John Penta writes:

On 1 Oct 2003 14:44:00 -0700, (John Schilling)
wrote:

John Penta writes:

Why do I say that?

1. This...fixation with the private sector: Folks, there is NO PROFIT
IN A MARS FLIGHT.

???

James Cameron could bring in a gigabuck in gross revenues from the first
manned Mars mission with one lobe tied behind his brain.

Making a *net* profit is tricky. It's going to depend on both cost
reduction and cost sharing, and it's not going to happen tomorrow.

But making "NO PROFIT!" a capitalized absolute, is silly.

I was trying to rattle cages; I see I have done so. (Oh, I wouldn't
DOUBT we could get plenty of gross revenue. Would it, however, break
even? Not likely.)


You do understand that about every other month someone shows up here
to "rattle our cage" with the profound observation that there is NO
PROFIT! to be had in space exploration, etc?

First person to do so can plausibly claim to have been trying to
introduce a new idea into the discussion. After that, it's the mark
of an asshole or an ignoramus.


My personal opinion is that, at the present time, a Mars mission would
be skipping a step, namely a moonbase. And I mean a FULL moonbase,
where we can get used to living for really, really long times off of
the Earth and where we can learn the kind of construction techniques
that would be required for a Mars mission.

See, this is why NASA wanted four hundred billion dollars to go to Mars.
Well, one of the reasons.

And it simply does not hold up to examination. There is nothing of any
great importance that could be learned on the Moon that cannot be learned
just as well in LEO and/or on Earth. In particular, the Moon is not Mars,
and its environment in most relevant parameters is as far from that of
Mars as Mars is from Earth. The Moon is *not* the stepping-stone to
Mars, it is just a different place we can go.

You can actually make a pretty good argument that a permanent, substantial
Moon base would be a *better* mid-term goal than manned Mars exploration.
But not that the one is a prerequisite to the other.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
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