From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 12:13:20 MST
From: hal@finney.org
>As for putting men on Mars, there was a time when space advocates
>fixed their hopes on a manned mission to the Moon. They assumed
>that once this goal was accomplished there would be a natural
>follow-on in terms of exploration, experimental bases, and
>eventual colonization. As we know, none of this happened.
>The same thing could happen with Mars, only increased to the nth
>degree because of the tremendously greater expense. Mars is not
>any more interesting than the moon to the general public, not
>after you've seen it for a few hours. Dust, rocks, and sand,
>nothing more. You can find the same thing in any desert, and we
>don't spend trillions of dollars to send people out into the
>desert.
The moon program ended because of a lack of will, Nixon was gutting
it even as the final missions took place.
Mars is not particularly expensive, we're talking 30 billion over
10 years, the same amount we gave Mexico one afternoon a few years
back....
There is alot more to Mars than dust, rocks, and sand!!!! Mars has
water!!! lots of water!!! Mars has a useable atmosphere etc,etc. In
other words we can live on Mars fairly reasonably, it is our next
home.... The moon is just a rock.....
See Robert Zubrin's "Entering Space" and "The case for Mars".
visit www.marssociety.org
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
>What's the point of sending canned monkeys to Mars?
>1) It prevents us from developing robust automation and in situ
material processing
>2) It is orders of magnitude more expensive
>3) It is damn dangerous for the monkeys in question
>I do not understand the whole business in question. If you
>absolutely positively have to have manned missions (I don't), why
>not the Moon? There is not much difference between 1/100 Earth
>atmosphere pressure or hard vacuum. Hard vacuum is even better for
>industrial processes. Insolation is much higher. And there is
>almost certainly water up there. And in a pinch you can mount a
>rescue mission. And and and...
There is little if any water on the moon. Everything we need for
life support on the moon we will have to send there, Mars can
sustain self developing colonies, we can make rocket propellant(
with a bit of initial help) from the atmosphere.
We need to become a space faring civilization.
I have nothing against the moon, it will make an interesting place
to have an observatory, but Mars is a place we can live.
Brian
Member, Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Mars Society, www.marssociety.org
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
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