Manned mission to Mars

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Now that NASA's budget is being slashed left right and centre, its probably not going to happen for the discernable future but what is your opinion?

It would be fantastic to start the foundations of our next outpost in space, and a second homeworld if anything happens to Earth.

I would like to see it happen, providing it didn't come at a discernable cost of the living standards of any specific nation. If it was to be paid for through a war treasury budget, or cash originally ringfenced for banker's payoffs it would easilly affordable.

I never had much faith in the manned mars mission, it seemed more like NASA's sequel to the moon landing than an actual step forward. Escaping earth's gravity is the most limiting aspect of space travel, if we could either find a way to make it less expensive, or utilize resources off-world (as in extract them to a useful form) I'd be all for it. I don't have a problem with the military budget being invested in those hurdles instead. Overcoming either one of those restraints would make colonizing mars much more feasible.

We can't even terraform our own planet. And besides we do not have a propulsion system fit to carry large numbers of people to mars which is a sh*thole planet by the way. It would make more sense to build habitats on the moon which could be supported from earth.

ruveyn

Then use those as bases to construct zero-g habitats at the LaGrange points; and then use those to construct large, long-term colonization vessels.

Then maybe 'we' could think about colonizing Mars.

Long overdue in my opinion. We need another cold war so that we actually invest in space travel again!

Mars does have above freezing times and places, some life might survive if brought there, but not us. I can imagine craters full of black mold, like something long in fridge, but not higher forms of life.

Closer to home, when the ice returns, the Sonora Desert, what ever it takes to turn it to rich farmland. Europe should look to terraforming the Sahara, for something like The Little Ice Age would move a hundred million south.

Those should be easy problems for those who would do Mars.

In Western Egypt there is a basin below sea level, that a canal would make an inland sea in a desert, and another South of the Atlas Mountains, that a canal through Tunisia would make an inland sea.

Evaporation would change the climate, produce rain, and it would be a natural spawning ground for fish. That would bring in the Tuna.

In both cases the basins have that Death Valley thing, very hot, no one lives there.

It is within current engineering ability.

Farther south in Egypt is an old lake bed. Once a huge lake now dry. Refilled from the Nile, life would return.

Evaporation would be high, but could well raise the current seven to ten inches of rain to twenty, which would turn the Sahara to grassland.

Until 8,000 years ago it was grass for a million years. It can be restored.

Sryia and Iraq were not deserts within recorded history. They were deserts created with the plow.

All of Australia.

I do not think it will happen, first we all die off, the earth is a desert, and it is too late. The survivors will not have the resources. Another ice age will restore the moisture, It will start up again.

A few ten billion apes in the fossil record will be our record.

From the start of our technological awareness 38,000 years ago, to the end of our species, will be but a sliver in the geologic record.

The Greed Ape, as far as we can tell this species converted their entire planet into pieces of paper they called wealth. While it reduced most to living on nothing, killed the planet, some were very rich when they died.

Something like that. At this juncture a trip to Mars would be nothing but a publicity stunt. We do not have the propulsion systems for transporting significant number of people to mars and rendering them self supporting We have no technology to really terraform the planet. It would end up like the manned mission to the moon --- a boot print in the Martian soil and gazillions of dollars spent for no permanent or profitable gain.

ruveyn

Those billions of dollars would be better spent cleaning up the toxic mess we're making of our OWN planet.

Cutting their own throats by slashing their budget, it created so many jobs and money that was spent on R&D. I would love doing research all day.

Compared to Mars, the moon is an extremely hostile environment. Creating an earth like state on the Moon is impossible, whereas on Mars there is a chance. Colonising the moon will represent less experience gain than Mars which could be a stepping stone to further exploration and colonisation of the outer solar system. Having a permanent human team on Mars will herald unprecedented scientific gain over a trundly rover that takes an hour to move a couple of metres.

I agree that the moon should be colonised, but primarilly as a launch pad to Mars. Not in place of.

I don't agree that Mars is a 's**thole planet'. Its home to record holding geological features such as Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris. It is a beautiful planet. Heck I would go if they would send me, I would be well stoked about carving a future for the species on another planet. Little else going for me on Earth anyway.





You know establishing a permanent colony does not necessitate terraforming. Its well within our engineering ability to send a excursion team one way, with a greenhouse facility to manufacture oxygen, fruit and vegetables. Mars has sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. All the ingredients for photosynthesis are already there.

The reasons for not going are political and economic rather than scientific or technological. We've been technologically ready for years, if not decades.

Yes, of course ...

To a point - but the MSL, for example, was quite cheap considering what it's about and will achieve, at around US $2.5 billion.
Compare and contrast to the cost of an easily forgettable, 2-week sports jamboree known as the 2012 Olympics, at around GBP 9 billion - or roughly US $14 billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Summe ... #Financing

I'm less cynical. Every dollar spent on space exploration is a dollar invested in our long term future.

We waste our time, money, energy and lives on worse things, like war and asinine 'cultural' television events like X factor which serve no purpose other than to make the rich richer and numb the masses into a complacent stupor.

It was space exploration (and dare I say the possiblility of visiting space myself) that infused an interest in the childhood me at an early age in science.




Exactly my point.

Fine. Then let us start by constructing feasible habitats on the Moon which is only 1.,5 light seconds distant from home. Let us build laboratories in low gravity. Let us exploit the Dark Side for astronomical gains (literally and figuratively). Let us see if we can mine Helium 3 from the Moons surface to perhaps finally get controlled nuclear fusion going. Once we demonstrate our ability to use our nearest neighbor in space economically, scientifically and peacefully then we might be onto something. We can transform the Moon into something like our system of Antarctic Exploration habitats.

Eventually we might develop a decent propulsion system which could be a way to exploiting Mars profitably and usefully. Technically we are more than ready for the Moon. But we are not ready for Mars. With current propulsion systems it just takes too long to get there. A generation or two of living on the Moon will teach us what it takes and what sort of training would be right for exploring Mars first hand.

Children must learn to crawl before they can walk. And walk before they can run.

ruveyn

A conjunction class mission as proposed by Robert Zubrin would allow a manned mission to get to Mars in six months, even with current technology. That's not the main problem with sending astronauts to Mars with current technology. A much bigger problem is how to land a capsule, large enough to carry humans on the martian surface, since there is too much atmosphere to use rocket rocket thrusters like on the moon and too little atmosphere to use parachutes like the returning capsules to Earth.

Personally I am in favour of the 'one way' option where the explorers consign themselves to not returning to earth, instead becoming the first permanent settlers. It is quite acheiveable and with the correct food and oxygen manufacturing facilities does not represent a 'death sentence'.

By not needing a return vessel it would probably half the cost and make the associated technology unnecessary as well as putting our first permanent foothold on the planet (literally and figuratively).