USA to ban Mars missions?

[yoshikoroyimara 5]

I did a speech and debate report way back in high school discussing the decline of science in America and President Bush's REFUSAL of support of the sciences. Even his father believes that the government should follow research. I guess we need another USSR for competition, because China isn't cutting it!

[phenphen 1]

Originally posted by: Bluebeard The problem is most Americans have lost interest in space exploration but they get really happy when a Starbucks opens another store.quote>

I bet there will be a Starbucks on Mars before 2037.

[Duke87 1,070]

Okay, I'm going to have to have the unpopular opinion on this one.

I myself consider this a step in the right direction. After all, space exploration doesn't directly benefit humans on Earth in any way, shape, or form. It only benefits science. And our government is how many trillion dollars in debt now? Seriously, I'd be all in favor of scrapping NASA completely. There are much more important things the government could spend that money on, like fixing all those structurally deficient bridges...

Also remember that banning NASA from doing something doesn't mean no one else can do it. If a private company wants to put forward a manned mission to Mars, no one's stopping them. It's not an issue of that it shouldn't be done (and like just about everyone else, I agree it should), it's simply that the government can't afford to pay for it.

[teddyb4492 1]

Well as for a StarBucks - I sure hope so, but only if they can cryio freeze me and send me up to drink some coffee in outer space. ;-)

Ok seriously, the exploration of space and of sciences is one of the key things that will lead the United States in to the next century and keep us as the global leader on this planet. I know that space exploration is very expensive and time as well as resource consuming but hell, look how much we have spent on the war. For all that money we could have gone to mars and back a 100 times over. I do agree that NASA needs a lot of work and that they would do well to have some competition. As for privet companies - that's a great idea. And they should be involved, that is what this country was built on, but not without NASA being in the mix. Our president has ignored his responsibilities in the area of science in favor of right wing religious zealots. It is too bad that we let politics and religion interfere with common sense and the development of science for the betterment of all mankind. Hell, one day we are going to need those resources from other worlds if we are going to survive.

Now it's true that there are a lot of things that need to fixed in the world and in my country, and we should do so much more to that end, but one thing we should not do is sacrifice ore science and a big part of that is our space exploration. Hell, now is the time to take the next step and get out there even more.

So I can drink coffee in outer space before I die. 

[JEC 101]

Duke87, understanding the nature of other planets can greatly benefit our (as humans) knowledge of Earth which will in turn benefit humans.

Earth is still very active geologically; planets such as Mars do not have active plate tectonics, any volcanic activity, life forms that inhibit the planet, etc. By understanding the current state of other planets, we can know the history of our own, and even possibly the future.

If it benefits science, that almost always means that it will benefit human nature. If science didn't benefit human nature, what would be the point of its existence?

Of course there are many things the US needs to fund instead at the moment, but knowing what Congress has accomplished (or should I say unaccomplished) thus far is not very comforting to see where they would put those extra funds.

[Easy Bakes 253]

I still think you would have no shortage of people who would volunteer to go to Mars.

Even if it was a one way trip. Just to be The 1st.

[BurroDiablo 222]

Oh, hell yes... I would certainly volenteer for the trip to mars. But the ESA needs to pull its finger out its arse in this case and Fund some Nasa-esc SpacePorts here in Europe... like, asap.

Edit-

Found this Article on Wiki

[hym 358]

Call it odd timing, but today my university hosted both a Q&A segment and a lecture with B. Gentry Lee, who is Chief Engineer for the Planetary Flight Systems Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasedena, California, and is responsible for the engineering integrity of all the robotic planetary missions managed by JPL, including the twin rover missions to Mars and implementation of NASA’s Deep Impact and Stardust missions.  He has also served as chief engineer of the Galilo and Viking projects.  Additional honors include the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Harold Masursky Award from the Astronomical Society.  The Q&A segment was extremely informal and unscripted, but we did discuss various aspects of the whole Mars quest.  I'll try to use information he shared with us today to shed some further light on issues that have been raised in this thread.

First, successfully putting humans are Mars is extremely difficult and makes the typical Mars rover project seem easy (and it's not).  Unless things change drastically in the next decade or so, NASA would use a "soft landing, direct insertion" technique, which is the hardest landing method ever devised.  Basically, not only are they attempting to land without the use of airbags, which is more difficult on Mars than it is with the moon, but they are not entering into Mars' orbit before attempting the landing, which makes the landing effort even more difficult.  Fortunately, Mr. Lee went into detail on how all of this works, and since there is tremendous technical detail involved in all of this, I'll try to explain some of the technical details of these processes.

As you're approaching the planet, you obviously need to land your payload on the surface.  This is a two step process.  The first step is to determine whether you want to an "orbital insertion" or a "direct insertion."  An orbital insertion, as it sounds, involves reaching the target, entering into an orbit around the target, and then landing the payload on the surface through a slow descent through the atmosphere (or lack thereof) and using thrusters to slow the payload down for touchdown.  The "direct insertion" technique is like pointing a gun at the target, firing, and then slowing the projectile down so it doesn't destroy itself when it impacts the target's surface.  Using this method, reverse thrusters are no longer the preferred means of deceleration and suddenly parachutes become the ideal means to achieve the needed landing.  Despite the added complexity of such a landing method, in theoretical testing, direct insertion has proven the most viable means of landing humans on Mars and getting them back alive.

Once you have settled on either an orbital or direct insertion, then you have to determine whether you are going to use an "airbag landing" or a "soft landing," which is where you actually land the thing on its feet without cushioning airbags.  Airbag landings are pretty simple: just hit the dirt like a lead brick, roll and bounce until you stop, and then figure out how you get the robot out of the bags (though that is a challenge in itself).  Soft landings are significantly more complicated.  Basically, you have a small angle of descent where you attempt to keep the feet pointing down while the reverse thrusters slow the object's momentum, so that you make this nice, "cushiony soft" landing on the rover's feet.  Such a landing is so complicated that it's only used if actually needed because of the significant monetary expenditures and time delays it represents.  Thus far, it is the realistic only means NASA knows of to insert humans into another world.  Airbags work for unmanned equipment.  However, that's only because you can design it to withstand stresses that would destroy even the most durably built human. 

Either of these "stunts" (those were his words) can easily be pulled off on the moon or earth (which are the two easiest bodies in the universe to land on, respectively).  However, on Mars, it gets much more complicated.  The Martian atmosphere is significantly thinner than earth's and thin enough that a parachute deceleration system (the preferred method for a direct insertion) isn't sufficient to stop the rover or whatever from destroying itself upon impact.  Despite this thinness, the Martian atmosphere is still dense enough that it will cause your craft or whatever to burn up if you enter wrong.  Because parachutes alone aren't enough, reverse thrusters aren't really suitable for this type of situation, and just dropping them and softening the blow with airbags isn't an option, NASA is left with essentially no standardized means to safely land humans on the Martian surface.  Realistically, this leaves NASA with one option--develop a customized landing solution for the particular mission at hand.  This is difficult, extraordinarily time-consuming, risky, and outrageously expensive.

For one of the Mars rovers that is set to launch about 2010, NASA, for reasons outlined above, and to design a custom landing solution for this robot.  Using a direct insertion approach, the rover will be launched for Mars, it will travel directly to Mars, and then attempt to perform a soft landing.  The landing sequence involves first deploying a deflector shield which "is a miracle of chemical engineering in and of itself," then, when used to maximum effect, quickly destroying the deflector shield to lower the lander's mass.  At this point, the lander will fire a parachute which will be used to further slow down the lander.  Once the parachute has been fully utilized, its canister will be detonated to reduce the lander's mass.  Reverse thrusters will then be fired in sequence: each canister expends itself, detonates and falls off of the lander to reduce the mass, and the next series of thrusters kicks in.  Once all external thrusters have been expended, more mini explosions are triggered to jettison the last remains of the lander and the actual rover itself is free to land.  Using more thrusters mounted on the rover itself, the rover's onboard computers will utilize optical cameras, thermal cameras, radar, sonar,and ultrasound sensors, laser range finders, anemometers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes to allow it to "see" the ground on which it's about to land and make the needed adjustments so that it lands safely.  Upon safe landing, the rover will jettison the remaining thrusters, fire its nuclear reactor (yes, it's nuke powered), and begin its work.

In light of the complexity of safely landing a robot on Mars, imagine the technical difficulties of landing humans.  The primary obstacle to such an achievement is that they are humans.  Humans need massive life support systems which robots do not.  Humans aren't capable of actually managing the descent to Mars because it's too complicated.  Humans add additional political trouble to an already policitally infused situation.  At present, the only thing a human can do that a robot can't is put living human flesh on Martian soil (to the extent that a human in a protective suit can be considered as actually on Martian soil).  With the added complexity, cost, political wrangling, and general headaches involved, manned flight to Mars is simply deemed as too much work for too little reward.  (To say nothing about the fact that many of NASA's brightest minds consider the technical challenges nearly insurmountable at this time.)  According to Mr. Lee, it will cost approximately $1.5 billion for the project I have mentioned in this post.  Cost estimates for the same type of mission, only with a human, are usually about 80 times higher, which puts it at $120 billion just to land on Mars and come back.

I'm not going to say that anyone's opinion is right or wrong, as all are free to choose their own decisions and beliefs.  This is just Mr. Lee's explanation of the situation with manned flights to Mars.

[2nerdy4u 1]

Duke87: Actually, space exploration and any kind of space work is EXTREMELY useful to humans. Just a simple google search brought me this:

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spinoffs2.shtml

Not only that, but what are we going to do with all this population boom? What happens when we run out of space? Food? Water? What happens if something happens to Earth, like a large asteroid impact?

hym: Wow... That was informative. [captainobvious] Perhaps it's not so easy to land on Mars... [/captainobvious]

[wxstorm 0]

Actually most solid-surfaced planets have some kind of plate tectonics.  Case and point, Olympus Mons is a giant volcano on Mars, and is the highest mountain in the Solar System, with its summit being roughly 30 kilometers above the surrounding Martian surface.  Io, one of Jupiter's moons is covered with active volcanoes.

I have to agree with those who support more investment into space exploration.  We're going to run out of room on Earth, and we're going to have to learn (quickly) how to survive in space and on other planets if the human race is going to survive.  You'll be surprised that a lot of the stuff fictionalized in Star Trek may very well become reality within the next 100 years.  Maybe not warp drives and teleporting, but certainly laser weapons, electromagnetic force fields are being developed and experimented with.

Interesting times we live in.

[coolotter88 2]

how will we defend Earth from invasion if we don't build military bases on all of the planets or their moons?

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

Interstellar war? Very doubtfull. Even if we contacted an aliel life form i doubt they would want to eradicate us.

[Goldfish4209 9]

What next? Will satellites be banned? Or will we be forced to all be catholic? Come on, what are we losing other than a bunch of money? And what are the motives behind this anyways? Now I see why world powers only last around 200 years. They get stale.

[coolotter88 2]

the US hasn't been a world power for 200 years yet.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Voar Tok 4]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

ILL Tonkso: Interstellar war? Very doubtfull. Even if we contacted an aliel life form i doubt they would want to eradicate us.quote>

You never know. They just might want unequivocal access to our oatmeal raisin cookies. Alien life would be just that, completely alien. Or perhaps they consider cows to be gorgeous women, and they think we are abusing them... quote>

That cow theory would explain a great many things.

[coolotter88 2]

holy roman empire was located in germany and has nothing to do with Rome. the Roman empire wasn't catholic so the pope didn't exist back in the days when they were wearing togas and orating in the senate.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Awww.  I guess someone else will have to go.  Maybe NASA will see the light and stop playing with fire crackers now.  Rocketry to get to the moon is pretty bad, but for a Mars mission they need a new propulsion system.

Maybe some money could go into basic physics from that colossal waste at NASA.  it would be nice if they were to forget Newton's laws of motion and started something more Einsteinian, eh?  I gather string theory is showing more promise.

Maybe they need a twist in the 11th dimension to get there.  Who knows, it might just take a few seconds, or a few minutes if they can't exceed C by very much.

The U.S. Congress is only interested in getting re-elected.  It reminds me very much of the Roman government about the time of Gaius Marius.  Come on, Conscript Fathers, do something useful.

The parallels between the current U.S. power structure and the Roman empire is fascinating.  Rome started to crumble when the hereditary Senate was replaced by an elected one.  I believe it was sometime in the 1920's when Senators began to be elected in the United States.  So it seems the U.S. has about 600 more corrupt years to lie down and die.

For those who might be interested I give you "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon.

[coolotter88 2]

well, technically, senators were "elected" before the passage of the 16th amendment also, however, the population voted indirectly for their state senators by electing their representatives in the state legislatures. but why go through the state legislature middle man?

[Cockatoo 2,262]

Just my 2 cents:  I'm sure if the United States is going to ban it then some other country will just go ahead and do it, but that might put it back 20-30 years or so. All a bit stupid really, why not? They were the first on the moon- why not be the first on Mars.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

ILL Tonkso: Interstellar war? Very doubtfull. Even if we contacted an aliel life form i doubt they would want to eradicate us.quote>

You never know. They just might want unequivocal access to our oatmeal raisin cookies. Alien life would be just that, completely alien. Or perhaps they consider cows to be gorgeous women, and they think we are abusing them...

Barbarossa

quote>

 

Thier already here they call themselves PETA.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

ILL Tonkso: Interstellar war? Very doubtfull. Even if we contacted an aliel life form i doubt they would want to eradicate us.quote>

You never know. They just might want unequivocal access to our oatmeal raisin cookies. Alien life would be just that, completely alien. Or perhaps they consider cows to be gorgeous women, and they think we are abusing them...

Barbarossa

quote>

 

Thier already here they call themselves PETA.

quote>

People

Eating

Tasty

Animals?

[saltandsauce 0]

space.... is big

very big and very boring and very useless

finding another planet to bugger up won't fix any problems here at all and human nature is unchanging set in stone like greed and tombstone inscriptions we are looking the wrong way we should be looking down

also the USA isn't as strong as it used to be if you don't accept that then you'll end up like the UK still thinking its important in any way whatsoever when it really isn't

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Space may not be boring, but a U.S. colony on Mars would be a disaster.  What ever happened to the internationalization of space exploration?

I don't believe we have any right to export our mess to any other celestial body, not even the moon.  We only have to look at the history of our own exploration of the "New World" to see what's wrong with the idea of a new set of "conquistadores".

Besides, with the resources we have in space right now, a Mars mission is a pipe dream.  The International Space Station isn't in the right place.  It should be out at the L5 position, which is about 2/3 of the way to the moon.  There is would never come down, and would be easy to maintain in this equilibrium point in the system's gravity well.  Would someone please pay attention to General Relativity?  We are still dancing with Mr. Newton, who has been dead for nearly 400 years.

[ShortStraw 1]

Regarding the importance of the space program...

"We must open the frontier to expand this grand experiment called freedom, because without an arena to feed and nurture the ideals of liberty, individual choice and the right to do and be whatever you want they may well perish from the Earth. We must open the frontier because without an edge to our packed culture of individuals, nurturing and then bringing in new ideas and giving release to bad ones, the center comes apart. We must open the frontier to find and create new wealth for humanity, because everyone in the world deserves the chance to have the same fine house, fine cars, and good life you can potentially have, and this planet alone simply cannot provide support that, unless you give up yours (and someone, sometime will try and make you do so). We open the frontier to help save the planet we love from the ravages caused by our ever growing numbers and our hunger for new forms of energy, materials and products. Finally, and most importantly, we must open the frontier as humans to survive as a species and to protect our precious biosphere from destruction by the forces of the universe or ourselves by making it redundant."

Rick Tumlinson, Testimony to a Senate Committee, 2003

Regarding the size of space....

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[coolotter88 2]

[sarcasm] yes but alien life forms are not human hence conquest is acceptable [/sarcasm]

[KUVACHIM 0]

I support the double ICBM theory (this one I just made up)... When the US sends a missile overseas to bomb another country, we should attach to that missile another missile which goes into space and does whatever exploring needs to be done... This will cut costs in fuel to launch those beasts, AND have healthy benefits in both war and space exploration... Smart people can invest in both war and Space exploration with great returns on both!  Just think, if we did it that way, NASA would not need as much money, as part of it would come directly from the war fund!

[2nerdy4u 1]

Originally posted by: saltandsauce space.... is big

very big and very boring and very useless

finding another planet to bugger up won't fix any problems here at all and human nature is unchanging set in stone like greed and tombstone inscriptions we are looking the wrong way we should be looking down

also the USA isn't as strong as it used to be if you don't accept that then you'll end up like the UK still thinking its important in any way whatsoever when it really isn'tquote>

*cough* boring *cough*

*cough* so very dull... *cough*

*cough* puts me right to sleep *cough*

Get the point? Definitely not boring. And not useless either. And check this out:

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spinoffs2.shtml

Intended for kids, but it proves my point.

And don't be bad-mouthing any countries now. The UK is one of the most powerful nations on Earth. I may be American, but I have respect for those guys "on the other side of the pond" (as they say in the UK...).

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa