New Mars Forums

Juat another comment on this whole ISA thing:

I dont see how someone with little or no international connections can start an orginization such as this out of nowhere and expect space agencies across the globe to just jump aboard, as if international cooperation was a brilliant, new and unheard of idea. I think the concept behing ISA is a great one, more international cooperation when it comes to space would benefit us all greatly, but IMO if such an organization were to be sucessfull it would have to be formed by some sort of joint treaty between participating countries or space agencies, rather than a third-party begging them to join.

Oh, and What's With all of the Capital Letters? It Kind of Makes Things a little Hard to Follow.  ???

Looks like I should have done a little more research before posting about how ridiculous this Russian venture sounded. It seems from your comments that this could actually work, assumung funding holds up. It just seems to me that 4 billion is not very much, when compared to projected costs here in the States. I know NASA costs are always extremely higher than what they should and could be, but still. I mean even stripped down plans without orbital assembly such as Mars Direct are estimated at least at 30 billion. So for this Russian plan, what would be their biggest setback, lack of funds, complexity of mission, etc? Is a date of around 2011 practial for this mission, and what are its chances of sucess? I sure hope my initial assumptions of this plan were wrong, and that they do pose a cance of getting there soon. Maybe it will give the US the kick in the rear that it needs to really get going ourselves.

Anyone seen anything about this supposed mission by a private Russian company to put six men on Mars sometime around 2011? (somewhere I even read 2009). It sounds ridiculous. They say they can do it with a budget of about $4 billion, in-orbit assembly requiring 15 launches, a total weight of 300 tons, and all in less than 7 years. They attribute the extremely low cost to usage of "already existing components." And the best part... they plan to make the mission more profitable by turining it into a reality television show. Give me a break. First of all, what components?  And secondly, I think they should try sucessfully landing an unmanned mission before making claims like these. To me it sounds more like a shot to see if they could get in the papers for a day, than a practical mission. But hey, if they can pull it off that would be great.  Im just not holding my breath.

If the Gods of ancient civilizations were actually visitors from Mars, why is there no evidence of past civilization on Mars?  It would be likely that a civilization advanced enough to send interplanetary travelers would leave some sort of evidence (city ruins, etc...). And by your claims it could not be because it was so long ago that no reminance exists, for we have many artifacts from ancient civilizations here on Earth, (such as the paintings you mention) and according to your claims this Martian civilization existed at the same time.

I do not disagree that there could have once been life on Mars, maybe even intelligent life. But if so it was most likely long before humans (or maybe even long before Earh had live-able conditions for that matter). And if there was life on Mars it would not be too unthinkable that somehow a hint of that life made it to earth (aboard a meteor, etc...) and spawned the life that we now know. I guess we'll never know, but the possibilities are quite endless, not to mention great food for thought.

I think it would be great if a private organization went to Mars before NASA, they would do it cheaper and without all the red tape that NASA always seems to apply to everything.

But is it realistic? Aside from a few dedicated billionaires (who would take much convincing), I doubt that the average American would be willing to pour money into something with such a high risk of no returns. They see how hard it is for NASA to get things done, whats to make them think that a private organization cold do any better? Plus, most of them gripe now about their taxes being mis-spent on Mars missions when we have starving children in Africa and whatnot (when they should realize that this planet has always had problems and always will have problems, and all of the space money in the world won't change that). 

Anyways, a manned mission should be done, and needs to be done, no matter how it is accomplished. I think that unfortunately we will have to wait for NASA and congress to get off their collective ass. And it is sad that it may take another "space race" with China or Europe to get that to happen.