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Mars Politics

Donald Trump Thinks Going To Mars Would Be "Wonderful" But There Is a Catch 442

Posted by samzenpus from the quato-approved dept.
MarkWhittington writes: Donald Trump, the mercurial real estate tycoon and media personality who, much to the surprise of one and all, has become the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president opened his mind just a little about his attitude toward space exploration, according to a story in Forbes. In an answer to a question put to him about sending humans to Mars, the current focus at NASA, Trump said, "Honestly, I think it's wonderful; I want to rebuild our infrastructure first, ok? I think it's wonderful." In other words, dreams of going to Mars must take a back seat to more Earthly concerns. It is not an answer many space exploration supporters want to hear.
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Donald Trump Thinks Going To Mars Would Be "Wonderful" But There Is a Catch More

Donald Trump Thinks Going To Mars Would Be "Wonderful" But There Is a Catch

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  • He's got company (Score:5, Funny)

    by RabidReindeer ( 2625839 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @12:38PM (#50326647)

    Many people would like to see Donald Trump go to Mars.

    But the Martians would probably consider him to be an illegal alien and might expect us to pay to put up a wall to keep him out.

    • Re:He's got company (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trepidity ( 597 ) <delirium-slashdot@@@hackish...org> on Sunday August 16, 2015 @12:51PM (#50326717)

      Unfortunately for the martians, yankee illegals are notoriously hard to keep out. Ask the Cherokee how that worked out for them...

      • Re:He's got company (Score:4, Interesting)

        by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @05:27PM (#50327843) Journal
        and yet, it was not the yankees that did the main damage to them. It was New Spain/Mexico that had been wiping out numerous tribes in what is today America. Had they not reduced the native American population by 3/4, then the yankees would never have controlled the area.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by c ( 8461 )

      The Martians might consider us sending Trump to Mars as an act of war.

      I only say "might" because while most humans would, we don't entirely understand the alien mind.

    • Do you remember on Slashdot in years past, whenever a story about Mars came up, someone would write some kind of science fiction about the Martian council's response to Earth's actions? I sure miss those stories.

      • Do you remember on Slashdot in years past, whenever a story about Mars came up, someone would write some kind of science fiction about the Martian council's response to Earth's actions? I sure miss those stories.

        http://pocho.com/wp-content/up... [pocho.com]

      • Re:He's got company (Score:5, Funny)

        by newcastlejon ( 1483695 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @01:32PM (#50326937)

        Let it be known that rumours of the death of our glorious overlord K'Breel, First Speaker of The Council are exaggerated and heretical. All those found to be promulgating such malicious and flagrant falsehoods are hereby ordered to attend reeducation seminars, on pain of forcible removal of the middle and lower left gas sacs. Any citizen found to be harbouring or otherwise giving succour to said enemies of decency and Martian righteousness will face the additional penalty of exile to the frost mines of the North for a period of not less than thirteen cycles.

        Let it also be known the Grand Plan nears fruition. Rejoice, citizens! Soon the loathsome inhabitants of our planetary neighbour will be completely ignorant of our existence and the First Speaker's plans for their extermination may proceed. Soon we will be rid of their interference, free from their noisome electromagnetic emanations and free to walk the beautiful red sands of home without fear of their invading robotic thralls. Rejoice citizens, or face immediate vacuum desiccation.

        That is all.

        Signed,
        K'Traal
        Assistant Speaker to The Council.

  • False dichotomy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @12:39PM (#50326657)
    We spend next to nothing on space exploration. The tons of waste and needless pork projects in government needs to go first. If trump is half as capable at business as he claims then there should be plenty of surplus to do both without cutting funding or raising taxes.

    • The president is nowhere near as powerful as most people think. When it comes to the budget the best they can do is negotiate with Congress how to allocate the high level funds. There's no way they would go through every small program offered by the government and see if it's needed. Yes they could set up a panel to go through but that's what the auditor (whatever you call it down there) is for. The problem is that every program that exists has been created was done so with political support and you ca

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Please tell me what the president is not allowed to do now. I've seen a war with Libya, not approved by Congress. A new immigration policy, directly voted down by Congress. Changing a massive healthcare bill about 15 times, directly against the wording in the bill passed by Congress. A treaty signed with Iran, not likely to be approved by Congress but I am told it is still fully leagal. All in just the last few years.

        The treaty and immigration things are directly in the Constitution under Congressional

    • Re:False dichotomy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16, 2015 @01:12PM (#50326827)

      It's definitely *not* a false dichotomy. There's a huge difference between the things NASA does for a few billion dollars, which usually revolve around robust hardware that doesn't have to take squishy meat-bags into consideration, and starting a colony on Mars. Musk is proposing sending *millions* of people to Mars, and the lower bound is close to 200. We're talking about tons(literally) of equipment to house the people, as well as giving them the tools necessary to create the things they need from the Martian environment. They'll have to repair their own equipment, and learn to expand on their own in a relatively short amount of time. Even if they're subsistent on supplies from Earth, we're still talking about an expensive and constant barrage of goods - above and beyond what the Martians 'need' so that they have what they need when things go bad(redundant systems for *everything*).

      Failure on Mars means everyone dies and the equipment falls into disrepair from weather and other bad things. Dead people and the entire thing is a sunk cost. Failure on the moon means everyone could possibly escape alive(they use escape pods to get to an orbital vehicle which can then take them back to Earth, much like the Apollo landers), and the equipment will remain more or less in the same condition as its left since there's no atmosphere. So long as a rogue meteor doesn't come marauding through hitting shit, it'll be in the same working condition when we manage to send people back up there.

      So yeah, that's a 'wonderful idea' and in time it will happen. But is it the most pressing issue of our time? Definitely not. We don't even have any sort of operations set up on the moon, even though the moon offers a lot of resources(particularly helium) that could potentially be used for nuclear fusion or other interesting things here on Earth. My thinking is: if we haven't even set up some sort of sustained colony on the moon(for science, industry, etc) then we have no business trying to do the same on Mars. The moon is far lower risk, far lower cost, and our presence there is nonexistent. Mars can wait.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Trump is very capable at making money for himself. He does it by mismanaging companies into the ground and then having them (not him) declare bankruptcy. Can't wait to see how that translates to running a country.

      That said, he's still the best the Republicans have.

    • He did have a plan. [cnn.com] Says it clearly couldn't work now. It doesn't seem like a very Republican platform, to be sure. Of course, at the moment, he seems to be doing more to advance the chances of a Democratic candidate than Hillary is. Seems like every time he opens his Trump hole, another 4-5% of the country decides they want to vote Democrat.
    • it's mostly the military and keeping old folks alive (Social Security + Medicare). After that there's some money for foreign aid (Israel especially) and some money for the Interstate Highways.

      I know a billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, but to a nation it's not. Trump won't be able to solve our problems without raising taxes because to really fix our infrastructure problems would require rolling back the tax cuts and loopholes we've been doling out to the 1% since Regan. There's a reason why our
      • A true Libertairian president could balance the budget in 5 years. Cut all tax breaks and corporate wealfare, Impose a national healthcare with cost controls, cut the military by 25%, impose a flat tax on America of 25%.

  • Don't worry (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @12:40PM (#50326661) Journal
    Don't worry. When it comes time for the Florida primary, he (along with every other candidate) will be competing to come up with the most amazing program ever. After the primary, it will be forgotten until the next election.

  • Someone should summarize Gerard K. O'Neills " The high Frontier" for this guy - and other candidates.
    It's be interesting if any of them really get it and agree with the core concepts

  • But it is one of the most reasonable things that he has said recently.
  • He's 100% right. The money the spent on a Mars trip would be better served fixing our crumbling infrastructure. What's the point of sending humans to mars when people die from bad roads and failing bridges everyday?

    Of course the same could be said about throwing trillions at the F-35.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by garry_g ( 106621 )

      Of course the same could be said about throwing trillions at the F-35.

      ... or all the money spent to save the country from the results of tycoons like him that caused the banking crisis?

      Seriously, look at all the scientific advances and inventions from the space race ... advances for space exploration help us down here ...

      • Re:He's right (Score:5, Interesting)

        by thinkwaitfast ( 4150389 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @02:02PM (#50327057)
        Can you name some scientific advances and inventions by the soviets in the space race, or only (if that) the ones made by americans. Many have argued (including Richard Feynman) that the advances of the space program were not technological, but organizational (not a trivial problem when here are hundreds of thousands of people involved)

        • And he was pretty much spot on. The Boeing 777, the various Aibuses (Airbusi?), the LHC all owe quite a bit to the management structures developed for Apollo. Our ability to organize tens of thousand of human beings doing very complex things (not just picking up rocks in one place and dropping them in another) really took a big jump during Apollo.

          And then jumped a couple of steps back when Gantt charts became popular, but that's another story.

    • What's the point of sending humans to mars when people die from bad roads and failing bridges everyday?

      Well, considering that "bad roads and failing bridges" generally comes out of State budgets, and "sending humans to Mars" would come out of Federal budgets, I'm not seeing anything mutually exclusive about the two.

      Sort of like my neighbor choosing to put in a pool doesn't actually impact me buying a new car....

      • You have no idea of the amount of Federal subsidies for those things. Even the one million dollar new bike path in my town was built mostly with federal money

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fnj ( 64210 )

          You have no idea of the amount of Federal subsidies for those things. Even the one million dollar new bike path in my town was built mostly with federal money

          Thank you. You put your finger precisely on what enrages thinking people about runaway federal pork. Build your own goddam bike path.

  • Trump makes sense again? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jack9 ( 11421 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @12:50PM (#50326715)

    > In other words, dreams of going to Mars must take a back seat to more Earthly concerns. It is not an answer many space exploration supporters want to hear.

    That sounds perfectly sane. Sending people to Mars now, is a waste of resources. We send probes, probes tell us basically what we already know (its slightly less inhospitable than say...Venus) and we learn some new details about the inhospitable conditions. Artificial Intelligence or Genetically Engineered creatures to send to Mars is a much more efficient approach. Let's get that working on Earth, first and we can talk about the myriad of inhospitable places that open up. That's very long term thinking, which is part of what space exploration is about. I don't think Trump supposes to know anything about long term technological viability. He just happens to be on the right side of this.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BoRegardless ( 721219 )

      Time to cancel way to many US Gov't programs that DON'T WORK!

      Start w/the Dept. of Education. -- State & local control of schools worked just fine before Carter.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fnj ( 64210 )

        Start w/the Dept. of Education. -- State & local control of schools worked just fine before Carter.

        Absodamnlutely. Run over with a bulldozer all of the departments which do nothing. The Department of Agriculture doesn't grow a damn thing, and that's none of the Feds' business anyway - 134 billion. The Department of Labor doesn't get a single person a productive job, and that's none of the Feds' business anyway - 138 billion. The Department of Education doesn't educate anybody, and that's none of the Fe

    • ...He just happens to be on the right side of this.

      Sometimes he gets lucky and the words coming out of his mouth make sense.

    • I think our first major offworld outposts should be space stations built out of raw materials extracted from asteroids. We can control the atmosphere, the environment, crucially the gravity, expand that living space forever as the population grows, and the raw materials are in complete abundance. Going to Mars to establish colonies will look nothing like the wild west, and will probably be much more difficult than establishing stations in space.

    • Re:Trump makes sense again? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JWW ( 79176 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @03:17PM (#50327343)

      What really bothers me about "solve the problems on Earth first" logic is that if we do that we're never leaving this rock.

      21 TRILLION dollars has been spent to eradicate poverty. Over 40 years on there's been very little impact of the Great Society program to actually eliminate poverty.

      Imagine, just imagine what 21 TRILLION could have done if spent on space exploration. We'd likely have moonbases, footprints on Mars, asteroid bases, much quicker international travel, large space stations. 21 Trillion is a lot of fucking money. We basically wasted it trying to solve poverty with handouts. I know that sounds harsh, but the numbers don't lie. We didn't fix poverty, I believe there is no way in hell that spending that money on space exploration wouldn't have had a much much greater impact on society.

      Another comment mentioned the National and World pride derived from accomplishing very difficult feats like landing on the moon. That value, while not being economically measurable is something that truly does move humanity along and make people understand that for some things, we're all in this together. And I really think that is likely a more valuable outcome that the direct spending of money on poverty.

  • The cost a Mars mission versus the cost of building an iron-curtain style wall from San Diego to Corpus Christi

    In all honesty, at 41 years old, I think I'll be long dead before either is a reality.
    • A secure border is cheap, compared to not having one.

    • Re:I'd like to see a comparison (Score:4, Insightful)

      by trout007 ( 975317 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @01:36PM (#50326953)

      The Berlin Wall was built by East Germany to keep people from leaving not to keep invaders out.

      The real problem not being discussed is you can either have open borders or a welfare state. You can't have both for long.

  • Let's stop spending money on unnecessary wars and rebuilding other nations to fix our crumbling infrastructure at home. A little consistent funding for NASA wouldn't hurt either.

  • At least not in any meaningful way. Forget about colonization in any way that allows many people that want to leave for at least a century. It is also quite possible that the colonization of America will remain an unique event, and nothing even remotely similar will be happening again, ever.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      How's the colonization of America an unique event? People walked across the Bering land bridge when they had the chance just like they walked into Europe and Asia. They may have had boats as well like the people who colonized Australia probably did and the people who colonized many islands definitely did.
      Now an unique event would be colonizing Antarctica, something much easier then Mars but still needing quite a bit of technology beyond fire, canoes and spears

  • much to the surprise of one and all, has become the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president

    It doesn't surprise me at all that Trump is in the lead. He represents everything that the republicans keep saying they want. Now they have it and they don't know how to get rid of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      Republican voters want someone who does the things Trump says. The Republican establishment want someone who can lose to Hillary and keep them in Congress for another eight years.

  • limitation is not financial (Score:3)

    by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @01:23PM (#50326887)

    The limitation is not financial. Space exploration isn't expensive compared to other large infrastructure projects. Space exploration is very difficult and really exciting to work on. Given the opportunity, it could suck the attention and political talent away from domestic infrastructure projects.

    In the upper levels of the government, there are a handful of roles from which a person can realistically manage the combination of congressional and bureaucratic oversight necessary to get "large" things done. If we're going to Mars, the director of NASA needs to be a superstar with a ton of facetime with Congress. That person can be the "visionary" science expert in Washington, or the "establishment" expert in Washington, but he can't "just" be a good administrator.

    Chuck Bolden is a great guy, but he's not calling up his personal friends in the VC community like Arati Prabhakar (DARPA director and current "visionary" expert) or playing a key role in high stakes international diplomacy like Ernest Moniz (Sectretary of Energy and current "establishment" expert). Both of those administrators specialize in military related work. As long as the focus in Congress (and the media) is defense, it's going to be hard to break into that scientific leadership role focusing on anything but defense.

    • yes we use probes instead of manned craft so that is true.

      there are many unsolved problems of humans going to Mars that make it absurd to attempt now. There are problems facing us in the near term that solving would not only benefit humans on earth but would solve some of those issues of Mars trip too.

      For example, pursuing promising fusion reactor designs instead of the dead end of Tokomak including ITER sinkhole.

  • The Earth is flat, and Mars is a light on the firmament. We cannot "go there". His priorities seem to align with common sense.

    See Parallax's "Earth not a Globe": http://www.sacred-texts.com/ea... [sacred-texts.com]; also Youtube channels for Eric Dubay, Mark Sargent, Matt Boylan, Jeranism, and others.

    The truth is getting out. Great to see Trump aligning with it, even if he isn't directly stating it.

  • Hate to say it but seems like 80% of what he proposes actually makes sense. As opposed to the 20% of what the other candidates say.

  • What kind of a non-story is that? (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday August 16, 2015 @10:08PM (#50328803)

    Seriously, I really expected something more from him than stock answer #202, namely "Yeah, I think $topic is a good idea but we should get our act together first".

    This, ladies and gentlemen, is a non-answer from a politician. This answer fits any question, any topic, anything. That's neither a commitment nor a dismissal. It is, essentially, nothing.

    *sigh* This campaign is going to be a long one if they already start with the empty statements in the primaries.

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