71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033 266
astroengine writes "In a recent poll funded by the non-profit Explore Mars, 71% of respondents agreed that the U.S. will send a human to Mars within the next two decades. Unfortunately, on average, the sample of 1,101 people surveyed thought the U.S. government allocated 2.4% of the federal budget to NASA — in reality it's only 0.5%. With this in mind, 75% of the respondents agreed/strongly agreed that NASA's budget should be increased to explore Mars through manned and robotic means."
Mad skillZ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In related news (Score:3, Interesting)
To be fair, we had the tech to put a base on the moon starting around 1979. The ISS (with landing gear) would do just fine on the surface of the moon (except, ya know, the whole 15 days in the shade part).
Re:In related news (Score:5, Interesting)
No he probably means the highly abrasive regolith dust that is kicked up and tracked in by every person using the airlocks.
Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps (Score:3, Interesting)
Jumping the gun is not necessarily the best way to get things done.
The most oft-discussed and visible triumphs of manned space have been by necessity "get there, plant the flag and get out."
But the ultimate goal should be not just to visit space or establish some dangerous and isolated outposts there (though there is no shortage of volunteers!)...it should be to move into space in a series of self-sustaining stages.
This means we first need to build a space colony here on Earth, and decide on some practical steps to take that will achieve the ultimate goal. And each step should be of immediate practical and commercial value.
I would like to call attention to Marshall Savage's amazing project and book, The Millennial Project. [wikipedia.org] another synopsis [asi.org] and at Amazon [amazon.com]. Some have picked fun at Savage's priorities, but frankly until this book/project arrived on the scene there had been nothing like it.
In that plan, terraforming Mars is step 6 of 8. In this scenario we are not just landing on Mars to establish an outpost... at that stage we have already perfected the technology for habitats in space. If our focus is on 'the next logical (small) step' instead of some ultimate goal and devote our complete effort to these steps, by 2033 we could be moving outward in all directions... instead of just one.
Re:In related news (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't believe that a manned mission to mars could ever be achieved from international competition. It would require international cooperation on a massive scale.
Costly, expensive does not even begin to cover it. A program for a manned mission to Mars is at least a magnitude of order more difficult than the Apollo program. A starting guess would be 10x of the cost of the Apollo program in adjusted dollars for inflation. One figure I found was $135-billion in 2005 Dollars (cost of the Apollo program).
Now if it is 10x harder to do mars, are we talking about 1.3 Trillion?
Personally I would like to see this seriously pursued in my lifetime, however ..
We have gotten good at robotic missions and I would like to see more exploration and science missions. I know that a sample return mission would get some level of excitement, but it is likely that placing more science on the surface is of more benefit. Maybe rovers with an ability to find samples to be sent to a surface based robotic lab instead of / in addition to of self contained rovers.
We also must ask if Mars is to use so many resources would we be neglecting other robotic planetary missions?
News Flash! 71% of Americans are uninformed idiots (Score:2, Interesting)
25 % of Americans consume fast food every day [pamf.org]
20% of meals are eaten in the car [dosomething.org]
88 percent of young Americans couldn't find Afghanistan on a map, 75 percent couldn't locate Iran or Israel, and 63 percent couldn't identify Iraq [foreignpolicy.com]
More Than 40 Percent of Americans Believe the Rapture Is Coming [www.good.is]
That 71% think we have an extra trillion dollars or two to go to Mars for no useful or compelling purpose is no great surprise. Depressing? Disconcerting? Tragic? Sure, but not surprising.