Just a quick flashback to President George Bush circa January 2004 [1]:
Our second goal is to develop and test a new spacecraft, the crew exploration vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014.
I don't think it took 100's of years for people to figure out that a continent teaming cod, timber, and beavers might be a good place to set up trade. Grated, early on, they thought it was a continent full of gold and spices.
I don't know what the analogous economic engine could possible be on Mars. If Mars is going to grow, we need to be able to imagine someone saying "I'm moving my family to Mars in search of a better life. I just don't see that happening. Series or L2 station? Sure, someone has to refine the iridium before we send it down the gravity well. But why would an entrepreneur want to set up shop on Mars?
It was Indigenous People Day yesterday in the US (aka Columbus Day), and it made me think what an interesting time it must have been to be alive at a time where there were widely mostly unexplored areas in the world, and how incredulous and shocked people must have felt when they found out of these unexplored lands (putting aside the fact that it had been explored and lived by other cultures they did not know of).
Then I realized I do live in a time like that, with space exploration being that next frontier. What a time to be alive. I can't wait to be in absolute disbelieve of all the worldful discoveries that will be made when we expand space exploration further.
I hate this analogy. Not only does it enforce the bullshit teleology of the White European as "discoverer" (you know people inhabited these continents, right?) but it also fails to take into account the massive technological shifts that have taken place. We can send probes to Mars, we are able to run mass spectrometry on it, we can analyze and monitor it from affair.
What on Mars is worth $500 a pound (in bulk) on Earth (this is something like the silly low price proposed by Elon Musk for transport)?
People will probably pay a lot more than that for the first few thousand pounds of dust, but they certainly won't keep paying that just to have the same dust millions of others have. The vast resources of the Americas paid for the continuous trips back and forth and attracted settlers. What pays for going to Mars? What attracts (large numbers of) settlers to Mars?
I get that there are people attracted to the "freedom" they would have outside of the established political realms of Earth, but what a terrible airless bargain that is.
>Trying to go to Mars is equivalent to the explorers in the 1500-1700s discovering other continents. History has shown it was a good idea.
Not for the people already living on those continents it wasn't. For them, it was a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
>We won't know the benefit of going to Mars until 100s of years after we do it.
This is speculation, and if you're implying that explorers to the Americas didn't foresee the benefits, you're completely and factually wrong. They might not have predicted, for instance, the discovery of cocoa/chocolate, but they did think there was gold there (and there was; the Spanish brought back huge quantities of it), plus many other resources like furs, plus the ability to grow many crops there like tobacco.
With Mars, we've already sent a bunch of probes there and learned a lot about it. It's not some big unknown land any more. And there simply isn't any good reason for people to go there except for basic science. You sure as hell can't grow stuff there (and even if you could, getting it back to Earth would cost a fortune; we're not really short on arable land here on Earth, and we're constantly developing ways of more efficiently using what we have, with the next big thing being vertical farming): there's little atmosphere, little water, and it's cold and too far from the Sun. The lack of a magnetosphere and too much radiation probably isn't going to be all that great for your crops either (not to mention any inhabitants). The only foreseeable thing that could be done there is mining. But we don't need to go to Mars to get minerals; we have asteroids passing close to the Earth all the time which could be mined, and have very valuable ores in them. It's also possible to mine on the Moon, which probably has mineral resources thanks to all the asteroid impacts and lack of geological activity. Both of these are far closer and more feasible than Mars.
I'm sorry, but "build it and they will come" isn't a law of the universe, it's a line from a silly movie.
But can you explain why this is a valid equivalence? On the surface, sure, but exploration-for-it's-own-sake isn't a good enough reason. Also, some would argue that the disadvantages (e.g. disruption of local cultures, ambiguity of meaning in modern life) have outweighed the advantages.
> Trying to go to Mars is equivalent to the explorers in the 1500-1700s discovering other continents.
Except that explorers in the 1500-1700s didn't have unmanned ships or remote sensing capabilities, and manned travel was their one and only option for exploration. We've come a long way since then.
Probably not a coincidence that this announcement arrives barely a week after SpaceX's absurdly ambitious Mars architecture announcement.
It's a good bet that any politician meaning business about this will award numerous private contracts as part of the initiative. SpaceX intends to make manned exploration of Mars a lot cheaper than NASA has ever suggested possible, and cost is the main factor.
Yeah I was surprised to see that he didn't mention SpaceX anywhere in the article. It seems that Elon usually pays tribute to NASA -- he did in his Mars announcement.
It seems like if there are only two entities trying to go to Mars, and they work together through a contracting relationship, then it makes sense to mention the relation to the other one.
Otherwise I'm just left confused about the two efforts.
The problem is NASA has stated they do not want private sector going to deep space. They think only the government should be doing deep space exploration and colonization. This is also why Elon specifically mentioned building parts of the ship for going to Mars in the Gulf states where there are already manufacturing plants for building components for NASA. Elon hopes to influence the public/politicians to help fund SpaceX instead of focusing on NASA doing it all.
Exactly. Obama has been trying to smatter himself across history throughout his presidency with a lot of "first president, first president in X years" activities, and this screams of ME TOO-ism.
Previous to this comment he's shown zero interest in space or space exploration - can't stand the guy.
Would have been nice to hear this earlier than the final minutes of his presidency. I have no faith that either of his possible successors give a damn about Mars.
I'd have given his words more credence if he hadn't canceled the Constellation project in 2010 [1].
It was in fact part of his original campaign platform in 2008 to cut funding to Nasa to pay for a national day care program. The day care never really got off the ground, but he did succeed in cutting Nasa's budget, forcing a lot of projects to shut down.
I'm glad to hear he's had a change of heart about space, though it sounds as though he's counting on the private sector to do a lot of the work. And, of course, it means diddlysquat given that he's retiring in three months.
>> sitting on my grandfather's shoulders, waving a flag as our astronauts returned to Hawaii.
>> More than 1,000 companies across nearly all 50 states are working on private space initiatives.
These are my takeaways - the reason we do the hard things is because of a child like sense of wonder.
And the reason we will succeed is because 1,000 companies is a lot. And I bet I am not the only HN'er wanting to be one of the next ones, to buy into the dream.
I believe this bill cancels our no-commerce-in-space obligations under the Outer Space Treaty - American companies may now lay claim to and develop celestial objects.
I don't entirely disagree, but overall I think multiple independent endeavors may be the most resilient approach.
In other words, collaboration may indeed the fastest path if all goes well, but multiple independent efforts may be safer, with a higher probability of success.
Independent approaches also allow for slightly different techniques and technological approaches to the problem, which may have additional unknown benefits later on.
Even if Mars worked, it would be terrible for the Earth because it would give the first real nuclear asylum. Should leaders be able to live somewhere completely free of the threat of destruction, who knows what they'd do.
Should it work, it can greatly hurt the human race; should it fail, it was a waste of money. I don't understand why people would be happy about this?
Let's fix education, healthcare, banking, infrastructure, inefficient military, "warrior" policing, and prisons first. Then, if money is left over, we can go to Mars or just subsidize American's vacation trips to interesting places on this planet. :)
Granted, NASA is slowly turning into a regulatory agency compared to being purely technical, so we can't use the rate of technical advancements in the past to predict the future. However, I think NASA is one of the handful of federal agencies where I stand to see tangible benefits from my tax dollars.
And yet any sort of program that gets fleshed out right now will get trashed in about three months time when he leaves office and congress turns over. Yay, political infighting and sabotage!
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|9 years ago|reply
Our second goal is to develop and test a new spacecraft, the crew exploration vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014.
[1]http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54868main_bush_trans.pdf
[+] [-] anindha|9 years ago|reply
We won't know the benefit of going to Mars until 100s of years after we do it.
[+] [-] tdaltonc|9 years ago|reply
I don't know what the analogous economic engine could possible be on Mars. If Mars is going to grow, we need to be able to imagine someone saying "I'm moving my family to Mars in search of a better life. I just don't see that happening. Series or L2 station? Sure, someone has to refine the iridium before we send it down the gravity well. But why would an entrepreneur want to set up shop on Mars?
[+] [-] chamakits|9 years ago|reply
It was Indigenous People Day yesterday in the US (aka Columbus Day), and it made me think what an interesting time it must have been to be alive at a time where there were widely mostly unexplored areas in the world, and how incredulous and shocked people must have felt when they found out of these unexplored lands (putting aside the fact that it had been explored and lived by other cultures they did not know of).
Then I realized I do live in a time like that, with space exploration being that next frontier. What a time to be alive. I can't wait to be in absolute disbelieve of all the worldful discoveries that will be made when we expand space exploration further.
[+] [-] yolesaber|9 years ago|reply
The only reason to go there is hubris.
[+] [-] maxerickson|9 years ago|reply
People will probably pay a lot more than that for the first few thousand pounds of dust, but they certainly won't keep paying that just to have the same dust millions of others have. The vast resources of the Americas paid for the continuous trips back and forth and attracted settlers. What pays for going to Mars? What attracts (large numbers of) settlers to Mars?
I get that there are people attracted to the "freedom" they would have outside of the established political realms of Earth, but what a terrible airless bargain that is.
[+] [-] Grishnakh|9 years ago|reply
Not for the people already living on those continents it wasn't. For them, it was a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
>We won't know the benefit of going to Mars until 100s of years after we do it.
This is speculation, and if you're implying that explorers to the Americas didn't foresee the benefits, you're completely and factually wrong. They might not have predicted, for instance, the discovery of cocoa/chocolate, but they did think there was gold there (and there was; the Spanish brought back huge quantities of it), plus many other resources like furs, plus the ability to grow many crops there like tobacco.
With Mars, we've already sent a bunch of probes there and learned a lot about it. It's not some big unknown land any more. And there simply isn't any good reason for people to go there except for basic science. You sure as hell can't grow stuff there (and even if you could, getting it back to Earth would cost a fortune; we're not really short on arable land here on Earth, and we're constantly developing ways of more efficiently using what we have, with the next big thing being vertical farming): there's little atmosphere, little water, and it's cold and too far from the Sun. The lack of a magnetosphere and too much radiation probably isn't going to be all that great for your crops either (not to mention any inhabitants). The only foreseeable thing that could be done there is mining. But we don't need to go to Mars to get minerals; we have asteroids passing close to the Earth all the time which could be mined, and have very valuable ores in them. It's also possible to mine on the Moon, which probably has mineral resources thanks to all the asteroid impacts and lack of geological activity. Both of these are far closer and more feasible than Mars.
I'm sorry, but "build it and they will come" isn't a law of the universe, it's a line from a silly movie.
[+] [-] timehastoldme|9 years ago|reply
But can you explain why this is a valid equivalence? On the surface, sure, but exploration-for-it's-own-sake isn't a good enough reason. Also, some would argue that the disadvantages (e.g. disruption of local cultures, ambiguity of meaning in modern life) have outweighed the advantages.
[+] [-] freyr|9 years ago|reply
Except that explorers in the 1500-1700s didn't have unmanned ships or remote sensing capabilities, and manned travel was their one and only option for exploration. We've come a long way since then.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] fail2fail2ban|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viach|9 years ago|reply
How so? For who?
[+] [-] marvin|9 years ago|reply
It's a good bet that any politician meaning business about this will award numerous private contracts as part of the initiative. SpaceX intends to make manned exploration of Mars a lot cheaper than NASA has ever suggested possible, and cost is the main factor.
[+] [-] chubot|9 years ago|reply
It seems like if there are only two entities trying to go to Mars, and they work together through a contracting relationship, then it makes sense to mention the relation to the other one.
Otherwise I'm just left confused about the two efforts.
[+] [-] destitude|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neximo64|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmeredith|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epoxyhockey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gxs|9 years ago|reply
Previous to this comment he's shown zero interest in space or space exploration - can't stand the guy.
[+] [-] rasz_pl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarkevans|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sir_Cmpwn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blisterpeanuts|9 years ago|reply
It was in fact part of his original campaign platform in 2008 to cut funding to Nasa to pay for a national day care program. The day care never really got off the ground, but he did succeed in cutting Nasa's budget, forcing a lot of projects to shut down.
I'm glad to hear he's had a change of heart about space, though it sounds as though he's counting on the private sector to do a lot of the work. And, of course, it means diddlysquat given that he's retiring in three months.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program
[+] [-] fail2fail2ban|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|9 years ago|reply
>> More than 1,000 companies across nearly all 50 states are working on private space initiatives.
These are my takeaways - the reason we do the hard things is because of a child like sense of wonder.
And the reason we will succeed is because 1,000 companies is a lot. And I bet I am not the only HN'er wanting to be one of the next ones, to buy into the dream.
Just take lots of tomato ketchup in case.
[+] [-] fitzwatermellow|9 years ago|reply
The GAOs latest report suggested it would miss its 2018 first test launch due to technical challenges (software-related):
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-620
[+] [-] markdog12|9 years ago|reply
Thanks
[+] [-] gxs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fail2fail2ban|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drakonandor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Roboprog|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readams|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sidcool|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] palebluedot|9 years ago|reply
In other words, collaboration may indeed the fastest path if all goes well, but multiple independent efforts may be safer, with a higher probability of success.
Independent approaches also allow for slightly different techniques and technological approaches to the problem, which may have additional unknown benefits later on.
[+] [-] BigDaddyD|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] btown|9 years ago|reply
"[God is] change we can believe in."
[+] [-] helthanatos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EJTH|9 years ago|reply
And it would be good for earth at the same time for the same reasons. I would consider it a good thing because of redundancy of life and humanity.
> Who knows what they'd do
Probably not something that they haven't already planned. Just look at Iraq, Libya and Syria and see what the US have done to those places.
> Should it work, it can greatly hurt the human race
But it could also open up a whole new world of adventure, exploration, innovation and conquest - something many humans still strive for.
[+] [-] hehheh|9 years ago|reply
Do you think the only thing stopping leaders from killing billions is the fact they might also die or be otherwise affected?
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsilvereagle|9 years ago|reply
Granted, NASA is slowly turning into a regulatory agency compared to being purely technical, so we can't use the rate of technical advancements in the past to predict the future. However, I think NASA is one of the handful of federal agencies where I stand to see tangible benefits from my tax dollars.
[+] [-] drakonandor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiph|9 years ago|reply
Like how Star Trek inspired a generation of engineers and rocket scientists, his book is inspiring another generation to go even further.
[+] [-] nadezhda18|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cndjdjvjjdnd|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justin66|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcanus|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dingo_bat|9 years ago|reply