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

October 8th 05, 03:00 AM

wrote:
K4YZ wrote:

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?

The distance from Earth to Mars varies from when the two planets are
right next to each other in their orbits (about 35 million miles) to
when they are opposite each other, with the Sun in between (well over
210 million miles).

The minimum distance varies with each orbit - is that what you meant?

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.

Yep. Think about *why* the USA was able to do it.

And if it took 9 years to get to the moon, and Mars is 100 times
harder, that works out to 900 years!

We've squandered those intervening years on LEO manned
missions.

I'd hardly say they were "squandered". Other things took precedence.

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.

And they know all the problems. One of them is that with any known
practical rocket technology, a mission to Mars will take *years*. With
no hope of rescue from Earth if anything serious goes wrong.

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.

The plans are only basic outlines. They require lots of development to
become reality.

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.

Of course. The first missions would be one-way supply ships that would
orbit Mars for years, waiting for people to show up. They could go at
very slow speeds to maximize the usable payload.

Resources would be pre-positioned both on
Mars and along the way.

Pre-positioning "along the way" isn't practical. The only really
practical place to put a supply cache is in Martian orbit.

Not one man had to spend a day in orbit until
the "package" was in place.

More like "packages", so that the mission would not depend on any
single component.

Now consider how much payload would have to be sent ahead. We're
talking *tons* of supplies and equipment, all of which would have to be
still usable after *years* in space. Sure it can be done, but it's not
easy, fast or inexpensive.

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

Who cares?

Those of us who have to pay the bills!

The PRESENT Space program has already generated TRILLIONS of
dollars in new technology and incentives since July, 1969..

Like what?

And can you guarantee that the money would not have been better
spent on direct problem solving?

Imagine
where we COULD have been...?!?!

Do you remember the 1970s? I do.

All through the 1950s and 1960s, "aerospace" was the big deal.
Incredible resources were poured into the space programs and "defense".
We were told our future would be like that shown on "The Jetsons".

But when the supply of cheap oil disappeared in the early 1970s, we
found ourselves unable to produce a decent "economy" car. "Aerospace"
didn't help the folks in the gas lines.

Meanwhile the Japanese and Europeans already had lots of good economy
cars. It's taken the US auto industry decades to catch up.

Now we're set to repeat that history.

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

How? And current level of which technology?

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.

Imagine if that money had gone into energy independence instead.

If we're going to have a tit-for-tat about the bottom-line
practicality of going, Jim, I'm not up for it.

I am. That's what engineering is all about - dealing with *real*
problems.

It's easy to blue-sky what coulda-woulda-shoulda been done. It's a lot
tougher to actually do the things. If you don't want to take a long
serious look at just how difficult and expensive a manned Mars trip
would be, please don't lecture us about what
should have been done.

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.

Of course. And some times it was worth it. Other times it wasn't.

The REAL
bottom line is that we could have done this a LONG time ago if we'd only said "Let's Do It."

But "we" didn't, because "we" didn't think it was worth the costs.

"We" are busy selling our hats to each other at the moment. "We" don't
have a national will to do great things any more.

And I think "we" made the right decision.

Lessay we concentrate all our resources into feeding the poor, fixing
all the social inequalities, and making the world a better place for our
children and our childrens children.

After all that. I would wager my life that there will still be poor,
there will still be starving people, there will still be inequality, and
the world will not be any better a place than it is today.

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.

BINGO!

The same was mostly true of computers. Oh yes, the first real computer,
ENIAC, was built for the Army to compute artillery aiming tables. But
it was built on the work of earlier machines like the Atasinoff-Berry
Computer. And only one ENIAC was ever built. Its successors came from
private industry, for commercial purposes.

No, I can't guarantee that those advances would not have
occured...but WHEN would they have occured?

Nobody knows.

Right - who knows.

As much as I believe that the Space program was a peaceful spur to
technology, in the end, I don't care.

I like adventure, I like science, and I like exploring. People *will"
go into space, people *will* go to Mars. Will it be us, or will we be
known as the Portuguese of space exploration?

Certainly NOT in the time
frame that they have.

Why not?

The fact is that we've avoided making serious longterm plans to solve
some basic technological problems in the USA. That avoidance has cost
us dearly, and will cost us more, until we
tackle the problems head-on rather than expecting some silver bullet to
do it for us.

Wanna buy a hat???

- Mike KB3EIA -