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A Challenge to Get to Mars and Back
Townhall.com ^ | December 25 | Suzanne Fields

Posted on 12/25/2015 6:31:42 AM PST by Kaslin

Measure it any way you like, but this hasn't been that championship season of the "can do" spirit of America. Most of the presidential campaigners spend their allotted minutes criticizing what's wrong with the country, how others have made a mess of things and why voters should put them in charge of changing things.

It's difficult to find the formula through the haze of confusion and fog of rhetoric. There's far more blowhard nastiness than creative eloquence. That's what politics is about, of course, but it gets tiresome in the holiday season when we're craving inspiration from our better angels, if any have survived.

If you crave a reprieve, if only for two hours (considerably shorter than a presidential primary debate), dip into pop culture and see "The Martian," a technologically hip, feel-good movie about what the American spirit can accomplish, if only in a sci-fi movie. "The Martian," set in the not-so-far future, is about leaving a man on Mars and getting him back.

The movie, as you may have heard if you're in earshot of a sci-fi loving teenager (or adult), is about an astronaut, Mark Watney, portrayed by Matt Damon, who has been abandoned on the red planet by his crew. They thought he was dead. The story was lifted from a novel by Andy Weir, which is admired for its authentic scientific detail and mathematical accuracy. Its theme is rooted in challenges to the human spirit and the collective ability of man to find technological solutions to human problems. Life is not easy for a man alone on the red planet.

The spaceship crew, on learning from NASA that their abandoned astronaut is alive and well, are steeped in the tradition of believing that they all owe each other and that it's necessary to cover a mate's back. They desperately want to find a way to go back for him. They're supported by a multicultural network of brilliant young nerds, techies and whizzes at mission control. They don't know whether they can work fast enough to get the space cowboy before he's overtaken by unforgiving forces. But they're sure going to give it the old college try. This is nerd-cool at its best.

The movie has been described as "Robinson Crusoe" in space, or "Ulysses" on Mars and at times the planet Mars looks like Monument Valley, where John Ford spun so many of his classic Westerns. But the temper and tone of the story are more reminiscent of America galvanized by Pearl Harbor, when talented young men and women from every nook and cranny of America got together in factory and field to do what needed to be done to support the soldiers.

On Mars the focus is on one man, but between his resourcefulness and a high-tech team's problem-solving abilities, their science and math are the required backup for the derring-do.

Mark Watney, the lone astronaut on Mars, is a botanist, from a profession that has never before had such an opportunity for heroism. He understands his predicament, and stares into the camera for his video diary and tells himself with more than a touch of warrior bravado: "Mars will come to fear my botany powers."

NASA actually announced that scientists found liquid water on Mars just as the movie opened, but the botanist has to make his own water, drawing on H2O, the formula we memorized in science class. If not exactly Mendel with his peas, he figures out through mathematical calculations how to grow enough potatoes to keep himself alive.

"The Martian" could motivate a generation of young people to see the value of studying math and science. We remain woefully behind in international tests in science and math, with our 15-year-olds scoring 35th out of 64 countries in math and 27th in science, according to the Program for International Student Assessment.

It's probably a coincidence, but just when "The Martian" was arriving at a theater near you, NASA offered "NASA's Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration," which actually outlines a strategy for landing human "spacefarers" on Mars and bringing them home. It's an ambitious plan to propel a spaceship into the 141-million-mile journey from Earth. (You may never complain about a 5-mile commute again.)

While the candidates debate boots on the ground and taxes in the stratosphere, NASA yearns for boots on the surface of Mars. "We are developing the capabilities necessary to get there, land there, and live there," says NASA. John F. Kennedy rallied the nation with a call for man to go to the moon and back, requiring the dedication and disciplined work of an "entire nation." But can we answer such a call again?


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: bigelowaerospace; blueorigin; dragon; elonmusk; falcon9; mars; marsrace; mct; moonrace; spacerace; spacex
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Yep.


61 posted on 12/25/2015 1:44:39 PM PST by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: GOPsterinMA

One who loves to be on both the giving and receiving end of a rectal probe.


62 posted on 12/25/2015 1:52:50 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Most definitely. A real flamer.


63 posted on 12/25/2015 2:04:23 PM PST by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: Mark was here

We don’t have the technology to go to orbit, much less the moon. We have to pay the Russians $70 million every time they bring one of our astronauts to the ISS.


64 posted on 12/25/2015 2:04:46 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: GOPsterinMA

One who smells of poo.


65 posted on 12/25/2015 2:10:50 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

From 100 miles away.


66 posted on 12/25/2015 3:22:57 PM PST by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: Kaslin
Re: “The Martian” could motivate a generation of young people to see the value of studying math and science. We remain woefully behind in international tests in science and math...”

This is not serious.

I have never met an exceptional student in the Internet age who needed to be motivated. It's all on the Web, dude. You can study anything on You Tube, and it's usually presented by an excellent teacher.

Math, science, history, literature, business, all of them are their own reward, and every exceptional student knows that intuitively.

As to “woefully behind in international test scores,” once again, get serious.

Most countries cheat, testing only their best students and best schools.

If the USA just tested white, Asian, and Jewish students, we'd be number one.

Instead, we test everybody, including the 40% of 15 year olds who are Black and Hispanic and have huge dropout rates.

Surprise, surprise - we are completely “average” when we test everybody!

67 posted on 12/25/2015 5:12:55 PM PST by zeestephen
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To: PIF; Trumpet 1

Re: “Mars does have an atmosphere just not as dense as Earth...”

Less than 1% as dense, and oxygen and water vapor are just trace gases. Also, nitrogen is just 3% of Mars’ ultra-rarified atmosphere, which makes me wonder where the nitrogen, and the nitrogen fixing bacteria, to grow edible plants for entire “colonies” of people is going to come from.

Trumpet’s point was that Earth’s explorers were seeking new lands that could sustain human life naturally, and possessed untapped resources that could be easily exported to their home country. That’s not the case in Space.

Besides Helium 3 from the Moon, what natural resource from space could be exported to Earth in economically viable quantities? Nothing that I know about. And, Helium 3 is still a completely unproven commercial technology.

Now, before you start shouting at me, I completely support robotic space exploration and space telescopes. In fact, I would happily commit the entire Manned Mission budget to the robotic and space telescope budget. And I firmly believe that Space tourism and Space thrill rides will become a profitable business model in this century.

But the idea that men can, or will, routinely travel back and forth from Mars, or live prosperously on Mars, is not going to happen for hundreds of years, no matter how much money we spend, and no matter how brave the explorers may be.


68 posted on 12/25/2015 7:21:46 PM PST by zeestephen
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To: Impy

“Pathetic Earthlings.
Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here.
If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all...
...you would have hidden from it in TERROR.”

- Ming the Merciless


69 posted on 12/25/2015 7:44:52 PM PST by Kodos the Executioner (.. the revolution is successful, but survival depends upon drastic measures..")
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To: Kaslin

Going to the moon and establishing a colony would be cheaper than a “touchdown and liftoff” on Mars.


70 posted on 12/25/2015 7:57:24 PM PST by freedomjusticeruleoflaw (Western Civilization- whisper the words, and it will disappear. So let us talk now about rebirth.)
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To: Kodos the Executioner

Terror! You said the magic word, Lindsey is “excited” now, he’ll be on the next shuttle. ;D


71 posted on 12/25/2015 9:16:50 PM PST by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: Trumpet 1

I disagree. There are a ton of new technologies that could be developed from a Mars mission. However, we’d get more from a permanently manned Venus base in the clouds above Venus.

If we ever did go to Venus, we’d likely shatter for good any notion of climate change being any sort of real science.


72 posted on 12/25/2015 10:11:48 PM PST by RinaseaofDs
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To: RinaseaofDs

I don’t think we actually need to go there to measure cyclical temps, and do what you said.


73 posted on 12/25/2015 10:20:51 PM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves Month")
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To: zeestephen

Your buddy made a blanket statement that mars has NO atmosphere. That was simply the first of his blanket misleading statements. Those were the points to which I was responding, other than that your buddy is against most any exploration.


74 posted on 12/26/2015 3:27:52 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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