DeGrasse Tyson's Mars challenge to Elon Musk

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-04-06 08:27:18

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http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/04/06/ … -musk.html

But Tyson also pumped the brakes a bit on the SpaceX enthusiasm percolating through the AMA session.
"I'm simultaneously one of SpaceX's biggest critics and supporters," he said in response to a question about how advances such as SpaceX's reusable rockets will affect humanity's efforts to get to Mars in the near future.
Projects "that are hugely expensive and dangerous, with uncertain returns on investments, make poor activities of profit-driven companies," Tyson added. "Governments do these things first, allowing private enterprise to learn what to do and what not to do, then come next with a plan that involves us all. So my read of history is that private companies will not be the first to send humans to Mars unless government actually pays for it."

Yet here we have SpaceX doing something that government could not do, that is reuse a lower rocket booster SpaceX stands to reduce its launch costs by 30%, that is a huge profit margin and source of revenue for SpaceX! if they can reuse their upper stages, that can save even more money. I think profits are more reliable than the whims of Congress, that has proved to be not so reliable. The West by the way was not settled by government but by pioneers. the government has not done much with Antarctica by the way, and it has wasted money on the shuttle, because the government literally does not know the value of a dollar, it spends them left and right without regard to cost until it decides not to! That is what happened to the Apollo program. The government does not mind throwing rocket boosters away, as it figures it can always get more money from the taxpayers, and it makes it easie for Congress to pull the plug. I think a government sponsored colonization program would be a disaster, they will send scientists and establish a base, they will rotate them in and out, and when the funding dries up, they will bring them all home! Without an economic basis, and the government is not interested in finding one, a Mars colony will not last!

GW Johnson · 2017-04-06 09:29:15

Tom:

I would point out that Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the west (that part north of what was then Mexico where California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas are today) on a government-financed exploration mission in 1803-1805, simply to find out what was there. Objectives: (1) means of transportation by river, and (2) what resources might be there.

The "mountain men" fur traders were the first non-governmental entities to go into that west, after Lewis and Clark returned and reported on the resources. It sort of snowballed into a mix of private and public-private ventures after that. Pretty much private from the time of the California gold rush of 1849.

The initial immigration of Americans into what became Texas was an effort by the government of Mexico to populate a sparsely-populated region. They offered land as an inducement to come. The idea was to get Texas better-settled before the Americans got their west settled, to preclude the sitting-duck invasion-target effect. This was two infusions of Anglo settlers under Stephen F. Austin, that together with the locals, came to call themselves collectively "Texicans".

This might have worked better for the Mexican government if Santa Anna hadn't come to, and abused, power in Mexico. Ultimately, that abuse led to Texas independence, and 9 years later, its joining the US. It also led to the northern 1/3 of Mexico becoming US possessions by conquest.

Point: it's never quite black-or-white government vs private interests when you look at the history of exploration and colonization. But it usually (not always) gets started with some sort of government-funded exploration venture of some kind. Private-concern interest comes later, just as Tyson said.

Our government has become so inept that in 40 years, it has never attempted the Mars exploration thing other than by robot probes, and has never followed up on the moon after landing men on it in a Cold War flags-and-footprints stunt. A lot of this ineptness traces to plain vanilla corruption: politicians doing the bidding of corporations who bought their jobs for them. This takes the form of multiple needless wars-for-corporate-profit over the decades since the moon landing goal was set, most but not all with poor outcomes geopolitically.

Until that corruption is eradicated from our midst, our government will do nothing exploratory anywhere off Earth and will eventually abdicate from Earth orbit (because there is no massive profit in it, for the corporate masters).

Visionary private entities like Spacex and precious few others might actually do something. Maybe, maybe not. Long-delayed profit based only on faith is not something most corporate governing bodies understand, much less subscribe to.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-04-06 09:45:06)

RobS · 2017-04-06 10:45:11

The other thing the US government did to settle the west is give railroad companies vast tracts of land along their routes, which immediately became valuable once the tracks were built. Transportation was the key to settling the west and the government did a lot to bring it about. There was the legal structure, a reliable court system, and a stable money supply as well.

Transportation is the key to space exploration as well. Space X has repeatedly said it is a transportation company, not a settlement company. That is why they designed a system to get people to Mars, but no plan for habitats or surface vehicles. They may have to do those other things, but that's not their plan.

Low Earth orbit is half way to the entire solar system in terms of energy. If you can get things there cheaply, you've licked the major transportation problems. Space X figures they can build their massive booster and Mars transporter for 10 billion of investment money. That's something they can raise themselves if they are a near-monopoly for cheap transportation to LEO, a destination that will expand in demand manyfold once you can get there cheaply. Even if they can earn only 5 billion that way, if they have a proven track record, they can borrow the rest. Elon seems to be very good at leveraging investments.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-04-06 13:12:24

GW Johnson wrote:

Tom:
I would point out that Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the west (that part north of what was then Mexico where California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas are today) on a government-financed exploration mission in 1803-1805, simply to find out what was there. Objectives: (1) means of transportation by river, and (2) what resources might be there.
The "mountain men" fur traders were the first non-governmental entities to go into that west, after Lewis and Clark returned and reported on the resources. It sort of snowballed into a mix of private and public-private ventures after that. Pretty much private from the time of the California gold rush of 1849.
The initial immigration of Americans into what became Texas was an effort by the government of Mexico to populate a sparsely-populated region. They offered land as an inducement to come. The idea was to get Texas better-settled before the Americans got their west settled, to preclude the sitting-duck invasion-target effect. This was two infusions of Anglo settlers under Stephen F. Austin, that together with the locals, came to call themselves collectively "Texicans".
This might have worked better for the Mexican government if Santa Anna hadn't come to, and abused, power in Mexico. Ultimately, that abuse led to Texas independence, and 9 years later, its joining the US. It also led to the northern 1/3 of Mexico becoming US possessions by conquest.
Point: it's never quite black-or-white government vs private interests when you look at the history of exploration and colonization. But it usually (not always) gets started with some sort of government-funded exploration venture of some kind. Private-concern interest comes later, just as Tyson said.
Our government has become so inept that in 40 years, it has never attempted the Mars exploration thing other than by robot probes, and has never followed up on the moon after landing men on it in a Cold War flags-and-footprints stunt. A lot of this ineptness traces to plain vanilla corruption: politicians doing the bidding of corporations who bought their jobs for them. This takes the form of multiple needless wars-for-corporate-profit over the decades since the moon landing goal was set, most but not all with poor outcomes geopolitically.
Until that corruption is eradicated from our midst, our government will do nothing exploratory anywhere off Earth and will eventually abdicate from Earth orbit (because there is no massive profit in it, for the corporate masters).
Visionary private entities like Spacex and precious few others might actually do something. Maybe, maybe not. Long-delayed profit based only on faith is not something most corporate governing bodies understand, much less subscribe to.
GW

Well SpaceX is not a private corporation, it is a privately held company, so it does whatever its owner wants.

louis · 2017-04-06 14:17:58

I think Tyson has got this completely wrong. While it's true that often the state kick starts ventures e.g. by providing seed funding, building crucial infrastructure and transport links and or through defence expenditure, there is no iron law saying it's public first, private second.

Much of the early development of rocketry took place thanks to private initiative.

In this case I think Musk has a great business plan. Satellite and ISS-related launches are a source of huge revenue for the company which can be ploughed into development of rockets and other space infrastructure. I don't know if Space X borrows but with a huge dependable income stretching ahead for many years, it can probably borrow big as well.

We are now seeing the prospect of lunar tourism coming into view - that could be another huge earner for Space X.

Ultimately there is potentially huge sponsorship and TV rights income available for the first Mars Mission and huge earning potential from sale of regolith and meteorites, amongst other things.

I think Space X could probably do it all by itself. Whether it does, will be more a question of politics I think.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-04-06 14:28:00

Musk has a rare combination of a vision and necessary capital. He's essentially able to "look beyond his next paycheck" in order to make plans. I've absolutely no faith in NASA's ability to make the necessary contributions to visionary exploration, but will continue to consume and distribute money to the "old space" companies. It's become a self-consuming logistical tail.

louis · 2017-04-06 16:09:14

I think that currently NASA is probably v. helpful if not essential for coms and launch facilities.

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Musk has a rare combination of a vision and necessary capital. He's essentially able to "look beyond his next paycheck" in order to make plans. I've absolutely no faith in NASA's ability to make the necessary contributions to visionary exploration, but will continue to consume and distribute money to the "old space" companies. It's become a self-consuming logistical tail.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-04-06 16:49:25

Actually, the USAF is probably more helpful w/r launch facilities. NASA for deep space tracking.

Dook · 2017-04-10 22:51:42

Profit is better than the whims of Congress? And if Musk puts people on Mars and then he runs out of money, what then?

The government doesn't tell NASA to throw away rockets. It didn't tell NASA to come up with a ridiculous 90 day plan for building a moon base and Battlestar Galactica ships in orbit and then sending them to Mars. Scientists did that.

NASA gets $18b a year. It's pretty steady. NASA decides what to spend it on, not Congress or even the President.

America was discovered by a Spanish grant given to Christopher Columbus.

There is no economic basis for a Mars colony and there won't be for 500 years or more, perhaps never. What incredibly valuable object could possibly be made or produced on Mars for 1% of the costs to make that same thing on the Earth?

Last edited by Dook (2017-04-10 22:51:56)

Oldfart1939 · 2017-04-10 23:04:23

Dook-

I wouldn't say that "scientists" made those decisions, but midlevel managerial bureaucrats infesting NASA did so with the concurrence of higher level administrators. The 90 Plan included virtually every project in the NASA library, necessary for success or not. That is what gave birth to Dr. Zubrin's "Mars Direct" mission architecture. That is now a historical laughing stock among space enthusiasts, since Zubrin showed the correct way forward.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-04-10 23:07:07

Dook wrote:

Profit is better than the whims of Congress? And if Musk puts people on Mars and then he runs out of money, what then?
The government doesn't tell NASA to throw away rockets. It didn't tell NASA to come up with a ridiculous 90 day plan for building a moon base and Battlestar Galactica ships in orbit and then sending them to Mars. Scientists did that.
NASA gets $18b a year. It's pretty steady. NASA decides what to spend it on, not Congress or even the President.
America was discovered by a Spanish grant given to Christopher Columbus.
There is no economic basis for a Mars colony and there won't be for 500 years or more, perhaps never. What incredibly valuable object could possibly be made or produced on Mars for 1% of the costs to make that same thing on the Earth?

Real Estate, Political independence, you can't make those things on Earth very cheaply. To gain political independence often requires a war. Pretty much all the land on Earth is claimed by someone except for Antarctica. The first question, "if Musk runs out of money" is something that it on Musk's mind all the time, but not on the minds of NASA scientists, if they know they can count on $18 billion a year, they won't worry about doing things cheap or finding a way to make a Mars colony self-sustainable, he is going to find a way to reduce costs, NASA is not interested, because reducing costs is not vital to getting that $18 billion from taxpayers next year. Most taxpayers don't pay much attention to how their NASA dollar is spent, because it is such a tiny proportion of their income. Throw away rockets put an upper limit of what you can do with $18 billion a year, there is nothing you can do with those NASA rockets that will raise additional revenue beyond what's appropriated for NASA, with SpaceX however, reusing rockets and selling launch services is a revenue source that doesn't depend on politics, one can then make rational economic decisions rather than emotional ones such as "lets go explore Mars and take sme real nice pictures for the school books!"

Terraformer · 2017-04-11 04:13:52

I'm fairly certain NASA isn't handed $19 billion a year and told they can spend it on whatever space projects they like. Things would be very different if it worked that way.

louis · 2017-04-11 05:46:03

The whole of Antarctica is claimed by various nations - it's just they have agreed to put their claims in the "cold freeze" so to speak.

NASA has been captured by expert groups and special interests. They are incapable of focussing properly on Mars, which should be there top priority (since everything else they do will become easier once we are camped out on Mars). Thankfully we have a visionary with the right stuff - Musk - to take this forward.

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

Dook wrote:
Profit is better than the whims of Congress? And if Musk puts people on Mars and then he runs out of money, what then?
The government doesn't tell NASA to throw away rockets. It didn't tell NASA to come up with a ridiculous 90 day plan for building a moon base and Battlestar Galactica ships in orbit and then sending them to Mars. Scientists did that.
NASA gets $18b a year. It's pretty steady. NASA decides what to spend it on, not Congress or even the President.
America was discovered by a Spanish grant given to Christopher Columbus.
There is no economic basis for a Mars colony and there won't be for 500 years or more, perhaps never. What incredibly valuable object could possibly be made or produced on Mars for 1% of the costs to make that same thing on the Earth?
Real Estate, Political independence, you can't make those things on Earth very cheaply. To gain political independence often requires a war. Pretty much all the land on Earth is claimed by someone except for Antarctica. The first question, "if Musk runs out of money" is something that it on Musk's mind all the time, but not on the minds of NASA scientists, if they know they can count on $18 billion a year, they won't worry about doing things cheap or finding a way to make a Mars colony self-sustainable, he is going to find a way to reduce costs, NASA is not interested, because reducing costs is not vital to getting that $18 billion from taxpayers next year. Most taxpayers don't pay much attention to how their NASA dollar is spent, because it is such a tiny proportion of their income. Throw away rockets put an upper limit of what you can do with $18 billion a year, there is nothing you can do with those NASA rockets that will raise additional revenue beyond what's appropriated for NASA, with SpaceX however, reusing rockets and selling launch services is a revenue source that doesn't depend on politics, one can then make rational economic decisions rather than emotional ones such as "lets go explore Mars and take sme real nice pictures for the school books!"

Dook · 2017-04-11 11:07:51

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Dook-
I wouldn't say that "scientists" made those decisions, but midlevel managerial bureaucrats infesting NASA did so with the concurrence of higher level administrators. The 90 Plan included virtually every project in the NASA library, necessary for success or not. That is what gave birth to Dr. Zubrin's "Mars Direct" mission architecture. That is now a historical laughing stock among space enthusiasts, since Zubrin showed the correct way forward.

Correct. The NASA administrators who used to be scientists have become bureaucrats who don't seem to have a real vision for the future. That's why Zubrin came up with a better idea and now Elon Musk is doing things that NASA, somehow, couldn't envision.

What we have to be careful of now is trying to do too much too soon. I'm all for a human mission to Mars. I'm not for a reckless colonization attempt that is conducted before we have the technology to do it within a reasonable level of safety and chance for success.

Dook · 2017-04-11 11:22:11

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

Dook wrote:
Profit is better than the whims of Congress? And if Musk puts people on Mars and then he runs out of money, what then?
The government doesn't tell NASA to throw away rockets. It didn't tell NASA to come up with a ridiculous 90 day plan for building a moon base and Battlestar Galactica ships in orbit and then sending them to Mars. Scientists did that.
NASA gets $18b a year. It's pretty steady. NASA decides what to spend it on, not Congress or even the President.
America was discovered by a Spanish grant given to Christopher Columbus.
There is no economic basis for a Mars colony and there won't be for 500 years or more, perhaps never. What incredibly valuable object could possibly be made or produced on Mars for 1% of the costs to make that same thing on the Earth?
Real Estate, Political independence, you can't make those things on Earth very cheaply. To gain political independence often requires a war. Pretty much all the land on Earth is claimed by someone except for Antarctica. The first question, "if Musk runs out of money" is something that it on Musk's mind all the time, but not on the minds of NASA scientists, if they know they can count on $18 billion a year, they won't worry about doing things cheap or finding a way to make a Mars colony self-sustainable, he is going to find a way to reduce costs, NASA is not interested, because reducing costs is not vital to getting that $18 billion from taxpayers next year. Most taxpayers don't pay much attention to how their NASA dollar is spent, because it is such a tiny proportion of their income. Throw away rockets put an upper limit of what you can do with $18 billion a year, there is nothing you can do with those NASA rockets that will raise additional revenue beyond what's appropriated for NASA, with SpaceX however, reusing rockets and selling launch services is a revenue source that doesn't depend on politics, one can then make rational economic decisions rather than emotional ones such as "lets go explore Mars and take sme real nice pictures for the school books!"

Political independence? You think people on Mars will not have to follow our rules? Wrong. At some point, thousands of years into the future, when we have a substantial colony on Mars they will probably have their own government but it will be based on long established laws that we have developed on the Earth.

Musk can make a profit by re-using rocket engines? He can make a profit by putting things into orbit. Can he make a profit by sending things to Mars? In the short term, maybe. In the long term? I don't think so. Any colony on Mars is going to need yearly resupply missions of food, oxygen, spare parts, and water.

Zubrin's Mars Direct idea is close to being realistic. None of the large colonization ideas presented by the Mars society have been realistic. You can't gather enough water from Mars and you can't grow enough food to support a large colony. You would have to resupply them at least once a year for about a hundred years. That eats away any long term profit that Elon Musk could make by sending an initial colony to Mars.

Politics got us to the moon. The scientists didn't think we could do it. John F. Kennedy was the only one who thought we could.

Dook · 2017-04-11 11:28:50

Terraformer wrote:

I'm fairly certain NASA isn't handed $19 billion a year and told they can spend it on whatever space projects they like. Things would be very different if it worked that way.

You're fairly certain NASA isn't allowed to spend money on whatever space projects they like?

The President and Congress do intervene and cut certain things at times but NASA administration decides the projects. They came up with the 90 day report, Hubble Telescope, and the Space Shuttle.

Terraformer · 2017-04-11 12:13:29

Which weren't funded, were funded, and were changed beyond all recognition to funnel money to certain districts, respectively.

Dook · 2017-04-11 12:28:37

Terraformer wrote:

Which weren't funded, were funded, and were changed beyond all recognition to funnel money to certain districts, respectively.

I looked it up and NASA's budget does fluctuate some from year to year. I'm sure that causes a small headache for the administration but all you really have to do is postpone a flight here and there. We flew the Space Shuttle for twenty years.

Company CEO's have to deal with fluctuating income levels. If the NASA administrator can't handle it I'm sure we can find someone who can.

Dook · 2017-04-11 12:28:38

Terraformer wrote:

Which weren't funded, were funded, and were changed beyond all recognition to funnel money to certain districts, respectively.

I looked it up and NASA's budget does fluctuate some from year to year. I'm sure that causes a small headache for the administration but all you really have to do is postpone a flight here and there. We flew the Space Shuttle for twenty years.

Company CEO's have to deal with fluctuating income levels. If the NASA administrator can't handle it I'm sure we can find someone who can.

RobertDyck · 2017-04-11 12:38:55

Dook wrote:

Terraformer wrote:
I'm fairly certain NASA isn't handed $19 billion a year and told they can spend it on whatever space projects they like. Things would be very different if it worked that way.
You're fairly certain NASA isn't allowed to spend money on whatever space projects they like?
The President and Congress do intervene and cut certain things at times but NASA administration decides the projects. They came up with the 90 day report, Hubble Telescope, and the Space Shuttle.

NASA: Congressional Committees

Annual funding for executive branch agencies, such as NASA, is determined by Congress. The following Congressional Committees have jurisdiction over the Federal Government, including NASA’s annual budget and appropriations. Each committee website may contain information about upcoming hearings, news releases, and bill and report language that may relate to, or impact, NASA.

Some have complained about Congress micromanaging NASA. However, they're elected, that's what government does.

President George H. W. Bush announced "We will go to Mars!" on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. That was July 20, 1989. However, I guess he didn't realize, JFK ensured NASA had a clue how to go to the Moon and roughly how much it would cost before making a big public announcement and asking Congress for the money. But George Bush Sr. didn't do that, he started with the announcement. Then NASA came back 90 days later with a report called "The 90 Day Report" in which NASA asked for everything under the Sun. It had a price tag of $450 billion! And that was in 1989, with 1989 dollars! Congress took one look at the price tag and said "No way in Hell!" Throughout the 1990s, Congress did not allow NASA to spend one red cent on anything that hinted at humans to Mars. When Dr. Zubrin and other engineers from Martin-Marietta said they had a practical method to go to Mars that was affordable, Congress said "I know you. If we authorize anything, you'll find a way to manipulated it to become the full 90-Day Report with it's full price tag. So NO!" That's one of the many frustrating things, because corporate executives from other NASA contractors such as Boeing did want to do that, but corporate executives at Martin-Marietta are the ones that ordered their engineers including Dr. Zubrin to find a way to do it with a price tag Congress could approve.

Another frustrating thing: look at what they're doing. They're implementing the 90-Day Report in pieces. Rather than find an alternative that's sane, like Martin-Marietta said, they're doing the ridiculously expensive plan. The 90-Day Report called for a space station in Earth orbit; we now have ISS. The 90-Day report called for a re-do of Apollo, with an expendable capsule: we now have Orion. They 90-Day Report called for sending humans to the Moon before going to Mars; they now obsessed with sending humans back to the Moon. They're doing the 90-Day Report in pieces, just as Congress in the early 1990s was afraid they would.

louis · 2017-04-11 12:53:07

Why on earth (so to speak) would a Mars colony require regular supplies of "food, oxygen, spare parts, and water."

There's plenty of water on Mars . You can make oxygen from the water. You can grow food on Mars (and just as on Earth, for agricultural processes water can be recycled, it's just you do it all within the farm hab, rather than waiting for it to rain!). Spare parts? Well even most of those can be produced with 3D printers.

And why do you think a planet like Earth can have a functioning economy from which businesses can make surpluses but Mars can't? That doesn't make sense to me. Mars is a cornucopia of resources. It will be a hugely attractive destination for scientists, adventurers and even tourists. It will export regolith and meteorites for scientific study. Gold and rare metals will be mined and sent to Earth for sale. But it will also be able to specialise in producing a range of luxury goods e.g. made-on-Mars watches, made-on-Mars Mars silk scarves, Mars wines and so on, that will find a ready market on Earth. Once there are 100,000 people or so on the planet, it will hardly need any support from Earth. It will be a self-sustaining economy, producing its own food, mining and processing metals, making PV panels, producing vehicles of all kinds etc etc.

Getting to 100,000 will take far less time than you assume.

Dook wrote:

Political independence? You think people on Mars will not have to follow our rules? Wrong. At some point, thousands of years into the future, when we have a substantial colony on Mars they will probably have their own government but it will be based on long established laws that we have developed on the Earth.
Musk can make a profit by re-using rocket engines? He can make a profit by putting things into orbit. Can he make a profit by sending things to Mars? In the short term, maybe. In the long term? I don't think so. Any colony on Mars is going to need yearly resupply missions of food, oxygen, spare parts, and water.
Zubrin's Mars Direct idea is close to being realistic. None of the large colonization ideas presented by the Mars society have been realistic. You can't gather enough water from Mars and you can't grow enough food to support a large colony. You would have to resupply them at least once a year for about a hundred years. That eats away any long term profit that Elon Musk could make by sending an initial colony to Mars.
Politics got us to the moon. The scientists didn't think we could do it. John F. Kennedy was the only one who thought we could.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-04-11 12:59:54

Once viable agriculture is established, green growing plants will deal with the Oxygen issues. CO2 is readily converted catalytically to CO and O2. Once water resources are developed, Methane will be available for sale to rockets plying the /asteroid belt. I can see a viable economy developing, but maybe not as fast as the more optimistic visionaries. Mars will become the transportation hub for exploration of the outer solar system and exploitation of the asteroids. "The New Chicago" of the outer system.

louis · 2017-04-11 13:49:57

I think it will be a lot quicker than most people think. Even Antarctica on Earth would have a strong viable economy now if it was protected from exploitation.

Mars could certainly develop as a space transport hub. But well before that it will be the focus of huge scientific interest. All the scientists and researchers who flock there will need life support and someone will be paid to provide it. I think we could easily see Mars with as many scientists as Antarctica has each year (around 4000) within a short time (maybe 10 years) now that Musk has a realistic prospect of getting launch costs down to $1000 per kg. They will need support staff - maybe a third of that number.

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Once viable agriculture is established, green growing plants will deal with the Oxygen issues. CO2 is readily converted catalytically to CO and O2. Once water resources are developed, Methane will be available for sale to rockets plying the /asteroid belt. I can see a viable economy developing, but maybe not as fast as the more optimistic visionaries. Mars will become the transportation hub for exploration of the outer solar system and exploitation of the asteroids. "The New Chicago" of the outer system.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-04-11 14:01:43

Louis-

No doubt about the scientists flocking to Mars in droves! Most of them will be sent there by various institutions of higher learning for studies, but many will stay. I'd love to go with a fully equipped chemical laboratory at my disposal--if even just for the time between Hohmann transfer windows (~ 550 days). That's enough time to do enough fundamental research to spend years writing papers on the results. And if fossil evidence of life--or still viable critters found--stand back! It would be a bigger bonanza to biology than the Galapagos islands were to Darwin.

louis · 2017-04-11 14:51:49

Yes I don't think many will become permanent settlers but a two year research project on our cousin planet is going to be a big draw for geologists, climatologists, astrophysicists and the like. I agree about fossils...if just one is found, it will be like a gold rush!

Oldfart1939 wrote:

Louis-
No doubt about the scientists flocking to Mars in droves! Most of them will be sent there by various institutions of higher learning for studies, but many will stay. I'd love to go with a fully equipped chemical laboratory at my disposal--if even just for the time between Hohmann transfer windows (~ 550 days). That's enough time to do enough fundamental research to spend years writing papers on the results. And if fossil evidence of life--or still viable critters found--stand back! It would be a bigger bonanza to biology than the Galapagos islands were to Darwin.

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DeGrasse Tyson's Mars challenge to Elon Musk

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Re: DeGrasse Tyson's Mars challenge to Elon Musk

#25 2017-04-11 14:51:49

Re: DeGrasse Tyson's Mars challenge to Elon Musk

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