Ice Ocean on Mars: What's Next?

Fox News ^ | May 30, 2002 | Rand Simberg

[RightWhale]

vision is useless if you can't manage a program competently

What's the point of managing a program when there is no program?

[NonZeroSum]

There is a program, at least in the minds of the Congress, called ISS. If he can't get that one under control, there's no hope of doing anything else, and he knows it.

O'Keefe can't just decide to go off to Mars on his own. The Administrator reports to the White House and Congress

[RightWhale]

He cancelled the water on Mars news conference. Or someone below him did so. The discovery of the century and NASA ignores it, their one really big shot at getting back into the thought processes in Congress. It won't come again, the brass ring. Disband NASA, shut it down.

[RightWhale]

There are still plans for the lunar base. The US Army had one in the 50s, but hidden in the back of file cabinet drawers all over NASA by employees who are now nearing retirement age are plans for all kinds of space activities like that and plans for Mars settlement. These plans will never see the light of day, not if NASA is the leader in space exploration. Not since Schiaparelli's cannali [channels] has there been such excitement, and this time it is for real --plenty of water to fill the canals. Why isn't NASA issuing major statements every hour, dragging various designs out of the file cabinets for the manned expedition and Mars settlement and causing 3 inch high bold headlines in all the papers? What is going on at NASA?

[Brett66]

About the only thing that would catch the president's attention and cause him to mandate that NASA should go to Mars would be the discovery of an extinct civilization there. Even then we aren't really ready to go, we need the VASIMR before we go. Chemical rockets aren't up to the task.

[NonZeroSum]

Chemical rockets are fine, and the water discovery makes them even more practical. Better propulsion is an enhancing technology, not an enabling one.

But we really need to sort out our earth-to-orbit problems before we start planning Mars missions.

[NonZeroSum]

Why isn't NASA issuing major statements every hour, dragging various designs out of the file cabinets for the manned expedition and Mars settlement and causing 3 inch high bold headlines in all the papers? What is going on at NASA?

NASA is doing its job, which doesn't include lobbying to go to Mars. It takes direction from the White House and Congress, and if O'Keefe were to do what you propose, he'd be out of a job in short order.

I would assume that the press conference was canceled because there was no news to present--it had already been released last week.

[RightWhale]

It could be that. If it is the case, who would be hurt by the news? It wouldn't bother me and my Christian heritage at all. I might panic and run out in the yard and look up at the sky for a minute, but I would soon recover.

[RightWhale]

That's what they said. Nevermind that the scientists who were to announce with all the world waiting breathlessly and become famous forever decided to stay home and watch Smurfs on TV.

[aruanan]

his isn't the whole column--there's also a piece on when the Jewish Sabbath begins in orbit

Sundown every seven orbits? Every 168 hours from the time at which the second star appears on Friday after sunset in whichever time zone the Jewish astronaut hails from?

[NonZeroSum]

<rolling eyes>

They cancelled the news conference because the researchers who would have been there to make the announcements instead made a presentation at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington this afternoon.

Better loosen the chinstrap on the foil hat--it's cutting off the blood to the brain.

[maestro]

"Bottled" water works o.k. for me.

:-)

[Brett66]

Chemical rockets will get people to Mars, but I just can't see us putting very many fully fuelled Saturn V-sized rockets into orbit. Then there are the radiation problems. We won't be able to have any veteran Mars astronauts because two trips would push them close to the safe lifetime dosage limits. If we want an unsustainable rush to Mars, chemical rockets are the way to go. If we want a viable exploration of the planet, we have to do better.