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#7
October 7th 05, 11:40 PM
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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. And I think "we" made the right decision. 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. 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. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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