Wernher von Braun: Americans could land on Mars as early as 1982

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:59:44 -0600, in a place far, far away, Joe
Strout made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Yeah, they had a lot of ideas back then that turned out quite
unrealistic -- not in terms of physics and engineering, so much as in
economics and politics.

They weren't unrealistic. We could have. If we'd wanted to...

Well, "if we'd wanted to" is a political condition, is it not?

Von Braun was speaking from the standpoint of technical capability,
not political sustainability.

Well, I certainly can't argue with that. But since the OP started this
thread by pointing to the article without comment, I could only surmise
that he was trying to make some point, such as "look, von Braun said we
could be on Mars by 1982, why the heck aren't we there yet?"

Well, yes, it wasn't clear what the point was, but von Braun wasn't
necessarily *wrong*. We could have.

We probably could have done it by the mid-to-late 70's with enough effort
and NERVA engines (or multiple Saturn V launches a-la-Zubrin-style)..
But, no Bucks...no Buck Rogers...

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 15:29:19 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Joseph
S. Powell, III" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Well, I certainly can't argue with that. But since the OP started this
thread by pointing to the article without comment, I could only surmise
that he was trying to make some point, such as "look, von Braun said we
could be on Mars by 1982, why the heck aren't we there yet?"

Well, yes, it wasn't clear what the point was, but von Braun wasn't
necessarily *wrong*. We could have.

We probably could have done it by the mid-to-late 70's with enough effort
and NERVA engines (or multiple Saturn V launches a-la-Zubrin-style)..
But, no Bucks...no Buck Rogers...

We could have done it even without that. But it wasn't politically
important. It still isn't.

Fortunately, now that private individuals are getting into the act, it
doesn't matter.

On Jul 1, 4:39 pm, (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 15:29:19 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Joseph
S. Powell, III" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Well, I certainly can't argue with that. But since the OP started this
thread by pointing to the article without comment, I could only surmise
that he was trying to make some point, such as "look, von Braun said we
could be on Mars by 1982, why the heck aren't we there yet?"

Well, yes, it wasn't clear what the point was, but von Braun wasn't
necessarily *wrong*. We could have.

We probably could have done it by the mid-to-late 70's with enough effort
and NERVA engines (or multiple Saturn V launches a-la-Zubrin-style)..
But, no Bucks...no Buck Rogers...

We could have done it even without that. But it wasn't politically
important. It still isn't.

Fortunately, now that private individuals are getting into the act, it
doesn't matter.

Speculation like "we could have" is worse that worthless because
identifiying something as worthless at least is a definitive value
judgement. "We could have" is neither definitive nor productive or
positive. You can claim you're right and you get to be in that
context. But so what? There is no value or results in it.

I suppose your sort of thinking is good at this point in commercial
spaceflight. Too bad that doesn't get us into space. "We could be
doing it."

Eric