25th June 2010, 9:47 PM
Quote:Weltall speaks of there being better things to do with money. He is thinking, and living in the here and now.
Not even slightly true. I simply believe that mass space travel is not a feasible project in the year 2010, and the undertaking of a manned mission to Mars must have a point greater than bragging rights.
In point of fact, I am in favor of technological advancement at the fastest possible speed, so that we can undertake these kinds of enterprises with better tools, equipment, and ultimately, people.
You want to know why now isn't the time? I think one of the reasons we haven't gone to the moon in 40 years is because, when we were going, we lacked the capacity to do anything once we got there. We could plant a flag, collect some lunar rocks, and leave some garbage behind, but we were nowhere near ready to locate, much less exploit water sources, or any of a dozen other limitations that made establishment of a lunar base completely impossible in 1972. We stopped going because there literally wasn't anything to do on the moon at the time. It is only very recently that we've developed the proper technologies to make the idea of a lunar base possible . . . but, the powers that be aren't very interested because of the long-held notion that the Moon is just a dead dustball in the night sky. We landed on the dustball in 1969, but we've spent almost a half-century asking "okay . . . now what?" The moon is no longer the mystical goal it once was. The fact that we've been there is something everybody takes for granted now.
Essentially, we got too excited too quickly, and now that we find ourselves able to potentially make an enterprise out of the Moon, nobody cares anymore.
We're not even close to being ready to establish a Mars base, because Mars has an obstacle much greater than the Moon: it takes close to a year to traverse the Earth-Mars distance. That's extremely tenuous for safety reasons, and a nightmare for logistics. Consider: to build a base on Mars would require transportation of all the necessary materials. They would all have to arrive at the same time. Most likely, there would have to be extras of everything, to account for nearly a year's worth of potential disasters. Such a mission would be fantastically expensive, and the rewards would take ages to realize.
Whereas, if we waited thirty or so years, we may find ourselves equipped with vastly improved transportation methods and systems over what we have now. We'd have to wait longer, but the operation would go more smoothly and would progress with fewer pitfalls.
YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
WE STAND AT THE DOOR
WE STAND AT THE DOOR