In article , says...

On 8/1/2018 7:43 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

Jeff Findley and I have been having on sci.space.science a discussion
about water on Mars and terraforming Mars, that I appreciate very much.
Nobody else is contributing to the discussion, possibly because some of
you have given up on sci.space.science.

So if you haven't checked on sci.space.science for a while, I encourage
you to go check it out. And if you want to contribute to the discussion,
that would be great.


Alain Fournier

I don't want to sound snarky, but given the fact that NASA won't even
consider strong LEO gravity lab proposals pitched by Rand Simberg and
the SSI, for eventual ISS commercialization strategies, just so we can
find out if humans can live on Mars for more than a few years at a time
before succumbing to strange physiological conditions heretofore unheard
of, I find this whole issue, well, just not worth a discussion. Sorry
and a bit ****ed. Not a good time for pie in the sky with me.

I agree with you and I've been there.

Right now my opinion is that NASA has become a boat anchor when it comes
to crewed space exploration. They spend orders of magnitude more time
and effort "naval gazing" while thinking about theoretical crew safety
than they do actually flying crew. We're very close to flying
commercial crew but the certifications are what's holding things up.
Every little thing they object to causes some sort of redesign and
"fix" which draws out the schedule.

But, at the same time, terraforming will take hundreds or thousands of
years. Not something we're ever going to watch live on YouTube like a
rocket launch. All of us here will no doubt be long gone when the first
Kuiper belt object is dropped on Mars.

Jeff
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