Space Policy: Why Mars should be our top priority.

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.
Now, what does Mars have?
Climate Science.

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.
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. Mars can be
terraformed. 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.
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.
They will not see new discoveries in climate science. And they will not
see an exciting new self supporting colony. WE didn’t learn from Apollo
and we are in danger of making the same error.



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http://OnToMars.org For discussions about Mars and Mars colonization