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There are two possible scenarios where I'll get my hopes up that humans are going to Mars: 1. It is so close that it is obvious. A heavy lift human-rated rock
by scj 12y ago
There are two possible scenarios where I'll get my hopes up that humans are going to Mars:
1. It is so close that it is obvious. A heavy lift human-rated rocket is in service. It is demonstrated that humans can live long duration without the radiation shielding of the Earth. The capsule is human rated (planned to happen in 2021). A robotic landing of the vehicle on Mars is done (a lot of Mars probes have failed on this step). That humans are selected / training. This goal is set for the 2030s, so it fails this criteria.
2. They announce a huge amount of funding to be spent within a few years. The pages I've read thus far don't suggest what funding levels are.
I'll happily listen to what they say, but I'm still skeptical.
EDIT: Expanded the conditions for point 1.
- mikeash 12y ago#2 is out of their control. I'd speculate that at least part of the purpose of this announcement is to shame Congress into ensuring sufficient funding.
- scj 12y agoShaming congress doesn't appear to be effective at the moment. Bush Sr. talked about going to Mars with SEI. Bush Jr. talked about it after Columbia. Skylab (the space station in the 70s) was supposed to teach us about long duration spaceflight in order to go to Mars (and we've been parked in LEO ever since). I want to believe... And I like Zubrin's plan to go to Mars. As it could work with an incrementalist approach, and thus is pragmatic (and sounds like what they are doing). But the problem is that there is a long time before the work on the incrementalist dream starts and landing on Mars. Who knows what will happen to funding in the mean time.
- mikeash 12y agoIt doesn't, but what other choice do they have? If you only have one button to press, you might as well keep pressing it. Maybe it'll work one of these times.
- arto 12y ago"The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- mikeash 12y agoIt would be very difficult to chop down a tree with that mentality.
- arto 12y agoIn quoting Einstein's definition of stupidity, the analogy is to ineffectively chopping at a tree without managing to fell it, and then proceeding to ineffectively do the same to N other trees.
- mikeash 12y agoFirst, the quote is about insanity, not stupidity. Second, Einstein didn't say it. Third, it's not a very good definition of either.