Why many are skeptical about it.
Someone made a good point the other day. It’s nonsensical to call Mars a “horizon goal” as the NRC did, because a horizon is something you never reach.
69 thoughts on “The #JourneyToMars”
Comments are closed.
Why many are skeptical about it.
Someone made a good point the other day. It’s nonsensical to call Mars a “horizon goal” as the NRC did, because a horizon is something you never reach.
Comments are closed.
The problem is that Washington has not provided the funding to carry out those goals
Dead wrong. People like to talk about percent of budget since Apollo, but that’s misdirection. In absolute dollars adjusted for inflation they have more now than we had for Apollo.
there’s all three phases—space station, cislunar, and Mars
Two of these have nothing to do with going to mars.
When Dragon lands on mars in 2018 or 2020 the mission architecture should be obvious. We send two to four crew at a launch with an inflatable for the journey and multiple launches per mission window. We precede that by picking any site with water and geological diversity sending repeated presupply missions there. Until we send supplies repeatedly to one site, there is no mars mission.
Two of these have nothing to do with going to mars.
That depends entirely on the method chosen to go to Mars. I like the idea of a fort building strategy that offers opportunities at each step for whatever interests people choose to pursue and creates networks of support and activity.
You can drive coast to coast without stopping at a gas station or other interesting places but a lot of people like to stop at gas stations, someplace to stretch their legs, or interesting sites along the way. Some people don’t even want to go to the other coast and their end destination is in the middle someplace. A space based infrastructure that supports many interests has a better chance than one that supports a singular one.
People have free will and if their choice is to go directly to Mars and only go to Mars, that’s great but it isn’t going to get much support from people who want to go other places. It might not even get support from people who want to base their activities within Mar’s cognitive horizon. It certainly could be a viable market as other developments enable it to be successful.
There doesn’t need to be a battle of the Moon or Mars as a destination when the answer is both. Capitalism thrives when people are allowed to pursue their own interests, space architecture should be developed in a way that enables this.
The problem I see, is that the cislunar phase isn’t very well defined in terms of what will be done, what is needed to get things done, or how it will support activities on Mars, the Moon, or anywhere else. The activities I have seen NASA talk about are just as illusionary and ill defined as the #JourneyToMars with maybe an asteroid retrieval mission or maybe taking part in an international lunar base for government workers. Neither of those match the rhetorical goals.
We live in a world where things slow down. That isn’t space. In space there is no reason to stop at intermediate points… you just go to whatever destination you can reach. If that’s not mars, you don’t go to mars to get there. The same for anyplace else.
Stepping stones in space have everything to do with resources. Just as it’s counterproductive to walk one inch at a time rather than full stride; it’s counter productive to stop for any resource by spending extra delta-V on distractions. If you go to the moon it should be for the purpose of going to the moon and not to fool yourself into thinking it’s somehow faster to anyplace else.
Now if going to the moon means developing resources for use to get to other places, that’s fine. But again, don’t fool yourself into thinking it a needed step when it isn’t and would only slow us down by making it a prerequisite.
You need to make sure your reach doesn’t exceed your grasp. You build support on a progressing basis, moving steadily forward and building confidence and support for the next step. It’s the way all technology is done. Apple didn’t wait for the Mac to start putting out computers. Ford didn’t wait for automatic transmission to start making cars. But, history is littered with dreamers who were ahead of their time, but could not make a going concern.
Apple didn’t make a lot of things before the Apple 2. Had they, we may never have seen an Apple 2. Apple 1 was just for learning. They didn’t need v1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc. to learn more. They went straight to a machine that sold.
You build support on a progressing basis
The point is to take the right steps… not too big, not too small. The reason people want to go to the moon first is not to get to mars… that’s a lie they tell themselves. They want to go to the moon first because that’s all they imagine they can achieve. They want to do the moon because they see they will lack control of the colonists that go to mars. Control freaks can not handle others having freedom.
“They want to do the moon because they see they will lack control of the colonists that go to mars.”
Dude… I’m as cynical as the next guy but, get a hold of yourself. They want to go to the Moon because it is a bridge that is in our territory, and that we have already crossed. Bad things tend to happen to those to attempt to capture a bridge too far.
If we could establish a lunar colony, it would allow us to perfect a great many things and learn from unforeseen circumstances that could doom a Mars mission. You’ve got to crawl before you can run, or you’re liable to end up smack on your face.
Bart, you presume the moon is easier than mars. It is not. The advantage of the moon isn’t that living there is easier. The advantage (as such) is that it is not independent with a possible 3 day supply chain (longer due to other factors.)
The moon is not and will not be a bridge to anywhere. It is a destination in itself. One day the moon may sell water or perhaps not… that depends on how the economics develops. But one thing is absolute: depending on the moon to get us to mars means forgetting about mars for another generation and a huge opportunity cost as that period of mars learning time and development is forever lost.
A thing you’ve done before is always easier than a thing you haven’t. You know what to do, and you know (mostly) what to expect. I have not yet embarked on a new area of research or built a new mechanism that did not have some surprises in store.
I could name a half a dozen things that are far easier with regard to the Moon than for Mars right off the top of my head, starting with deltaV and navigation, and going on through radiation dosage, likelihood of micro-meteoroids, dust storms, physical and mental deterioration, and so on.
And, in the public imagination, both are exotic and the stuff of sci fi. You get a working colony on the Moon, and things don’t seem so exotic anymore, and allocating resources for the next step to the Mars takes significantly less sales effort.
Bart, the main thing the moon doesn’t give you is independence. It’s too close. The natural tendency will be for the loonies to depend on earth rather than themselves. On mars, right from the start, they will have to think for themselves.
Mars has all the resources to allow that. The moon doesn’t. Food will grow on mars. There’s little point to growing food on the moon since you have to import the basic chemicals continuously. You may as well just import food, which incidentally will come from mars rather than earth because it will be much cheaper.
The moon has nothing to teach us about living on mars. They are completely different environments. Another reason for going to mars is that it isn’t a bridge too far. We are ready. The challenges are quantifiable and we can handle them. Not going to mars would be like Musk not going to orbit because “it’s too far right now. We have so much to learn before we try orbiting.”
It seems you are suggesting public monies be allocated to fulfill your own dream of independence. It doesn’t work that way. If the London Company had told King James their intention was to set up an independent nation, I very much doubt he would have extended a charter.
First, get the colony. Then, you’ll have all the time in the solar system to think about self-determination.
“The challenges are quantifiable and we can handle them.”
Famous last words. Along the lines of, “Hold my beer, and watch this.”
“Not going to mars would be like Musk not going to orbit because “it’s too far right now.”
I don’t follow you. We’ve been to orbit countless times now. There are no unknowns, known or unknown, there.
It seems you are suggesting public monies be allocated to fulfill your own dream of independence.
Not really. I’d rather govt. have no involvement at all so they can’t assert sovereign rights which the OST says they can’t have.
However, since they are wasting the money anyway I’d rather that money were more productive and worked in concert with the goal of colonization (think duel use.)
Why would a nation support the intention to set up an independent nation? Because it is in the interest of that nation and its people. It’s not always about immediate wealth. NASA isn’t a commercial venture.
First, get the colony. Then, you’ll have all the time in the solar system to think about self-determination.
The window of opportunity is now because the govt. doesn’t see space as important. Too soon they will get a clue. People are already talking about taxing that which they have no right to tax.
“Not going to mars would be like Musk not going to orbit because “it’s too far right now.”
I don’t follow you.
It’s all about what is the right stride length. Musk did not know how to get to orbit. He learned. We know more than enough to colonize mars. The key is to allow for plenty of buffer. That is, more supply than we imagine and more than just subsistence energy. We let the martians figure out the best way to farm, but also supply them with two years of food so they don’t have to worry about their farm productivity (they will want the fresh food so there is no danger they will not put in the effort required to grow food.)
What we don’t know is best learned by boots on the ground. We do know a lot more than we did when we started going into space (although this planetary protection issue makes me wonder why non reasoning adults have such a big say in things?)
We know more than enough to colonize mars.
This is utter nonsense. We are vastly ignorant about most of the things we need to know to colonize Mars.
not to fool yourself into thinking it’s somehow faster to anyplace else.
There is always a market for faster but faster isn’t the only concern. There are trade offs.
Always there are trade offs. Not going to mars now is trading away our future.
“In absolute dollars adjusted for inflation they have more now than we had for Apollo.”
Inflation calculators are geared for normal consumer goods, not for specific niches, so this is an inappropriate metric. NASA has to compete for manpower and materials against other technological competitors, and the technological sector has exploded since Apollo days.
Money is only a medium of exchange, a method for allocating resources. So measuring things in money gives a very incomplete picture. The real question is, how large is its allocation of resources today versus then?
NASA commanded 4.4% of the federal budget at its height, down to 0.45% today. The gap between the proportion of resources it commanded in the technology sector then and now is even larger.
Percentage of total is inaccurate when the total itself has exploded. NASA wastes money when it has more than enough for ten times the accomplishment (and saying ten times I’m being very conservative.)
You’re being very hyperbolic. NASA does a lot of things other than manned space flight, and even there, only a small fraction goes into actual rockets.
They’re certainly not throwing money around on buildings or other luxuries, judging by my visits to various centers. The only overt and inarguable waste I see is GISS, which ought to be subsumed into NOAA in any case.
NASA does a lot of things; however, just the bit already being spent on mars alone is more than is required. They get no pass from me.
Talking about the NASA budget as percentage of GDP amounts to fraud.
No, it isn’t. If anything could be called fraudulent, it would be talking about NASA’s budget in terms of consumer inflation. The only way to compare apples to apples is in terms of resource allocation.
Bart, if yesterday the total budget was 100 and my part was 1%, but today the total budget is 1000 and I get 0.5%.
Have I gone up or down?
It depends. If the people you have to hire and the materials you bought yesterday cost 1 and they now cost 10, its gone way down.
That’s why you adjust for constant dollars. You’re trying too hard (smart people, like you Bart, often do that.)
I’m telling you that today’s NASA budget has not gone down since Apollo. What’s happened is they’ve figured out how to waste it with just enough accomplishment to keep in existence. That onion piece is not satire.
I don’t see it. In the first place, I think it is very difficult to determine parity in terms of the engineering talent and technology that each dollar could buy. But, for those who have attempted to do so, the tables here tell a very different story.
According to the first table, in 1966, NASA’s budget in 2014 dollars was $43.6B. In 2014, it was $17.6B, down about 60%, and most of that was not dedicated to manned space flight.
According to the second table, in 1966, it had at least 32K employees, with another 364K contractors. In 2012, 17K and 60K, respectively, a half and a sixth.
1966 was a peak, not an average. Average over the decade was about $24b per year. Now we’re at about $18b per year.
That $24b included development of the Saturn V and other costly development. NASA doesn’t have to have that cost anymore (just stopping the SLS/Orion would do wonders for their budget.) That $24b also includes things that were not part of the Apollo program.
NASA has too much money which is why they waste it. A businessman would pay a tenth and gets more capability.
1966 was critical. I would argue that the four years 1964-1968 would be representative for building a major new system like the Saturn V. And, again, NASA does a lot more stuff these days. Of that $17.6B, only about $5B is spent on manned flight.
So, sure, in about 8 years at present funding, NASA should be able to turn out the equivalent of a new Saturn 5. But, you know what happens every 8 years, and sometimes 4? A new administration comes in, and cancels everything, and they have to start over from square 1.
You’re making my point Bart. Govt. will spend years building something they never use when they can buy it off the shelf for much less. Then they cancel the program with wind down costs.
This is just plain stupid. If not for waste, $5b would give me 5 mars programs, possibly 10.
$5b is real money. A guy aught to be able to do something with that, even if only given once. $5b every year is more than enough.
“If not for waste, $5b would give me 5 mars programs, possibly 10.”
$5B is not very much at all, when you tally up everything you need. It’s more than just rockets. A lot more.
And, we are nowhere near having off-the-shelf components that can go to Mars. Maybe Elon et al. will get there one day, but they’re a long way yet.
I’m just as downcast about it as you are. But, the simple fact is that there is no political will to front the bucks needed. And, no bucks, no Buck Rogers.
The startups have done incredible things, and deserve all the accolades and praises thereunto pertaining. But, IMHO, we’re not yet at the point where we can turn over national space policy to them.
“It’s nonsensical to call Mars a “horizon goal” as the NRC did, because a horizon is something you never reach.”
Sounds perfectly descriptive to me.
Yes, but unwittingly so.
I think they focus on the #JourneyToMars part because it distracts from how terrible the cislunar, or even LEO, part of their strategy is.
The idea of an overarching strategy is a good one but the criticisms above about a horizon goal are also good.
The more I listen to these NASA people, the more I get the feeling that NASA pays lip service to congress but is really operating off of a secret plan known only to them and taking steps, or subverting activities, to support that plan whenever they can. It looks like they are leaderless from a civilian perspective or have declared themselves an autonomous agency, which sounds strange until you look at every other government agency in the era of Obama. Why would NASA be any different?
This is NASA’s grand plan:
http://www.theonion.com/article/nasa-announces-bold-plan-still-exist-2045-50398
Sadly, the Onion is no longer a satire site, and yes, NASA’s main plan is to remain a jobs program.
Horizon goals have a virtue that they can be very fuzzy, and each person can fill in the details in their mind to fit their worldview. #JourneyToMars (or as I like to call it #JourneyToViewgraphs) is crafted to allow SLS people, SpaceX people, RedMars zealots, Zubrin zealots, Elon-esque Colonists etc to exist under one rubric. It also is unmeasurable in any meaningful way, so NASA can expend $X billion every year “on the journey” and argue that they are accomplishing something.
I despise such banality. It is embarrassing and not something that should exist in a large organization with such a storied history. Pointed questions (like the one from Greason) should be applauded and encouraged.
As one of the steps along the way, I would see how much work would be required to put a Falcon 9 full thrust into orbit to use as a spoke on a rotating test vehicle. Elon said the rocket’s performance was now good enough to do SSTO (with no payload). With shroud, it’s 230 feet high (70 meters). The 9 engines weigh about 9,000 pounds, about the same as a Dragon capsule that could mate with the rocket and have it rotate roughly about its center, so 3.2 RPM would create about 0.4 G’s. If two were mated in orbit for a 460 foot diameter, they could provide 0.4 G’s at 2.2 RPM or 1 G at 3.5 RPM.
He’s said the last landing they did cooked the first stage, so they’re just going to leave it sitting around. For a spoke launch mission, you wouldn’t care much if the rocket fails because the only money on the line is for the fuel and a docking adapter.
Its high time we had one of these.
They’d just end up with one of these.
It’s a bit unfair to slam NASA over having unclear plans. They haven’t come up with a clear concept or concept because they simply can’t; Orion is useless for Mars (too much mass) and SLS can’t do a Mars mission single launch. Therefor, NASA can’t even come up with a powerpoint of what a Mars mission might look like.
SpaceX is supposed to be laying out a Mars colonization plan (far more involved than a landing) along with a transportation system (MCT) concept in September. It’s also aiming at a Red Dragon mission to Mars in 2018. They, at least, have a plan, plus some hardware.
To give NASA credit where credit is due, NASA did exceed SpaceX in one all-important area; hashtag creation.
It’s a bit unfair to slam NASA over having unclear plans. They haven’t come up with a clear concept or concept because they simply can’t
It is easy to criticize NASA, but even though they have in many ways been on the leading edge of technology, many of the things that exist today, didn’t a decade ago. As reality changes around NASA, are they capable of changing with it?
I don’t think that NASA did anything wrong in the past, necessarily. I am not sure the criticisms of the space shuttle or Apollo really make sense but looking at the conditions as they exist at this moment, NASA not only needs to adapt but has the unprecedented ability to do things differently.
“It’s a bit unfair to slam NASA over having unclear plans. They haven’t come up with a clear concept or concept because they simply can’t”
No, it’s not unfair because they certainly CAN come up with clear concepts and plans. The problem is that they can’t come up with workable plans that maintain their pet programs and government workforce not to mention their need to control every aspect.
Look back at the Bush era where NASA paid 8 contractors ~$3M each for architecture and design studies and then ignored all the results. http://www.astronautix.com/fam/cev.htm
The upshot from the link:
“Although each contractor conducted thousands of pages of rigorous trade studies against NASA’s proposed requirements, they came to very different conclusions. However there were some common themes identified by more than one contractor:
– The optimum CEV would have a mass of under 9 tonnes and a crew of four or less.
– The lowest cost launch solution would be to use existing expendable launch vehicles (Atlas V and Delta IV) or derivative. This would allow launch of the CEV on earth-orbit missions by a single booster existing ELV. Three-booster versions of existing ELV’s could orbit elements of lunar or Mars expeditions.
– The most flexible and logical lunar exploration architecture was to assemble lunar expedition components at the L1 Earth-Moon Lagrangian point. This allowed unconstrained launch and landing schedules, and provided a permanent way station for not only lunar, but Martian exploration.”
Where do you think we’d be today if those recommendations were actually implemented?
“The problem is that they can’t come up with workable plans that maintain their pet programs and government workforce not to mention their need to control every aspect.”
NASA works through congressional staffers, I believe NASA fully understands what each and every congressional members stands are on issues that will affect there districts/states/nasa center.
So it would be absolute exercises in futility to present plans that will cost a represent one single job in their district. We saw this first hand and up close when O’Keefe went up to capital hill and said no new rockets and NASA and it’s contractor workforce will be cut by 10,000 – 14,000 jobs.
He was gone .. Griffin comes in with the 60 day study and suddenly EELV’s were to expensive and dangerous and the Nation did in fact need not one new rocket .. but TWO. And no jobs would have be lost ..
Govt. can get away with waste for quite a while but sometimes somebody comes along and say ‘enough!’
That happened at the FAA. When ma bell broke up they decided they needed their own communication infrastructure (before that it was just a person at a desk ordering millions of dollars per month of phone services from AT&T.) Everything went through phone services including radar and vortacs.
So the FAA built their own phone system which became the 4th largest in the country. They hired field engineers and office managers and built microwave relays across the country.
Later they contracted with (Sprint I think it was) for the same services. That was years ago. I don’t know what they’re up to today, but I’d wager they figured out how to waste even more money.
So it would be absolute exercises in futility to present plans that will cost a represent one single job in their district.
This is so frustrating because these states are well positioned to compete in the private economy. Their domestic industries would do better without the protectionism and that would lead to more tax revenue that these congresscritters could spend and more sources to seek campaign contributions from.
How to convince the wrong people to do the right thing? Is an appeal to their greed and personal power not something that works or not something that has been tried?
How to convince the wrong people to do the right thing?
They have to be shown because they simply lack the imagination. Once industry starts, people will get rich. Once that happens others may realize they are missing out.
I hope that Elon’s plan stages at one of the EML points. I’m a bit worried that his spacecraft designs and supporting infrastructure might come out a bit too optimized for Mars.
Then again, he has made a lot of really, really smart choices developing the Falcon 9.
OTOH, If the studies that you refer to end up using EML points because the physics of orbits make that a natural “watering hole”, then Elon will also come to that conclusion.
If an EML makes sense, I’m sure he’d utilize it, but optimizing for mars is the point. The idea that generic hardware will get us anywhere is part of the problem as you can plainly see with Orion, which is too big by mass, too small by volume and can only land on earth (if the speed of reentry is low enough.)
While I advocate a refuelable generic ship in orbit now, it’s not required to get to mars. Somebody that isn’t Musk will have to do it.
CJ, it appears they missed your joke. You’d better spray some water on that dry humor of yours.
We make jokes about NASA to hide the truth… they are going away.
Before they can do a flags and footprints mission to mars, colonists will already be living there and the public IS going to wonder why we spend any money on NASA.
There doesn’t need to be a battle of the Moon or Mars as a destination when the answer is both.
Correct and we need to consider the reasons:
We have the budget for both. We have a common architecture for both. Neither is required to do the other.
We have the budget because the 10’s to 100’s of billion estimates are a lie. FH will put a Dragon with 2,000 kg of payload on the surface of mars for about $200m. We need about 20 of these going to the same site on mars. Total cost: 4 billion.
Dragon is designed to land on any rock. FH can send it pretty much anywhere in our system.
Each is a goal independent of the other. Requiring one before the other is to eliminate the other.
Space development will be driven by 3 factors: energy, resources & delta-v (from LEO). The Moon is the largest gravity well that can be quickly exploited and return value. It’s closer, safer and visible, with much lower capital requirements. That’s why Mars is a dead end, short of 20-50 years of space infrastructure development. Mars will have to wait until the “low fruit” of Space is harvested (NEOs, Lunar S Pole) and developed (Lagrange point, LEO & HEEO resource depots). Unfortunately (for Mars), once mankind has developed a space infrastructure, we may forget the reason why we wanted to go back down a gravity well. The critical question is, what will be created on Mars & sold for a profit on Earth?
The critical question is, what will be created on Mars & sold for a profit on Earth?
That’s not the critical question, but does identify the biggest mistake being made (which is why we are blowing the opportunity cost.)
The critical question is, can the colonists produce wealth? This is subtly different so you might miss the difference. Producing wealth happens in place and requires no movement of import/export mass.
This is the advantage of a gravity well over space. Space gives you cheap energy (assuming you are close enough to the sun.) Gravity is caused by an abundance of resources in one place (including nuclear power which mitigates that energy advantage for space.)
Space requires the very expensive rocket equation to gather resources. On mars it is literally under foot and in the atmosphere. It also can be exploited individually in any direction rather than at the whim of some captain or planning commission.
If you start at all the places we can, mars will move forward at a steady fast pace while the rest are looking for an influx of money that may never come. The hurdle with mars is just getting people there.
By every measure: energy available from the sun, low delta-v available resources, easily identified/located resources and any gravity you want; NEOs have the advantage over Mars. Wealth will be created closer to Earth, so it will be available to the Earth, & at a fraction of the cost.
What low delta-V resources? It’s high compared to walking around mars. Energy will be abundantly available to both. Bombardment is where all planets get there resources so it’s the same except it has zero relative velocity on mars. The rocket equation makes space much less viable economically. Raising gravity on a planet is the same basic principle as in space, but they probably will not bother.
You keep looking at the abundant resources in space but never consider that it isn’t where you want it to be. Working in zero G is much harder than ‘down a gravity well.’
What wealth will be created close to earth? Wealth comes from trade. There is no trade on a space habitat. If your still thinking of import/export of mass you’re not thinking right. Elon has it right when he says you would lose money on crack cocaine if you had to bring it down from orbit.
We are vastly ignorant about most of the things we need to know to colonize Mars.
Name one. Everything we need to colonize mars we’ve already done in other programs. You can’t name one.
The long-term effects of partial gravity on human and other animal (and plant) physiology, the degree of toxicity of the soil, and necessary techniques to detoxify it, the difficulty in excavating and beneficiating it, the types of chemical reactions that will be required to extract useful minerals from it, the maintenance requirements for using machinery there…
Ken, you are delusional.
Thanks for the list. These are called challenges. Humans used to rise to challenges.
Ok gravity. This is a boogyman. Yes, it will have physical effects but we’ve dealt with low g enough to know it isn’t an immediate problem and has known mitigation factors. It may just turn out to be nothing at all. It certainly doesn’t prevent us from colonizing even in the worst case. We will learn by doing faster than hand wringing and never finding out.
Toxic soil. This one’s easy. Either they will be in a habitat or a spacesuit. Either way they are protected from toxins. Contamination protocols will have to be followed when leaving or entering the habitat. This is no big deal because water, which they will have an abundance of, will wash away and neutralize the toxins.
Detoxifying soil. The soil is a valuable asset and they certainly will have to process it for their usage. It will be part of the industrialization of the planet even when not toxic. This is basic chemistry. Not even a big challenge.
Excavation. Really? Assume the worst, permafrost. Techniques already exist for this. Also, not a big challenge as long as identified (which you’ve done) and equipment to deal with it made available (this is part of the over abundant presupply I’ve talked about. I hear explosives are useful in excavation as well.)
Back to chemistry. A chemist is one of the two essential colonists I’ve identified (a machinist being the other.) We know more than enough about chemical processes. This doesn’t even rise to the level of challenge.
Equipment maintenance. Now you know why the other essential colonist is a machinist. They will make their own replacement parts. Frankly I could suggest a dozen guys I know. Again, not really a challenge.
This is a good and essential exercise that we should do to the full during the presupply phase. Which could start today because getting mass to mars is also something we know of ways to do (which will improve significantly with red Dragon.)
The only delusion I have is that the can do attitude we used to have (and got us to the moon when we were much more unprepared than we are for mars today) isn’t completely dead.
Ya got any more flies I can swat?… like I said, not one.
You didn’t swat any flies. You don’t even know what you don’t know.
Sure I did. I showed the attitude that will allow us to colonize mars. You showed how to keep us from doing so.
When did minor challenges become showstoppers? Keep in mind, the colonists will not have to be super people. They will have the brain power of the entire earth supporting them. Their advantage over us today will simply be that they are on site. Martian chemists will only need to be able to do normal chemical procedures. What procedures they might do they will have the entire earth kibitzing on.
The same with the machinists. They will only need basic machinist skills while anything they can’t figure out will be provided as blueprints from earth. They will learn overtime whom to trust for good martian designs and will be able to provide immediate on-site feedback.
Not one of your challenges is beyond management. Plus there are indications that some things will work out better than we first imagined. We are more than ready for makers and can do people to take on the colonization challenge. The alternative is ‘thinking about it’ and never doing more than flags and footprints. We are ready now.
I don’t know how to explain this to you, but first you said there is nothing we don’t know about colonizing Mars, which is utterly insane, and now you’re describing our almost-complete ignorance about these issues as “minor challenges.”
There is no point in discussing this with someone incapable of intelligently discussing this. I’m sorry, but you are the most frequent commenter here, and you have the lowest signal-to-noise ratio, on both space technology and politics. I’m not going to ban you, but I really wish you wouldn’t fill up my comments section with profoundly technically ignorant nonsense.
Rand, I never said there is nothing we don’t know. I’m just pointing out two things. First is we shouldn’t ignore what we do know. Second, people create lots of boogymen and pretend they are more real than they are.
technically ignorant nonsense…
Is it ignorant to acknowledge low g will have some effects as I have?
Is it ignorant to notice that all the known and imagined maladies of low g are already commonly dealt with by some people (including myself) right here on earth and none of them are showstoppers?
Is it ignorant to point out we’ve had years of experience with low g (and there are legitimate concerns) but none of them has lead to any permanent problems? None of them has been beyond management? Many of them have already been demonstrated as stupid concerns?
Being cautious and concerned is one thing. Blowing things up into ridiculous proportions is the real ignorance.
If you’d like me to stop commenting just say the word.
Rand, I never said there is nothing we don’t know.
Yes, you did. You said “We know more than enough to colonize mars.” If you can’t keep your story straight, it’s a waste of time to discuss anything with you.
It was nonsense then, and it remains nonsense. Ignorant nonsense.
Is it ignorant to point out we’ve had years of experience with low g (and there are legitimate concerns) but none of them has lead to any permanent problems?
Yes, it is profoundly ignorant, and you are the only person who doesn’t seem to recognize how ignorant it is. We have zero experience with conception or gestation in free fall, and we have zero experience with anything in Martian gravity.
This sort of thing is why no one takes you seriously.
We have studied zero g conception (which happens normally) and gestation (which shows inconsistent anomalies) not just in space but on parabolic flights so apparently I am not the ignorant one. That includes mammals.
To say we know enough (which I did) is not the same as saying we know everything (which I never did.) You would rightly call that a reading comprehension problem.
You are very cavalier with you insults and I am disappointed. But you are the host and have the right to be as insulting as you wish. I will give them there due.
If the standard of doing anything is complete knowledge then it is no wonder we do nothing. Since gestation (that you claim we have zero experience with when in fact we have done limited studies of) is inconsistent in zero g it is entirely reasonable to believe a significant gravity which 38% is, would have less impact. Not conclusive but reasonable. You are free to disagree but this is not the same as ignorant. Unless you define all reasonable speculation as ignorant which would be another ignorant position to take. You, who wrote a book on the subject, seem to not understand reasonable risk or why actually doing something is the best way to learn (even at the risk of lives.)
You are free to discount everything I say and even falsely accuse it of being ignorant. Time will reveal the truly ignorant. Ban me if you wish. I’ve lived too long and seen too much to be affected by ignorance and insults.
We have studied zero g conception (which happens normally) and gestation (which shows inconsistent anomalies) not just in space but on parabolic flights so apparently I am not the ignorant one. That includes mammals.
We don’t know anything about it in humans. And we know nothing about it for any animal on Mars or the moon.
To say we know enough (which I did) is not the same as saying we know everything (which I never did.) You would rightly call that a reading comprehension problem.
Both statements are profoundly mistaken.
I’m not going to ban someone for merely flooding my comments section with nonsense, regardless of how annoying it is.
Rand, I’m afraid Ken is right. You can’t name one. By my count you named nine… :-p
David, help Rand out. Try to name one that isn’t on his list… This time, try to make it something that actually is a challenge.
Since plausibility doesn’t seem to be a concern in regards to your answers to Rand here are two:
1) Tort Law
Applicable after the first death of a colonist that flew against the wishes of their bereaved loved ones back home. Better be on the flight list of the first to go, the company that sent you won’t be around to do another one… Particularly if any of the first batch colonists were from Virginia…
> http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/assisted-suicide-state-laws/
In particular the wording of Virginia Statute § 8.01-622.1
To wit:
A spouse, parent, child or sibling of a person who commits or attempts to commit suicide may recover compensatory and exemplary damages in a civil action from any person who provided the physical means for the suicide or attempted suicide or who participated in a physical act by which the other person committed or attempted to commit suicide.
2) Again since plausibility seems to be of little concern in your rebuttals (esp. concerning life in low ‘g’ as if somehow human behavior can override by sheer will-power the biophysical adaptation of literally a million years of evolution) here is one dead fire sure one to kill a Mars colony. Space Warp Drive. Why off Earth would I want to settle a hostile, cold, nearly lifeless desert world when the sandy beaches, warm waters, beautiful mountains, spacious lands of similar soil composition and near Earth normal gravity of Kepler xyz await with no sentient life present to dispute our presence? Mars would be just a nearby backwater, that people might want to occasionally visit, but compared to the now easily reachable life giving exo-planets a world where almost no one would actually want to live…
I give you these two examples with the same degree of careful consideration you gave in your responses to Rand. Esp. in your answer to problem #1. Which by the way, you failed to actually prove was a solved problem.
So your response is sarcasm?
There’s a reason I called gravity the boogyman. We’ve had many such in the past. Once we go and find out they are nothing everybody forgets how foolish it was.
Of course gravity will have some physiological effect. But why imagine it to be totally debilitating when there is absolutely no reason to?
Can we live for years in 0.38 g? Of course we can because we have examples of people living in worse. What about the so called long term effects? There is absolutely no reason to believe they will be anything other than manageable. All of the maladies that we imagine low g to cause already exist right here on earth and we manage to get by. My own health issues are worse than anything a healthy colonist is likely to face.
I’m not the one with my head in the clouds. That’s those creating boogymen at every turn. I’m a realist with regard to the challenges. I’m willing to face them. Personally if I had to.
You can have your self satisfying superior attitude but it will all come crashing down when actual colonist on-site show your boogymen for the vapor they are.
you failed to actually prove [gravity] was a solved problem.
Correct, because it isn’t a solved problem. My response was that it was a manageable problem which I did give solid evidence for.
BTW, I am currently, personally dealing with the maladies associated with low g since I went into the hospital in August and spent six month on my back in bed. So I have personal knowledge that you probably lack. I’m still dealing with those issues which I will not elaborate on here.
The idea that martians can’t deal with them is laughable.