That’s what this professor from my alma mater thinks it will take to do a mission to Mars.
I obviously disagree, not that I’m that big a fan of Mars missions. I’m always disappointed at whom the press thinks is an expert on space policy. At least he’s an engineering professor, and not a “scientist.”
Gee, Jason Rhian seems to be trolling his own web site.
That’s quite the list of straw men.
This sort of stupidity is on a par with calling it an “insurance policy.” Dana has it right:
Last year’s request for this “back-up system” was more than 300% of the appropriated level of the primary system. By acting on this type of faulty logic, we have created a national debt as large as our GDP and still our nation refuses to take its foot off the deficit spending accelerator. SLS is unaffordable, and with relatively modest expenditures on specific technology development, we do not need a heavy lift vehicle of that class to explore the Moon, Mars, or near-Earth asteroids.”
Of course, it has nothing to do with “exploring” any of those places. It’s pork and workforce preservation.
I have a book teaser over at the Safe Is Not An Option blog.
Earth gets a rush of weekend visitors:
“The scary part of this one is that it’s something we didn’t even know about,” Patrick Paolucci, president of Slooh Space Camera, said during a webcast featuring live images of the asteroid from a telescope in the Canary Islands.
At least we’re doing a better job of looking for them now. And crowdsourcing of the amateurs with their increasing capabilities could help. A couple decades ago, hardly anyone was talking or writing about this, though I was.
Some thoughts from Dennis Wingo.
I haven’t crunched any numbers (and am unlikely to absent a paying client), but it struck me at the time that it was very unlikely that this mission is technically feasible in a single launch, unless the launcher is SLS. Which would, of course, put it outside the range of financial feasibility, not to mention schedule feasibility…
That’s actually a feature, though, rather than a bug. Demonstrating that a two-launch Mars scenario can work will dissipate much of the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt promulgated by Senate Launch System boosters.
Alan Boyle, supplemented by Henry Vanderbilt, has some thoughts on the potential comet strike of the Red Planet.
More thoughts on SpaceX’s successful failure from Alan Boyle (who cites Yours Truly). By the way, maybe Alan could straighten out Brian Williams.
What did he mean by this?
I love this country. I love the American idea. I have profound disappointments in my country. I feel we ought to be in space … because it meant so much to us … technologically. It moved us along.”
We are “in space.” We have a space station, we have at least two, maybe three manned spacecraft in development, to fly in two or three years (not even counting NASA’s wasteful efforts that won’t fly with humans until the end of the decade at best), we just got an announcement of a serious plan to send two people to Mars within five years. What more does he want?
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, Brian Williams has 160,000 followers, but he’s never issued a single tweet.
The web site has gone live.