Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

Cobra Commander · 2003-03-22 20:52:16

Good article. It sent me into a brief lament on our lack of progress. NASA has been going through the motions for decades, accomplishing essentially nothing. All while a clear and achievable goal winks at us in the night sky.

"Remember that the old space program wasn't concerned with military conquest or subjecting a people or seeking out selfish gain. It was about challenge and discovery and excitement and small men with giant ideas facing the vast emptiness of the universe."

That line in particular struck a chord, though not quite in the way it was probably intended. It was the drive to push back the frontiers despite the risks that allowed us to reach the moon is the same spirit that in an earlier time drove civilizations to conquest and empire. Essentially, the conviction that we will because we can, and furthermore that it is ours by right.

We seem to have lost that. We have become more concerned with the financial costs and political risks of undertaking great endeavors. We've become a people more concerned with the possible risks than the potential gains. We have grown soft. The loss of the Columbia may actually help our space program by giving us a fresh reminder of the need to replace our aging shuttle fleet, but the drive to actually do anything as bold as a manned mission to Mars just might be too far gone. In our zeal to throw off the shadows of a past that had its share of dark chapters we've lost something profoundly important. Our certainty of purpose and resolve have eroded. Russia launching a useless satellite spurred us toward Apollo out of little more than national pride. Now with China aiming for the moon, there are but a scattered few who care.

Mars is attainable, but it will not give itself freely. Mars must be conquered, and a meek and uncertain people will not prove up to the task.

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-23 00:06:17

Ahh, good article, but perhaps a bit pessimistic for my tastes.

He repeats the general lament that we went from basically flying paper airplanes to landing on the moon in half a century or thereabouts, but neglects to realize that progress has continued at those levels on the whole of human civilization. I guess he hasn't noticed the progress in other fields, biotechnology, microprocessors, etc.

I think it's only a matter of time before these technologies conglomerate to drive us into space. At least, that would be the optimistic outlook. One thing is almost for sure, once the path to Mars is open, paths to other places, such as Luna, Venus, or the asteriods will be open.

dicktice · 2003-03-23 09:37:06

Re. Robert N. Going's article: Boy, is he off-base!
100 years ago, is a long, long time, 3-to-4 human generations in fact...and a lot of that time used up fighting wars...only a decade of human space travel...and none of that interplanetary...so lets stop whining, and marvel instead!
The Wright "Flyer" was the first practical powered heavier-than-air flying machine, but they wouldn't have done it without (1) a century of pretty clever and daring experimenters, who simply ignored the scientific nay-sayers, and (2) bicycle technology having matured in their lifetimes. Their contribution was the culminating, just barely acceptable aerodynamics and 3-axis controllability, backed up with native intelligence and just plain guts.
He calls the Ryan airplane "Spirit of Saint Louis" rickety...it wasn't. It was 1927 state-of-the-art, designed optimally designed and built, using the best available engine, propeller and fuel management system for the specific mission...flown and navigated by the single most qualified aviator of the time.
And Robert Going concludes: "Remember that the old space program wasn't concerned with military conquest or subjecting a people or seeking out selfish gain. It was about challenge and discovery and excitement and small men with giant ideas facing the vast emptiness of the universe. It was about learning and seeing and being and believing in something bigger than yourself. It was about the human race after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution rising up out of this primordial swamp, reaching out and touching the face of God!"
The old space program was-too concerned with military conquest: an international race for the moon, in fact. There was selfish gain: to be first. There was challenge, etc. to be sure, but "small men"? how gratuitous: they were the giants behind the giant ideas, for gosh sakes! But they certainly weren't "facing the universe"...just the moon...and if they happened to miss it their orbit would enable them still to get back to where they came from. And let's face it: the objective was pretty much about planting the flag of the U.S.A. on the Moon...and not once, but every single landing. If they had just taken the U.N. flag and planted that, I suggest the achievements might have been more appreciated by the rest of the human race....
So now, here we are, at a stage where, if we (the relatively few privately motivated Mars humans) would just pull up our collective socks and stop belly-aching in public with pitiful public regrets, like this guy is doing...we just might get somewhere.
The Wright Brothers' equivalent of the first-ever space flight is behind us. Now it's time for the Lindbergh's first crossing-of-the-ocean equivalent: Mars Direct!

Bill White · 2003-03-23 11:22:14

And Robert Going concludes: "Remember that the old space program wasn't concerned with military conquest or subjecting a people or seeking out selfish gain. It was about challenge and discovery and excitement and small men with giant ideas facing the vast emptiness of the universe. It was about learning and seeing and being and believing in something bigger than yourself. It was about the human race after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution rising up out of this primordial swamp, reaching out and touching the face of God!"

I saw the same article and ignored it because of this concluding passage.

Does Going believe JFK funded Apollo for reasons unrelated to our geo-political and military competition with the Russians? What planet was he living on? Apollo was 95% about proving to the Soviets and the world that America's - ahem - endowments were bigger. See, mine really is bigger! And at the very end, one scientist, Schmidt, was included as an afterthought. And then, the program was cancelled.

Today, America's techno-military endowments are unanimously acknowledged as the biggest the world has ever seen. Thus, nothing to prove.

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-23 14:44:57

Yeah, that's my general problem with Apollo, it wasn't specifically a scientific mission. It wasn't a long term mission. It was just a really expensive way to flip a metaphorical middle finger.

I think, though, that the subsequent landings were NASAs babies. ?The Small men.? No one really cared about the subsequent landings but NASA. The guys in NASA who looked up at the sky at night in complete awe. All of us know they were there, but that doesn't detract from the fact that they had a crapload of funding (so to call them small is perhaps an exaggeration- at least until their funding was cut). In a way you can almost see this as the birth of NASA. A huge organization who wants to spend a lot of money doing stuff no one really cares about.

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-23 19:33:15

Well, I wasn't born yet, back then, so what do I know?

I just know from reading about those times that subsequent landings weren't even televised, and when it was it didn't have much of an impact. They even had better cameras, as far as I know, so you have to wonder.

I think public interest in Mars will rise when the rovers land. Sure, this is probably a no-brainer, but it's worth noting. The real question is whether or not manned interest will develop from that. For some reason, I don't think so. We need another manned ?space race? for the commoner to care (and I think that this may be due in part to our, well, talk about going there but inablity to show anything for it).

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#1 2003-03-22 20:52:16

Re: Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

#2 2003-03-23 00:06:17

Re: Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

#3 2003-03-23 09:37:06

Re: Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

#4 2003-03-23 11:22:14

Re: Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

#5 2003-03-23 14:44:57

Re: Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

#6 2003-03-23 19:33:15

Re: Mars Trip Postponed Indefinitely. - New Article.

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