I haven’t had much to say about Monday’s “big” announcement, but Joel Achenbach has the straight scoop. In light of renewed concerns about planetary protection, from Emily Lakdawalla and others, I’m thinking about writing an op-ed on why we’re going to Mars, or sending humans into space at all.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I don’t know if I have the time or energy to properly fisk this right now, but Alana Massey says that sending humans to Mars is a terrible idea.
My goodness, Ms. Massey has managed to wrap climate change, the evils of government, the evils of capitalism, and the plunder of the New World all into one nice little essay about colonizing Mars.
I bet she’s a hoot at parties.
Took a quick look at your Alana Massey link. Among the things she seems to not get are that we are going to have an Earth without oceans if we keep on this track and that pioneers have a tendency to destroy the environment to exploit at any cost. Wow.
The meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us will go and take the whole universe.
So basically going to Mars would be tough and dangerous. It might also involve evil freedom loving capitalists who might spoil a world that has probably been dead for a billion years or so. Yep, I’m convinced.