Manned Mars mission poll

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, G'th said:

So see human beings walking in the dirt on Mars or sinking far below the ocean of Europa, in our lifetimes.

So basically, we should divert billions of money into a Mars landing project for your generation's entertainment ? Are you aware that you were preceded by thousands of generations that didn't see humans walking on Mars ? Are you aware that there will be more generations after you ? So what exactly makes you so special that you should get that gratification during your lifetime while others didn't ?

You confirm that there is no rush, that is just a generation's selfish desire for instant gratification.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Nibb31

[HebaruSan]

17 hours ago, mk1980 said:

your poll lacks a "noone" option for the first question and a "never" option for the second. and a "we won't colonize mars" option in the 3rd.

There is a 1-5 star rating option above that, though.

Count me among the "space yes, planets no" crowd. We'd need to build closed-loop life support habitats to settle Mars, anyway (solar radiation on the input side, waste heat on the other, with plants and us recycling everything else somewhere in between). Why put them at the bottom of a gravity well and surrender control over (potentially health-affecting) gee forces, when an O'Neill cylinder would have cheap-to-free access to mine-able asteroids and whatever gee we choose?

[Pipcard]

45 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

So basically, we should divert billions of money into a Mars landing project for your generation's entertainment ? Are you aware that you were preceded by thousands of generations that didn't see humans walking on Mars ? Are you aware that there will be more generations after you ? So what exactly makes you so special that you should get that gratification during your lifetime while others didn't ?

You confirm that there is no rush, that is just a generation's selfish desire for instant gratification.

We were preceded by thousands of generations who never knew that humans could cross the oceans.

We were preceded by thousands of generations who never knew that humans could achieve flight.

We were preceded by thousands of generations who never knew that humans could go to the Moon.

It is not about selfish gratification for only one generation, for these accomplishments would be known by all future generations.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Pipcard

[WinkAllKerb'']

:3 /insert imdb.com/script/#that moment around 1450 where cristophe colomb had that talk with that king somewhere and got a few boat ...

apple who want some apple , newton maybe ?

Edited September 16, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Pipcard said:

We were preceded by thousands of generations who never knew that humans could cross the oceans.

We were preceded by thousands of generations who never knew that humans could achieve flight.

We were preceded by thousands of generations who never knew that humans could go to the Moon.

Actually, there were plenty of generations who dreamed of doing those things but couldn't. People were dreaming of going to the Moon  back in ancient Greece probably. Back in the 19th Century, Jules Verne knew it was possible, only technology wasn't mature enough to make it happen.

It's pretty much the same for our generation. Someone will get there one day, when the time is right. It doesn't matter if it happens during your or my lifetime. On a personal level, It would be cool if I lived to see it, but I'm not going to demand that we direct more resources that necessary towards that goal just for my own entertainment.

We are at the Jules Verne level of landing on Mars. You can accept it, and enjoy the experiences life has to offer you now, or you can wish your life away waiting for a better world.

Quote

It is not about selfish gratification for only one generation, for these accomplishments would be known by all future generations.

Actually, given the problems we are facing, if we can even get humanity through the end of this century, I'd consider that a pretty good accomplishment.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Nibb31

[WinkAllKerb'']

'sigh'

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1043.html

i wish i used to be a turtle long ago

'sigh'

[p1t1o]

7 hours ago, G'th said:

 

So see human beings walking in the dirt on Mars or sinking far below the ocean of Europa, in our lifetimes.

At the rate we're going without a solidified plan to put boots on the ground (regardless of the justification or motivation), its very possible an entire generation of people  (re, my generation) will pass on without seeing even a fly by of Mars by actual human beings, and personally I find that disturbing considering what we're capable of. 

Exploration sometimes just has to be done for the sake of it, but at the same time you should go hard enough at said exploration to ensure that the effort expended produces satisfying results, not just for scientific but also economic purposes. Leveraging heavy exploration into resource exploitation would be a good way to go about it. Course this approach would need some precedence and that'd be hard to find, but its space exploration so duh. 

 

And yes, I have found myself advocating for trashing the Solar system because screw that nonsense. Or at the very least the Moon anyway. Natural heritage my foot, lets open up the Farside to Manifest destiny. 

Same with asteroid exploration. Initial exploration could yield great scientific results, but explore far enough to find a (relatively) easy to mine source of rare elements, you pay for that heavy exploration.

I think I fairly strongly disagree with almost all of this comment.

No hard feeling though

 

[NSEP]

 

[DDE]

@NSEP, it's funny how the guy directly quotes Zubrin in the "Alpha Centauri by 2000" rant.

Reveals certain sympathies.

Edited September 16, 2017 by DDE

[Pipcard]

10 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

We are at the Jules Verne level of landing on Mars. You can accept it, and enjoy the experiences life has to offer you now, or you can wish your life away waiting for a better world.

I believe that this defeatist attitude of always accepting the status quo leads to stagnation, a lack of progress, or even regression.

(edit: This post used to have a quote from someone on a opt-in members-only section of Orbiter-Forum, and I didn't want to include just one quote without being able to conveniently show the full context of the debate.)

Edited September 16, 2017 by Pipcard

[Matuchkin]

I don't know what to say about this. Like every person, I am also mesmerized by what some of you call the "instant gratification", absolutely stoked to have a whole new event happen with man in space. Not that I think that's a good way to think about this (it's actually a horrible way to think about Mars colonization and its purposes), but I just wanted to throw that out there. Other than that, here's what I have to say on the more serious reasons that I would want man to settle on Mars.

a) Death is, quite literally, the end of all things from the perspective of the one who dies. And to have this end, this total stagnation, come to the human race because we didn't expand our roots where we could is no way to go. Remember what Stephen Hawking said about this issue? How he estimated that the human race has, what, a thousand or so years to sustain itself on Earth? How about no. I believe we should take the chances we have: we can spread through the solar system, not only giving us more scientific knowledge but also having more habitable space for us, a race-wide insurance. And when the CO2 levels reach their threshold, when the last barrel of oil is siphoned from the ground, there won't be a crushing, worldwide calamity. Mars is the first step to this, a mission to perfect our abilities to transport humans through space and do more useful tasks with said humans than just doing a lab experiment in LEO. We will add thousands of years to our existence.

[KSK]

Without a fairly fundamental rethink as to how humanity manages its affairs, colonisation of Mars or anywhere else in the solar system is pointless. Taking the same problems that afflict us on Earth, all the way out to Mars is merely postponing the inevitable. Taking them further than Mars postpones it marginally further at ever increasing cost. And what then? When the solar system is used up, when 'growth at all costs' fills up our hard-won living space, what do we do then? Because, barring a major and implausible scientific breakthrough, we aint going to the stars.

When the CO2 levels reach their threshold, when the last barrel of oil is siphoned from the ground, humanity might eke out a few more decades on a frozen rustball, wishing it had a home to go back to.

That's what colonisation would get us right now.

Going to space for exploration, for the pursuit of knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom. That is a noble pursuit. Going to space to run away from our problems on Earth is not.

Edit:

"Any man who had ever worked in a hardened missile silo would have felt at home in Clavius. Here on the Moon were the same arts and hardware of underground living , and of protection against a hostile environment; but here they had turned to the purposes of peace. After ten thousand years, Man had at last found something as exciting as war. Unfortunately, not all nations had yet realised that fact."

- Arthur C. Clarke:  2001: A Space Odyssey.

Edited September 16, 2017 by KSK

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, Pipcard said:

I believe that this defeatist attitude of always accepting the status quo leads to stagnation, a lack of progress, or even regression.

There's nothing defeatist about accepting that landing on Mars might not happen during your lifetime. There are plenty of random things that are not going to happen during your lifetime.

[G'th]

19 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

So basically, we should divert billions of money into a Mars landing project for your generation's entertainment ? Are you aware that you were preceded by thousands of generations that didn't see humans walking on Mars ? Are you aware that there will be more generations after you ? So what exactly makes you so special that you should get that gratification during your lifetime while others didn't ?

You confirm that there is no rush, that is just a generation's selfish desire for instant gratification.

You're right. We should just continue to divert all these billions into blowing up third world people. Let me explain something to you again (because this topic has happened before). 

You realize in the grand scheme of things spaceflight is cheap right?  Billions isn't actually that big of a number compared to the trillions the US government just by itself actually deals in.  And more importantly, you're not really in a place to comment on the actual cost of a manned mission to Mars if you don't actually understand the numbers:

US Budget FY2018 -

NASA 19.1 Billion

DOD - $574 billion

Healthcare - 1.59 Trillion.

Expected costs of a NASA-lead Manned Mars mission are going to be 1 trillion spread out over a course of at least 20-30 years. And this is without aggressive funding to develop the technology to do so at a faster rate, and also presumes no utilization of commercial space development, re SpaceX. Any manned Mars mission is going to be an international effort so ultimately total end costs are going to eased by the contributing nations.

Meanwhile we spent ~151 billion on all manned spaceflight over 14 years back during the Space Race.  

If you're arguing cost, then you should focus on our ridiculous defense budget or out of control healthcare costs before thinking about cutting something that's actually beneficial like NASA, or mind you education, which is the only thing that should really take precedence over a NASA budget increase.  Or, of course, you could just continue your nihilism and contribute nothing. Up to you.

[DAL59]

16 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

We are at the Jules Verne level of landing on Mars.

What about the ITS?  That could be ready by 2024, or at least by 2030.  

58 minutes ago, G'th said:

Expected costs of a NASA-lead Manned Mars mission are going to be 1 trillion

That is one of the problems- very large differences in money estimation.  Robert Zubrin predicts 30 billion, others say 35 times more.  

[G'th]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

What about the ITS?  That could be ready by 2024, or at least by 2030.  

That is one of the problems- very large differences in money estimation.  Robert Zubrin predicts 30 billion, others say 35 times more.  

Theres never going to be a single price point until the program is completed. 

[DAL59]

Since the Apollo program was only 14 billion dollars(inflation adjusted) per year(over eight years), it seems unlikely that with far more advanced technology(Apollo computer programs were literally woven by hand), a Mars mission would cost 10 times as much.  Especially considering Spacex Falcon Heavy, which cost just 90 million per launch of 60 tons.      

Just now, G'th said:

single price point

A factor of 35 is abit much though.  

[G'th]

^ And I agree. Most of the cost is going to be the development radiation and micro-gravity solutions. Much the rest of it is going to negligible relatively speaking. 

And yes its a large amount, but you have to remember the cost is spread out over time. Its not a situation where that entire cost needs to be allocated all at once, and thats part of why it gets so confusing. People will use the projected final cost as an argument against when it isn't really fair to. People don't have any comprehension of a program spanning 30 years and the relative cost to them.  You're talking an increase of $100 a year for every man, woman, and child in the United States if the final cost is 1 trillion. Thats 30 cents a day.  You explain it that way you'd have to really be stringy to still say it isn't worth it. 

 

[DAL59]

6 minutes ago, G'th said:

radiation

Some russian astronauts have had equivalent exposures as on a mission to Mars.  A "simple" shelter would be needed for solar flares though.    

[Vanamonde]

Why are you guys getting mad at each other over tentative suggestions of something which won't happen soon anyway? 

[Vanamonde]

Since my previous post was apparently not  clear enough, a number of posts having nothing to do with OP's polls have been removed from this thread. If you want to argue about whether people should be in space at all, please start your own thread for it. 

[DAL59]

I was just about to post that.  Please stay on topic.

[WinkAllKerb'']

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Since my previous post was apparently not  clear enough, a number of posts having nothing to do with OP's polls have been removed from this thread. If you want to argue about whether people should be in space at all, please start your own thread for it. 

let's talk about iceberg ... %% floating ; %%swimming ... well how to say ... might explain a few post i guess

[tater]

That Joe guy (video above) appears to not be very up to speed. The video was JUST made, but he's entirely unaware that the ITS he talks about isn't a thing any more.

The chance that SpaceX sends people to Mars first is frankly absurd. Should they gain the capability to do so, they would far more likely sell that capability to their major customer, NASA.

[KSK]

17 hours ago, DAL59 said:

I was just about to post that.  Please stay on topic.

Oh go on then. Seeing as it's you and seeing as I'm such a huge fan of passive-aggressive backseat moderation, I shall henceforth stick rigidly to the topic at hand.