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This is about Zubrin's "Mars Direct." I have actually wanted to write this for awhile now, so why did I not? In fact, I am not the only one, so, why did they not write about why space colonization earlier? I think a good reason is that we all knew that competition is needed. For at least twenty of the thirty years since the last moon landing, we had some Soviet competition. Maybe we all hoped that competition would eventually get a space station built and then a moon colony. As for the last ten years, people certainly tried to argue space - particularly Robert Zubrin, as I am sure capital hill knows all about by now. Zubrin's "Mars Direct" plan is a new revolutionary plan to establish a permanent human presence in space at a far less expensive price. The reasons why we need to permanently establish ourselves out in space are for all the same reasons politicians debate all their environemental, economic, and national security problems on capital hill.
The establishing of a permanent human presence in space is about securing our future from natural disasters and ourselves. People have shown the threat of asteroid/cometary impacts for awhile now. While a global killer asteroid is not likely, a city destroyer is a possible event. And, as we get bigger industrial cities around the globe, that threat gets more and more likely. Recent events(http://planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive/headlines/2003/meteors_galore.html) should have made clear that the danger exists. We have recently learned of an even more dangerous threat. A threat we cannot stop if it occurs - Supervolcanoes. These are different from the familier cone-shaped mountain volcanoes we have known about since prehistoric times. These are geologically active regions like Yosemity park. Yosemity parks attractions of sproiting hot steam and water are like the steam vents you can see when looking into the crater of a cone volcano. Geologists have learned that the Yosemity park supervolcano has exploded twice before at six hundred thousand year intervals. We are at six hundred and forty thousand years since the last such eruption. The previous eruptions destroyed the north american continent. They have been monitoring yosemities expansion since ninteen twenty eight; it has risen seventy two inches. Geologists have also found a supervolcano in indonesia that erupted seventy thousand years ago. Paleontology records indicate the human population was severelly affected; we were almost wiped out. I will mention one more natural disaster just to highlight that we cannot take for granted our existence and should explore and colonize the universe as far as possible. I know this sounds unreal, but it is time we expand our expectations of the possible. According to the book, "The Rare Earth", in 1998, a satellite detected a burst of energy. Scientists determined that it came from a gamma-ray burst, about twenty thousand years ago. If it had been ten thousand years closer, we would not be talking about anything right now. Obviously, we cannot do much about such events right now, but we can take steps. Zubrin's "Mars Direct" plan is a hugh step as I will describe below. But, now, I would like to mention that the establishment of a permanent human presence solves our economic, national security, health care, and environmental problems as well.
It has for too long been argued that we need to solve all our problems here on earth before we go out to space. Firstly, if anybody thinks we're going to solve all our problems one fine day and that will be the end of it, then do not listen to that person! Military funding, health care funding, and general commercial economics are all economic problems. Economics is about resources and either having them or not. To say the least, look at the moon! See that big piece of materials just sitting up there for the taking? One thing everybody is struck by it is how bright it is. It is not glowing by itself. It is being lit up by the sun. Here on earth, our atmosphere blocks out a lot of the suns radiant energy, but by just looking at the moon, you can see how intense that energy resource is! Not only that, but the moon has a plentifull supply of helium-3, a valuable isotope for clean effective fusion energy, and that is a major reason why China wants to go to the moon! We have always made choices and fought over those choices of economics. By tapping the resources of space, we can choose to solve all our problems. Now, the major issue is how to establish ourselves out there. This is where Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" plan comes in.
The original space pioneers saw it all! Herman Oberth and Werner Von Brawn saw that we build a reusable rocket that can launch the pieces of a space station up in orbit. It is better to leave all the medical, manufacturing(fed by space resources eventually, as oppossed to supplying it with earth resources) up in orbit than to launch those facilities up and down like we do with the space shuttle. See where the problem lays and why the space shuttle is so dangerous? The space shuttle is a space station that we lanch and return through the earths atmosphere time and time again. The reason why we have a space shuttle is because our previous leaders did not want to commit themselves to spending the money to establish a permanent space station and then go to local asteroids, the moon, to supply the space station. But, with the Soviets still up there, we had to have something! Granted, our politicians were then faced with a funding bill just like the Bush administration of the early nineties, but then Zubrin found the obvious solution!
Zubrin found that by living off the land instead of bringing all the food, water, and fuel for a round trip to mars and back is of course going to be rediculously expensive. Instead of bringing battlestar galactica as Zubrin likes to put it, we bring facilities that will generate the food, water, and fuel for the return voyage back home to earth from mars. I am not going to wright his book "The Case for Mars" here. I will of course just recommend reading the book. Instead, I am going to point out some more of the weak arguements that gets brought up time and time again.
The arguement is that space costs too much. As I have already pointed out, Robert Zubrin has already dramatically reduced the cost just by showing how to live off the land of mars. The next point against the space is to expensive arguement is 1) it costs no more than a small war, and 2) the payback is to make our current economy small by comparison which helps solve all those other problems that people will throw in the faces of the space colonization enthusiasts like economics, military, health care funding. I would like to point out that the spanish way back in the fifteen hundreds gained massive wealth by exploring the americas, but then they waisted it all on petty wars back at home. They never permanently established themselves in the americas. We have not permanently establised ourselves out in space. To highlight how easy it will be for us to move around the solar system once we get ourselves permanently established out in space, I recommend anybody who has not seen the moon lander that landed on the moons surface take off for lunar orbit and then back to earth to watch it. Then, compare that to a saturn V rocket taking off. To deal with the earths atmosphere and gravity, we have to put up a saturn v rocket to get ourselves to the moon. To get back to the earth from the moon, we don't need half the moon lander! That little spidery moon lander divides in half to send those moon walkers back up into lunar orbit. That comparison highlights how inexpensivelly we can get around the solar system once permanently out there. Consider a similar hugh difference in the amount of hugh structures we can build out in space from space instead of from the earths surface. We'll be able to build space stations in earths orbit for for less and for far larger. The payoff of funding Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" plan is litterally to the edge of the seeable universe.
We currently have terrorist problems like we have differences of opinions on everything. Establishing permanent human presence out in space gives us time and growth to outgrow all those problems. We will not solve all our problems down here one fine day and then go out to space, but by establishing ourselves out in space, we will give us the room and time to outgrow our problems.
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I'm thinking if a good writer wants to rewrite this with the added insights of others here, then we could just sign it as our own petition.
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you might be interested to know that the planetary society is currently calling for people to write W. about the upcoming 'new direction' the white house is supposedly going to soon supply for nasa. i'd say your letter would be a good addition to that effort. if you aren't already aware of it, check out
You can stand on a mountaintop with your mouth open for a very long time before a roast duck flies into it. -Chinese Proverb
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Well, the Planetary Society had a convenient format for sending to the President, so I attached my above post to official writing they already had written in; hope the president reads it; i might just send a copy to Senator McCain anyways!
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I don't know why I always mistake yosemity with yellowstone, but in place of Yosemity, think Yellowstone!
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