There's a discussion going on in the comments here and here about whether or not we should set a national goal of sending people to Mars a la Apollo (though hopefully with more staying power--a subject I'll get to in a minute). Thomas James believes we should (not surprising, given the name of his blog...)

I don't agree, for several reasons. First of all, I don't personally care that much about Mars myself, so even as a space enthusiast, it would be hard to get me motivated to make it happen. And I'm symptomatic of a much larger problem--we can't get a focused national space policy because we can't get a consensus on what that policy should be, even in the space community. And no, I don't want to get into the argument about whether it makes more sense to go back to the Moon first, or go after asteroids, or build space colonies at L-5, because it's all beside the point.

Those pining for Apollo redux are yearning for a past that never was. Even in the 1960s, there was no public push for great achievements in space per se, other than as a way of defeating the Russians for propaganda purposes. If we could have done that by digging the deepest hole, or sending a man to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and bringing him safely back to the surface, then we would have done that. Support for space is a mile wide and an inch deep--polls always show that people think it's cool and important, but they also show that when they have to make choices, it always gets shoved down onto the stack. I believe that given that basic public mindset, and the fact that we can't get a consensus even in the space community renders such a goal futile.

I'm also opposed to grand government enterprises in general, partly on general libertarian principles, but also because they're a very inefficient way of accomplishing the goal. There are certainly things that the government can do to make such things possible, but if we simply make the goal putting people on Mars, I think that it's likely that it will come to tears just as Apollo did, with no sustainability, because it will once again happen before the technology is in place to make it practical.

When Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, he didn't have to make a major investment in R&D. It required bravery and strength, but not technology. We need to get to the same point in space, at which point, as I've said in the past, the National Geographic Society (or perhaps more appropriately, the Planetary Society) can sponsor a trip to the Red Planet. And if there are people who want to settle it, they'll be able to do so as well.

What we need to do, as a community, is to foster government policies that will make that possible, so we don't have to squabble any more over which is the best goal. We can all seek our own fortunes and desires. In my opinion (and it's one that hasn't changed in well over a decade), the key to this is developing a vibrant infrastructure to, from and in low earth orbit, and the financial engine for this will be, at least initially, public space travel.

NASA should certainly be doing research on things like reforming Martian atmosphere into propellants, and nuclear propulsion, and other techniques for in-situ resource utilization (things that have been underinvested in to date, because too much money has been going to pointless prestige programs like Shuttle and ISS), but they should be doing so because no one else will, and the goal should be to provide technologies that non-NASA people can utilize for their own purposes.

I don't want another socialist state enterprise going off to Mars. I want to see our federal space program reoriented toward one more reflective of American (rather than Soviet) values, and one that empowers us all to seek our dreams in space, whatever and wherever they may be.

[Update a few minutes after posting this]

John Carter McKnight has a similar take (at least that's how I choose to interpret it), but from a different angle.

[Friday morning follow up]

Thomas James has a thoughtful response.

As I said in his comments section:

Forget the socialism versus non-socialism, if one finds those confusing or a matter only of degree.

My point is that in one case, it's of the government, for the government, by the government. I'm trying to get something that has broader purposes. I want to see NASA return to the role that it had as NACA, before things got entirely perverted by the Cold War and Apollo, in which the development of the space industry became a (democratic) state enterprise to beat their (totalitarian) state enterprise. Sadly, it was never established as capitalism versus communism, because that would have made it harder to get the left, both in the US and Europe, on board.

My other problem with having NASA actually mount such an expedition is that it continues to promote the myth (as have Shuttle and station, for years) that only governments, and large governments at that, are capable of such things, and discourages private investment.

My own conclusion after reading a lot of "where do we go from here?" articles is that the state of propulsion and materials technology isn't nearly at the point yet where a Mars mission can be considered realistically feasible.

And while I understand the pull of "because its there!", and Mars would give the agency something to aim towards which would be better than the current inertia (of the manned program, at least), coming up with Mars as a goal just for the sake of having a goal will probably result in NASA being stuck in the same rut it found/finds itself after Apollo, except this time it'd be 'Where do we go after Mars?' Jupiter? Centauri? I think we've seen the perils of shaping space travel to reach The Next Big Thing, and its not sustainable - especially these days, when the public's span of attention is even shorter than it was during Apollo.

And while perhaps we'd get some more practical use out of the ISS before it goes the way of Mir and Skylab if it were integrated into part of a Mars mission, again, I don't think that's practical given the huge hurdles, at least before the ISS's lifetime is up. Unfortunately, ISS could wind up as one of the most expensive white elephants of all time.

I personally would like to see a lot more emphasis on asteroid tracking and defense than there currently is, since that's a potentially catastrophic problem which the current technology *can* handle, but I don't think that would fall under the manned program, either.

This latest post puzzles me. How is it that a government sponsered expedition to Mars is "socialistic", but a government sponsered program to develop technology and infrastructure that would permit others to launch such expeditions "not socialistic?" It seems to me that you're throwing the word around willy nilly.

I'm not impressed by the argument, by the way. Prince Henry the Navigator's technology development activities were government sponsered. Columbus's voyages were government sponsered. So was Lewis and Clark. These were all things which met with considerable success and enhanced the power of the nations which undertook them.

I think that government sponsered exploration and research and development are very appropriate, particularly in areas where the private sector is unable to act. (And if you think National Geographic is sending people to Mars any time soon, I have some beach property in Wyoming I'd like to sell.)

Now this is not to say that I'm any more a big a fan for a lunge as Mars than you are. If someone made me Space Czar, one of the first things I'd do is get us back to the Moon.

Incidentally, I wonder about the notion of "developing technology" for others to use, without actually testing it. I suspect that if NASA developed-say-a fusion drive, National Geographic or the Mars Society would want to see it tested under real world conditions-say-by using it to send people to Mars before they would be willing to take it over. Just a thought.

Come to think of it, how is it that human space exploration is "socialistic" but robotic probes are "not socialistic?" What makes the former one and the latter the other?

I didn't say that robot probes weren't socialistic...

This latest post puzzles me. How is it that a government sponsered expedition to Mars is "socialistic", but a government sponsered program to develop technology and infrastructure that would permit others to launch such expeditions "not socialistic?" It seems to me that you're throwing the word around willy nilly.

In the same way that NACA developed technologies that supported the commercial aviation industry, but it didn't monopolize aircraft design and operations.

As for your other analogies, I already addressed them. Lewis and Clarke didn't require technology development.

I'm not sure I understand the points you're trying to make. Let's see if I can deal with them.

NACA did not involve exploration of new places, but the development of technology and infrastructure to get from one old place to another in a new and better way. The cloest equivilent to what the current NASA is doing would be operating the space shuttle and its so far futile attempts to find better ways to get to Low Earth Orbit. I agree and have written publicly that these should be commercialized. But there is no equivilant to going to the Moon or any othe place to what NACA did.

And your point that Lewis and Clark didn't have to develop technology is not really something which makes it "not socialist" and an effort to-say-go to Mars which requires some technology "socialist."
Your argument really falls down when you approve of Lewis and Clark, as exploration without technology development, and approve of NASA doing technology development, so long as it doesn't use it to explore, and but somehow disapprove of the two activities when combined. I'm afraid I do not understand the reasoning behind that.

Forget the semantics of the word "socialistic" - Rand is dead-on here. NASA ought to be building the technology to facilitate space exploration and colonization, and exploring inexpensively now using robots. Sending humans into space at this time is a total waste of money, because the technology is inadequate to get us to LEO or the moon, let alone mars. While it's true that humans can be sent to these places, doing so is so expensive that it requires the resources of world superpowers. It takes between $2000 and $10000 per pound to get anything into LEO - that's $460K to $2.3M to put me into orbit naked. I don't want to know what it'd cost to get me to mars and back alive, with some equipment and a couple of other people to annoy me during the trip. Lewis, Clark and Columbus did not face those kind of costs.

The two key problems of space travel have yet to be solved: inexpensive access to LEO, and a way to get around in deep space quickly. Both require high-risk, long term research to produce breakthroughs in propulsion. THAT's where the money should be going, not on another round of the "space olympics" ala Shuttle, ISS, Apollo, or moonbase Alpha. Unfortunately, NASA right now is spending billions doing marginal science on ISS/Shuttle, and millions on propulsion. This is exactly backwards.

Tristan, I'm not sure I understand your point either. If your point is that space flight is too expensive, I agree with you. That's why I've advocated pubically, in venues far more public than this one, the commercialization of Earth to LEO operations. But that actually addresses the problem of cost. Cheap and easy travel to LEO makes going further also cheap and easy.
It's also not true that Columbus and Lewis and Clark did not face dangers. Quite a few of the men who sailed with Columbus and subsequent voyages of exploration died. There were several instances during Lewis and Clark's trek when the entire expedition might have been lost
Also, like Rand, you do not address the point of building-say-breakthrough propulsion technologies without adequetly testing them. I submit that the only way to thoroughly test those kind of technologies (and others necessarey for exploring the solar system) is to-well-explore the solar system. Yours and Rand's idea is sort of like Lindburgh building an aircraft engine and not using it to cross the Atlantic or Prince Henry the Navigator building the caravel and not taking out to sea. It doesn't make any sense.

1) I did not say Lewis, Clark, and Columbus did not face danger. I said they did not face the level of COSTS that today's space explorers face. It did not cost hundreds of times more to sail to America then to sail to known lands, and sailing was already fairly common.

2) Commercializing LEO ventures is a good thing, but it does not address the cost-of-access issue. It costs less than $2 per pound for me to fly to New York from San Jose, and back. It costs 2,000 to 10,000 times that to get me to LEO (not counting luggage). Nobody's commercial ventures are anywhere near fixing that imbalance, though I fully support them trying. I admit that there are probably economy of scale issues - if a company did hundreds of LEO launches a year, or thousands, they'd find ways to reduce costs (even NASA might). I still think a substantial research push into things like hypersonic jet engines could put a real dent in the costs.

3) New space propulsion technologies are never tested on manned missions, because those missions are risk-averse. The ISS has 80386's on it - they use near-obsolete technology on manned missions, because (a) it is known and reliable and (b) the long project timeline of a large manned mission means the technology selected at project kickoff is obsolete by launch (okay, I admit that would not apply to propulsion, since nobody else is inventing it).

4) Today, we can test new engines extensively with robots, with low cost and fast project turnaround. Lindburg didn't have that option. Anyway, we are NO WHERE NEAR where Lindburg was technologically - the way we build spaceships today is like some 18th century inventor bolting a coal-fired steam engine to the basket of a large balloon, and then announcing that "the age of flight has arrived!".

What's needed now is theoretical work, research, and extensive build/test/fix experimentation. I don't care who does it, private or public; I think NASA is best positioned to do it, because there is little chance of a near-term payoff, leaving commercial ventures unmotivated. In the LEO access arena, perhaps we're closer, and the commercial sector can do the job better already - I don't know. I do know that continuing to fly the shuttle when the real work is going undone is a sad shame.

I have to disagree with Tristan on the propulsion issue. No new breakthroughs are needed in the basic technology of propulsion. We just need to take technologies already known to work and figure out ways to make them cheaper, more efficient, and more robust. Up to a point NASA can do that, by research programs aimed at ferreting out the various ways in which rocket engines can degrade and fail. Even better is if the power of the market can be brought to bear. History shows that markets are very effective at reducing the costs associated with a given technology.

Taking 10% of the NASA budget and using it to guarantee a market for material delivered to LEO would do a better job of reducing costs than spending the same amount looking for breakthroughs. We know how to get to LEO, the moon, the asteroids, mars. We need to encourage smart people to figure out their own ways to do it cheaply, and then buy launch services from them.

Your first link is bad. I should point to:

http://www.interglobal.org/weblog/archives/002957.html#002957

Bob

"The two key problems of space travel have yet to be solved: inexpensive access to LEO, and a way to get around in deep space quickly. Both require high-risk, long term research to produce breakthroughs in propulsion."

...or to say to hell with the greens and build Nuclear Systems. I think we need to work to break the stigma of Nuclear as a terrestrial power source and a source of propulsion.

The motto of Project Orion: "Saturn by 1970"

I don't think we are talking an either/or here. If the US government didn't monopolize access to space it could be possible to have both. If the US government went to Mars in a such a way that it left infrastructure behind (a quick and dirty space station in Earth orbit for assembling and collecting parts and fuel prior to launch, another one on Phobos) the commercial space industry could benefit tremendously.

Its also possible that if the project was designed correctly NASA could hire private industry to put parts into orbit for them (left at that quick and dirty space station) so NASA only had to worry about assembly and the mission which would do a lot to promote non-government access to space.

Then there are side benefits, government involvement will get more press which cannot hurt the young space industry, it could provide some of the needed initial capital and rational to get the startups going, and it could motivate more kids to go into the sciences.

Space fans should stop the either or thinking and try to push NASA towards a correct solution that doesn't leave us hanging after the missions are over and that doesn't continue NASAs monopolies that are strangling space industries.

Anyway, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Yes we need to get our voices together and let our private industries know what we really want and need. For all the money that Boeing is throwing at the Sonic Cruiser concept they could just as well start on developing a LEO Cruiser instead.

Bravo Rand. I agree with you that a national goal to send Women/Men to Mars is not a good investment of tax dollars.

Moreover, I agree with your reasoning. Gov't projects produce value, for the most part, for gov't employees and politicians that support them. The value granted to mere citizens is of a lesser concern. The Apollo project was a wonderful acheivement, but the Billions of dollars was most directly useful to the 12 Astronauts on the Moon's surface, the tens or low hundreds of geologists that got to examine the rocks, and the .5 million or so aerospace workers employeed making the hardware.

So you're Dennis Tito, and you'd like to buy that rocket? Sorry, no can do, only gov't employees (and senators and foriegn dignataries) need apply.

I would love to fly in space; my passion for this is nearly unbounded. Sometimes I even become inspired at my tax money being spent on the shuttle (at least I can watch), but then again I snap out of it and remember that I'M NOT GETTING MY RIDE.

I'm hoping that the X-prize creates a beachhead in the rocket-ride marketplace, both in a technological sense, and more importantly in the business sense and public perception sense.