http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/02/12/will-we-be-on-mars-in-twenty-years Comments On: Will We Be on Mars in Twenty Years? by Paul Constant en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Tue, 21 May 2013 00:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by Bauhaus I]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:40:09 -0800 The Stranger Posted by redemma]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:24:07 -0800 The Stranger
We won't even have another underground rail line (much less high-speed rail) in 20 years.

Posted by sloegin]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:04:38 -0800 The Stranger
Fucking, stupid, humans... mumble, mumble...
Posted by Brooklyn Reader]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:20:03 -0800 The Stranger L5 Lagrangian point.

Humans... we had such potential! And now, just a bunch of tribal apes arguing over how to feed ourselves, how much carbon we can dump into the atmosphere before the anaerobic pigeons come home to roost, or whether to even have a government that does anything.
Posted by Brooklyn Reader]]> Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:01:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Unbrainwashed]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:52:11 -0800 The Stranger Posted by JonnoN]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:30:04 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Puty]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:15:22 -0800 The Stranger
Like others, I'd love to see it happen. But it would cost a LOT of money, and I just don't see our congress agreeing to fund such a venture any time soon. And if we can't afford to do it, neither will anyone else.

The only thing that could change all that is if one of those nifty Rovers found some easily-mined fantastically rare mineral deposits. If there were serious money to be made, we could do it in 5 years.
Posted by Reverse Polarity]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:36:30 -0800 The Stranger http://mars-one.com/en/
Posted by Orville Redenbacher]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:35:52 -0800 The Stranger
No one country has the resources to pull this off. It will be a global effort if it happens in the next 100 years. And if the Chinese make it to moon in the 20 years, you can bet the USA and her allies will do everything they can to beat them to the punch.
Posted by Rotten666]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:34:16 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Unbrainwashed]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:12:03 -0800 The Stranger Posted by pox]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:02:06 -0800 The Stranger
1) The space missions of the past were fueled by the Cold War. The US only participated in this expensive game of one-upmanship because they didn't want the Soviets (who put in man in space FIRST) to win an ideological struggle that would have defined Communism as the future and Capitalism as the past. The Cold War is over now, so the motive for the US to remain involved is lost.

2) The only competing ideologies with our system left are a) Islamist fundamentalism and b) strange hybrids of communism and capitalism such as China, Cuba and Venezuela. The former is recidivist, not futurist. The latter has no real core vision at all. Thus, neither one is in a position to wage ideological war against our system.

3) Private industry is only motivated by profit potential. Sure, there's lots of speculation as to how profitable space exploration could become some day. But who's going to invest money into an uncertain venture unlikely to yield any returns in the foreseeable future? Its very expensive to send a ship into space. Governments can raise that kind of cash by hyping up ideology to taxpayers, but investors don't give a fuck about ideology.

Thus, nobody who could send us to Mars has any motive for doing so. In terms of the space race and many other development areas, the USSR was strangely the best thing that ever happened to America. It gave us something to compete with, a reason to improve ourselves. We were afraid that if they got ahead of the game, we'd lose everything, so we tried to get ahead of them anyway we could. Now, they're gone. The dog has caught the car bumper. This is why space exploration and many other areas of development have stalled out and gone nowhere since the honeymoon phase at the end of the Cold War ended around 2000.
Posted by Tacoma Traveler]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:57:09 -0800 The Stranger Posted by organicmechanic]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:33:10 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Cascadian]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:26:08 -0800 The Stranger
This poll seems to be indicating that many people assume, if it's as easy as it appears (which, of course, it's not), then taking the next "logical" step - sending people - can't possibly be that much more difficult, ESPECIALLY if NASA has oodles of money to throw at the problem (which, of course, they DON'T).

So, I agree with @1: while I would very much like to see a human - and frankly, I don't really care if it's an American, a Russian, or a Chinese - set foot on Mars in the next 20 years, my gut tells me that I'll be lucky if it happens before I die, which, odds-on means more like 30 or 40 years from now.
Posted by COMTE]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:04:55 -0800 The Stranger If you want to know why we haven't sent men back to the Moon, you don't require conspiracy theories. Examine the way we did it, you'll see that it was extremely risky. More like some kind of YouTube stunt that could have ended in the Fail compilation than regular transportation back and forth.

Mars? An extraordinary advance in propulsion technology seems to be required. I still think we should go back to the Moon and get bases going there.


Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:52:04 -0800 The Stranger Posted by bleedingheartlibertarian]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:42:53 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Wandergeist]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:34:18 -0800 The Stranger
But in terms of robotic space exploration for mineral and water resources, the moon, having less gravity, is a better first step. Especially since we found water stored inside rock there.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:25:55 -0800 The Stranger
But there will be an obligatory Mardi Gras celebration, anyway.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:23:27 -0800 The Stranger Posted by keshmeshi]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:22:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by keshmeshi]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:22:12 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Paul Constant]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:21:46 -0800 The Stranger