Bush's Vision of Moon & Mars Missions

Posted 10 Jan 2004 at 18:51 UTC by The Swirling Brain

UPI says that next Wednesday Bush will share his space plan to push robots. Bush wants to send American astronauts (humans) back to the Moon, create a moon base and eventually send humans to Mars and even nearby asteroids. Even though this plan may be decades away, more affordable robots will also be a big part of the plan allowing humans to explore other worlds in tandem with robots. The price tag could be in the $130 to $240 billion dollar range a year and even more in total! As one could imagine Nasa is probably getting excited at the money that may be coming their way since in years past they have had to endure drastic cutbacks. Of course some people think that Bush is doing all this just to shure up his election. Also, with 2/3rds of all craft heading to Mars ending in failure, many people don't believe sending humans to Mars will ever pan out.

Wouldn't it be great?, posted 11 Jan 2004 at 10:28 UTC by kelaar » (Master)

It would be an amazing feat to send a person to Mars, but from what I've read, not highly feasible without drastic leaps in technology. I think the current attempts to reduce the reliance of the aerospace industry on governmental spending are a good first step.

It Takes a Lot of Guts to Go to Mars, posted 11 Jan 2004 at 20:38 UTC by The Swirling Brain » (Master)

I heard somewhere that for the about a year round trip, not counting time on the planet for a team of astronauts to go to mars, there's a high probability that one of the astronauts will have some serious medical problem such as a gall bladder going out, or splitting a spleen, or cancer or at least something serious enough for the need for surgery during that amount of time. Not likely that will be an easy thing to do in space so probably someone (ie: one or more) would die if there were a trip to Mars with current technology faulty as humans are.

It would be risky, posted 12 Jan 2004 at 19:54 UTC by kelaar » (Master)

No one has ever claimed space travel is safe. That's why I didn't understand the big hooplah about the shuttle explosion last year. Yes, it was a tragedy, but no, it's not a reason to stop exploring space. I'm as mournful as anyone, but not surprised. And anyone who was was just fooling themselves.

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