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Mars by 2010?


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Will we make it to mars by 2010, as [US] President Bush has suggested?  

4 members have voted

  1. 1. Will we make it to mars by 2010, as [US] President Bush has suggested?

    • Yes
      15
    • Maybe..
      26
    • No way!
      74


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going to mars is a bad idea. In another thread people talk about going to one of jupiters moons and colonising that. I think that if the iss gets finished we could use that as a space craft to go to another planet just rig up a few soils and ion proplution sustems have supplies for abouit a decade and more than ten people (to maintain mental stability) LOL My Idea is prettery crasy but better than using somthing the size of a shuttle with two people. What do u think.

 

 

I envision a future possibly centuries away. where explorers travel on small moons or asteeroids that have a full ecosystem

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  • 2 weeks later...

Money should not be an issue if NASA is willing to allow corporate sponsors to get involved. I'm sure Microsoft or Coca-Cola would pay a heft sum to have their logos plastered on the rockets, or to have the first landing astronaut hold a Coke can in his hand as he sets foot on Mars.

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That's a good idea Al. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened some day. Still, I doubt we will make it there by 2010. He didn't get weapons of mass destruction right and he didn't get this one right either. I think he is just trying to change his image about being anti-science from the stem cells. I think he could care less about going to Mars. He wouldn't understand any of the science anyway.

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I'd also like to add that in addition to corporate sponsors, international cooperation would also ease the financial burden. If other nations like Russia, Germany, Japan, etc, want to assist on a Mars mission, they could swallow some of its cost. Plus sending an international team to space is a good way to foster global unity, but we'd have to be willing to set aside our holier-than-thou American pride first.

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I've read that one of the main challenges to getting to mars is psychological. Isn't it estimated to take upwards of a year of space travel to get there? This would mean astronauts cramped in a small shuttle ready to kill one another. Besides being aggravated by your fellow astronauts, the environment is extremely high stress, and astronauts will be facing life or death situations constantly. The technologies to reach mars will come sooner then we're ready.

 

On a side note, what would be the point of making it to mars? Just to say: "yay, we did it"?. I could see doing it for the sake of exploration and science, however the financial and resource investments seem to large to justify going to mars simply for an ego trip.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 things' date=' 1)getting over petty squables, and 2) International cooperation.

I vote MAYBE.[/quote']

 

i agree, i also voted 'maybe' additionally, there is the sheer time scale, building the rocket, and getting there. mars is now further away from us, then when the last load of mars unmanned space-ships went off, thats why they were sent, because mars was very close to us, it will take longer now, to travel to mars.

 

also, a lot and a lot of stores will be needed for that space ship!

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  • 4 weeks later...
Money should not be an issue if NASA is willing to allow corporate sponsors to get involved. I'm sure Microsoft or Coca-Cola would pay a heft sum to have their logos plastered on the rockets, or to have the first landing astronaut hold a Coke can in his hand as he sets foot on Mars.

 

 

Cracking idea. Without it I cant see how it would get funded. Unless it was a global effort, hardly likely. Mars 2010- No.

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Okay, can somebody explain one thing to me: how did we solve the big problem of radiation shielding in deep space? While we're within Earth's EM field everything's just great, but once we leave it a ship and all inside will get their collective asses kicked by the full, unrestrained burden of our sun. The required shielding to keep a man healthy for suck a long ship would make for a HUGE (read: tons of fuel required to get into orbit) craft! Also, what about the fast forward osteoporosis that takes place in zero g or near zero g? There are tons of theories out there of what a craft going to another planet would have to look like involving spinning disks and stuff, but as far as I know we haven't found a good way of simulating gravity. There's so much damage done to astronauts nowadays in their relatively short stays... imagine a trip that'll take years! I think we have decades of committed experimentation and testing ahead of us before we can even begin to tackle the god of war. I'm all for it though. Uncovering the secrets of interplanetary travel is one of those goals that drove me to study physics through hgih school and my first years of college before I switched to computer science.

 

And I agree with Lucid... it was a blatant attempt by an idiot president to appear "science friendly" after his ridiculous stances on other scientific issues. Making such a claim, to me, just highlights his stupidity and insecurity; he feels needs to connect himself to greatness by making such a Kennedy-esque statement. I'll be cheering loudly when he's out of office.

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  • 1 month later...
I'd also like to add that in addition to corporate sponsors, international cooperation would also ease the financial burden. If other nations like Russia, Germany, Japan, etc, want to assist on a Mars mission, they could swallow some of its cost. Plus sending an international team to space is a good way to foster global unity, but we'd have to be willing to set aside our holier-than-thou American pride first.

 

That would be ideal, and I do not see it as unrealistic, with the private space movement, I think it will bring international cooperation to a whole new level (if only for the sciences of space exploration). Its a key building block in international cooperation and I believe space travel will be the first step of many.

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That would be ideal, and I do not see it as unrealistic, with the private space movement, I think it will bring international cooperation to a whole new level (if only for the sciences of space exploration). Its a key building block in international cooperation and I believe space travel will be the first step of many.
Nice thought. But we haven't done much of a job of it so far: international co-operation. (Yes, I know there a plethora of examples of such co-operation, but they are small scale and in comparison with a manned Mars attempt, trivial.)

So Mars by 2010? Let's pretend we are having a serious discussion. 2020? Possible, but no. Who's going to go?

Not the US. The will isn't there guys.

Russia? Can't afford it.

Europe? Not really interested in manned spaceflight.

China? The only realistic hope. And after all Mars is red.

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"I don't see the point in talking about mars we don't have the technoligy to get there anyway"-Nasa head (whoever he is)

 

allright here is my problem with NASA they don't think about doing anything.

 

courses of action

 

1)fire all top nasa people (their stupid)

2)get new competent directors, who are motivated to a certain task

3)scrap most if not all, none mars related projects (nasa is over-extended and you would get the mars funding by just scrapping all of these projects ie. casini cost 1.3 billion dollars)

4)have a competition in the aerospace corporations to design a new kind of propulsion system that could take us to mars in less time (they would be fine with this cause they get rights on advertising-stock price boom if they get the contract)

5)have different companies manufacture the components and have NASA supervise the assembly-inspect parts to make sure no corners were cut (biggest boost to the economy ever carried out by the government)

6)go to mars

 

this project would not drain the economy, The aerospace industry is in trouble now instead of giving them money (they will line their pockets instead of keeping workers), this way they build new plants hire new workers workers make money they go out and buy more stuff from companies=economic boom

 

The president and his opponent are both saying that the solution lyes in education and skilled labor forces, this is the way to get that (a skilled workforce, and recognition for having one)

 

and do what they did when they built up the navy at the turn of the century. Everything built at home. this will make it so when the corporations hire new labor forces and build new plants they build them here

 

most importantly

7) after mars start mining nea's (this must be done by corporations under NASA supervision)

this will make it so that all of those facilities built will have work for the future. America is the most equiped for this undertaking with the know how and facilities

 

just like after they built the shipyards at the turn of the century for a government project, the shipyards got other work building transport vessels

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Europe? Not really interested in manned spaceflight[/i'].
Well' date=' some of Europe is.

 

'For once it's Britain who's being regressive and saying "no thanks".[/quote']I was trying to be too brief. The key was in the word 'really'. Are ESA seriously interested in manned space flight? For the answer to be yes they need too have some clear vision, that places emphasis on manned flight, with clear long term goals. This was the most impressive item I coud find on the ESA site.

'Today an impressive number of 38 space missions have been performed by 31 astronauts from ESA and its Member States, providing the EAC with much accumulated experience on manned space activities.'

But not a hint of a goal or a vision anywhere (although still much better than the UK). I don't hold out much hope therefore of a German or Spanish boot being the first on Mars.

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"I don't see the point in talking about mars we don't have the technoligy to get there anyway"-Nasa head (whoever he is)

 

allright here is my problem with NASA they don't think about doing anything.

 

courses of action

 

1)fire all top nasa people (their stupid)

2)get new competent directors' date=' who are motivated to a certain task

3)scrap most if not all, none mars related projects (nasa is over-extended and you would get the mars funding by just scrapping all of these projects ie. casini cost 1.3 billion dollars)

4)have a competition in the aerospace corporations to design a new kind of propulsion system that could take us to mars in less time (they would be fine with this cause they get rights on advertising-stock price boom if they get the contract)

5)have different companies manufacture the components and have NASA supervise the assembly-inspect parts to make sure no corners were cut (biggest boost to the economy ever carried out by the government)

6)go to mars

 

this project would not drain the economy, The aerospace industry is in trouble now instead of giving them money (they will line their pockets instead of keeping workers), this way they build new plants hire new workers workers make money they go out and buy more stuff from companies=economic boom

 

The president and his opponent are both saying that the solution lyes in education and skilled labor forces, this is the way to get that (a skilled workforce, and recognition for having one)

 

and do what they did when they built up the navy at the turn of the century. Everything built at home. this will make it so when the corporations hire new labor forces and build new plants they build them here

 

most importantly

7) after mars start mining nea's (this must be done by corporations under NASA supervision)

this will make it so that all of those facilities built will have work for the future. America is the most equiped for this undertaking with the know how and facilities

 

just like after they built the shipyards at the turn of the century for a government project, the shipyards got other work building transport vessels[/quote']

 

Got any ideas to promote this to congress. This is a serious good plan, you would need mechanics, engineers, biechemical engineers, programers, hundreds of companys to do research and development...almost ever job you can think of to undertake a project such as this. Then if we got sponsors ooooo...

 

The only problem I see is that we will be taking money out of our pocket so the US funds would drain drastically for a few months, then in a good year sky rocket due to the cash being put back into the peoples pockets. This would seriously solve our unemployment problem though.

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NASA's original planned mars mission was for 2017, only recently has this number changed to 2010. I see 2010 as a little too soon but forsure they will do it by 2017. The 2017 figure has been in place for almost 10 years, it seems likely that the funding is probably already lined out for this mission.

 

But yeah the above plan is a great one. I especially like the idea of mining NEA's we should have started this along time ago, it will provide many jobs, grant us extra resources for space and even Earth if it could be figured how to make it more cost effective.

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we do not have the technology to keep astonaunts alive for the journey to Mars. First, the trip would take too long of a time with the fuels we have today. Second, it would be difficult to keep the crew from killing each other before the trip was finished (people can be that close for that long of a time before they start fighting) and we cannot properly shield astronauts from cosmic radiation. Furthermore, we have not figured out a way to successfully keep Astronauts' bone masses up. If we made a trip now.. the ship would come back with dead folks on board.

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