Human Mars Mission Impossible?

I couldn't believe my ears as I listened to Andy Rooney on CBS' news
program "60 Minutes" last night so I checked on the official program
transcript and there it was in black and white.

In a segment titled "Ground Control To Mr. Bush", Andy Rooney revealed
that

" Space exploration hasn't produced much for us except some good
pictures."

and

"The moon is like a trip to the mall compared with going to Mars. The
moon is 250,000 miles away. Mars is 35 million miles. Scientists have
said that it would probably be a one-way trip for whoever made it,
because gravity on Mars is so strong that it would be impossible to
bring along enough fuel for them to take off and return to Earth.
Anyone going there might never come back. This makes the trip to Mars
by President Bush especially attractive to Democrats."



Best Regards, Jim Plaxco
National Space Society http://www.nss.org
Astrodigital http://www.astrodigital.org

Jim wrote:

I couldn't believe my ears as I listened to Andy Rooney on CBS' news
program "60 Minutes" last night so I checked on the official program
transcript and there it was in black and white.

In a segment titled "Ground Control To Mr. Bush", Andy Rooney revealed
that

" Space exploration hasn't produced much for us except some good
pictures."

and

"The moon is like a trip to the mall compared with going to Mars. The
moon is 250,000 miles away. Mars is 35 million miles. Scientists have
said that it would probably be a one-way trip for whoever made it,
because gravity on Mars is so strong that it would be impossible to
bring along enough fuel for them to take off and return to Earth.
Anyone going there might never come back. This makes the trip to Mars
by President Bush especially attractive to Democrats."

Andy Rooney doesn't seem to care that the Moon is spartan compared to
Mars in things like actually having an atmosphere with water and CO2.
Why doesn't Andy care? Send him an e-mail.

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote in message
...

Andy Rooney doesn't seem to care that the Moon is spartan compared to
Mars in things like actually having an atmosphere with water and CO2.
Why doesn't Andy care? Send him an e-mail.

And just why would we want another almost-Earth? The "spartan" nature
is exactly what makes the Moon so attractive. No corrosion. Plenty
of solar power to export. Plenty of materials for solar panels and
plenty of oxygen, if you can find technology for getting to it. Low
gravity and no atmosphere, so mass driver launches are possible one
day, requiring no retro-mass at all, just power.

On Mars you'd be in a cold desert with unbreathable air and dust
storms. The murky sky would be unsuitable for telescopes, as opposed
to the Moon. And getting anywhere else in the solar system by rocket
is comparable in difficulty to Earth launches. At any rate it's hard-
er than Moon-launches, and it's much, much farther away.


So what's the deal about Mars? It has all the disadvantages of the
Moon with none of the advantages, except for water ice. And if people
were so keen to move places and live there because of just *that,* how
come there are no giant domed cities in the Arctic and Antarctica?


--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

Ool wrote:

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote in message
...

Andy Rooney doesn't seem to care that the Moon is spartan compared to
Mars in things like actually having an atmosphere with water and CO2.
Why doesn't Andy care? Send him an e-mail.

And just why would we want another almost-Earth? The "spartan" nature
is exactly what makes the Moon so attractive. No corrosion.

Tell them to only use stainless steel on Mars.


Plenty
of solar power to export.

Why do I want to be so far away from the Earth, the presumed ultimate
destination of this exportable electrical power?


Plenty of materials for solar panels and
plenty of oxygen, if you can find technology for getting to it. Low
gravity and no atmosphere, so mass driver launches are possible one
day, requiring no retro-mass at all, just power.

The Moon has a huge dust problem and that even exists if you don't tramp
around in it.



On Mars you'd be in a cold desert with unbreathable air and dust
storms. The murky sky would be unsuitable for telescopes, as opposed
to the Moon.

Unless you are talking about radio telescopes which would use the Moon
to block interference, why not build the telescope's in space?



And getting anywhere else in the solar system by rocket
is comparable in difficulty to Earth launches. At any rate it's hard-
er than Moon-launches, and it's much, much farther away.

Asteroids aren't at the bottom of a gravity well and have a wide range
of materials available. Why not go there?



So what's the deal about Mars? It has all the disadvantages of the
Moon with none of the advantages, except for water ice. And if people
were so keen to move places and live there because of just *that,* how
come there are no giant domed cities in the Arctic and Antarctica?

Now that's just silly.

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote in message
...
Ool wrote:
"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" wrote in message
...

Andy Rooney doesn't seem to care that the Moon is spartan compared to
Mars in things like actually having an atmosphere with water and CO2.
Why doesn't Andy care? Send him an e-mail.

And just why would we want another almost-Earth? The "spartan" nature
is exactly what makes the Moon so attractive. No corrosion.

Tell them to only use stainless steel on Mars.

So the first step would be building a gigantic, sophisticated steel
industry from a few landers??

Plenty
of solar power to export.

Why do I want to be so far away from the Earth, the presumed ultimate
destination of this exportable electrical power?

Because solar cells are eight times more efficient in space. On Earth
you'd need to cover huge areas, and the change in albedo of such large
fields would cause immense problems of local warming in places where
it's way too hot anyway. (Equatorial regions would be the best loca-
tion for solar cells on Earth.)

If you set up photovoltaic cells in space you can beam down the energy
in the form of microwaves and have far less logistical problems dis-
tributing the power.

The problem is, you can't find materials in space for building solar
cells, which is where the Moon comes in as an interesting mining, man-
ufacturing, and launch site...

Plenty of materials for solar panels and
plenty of oxygen, if you can find technology for getting to it. Low
gravity and no atmosphere, so mass driver launches are possible one
day, requiring no retro-mass at all, just power.

The Moon has a huge dust problem and that even exists if you don't tramp
around in it.

No, actually it doesn't exist if you don't tramp around in it. Sneez-
ing won't exactly unsettle the dust. Build some roads and dust that
would clog up everything if it got in your gears can lie as far as one
meter away and you wouldn't have to care about passing it close by.

(I can see signs in my mind already, saying: "KEEP OFF THE DUST!")

No wind means if you don't touch the dust it's no problem for you.
Still, I can see how dust covering working vehicles would darken them
and make them more vulnerable to the drastic temperature changes
caused by sunlight. I wonder if there's some varnish you could pro-
duce up there that would make surfaces flat enough to keep the dust
off.

Painting stuff white so the sunlight won't matter that much isn't a
problem--plenty of titanium oxide available if we produced oxygen
from ilmenite. Only dark dust settling on that finishing layer might
be a problem, granted...

On Mars you'd be in a cold desert with unbreathable air and dust
storms. The murky sky would be unsuitable for telescopes, as opposed
to the Moon.

Unless you are talking about radio telescopes which would use the Moon
to block interference, why not build the telescope's in space?

Because the drive up there to maintain the thing would be a bitch.
Remember Hubble? If a few people lived on the Moon and we put tele-
scopes there all we'd have to ask them is to take a ride out there
every once in a while. Gyros to keep free-floating space telescopes
stable are obviously a big problem, as we've learned...

And getting anywhere else in the solar system by rocket
is comparable in difficulty to Earth launches. At any rate it's hard-
er than Moon-launches, and it's much, much farther away.

Asteroids aren't at the bottom of a gravity well and have a wide range
of materials available. Why not go there?

BECAUSE I GET SPACE-SICK, OKAY!? (Just kidding...)

The Moon's always close to us. Asteroids may offer small windows of
opportunity of going there, mining stuff, and getting the hell out
again. On the Moon we can take all the time in the world prospecting
and then mining, and once we have facilities that work on the Moon
we can start with the asteroids soon... (After all we'd need cometary
ice for life support once the place there grows.)

So what's the deal about Mars? It has all the disadvantages of the
Moon with none of the advantages, except for water ice. And if people
were so keen to move places and live there because of just *that,* how
come there are no giant domed cities in the Arctic and Antarctica?

Now that's just silly.

Mars is like an Antarctica where you can't breathe and that's really
far away, and otherwise it's a dead-end location, like Earth. The
Moon is not. Mars is a place to eventually settle on for good, if
you like. The Moon is a place to get places for settling on in reach
and to learn how to live in and off of a hostile environment.



--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
wrote in message
...

Ool wrote:

Plenty
of solar power to export.

Why do I want to be so far away from the Earth, the presumed ultimate
destination of this exportable electrical power?

This is a good point. I think the O'Neill plan still makes lots more sense
than the Criswell plan: launch lunar ore into space, refine and manufacture
SPS in HEO, and then send them down to GEO. The moon still figures
prominently in the solution, but for heaven's sake, don't put the solar
collectors in a place which is dark half the time.

The Moon has a huge dust problem and that even exists if you don't tramp
around in it.

I assume you're talking about the tiny amounts of extremely fine dust which
hover due to solar-induced charge effects. Surely that's pretty minor
compared to the Mars dust problem. I think the fact that (other than the
relatively small effect you allude to) on the moon the dust pretty much
stays put unless you stir it up is a significant advantage over Mars.

Unless you are talking about radio telescopes which would use the Moon
to block interference, why not build the telescope's in space?

An excellent point. I'd go even further, and argue that the added expense
of a seperate baffle would cost less than the additional expense of
soft-landing everything on the lunar surface.

Asteroids aren't at the bottom of a gravity well and have a wide range
of materials available. Why not go there?

A good question. There's really only one advantage of lunar resources over
asteroidal ones: the short travel times involved. Once manned expeditions
into deep space of many months duration become fairly routine, asteroidal
resources will probably out-compete lunar.

So what's the deal about Mars? It has all the disadvantages of the
Moon with none of the advantages, except for water ice. And if people
were so keen to move places and live there because of just *that,* how
come there are no giant domed cities in the Arctic and Antarctica?

Now that's just silly.

Not really. The only remaining advantage of Mars over arctic regions is:
You'd be in a place other than Earth. That "advantage" doesn't carry much
weight outside of our space cadet circles.

Of course, I've long been of the opinion that both the moon and Mars have
all of the disadvantages of being in space, but none of the advantages.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."

Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"

"Mike Combs" wrote in message ...
"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
wrote in message
...
Ool wrote:

Plenty
of solar power to export.

Why do I want to be so far away from the Earth, the presumed ultimate
destination of this exportable electrical power?

This is a good point. I think the O'Neill plan still makes lots more sense
than the Criswell plan: launch lunar ore into space, refine and manufacture
SPS in HEO, and then send them down to GEO. The moon still figures
prominently in the solution, but for heaven's sake, don't put the solar
collectors in a place which is dark half the time.


Yeah, I think that's a better plan, too. Once we're advanced enough
to build solar panels out of Lunar resources we'll also be able to
produce rocket fuel or mass drivers for launching either the raw mate-
rials into orbit or the finished products. Yes, the solar power sta-
tions should be in GEO, not on the Lunar surface, I agree. Even those
supplying the Moon itself would be better off parked in the various
Lagrangian points.

But no matter where you want to eventually place the things, it
doesn't change the immediate goal of going there and developing an in-
dustry first. Without that there will be no solar power on the Moon
or in GEO or anywhere.


--
__ “A good leader knows when it’s best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture.� '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack ) wrote:


Andy Rooney doesn't seem to care that the Moon is spartan compared to
Mars in things like actually having an atmosphere with water and CO2.
Why doesn't Andy care? Send him an e-mail.

And lots of pundits proved rockets couldn't work in a vacuum because
they wouldn't have anything to puch against.

Andy Rooney is a professional crank, and wouldn't even understand
the basic elements of the issue, much less details like surface
conditions, etc. I wouldn't bother with email - at best it will be
ignored, at worst provide fodder for his next random utterances.

He's not deciding anything, he's not influencing anyone who matters
one way or the other, I see no reason to spend any further time worrying
about it.

Brett

"Brett Buck" wrote in message news
And lots of pundits proved rockets couldn't work in a vacuum because
they wouldn't have anything to puch against.

Oh yeah, that one's always been a puzzler to me, too. Could anyone
explain? And how can they *burn* in a vaccuum??

Just kidding, just kidding. Impulse preservation and Newton's law of
reaction. And bring-your-own-oxidizer.


Still, I'm wondering how much debates on a low-education level can do
harm to the new space plans... Little, I hope. I'd hate to see stuff
canceled because "man was not meant to fly in space!"

Actually the whole "nothing but pretty pictures" remark is exactly the
one they want to change, don't they? They also brought back a few
rocks once, *long* ago, and that's the state of former glory they want
to return to now, and more. One day they might even bring back energy
to drive our cars and heat our homes--things we have to wage wars
about in desert region countries so far. Someone ought to explain
those things to people...



--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

Brett Buck wrote:

Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack ) wrote:


Andy Rooney doesn't seem to care that the Moon is spartan compared to
Mars in things like actually having an atmosphere with water and CO2.
Why doesn't Andy care? Send him an e-mail.

And lots of pundits proved rockets couldn't work in a vacuum because
they wouldn't have anything to puch against.

Rooney's not really a space 'pundit', maybe a spaced pundit.



Andy Rooney is a professional crank, and wouldn't even understand
the basic elements of the issue, much less details like surface
conditions, etc. I wouldn't bother with email - at best it will be
ignored, at worst provide fodder for his next random utterances.

I was hoping it would provide fodder for that. Of course you'd need LOTS
of e-mails to get in over the noise.



He's not deciding anything, he's not influencing anyone who matters
one way or the other, I see no reason to spend any further time worrying
about it.

He's only speaking to millions of people every time he talks on 60
Minutes.