Whatever happened with going to Mars?

[fencesitter]

Remember that? Bush's big space project? We need to send all these guys somewhere, maybe we should push this program again. Maybe he meant Veronica Mars.

[catmandu57]

1. That, oh that was just a distraction

made to get out minds off whatever was going on at the time. We don't have the money to go to fucking cleveland.

[soothsayer]

2. I'll chip in $ if it means sending chimpy into space

one way ticket

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. I say we send him there to look for oil. He has experience

in that field.

[Taxloss]

3. Ah yes, the Bush Mars Plan.

As it turned out, there's no oil on Mars. Plan off. (Oh, and America's broke.)

Don't worry, the stars and stripe will be fluttering on Mars before long. Only one red stripe, and only five yellow stars. But better than nothing ...

[Ravenseye]

5. Well it is the Red Planet after all (nt)

[Ravenseye]

4. Pocket Change

The plan was to put a man on the moon again by 2020, establish a base there, and then get yer ass to Mars, at the earliest by 2030.

Of course the money he alotted for it was peanuts, and i'm not sure if it ever even got to NASA.

I guess right now it's still in the planning stages. Maybe it was supposed to make him sound forward thinking, as opposed to fucking retarded.

[Ian David]

23. Moon base is just so they can have free mass to use for inertial weapons

They just want to set-up a solar powered magnetic railgun so they can use moon rocks as kinetic-kill weapons, like the "rods from the gods."

[Ravenseye]

30. Right

Let the Chinese have Mars. The Moon makes a much better orbiting weapons platform.

[TahitiNut]

6. No oil reserves.

:shrug:

[wtmusic]

7. It fell in the memory hole along with "no nation-building" nt

[leftofthedial]

8. we went, but there weren't any WMDs

so we decided to keep it quiet.

[SaveElmer]

9. Going to Mars is a good idea...

And I believe is still part of NASA's plans. Moon first then Mars...


I don't trust Bush's ability to lead such an effort, nor do I trust his motivations. I just hope we get the program into the hands of someone competent.

[endarkenment]

14. It is a good idea exactly why?

[baby_mouse]

19. Isn't it going to take something like 3 years just to get there?

That's a substantial commitment.

I think more moonshots first is a better idea. There's bound to be some commercial application for moonshots. Then there'll be plenty of nice common ground for people to compare a Mars shot with.

[endarkenment]

26. I think that both are stupid egotistical wastes of money.

There is no advantage to sending humans out on these exploration missions and considerable disadvantage. The way to do exploration cost effectively is through the use of robots like the rover class robots that have done spectacularly well on mars.

The Bush administration has other motivations. They want to build up space based military capabilities and they want to hide part of the funding for this effort in the stupid mars adventure. Don't get sucked into their bullshit.

[baby_mouse]

27. What's wrong with sending people into space???

I think you're right about bush's space militarism but that doesn't mean people shouldn't explore things to find out about them.

I think the militarism comes from a kind of "someone else will do it if we don't so we might as well" argument, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It may be possible to have a space program with no militarism, as there used to be. It's the exploration and discovery that attracts me, and also whatever commercial applications reveal themselves. Moon colonies for low-gravity construction projects? Cool! Saves fuel launching satellites from there also...

[endarkenment]

32. 1000x the cost and huge risk with no known benefit.?

Other than that it is fine. A human expedition to mars would be absurdly expensive. have you noticed we are running a huge annual deficit, that we don't know how we are going to fund our old age pension obligations, that unlike every other major industrial democracy we can't afford universal health insurance of universal high level education for our citizens? Way down at the bottom of my list of funding priorities is the flattery of putting men on the moon or an expedition to mars.

[baby_mouse]

35. Yes, actually I think Mars is a bad idea right now...

...er, as I said...

It's the defence budget that's cutting away the funds, not NASA. And again, it's exploration that interests me, facts, science, not flattery. I don't think moonshots would have the same egotistical image these days anyway, really, would they? There's only space for one Neil Armstrong. As poor old Buzz Aldrin found out! As to the cost, any bank will tell you that always withholding funds on the grounds that you don't know how a business venture's going to pan out eventually spells death for the bank.

Oh, and who said I was talking about YOUR country? Just because you can't afford it doesn't mean NOBODY should do it.

[endarkenment]

38. So what is wrong with cost effective rover class robots?

They do a damn good job of exploring.

"Oh, and who said I was talking about YOUR country? Just because you can't afford it doesn't mean NOBODY should do it."

Sorry bad assumption on my part. I don't think any other country has the resources or the stupidity to fund a manned expedition to either the moon or mars.

[Taxloss]

29. Eventually, Earth will die.

Hopefully later rather than sooner, but stars and planets die.

I think humanity deserves to survive. Mars is a stepping stone to that.

[endarkenment]

34. Idle romantic sci-fi fantasy.

If we had nothing better to do with our resources, we could indulge ourselves. Meanwhile robotic exploration is cost efficient and does everything human exploration could do.

[Taxloss]

40. Robot exploration can't move humans to other planets.

Eventually we will have to do that. The whole "better things to do with our resources" line is a bit tired, it was used to condemn the Apollo launches, a programme that we still benefit from. We can learn so much about ourselves, as well as other planets. And, frankly, there are many things that robots CAN'T do. They can't use initiative, they can't report back, they can't make decisions on the spot based on what they are seeing, hearing and feeling. And they can't inspire an entire planet with their achievement.

Satellite communication was an "idle sci-fi fantasy" when Arthur C Clarke invented it.

[endarkenment]

42. Oh please, do the math.

We can't move people to other planets either, at least not more than one or two for a visit, and even that would be absurdly expensive.

"They can't use initiative, they can't report back, they can't make decisions on the spot based on what they are seeing, hearing and feeling."

Perhaps you misunderstand how the robotic explorers work. The humans in mission control use initiative. The robots do indeed report back. They can make limited decisions, and the humans back at JPL are real good at make bigger decisions for them. There is a lag problem, but that certainly hasn't hindered the rover project at all. When we went to the moon with men the best we could do was put them there for a day or two. The cost of that effort was absurd. The rovers are still up there still exploring, still doing useful work. In terms of utility, the robots won this one hands down.

I'm all for exploring space and our solar system but I think we should do so using the best technology available at a cost we can afford and get the most return on our expenditures. Robotic exploration is exactly how to do this right.

[zbdent]

10. Marvin donated money to the Bush misAdministration

to back them off . . .

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Mars, bitches!

:rofl:

[Gman]

12. It's just like the billions for hydrogen energy

never was gonna happen.

[madokie]

13. mars isn't that north, south, west or east of bagdadd a little ways

[Webster Green]

15. What a cluster fuck that would be with the chimp in charge...

"Nobody could have predicted that the craft would crash into the International Space Station.....heh, heh"

[pointblank]

16. MARS???

Hell, we can't even topple a dictatorship and prop up a puppet government in its place without fucking it up...How the hell are we gonna go to another planet? :sarcasm:

Seriously though, I read an article at msnbc.com about it yesterday and they want to have a moon base started by like 2020 or something.

[hunter]

17. The United States is having trouble getting to the toilet.

Mars is quite a bit further on than that.

Lesson learned: Don't buy your whiskey from the Bush Administration.

[mandyky]

18. George is already taking trips on drugs or mental illness

he doesn't need to go to Mars.

Seriously, it was just a throw away line in his SOTU speech, just about as probable as medical savings accounts helping the uninsured with their health care costs. Or another lie the the 16 words.
You know, fertilizer! :)

[NoPasaran]

21. Dave Chapelle ridiculed it to death

Mars, bitches!

[Ian David]

22. You mean "No Astronaut Left Behind"?

Bush's un-funded mandate that does little except strip money from other space programs?

[librechik]

24. we sent a new orbiter--should be there in 6 mos or so

that's the good thing. What idiot wants to send people????

Oh, THAT idiot!

[madrchsod]

25. we should go to mars but there is no money

for all those who think this is a bad idea stop and think how far advanced the world would be if we had kept on exploring instead of building space trucks to nowhere? we would have colonized the moon and would have had manned exploration of mars by now. the technology impact would be immense-we would be over 34 years from where we are now...think of what we have lost since 1972

[Solon]

28. I would agree except for...

First, if that happened, the "Space Race" probably would have involved militarizing space to protect whatever offworld territories we "claim" though such claims would be technically illegal at the time. He3 on the Moon's surface would have a HUGE economic impact and would have advanced technology, assuming that we don't do something stupid and like start WW3 over it. The USSR would have worked double time to catch up to the United States, particularly if we started claiming semipermanent bases on the surface, though the Russians would have probably still developed more advanced Space Stations than anything we could come up with in the 70s.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

31. it was a JFK moment, so if we ever get to mars

they can claim it was junior's idea.

[KyuzoGator]

33. Same thing that happened to human/animal hybrid bans.

It was Bush's annual SOTU WTF non-sequitur.

[Vidar]

36. Can't go there--might find Osama.

[KansDem]

37. Mars has a really strict immigration policy. (eom)

[donkeyotay]

39. "We create reality"

While you're reacting to that reality, we create more.

Is the whole sinking ship of America enough reality yet, or are they moving on? WWIII perhaps?

[Drewskie]

41. they have to establish a base on the moon first,

something that might happen by 2020. That alone will be a very difficult task due to moon dust, severe temperature fluctations, and other factors. A Mars manned mission is in the very distant future...

[Marie26]

43. He's moved on to animal/human hybrids

You've got to update the Bush kooky plan file.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

44. It was symbolic!

He wasn't talking about the planet. He was talking about the Roman deity. He was invoking Mars, god of war, the true god of this administration.

Umm. Or maybe it was just distraction.

[barb162]

45. fix New Orleans first