Human Exploration of Mars

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 19:31:29 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Paul F.
Dietz" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Doug Ellison wrote:

Any tax $ spent on the space program in essence comes back to the country by
paying for thousands of engineering and aerospace (and management scum) jobs

Hiring people to dig holes and fill them in again does the same thing.

What you are missing is that money is just a placeholder; the real wealth
is resources, products, and services. Employing these people to do
something of no value wastes their labor.

Yup. These folks have apparently never taken a basic course in
economics, or learned about this concept called "opportunity costs."

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

Mars is not terra incognita. We have already explored it

Hardly scratched the surface.

There, of course, remain many matters of deep scientific interest on Mars
but these matters can be addressed ... by automated ... missions."

Automation is for wimps. Real men go there themselves. Machines will do for now
while we prepare to the real adventure. Besides, if people don't go there, why
should Mars interest us?

Tom

: Free enterprise has powered human endevour through the ages, it's
: about time the 'Planetary Society' displayed some American
: capitalistic drive to reach it's goal.

Getting donations isn't capitalistic?


Why sure it is. There is a market for donations, just like for everything else.
People like to donate their money to advance some cause. The Planetary Society
must sell their cause just like a company must sell its product, both require
advertising.

Tom

Not to mention the byproducts like velcro, teflon, solar batteries,
calculators, computers, etc.

Eric

And the skills we'd be preserving. I don't think finding the lowest cost
producer is the be all and end all of everything. Raw capitalism isn't very
patriotic. We should think of our country's interests first, and the Wealthy's
ability to enrich themselves at least second. What's good for "Richie Rich"
isn't always the best for the USA. Capitalism has done us a good turn in making
us a powerful contry, but we should keep our eyes open, and not subordinate our
national interests to campaign contributors.

Tom

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Van Allen had the following to say (in 1986) about the Columbus analogy:
[....]
There, of course, remain many matters of deep scientific interest on Mars
but these matters can be addressed ... by automated ... missions."

His judgement that matters of interest can be addressed by automated
missions flies in the face of the primary scientific motivations
for a manned Mars mission today; Exobiology, looking for either
subsurface life, or fossil evidence thereof, on the Martian surface.
The scale of the problem of doing that fieldwork is now well argued
to be something requiring something like a major manned program.

Not absolutely requiring a manned program; the specific tasks
and such are extremely difficult for automated missions,
and to some degree we do not know if it is possible to do
them in an automated fashion, much less 30 light minutes
away in an automated fashion. It is possible that the
state of the art of robotic exploration will advance
significantly, but the tasks are clearly beyond what we
know how to do remotely right now. And it's not like
people haven't looked at doing them remotely...

Note that we didn't really understand that question well in 1986,
which is when he wrote that.


-george william herbert

On 2 Dec 2003 03:24:50 -0800, (John Ordover) wrote:

Free enterprise has powered human endevour through the ages, it's
about time the 'Planetary Society' displayed some American
capitalistic drive to reach it's goal.

Capitalism has looked at space and can't find the money stream -
because there isn't one.

Then the Planetary Society might as well pack up and get back in its
box, unless they want the tax payer to pay for their projects, i.e. go
to Mars for nothing, as Uncle Sam will pick up the tab.



Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 21:18:10 +0000 (UTC),
(Eric Chomko) wrote:

Christopher ) wrote:
: On 1 Dec 2003 08:07:53 -0800, (Abdul Ahad)
: wrote:

:
: That should comfort American's who are worried their jobs may go to
: China that their tax dollars are paying to go to Mars.
:
:
:
: Christopher
: +++++++++++++++++++++++++
: "Kites rise highest against
: the wind - not with it."
: Winston Churchill
:
: There are very few voices out there advocating manned Mars missions,
: so I reckon the Planetary Society deserves some credit for the
: important effort that it makes on behalf of its 100,000+ members who
: represent the world's largest private spaceflight interest
: enthusiasts.

: Free enterprise has powered human endevour through the ages, it's
: about time the 'Planetary Society' displayed some American
: capitalistic drive to reach it's goal.

Getting donations isn't capitalistic?

Pin money.

: Let's face it, without societies like the Mars Society and Planetary
: Society keeping pressure on congress for decent future goals like
: Mars, I think the US space program will continue drifting aimlessly
: for a great many more years to come.

: The US space program needs to reinvent itself and not just provide
: employment to 20,000 pen pushers, and rely a $14 billion umbilical
: cord full of public money.

What do you propose?

Starting fresh with sensible goals and no political agenda driving
events.

Do you question the $400+ billion that goes to the
DOD?

Yes, to much money is spent on keep the defence contractors happy
producing weapons and equipment that cost to much and don't do what
they are claimed to do.

Quite a small is the $15 billion that NASA gets as compared to what
the DOD gets. Does the war machine to actually be THAT big?

: My generation was too young to see men on the Moon and it will be nice
: to see people on Mars, soon. Dreams!

: So build you're own spacecraft and go to Mars as a private mission
: then.

Who would regulate that he built it in such a manner as to be safe for
all?

Well if the design was faulity he's never make it to Mars, who
regulated the Write brothers Flyer 1?

You free enterprise of space folks need a new schtick. If NASA got just 3%
of the DOD budget (talk about a waste of US taxpayer funds), they could do
a heck of a lot more.

If NASA was free of political control they'd do a damn site more with
what they have.


Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

"Christopher" wrote ...
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 21:18:10 +0000 (UTC),
(Eric Chomko) wrote:

You free enterprise of space folks need a new schtick. If NASA got just 3%
of the DOD budget (talk about a waste of US taxpayer funds), they could do
a heck of a lot more.

If NASA was free of political control they'd do a damn site more with
what they have.

Presumably that would be something like ...

http://hades.nasa.com/

then.

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 15:12:19 -0000, "Doug Ellison"
wrote:


That should comfort American's who are worried their jobs may go to
China that their tax dollars are paying to go to Mars.

Any tax $ spent on the space program in essence comes back to the country by
paying for thousands of engineering and aerospace (and management scum) jobs

And what about all the lower ranking pen pushers and assorted
bureaucrats involved with the space program?




Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 21:22:33 +0000 (UTC),
(Eric Chomko) wrote:

Doug Ellison ) wrote:

: That should comfort American's who are worried their jobs may go to
: China that their tax dollars are paying to go to Mars.

: Any tax $ spent on the space program in essence comes back to the country by
: paying for thousands of engineering and aerospace (and management scum) jobs

Not to mention the byproducts like velcro, teflon, solar batteries,
calculators, computers, etc.

Which are now made outside America, as labour costs are cheaper.



Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill