New Mars Forums

Free Spirit

Banned

Registered: 2003-06-12

Posts: 167

Re: Democrats to Mars?

Anybody read that MS email about that professor who thinks the next Democratic presidential candidate should push for a manned Mars mission?  I doubt it would impassion the masses to spend their tax money on frivolous flights to Mars when people are hoping to God they can just keep the next paycheck coming in.  Such a campaign issue has the potential to make the Democratic candidate the butt of jokes and appear non-serious in a lot of ways.  It could backfire, especially since half the American public seems convinced now we never even went to the Moon.  Will the Mars trip be a $500 billion dollar stage production? 

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My people don't call themselves Sioux or Dakota.  We call ourselves Ikce Wicasa, the natural humans, the free, wild, common people.  I am pleased to call myself that.  -Lame Deer

clark

Member

Registered: 2001-09-20

Posts: 6,362

Re: Democrats to Mars?

Anybody read that MS email about that professor who thinks the next Democratic presidential candidate should push for a manned Mars mission?

hehe. Josh... I can't lose!  :;):

My hope is that the circumstances will continue, as I see them, so to make Space a policy issue, regardless of which party holds office.

If a democratic hopeful ( a major contendor) does make such a policy statement, then it could backfire on them. It might come off sounding like "wacky-policy" stuff. Where as, an actual President, making the same statement, comes off as "Vision".

Something to remember, Aerospace (NASA and the Military) all are saying that America is falling behind in numbers of qualified people to man the Aerospace industry. A key principle of NASA (and what the cheerleaders in the military keep saying) is that more needs to be done to engender interest in Aerospace.

Big Budget missions with PEOPLE is what they are calling for.

Ties in nicely with the whole premise of "leave no child behind" if you ask me.

Josh Cryer

Moderator

Registered: 2001-09-29

Posts: 3,830

Re: Democrats to Mars?

A presidential hopeful would never actually say his goals are going to Mars, but he could say something along those lines in a vague statement like, ?I want to increase the space program, to lead our manned program deeper into space, to show other conutries that we are still the leader economically and technologically.? This would work quite well if contrasted with China's aspirations to achieve space domination.

BTW, I'm seeing Dean as our next president. But that's just my very humble opinion. Not trying to start a dicsussion.

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Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

Bill White

Member

Registered: 2001-09-09

Posts: 2,114

Re: Democrats to Mars?

BTW, I'm seeing Dean as our next president. But that's just my very humble opinion. Not trying to start a dicsussion.

Okay, then I won't reply. . .

 

Cobra Commander

Member

From: The outskirts of Detroit.

Registered: 2002-04-09

Posts: 3,039

Re: Democrats to Mars?

Such a campaign issue has the potential to make the Democratic candidate the butt of jokes and appear non-serious in a lot of ways.

Hasn't that already happened? ???

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

dickbill

Member

Registered: 2002-09-28

Posts: 749

Re: Democrats to Mars?

The butt of jokes because you launch  a Mars manned mission ?
non-sense, if you remember Pathfinder and Viking , people were pretty happy with the result. A Mars manned mission, broadcasted on earth, 24/24h, 7/7d, will worth a thousand of war in term of TV audience, even without the big guns and the star war show. It will be the equivalent of Apollo project, I was in france as a kid, and I watched Apollo misssions on my parents first black/white TV  like a baby sucks milk (some french people bought a TV just for that occasion). I think america's prestige is build upon such humankind-size grand vision,  but destroyed quantitatively by humankind-size grand war of arrogance and destruction.

So, whoever is the next president, Dean, Kerry, Clark, he has to say the "Kennedy's promiss", well, I mean a "before 2020". If he said a "before 2100" where is the challenge ?