Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

Ian · 2003-12-19 11:07:44

I think that instead of competing, China and the Esa and the United States should work together in a space mission that could involve all of humanity instead of starting a kind of "Cold War" between different nations. I think that they probably stopped the lunar program because there wasn't enough interest in it because too many people wanted to beat the Russians into space.

Bill White · 2003-12-19 11:52:59

I think that instead of competing, China and the Esa and the United States should work together in a space mission that could involve all of humanity instead of starting a kind of "Cold War" between different nations. I think that they probably stopped the lunar program because there wasn't enough interest in it because too many people wanted to beat the Russians into space.

For better or worse, many in America believe the ISS debacle is precisely because of international cooperation. And that without the Soviets, and JFK's desire to prove America's (technology) was - - ahem - - bigger, Apollo never would have happened.

Elsewhere clark gave a link to a transcript of JFK in the Oval Office saying landing on the Moon was simply too expensive - - except in the context of showing up the Soviets.

Sad? Sure. But true.

Apollo was funded to show the Soviets who was boss, technologically speaking. NO scientists went to the Moon until the final Apollo mission. Only ONE scientist has ever walked on the moon, right?

clark · 2003-12-19 12:04:40

Yet without a commitment to a permanent human presence in space why do we need any of this infrastructure? If the goal is permanent presence I am pretty much okay with ANY plan.

Ah, but this is hardly the sensible position that most space advocates take. It's usually just about a certain 'place', and inhabiting that. Mars Direct is exactly that. It's putting the blinders on and saying, "look, Mars is where it's at". Well, that very well may be. But it's a big maybe all the same. What if Mars isn't where it's at? We should all agree on one basic desire, that we put man further out into space, for as long as we possibly can.

Keep that kite flying as long as the wind will hold, and our arms can carry!

What that means though is that we give up Mars direct, Moon direct, or any other direct to here and there plan. It means we focus on the neccessary steps that will enable us to go anywhere. It shouldn't be about making a choice, it should about making more choices. Am I too far gone here?

Bill, as always, very boring when we agree.

Bill White · 2003-12-19 12:24:10

Yet without a commitment to a permanent human presence in space why do we need any of this infrastructure? If the goal is permanent presence I am pretty much okay with ANY plan.
Ah, but this is hardly the sensible position that most space advocates take. It's usually just about a certain 'place', and inhabiting that. Mars Direct is exactly that. It's putting the blinders on and saying, "look, Mars is where it's at". Well, that very well may be. But it's a big maybe all the same. What if Mars isn't where it's at? We should all agree on one basic desire, that we put man further out into space, for as long as we possibly can.
Keep that kite flying as long as the wind will hold, and our arms can carry!
What that means though is that we give up Mars direct, Moon direct, or any other direct to here and there plan. It means we focus on the neccessary steps that will enable us to go anywhere. It shouldn't be about making a choice, it should about making more choices. Am I too far gone here?
Bill, as always, very boring when we agree.

The flip side is that without a destination the aerospace contractors have financial incentive to maximize the time, effort and expense of building infrastructre.

MarsDirect is probably the least expensive plan to put a human on Mars that is just this side of sane (a matter of dispute, I admit) - - without the motivation of destination why bother with the creative insights needed accomplish such paradigm shifts?

One reason I favor Mars over the Moon is that Mars is far less useful as a Space Age "Gibraltar" military base - - to cite the article you linked to. Therefore, humans on Mars has far fewer immediate implications for the military domination of LEO.

Nonetheless, send people back to the moon and I will still cheer. Psychologically the moon just "seems" so much closer than Mars even if the technological distances betwen the two destinations are less than they appear.

Palomar · 2003-12-19 12:35:33

*Not that it matters, but I've been thinking about this more (hard)...what an issue! And I'm rescinding most of the sentiments I expressed yesterday.

No compromise on this one. Onward to Mars, forget the moon.

Rehash: We've been to the moon many times. We know we have the capability to do it. It's a dead rock. There's not much water there. Going back is a waste of money, imo -- money that could be spent on Mars Direct or similar program.

The only reason, imo, certain world's leaders are talking about going to the moon is because of China flexing its muscles. Military might, "King of the Hill." Baloney on that.

The USA going back to the moon is a farce. China can do whatever it wants, of course...good luck in their endeavors.

Some very good analogies were given yesterday regarding the slower route to Mars via the moon, including Columbus, Lewis & Clarke.

But there's another: You'll never learn to swim properly if you don't move out of the shallow end of the pool and into the deeper waters. Let's get out of the kiddie pool and do some real interplanetary swimming.

On to Mars.

--Cindy

clark · 2003-12-19 12:39:23

Therefore, humans on Mars has far fewer immediate implications for the military domination of LEO.

And therefore, humans on Mars has far fewer immediate 'benefits' for the society funding it.

Thus making it a much harder sell. How does sending people to Mars improve our lives? Now, if I say the moon, we can at least make some kind of economic argument based on minerals for LEO, or energy production for Earth. We can learn more about Earth's past (which relates to asteroid threats). We can build telescopes to put the Hubble to shame.

Of coruse there is much to learn from Mars, but is it worth the extra resources, and the extra risk? How do you make a sane argument without some sort of concrete reason that explains at least part of the benefit of this endeavour.

Momunment to our ego only goes so far, with only so many people.

Bill White · 2003-12-19 13:00:24

Here is a web page on the ESA Aurora program to send humans to Mars.

Why go to Mars? Same reason as Apollo - - to show which social system is superior. In other words, prestige. ESA's sponsors can crow that multi-national international cooperative efforts are the way of the future while NASA's sponsors can crow about "America standing tall"

Then science and the growth of humanity ride piggy-back on these more prosaic motives. Just like Apollo.

These are some of the highlights of the current Aurora roadmap:
2007 ? an entry vehicle demonstrator mission to validate and demonstrate high-speed re-entry technology
2009 ? ExoMars, an exobiology mission to send a rover to Mars in order to search for traces of life ? past or present ? and characterise the nature of the surface environment.
2011 / 2014 ? Mars sample return, a split mission to bring back to Earth the first samples of Martian material
2014 ? Human mission technologies demonstrator(s) to validate technologies for orbital assembly and docking, life support and human habitation
2018 ? a technology precursor mission to demonstrate aerobraking/aerocapture, solar electric propulsion and soft landing (formerly envisaged as a smaller Arrow-class mission to be launched in 2010)
2024 ? a human mission to the Moon to demonstrate key life support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation and in situ resources utilisation technologies
2026 ? an automatic mission to Mars to test the main phases of a human mission to Mars
2030 / 2033 ? a split mission that will culminate in the first human landing on Mars

This thread started with a call not to be childish. Therefore I have attempted to use child's books as themes.

Emperor's New Clothes was one example.

Now, the tortoise and the hare. American has been the hare, in space. But if the hare sleeps, does it matter how slow the tortoise plods?

clark · 2003-12-19 13:10:00

I know children stories too.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

Shall we run, or tread carefully up our hill, to fetch our pail of water?

How about this one:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
all the kings horses, and all the kings men
could not put poor Humpty back together again.

Should we mimic Humpty and dance periously upon the wall, without a saftey net?

Of course, my personal favorite is the story of the Grasshopper and the Ants.

Palomar · 2003-12-19 13:40:02

Why go to Mars? Same reason as Apollo - - to show which social system is superior.
Then science and the growth of humanity ride piggy-back on these more prosaic motives. Just like Apollo.

*Mars Direct isn't Apollo, Bill. Not to me, anyway.

I don't see MD as being about prestige or posturing. Apollo was partly about P & P, but not entirely (at least not to me). With all due respect, in my opinion you are comparing apples to oranges.

Maybe I've got my wires crossed somewhere (anything's possible), but whereas Apollo was nationalist in orientation, MD is humanitarian in orientation (in my opinion).

Unless I'm seriously misreading Zubrin in _The Case for Mars_!

--Cindy

P.S.: And by the way, I loved Apollo!

Rxke · 2003-12-19 13:47:05

As Bill White pointed out, ESA has a -tentative- timeline to a manned Mars mission...

Nasa *had* some stuff on their site, but pulled all that, recently.

This can mean 2 things:

NASA is out of the race

OR

NASA has BIG plans, but want to keep it hush-hush. (but there would've been leaks by now, not?)

Also notice ESA goes to the moon (in their plans, anyhow) to do a shake-down of their hardware in preparation for the big jump...

Also notice, today ESA has no manned flight hardware at all...

clark · 2003-12-19 13:57:12

Well, I'm stumped.

How is Mars Direct humanitarian in orientation?

Ian · 2003-12-22 18:04:10

For better or worse, many in America believe the ISS debacle is precisely because of international cooperation. And that without the Soviets, and JFK's desire to prove America's (technology) was - - ahem - - bigger, Apollo never would have happened.

Elsewhere clark gave a link to a transcript of JFK in the Oval Office saying "landing on the Moon was simply too expensive - - except in the context of showing up the Soviets."

Sad? Sure. But true.

Apollo was funded to show the Soviets who was boss, technologically speaking. NO scientists went to the Moon until the final Apollo mission. Only ONE scientist has ever walked on the moon, right?

I think that it wouldn't have been expensive if both the Soviets and the Americans worked together to put people on the moon. Maybe by now there would be moon bases and colonies if both nations contributed money and resources.

Bill White · 2003-12-23 15:05:29

More on the European Mars program and a spacedaily article.

To Cindy and others - - I believe Zubrin intends MarsDirect to truly be for the benefit of all humanity and I also believe most of the scientists who worked on Apollo were motivated by non-nationalistic desires.

However, my focus is on the check-writers - - the funding source. Artists, philosophers, scientists, architects and dreamers of space missions are often funded by patrons who have accumulatd their wealth in varous unsavory ways or who have ulterior objectives. The Oval Office transcripts of JFK make it perfectly clear he believed Apollo would have been "just too expensive" for the US to fund except for the benefits of showing up the Russians.

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#26 2003-12-19 11:07:44

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#27 2003-12-19 11:52:59

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#28 2003-12-19 12:04:40

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#29 2003-12-19 12:24:10

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#30 2003-12-19 12:35:33

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#31 2003-12-19 12:39:23

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#32 2003-12-19 13:00:24

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#33 2003-12-19 13:10:00

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#34 2003-12-19 13:40:02

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#35 2003-12-19 13:47:05

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#36 2003-12-19 13:57:12

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#37 2003-12-22 18:04:10

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

#38 2003-12-23 15:05:29

Re: Space groups Unite - Stop acting like children

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