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 ...
Then let's just send democrats and muslims.
“That doesn’t meant we shouldn’t try. It is what we do as Americans.”
You want to try? Go for it.
Just don’t ask for my tax money to pay for it.
Its not propulsion technologies that need work. What needs work is the willingness to be bold, and to actually do what needs to be done. Launching a rocket from ground on Earth to Mars with a few people on board and getting them back is the problem. A ship needs to be built in space that will never touch the ground on either planet.
The propulsion is already enough.
“Ventures like this cause solutions to hundreds of problems, and tech gets better.”
Hey, so do world wars. Is that a reason, in and of itself, to start one?
If you have to argue for your proposal based purely on possible accidental, ancillary benefits, then you might want to rethink your proposal.
Sending 6 people through space is a whole lot different then starting a World War. Maybe you need to rethink your analogy. Do you know what you have, right now, that is a direct result of space exploration sitting within 10 feet of you?
Every dollar spent on space exploration is priceless.
” wild-eyed enthusiasm over the unpleasant facts of the real world.”
Funny statement from a left-wing paper.
I think psychologists call this “projection”.
It wasn't because Germany was infatuated with hydrogen gas. The U.S.A. had a monopoly on helium and withheld it from the Germans. Hitler was desperate and had no choice but to use hydrogen. The U.S.A. was ruthless about keeping strategic resources out of the hands of enemy states like Germany and Japan. Unlike our current "leader" who gives them away to enemy states.
Mankind is intended to bring to life the expression of eternal optimism, not eternal pessimism.
Where there is a hill to conquer, man will find a way. It is who we are as a species.
Yes, a number of things the writer said are true. That was however only one way of looking at those problems.
Can a habitat be built, something on the order of a large terrarium?
Can fish and plants and water be combined to become a great food source and a sustainable eco system?
You know folks, if you want something done, you can put you mind to it and accomplish it.
No Nancy Boys Need Apply.
Massive ships are definitely the way to go. They could carry larger crews of hundreds or thousands. The crew could be a lot less highly trained in multiple areas and be specialized in their own with multiple others similarly trained. Think of the way an aircraft carrier is crewed and run.
A ship of that size would produce a fair amount of shielding by virtue of size and amount of material alone. In times of solar flares the crew could move deeper into the ship for shelter. If you can build something of that size you can also include multiple layers of hull to help protect against small meteorite impacts.
We can build something like that right now. But the cost is high. No one will commit.
Moving to mars and struggling against the natural obstacles on mars may one day be more liberating than living under an oppressive one world regulatory hell that Earth may one day become.
Nine months is a long time for any group of people to be traveling in a small, closed, packed spacecraft.
Well, if a group of people survive nine months in a small spacecraft, then they have presumably solved the problem of obtaining breathable air. It should then be simpler to obtain breathable air while on Mars, what with all the raw resources available there. You can't carry enough oxygen on a spacecraft for a group of people for a nine month period; it must be created somehow.
Richard Branson is already working on sending newlyweds to Mars for their honeymoons.
Simply put, the development of Human outposts and colonies on Mars is a small part of a larger strategy for spacefaring Humans which is mandatory for the survival of the Human race. It is only an unknown matter of time, short term or long term as chance permits, before Humans and much of the fauna and flora become extinct on the Earth due to the impact of a large asteroid or other global cataclysm/s. The most easily exploitable non-renewable mineral and energy resources of the Earth have been consumed to build the current state of technologies capable of embarking on the human colonization of extraterrestrial habitats. If this present Human culture were to be destroyed in a cataclysm, there will never again be enough such resources on the Earth to rebuild another culture capable of embarking on the extraterrestrial colonization efforts required to avoid inevitable extinction. If the Human race successfully colonizes the asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO), moons, and Mars, then the Human race has an opportunity to survive indefinitely, in many tens of billions in population, and long after Human and many other living species become extinct as the result of global cataclysms on the Earth.
Major bulkheads and hulls could be printed in concrete mined from asteroids. A lot of the metallic internal structures could be printed from metals mined from the same asteroids.
For that matter you could mine the interior of an asteroid and use the shell as an outer hull.
“Just don’t ask for my tax money to pay for it.”
The sooner the government stops interfering with commercial activities in space, the sooner private funding will eclipse governmental funding of such activities.
Y3ah, let’S just stay here in our nice safe cave.
Anything is possible to get away from liberals...
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.