How To Beat Congress's Ban Of Humans On Mars

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban humans on Mars at NASA: "Provided, That none of the funds under this heading shall be used for any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars." The bill is held up in Congress and the anti-Mars language may be taken out. But in case the Mars ban becomes law, the Space Review has a handy guide on how NASA can beat the ban and continue its research and development without breaking the law."

Why?

[RandoX]

What does Congress have against funding for exploration of Mars? What's the purpose for that?

Easy

[geekoid]

Plan to go to Pluto. When a congress more favorable to a mars mission is in place, have them remove the ban. Funny enough, developing technologies to get us to Pluto would be very handy in getting us to Mars as well.

Or plan to send a ship the opposite direct then are rotation and plan to meet up with it in 8 months.

Re:Why?

[Cy Sperling]

They, more than likely, see it as a colossal waste of taxpayers money. Unlike, say..., sending millions of dollars in cash into a warzone with no accountability whatsoever.

Re:Congress?

[Stringer Bell]

They do, however, have jurisdiction over the U.S. budget.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

They, more than likely, see it as a colossal waste of taxpayers money. Unlike, say...

Or dropping billions and billions into a welfare state that demeans and destroys the human spirit. Or an education system that has gotten worse as more Federal money has been dropped into it.

Inevitable

[Reality Master 101]

As has already been pointed out, the summary is misleading. But you might as well get used to this idea. We will NEVER colonize the planets. As soon as the technology starts to get close, the scientists and environmentalists will stop it, so as to not contaminate a virgin environment. *Particularly* in the case of Mars, because scientists want to see if life already exists there (it doesn't, but they want to find out for sure).

I understand the romance of living on other planets, but it's inevitable that these will become permanent bans, because once it starts, it'll never end. The future of humans in space are spinning habitats.

And yes, Earth can stop it happening. Forget the idea of a Heinlein-style hero taking off and say f-you to the Earth. There is no way a colony can survive without assistance from Earth, probably for centuries before it could be self-sustaining.

I could also talk about the fact that very, very few will want to live on Mars because it's lifeless dead rock, but that's another subject. :) [hint: how many people try and live in Antarctica? And that's a hell of a lot more hospitable.]

Every dollar spent on Mars...

[Nova Express]

...is a dollar that can't be used to provide pork for John Murtha's district. [cbsnews.com]

Or defense contracts for companies owned by Nancy Pelosi's husband. [mypetjawa.mu.nu].

Or billions in subsidies to Fortune 500 agribusiness companies. [cbsnews.com]

There can be no funding for frivolities like the human exploration of space when so many of the needs of the Permanent Bipartisan State of Porkistan remain unmet...

Re:Why?

[Solandri]

NASA has two factions - manned and unmanned missions - who both compete internally for the same money. Big-name manned NASA projects like Apollo, the shuttle, ISS, and this manned Mars mission have a history of expanding until they consume almost the entirety of NASA's budget. Many, maybe even most, would say most of the useful science comes from NASA's unmanned missions. On a bang-for-the-buck basis, I think almost everyone agrees the unmanned missions yield much greater returns. But of course there's an allure, a romance with sending a man out there.

Congress is trying to protect the other projects from being cannibalized to fund the manned Mars mission. And they want Bush to pony up the dollars for it if he's going to give NASA a mandate to put a man on Mars (as opposed to just giving the mandate with no funds, forcing NASA to divert funds from other useful missions).

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[Evil Adrian]

I can think of plenty of things that are more motivating and visionary to spend taxpayer money on. Things like AIDS research and cancer research, just to name two off the top of my head.

I believe that the people lacking vision are those that want to spend billions of dollars rocketing a team of 8 people to a giant red rock in the sky when we haven't figured out how to fix problems at home first.

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[PlatyPaul]

What with the additional costs of sending humans anywhere, doesn't it make sense that an already-strapped NASA would pursue human-free missions to stretch its limited budget? I mean, I'm all for pumping up the public view of space exploration, but that problem lies more in making the public aware than in the nature of the missions themselves. Seeing a robot plant an American flag on Mars could be equally awe-inspiring, if widely televised.

The members of Congress were duly elected by the general populace of the United States; why NASA should attempt to ignore Congressional opinion is beyond me. If you happen to live in the U.S. and are upset about the situation (one way or the other), I urge you to contact [congress.org] your representative legislator(s) directly.

Re:Has Washington Lost its mind?

[LWATCDR]

"No wonder we as a country are getting plowed under by the rest of the world on the innovation front. "
While I do think that this bill is dumb how do you figure that the us is getting plowed under on the innovation front?
The US still leads the world in Space exploration. There are some very interesting robotic missions going on right now.
The US is still a world leader in ICs And is the world leader in CPUs. Intel's core line, AMDs Barcelona, IBM's Power5, Suns' Sparc T2 are all very cutting edge.
The US still leads in Aircraft. The 787 and the F22 are prime examples of innovation. And then you Burt Rutan.
There is a lot of very innovative work in biology going on in the US.
Then you have Software. Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Google, and IBM, are all doing a lot of interesting research and development work.

I also worry about the future of technology in the US but when you make statements that are just flat out untrue people will dismiss your concerns.

Should NASA earn a weasel reputation?

[ColoradoAuthor]

Regardless of whether one thinks that the "Mars ban" is a good idea, would it be good for NASA to get a reputation of using loopholes and subverting the intent of Congress? Even if NASA complied, space enthusiasts could inadvertently build such a reputation in the public mind.

Then what? Would Congress get more strict the next year, resulting in dozens of started-but-never completed projects? Would the public say, "Those NASA dudes can't be trusted! See how they handled the Mars ban? Let's use that money to subsidize professional football instead!"

Why stop at Mars?

[Anonymous Meoward]

What's so wonderful about manned exploration of space anyway?

Transporting humans and all of their environmental requirements is ridiculously expensive. The risk for the travelers is ultimate. Alternatively, unmanned missions can go not only where no one has gone before, but also where no one will ever be able to go (e.g. the Venutian surface), and for a fraction of the cost.

The only upside from a manned mission is that we feel all warm and fuzzy when our heroes return from the voyage. Big deal.

Sounds odd to say, but I'm with Congress on this one. I just wish they'd taken it farther.

As I understand it, it's all about bang per buck

[threaded]

Manned missions look cool, but you get more science out of the unmanned missions. Trying to get NASA to concentrate on the unmanned stuff is what they're trying to do.

As I understand it, it's all about bang per buck.

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of plenty of things that are more motivating and visionary to spend taxpayer money on. Things like AIDS research and cancer research, just to name two off the top of my head.

I believe that the people lacking vision are those that want to spend billions of dollars rocketing a team of 8 people to a giant red rock in the sky when we haven't figured out how to fix problems at home first.

What problems at home do you think Spain should have fixed before dropping huge amounts of gold into the Columbus expeditions? When would those problems have been fixed?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[Pantero Blanco]

A culture of machismo where the first thing Spanish explorers did when they reached the New World was rape women and steal?

Like the Aztecs did to the other tribes, but without the human sacrifice?

A nation that tries to deal with its social problems completely before tackling expansion and technological progress will be destroyed by the nations that don't.

Re:Congress?

[spockbert]

"There is only 1 thing that brining a human to mars achieves, and thats a story."

Except for that sentence, I pretty much agree with you. There could be any number of things gained by sending humans to Mars. We could develop new techniques related to long distance space flight. We could develop a better understanding of the long term effects on humans of space flight. And those are just the first two things I could think of. As someone else pointed out, think of all the things we have now as a product of NASA and it's past space exploration. Who knows what researching and planning for a manned mission to another planet could produce? While we may not need men on mars, there may be benefits we can't imagine now that could be discovered by putting them there.

Of course, there is nothing saying the same advancements couldn't be achieved through private citizens/corporations doing the same thing. NASA and the US Government don't have a monopoly on innovation.

Re:Why?

[CheshireCatCO]

Precisely. It's an old trick to give an agency more to do than you know its funding will carry. You look like a visionary *and* and a fiscal conservative and force someone else to make the painful cuts and to be the bad guy. In the case of NASA, it's almost invariably the manned program or engineering side that is supported and the unmanned and/or science that is cut.

Really, all Congress seems to be asking is for the Administration to be honest with its funding requests: ask for the money needed to do what you want, or stop claiming to be visionary in sending people to Mars. Congress is actually doing its job, in that case.

Re:Inevitable

[teslar]

We will NEVER colonize the planets.

Sure. And there is a market for maybe 5 computers in the world, 640K is enough for anybody, we don't need telephones because we have good messenger boys, flight of heavier-than-air vehicles is impossible, rail travel at high speed is impossible because humans would be unable to breathe and asphyxiate etc etc. Oh, and just for you:

To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.
--Lee DeForest

Have you learned nothing from past absolute statements?

Re:Congress?

[Dan Ost]

But humans are so more expensive. They need to eat and breath. They require more space. You need to handle their waste. You need to keep them healthy. You need to provide a way for them to come back (they're not disposable like robots).

Robots are cheap and you can do more science per dollar spent using robots in space than you can using humans in space.

Re:Congress?

[MontyApollo]

I think this all came about from when Bush announced his vision for the future of NASA, the administrator at the time immediately started scrapping existing programs like Hubble to pay for this "vision". Congress had approved the NASA funding for various programs like Hubble, not for this new vision, and they didn't want someone in there killing these programs to pay for Mars. Basically they are saying that if the president wants to go to Mars, then he needs to get in funded like anything else.

Re:Inevitable

[Reality Master 101]

Have you learned nothing from past absolute statements?

Sheesh, way to not read my post at all. Where did I say it was technologically impossible?

Re:Congress?

[plague3106]

Honestly though, why should Congress get to decide that? NASA's main purpose is space exploration, I think that covers going to Mars.

Re:Congress?

[HUADPE]

Honestly though, why should Congress get to decide that? NASA's main purpose is space exploration, I think that covers going to Mars.

Because Congress created NASA and has final say over the purposes and funding of all federal agencies.

Re:Congress?

[rothic]

Also i can't honestly see the point on why we need men on mars. Emotional as it is, its just not practical. There is only 1 thing that brining a human to mars achieves, and thats a story. Does America really want to spend billions for another "One small step"?

Well, we've spent nearly a trillion dollars occupying a politically insignificant nation in the middle east. I don't think a few billion dollars spent doing something that we can actually be proud of is going to hurt anyone.

Re:Congress?

[FinestLittleSpace]

You are right in many many regards, however, the cost of sending humans to Mars is so unbelievably huge that it actually, despite the inanity of it, STILL costs less to make endless robot missions improving/revising a mission which didn't suit the appropriate criteria. It is true that humans with a suitably powered rover could zip around Mars and find so much more than one robot, but it would cost orders of magnitude more than just sending 10 different robots there one after the other. ...and even then, you'd probably have gathered the research even before the humans-to-mars R&D stage had finished.

I really really love the romanticism of humans on Mars. I really love the concept of terraforming, and I really wish it wasn't so damn dangerous to throw larger nuclear powered crafts up into space, as this could really open up possibilities, however it really is a low-return for the money you would throw at a human project.

As lovely as putting people into space is, it's expensive, risky and a hard case to argue. If we were a world all obsessed by expanding to other planets, we might even have had miniature civilisations on Mars by now, but as a whole, the obsession is looking after one self and not the far future...

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[CoolHnd30]

You people drive me crazy... The #1 priority of the human race should be getting colonized on another planet? Do you realize just how fragile our existence here is? Besides the threat of global warming and it's consequences, any number of happenings in space could take us out almost instantly... If we have a comet decide to hit us, if the Sun decides to have a belch that comes our way are just the first two that pop in my head, but there are many others. Right now we have all our eggs in one tiny (by space standards) fragile basket... If one of those events happens, and that basket breaks, we are done as a species, it's over, fin, no mas.... AIDS research, cancer research, etc, are going to do nothing but improve our health and contribute to an overpopulation problem (and wouldn't it be nice to be able to send those extra people to another planet to relieve that problem...)

Re:Why?

[TopSpin]

What does Congress have against funding for exploration of Mars?

At the present time Mars exploration is an inefficient method of purchasing voters. The money will instead flow to those interests that leverage the largest constituency of the dominant party [democrats.org]. What those interests are can be found here [aarp.org], here [afge.org], here [nea.org] and here [sierraclub.org], but mostly here [ama-assn.org]. All public proselytizing aside the recent change in US political party dominance has not and will not cause substantial disruption in the flow of funds here [wikipedia.org], because nothing raises the cost of voters for incumbent rulers as rapidly as martial humiliation. [rense.com]

The good news is that inevitably a rivalry will develop between the US mob and some other nation's [wikipedia.org] mob and NASA will once again be an efficient vote purchasing mechanism. With any luck the US will have a solid launch platform [nasa.gov] ready for that eventuality despite current shifts in political priorities. We'll have the wisdom of an engineer [nasa.gov] (in not coupling the fate of launch platform development to Mars exploration,) to thank for this when it comes to pass.

The fact that launch platform development is not coupled directly to Mars Exploration makes this anti-Mars Exploration language from Congress largely symbolic anyhow; NASA will go right on developing the necessary rockets. That fact is the single best argument I can think of against this [wikipedia.org] naive and now very dead notion.

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[Creepyguywithastick]

"If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun." ---C. S. Lewis

Science or propaganda?

[Per Abrahamsen]

> True, but this reveals a great lack of motivation and vision among U.S. lawmakers

So telling NASA to use their budget on science rather than propaganda shows "lack of vision"?

Mars is stupid

[bussdriver]

Man on Mars timelines are so long that robots will be much better at that time. We can out perform human exploration NOW! Its only a waste of money to do it before it gets cheap. We can send dozens of robots for the cost of 1 human. Its not cost effective and will not be for sometime (if ever.) When we are ready to build bases to live on then we can send humans (not exactly exploration at that point.) We NEED advances in robotics on earth more than methods for space travel. Everybody keeps neglecting how cold and O2 free mars is and the traveling problems; which are best saved for solving later.

Its a DISTRACTION, didn't anybody notice how Bush has been trying to slow or stop climate science? He has NASA refocused on mars and neglecting other areas that he doesn't want or care about moving forward. Remember, he stopped a climate science probe that other countries would have paid to launch (it was already built) just because he didn't want any climate science probe backing this vast conspiracy of climate scientists scamming people about global warming. (we know he tried to censor government climate scientists, even after the public woke up.)

I've said it before; won't waste time doing it again even if I'd get mod up like I did before.

Re:Congress?

[Kohath]

Ahh, so politicians know better than scientists on how to conduct research.

When you go to a restaurant do you order what you want to eat?

Or do you just give them your account number and they bring you whatever the chef wants to cook that day? Then the chef takes the amount of money he feels he needs from your account.

Because chefs know better than customers how to prepare a meal.

"Exclusively"

[DynaSoar]

That's a key word in the proposal. It'd be damn silly to put money into R&D that couldn't translate to another domain. The intent is to be able to use (frinstance) the Constellation lifters for both lunar and Mars flights. There was never any plan to ban people from Mars.

Re:Congress?

[lgw]

Of course, congress *also* micromanages NASA at that level, though earmarks (if SATA drives were important to the economy of some congresscritter's district, you bet language like that would appear), just not in this particular case. NASA has started and abandoned more cool research projects that were making progress than any rational decision-making process could account for, based on the rise and fall of the people who get to add earmarks. It's the fundamental problem that makes NASA somewhat lacking when it comes to actual results: they don't have any control over their own priorities, or even which project they're allow to complete!

Re:Congress?

[osu-neko]

It's worse than that. It's not merely a matter of "who's going to collect my garbage and make me my cheeseburger?" Having unhealthy people around you is hazardous to your health. Seeing the best doctor every day while many people around you can't afford to see a doctor at all creates a situation like having every expert in fire-safety in the world suggest improvements to your house while you live in a neighborhood of fire-traps. I don't care how well you've taken care of your home, when the fire rages across the city, your house will burn with all the rest. The fact that the fire was less likely to *start* there will be of little consolation.

Individual fire protection isn't better than a public fire department because some things, like fire (or disease) can rapidly get out of control when control isn't comprehensive, and then even those who *did* pay for private fire control end up suffering. There are things in life that can't be effectively gone about piecemeal by individuals -- they require coordinated public solutions, or else they're not effectively dealt with at all.

Re:Could the headline have been more misleading?

[outcast3d]

I can think of plenty of things that are more motivating and visionary to spend taxpayer money on. Things like AIDS research and cancer research, just to name two off the top of my head.

It's interesting that you mention research in medicine. In fact a lot of NASA's research goes into medicine, most notably osteoporosis. There is a much better understanding of the disease because of studying the effects of bone density loss on long term spaceflights. The ill-fated Columbia mission was mostly dedicated to medical research, cancer included. Just because you don't understand what they are doing with our money and is easily dismissed, doesn't make it useless.

More info on NASA's contributions and spin-offs:
A searchable database, and bit technical, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ [nasa.gov]
A practical list of contributions, http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html [thespaceplace.com]

I believe that the people lacking vision are those that want to spend billions of dollars rocketing a team of 8 people to a giant red rock in the sky when we haven't figured out how to fix problems at home first.

And spending $475 BILLION on an illegitimate war is visionary? With what NASA is able to accomplish on $16 Billion per year is the ultimate in visionary and resourcefulness. Not only does it create jobs but gives us a better understanding of so many things that have previously been mentioned. And that's my $.02.

Yup!

[FatSean]

Just like politicians know better than intelligence agents on what constitutes a real threat to the USA, and how politicians know better than generals on what constitutes a feasible war plan.

Some old shit...