There is nothing on Mars worth dying for. Build the lander if you must, let the defense contractors collect their contracts, then blow it up on the launchpad. All objectives accomplished, everyone goes home to their families.
"There is nothing on Mars worth dying for." And this is exactly what is wrong with society right now. We have become so accustomed to our little comforts that we have become completely risk-averse. I'll take an opposing viewpoint and say that it's worth dying for "just because it's there" to paraphrase Sir Edmund Hillary.
I had the pleasure of meeting Noel Odell at the RGS (Royal Geographic Society) in London once when Doug Scott was presenting. It was like I imagine meeting Einstein. He "knew" that Mallory topped out, and because of that, so do I. But I also agree that a climb is not completed until you get down, so Ed and Tenzing hold their place, regardless.
Considering what you otherwise pay for to defense spending, payment to banks and blowing people in the middle east up, the price of a mission to Mars would be very little.
Literally true. Consider what awesome things could have been built with the trillion spent on Iraq. A space elevator, a mars mission, a moon base. Not or... and!
I agree, though I see no harm in waiting a bit. Going to Mars soon feels like an attempt to build a billion dollar supercomputer in 1979. Technology useful for space missions moves slower than computers alone, but I can't help but think that in just 50 years we'd be far more prepared if we diverted today's Mars cash into robotic space exploration and, particularly, space mining research.
It isn't minerals we're running out of. If we, as a species, expect to survive, we're going to have to stay at a population below the carrying capacity of this planet. Failing that (and we are failing badly, a fact barely disguised by petrochemical fertilizers) we need to spread. There's good reason to believe that Mars can be terraformed (imperfectly, since there won't be adequate natural magnetic shielding against radiation). Colonization technologies are what we desperately need to work on. Mining's the easy part once we're there; food and water are a little more difficult to dig for.
I highly recommend the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's fiction, so the science is suspect in places, but it raises a lot of fascinating issues - the main one being that the science and engineering behind keeping Martian settlers alive might be the easy part. The politics of what happens on a new planet is the hard part.
Colonization, or simply shoot for drastic population reduction in the next century. Given the evidence of previous extinction events, I'm betting on the latter 'solution' for now.
I'm pretty ignorant of geology.. The main reason I added space mining was because a rush for resources, especially commercially exploitable ones, seems to have spurred significant third party interest in risky exploration.
Rather than the government funding everything, the mere possibility of being able to find a 100 ton lump of gold (or whatever) would get multiple space exploration efforts kicked up the butt immediately ;-)
I wondered about that but dismissed the idea because computers and survival technology seem to have both come on leaps and bounds in the last 20 years without significant government or space program involvement. Or no?
Comments
There is nothing on Mars worth dying for. Build the lander if you must, let the defense contractors collect their contracts, then blow it up on the launchpad. All objectives accomplished, everyone goes home to their families.
"There is nothing on Mars worth dying for." And this is exactly what is wrong with society right now. We have become so accustomed to our little comforts that we have become completely risk-averse. I'll take an opposing viewpoint and say that it's worth dying for "just because it's there" to paraphrase Sir Edmund Hillary.
It was George Mallory who allegedly replied, "Because it's there!" to the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?".
I stand corrected & honor you with a tasty upvote snack, Sir. Thanks for making re-read the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory
It's a cracking entry too!
I had the pleasure of meeting Noel Odell at the RGS (Royal Geographic Society) in London once when Doug Scott was presenting. It was like I imagine meeting Einstein. He "knew" that Mallory topped out, and because of that, so do I. But I also agree that a climb is not completed until you get down, so Ed and Tenzing hold their place, regardless.
There may not be much on Mars worth dying for for you, but there are people who have died for a lot less glory than landing on a new planet.
Let each choose his own.
I'd be more sympathetic if I didn't have to pay for them to die gloriously. Not much more sympathetic, granted.
Considering what you otherwise pay for to defense spending, payment to banks and blowing people in the middle east up, the price of a mission to Mars would be very little.
Literally true. Consider what awesome things could have been built with the trillion spent on Iraq. A space elevator, a mars mission, a moon base. Not or... and!
Even more money was spent on the stimulus. Somehow, it wasn't as stimulating as colonizing a new planet.
Except the stimulus didn't kill tens of thousands and drove many thousands others into extremism. That makes it a far lesser evil imho.
But you already do that. Might as well reallocate some funding.
We're on borrowed time on this particular rock. I think the continued existence of the human race is a pursuit worth dying for.
I agree, though I see no harm in waiting a bit. Going to Mars soon feels like an attempt to build a billion dollar supercomputer in 1979. Technology useful for space missions moves slower than computers alone, but I can't help but think that in just 50 years we'd be far more prepared if we diverted today's Mars cash into robotic space exploration and, particularly, space mining research.
It isn't minerals we're running out of. If we, as a species, expect to survive, we're going to have to stay at a population below the carrying capacity of this planet. Failing that (and we are failing badly, a fact barely disguised by petrochemical fertilizers) we need to spread. There's good reason to believe that Mars can be terraformed (imperfectly, since there won't be adequate natural magnetic shielding against radiation). Colonization technologies are what we desperately need to work on. Mining's the easy part once we're there; food and water are a little more difficult to dig for.
I highly recommend the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's fiction, so the science is suspect in places, but it raises a lot of fascinating issues - the main one being that the science and engineering behind keeping Martian settlers alive might be the easy part. The politics of what happens on a new planet is the hard part.
Fertilizers can last forever. Matter is not actually used up.
As long as we have enough energy, we can make fertilizers. Of course, petrochemicals are a nice raw material, but not necessary.
And we are not running out of energy, anytime soon. (Though we may run out of oil.)
The conservation of matter is an amazing thing.
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe - Carl Sagan
Yes. Though to be more precise, in the process of using fertilizers, even the atoms are conserved. Though you will have to re-build the molecules.
On the practical side: Using coal as a raw material, you should be able to make fertilizers with only somewhat more energy than from oil.
Colonization, or simply shoot for drastic population reduction in the next century. Given the evidence of previous extinction events, I'm betting on the latter 'solution' for now.
I'm pretty ignorant of geology.. The main reason I added space mining was because a rush for resources, especially commercially exploitable ones, seems to have spurred significant third party interest in risky exploration.
Rather than the government funding everything, the mere possibility of being able to find a 100 ton lump of gold (or whatever) would get multiple space exploration efforts kicked up the butt immediately ;-)
Computers only advanced though because we tried to build better ones. You don't build better muscles by lifting weights you can already lift.
If we want to advance our Space Travel technology, we need to keep trying to do things beyond our reach, to force us to improve.
I wondered about that but dismissed the idea because computers and survival technology seem to have both come on leaps and bounds in the last 20 years without significant government or space program involvement. Or no?
actually you do, but I completely agree with your point despite that :)
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Must-Colonize-Space/lm/15QM4CUB...
http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/space.htm
http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/space/survival.htm
http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/space/lifeboat.htm
People don't assume great risk to die; they do it to truly live.
Give up and hide in your cave, and you are dead already.
This might just be the very first time I saw you downvoted.
I sincerely disagree. The only valid question is whether the time is right - that's something you can argue about.