Why would anyone want to spend that much to deliver a person or two to Mars? They ain't gonna like it there, and then they have to come back.

More robots, please. Cheaper, safer, and more entertaining.

Stu,

Read the red stuff (Jerry's writing) in the Pournelle link. Don't you want solar power from space? Cheaper, safer and cleaner.

Yours,
Wince

Because, stu, either we figure out how to get humans to live elsewhere very soon, or we become trapped on the planet forever. Optimistic estimates put the amount of unrenawable resources on the plant as about 400 years, and then any civilization above agrarian/hunter-gatherer becomes impossible, if thats even possible in the aftermath. The resources to exploit space become depleted within the next 100 years or less, so its this generation and the ones immediately following it that get to decide.
Then, sometime after that, who's rights are guaranteed where become painfully moot.
The successful future of the human race won't be cheap, won't be 100% safe, and is far more important then your entertainment.

Dean,

If Kerry would put Pournelle in charge of NASA, I'd vote for him.

However, I've heard that the tiny swing parties in Isreali politics bring home loads of white steak. They don't have pork there, you know. Not kosher.

Yours,
Wince

Going to Mars will be great right after we've terraformed it by robot missions. Right now would just be an expensive publicity stunt. Besides, we're very, very close to having robots that can do whatever we need them to on another planet, without all the vulnerabilites that humans exhibit.

And please, please, PLEASE don't make me read Pournelle. That guy is forever predicting goofy crap that doesn't happen. Read his Chaos Manor columns in Byte Magazine of the eighties. Hard disks will be obselete because silicon is cheaper. Riigght.

John,
I dunno. 400 years is a long time to worry about something that may not happen. Are you concerned about the world your great great great great great great great great great great great great great-son or daughter will inherit?

Actually that plan was developed by Newt Gingrich (!) and Robert Zubrin (see the last chapters of Zubrin's book for details). I don't know if Pournelle came up with it on his own or read it in Zubrin's book.
Anyway, it's a great idea and would work like gangbusters as history has shown. That's why we can look forward to NASA using their political clout to get it blocked at every turn.
Unfortunate.

Space exploration is doomed by bad PR.

I wish people knew all the benefits that they take for granted that came (directly or indirectly) from the space program.

Ok, sure, we spent so much money going to the moon and all we got were rocks. Waste of money, right? If that same money had been spent on people, we wouldn't have poor people, right?

Bullhocky.

If you have capped teeth, it is only because of the space program (we had to figure out how to fuse glass to metal to be able to have a viewport in outer space).
If you have ever owned a digital watch...
If you are using a computer to read this...

Someone sent out something snarky about how we spent several millions of dollars to develop a pen that could work in space due to the problems of weightlessness, whereas the Russians used a pencil. Smart them, stupid us. Except that what we learned from developing that pen has helped improve heart transplants, kidney filtration, hydraulics for advanced military aircraft that keep our nation safe and our pilots alive.

See, the wonderful thing about funding space exploration is that you always end up richer because of it. The things we would learn just in making sure a base of 10 people wouldn't die in an unexpected corrosion problem can be applied here to give us all sorts of things we can't imagine. Maybe batteries that last 20 times as long for half the price and 1/3 the weight? Maybe tires that are nearly impervious to wear. Maybe shingles that don't need replacing, or more efficient heaters or rip-resistant fabric.

Who knows? You have to fund it to see.

How many lives have been saved due to GPS? Do you know how many people complained about military funding during the time it was being developed and would have loved to have cut GPS research from military funding at that time? Are the lives we've saved worth it? How about the money? How about the greater precision in mapping?

Sorry, I'll stop ranting now.

Ted, frankly, yes. . . ad with current advances its more likely that my grandchild could see it. . . thats the kind of future I want. But in any case we're discussing the future of the hman race, and whether or not we have the right to doom it to extnction becase we don't feel like investing the cash now.
stu, f you don't read Pournelle, how do you know what he does or doesnt predict? I've read quite a bit of his material dating back to the 70's and the only place he's been inaccurate is judging the willingness of people to push farther out.
In any case, the terraforming of Mars would take far more resources and active articipation ten what you suggest, even as robotics and artificial intelligence improves. A manned presence would be required, and to do so means sending a trial team, a first mission to find out what we don't know yet about the Martian environment.

Stu,

Pournelle's ideas are the point of this post. Pournelle wants cheap lift capacity because it gives us true space access and solar power stations to get energy independence so the US can stop having to engage in foreign advetures so often. Right up your alley, actually.

Those whose comments demonstrate that they haven't done their homework get asked to do some. It's less than a page! Pournelle is a demonstrably smart guy, who admits he was wrong about silicon and iron, which makes him more intellectually honest than most blog commenters I read.

Yours,
Wince

Hey Wince, I've been reading Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Niven, Brin, Gibson and even Pournelle (ick) for years. I was a Trekkie when the original series was on. I'm all for cheap solar power, and things like space elevators and tons and tons of space exploration. I just want it done economically, and Dean's headline indicated a humans-to-Mars mission. I don't think we're anywhere near ready enough for a Mars mission. How about we figure out how to keep the ISS supplied first?

Stu,

I want cheap access to space. That keeps the ISS supplied, gives us solar power and makes both the Moon and Mars relatively easy.

Yours,
Wince

Reading Pournelle's fiction is not the same as his space policy stuff. Would you guys just go and read what Pournelle's talking about before commenting on it?

Long-term the solutions to our energy problems are already known to be solvable. Breeder nuclear reactors and orbiting solar power stations can provide everyhting we need. It's all a matter of political will and a fairly moderate capital investment.

The fact that building solar plants in orbit would also make pushing out to the other planets much easier is a massive side benefit.

Dean, lemme try.

Stu, what Pournelle's plan will do is ensure that we develop cheap, effective access to space. If someone can mount a manned Mars expedition, they certainly have the capacity to supply ISS.

We don't yet have those kind of logisitics, true. But if we keep on funding robots from NASA, we never will. After all, an elephant is a mouse built to NASA specifications. :)

Pournelle's idea cuts out NASA, and guarantees success: they only get the money if it works. It's a win/win scenario for the government.

Although I do wonder if maybe his Moon Prize wouldn't produce quicker results? I imagine keeping a group alive on the moon for a year and a day would be less challenging than a Mars project.

Why it won't happen: can you imagine the screams of outrage when the Feds cut a check for $8 billion? Heh.

Casey,

So do it in the Black Budget.

Yours,
Wince

Any chance that, before we colonize Mars or create perpetual energy, we could keep the Hubble from tumbling into oblivion before the necessary end of its very useful life.

shep,

Sure, but we're talking about a major change in space strategy and wildly new R&D. Hubble should be handled with what we have now (Shuttle and Soyuz). You got anything on Pournelle's prizes? I think they are the bees knees.

Yours,
Wince

Wow, shep has a worse record than a stopped clock. . . at least its right twice a day.

The replacement scope for Hubble is due sometime around 2012, and is expected to be far more powerful. I'd rather see the budget go for its development then continue Hubble at its expense.
By the way, stu, shep, just from the brief entries you've made I smell a whiff of the old "the money would be better sent on Earth" meme. Say it isn't so.

No, really John, I’d be perfectly ready to spend our kids tax dollars to repair the Hubble, at least compared with one more trip to that colossal and nearly useless corporate welfare program, the International Space Station. Or, we could go with your insightful vision and go without an eye into deep space for the next 7 or so years. Why didn’t I see it?

shep, agreed about the ISS, although I wouldn't use the word "corporate" here, mainly because we're talking pork-sharing between nations, not companies. :)

From my reading, we're going to lose Hubble because the nutless wonders at NASA would rather spend two years playing bureaucratic CYA games instead of admitting that Shuttle is a dangerous X-vehicle prototype.

Just like the last accident, we almost certainly could have restarted operations less than a month later, but that wouldn't give the paper shufflers enough time to evade blame. :(

Yaeger had it right: we should have launched the first day of warm weather right after Challenger.

With cheap access to space, the ISS might cease to be useless, and expanding it would be cheap. Cheap access to space would also open up some real opportunities to make money, so maybe our kids could afford the unavoidable demographic bulge that's going to make Social Security and Medicare so expensive.

But shep, what do you think of the prize idea?

Yours,
Wince