Should NASA go to Mars or back to the Moon?

@rosborne979,

if you are nice to them the Russians will take you....

@hawkeye10,

Do not forget the Chinese.

@BillRM,

they are not quite ready for the job, but ya

the problem with the chinese is that they are not hard up like the russians...after they embarrass us by taking our business once they will have no more use for us. For them it is not money that counts, their mission is rebuilding the glory of the Chinese empire.

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@hawkeye10,

As the Chinese had any number of men in orbit to date reaching a low orbit space station is not that great of a task.

Amazing that we hear so little about their program in the West is it not?

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Something just doesn't seem right about the US having to "hitch" a ride to get to the International Space Station. Maybe it's just me.

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@rosborne979,

It's no wronger than Europe using GPS to navigate their cars.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

the problem with the chinese is that they are not hard up like the russians...after they embarrass us by taking our business once they will have no more use for us. For them it is not money that counts, their mission is rebuilding the glory of the Chinese empire.

And our interest is what... rebuilding the American Empire? Other than just to say we did it, there is no reason to go to the Moon or beyond. Sure the money spawns all sorts of interesting research, but we can do that by just funding fundamental research without building spaceships and get a lot more bang for the buck. Do we have to build spaceships so that Tea Baggers will agree to fund research with taxes? It's not going to work. They will want spaceships without more taxes. A real interplanetary space program will cost $1000 per every American. You might be able to spread that out over ten years, but very few people are demanding a tax hike and we don't have enough to keep up with infrastructure maintenance on what we have now. A big space program is not where we need to go. A more modest effort to put robots on the Moon and Mars is more realistic, safer and more cost justified.

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@engineer,

And you used the title of engineer!!!!!!!

The resources of a whole solar system is worthless in your opinion?

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@rosborne979,

The Japanese might give you a ride on their solar sailboat.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:

the problem with the chinese is that they are not hard up like the russians...after they embarrass us by taking our business once they will have no more use for us. For them it is not money that counts, their mission is rebuilding the glory of the Chinese empire.

And our interest is what... rebuilding the American Empire? Other than just to say we did it, there is no reason to go to the Moon or beyond. Sure the money spawns all sorts of interesting research, but we can do that by just funding fundamental research without building spaceships and get a lot more bang for the buck. Do we have to build spaceships so that Tea Baggers will agree to fund research with taxes? It's not going to work. They will want spaceships without more taxes. A real interplanetary space program will cost $1000 per every American. You might be able to spread that out over ten years, but very few people are demanding a tax hike and we don't have enough to keep up with infrastructure maintenance on what we have now. A big space program is not where we need to go. A more modest effort to put robots on the Moon and Mars is more realistic, safer and more cost justified.

The reason to go to the Moon is that it's the nearest celestial body to the Earth, and, therefore, a convenient stepping stone to build up our skill at the various technical disciplines required for putting man in space where his destiny lies.

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I favor a major exploration program
including, but not limited to, both the Moon and Mars.
I want as much of this as possible in my lifetime.

David

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

And you used the title of engineer!!!!!!!

The resources of a whole solar system is worthless in your opinion?

If it bankrupts you to obtain them, yes. Engineering is the practical use of science and obtaining the "resources of a whole solar system" is not practical.

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@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

The reason to go to the Moon is that it's the nearest celestial body to the Earth, and, therefore, a convenient stepping stone to build up our skill at the various technical disciplines required for putting man in space where his destiny lies.

I agree with this completely. I see no good reason to go to Mars--i see it only as an act of ego stroking for whoever goes. Going back to the Moon, however, and especially setting up a permanent base there makes a great deal of sense.

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@engineer,

Nonsense as with the technology of today we can start doing so and with the likely technology of tomorrow and the day afterward there is not question at all.

The moon had a fair amount of water that mean air, water and rocket fuel for the taking and moon could be a low escape velocity base to reach the rest of the system.

We reach the moon with the technology of the 1950s and should have no problem setting up a base with the technology of 2010.

Hell there is no question if this will happen it just when and if it will be the West or such nations as China that will end up holding the future of the human race it it hands.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
The reason to go to the Moon is that it's the nearest celestial body to the Earth, and, therefore, a convenient stepping stone to build up our skill at the various technical disciplines required for putting man in space where his destiny lies.

I agree with this completely. I see no good reason to go to Mars--i see it only as an act of ego stroking for whoever goes. Going back to the Moon, however, and especially setting up a permanent base there makes a great deal of sense.

I'm starting to agree with the "moon first" plan for exploration. I still see Mars as a more adventurous and exciting endeavor which I think is beneficial for the collective human spirit, but the moon is certainly no simple task either, and it may be a more functional short term target. I liken it to making a "pawn move" in chess rather than a "queen move". Pawn moves are important to long term strategy and just as important to winning the end-game, even though they are less exciting to see initially.

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@BillRM,

And what are you going to do on your moon base, harvest Iron and Nickel? That's a lot cheaper here. Spend all your time collecting water? Lots of water here already. The real benefit of going to the Moon, Mars, etc is developing the technology to get there. I'm all for spending money on fundamental research, I just don't see what the actual trip, Moon base, etc is going to accomplish when we get there. If we had infinite resources, let's do it. We don't have infinite resources, so I'd rather solve earth bound problems. All those big visions of the human race among the stars is interesting, but ultimately just narcissistic.

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@engineer,

My lord we take the rocket fuel IE water on the moon and combine it with the low escape V of the moon and no atmosphere drag to reach almost anywhere else in the system far more cheaply then from the earth surface just to start with!!!!!!!

We can set up mass drivers for that matter on the moon surface that will once more reduce the cost of accessing the rest of the system.

We can build nuclear push plate rockets and launch them from the moon where fallout is not a concern and therefore be able to move thousands of tons of material around the system in a time frame of months or even weeks very cheaply.

Hell we could build orbital Bean Stalks with far less effort then from earth and have almost zero energy access to the rest of the system.

You have no clue at all do you as the moon is the key to the rest of the solar system?

1 Reply

@BillRM,

And do what? What do you want to do when you have your Moon base and you are desperately harvesting water (sure there is water on the Moon, but you have to go out and mine it and I doubt it is plentiful) and you can send rockets everywhere in the solar system (but it takes months to get somewhere one way)? What do you get for the risk of putting people on an airless rock bombared with solar radiation in gravity so low that it results in bone loss and circulatory issues over time? Other than achieving a cool dream what are the concrete pros in this scenario? Low gravity manufacturing? Maybe, but zero g manufacturing in orbit seems like a better bet. More mineral resources? We seem to have plenty and improving recycling technology seems like more of a win in terms of improving the planet and cost efficiency. Better access to solar energy? Once again, an orbital facility sounds like a more feasible option.

Their is a reason that we haven't been back to the Moon and no other country is all that desperate to go either. There's no real benefit to being there.

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@engineer,

My god you think that the human race should just sit on earth until one event or another wipe us out.

Why the hell did, we leave the very few areas on this planet where the climate allows us to live without any form of aid or technology?

Ninety-nine percent of the areas we now live in on the surface of the earth a naked man would die within hours in winter and I am sure that the we could had not had fought our way to every corner of the planet if your thinking was the controlling force behind human beings.

Engineers had been creating technologies to expand our living range long before we had such words as technology or engineering and moving out into the solar system is the same as our ancestors moving south and north and east and west on earth.

In any case sooner or later, sooner as within an hour to later a few hundred thousand years or so the earth will no longer allow large animals to exist at least for a time.

Let see the earth will be hit once more by an object large enough to wipe out the human race from space, super volcanoes will end most life on earth, the earth will once more be cover by ice over it complete surface to a depth of a mile or more……………….

All the above had happen in the past and will surely happen in the future they are not science fiction events.

Our DNA is hard wire to spread out to as large an area as we can to keep local events from wiping us out and earth is now a small area in that regard.

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@engineer,

Quote:

What do you get for the risk of putting people on an airless rock bombared with solar radiation in gravity so low that it results in bone loss and circulatory issues over time?

Safety and security for the entire human species. You need to think a little bigger then parochial concerns.

Not only that, but zero-G and low-G engineering is a field which is mostly unexplored and has the potential to lead to exciting new discoveries and products.

I do agree with you that the Moon base would be a hell of a lot less useful then bases in the asteroid belt, or at the Lagrange points.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

Should NASA go to Mars or back to the Moon?

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