Posted on 10/01/2015 12:00:20 PM PDT by EveningStar
In the early years of the 20th century, zeppelins filled with flammable and explosive hydrogen were all the rage in Germany, a reckless infatuation that ended with the eruption and crash of the Hindenburg in 1937. Sometimes, technology is a triumph of wild-eyed enthusiasm over the unpleasant facts of the real world.
Today we are witnessing a similar outburst of enthusiasm over the literally outlandish notion that in the relatively near future, some of us are going to be living, working, thriving and dying on Mars ...
Unfortunately, this Mars mania reflects an excessively optimistic view of what it actually takes to travel to and live on Mars, papering over many of the harsh realities and bitter truths that underlie the dream.
First, there is the tedious business of getting there. Using current technology and conventional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars would be a grueling, eight- to nine-month-long nightmare for the crew ...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Spent a lot of time with Engineers in many disciplines...
I call this a solution looking for a problem...
We cannot even explore the bottom of our oceans but we want to run off to space??
Engineers...
Also a GREAT way to create a “dream” and burn through scandalous amounts of money to do what...
Float around in a space station looking down at that which you don’t really know while casting your eyes about for ...
Vanity, All is Vanity...
I say let’s colonize Mars with ‘RATS and their liberal fellow travelers, and we’ll clean up the mess they made down here.
How many people came over on the Mayflower?
Some of the arguments are bunk, but some are pretty hurdles significant to overcome.
That doesn’t meant we shouldn’t try. It is what we do as Americans.
Elton John and his partner of the day wrote a song abot it.
Rocket Man..
Mars aint no place to grow no kids..
In fact its cold as hecckulaaa.
;-)
I should live so long to see humans on Mars.
What I was thinking.
Yeah, the Hindenburg was the prime example why aircraft will never be practical.
That would mean less subscribers on Earth.
I almost disregarded this as soon as I saw “New York Times”, but I gave it a shot anyway.
What a whiny bastard.
I think many of the same arguments (same flavor, anyway) were made when sea voyages were first proposed.
Agree, the “NASA way of doing things” is part of the problem.
Propulsion technologies are what need work.
I think like most totalitarians and their advocates, they are afraid of people actually leaving their sphere of influence and becoming independent colonies, and eventually, nations!
No wonder no one wants to fund colonies anymore. They are the ultimate treason! They are leaving!
Can you just imagine a broken down, bankrupt, polluted Earth power demanding a Mars colony support and supply them, and the “Martians” saying “Nope!”
We might all have bugs in our heads before long, if the evildoers get their way...
If something is discovered on Mars that could make one RICH, we will soon be living there.
Economics has been the prime driving force throughout all of human history.
” Sometimes, technology is a triumph of wild-eyed enthusiasm over the unpleasant facts”
I prefer how we put it back in my day -—
The triumph of spare parts over common sense.
Vanity?
I give you Teflon and Tang!
GIve it a few hundred years
Once somebody makes Mars a nice place it will have illegal Earthling immigration problem.....
Ventures like this cause solutions to hundreds of problems, and tech gets better. Every dollar spent on human manned exploration is priceless.
We can go to and survive on Mars: right now. If we wanted.
We need to build a massive ship in orbit, that can first go to Mars, then further. I will get behind that. But a mission whose payload is all launched from the ground can’t do it, and shouldn’t be supported.
Doing this solves dozens of problems and weight limits right away.
Shades of Karl Stromberg.....
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