers like survivalists aspire to or space colonization where everything consumable has to imported from earth at hundreds of thousands of times the earth cost AND when the asteroid hits the fan will cut off the supply -woops.
“Get your Azz to moz”
Not without a revolution in physics.
Meanwhile, the human species may be able to provide the means for its survival in the Solar system for as long as billions of years, with or without interstellar travel.
I didn't say were were stuck on Earth. I said we are stuck in the solar system.
Actually, what Zero really wants to do is go to Uranus.
All exploration off planet needs to be considered pure research. If we decide the increase in our stock of knowledge is worth the expense then we should pool our assets and do it. We should not expect one cent in material gain from it.
If we do gain material beneif will that would be a happy surprise.
But don’t blow wind in my face that we can expect vast riches from space exploration.
Correction... into uranus
“Guarantees complete bankruptcy of the US. Ask yourself why.”
Now that is utter nonsense. You can accompliish the task with a device that would fit in the rear bed of a pickup truck.
Wow talk about NOT getting it. That is the position of the space kadets. My position is exactly opposite which I have stated explicitly. But to make it clear my position is that that there are NOT any riches to be had from space exploration.
Sorry, not you personally.
“On the contrary, theeconomic value is obtained by never transporting the mass onto the Earth’s surface at all. The objective is to develop an extraterrestrial community and economy, so the destinations are the habitats and not so much the Earth itself. The cost of transporting the mass of raw goods and finished goods out of a palnetary gravity well are too prohibitive for all but a few of the most critical purposes. The cost of transporting raw goods and finished goods between any two points in interplanetary Solar space are a small or even tiny fraction by comparison to transport costs out of and into planetary gravity wells.
Once you have a self-supporting residential and industrial habitat in space, the costs of the raw goods and construction of finished goods, including unmanned and manned spacecraft, plummets to far lower levels when compared to Earth based goods transported into interplanetary space.
It must also be noted that the metallic ore bodies most economically important on the Earth are the remanats of asteroids that impacted the Earth and buried themselves deep underground.By contrast, mining an asteroid provides access to the same kinds of high yield ore bodies before they have been plunged into the Earth’s planetary gravity well, before the ore has been dissipated and contaminated in the impact, and does not have to removed at high cost from beneath layers of the Earth. Transporatation costs from anywhere in the Soalr system to an extraterrestrial space or asteroid industry is a small fraction of the price of transporting the goods from the Earth to the extraterestrial communities.
The answer to complaints about the costs associated with space exploration and colonization is to live and build the necessary goods in space, using raw goods obtained ffrom space, to be used mostly in space in lessly on the plantery surfaces.
The story was told long ago, of a UH-60 pilot with the 101st in Egypt. He had a Muslim co-pilot riding side-seat with him one particular day.
While giving the Muslim a chance at the controls, they had an in-flight malfunction, and started losing altitude. The American starts to tell the Muslim how to deal with the problem, but to his horror, the Muslim folds his hands across his chest, saying “Allah wills it, we die now.”
The American shouts “SCREW DAT!” and grabs the controls and dead-sticks the aircraft to a safe landing.
I clearly said we are not stuck in the Soalr System. Once humans have made an asteroid a self-sustaining habitat or habitats, humans can take their asteroids on journeys through interstellar space. You are simply taking your homes with you along the long long journey.
DC wastes that much money every week.
But today's NASA is capable of none of these things anyway, corrupted as it is by political correctness and cronyism. If Obama were to announce a new Mars mission at a similar cost, I guarantee 95% of the money would end up in the hands of labor unions and black activists and Democrat bundlers who own green energy space capsule factories.
Only a nation with sufficient excess productivity can pull off a project like Apollo. Right now the world is missing such nations, so a Mars mission can only happen after the Great Financial Reset and its attendant wars are in our rear view mirror.
YIn my own example, it was a Saudi pilot, and in another incident it was an Eqyptian pilot piloting a Sukhoi. The Army has a report about the experiences of trainers teaching Arabs the use and maintenance of U.S. tanks a few decades ago. The officers were obstructing the efforts of U.S. instructors attempting tto train the Arab enlisted personnel. The officers kept all vital information iin their own personal hands so the enlisted personnel would be dependent upon thee officer. The officer, however, typically made himself absent and unavailable to the enlisted personnel who needed the information to maintain and operate the equipment. Consequently, the equipment was typically in a poor state of maintenance and not combat effective.
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