Aim for Mars, Apollo 11 crew says

[IDemo]

Source: USA TODAY

By Traci Watson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the first human moon landing, the astronauts on that storied mission spoke of their great luck in being the first to go to the moon and lamented that NASA is working to send humans not to Mars but back to the moon.

In a rare joint appearance Sunday, the members of the Apollo 11 crew recognized that what for them had been a daring flight was also a stand-in for hostilities between the Soviet Union and the United States.

40 YEARS LATER: What's the next step?

"The space race faded away. It was the ultimate peaceful competition," said Neil Armstrong, 78, and it "did allow both sides to take the high road."

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-07-19-apollo-crew_N.htm

[lindisfarne]

1. Aim to send rovers. How many missions could you send for the cost of sending one mission of humans?

Our science budget is too small as it is. Let's explore the planet we have. We know precious little about our own oceans. It's going to be far cheaper to fix the planet we've messed up than to even think about living elsewhere in large numbers (a very unlikely option).

[harmonicon]

7. I don't think the point of space exploration is colonization

Has anyone (seriously - like astronauts) suggested that? The point is to go above and beyond our daily lives; to instill wonder; to make people fascinated with the possibilities of the universe and their own lives within it.

[daleo]

2. We should leave it to China to go back to the moon

Then we could pick up cheap moon rocks at Wal-Mart.

[timeforpeace]

3. Mars and the moon can wait, they'll always be there. Feed the planet, end the wars.

[Psephos]

4. Go to Mars or no, this planet will never be fed, and the wars will never end

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Victory comes one belly and one treaty at a time.

The space program should be judged on its own merits. The amount of money spent on it will not erase poverty or make those who hate stop hating. Meanwhile, I note you use a computer and a network to post. Do you know which government-sponsored program you owe those to?

[timeforpeace]

22. All I know is Mr. Gore said he invented the internet. If that's your point, I guess I do know.

[Psephos]

31. Actually, it's a side point, but it's worth mentioning

The internet arose from basic telemetry technologies invented to allow the transmission of data from spacecraft. The key there was "packetized" data. In other words, collecting data about the flight, turning it into digital bits, and sending those bits in a stream on a single radio frequency. At the other end, a computer collected the stream, and turned it back into human-readable information.

Soon after, the precursor of the internet, ARPANET, applied these concepts in a wired network linking computers in different cities and even different parts of the world. ARPANET was funded by the Dept. of Defense, and employed by the space program to permit flight control computers in different places to work together.

The extreme need for space and weight savings on spacecraft drove the development of miniaturized integrated circuits and microprocessors.

A lot of other everyday technologies came from the space program as well, and the money spent on those programs was a good investment, although that was unforeseen at the time.

If you're interested in learning more about this, here's a good start:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/is-space-exploration-worth-the-cost-a-freakonomics-quorum/

[Dr_Willie_Feelgood]

45. Not being facitious here... serious question:

How?

Every civilized person wants to end war and poverty. I see a lot of people saying someone (else) should do it.

Seems to me it is time for someone to step up and say HOW to do it.

My thought is, as a tool of inspiration, as a recipient of analytical problem solving, and as a provider of good jobs to intelligent, creative, hard working people, the space program has its part in this challenge.

But I may be wrong. Maybe we don't need to invest. Maybe we just need to give agribusiness a ton of money to give food to people to eat and poop and become hungry again when it is gone.

Give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish... one makes more sense to me than the other.

[Posteritatis]

46. A lot of these guys think we can create utopia if we just zero the NASA budget. (nt)

[elocs]

5. Aim for Earth. We have plenty of problems right here that need attention.

I'm 57 and I've got to say that I was herded onto the gym floor in grade school to watch on a black and white tv as the first astronauts went into space.

I don't think it can be morally justified to send people to the Moon or Mars when we have hungry people here living in poverty and millions in need of basic health care just trying to live and make ends meet. I don't buy the philosophy that in order to have innovation it needs to be first filtered through the space program.

The "poor and hungry will always be here" is a sad and sorry attitude to take and is usually made by someone who is neither poor nor hungry.

[bigjohn16]

6. The total lack of vision for the future in some of the other posts confuses me.

The Apollo 11 mission was a world event that united us in a shared vision for the future of our species. It was a first for all of mankind, something that broke through borders and ideologies to unite us if only for a brief time. Yes we can sit here on our little rock and wallow in our misery sending out probes like we send out for pizza knowing that we are the center of the universe so why bother risking our skin. We used to see a river and cross it just to see a mountain and climb it just to see an ocean and sail it. We now go home and see our TV and complain about how many channels there are to get to something good. If we turn inward and stop reaching for that next unknown we'll die as a species thinking we're the pinnacle of evolution in the universe.

I just hope that more people have dreams of the future then have fear of the present as seems to be the case in this thread.

[timeforpeace]

23. Resources are limited, and we face a choice. Which is it, Mars or Earth? Yes, it's one or the other

now, there isn't enough government money to do both.

[comtec]

50. I choose Mars then

I choose leaving this little blue dot.
As a species we are seriously fucked if a asteroid ever does hit (and it WILL!)
If we are to survive as a species we MUST leave and colonize space.
That in it's self is a FACT!
If we stay... we WELCOME annihilation!
There is a great line in Babylon 5, Where Sinclair talks about why... When he thinks about all the greats, Elvis, Marylin, Mao, Washington, etc... He could not bear to think about all them just.. pfft, disappearing in an instant.

THAT is why we must go out.

And FWIW... we will be sending the BEST of us out there.
Any space-borne humans will be of the best stock, the smartest, and the least prejudiced.
They will be what we WANT other life forms to see not the sad excuse of humanity that inhabits this rock.
not the brain-dead red-neaks that yehaw and vote for * and the gop!
Not the uneducated masses that blindly follow a faith that kills others!

But the best, the brightest, the most open minded.

So yes... I VOTE MARS!

[Veruca Salt]

52. Mars

Because without moving forward we will continuously fall behind as a species. If we do not keep striving for knowledge and reaching for the thought unreachable future generations will keep dumbing down to a point where no one cares anymore and there won't be enough care to feed the Earth or save the planet.

In the pursuit of science, and such a vast reaching one as Mars, who knows the advances we will achieve in reaching that next goal? Terraforming could translate into feeding the worlds poor or saving the rainforests or fixing global warming. The race to the red planet and ones beyond could stall Earthly conflicts as people reach for loftier goals.

Yes, science can be deadly in it's creations when applied to war but science also brings people of all spectrum's together in peaceful design.

[Norrin Radd]

8. Watched an enthralling mini-documentary on Robert Zubrin's

Mars Direct plan on History Channel On Demand. It reinforced my conviction that we should go. Venturing out into the universe is humankind's destiny.

Zubrin has several books on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248078259&sr=8-1

[NishiKotarou]

9. It would be amazing.

I think it would be an amazing feat of human accomplishment to finally do it. My earliest memories are of being fascinated with the solar system and space in general. I also "knew" as a child that one day I'd live on the moon, although that seems a distant possibility now. Going to mars would inspire a whole new generation of children to seek careers in science and perhaps ensure that my children could live on the moon some day.

[Veruca Salt]

53. "Going to mars would inspire a whole new generation of children to seek careers in science"

That needs to be repeated, thank you for pointing it out.

[bread_and_roses]

10. One of those astronauts is regularly spotlighted touting "the private sector"

on a commercial for, I believe, the Science Channel. "The private sector could probably get us to Mars in twenty years," says Buzz, or Neil, or whichever one it is, apropos of nothing at all as his last words in the spot. It always makes me grit my teeth in frustrated ire and disbelief. Hey, you - which "sector" got you to the moon, you nit-wit?

I've always been a supporter of space exploration, believing that it was not our science and space programs that kept the world hungry and bloody but rather capitalism and militarism. But I don't think it matters, anymore, really - that little spot confirms my worst fears for humanity: that we are so infinitely self-deluding, so incapable of applying even direct personal learning in one sphere to another if such learning contradicts our dearly held irrational beliefs, so capable of denial in the face of no matter how much evidence if that evidence is in conflict with our immediate self-interest or advancement, that we will manage to destroy ourselves and the earth with us in very short order, no matter what heights we achieve in certain arenas.

Someone upthread says that if we stop going to space we will die as a species. Well, we are on a rapid road to doing so anyway - unfortunately taking most of the rest of the earth's living things with us - space program or no.

[timeforpeace]

24. If the private sector got us there, why should we care?

[bread_and_roses]

40. Miss the point entirely (n/t)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

11. Spend on Space, forget Health Care

Space exploration is an interesting luxury.

Health care is a higher priority.

One bozo's view.

:hi:

[comtec]

51. And how do you think we GOT the level of med tech that we have now?

Hyperbolic chambers, MRI, perfectly sterile environments, plastic, velcro, and on and on.
ALL of these are benefits that came from the space program.
batteries to keep hearts alive that were smaller than a dodge dart!
THAT computer you're using.
are you so brain dead that you don't know where that internets thing came from?
do you not understand how we GOT to this level of technology?
GROWING crystals to form OLEDs and wafers for CPUs, all of it is because of research done IN SPACE!

The NASA budget is a mere DROP IN THE BUCKET Compared to the pentagon... hell MOST programs!

For what we gain, we spend a paltry amount on space!

but hey, it's your existence. go ahead, think 5 minutes ahead for the rest of your life.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

12. If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve...

...then nothing is cool.

[Blandocyte]

13. Let's learn to get along with each other on this little rock

before we go barging off into the cosmos. Call it a prerequisite. It would not be good to piss off Tzwebr and the Yqdyxobs. They are bad interstellar mothers.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. As if that ever worked!

How To End War:

1. Stop all military spending.

2. Take half and put it into the space program(s). (Re #1, give military personnel priority in hiring.)

3. (Optional) Find some Imams who can interpret parts of the Quran to command humans to settle the universe.

Tech spending is ALWAYS a good idea, and space spending is particularly good. It gets people educated in ALL disciplines. Our anti-intellectual, anti-technological conceits are laughable. Perhaps understandable in times of fear, but we can't stay afraid forever!

--d!

[Regret My New Name]

25. I don't think that would end all wars...

People would just throws rocks and sharp sticks at each other again...

[Dogmudgeon]

32. You're probably right

But it's better than what we've been doing.

(I'm sure that the rock-and-sharp-stick lobby does not agree.)

--d!

[bushmeister0]

15. I remember one trip I took to the National Air and Space Museum

standing there at the Apollo exhibit marveling at the irony of the fuel cell that powered the trips sitting behind glass as some relic of a bygone era.

'Well, been there, done that, no need for this anymore!'

We used fuel cells to get us to the Moon 40 years ago, yet the notion of using them to get us to the super market and back is technology 50 years down the road, if at all.

If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they figure out a way to power cars with hydrogen and water, two of the most common substances on earth? Come to think of it the Germans did it in the 19th century. That was just before they discovered oil in Pennsylvania. Hmm . . . connection?

[BlueJessamine]

16. Apollo 11 crew: Moon less interesting than Mars

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The first astronauts to walk on the moon want President Barack Obama to aim for a new destination: Mars.

On Monday, the Apollo 11 crewmen, fresh from a Washington lecture Sunday in which two of them expressed concerns about NASA getting bogged down on the moon, are meeting with Obama at the White House.

In one of their few joint public appearances, the crew of Apollo 11 spoke on the eve of the 40th anniversary of man's first landing on the moon, but didn't get soggy with nostalgia. They instead spoke about the future and the more distant past.

Sunday night, a packed crowd at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum — 7,000 people applied in a lottery for 485 seats — didn't get the intimate details of the Eagle's landing on the moon with little fuel left, or what the moon looked like, or what it felt like to be there.

They got second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin's pitch for Mars. He said the best way to honor the Apollo astronauts "is to follow in our footsteps; to boldly go again on a new mission of exploration."



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gzeedGOg5fJZoc3ax-EBlB1wUO5QD99I2QB01

[rfranklin]

17. 2050: Mars landing crew says "Mars less interesting than...

Alpha Centauri."

[Posteritatis]

48. I'm cool with that progression. (nt)

[Selatius]

49. If we could just invent technology to allow us to create wormholes to get there. nt

[Veruca Salt]

54. I do so hope that's what they say.

:)

[moggie]

18. Wow, all three were at the White House?

They should have left Michael Collins a few miles away.

Seriously, it must be a real treat to see those three together. And strange to think that their host, the guy with the power to set people on the way to Mars, probably watched the Apollo 11 landing as a small boy. The last time anyone walked on the moon, the current president was 11 years old.

[Apollo11]

20. Good one!

Imagine if Michael Collins had to drop Armstrong and Aldwin off at the front gate and then drive round and round the Whitehouse while they go inside and meet President Obama. ;)

[ohio2007]

36. LMAO

I'm suprised Armstrong even showed up. He has been the least visable, most low profile astronaut of all time for the place in life fate put him in. He could have written his own ticket in life. Unlike the other Ohioan, John Glenn, that remained high profile, Neil just took it in stride and moved on.

[qazplm]

19. they are right in the long run but

before we go to Mars, we might need to perfect a few things closer by, and in the grand scheme of things, since Mars would need hundreds of years to be terraformed, if there is water at the poles of the Moon, then given the large possibility of Helium3 there and the relative ease of getting there, the Moon seems, for now, about as interesting in the short run as Mars.

[Apollo11]

21. I guess they want to inspire the next steps

I read a novel published in 1997 about what if NASA had kept on pushing for a manned mission to Mars.

In the novel, humans land on Mars in 1986, just 17 years after Apollo 11.

VOYAGE by Stephen Baxter
www.amazon.com/Voyage-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0061057088/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

[Kolesar]

26. More funding for aerospace weapons contractors--no thanks

The Cold War is over. The real challenges are here on Earth.

[Baclava]

27. Chemical rockets will only take us so far.

NASA inks deal for ISS plasma drive tests

Plans to test a super-efficient plasma space drive aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been confirmed. The Ad Astra Rocket Company, which is developing the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), has announced the signing of an agreement for the tests with NASA.

...

The VASIMR works by ejecting plasma reaction mass at extremely high velocities, much higher than a normal chemical rocket can achieve by spitting out combusting fuel. This means that a given amount of reaction mass does hugely more work, which could allow Moon ships to carry more cargo or interplanetary voyages to be made much more quickly.

The VASIMR isn't any use for launching a spacecraft into orbit, however, as its thrust-to-weight ratio is far too low

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/17/vasimr_plasma_rocket_iss_agreement/

[ikri]

28. To everyone who wants to put "Earth issues first"

Please tell me of a single world government that if offered the opportunity to cut funding for space exploration wouldn't simply piss it all away on tax cuts for their friends or an exciting new war.

There are fantastic resources in our planet's backyard that could power the planet for generations, enough natural resources to supply our material desires for eons but they'll stay exactly where they are unless we decide that we want access to them.

I don't agree that we should ignore the moon however, there's quite possibly enough water there to power vehicles on to deeper exploration of the solar system, not to mention the Helium3 we could hopefully use to power fusion reactors.

[Brother Buzz]

29. Let's discover our own deep space (ocean) first

The ocean needs our help and I truly believe it will, in return, help us. Traveling to Mars is a cop out.

[hatrack]

30. Yes, everything's so perfectly under control and stable here . . .

:wtf:

[MisterP]

33. interestingly, most of the data from space exploration is geological

and solar-system-formation-studies rather than economic: Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov's flock has painted sparkling pictures of rough-and-ready asteroid miners and quasi-religious "ascent"--but it's not nickel ores or olivine that we'll be running out of, but living systems themselves (and there's exactly 1 planet in the System what has it). Even J.D. Bernal's followers are waiting for the Rapture Singularity to be their technological savior. The only thing that can outright save humanity appears to be mass belt-tightening--though people praying for messy life to be replaced by machines would probably call the Reality Principle "defeatist" (had they ever encountered it once in their lives).
I support Mars expeditions in terms of pure science (and provided the funding won't slash at social programs, which means no wars of choice), but "colonization" is a boondoggle sold in the same way as SDI or "transhumanist" promises of our minds escaping into cyberspace: Antarctica is more friggin' promising than the Moon, and the colonists will be relying on an agency that plowed the Galileo probe into Jupiter to prevent its contamination by Earth life

[robertpaulsen]

34. MARS BITCHES

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1667605413427828064

[captain jack]

44. RED ROCKS!!!

[fujiyama]

35. We should keep it as a goal

A long term goal perhaps - like 25 years or so. Mars is very far no doubt (30 million miles or so) and using Saturn V technology, I think it would take 6 months, which isn't practical. We need to research a fuel source that would work for it.

I'm disappointed with the reaction of so many here. What the hell leads people to believe that we'd spend the money "here at home"? The money would likely be funneled away on some weapons system or the other.

[Posteritatis]

47. What the "we need to fix things here first" people really mean is "never never never never" (nt)

[Veruca Salt]

55. I hadn't even thought about the applications of a new fuel source

derived from the pursuit of the Mars goal. That right there could open doors to alternate fuel we need right here at home.

See, this is why I love science. You sometimes are rewarded with the unexpected.

[struggle4progress]

37. Human space exploration is a waste of money. Robotics don't require life support and

they can gather more data. If we want samples from Mars, we should send a robotic lander to collect some samples and return them: the thing won't go stark raving mad from boredom while flying there and back

[ieoeja]

38. To all the "Earth Firsters" ...

Post WW-II, no single gov't program has created more jobs than Apollo. If a new space initiative resulted in a lot of a good jobs, doesn't that translate into helping cure problems right here?

More people making more money means less need and more people to help them.

[IndianaGreen]

39. The Keep Earth Human League strives to keep our planet free of aliens!

with apologies to Robert Heinlein.

[BreweryYardRat]

41. Keep the space program going, but don't shoot for Mars just yet.

We need to fix our own problems. See how we can incorporate the space program into that. For example, set up moonbases to mine for rare resources and/or resources that can't be easily accessed on Earth without damaging the environment/wildlife. The moon's a dead rock with no environment. Might as well make use of it -- and bring some geologists along to do research while we're digging.

[inwiththenew]

42. I'd say sucessfully landing on Mars would be one of it not the greatest achievements

In the history of mankind. At that point there will be humans living on two planets simultaneously. To send humans successfully ten of millions of miles through space and have them come back in one piece would be astounding. I think it is all a matter of timing. Mankind will eventually need to look outside of this planet or even solar system in order for the human race to have long term survivability. In that case though we are talking about thousands if not millions of years from now so who knows.

[Mari333]

43. let them pay for it. nt