New Mars Forums

If you remember from the Mars Society site, NASA was quoted as saying that Zubrin's modification plan for the shuttle launch stack was "wrong-headed thinking."  Why?  I haven't been able to find any kind of rebuttal supported by facts.  Does anybody know what disadvantages NASA sees (or imagines) in such a plan?

The Ares concept in the slide show (designed by Zubrin et al) seems like a reasonable re-adaptation of existing tech that would be a HUGE asset to Bush's upcoming plan.  And one would think that it'd be a lot quicker to get into production-- and cheaper.  So why does NASA pooh-pooh these suggestions?

I will go out on a limb here and predict that, late at night next December 31st, 2004 will be supplanted by a "New Year."  This New Year will be called "2005."

I wonder if William Bennett will bet me on THAT prediction?

The difference between a Democrat proposing a space plan (assuming this would ever happen, although Kennedy was a Dem) is that the evil tax-and-spend Democrats would provide tax revenue to support it.

It is my hope that the first mission to Mars will be one of colonization, it will happen yesterday, and that Karl Rove will be the first colonist sent on this mission.

So I'm wondering what the Europeans (esp. Brits) here at New Mars think of this [http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beagle2-04a.html]incendiary little gem?

hey, i just found this COOL interactive 3-D extrasolar planet atlas (you need shockwave to use it, it will offer you the download automatically if you don't have it):

extrasolar atlas

I'm distressingly unable to let go of my skepticism on this.  I'd grudgingly support a return to the moon over nothing at all, but... a renewed assault on space whose culmination is 25+ years down the road?  I don't see it happening.  The American political climate is too unstable for the program to survive until fruition.  Kennedy did the right thing in calling for Apollo to be accomplished in a decade-- by the time the White House was won by the Repubs in '68 the program was ready to blast off in earnest.

But there is no way anything initiated by W. will last until 2030 (except, of course, the debt he is amassing).  At some point between now and then the Repubs will be yielding the White House.  It seems unlikely that the program will continue unless some miracle happens to pare down our huge deficits, freeing up the money to continue in space.  And possibly not even then.

You can bet that, no more than two days from now, large sectors of the politcal left will be having conniptions over W.'s looming proclamation.  Where's the money gonna come from?  What about health care?  The rotting American infrastructure?  The environment?  And they will have a point.

One more thing, and this is what bothers me the most.  How will NASA's priorities have to be rearranged to allow this manned program to be expanded?  What will happen to robotic missions, planetary or otherwise?  General astronomy programs that NASA funds? 
 
I hate to be the proverbial wet blanket, but I'm uneasy about this whole thing.

Saltine crackers for lunch today...

A worthy point.  But:

By the time I wrote what I did, I had taken your point about not competing with other religions.  My point was, however, that the other religions will not see it this way.  A good example is the theory of evolution by natural selection, which was also not intended to supplant any religion.  Yet, most religions at the time (and later on also) viewed it as an attack on some of their cornerstone principles.  While you and I realize (I think) that Phi could be construed as being simply a manifestation of God's divine architectural/engineering prowess and therefore would ENHANCE pre-existing religions, I just don't think the religions will see it that way.  In fact I'll bet that the Catholics and Muslims (at least) will see it as icon-worshipping, detracting from the worship of God himself.  Religious officials are awfully territorial and will never let this concept be foisted upon them by some outside agency, no matter how well-intentioned.  I just don't think Phi will fly.

Now let me take the liberty of proposing something equally outlandish:  How about choosing the first Martian colonists for their LACK of religion and see where that goes.  Let their common atheism be their common binding.  A fresh start from the cloying, suffocating, superstitious traditions of Old Earth.  Imagine how much of a goldmine such a sociological experiment would be.  The Martians can develop their own philosophies, religious or otherwise, as conditions suggest.  And we could watch it all happen in an age where the story could be recorded and studied from an academic vantage point.

Just an idea.   :;):

Reading the recent 'MarsDirect Cost' thread started me wondering about the possibility of sending money directly to NASA to fund space exploration.  As far as I know, NASA doesn't currently accept donations straight from individuals, it has to depend on the whimsy of Congressional charity-- complicated by the fact that the NASA budget is tied up as a rider in some larger annual appropriation-- I can't remember the name of it right now but it deals with a plethora of other funding that is only obliquely related to NASA at best.

So.  Suppose that, in addition to it's current slice of the taxpayer pie, NASA DID accept individual donations, and that these donations were tax-deductible and also that you could tell NASA just where you wanted the money spent (robotic Solar System exploration, humans to Mars, whatever).  Knowing what we all know about bureaucratic waste and the propensity of bureaucracies to misappropriate (and even lose, as in "uh, we can't seem to find it...") money, how much would you donate per year to NASA, in US dollars?

I bring this up because I, like many others here, believe strongly enough in our future in space that I give a certain amount of money each year to organizations such as the Mars Society, the Planetary Society, etc. each year to further the cause in Washington.  The thing is, these organizations are relatively ineffective at accomplishing concrete space exploration milestones-- relative to NASA, that is.  NASA has the personnel, the infrastructure, the money, the credentials, to get a lot done in space (of course, they could be doing more, and that's the point here).  Knowing this, I personally would be willing to give NASA quite a bit more money than I now give the NGO 'societies.'  Just because I know it will go more directly to making things happen.  I'm thinking that I'm not the only one who feels this way. 

With all this in mind, how much money are we willing to put where our mouths are?

And does anybody know how receptive NASA would be to such an idea?  I keep thinking of people like Elon Musk and Paul Allen who are already dumping tons of money into pet space projects.  As far as I know they aren't giving any to NASA.  I'd imagine there'd be legal ramifications to a gov't agency getting money directly from private donors, but in the case of NASA maybe an exception could be made?  There is certainly a thread's worth of discussion here on the potential for accomplishment-- or corruption.

I was kind of wondering if someone was going to mention Antarctica here.  I've spent some time in the Antarctic Program and think it has some relevance to possible social conditions that would obtain on Mars.  As a result of my experience I'd say that Mr. Beach's fixation on the Phi concept seems, to me at least, to be irrelevant to the maintenance of social order.  (If my assumption that the purpose of the Phi concept would be to replace religion as a way of maintaining order and enlivening social cohesion is wrong then I apologize.)  It was my experience that the general sense of group purpose in the Antarctic Program provides enough social incentive to keep things functioning quite well. 

One point made earlier by Mr. Beach is that of the 150-member threshold for social coherence.  My experience has borne this out to some degree.  The smaller stations (100-200) in the Antarctic Program have a much more cohesive and can-do mentality than McMurdo, the main station (summer population on the order of 1500-2000), which has a few more problems with crime, apathy, and general disaffection.  This is mostly, IMO, due to the increased social stratification resulting from task overspecialization.  (ie, people whose only task is to wash dishes, or collect garbage, or clean toilets, etc. have a somewhat less-rosy outlook on the situation.)  At smaller stations the more onerous duties tend to be shared by everybody and there is therefore less discontent-- even though conditions at smaller stations are much more crowded.

In Antarctic winter populations, where the Mars analogy is even more applicable (the winter crews are cut off from the outside world except for communication), survival depends to a large degree on community cooperation.  This is enough to provide the 'peer pressure' mentioned by Clark.  I would argue that this peer pressure is not overly stifling at the smaller stations; but in McMurdo, where there is a larger cadre of management specialists to enforce a status quo, this does indeed give rise to situations similar to those exposited in stories like Catch-22 and M*A*S*H.

So I think that the initial groups on Mars, if selected for personal compatibility and can-do attitude, will have few social problems.  It's when things get bigger that problems will arise. 

Another interesting phenomenon is the inevitable upwelling of friction between the winterover groups on the Ice and their erstwhile dictators in Denver (home to the current support contractor for the Antarctic Program).  It happens without fail EVERY year and could certainly be read as a portent to future relations between Mars personnel and Earth.  If the potential for schism exists at such a small scale already, you can be sure that it will only be more pronounced in Earth-Mars relations.

Another important point-- there are no family groups or kids in Antarctica.  This absence is a BIG factor in alleviating possible social stress.  As such I would be hesitant to allow a breeding colony for some time on Mars-- there'll be science to do and infrastructure to build.  IMO Families & kids will be detrimental to this.

Also, I like the idea of the proto-Euthenia here on Earth.  I think it's a good idea regardless of whether it's related to a future Mars settlement or not.  An internationally-populated intentional community here on Earth might be useful in solving problems a lot more pressing than Mars settlement.  I'd love to live in a community like that.  Maybe one already exists somewhere, I dunno.  In any case it would seem a worthy project for the U.N. to try.

Getting back to Phi-- sorry Scott, but I think it's unnecessary as a societal cement and is ultimately superfluous.  Assuming it's even necessary to impose some kind of tool to this end, a common language would be sufficient IMO-- Latin served this purpose in the University population of Paris for a long time.  Maybe Euthenia would be a good opportunity to dust off Esperanto and give it another chance.

For enduring this long-winded post I'll give you this bonus link to the amusing underbelly of Antarctic society:  BigDeadPlace

I was reading somewhere recently that all 4 of the main Jovian moons pose moderate to severe radiation hazards to humans.  Io especially was shown to be exremely lethal.  I wish I could remember where I read this but my memory fails me, as did Google.  This article, whatever it was, provided hard numbers concerning dosage.  The upshot was that without some kind of extreme preventative measures people would not last long on any of these worlds.

Cool thread... I was a big Niven fan in my younger days.

But there surely will be no Earth life that will be recognizable as even remotely human half a billion years from now.  If you look back at the timeline for evolution up to this point, there was not even life on land 500 million years ago.  Fish were the most evolved life form.  The only possible way there will be humans left is if, for some reason, we decide to maintain a static genome via biotechnical manipulation.  (Why would we do this?  We can't even look far enough into the future to decide where we want NASA to be let alone our own genome.)  I think the opposite condition will actually obtain-- we'll intentionally tinker with our own form and change it much faster than evolution would have.  (I'm thinking of Arthur Clarke's ideas from "2001" here.) 

Note also that the changes listed in Cindy's first post happen slowly enough to be compatible with evolutionary timescales.  Life will have time to adapt to the changing conditions up until life starts to die off due to increased solar output.  So, whatever intelligent life that remains may not WANT to change anything until the last possible moment, when conditions have become inimical to any kind of life.  I'm guessing that the only thing that will save the Earth that far down the road is sentimental attachment on the part of whatever intelligence resides in the neighborhood at that time.  (Assuming that something like sentimentality even exists that far down the road.  Emotions are the interaction of chemicals in the brain, and these chemicals & brains will likely evolve into higher levels of complexity over time.  500 million years from now the current human emotional spectrum will probably be viewed as being on the level at which we now view fish.)

Besides, humans will have left Earth to its own devices long before any of this starts to happen.  I'd imagine there are greener pastures out there in the unimaginable expanse of the Milky Way; we'll have left for them long before Sol starts swelling.

This appealing dream will not ever be accomplished by sending out only robot explorers, as cost-effective as they may be.  Current methods of human spaceflight may be insufficient, but you can be sure they will remain that way if we eliminate crewed space missions in favor of robots.  If a dream is appealing then it needs to be pursued.  Let the robots do their thing, but don't keep people entirely out of the fun.  I think society deserves to splurge once in awhile.

Happy New Year everyone.

i wonder how close any of the other x-prize contenders are?  rutan gets almost all of the coverage, but is this because he is in the lead or because he has a history of coverage from other efforts?

another question:  spaceship one is designed for suborbital operations.  technologically, how far is this from being able to do LEO?  greater speed for LEO, which means more re-entry heat to deal with.  will this be a problem for Scaled Composites?