"Marvin the Martian" wrote in message
...

Tired of all the flame wars? Insane posts? Off topic postings?

Want to try a moderated forum?

Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/

A new forum where you can discuss space policy, particularly if you
understand why Mars, and not the moon, should be our immediate goal of
our space program.
http://www.ontomars.org/blog/?m=200903

Why the Moon isn't a Stepping Stone to Mars

Mars has an atmosphere however thin, the moon doesn't. A Mars day is 24
hours and 40 minutes, a moon day is about 14 earth days. Temperatures are
different between Mars and the Moon. The new technologies needed to go to
Mars like the simulated gravity tether and large mass aerobraking to get
to the Mars surface, have nothing to do with the Moon. So, other than
they require totally different technologies, the moon has little to offer
in the way of Mars development.

The moon would be a good place to build telescopes. Better than Mars.
That's just about the only thing the Moon has going for it.



Right, and our military has already laid plans to use the moon as a base for
gathering intelligence for our missile defense shield. This is the true and only
justifiable reason for our plans to return to the moon, for military purposes.
"The moon is the ultimate high ground", according (to quote) our US Air Force.

Don't you realize we are being lied to? For national security reasons as we
don't wish to start a military space race to the moon with the Chinese.

Oops! That ship has sailed ...hasn't it?


Now, what does Mars have?
Climate Science.

The primary thing Mars has that is ....scientifically....interesting is the
strong
possibility of microbial life in it's past or even the present.
We can fully study this question with robotic missions not only much much
cheaper, but even much faster. It might take five years to build and land
an advanced rover. Manned missions are still thirty of forty years off. By then
we'll know all we wish to know about Mars.

Even a casual analysis of our current space goal of using the moon as a stepping
stone
to Mars shows it's deliberately misleading. Meant to help the military gain the
ultimate high ground on the moon. With manned missions to mars being nothing
more than a straw man.




Many people are interested in the science of climate change. Mars is a
cold planet that once was much warmer. Further, like earth, the climate
of Mars is also changing. Ice core samples taken on Mars would advance
the science of climate change a great deal.

Since we WANT a warmer Mars, tinkering with greenhouse gasses on Mars
would not only help to terraform Mars, but provide a great deal of
science about climate change.

You don't get any of this by going to the Moon, the Asteroids, NEOs or
any other dead rock.


It's still an indirect means of learning about the climate of earth. And given
it's distance and expense, a very inefficient way of advancing earth science.
Not to mention the odd orbit of mars means it's climate of far more complex
than on earth, complex meaning harder to predict and understand.
Global warming on earth is an imminent crisis which requires the /most/
efficient ways of finding solutions. Not the most /diffucult/, slowest and
most expensive way.



Biology

The Moon, the Asteroids, and NEO are all dead, lifeless rocks. In the
past, Mars had an ideal environment for life with a warmer environment
and flowing water. What's more, gas releases from Mars suggest that life
may be there to this day. What a fantastic discovery it would be to find
fossil life on Mars. And the probability of finding extra-terrestrial
life on Mars would be the most significant scientific discovery since.
well, FIRE. You don't get this by going to the Moon.
A Home for Humanity.

Mars has carbon. Mars has oceans of frozen water.


Earth has more.


Mars can be
terraformed.


A concept or goal that spans centuries is 'pie-in-the-sky' science for the
simple reason it takes so long and so much effort only the most
pressing needs could possibly justify the huge effort and time span.
And pressing needs rarely spans centuries. This makes such concepts
a logical contradiction


The moon has no carbon, trace amounts of water. It makes no
sense at all for a carbon based life form made mostly of water to try and
colonize a world where there is no carbon and almost no water. What's
more, because there is no volcanic activity or water on the moon, there
are no ores. Materials like copper will be hard to gather on the moon.
You can build bases on the moon, only on Mars can you build a colony.

What's more, you can grow crops in greenhouses on Mars, as the Martian
day is close enough to an earth day that our plants can grow there in a
greenhouse with a low pressure atmosphere. On the moon, the nights are
two weeks long!

Mars is the Gateway to the inner solar system

Because Mars can support a colony and the moon can only support a base,
Mars will eventually become humanity's gateway to the inner solar system.
Once every two years, the energy required to go from Mars to the Moon is
much less than going from the earth to the moon! You can get much larger
payloads into space from Mars than you can from earth. A Mars
civilization would be a spacefaring civilization.


Why is it always ...assumed...humanity is destined to, or will need to colonize
the solar system??? I believe the first signs of an intelligent or civilized
life
is the ability to control it's environment in a sustainable way.

And once we learn to do so, we no longer need to expand. Hence the
logical contradiction with colonizing. If we don't know how to build
sustainable societies on earth, how could we possibly succeed in space
with the limited resources and unforgiving nature of space?

Once we have learned to build sustainable societies/colonies on earth, we no
longer need to expand to space. If we can't our colonies will fail.


The Danger of going to the moon

Most of you are too young to recall, but in the early 1970s, when the
Apollo program was returning bags of rocks from the moon, people were
saying things like "We can go to the moon but we can't cure the common
cold" or "We can go to the moon but we can't end poverty" and so one.
People saw the product of the moon program: Moon rocks, which appeared to
be ordinary earth rocks and were only of interest to scientist. The
payback for space programs seemed small. Many people could put together a
bag of rocks for far cheaper. Space programs seemed wasteful, and the
Mars program was convicted by guilt by association with the Moon program
in the eyes of public that didn't know better. There's a PAYBACK for
going to Mars.

History repeats itself. Today, it is very much like it was in the 1960s.
We have a plan to return to the moon in 15 years or so. However, in 15
years , the people are once again going to see bags of rocks coming back
from the moon. They will not see the discovery of extraterrestrial life.


Robots will have discovered it long before then. And given us millions of high
res
color pics on the surface of mars. So many it's as if we already live there.
By the time men set foot on mars, it'll be ho-hum. We need a space
goal that becomes more justifiable over time, not less.

They will not see new discoveries in climate science.


By the time men walk on the moon, where I live will be thirty feet underwater.
I'm not exaggerating, for South Florida the most recent and respected
projections
show the entire south of the state underwater in .....forty years. Those
projections
came out last spring, a few months later the real estate market in South Florida
bubbled, setting off a nationwide real estate panic and world wide recession.

The effects of global warming are here already. It's too late to fix it.

We need to 'circle the wagons' so to speak and start using our scientific
abilities and resources as if our national existence were at stake.

To the moon and mars define the antithesis to what is practical, logical and
needed.


And they will not
see an exciting new self supporting colony.


What we ....need....and need desperately is to create a new self supporing
colony.....HERE ON EARTH.

Unless of course you intend to move SIX BILLION PEOPLE to a space colony.
How will the public respond to the notion of devoting our entire national
science goal
just so a few selected people can abandon the earth just before all hell breaks
loose?

Lucky few eh? I bet the public would embrace that notion with all the derision
it can muster. At best to the moon and mars is a Guilded Safari for those
living in Ivory Towers ...to milk ...at the expense of our national survival
and the future of the planet.


WE didn't learn from Apollo
and we are in danger of making the same error.


The lesson of Apollo, according to Neil Armstrong in his address to Congress,
was
that Apollo as a goal had too much emphasis on pure science and exploration, and
not balanced with the tangible needs of society. Hence the short term support.

Long term support, which is CRUCIAL requires clear, massive and easily
justifiable
tangible returns for society. Our /primary national science program/ should
be
oriented around our greatest national needs and problems. Such as global warming
and energy etc. Not some fancy safari for the rich and famous.

We used to have such a goal, remember ssto? Remember space ports? Remember
space solar power? Bush killed /it all/ for a military oriented goal. A small
base on the
moon for our missile defense sensors.


Instead of building the true infrastructure we need to exploit space, single
state to orbit
space ports ect, we building another one-shot deal. Instead of solving global
threats
like climate change and energy shortages, we spend all our dough kicking around
some moon rocks and drilling little holes for bacteria.

If we do that, we deserve what we likely to get from Nature. Another hundred
thousand
year long ice age that kills off just about all life on earth.

Cheers!


Jonathan

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