When will the first successful manned Mars mission happen?
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Missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, no "never" option? I suppose the oil reserve one could count as that, but...seriously. The wonder of exploration is gone. I expect our civilization to implode before we actually do a manned Mars mission.
Re: Missing option (Score:2)
The wonder of exploring may be gone for you... I don't think you speak for everyone, certainly not for me.
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food, air and water weigh a crapload, and don't get you very much other than keeping some of you "instruments" functional.
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food, air and water weigh a crapload, and don't get you very much other than keeping some of you "instruments" functional.
Thats not the big problem. The hard part is getting the humans home again. Sending robots on a one-way trip is not such a big PR problem.
Re: Missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
Survival of the human race is not the same thing as mass emigration.
If a large comet hit the Earth tomorrow, humanity as a species would be gone. If we have self-sustainable colonies on other planets, the species would survive, even though the vast majority is wiped out. No one is proposing that we can save all of humanity in event of a catastrophe. That clearly is impossible. However we certainly should take steps to ensure the survival of our species. If we don't, then what's the point of evolving to have the capabilities and self-awareness to do so?
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The wonder of exploring may be gone for you... I don't think you speak for everyone, certainly not for me.
The only ones who will be left wondering are the organisms that land on our rock 10,000 years from now wondering what the hell happened here...
Re: Missing option (Score:5, Informative)
~740 billion in welfare vs. ~650 billion for military. Both numbers vary by year. How is 650 minor compared to 740? Both of those combined make up about 15% of the national budget. The majority of tax dollars certainly is not being spent on welfare. I did not know the answers so I went snooping around the internet for them. I suggest you put down the koolaid that everybody is passing around these days and take responsibility for your own thoughts. Go and check out the raw numbers for yourself, just stop listening to talking heads. They get paid for a reason.
Re: Missing option (Score:5, Insightful)
I stand corrected. US Military spending is indeed closely behind welfare and not insignificant. Thank you.
Nope (Score:4, Interesting)
Military only falls behind if you add in state welfare programs to federal welfare.
FY 2014 22% of the federal budget does to military, 11% goes to welfare.
Re: Missing option (Score:5, Funny)
Someone admitted they are wrong on the internet. Now I have seen everything.
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I think it depends on who is counting.
Here is one pie chart: http://raptor4007.com/fedpiech... [raptor4007.com]
If you add social security into welfare then yes, welfare is about double what military is but military is still huge.
It really does completely matter who's counting what though.
If you do a google image search for federal budget pie chart:
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
You will see that people slice and dice it dozens of ways to support their agenda.
I find this one and ones like it especially amusing: http://ww [icpj.net]
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Those are funded through the drug trade.
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Those are funded through the drug trade.
I watch "Graceland" too.
Re: Missing option (Score:5, Informative)
Actually that is a very low estimate of the defense budget. There are many other expensive items that should be added in. See, for example
http://www.cjr.org/united_stat... [cjr.org]
which estimates a total of about $1.3 trillion - about the same as Social Security and Medicare combined. By some recent estimates, US military spending has been nearly as great as that of the rest of the world put together. It is certainly far, far greater than that of countries like China (whose population is about four times greater, and which faces far greater threats - e.g. its long border with Russia, and the proximity of powerful rivals such as India and Pakistan).
The thing is that most of that "defense and security" spending is unnecessary, excessive, or both. The USA really doesn't need a highly militarized police force or a score of separate intelligence agencies or the immense pork barrel that Homeland Security has become. To be honest, the USA does not face many foreign threats provided it minds its own business and avoids poking wasps' nests (and bears) with sticks.
'As the French ambassador to the United States said in 1910: "The United States was blessed among nations. On the north, she had a weak neighbor; on the south, another weak neighbor; on the east, fish, and on the west, fish."'
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/p... [foreignpolicy.com]
The whole of that article by Stephen M. Walt is well worth reading.
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The US may be transitioning to an intellectual property based economy, but for now, most of our international policy is tied to oil. This guy makes a good case for how that has been driving our military actions : http://scgnews.com/the-geopoli... [scgnews.com]
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Thanks - that's a really brilliant article. It covers pretty well everything, and does so crisply and lucidly. That site's on my Morning Coffee list now!
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Military spending doesn't include items like veteran's benefits which would put it far above social spending. It also doesn't include the cost to our society of PTSD and kids growing up without a father. We spend far more than 650 Billion on the military.
Conservative members of US politics consider veteran's benefits, including treatment of PTSD, to be social spending.
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I'm a realist in that I wish it weren't required, but at the same time see it as a necessary evil unless you're willing to burn the bill of rights or worse. Without that money, crime rates would rise significantly, causing you to instead spend that money on more policing. You wouldn't actually save money. It's similar to how people have issues with the ACA/Obamacare, but the situation without something like it is that you ARE paying for other people -- every person that goes into the ER and can't pay the bi
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Income tax doesn't go to welfare. Welfare is self-funding from separate taxes. Military plus the interest on the debt is about half the US Federal budget. So "welfare" isn't as dominant as you state.
Also, all the "I hate welfare" numbers include military costs in welfare, not the military numbers (VA hospitals are "welfare" not military expense), and they also include corporate welfare in "welfare". Oh, and the free health care for millionaire career politicians? Cou
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never is a long time. perhaps Mars will be explored by a more evolved species that descend from us or possibly one of our cousins like the lowly amoeba.
But then I guess "manned" is not the right word, but that is more of a limitation of the English language than the spirit of the original question.
ps - you failed to explore half a page of text:
* Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
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Well, the biggest risk for "never" is if we never get past our energy crises, and suck up all our fossil fuels, removing our long-term ability to maintain the industry that would drive spaceflight.
Or nuclear war.
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Seriously, no "never" option?
1. "Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks."
2. There are two decent options for the "never" camp.
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The will to explore might be about gone in this country, but as Heinlein once observed, there is intelligent life in Asia. I say a Chinese mission, perhaps in combination with Silicon Valley private tech, by 2030.
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I say a Chinese mission, perhaps in combination with Silicon Valley private tech, by 2030.
Under current US law, Silicon Valley would not be allowed to participate.
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What law would that be?
The UN Space Treaty forbids national claims off Earth, so US law CANNOT apply. Not even the DEA has jurisdiction in space. The Treaty does not prevent private entrepreneurs from doing their own missions.
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The UN Space Treaty forbids national claims off Earth, so US law CANNOT apply.
Fantastic, but Silicon Valley remains inside the United States. Therfore Silicon Valley companies are still subject to US law.
Re:Missing option (Score:5, Funny)
I expect our civilization to implode before we actually do a manned Mars mission.
So do I, but that only delayed my estimate slightly.
Re:Missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
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if we'd just not invaded Iraq, we would have had enough money to fund at least 100 manned Mars missions
Another way to look at cost: US annual GDP is over $17 trillion. Even a worst-case cost estimate of a manned Mars mission would be just 0.2% of just one year's gross economic product (or, 0.05% of global economic product). The idea that it's insanely expensive and unaffordable is simply not backed up by facts. War, on the other hand, is insanely expensive and destructive.
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You're welcome to offer evidence to back up the idea that civilization is about to "implode", but honestly, I think that is unlikely .. civilization may stumble here and there, as if on a bumpy road, and it will pick up a few bumps and bruises, but "civilization" is overall doing very well and has been more or less progressing very well for at least 10,000 years
History has had some rather major regressions like the Dark Ages and more and more of society depends on other parts of society functioning. One flood in Thailand and hard drive prices here skyrocket, if there was something to really fuck with supply lines across the world like a major war a lot of it could crumble. My day job is to sit in front of these computers and program it, the rest I generally depend on others for there to be food and water and heating and power and whatnot else to support having a h
The wonder of exploration (Score:2)
The wonder of exploration is gone
The wonder of exploration is as strong as ever. And for the same reason: greed and the hope of exploitation.
However, humanity has found better ways of doing it, than sending loads of expensive, fragile, high-maintenance people to wander around knocking lumps off rocks. That's what the robots and satellites do. However, it does seem unlikely that there is anything on Mars that is worth the effort of sending people for - or worth the cost of shipping back to Earth - it does seem to be a rather desolate wast
Define "successful" (Score:2)
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Also what does "Mars mission" mean in the context of this question?
Permanent base on the surface? Flags and footprints? A mere fly-by? Landing on Phobos and restarting the reactor?
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crashing oil tankers (Score:2)
Picture the The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-style shipping containers, full of refined hydrocarbons, crashing to Earth. A mistake in even a relatively soft landing is going to make a real mess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress [wikipedia.org]
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I grok what you're suggesting.
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Moon's gravity is much less than that of Earth. However, it is sufficiently large that a maniac will have to throw the rock at a velocity of 2 km/s. Not to mention that orbital mechanics is sufficiently counter-intuitive, to make calculation of a trajectory quite non-trivial.
Long story short, that maniac would need to involve quite a significant amount of other similarly-minded maniacs to be successful. And considering how Earth would be a source of quite a few necessities of living on the Moon, that is rat
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"I might break my neck fetching coffee. Let's fuck."
Doesn't have quite the same ring to it...
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If you say it just right, I'd let you do me.
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giggity.
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Whatever you manage to throw at the Earth will burn in the atmosphere. Or you build up a really big and/or shielded boulder. If we see it coming we'll nuke you, even with barely modified 1950s tech.
Whenever we want (Score:3, Insightful)
A little while after we get off our lazy asses and get going into space. Consider how quickly we'd get to space if there was a sufficiently large global catastrophe, even though such catastrophe would destroy many of our resources. As it is, the primary limitation of going to space is that people don't sufficiently want it to happen.
Re:Whenever we want (Score:5, Insightful)
"From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. And it's not a miracle, we just decided to go."
Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell - Apollo 13
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Yet there are idiots in this very country who doubt it happened. Repeatedly.
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What kind of global catastrophe will be big enough you want to get into space, but small enough you can afford it and the supplies to get it going?
If so, why not go to live in some place like mountains on Ellesmere Island?
I give the Chinese 30 years (Score:4, Interesting)
I figure it isn't going to happen within 10 years. Since it isn't even started yet.
So, manned missions aren't even 20 years away. Too soon with no prep work done yet.
But once the Chinese get a few more space flights under their belts, they will look to beat the US to the next great achievement.
Mars landing before 30 years. Also, gives them something to aim at for their Centennial celebration in 2049.
I give the Chinese 300 years (Score:2)
China is not a modern country...they can barely do PR stunt space exploration
wake me up when these countries don't have masses of people pooping in plastic shopping bags in the streets
again...China's space program is PR not exploration and not a 'threat' in any way shape or form
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I can't confirm or deny your raw numbers, but the main points are spot on. So it takes 30 launches over a few years to get the gear into orbit here. Not impossible.
Actually they would probably need to send several ships to Mars, with humans on only one. The others would be the supplies for the landing, exploration, and lift off from the surface, then fueling the return ship to come home. Which wouldn't need to be the one they rode there in.
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Look at the orbital mechanics (Score:4, Informative)
The way the orbits work, there's a period every sixteen years or so where the journey between Earth and Mars is shortest. There's a similar cycle for the longest path, eight years offset. Using this close approach is crucial - it means less fuel is needed (very important in rockets), and it shortens the crew's exposure to radiation.
The next close approach is in 2018 (it's still a two-year journey, so you'd actually want to launch in 2017). Barring a massive undertaking, bigger than Apollo, we will not be ready in time. I'd like it to happen, but it just isn't.
After that, missions become harder up to 2026, then become easier until the next close approach in 2035. That's when I think we will be ready. So my money is on a 2030's Martian mission.
Re:Look at the orbital mechanics (Score:5, Informative)
waiting for a close approach is pointless, you're still firing ahead of where the planet *is* to meet it at a certain point in space. For optimum fuel efficiency on a Mars insertion you're looking at an escape burn while still in Earth's sphere of influence to meet Mars at solar apoapse (periapse will still intersect Earth orbit, but if you miss Mars you will also miss Earth having taken more than a year to travel your new and highly eccentric orbit - providing your encounter doesn't slingshot you on a new and exciting escape trajectory out of the ecliptic or even out of the solar system altogether). This new apoapse will be half an orbit away - or in real terms, about 10 months flight. THAT is the reality. A close approach burn direct transfer is highly fuel INefficient considering you're burning the entire trip, prograde to the halfway point to speed up and retrograde past that to slow down unless you want to slam into Mars. Sure you could do a DT burn and cut the journey time to what, three weeks or so, but how big would your rocket have to be and how much fuel would you need? Answer: big enough to require every ounce of extractable metal on the planet and more fuel than we've ever produced for any vehicle ever.
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a 40 foot solar array is probably lighter (and certainly outputs more power at 1AU) than a RTG brick. For deep space flight, you're certainly looking at an RTG since out beyond Mars orbit incident solar radiation is just too weak. Inside Venus orbit a mylar sail is probably enough...
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what, several tens of tons of steam turbine and heat exchanger (heavy on the maintenance hence completely unsuitable for space) as opposed to ten pounds of plutonium and a stack of bimetallic coils (zero maintenance, perfect for long robotic missions)?
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the US nuclear fleet uses reactors that are far from practically portable. Those things are a: huge and b: form part of the superstructure so aren't particularly replaceable either. There was noise in 2008 about two portable reactors, the DEER and the Hyperion*, both truck-portable reactors which made the compromise between environmental protection and portability by enclosing the core and primary heat exchanger (molten salt?) in a flask and the turbine came as another pluggable module, but nothing came of
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After I am dead. (Score:2)
I doubt I will see a Mars landing. I didn't see Moon landing live since I was born too late! :(
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I don't expect to live long enough to see a Mars landing, though SpaceX might surprise me...
I *did*, however, see the Moon landings live. All of them.
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Lucky. That means you're older than most of us on /. :)
Last option (Score:2)
The last option is sadly the most probable. [smbc-comics.com]
I can tell you what WON'T happen (Score:3)
I don't know when the first successful manned Mars mission will happen, but I can tell you who WON'T be on it... That little 13-year-old girl who has been in the news claiming that she will be the first human on Mars, and nothing will stand in the way of her dream. Actually, the first person on Mars will be an officer of the Peoples Liberation Army, of China.
A better option: 30 miles above Venus (Score:5, Interesting)
**right now** (Score:3)
if it is merely a question of technical ability, we crossed that line ***decades ago***
we could be on Mars right now
look at every NASA project (and total up the $$$$$)...shuttle, WIMP detectors, etc and we could **easily** have the budget to go to Mars
we have the technical ability, but our global society is still caught up in very short-term view
also: there are actually people who claim to be space explorers who are ***anti-manned mission*** not just pro-probe, but also anti-human exploration...these people are involved in space industry at every level
we could be there right now if we had the guts
Definition please (Score:2)
Not before 2200 AD (Score:3)
We have a lot of problems to deal with here and no single nation is in a position to afford a longterm trip with so many obstacles.
It's going to take a long time before we're ready to send humans who can make a return trip and even longer, if ever, that we can have a colony.
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Throughout all our previous problems, we were in an environment in which we'd evolved and that includes a protective magnetosphere, which Mars lacks.
That's just one, and hardly the greatest challenge of establishing ourselves on the Red Planet.
There's still so much we have to learn about this Pale Blue Dot we call home.
Space Elevator (Score:4, Funny)
Space Loonies (Score:2, Informative)
Manned space flight was a government program that has been determined to be
too expensive and too limited in returns to be continued at its former funding
levels. We have serious problems now that we didn't have then, and few people
believe that throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into space will solve
them. Grown-up people who have to make hard and realistic decisions about our
public funds and resources have decided this. NASA and Tom Swift-space buffs
can't accept it. Sorry, guys, but it's time to g
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Money is basically created out of nothing.
The emphasis you putting on being crushed by debt is in discord with this other statement that you made. Allocation of resources - including the time of scientists and the hundreds of thousands of acres in the Midwest - can cause to new resources to be made available or it can backfire. I have to disagree with the general tone of your thoughts since it seems like you may believe that all of the major allocations of resources over the past decade or two in America has somehow backfired and gone up in a puf
Not going to happen in our lifetimes. (Score:2)
Not until a propulsion system is invented that can cut the trip down from eight months to eight weeks will we see a human mission to Mars.
The logistics are too difficult with current propulsion systems, which haven't changed much since the time of Goddard.
To coop-up a half dozen or more people in a capsule the size of a one-bedroom apartment for eight months, expect them to get along for that long, and to send along all the food, water, and supplies of life they will need for a 2+year mission is pretty much
Oil option says it all (Score:2)
Federal Versus Corporate (Score:2)
We no longer do things because they are hard (Score:2)
We could go to mars. Build colonies, expand into the universe. It would be very hard and very expensive and take centuries, and all we would get in return would be... everything.
Mr Fusion (Score:2)
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Re:oil discovery = terraforming (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why you have to burn the oil.
That releases the CO2, which is what plants use to make oxygen.
Once all those Martian plants have a good supply of CO2, the terraforming will proceed.
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Unfortunately it is not that easy. Plants require oxygen as well. Not as much as animals, but still not negligible.
Also plants require nutrients in the soil and water: Neither is readily available even if you have Earth-level atmosphere pressure of carbon dioxide.
Re:oil discovery = terraforming (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're thinking of Earth plants. Martian plants don't need that much. Just give them a little dusty rock, and a breath of CO2 and they sprout like crazy.
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I know. I can't believe the mods I'm getting in this thread. :^)
I don't know if people are just playing along, or if someone actually thinks this is reality.
Re:oil discovery = terraforming (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why you have to burn the oil.
That releases the CO2, which is what plants use to make oxygen.
Do you even understand what "burn" means? I'll give you a clue... How does the O get into the CO2? (it doesn't come out of the oil.)
Re:oil discovery = terraforming (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, we can always redirect a couple of water ice commets to crash into Mars. That should provide enough O to the surface.
Isn't it nice not to have any locals complaining about extinction-size impacts?!
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Since when has any reasonable person given a single flying fuck what PETA thinks?
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Good idea. We can send them up there on a fact-finding mission first.
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This whole thread is about burning Martian oil in order to terraform the planet, and that only because it is cheaper and cooler than shipping that oil to Earth.
Take nothing I say in response as scientifically valid.
I just wonder who modded my second comment above as "Informative".
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A "city in the clouds" not unlike the Star Wars one but on Venus would be a good place for an off-world colony, though I wonder about sulfuric acid, solar radiation and how to keep it up there (attach the city to a million balloons?)
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in that case, maybe we'll progress to a point politically that the definition of "human" and "manned" will expand to include our creations... and our mars rovers will have been the first men to walk on mars :)