Re: "The Future of Human Spaceflight"

On Jan 15, 12:34 pm, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A Mars trip without new technology is simply pie in the sky. Neither
Obama nor anyone else is remotely going to vote funds, recession or no
recession. This as I said is the cold hard truth.

You may well be absolutely right. But it is not certain that you are
right.

You must expect, though, that "space advocates", particularly in the
U.S., will be in favor of going to Mars when it is possible, not when
it is easy. (Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct has already made going to
Mars - or at least coming back from Mars - a lot easier than it used
to be, lowering the cost of a mission to Mars and back practically to
that of a one-way mission.)

Waiting until it is easy means that the Chinese - or even Britain -
will end up getting there first. So it is advocated that the U.S.
should send someone to Mars while it is still the case that this is a
stupendous task *of which only the U.S. is capable*.

But the heady Apollo days of Cold War showmanship are apparently past.
So they have a selling job on their hands.

John Savard
.

Relevant Pages