Quick: Read The Planetary Society Mars Plan While It Is Free

[bananas]

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/06/quick-read-the.html

Quick: Read The Planetary Society Mars Plan While It Is Free
By Keith Cowing on June 29, 2015 7:06 PM. 4 Comments

In April 2015 the Planetary Society held an invitation-only "Humans Orbiting Mars" workshop wherein they unveiled their idea for a mission to Mars. At a quick press conference after the event (no media were allowed to attend the workshop) the Planetary Society promised more detail would be made public - later. Since then nothing but crickets. Well, it now looks like the Planetary Society Mars plan is now online - but only for a few weeks - then you will have to pay to read it. An article on the grand plan by Scott Hubbard will only be online here until 29 July 2015. I do not see any mention of this report's availability on the Planetary Society website. I am not sure how far a mission concept like this is going to get if no one can read the details. Given that most of these new space policy ideas have been semi-secret lately it would seem that the authors are not really interested in any meaningful public engagement.

- Stealthy Humans Orbiting Mars Workshop Update, earlier post
- Making Space Policy In Secret (Again), earlier post
- Good News Everyone: Another Closed Door Humans to Mars Thing, earlier post

The plan is at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/space.2015.0018

[bananas]

1. A related audio presentation is also available

This is an audio teleconference, with a set of slides as a pdf to go with the audio:

http://spaceref.com/missions-and-programs/nasa/nasa-fiso-presentation-a-scenario-for-a-human-mission-to-mars-orbit-in-the-2030s.html

NASA FISO Presentation: A Scenario for a Human Mission to Mars Orbit in the 2030's
Status Report - Source: SpaceRef
Posted June 18, 2015 10:19 AM

Now available is the May 20, 2015 NASA Future In-Space Operations (FISO) telecon material. The speaker was Hoppy Price (NASA JPL) who discussed "A Scenario for a Human Mission to Mars Orbit in the 2030's".

Humphrey (Hoppy) Price is manager of the Assigned Pre-Projects Systems Engineering Group at JPL. He was the Project System Engineer for GRAIL and the Configuration Engineer for Cassini. He has also managed and performed systems engineering studies for Mars Sample Return, various interplanetary robotic missions, advanced propulsion systems, and solar sails. He was a team member for NASA's Humans to Mars Design Reference Architecture 5.

Listen to podcast of "A Scenario for a Human Mission to Mars Orbit in the 2030's" telecon:

- Download the MP3 File.
- Download the presentation (PDF).

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thanks for this link! The Mars Plan is downloadable...

...and I'm sure lots of people will download it before this deadline you mentioned (7-29-15) (--after which it will cost money to read it?), and spread it far and wide.

It is a fascinating read!

In the unlikelihood of another "Kennedy moment" (President with sufficient vision and wisdom to commit our country wholeheartedly to space exploration), the Mars Plan is all about money--our money, trillions and trillions of dollars of which have been grossly miss-spent on slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people, putting U.S. soldiers in harm's way for no good reason, militarizing our society and world society (weapons profiteering; turning police forces into subjugating armies; the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs"; torturing prisoners, etc.), and providing huge "pots of gold" for the uber-rich in bankster bailouts, tax breaks and "free trade for the rich" (plundering resources, here and abroad; deregulation; worker enslavement).

Kennedy had the vision and wisdom to start the process of "beating our swords into plowshares" following the militarization of the U.S. and the world in WW II, and the advent of nuclear weapons which threaten to bring a real "Armageddon" down upon the human race. This is WHY he was taken out by the CIA (see "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters," by James Douglass--he nails the CIA), which had other plans for the U.S. "military-industrial complex."

I don't think we've had a real President since then (expect maybe Jimmy Carter, who was gotten rid of in a different way). (Real President = fully in command of the CIA and the MIC.)

So here we are, trying to send human beings to Mars--a THREE YEAR mission--on the cheap. This Mars Plan gives you chills--both good chills and bad chills. The "good chill" is that, yes, despite all that has gone down--despite all the shitty presidents we've had since JFK--the engineering community remains visionary and remains determined to take the next steps into space, with human exploration of the solar system. That is awesome! That is good! That is what the U.S. SHOULD BE doing!

The "bad chill" is that doing this on the cheap puts those incredibly brave future astronauts, who will volunteer for such a mission, at much greater risk, in what is surely the most daring and most dangerous mission ever devised by human beings. I'm thinking about them. How can we ask them to do this for us--for all of humanity--without adequate funding to help ensure their survival and success?

Yes, there have been some benefits for NASA in its having the deal with drastic budget cuts. Lack of funding has resulted in creative thinking and innovation. They have certainly not been stopped by this lack of vision in our leaders. My God, what they have accomplished! Hubble alone is equivalent to centuries and centuries--indeed, millennia-- of human efforts to understand the Universe. And they've done so much more--incredible probes to Jupiter, Saturn and their moons; rovers still running around Mars; Viking zipping out of the solar system (!), on-going human activity in the space station, and so much more. Though their budgets have been severely constrained, NASA itself has NOT been constrained in its far vision and its many successes.

However, putting human lives at extremely serious risk, for a very long time--risk that is totally beyond the hope of any rescue mission, should things go wrong--is another matter. This will not stop the volunteers for this mission, should NASA succeed in launching its various steps (tests on the moon, test mission to Mars' moon Phobos, year long mission ON Mars). Astronauts are the bravest and noblest of human beings. But it should give the rest of us pause. Why are we still funding slaughter, and banksters, and not NASA?

This is a very big and very complex question, I know. What went wrong? Why do we seem to have lost our soul as a people? And what can we do about it?

We should call the Mars Mission "the Plowshares Mission." Peaceful use of high technology IS our soul as a people. How to restore our very soul?