He really needs to be dressed up like Marvin the Martian in that comic.
Yeahp, “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”
@Bob: So if I wanted to drive from California to New York, I must wait until a car was built that could do it with one tank of fuel?
I’m a Mars Society member and I’ve known Bob Zubrin for a while, but I understand where his opinions and methods rub people the wrong way. My own opinions have drifted a bit over the last 10 years on this subject, now more towards the infrastructure approach. I do find the cartoon funny, though necessarily simplified.
Remember, that the other part of Bob’s position is that Mars should be set as the goal for NASA. He’s not against other people going and/or helping, but sees NASA as paving the way. In this monolithic government effort construct, the direct path is the one most likely to get us there in a short period of time. Sustainability and cost per flight are distant second considerations, which he sees as working themselves out once regular flights (1 mission every 26 months) begin. At that flight rate, the hardware used for Mars journeys could be used for other destinations, once again with little concern for individual mission cost or sustainability.
I’ve also communicated with the artist. He has some cool concepts about asteroid “Railroad Towns” as well as other art on his website (be sure to check out his delta-V map of near Earth destinations):
He’s also created a short graphic novel about a little girl who was born and raised in an asteroid colony, but I don’t think it’s online anymore.
So if I wanted to drive from California to New York, I must wait until a car was built that could do it with one tank of fuel?
We should be so lucky. I think Rand’s analogy was more apt: a conestoga wagon the size of a Costco.
So, where might the rest of the Solar System/Universe fit into this? or does everyone’s path end at Mars?
“In this monolithic government effort construct, the direct path is the one most likely to get us there in a short period of time. Sustainability and cost per flight are distant second considerations, which he sees as working themselves out once regular flights…begin.”
Hmm. Like Apollo did with the Moon?
This is why sustainability and cost per flight *have* to come first. Otherwise, we’re just as capable of abandoning Mars, as we did the Moon, after a few initial successes (sooner, if there’s a serious accident).
Some people also put a great emphasis on ‘inspiring’ the public, but that, too, also lasts for just a few missions before boredom and short attention span sets in (save for already committed enthusiasts like most of us). The bills have to be paid indefinitely, however, so they’d better be as small and as far ‘under the radar’ as possible. (Does anyone ever ask what Antarctic research costs? Those transportation and operation technologies are also mature, low-cost, and used in other places.)
Lastly, there’s the argument that the technologies for operating on the Moon are sufficiently different from those for operating on Mars are so different as to be irrelevant to Mars…okay. Maybe you’re right.
But that still carries the assumption that Mars is is everything. There are many more places in the Solar System that *are* more like Earth’s Moon than Mars is, for which that experience *will* be relevant. (As example, if you want a continuous human presence on Mercury, and as it also has permanently dark polar areas that may have water ice, the technology of a Lunar polar base is almost directly transplantable there. Likewise, if you learn to do work on a near-Earth asteroid, then given the propulsion and life-support [the most important destination-agnostic technologies] to get there, then you know something about working any *other* asteroid or similar body…including Phobos and Deimos.)
Yes. Affordable infrastructure to go to as many places as possible on a regular basis first, less overly optomized, single-mindedness on specific destinations…
Darkstar – I like a direct route but using a group of launches based on something like a Falcon 9 sized launch vehicle. We are good at putting things together in orbit ( with each linking up to the space station ). I do not like the idea of a huge launch vehicle. I do like of getting there without 25 to 50 years of just mucking about.
I’ve been calling for a Mars Lego(tm) for years. While complex orbital assembly is a pain, surely we can develop a system of modules and connectors on the ground that can simply plug into each other in orbit.
Think of Armadillo’s approach to multi-module systems, only the modules are sent up in multiple launches and mated in orbit. Add an unmanned tug, and probably some sort of refueling station (to optimize launch payloads and minimize fuel losses during construction), and away you go, with plenty of infrastructure options available.
i dont think its any more important then putting men on the moon, but on the other hand, the project to put men on mars would catalise certen of things, such as luna colastion, witch could be important. luna colsation would also be a massive step in exporing outward, as the moon is signifcatly easyer then earth to get off, requireing less fuel, witch, as noted, could be at least partaly prodused at the moon. the colastion of the moon would mean, possbly, the depressrastion of earth, and possbly also the mineing and refining of important minrals, as well as the production of objects easire. lower gravity would alowe for the production of certen objects easire.
I hope — some day— Zubrin will take the time to read : Interplanetary travel and permanent injury to normal heart which I published in 1997 in Acta Astronautica, on my website in my list of published papers ( http://www.femsinspace.com ).
DECADES of gene therapy research will be required before human missions to Mars will succeed. My most recent paper, published in 2009, addresses in some detail the requirements for gene therapy for space flight : Potential renovascular hypertension, space missions, and the role of magnesium. William J. Rowe M.D. FBIS
I agree with more direct detour.
He really needs to be dressed up like Marvin the Martian in that comic.
Yeahp, “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”
@Bob: So if I wanted to drive from California to New York, I must wait until a car was built that could do it with one tank of fuel?
I’m a Mars Society member and I’ve known Bob Zubrin for a while, but I understand where his opinions and methods rub people the wrong way. My own opinions have drifted a bit over the last 10 years on this subject, now more towards the infrastructure approach. I do find the cartoon funny, though necessarily simplified.
Remember, that the other part of Bob’s position is that Mars should be set as the goal for NASA. He’s not against other people going and/or helping, but sees NASA as paving the way. In this monolithic government effort construct, the direct path is the one most likely to get us there in a short period of time. Sustainability and cost per flight are distant second considerations, which he sees as working themselves out once regular flights (1 mission every 26 months) begin. At that flight rate, the hardware used for Mars journeys could be used for other destinations, once again with little concern for individual mission cost or sustainability.
I’ve also communicated with the artist. He has some cool concepts about asteroid “Railroad Towns” as well as other art on his website (be sure to check out his delta-V map of near Earth destinations):
http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/railroad.html
In addition to the above, Hop also has an interesting space habitat design here – http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/ChengHo.html
He’s also created a short graphic novel about a little girl who was born and raised in an asteroid colony, but I don’t think it’s online anymore.
We should be so lucky. I think Rand’s analogy was more apt: a conestoga wagon the size of a Costco.
So, where might the rest of the Solar System/Universe fit into this? or does everyone’s path end at Mars?
“In this monolithic government effort construct, the direct path is the one most likely to get us there in a short period of time. Sustainability and cost per flight are distant second considerations, which he sees as working themselves out once regular flights…begin.”
Hmm. Like Apollo did with the Moon?
This is why sustainability and cost per flight *have* to come first. Otherwise, we’re just as capable of abandoning Mars, as we did the Moon, after a few initial successes (sooner, if there’s a serious accident).
Some people also put a great emphasis on ‘inspiring’ the public, but that, too, also lasts for just a few missions before boredom and short attention span sets in (save for already committed enthusiasts like most of us). The bills have to be paid indefinitely, however, so they’d better be as small and as far ‘under the radar’ as possible. (Does anyone ever ask what Antarctic research costs? Those transportation and operation technologies are also mature, low-cost, and used in other places.)
Lastly, there’s the argument that the technologies for operating on the Moon are sufficiently different from those for operating on Mars are so different as to be irrelevant to Mars…okay. Maybe you’re right.
But that still carries the assumption that Mars is is everything. There are many more places in the Solar System that *are* more like Earth’s Moon than Mars is, for which that experience *will* be relevant. (As example, if you want a continuous human presence on Mercury, and as it also has permanently dark polar areas that may have water ice, the technology of a Lunar polar base is almost directly transplantable there. Likewise, if you learn to do work on a near-Earth asteroid, then given the propulsion and life-support [the most important destination-agnostic technologies] to get there, then you know something about working any *other* asteroid or similar body…including Phobos and Deimos.)
Yes. Affordable infrastructure to go to as many places as possible on a regular basis first, less overly optomized, single-mindedness on specific destinations…
Darkstar – I like a direct route but using a group of launches based on something like a Falcon 9 sized launch vehicle. We are good at putting things together in orbit ( with each linking up to the space station ). I do not like the idea of a huge launch vehicle. I do like of getting there without 25 to 50 years of just mucking about.
I’ve been calling for a Mars Lego(tm) for years. While complex orbital assembly is a pain, surely we can develop a system of modules and connectors on the ground that can simply plug into each other in orbit.
Think of Armadillo’s approach to multi-module systems, only the modules are sent up in multiple launches and mated in orbit. Add an unmanned tug, and probably some sort of refueling station (to optimize launch payloads and minimize fuel losses during construction), and away you go, with plenty of infrastructure options available.
i dont think its any more important then putting men on the moon, but on the other hand, the project to put men on mars would catalise certen of things, such as luna colastion, witch could be important. luna colsation would also be a massive step in exporing outward, as the moon is signifcatly easyer then earth to get off, requireing less fuel, witch, as noted, could be at least partaly prodused at the moon. the colastion of the moon would mean, possbly, the depressrastion of earth, and possbly also the mineing and refining of important minrals, as well as the production of objects easire. lower gravity would alowe for the production of certen objects easire.
I hope — some day— Zubrin will take the time to read : Interplanetary travel and permanent injury to normal heart which I published in 1997 in Acta Astronautica, on my website in my list of published papers ( http://www.femsinspace.com ).
DECADES of gene therapy research will be required before human missions to Mars will succeed. My most recent paper, published in 2009, addresses in some detail the requirements for gene therapy for space flight : Potential renovascular hypertension, space missions, and the role of magnesium. William J. Rowe M.D. FBIS