RadioBanter - View Single Post - BTW Stevie were watch the news lately about NASA

October 7th 05, 11:46 AM

wrote:
K4YZ wrote:

MY biggest disappointment is that we are as close to Mars
as we've
been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission there yet.

???

Not sure what you mean, Steve.

I MEAN that my biggest disappointment is that we are as close to
Mars as we've been in centuries, but we don't have a manned mission
there yet. How was that confusing?

Going to Mars is at least 100 times more difficult than going to the
moon. Mars never gets closer than 30 million miles - more than 100
times farther away than the moon. A Mars mission would be years long
rather than a week or two. Martian gravity and atmosphere make the
problems even worse.

Yep...But...

It's been over 30 years since we've walked on the moon. We got
there in a bit over 9 years from President Kennedy's challenge to do
so. We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned missions.

Astronomers and scientists knew then when Mars would be in an
Earth-Mars-Earth (In this thread if I refer to EME, this is what I
mean...Not EME as in "moonbounce")-transit favorable trajectory.

There have been hundreds of plans put forth using AVAILABLE
technology and resources to get there...All we had to do was pick one
and get started.

Just ONE plan that seemed practical enough (or at least made the
most sense) to me was one to send the necessary resources for life
support in a series of UN-manned "pre-missions" while the manned vessel
was prepared in Earth orbit. Resources would be pre-positioned both on
Mars and along the way. Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until
the "package" was in place.

If it costs $100-200 billion or more to go to the moon, what would Mars
cost?

Who cares?

The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of
dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969.. Imagine
where we COULD have been...?!?!

Maybe we would have had our CURRENT level of technology 15 or 20
years ago?

Just think...If we'd pared only $10B from each YEAR'S defense
budget since 1970, we'd have "only" spent $360B now, which is about 1
1/2 years military budget over THIRTY-SIX years...And wudda had an
American flag and American footprints on TWO astronomical bodies by
now.

If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line
practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it. Anyone can
"successfully" argue that it's going to "cost" time, money and
resources to go. Even lives. But EVERY expedition of exploration in
man's time has cost money up front and lives along the way. The REAL
bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd
only said "Let's Do It."

Back to NASA...The technologies in my chosen profession alone that
have benefitted from the Space Program are phenominal. I think if we
pulled the rug out from under it any time soon, the "trickle down"
effect in lost of impetus in technology development would be rapid and
deep felt.

Can you guarantee that those advances would not have happened if the
money had been spent on research in the fields directly affected? IOW,
why not simply go after a problem directly?

In industrialized society's history, major technological
advancements have MOSTLY followed (1) war, (2) captialist investment for profit (3) government subsidy to do research in that field (usually the impetus of, again, war). There are certainly exceptions to the rule, radio being one of them. "Radio" was not developed by governmental subsidy, nor was it the product of an 18th century "Motorola" but was the "product" of private inventors.

No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have
occured...but WHEN would they have occured? Certainly NOT in the time
frame that they have.

73

Steve, K4YZ