Robert Zubrin (Mars Society): Mars This Decade


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this is a best case scenario. global resource depletion, overpopulation and economic/technological stagnation will get to us first. it will be a slow and painful process, but humanity will die without expanding beyond Earth.

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Asteroids, several of which are on track to hit Earth in the next few hundred years unless we become a spacefareing species and do something about it. Some of these are the size of Mt. Everest. There are >1,000 of concern cataloged so far..

The list of most dangerous before 2178 (so far)....

If any encounters another object before either it could be dangerous even before then. One we really have to watch is Apophis.

Then there are rogue comets and asteroids we don't knoe about yet.

What a shock it would be if they get an early warning system up and running along with an international defence and then spot a sizable planetar entering the system directly headed for Earth!

Just kidding of course - although it has no doubt happened many times in the history of the Universe.

What is important - and more so than any tourism jaunts to the moon, is to get a permanent base on Mars with colonists and start building a seed/sperm bank.

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That's not a base, that's a settlement mission and it IS possible if we do it right. Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace has talked on this extensively and he has a very good set of ideas, mostly involving the use of ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) to set up fuel genersting depots on the kunar surface and Deimos, with refueling fuel depots at L1, in Mars orbit and other places. This drastically simplifies mission logistics and could allow for propulsive reentries and landings on Mars instead of the risky high speed reentries we do now.

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If the correct choices had been made we could have been on Mars in the mid to late 1980's.

Who is to say that is true?

For the life of me, i could never see us doing any of that with the Reagan administration.. a lot of history would have to change, not just choices of space craft.

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Reagan had nothing to choose from and no Dem support in Congress for funding a new space program, so speculating about what he would or wouldn't do is useless

The choice of orbital spacecraft (Shuttle) was a done deal well before the Moon landing in the 60's and Nixon canceled the exploration program, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and the Big Gemini spacecraft.

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Reagan had nothing to choose from and no Dem support in Congress for funding a new space program, so speculating about what he would or wouldn't do is useless

The choice of orbital spacecraft (Shuttle) was a done deal well before the Moon landing in the 60's and Nixon canceled the exploration program, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and the Big Gemini spacecraft.

Actually the shuttle program was started in 69, the technology wasn't being tested until 1973 with some x-someplane or another flights :)

My point about Reagan was he was the beginning of the end for large federal space projects that weren't directly beneficial to militarya.. i'm pretty sure in his head he kept the shuttle program moving in hopes of its military potential.

There is absolutely no way in hell a large space program could possibly surive the "modern" conservative movement no matter WHICH vehicle people wished would have come true.

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Actually - the Phase A NASA Space Shuttle study started in 1968 and other proposals predate that. It really got started in 1963 with designs for an "Aerospace Transporter." Not all of these were spaceplanes but one was the Martin Astrorocket. Some would track it back to the X-20 Dyna-Soar (1957-1963)

Dyna-Soar

PG26-A.jpg

Martin Astrorocket

astrrckt.jpg

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the politicos have been blocking space exploration for decades for fear of out of control costs, commitment and a re-kindled space race. the US, Russia and China are terrified of making moves that will force each other's hand and start a bona fide contest. of course this contest will be good in the long run, but everyone's afraid of making the next big step. this is the real reason the Apollo prog was canceled, DC and Moscow had a tacit gentlemanly agreement to end aggressive space exploration before they both went totally broke or had to commit more than they were comfortable committing. same reason SDI never happened, same reason no one has a really good missile shield, same reason supersonic passenger planes and hydrogen-powered cars haven't happened yet...we're too comfortable with the status quo! Zubrin is right, we could be on Mars in a few months if we really wanted to.

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