"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote in
:


"Botch" wrote in message
...
On 22 Mar 2004 12:15:30 GMT, (Hallerb) wrote:

A goal, definately......but the US has had only one station and this
half built mutant that we have now The ISS has been in the planning
and construction phase since the 80's, we can't even finish building
the test bed toTEST tech for a Mars mission.

ISSS has been in the planning and construction phases since 1992.
Before that we were planning Freedom for many years, but never got
much done.

And it is not a test bed to test tech for Mars. In fact, Congress in
the past few years made it clear that NASA could NOT test Mars bound
tech on the station (witness the fate of transhab.)

That's because up until this new initiative, Mars in association with human
spaceflight, was a very very bad word with the Congress. Don't forget the
times dude. Paper studies and fairly low key earth bound research funded
by general aerospace research funds (i.e. that didn't require specific
funding be aproved by Congress), was all NASA was alowed to do specificly
in the name of Humans going to the Moon or Mars.




Specifically we need a LOW COST TO ORBIT SYSTEM! After that
everything
else
gets easier!

Agreed, we need a better, cheaper launch system, but we also need a
station to develop the Mars tech where the very survival of the
station doesnt' compete with the experiments that are being done.

Probably.



Botch




--
David,

--------------The Speed of Light---------------
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