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Mars Society
The Mars Society's Robert Zubrin holds out a fossil found during a Mars mission simulation conducted on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic in 2001.
Will NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, launched last month, mark another step toward sending humans to Mars —or one of the last steps for a long time in NASA's Mars exploration program? Rocket scientist Robert Zubrin, founder and president of the Mars Society, is increasingly worried that it's more like the end than the beginning.
"We're faced with the end of the program after this mission," Zubrin told me this week.
The future of Mars exploration will be Topic A when Zubrin and I sit down together Wednesday in the Second Life virtual world for this month's installment of "Virtually Speaking Science." The hourlong talk show, which will be webcast via BlogTalkRadio and archived on iTunes, begins at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT / SLT) in the MICA Small Auditorium in Second Life. Teleport in and join the live audience, listen in real time over the Web, or catch up with the podcast after the show.
Zubrin has been an outspoken advocate for human Mars exploration for a long time: He distilled his thinking about the potential scenario for Mars missions into a book titled "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must." His other books on that theme include "Entering Space," "Mars on Earth," "First Landing" and "How to Live on Mars." He's also delved into energy policy, and recently converted his 2007 Chevy Cobalt to run on methanol (which saves money and gives a boost to energy independence). In his next book, "Merchants of Despair," he takes on the critics of nuclear power, environmental activists and the advocates of population control.
This is clearly a guy who can handle controversy and make his point forcefully. But 15 years after "The Case for Mars" was written, have his efforts brought us any closer to that first landing on the Red Planet? In the late 1980s, some talked about sending astronauts to Mars within 25 years. Today, the Obama administration is talking about sending astronauts to Mars ... maybe within 25 years. And Zubrin sounds doubtful about even that timeframe.
In fact, Zubrin has deepening doubts about NASA's direction, particularly about the prospect of having no Mars missions on the books after the Maven orbiter launch in 2013. NASA hasn't yet fully committed itself to a joint ExoMars mission with the European Space Agency, and a U.S.-European-Russian meeting on the mission's future is scheduled for Wednesday.
Zubrin's concerns about the future of Mars exploration were the major theme of my pre-show interview with him this week. Here's an edited transcript of the Q&A:
Cosmic Log: How do you see the Mars Science Laboratory mission fitting into the wider Mars exploration goals that NASA has, and that you think NASA should have?
Robert Zubrin: The Mars Science Lab is a great mission. One could argue that they shouldn't have bet so much on this mission. They could have gotten several missions for the money, and spread the risk around. But this is the one we've got, and if it succeeds, it's going to be a terrific science mission. They can look for methane, and they'll be able to distinguish between biogenic and non-biogenic methane by its isotopic composition. It'll study the topography, the mineralogy, the works. And it's powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, so it could last for years and years and keep going. The data will keep coming.
Robert Zubrin is the president of the Mars Society.
The problem is not this mission. The problem is, we're faced with the end of the program after this mission. OK, there's a little orbiter called Maven that's funded, but after that, they've canceled the program. The Obama administration has reneged on its agreement with the Europeans to do joint missions in 2016 and 2018 — which was supposed to be the preparation for Mars sample return.
What we're dealing with here is, No. 1, no missions in those years. No. 2, the collapse of an agreement with the Europeans. No. 3, probably a collapse of the European program, because these guys went and sold these missions to their political sponsors saying, 'Hey, we're going to do this together with NASA.' Now the politicians are going to turn around and tell the space officials, 'You lied to us.'
Q: There's talk about the Russians getting involved ...
A: Yeah, well, come on, you could do that. But every Russian mission to Mars has failed, without exception, including the one that failed last month. ...
This robotic Mars program has been a campaign, and it's been successful for that reason. This was a decision made in 1994, following the failure of Mars Observer. We were going to launch to Mars every two years, which is to say every launch opportunity, and we've been alternating rovers and orbiters. We were able to push right through the double failure in 1999 because we already had new things ready and up on deck. And beyond that, we were able to do combined operations: The orbiters could supply reconnaissance and communication links for the rovers, and the rovers could supply ground truth for the orbiters. It greatly enhances the power of orbiters and rovers.
If we wait until 2020 to resume operations, all the orbiters that are there now will have failed by then. We'll have lost this entire infrastructure, and we'll have to start from scratch. This is just an incredible thing. The Mars robotic program has been one of the most successful programs in NASA's history. To cut it off now is just insanity. Perhaps there's malice in this, to not cut the waste, but actually cut the parts that are delivering the goods.
I think it will be reversed. I don't think Congress will stand for it. For these two missions, we've got an offer on the table from the Europeans for a billion dollars cash to help fund it. The idea of walking away from this is just nuts. But I think it represents a degree of incompetence that perhaps can't be explained by incompetence.
They're spending billions of dollars a year to refurbish the shuttle launch pads even though there are no more shuttles. They've got $18 billion for the Space Launch System program when we could get a heavy-lift rocket by putting out a $5 billion fixed-price request for proposals. I don't agree with people who say we don't need heavy-lift. We absolutely do need heavy-lift. But SLS is not being funded to produce a heavy-lift vehicle. It's just being funded to distribute money.
[The Space Launch System is projected to cost $18 billion through 2017. That funding will support the development of a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule for uncrewed testing. The test phase of the rocket, which is expected to lead to crewed flights in the 2020s, would cost billions more. The current SLS plan calls for NASA to spend $2 billion on launch pad construction at Kennedy Space Center over a multiyear time frame, but not billions per year.]
Q: I would have thought you'd be in favor of any effort to build a big rocket that could send humans to Mars.
A: SLS is essentially the same as any number of earlier heavy-lift designs. It's very similar to the Ares rocket that we proposed in "The Case for Mars." That's not the issue. The first issue is, they're developing a heavy-lift vehicle in isolation from any program to use it. Which means it'll never actually get developed. The Saturn V program succeeded not because it was a Saturn V program, but because it was part of the Apollo program to get to the moon. It was part of a coherent set of hardware that was being developed together in order to accomplish the mission. It was mission-driven.
Since then, we've had any number of heavy-lift programs: Shuttle-C, ALS, NLS, Spacelifter, the Space Launch Initiative, the National Aero-Space Plane, the X-33 ... and none of them has produced a flying vehicle. That's because they were not mission-driven. Around the time it's proposed to get to Phase B, and the money starts getting serious, people say, "Why are we doing this? We don't need this. What's the mission?" So they fall apart.
The second problem is that it's not being pursued efficiently. Obama says that our objective is a near-Earth asteroid mission. Well, a mission to a near-Earth asteroid is not that hard. It requires a heavy-lift vehicle, an in-space habitation module and a re-entry capsule. If they were serious about this, they could put out the request for proposals for a heavy-lift rocket. They're already working on a capsule, and there's also SpaceX's Dragon. For the hab module, they could basically modify the design for a space station module, and there are also the Bigelow modules in parallel. You put those three things together, and you've got an asteroid mission. You could do that easily by 2016 ... if you were serious.
But instead they say we must have advanced propulsion, and they draw cartoons of gigantic interplanetary spaceships. It's vastly more expensive and calls for all kinds of engineering that we don't have. It's a way of postponing the asteroid mission until 2030 or so. It's a way to take an engineering project and turn it into a dream rather than a program.
What we have right now is a manned spaceflight program which is not going anywhere, and has no objective. For the next 10 years what are we going to get for the $10 billion a year we're spending? There'll be random technology programs, and they'll be flying people up and down to the International Space Station in order to get, what? Further evidence that human physiology deteriorates in zero gravity? As if we didn't already know that?
Q: So what's your prescription?
A: The prescription in all cases is to have a space program that's mission-driven. The reason why the robotic program has been so productive is because it's been mission-driven. They don't plan missions in order to use the maximum number of weird things. They do exactly the opposite: They design a mission to use the minimum number of novel and weird things. That's how the manned program has got to go. We need to continue with the robotic program. Frankly, it's the only thing that's moved us closer to Mars since I published "The Case for Mars" in 1996.
Now, I prefer that we simply bite the bullet, say the program should go to Mars, design the hardware to do that, build it and go. If you say you want to do something easier first, OK, the asteroid mission fits the bill. It would develop about half the hardware set you'd need to send humans to Mars. But that needs to be approached with the idea of actually accomplishing the mission.
Q: Some people would say that the launch system needs to be certified for human safety, "human-rated," and that's why it costs so much and takes so long to develop new hardware.
A: The booster should have the qualities needed to make it safe, and frankly, the vendor should not be paid for the booster launch if the launch fails. That's a pretty good guarantee that they're going to try to make it safe. But if you're going to spend $20 billion to develop a booster instead of $5 billion, and you're wasting $15 billion, don't tell me that you're trying to save lives when hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved by taking the $15 billion and using it for highway repairs, or child vaccinations, or body armor for the troops, or fire-escape inspections, or swimming lessons. The money spent on the space program can't be spent on other things. So the space program really has an obligation to get its mission done. To say we're going to take $18 billion a year and not get the mission done — that's not socially responsible.
Q: Speaking of missions, the Mars Society has just started up a new field season at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. How do Mars mission simulations like yours and the recently completed 520-day Mars simulation in Moscow fit into the grand plan of getting humans to the actual Red Planet?
A: Our first crew of the year is now in there, led by a French engineer, Charlotte Poupon. We'll have 11 crews who will take us all the way through April. This is the 11th field season for the MDRS. Over 600 people have been crew members at MDRS to date, and they've come from more than 30 different countries.
It's been very instructive. We've gotten hundreds of lessons, not all of which agree with each other, because that's how experience works. Nevertheless, there are hundreds of people now who have gotten some experience in what it would be like to try to do exploration under Mars mission constraints. Those people are going to go back to their various space agencies and universities and companies, and incorporate this experience into the technologies and plans that they design.
I think this is a much more useful exercise than Mars500. It's good that they did it. It's good that there are people out there thinking about Mars problems. But frankly, people have been locked up in rooms in Moscow many times in the past. The issue for a Mars mission is not the standing isolation. Anne Frank and her family in an attic in Amsterdam were far more isolated for two and a half years, under vastly more hostile conditions than any crew would face during a Mars mission. If you look at human history, any number of people, randomly chosen, whether they're refugees in hiding, prisoners, soldiers, merchant seamen, whalers, have withstood human-factor problems far more formidable than the crew would face during a trip to Mars.
The real issue is not how humans withstand isolation, it's how to plan the mission to get the maximum return from the exploration efforts. That's why our simulations are not based on isolation, but based on learning how to explore on Mars by doing it in the desert or in the Arctic. I'm hoping that NASA will copy us. I want our program to be made obsolete by people with greater resources picking up the ball and running with it. But until then, there's our program.
Q: And then there's your forthcoming book, "Merchants of Despair," which is totally different from what I expected. It's all about life on Earth, and you're probably going to stir a whole new kind of controversy.
A: Yeah, this is a book that's going to disturb a lot of people, because they're going to discover that a lot of ideas that are quite fashionable now have a horrendous heritage. They're not really new ideas. They've been paraded out before with the most disastrous consequences. Ultimately these ideas are all variants of Malthusianism, which basically says, "There isn't enough to go around, so some people are going to have to suffer, and therefore authorities are going to have to be empowered to enforce that." It's ultimately an argument for tyranny and justifying human oppression.
This was developed by Malthus originally to excuse the famines created by the British East India Company in India, and subsequently the famines in Ireland. It was the basis for the eugenics movement in Nazism, for the population-control movement, for the Limits to Growth movement — and for the global warming thing, which says, "Well, we're not actually running out of resources, but we've run out of the right to use resources." So the development of the Third World is to be precluded and the development of the advanced nations is to be limited. ....
The whole discussion of global warming is totally bizarre, because they're having all these arguments about whether it's getting colder or warmer, arguing about thermometer measurements, when it's very clear that increased CO2 content in the atmosphere accelerates plant growth. Furthermore, warming lengthens the growing season, and it increases rainfall. Global warming and CO2 increases are a cause for celebration.
Q: I'm sure the first question people are going to ask is, "What's a rocket scientist doing writing a book on these kinds of issues?"
A: Well, somebody's got to.
It's also this: Look, one might ask why John Holdren, Obama's science adviser, is basically trying to wreck the American space program. I think it's because the space program is the banner for proving that there are no limits to growth.
Here's what the space program is all about: It's to win the argument in favor of humanity. It's to prove that it's not the case that there's only so much to go around. It's not the case that human beings are just vermin who are consuming what's there, so they have to be limited, because if they're let loose they'll destroy everything. Rather, it's the case that resources — which is to say the possibilities of doing things — come about through human creativity. Resources are a product of human invention. Far from limiting human activity, you want to maximize freedom so as to maximize human creativity.
Here's a quote from John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich in "Global Ecology," the book they wrote together: "When a population of organisms grows in a finite environment, sooner or later it will encounter a resource limit. This phenomenon, described by ecologists as reaching the 'carrying capacity' of the environment, applies to bacteria on a culture dish, to fruit flies in a jar of agar, and to buffalo on a prairie. It must also apply to man on this finite planet."
If you want to be able to condemn humans to being nothing but the equivalent of bacteria in a culture dish, you must make the assertion that we are limited to a finite planet. If we are not limited to a finite planet, then it becomes clear that we are not bacteria in a culture dish. We are creators of our own future. That's what's ultimately at stake here.
Tune into BlogTalkRadio or drop into Second Life to join the "Virtually Speaking Science" conversation with Zubrin at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT / SLT) on Wednesday. And check out these previous podcasts from the "VSScience" show:
- Marc Millis on interstellar spaceflight
- Sean Carroll on the puzzling frontiers of physics
- Rand Simberg on the private-enterprise vision for spaceflight
- Martin Hoffert on the future of energy policy
- George Djorgovski on science in virtual worlds
- Alan Stern on suborbital research and NASA's mission to Pluto
- Col. 'Coyote' Smith on the outlook for space solar power
- Tim Pickens on rocket ventures and the Google Lunar X Prize
Many thanks to the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics for co-sponsoring Wednesday's Second Life talk at the MICA Small Auditorium at Stella Nova.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Mr Zubrin dismisses the value of low earth orbit for the study of the effect of weightlessness on the human body.
What is his plan on how to mitigate this for people voyaging to Mars and back? Just wondering.
Creating artificial gravity on the spacecraft using a tether system. Zubrin talks about that and other aspects of Mars mission architecture in these postings. Sorry I didn't go into depth about this in the Q&A, but perhaps it's best to link to outside resources, since he's been talking about this for such a long time:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/robert-zubrins-proposes-using-three.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/zubrin-provides-more-explanation-of-his.html
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25132.msg737443#msg737443
This should have read more like "Is Earth facing a crisis?"
This is very sad to hear about Mars and I cant for one minute understand it.
One of the problems humanity is going to surly face in the very near future is over population, and if we don’t solve this problem fast then it will become our undoing.
Think of it like this, in my lifetime the world population has tripled to over 7 billion people living on this small planet, and in just 50 or 60 more years it could very well triple again to 21 billion, the Earth is not going to be able to sustain this for very long and there are things that will have to happen in order to keep it stable.
There will be a war over resources like we have never seen and millions or even billions of people will die in that effort.
If humanity ever survives this problem, and we look back at what we did to ourselves we will scratch our heads and wonder why we took so long and why so many had to die.
Ether way this problem has to be solved in the next 20 years or sooner or we may face the ultimate justice from planet Earth herself.
Have a good day, Tom And Lyn
Over population, is they call it, is a simple thing to deal with. But our culture is unwilling to do what is necessary. The primary problem is over-crowding. We slam into the cities and draw heavily upon giant farms and factories for all the things we need. It takes a LOT to support the big cities. It would ease a good many things to simply spread out more. We have a VERY large percentage of the population occupying a very SMALL percentage of the quality land.
I'm not saying we need to move to subsistence living and everyone becomes a farmer and homesteader but I am suggesting we create a culture of smaller towns working together to support the whole in a more even fashion than what we have now.
That won't solve the whole problem but it's a better start than starting yet another war to cull the population.
But no one is going to go for my idea, so we're all boned. War and death is easy and so that's what will happen.
mob
You are exactly correct, this is what I have been talking about for many years, but I agree with you nothing will be done until the earth runs out of resources and/or we are forced to make a change, No one wants war, and I am one guy that is totally against that.
I believe that money is one of the biggest problems we have, it holds us at bay and keeps us from moving forward in a lot of areas, unless there is a profit to be made, then we are uninterested in fixing the problem, and this way of thinking is what is going to get us into a lot trouble.
I think over all we will be forced to change one way or the other, and if that does not happen then we will see war on a scale we have never seen before in history.
It is sad to think about but that is were we are headed if we don't make a change.
Even if we solve our short term problems, with energy and other resources we will always have the problem of over population, this is why we need to invest all the moneys we can in our future, the space program, Mars, and new technologies.
Have a good day, mob, Tom And Lyn
Agreed about the culture aspect. 99% of what I do for a living can be done remotely, but unless you are in a high-tech field where your bosses understand that, you're SOL. Instead, I get suited up, spend over 45 minutes in traffic one way, burn up 16galons of premium gas in 1.5 weeks and repeat the process for years on end.
We as a species are becoming more pragmatic however. Look at how there are TV shows about parents with HUGE families...and by huge they mean 8, 10, 12 kids. The fact that they're an anomaly is a good thing in this day and age!
The best way to handle the looming crisis of over-population is to find ways of improving the socioeconomic status of the regions where ridiculously high birth rates are common (namely Africa and the Middle East).
Right now, these countries populations are ballooning because science reached them before education and commerce did. Science has prolonged their lives and reduced infant mortality...but education will be what's needed to get them to stop breeding like rabbits because they have a mentality developed historically where 1/3 of their kids or the mothers were likely to die shortly after childbirth.
This is why most 1st world countries have either (nearly) static or shrinking populations and 3rd world's are exploding.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Tom And Lyn
Well, one thing is for sure, that with unimaginative, stuck-in-reelection-mode-only goofs like Bozobama, our space program has died and will continue to stall until someone with vision and good sense is elected. We HAVE to reach out; mankind cannot allow itself to be so limited to only this world, as we're explorers, that is our nature. Toss Bozobama, get someone who can see past the next election or fund-raiser, and we'll get somewhere.
It's not surprising that a rocket scientist and President of the Mars Society would be all gung-ho for manned spaceflight, regardless of the cost. It is also not surprising that he has little understanding of the economic predicament that the US now finds itself in - he's a technician, not an economist.
But it is rather disturbing when he takes an anti-science position in dismissing climate science, merely because of the remote possibly it might interfere with his cherished Mars mission plans. Even worse, the mathematics of population growth is unmistakable and undeniable, yet somehow he denies it. Anyone who thinks we can solve the over-population problem by exporting the excess to outer space simply doesn't understand how the geometric progression of population growth works, or is using it for his own agenda.
I don't believe that Dr. Zubrin was dismissing global climate change. He was merely trying to make the point that there are both positive and negative consequences to a changing global climate. The earth has been both much colder, and much hotter, than it is today. The age of the dinosaurs was one in which large portions of the planet experienced a tropical climate in which vegetation flourished and where the atmosphere had an increased oxygen level that permitted dragonflies to grow to enormous size. There were, of course, no human beings around in those days to be inconvenienced by the warmer or colder climates. While it is probably prudent to slow down the rate that we dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere until we have a better understanding of how to cope with this kind of climate change, it is also important to recognize that global climate change represents an opportunity, not necessarily a catastrophe, if we manage it properly. This is one of the lessons that planetary science can teach us.
What space travel offers us is the opportunity to step outside our earth-bound perspective and instead adopt Buckminster Fuller's perspective of the earth as a spaceship. Fuller once observed that wealth is nothing more than energy compounded with ingenuity. Since mass-energy can never decrease, and ingenuity can only increase, there is virtually no limit to the amount of wealth that can be created by an expanding interplanetary species.
Unless you're a farmer whose land dries up in the increased droughts, or a homeowner whose property gets destroyed by the stronger storms, or a whole nation of beautiful atolls that gets submerged under the rising seas, or an entire species that can't adapt and goes extinct, or pretty much any other entity on this planet that has managed to survive in the previous conditions but is not prepared for the fastest significant change in climate in pretty much the entirety of Earth's history.
This argument sounds familiar. One patch of tropical soil exhausted? Burn down a few acres of jungle next door and plant crops there! Fur-bearing animals all hunted out in Europe? Go to the New World and get your beaver pelts there! Too little acreage in the eastern U.S. for you? Go west, young man, and make "good use" of whatever you can claim and hold against all others!
I disagree that "finding rich foreign places to exploit in order to cover overconsumption at home" is a good reason to explore anything. Yes, we need to go to space, but if we're only doing it so we can keep living beyond our means, we'll make a used-up slag heap out of every planet and moon we set foot on.
Nice way to redefine "resources" to exclude things that are actually finite, like rare-earth elements, or are threatened features of our native environment, like low-lying islands and many other living species. Did "human invention" produce any of those? One thing's certain; it will take a whole lot more "human invention" (and engineering and, yes, other resources) to bring these things back once they're gone than it would to just be careful and preserve them in the first place.
And so as to maximize the ability of the most powerful humans to get what they want at the expense of everyone and everything else. I'm used to hearing libertarian junk like this from smug college boys and oil-corporation executives; it's terribly depressing to hear it from someone who should be championing the ability of the human race to live sustainably in all the worlds they might someday reach.
Yes, I realize these comments are not going to sit well with a lot of folks ... As I said in the post, Zubrin can certainly start an argument ... and once he gets started, he sticks to his guns. Dial in the talk show on Wednesday evening, dial up the call-in number and state your case.
It is truly amazing to me how this sort of thing can be discussed without ever mentioning the elephant in the room --- the pervasive and ruinous domination of NASA by the military for its own purposes and in the face of NASA scientists.
NASA has long been dominated by "fighter jocks", ex-fighter pilots, who believe that only they have the "right stuff" for space exploration. The military has worked through these people to give us expensive toys like the ISS and Space Shuttle. Once the Apollo Program had made the moon, the military pressed hard to stop "wasting" money on additional moon flights. They especially opposed the push for "big dumb lifters" that NASA scientists wanted and placed significant obstacles in the way of robotics.
The military was only interested in near-Earth space where there was potential for military operations, especially reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering, and as a weapons platform. That is why NASA put the ISS in low Earth orbit instead of at a LaGrange point. They wanted to be able to quickly deliver weapons and reconnaissance satellites to low Earth orbit and the Shuttle had the "right stuff" to do it. They had no interest in lifters that exceeded the ability to hit a target anywhere on the Earth, something they already had.
But even the military is moving away from manned flight. Just as with space exploration, in modern fighter aircraft the man has become the limiting factor. Future fighters will be unmanned. The aircraft becomes far more maneuverable without a pilot onboard and the equipment necessary to sustain him can be replaced by fuel or armament. Exactly the same factors work with space travel.
Technically, in the next 20 plus years we do not have the capability to send men beyond the orbit of the moon. The reasons are two-fold: a) we cannot protect men on long-duration flights from cosmic radiation to the point that there would be a reasonable chance that they would not incur extraordinary risks such as cancer (the ISS is marginally exempted from this because it is within the Earth's magnetosphere) , and 2) we have absolutely no idea (though it is supposed to be about .8 of the amount of micro-gravity that would be necessary to keep men from losing dangerous levels of bone and muscle mass during extended flights. To think that somehow all this can be resolved with new and as yet unknown science is nothing more than a pipe dream that would be an incubator for cost overruns. It will be at least 50 plus years before a manned flight to Mars would be feasible and even then it would be virtually a suicide mission.
Advances in robotics and especially in artificial intelligence are the way to go. I do agree with the author in that it might be better to spread missions over multiple landers, but the author simply does not understand risk assessment if he does not see this as a way of virtually guaranteeing a larger number of failures.
What NASA needs, IMHO, is:
1) Get rid of the fighter jocks who have far too much say in these things. They are yesterday's "right stuff." Just as the military is looking toward unmanned aircraft more and more, NASA should have been a couple of decades ahead of them. To put it simply, fighter jocks are antiques who see space exploration as a "glory ground." Maybe they should volunteer for Afghanistan instead of volunteering to waste taxpayer money on exclusively manned space flight.
2) Put the emphasis at NASA on big dumb lifters that can throw the largest weight to a LaGrange Point with the greatest reliable and the least cost. These three-cornered equations are difficult, but NASA has the rocket scientists to handle it.
3) Continue the incremental improvements in robotics and artificial intelligence that have made Spirit and Opportunity so productive. The goal should be rovers or science stations that operate semi-autonomously with AI guidance and only reporting back to Earth for general mission guidance, data transmission, and situations where the programming is exceeded (such as getting stuck in the sand.) This would eventually get landers out of the few-feet-a-day limitations that really put the most stress on a mission.
4) Continue with the commercialization of launch vehicles. This only makes sense in this hyper-Calitalist society where huge sums of money can be raised by venture capitalists. NASA made sense when government aggregation of money was necessary because private industry simply could not raise the capital necessary to take important steps. But these days of corporate dominance mean that corporations can both finance the ventures and absorb the risks of their failures.
5) Refocus NASA away from low Earth orbit and get the public thinking about geosynchronous orbits and LaGrange points. NASA maintained a near-Earth focus for far too long to protect the ISS and Space Shuttle programs and totally ignored the facts that there are no lines of experiments that need to be done on the ISS (where virtually no science has been done that could not be more cheaply done by a satellite) and the Space Shuttle couldn't even put a satellite into geosynchronous orbit because it was designed around (obsolete) military reconnaissance satellites.
6) More fully embrace non-NASA technologies such as inflatable modules that are more practical. This is a good example of "too big to fail" --- when inflatables came along, NASA could have saved huge amounts of money by quickly adopting them. But instead NASA determined, in its dubious wisdom, that they had too much money already invested in "hard can" technology and needed to stick with it so they did not appear capricious.
I can still clearly remember the first hard-core modern science fiction novel I ever read --- Heinlein's "Rocketship Galileo." Even then I figured that by now there would be men on Mars. But the pernicious influence of the military took NASA away from Heinlein and towards the Cold War and destroyed that possibility.
Way off. Fact is, NASA is dominately mostly by the political whims of Congress (especially the Senate), and particularly the handful of Senators who sit on the Science and Space subcommittee (currently Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Bill Nelson, John Boozman, Mark Warner, Marco Rubio, and others), who are in turn subject to the influence of their aerospace industry constituents' special interests.
Ever hear the expression, "What Boeing wants, Boeing gets". It all goes back to campaign finance and getting money out of politics.
This is an important discussion that we all need to be having. Dr. Zubrin has for some time been one of the few individuals bringing both sound reasoning and clarity of thought to the problem of America's future in space. I look forward to the interview.
The USA blew its Mars budget on the $3Trillion Iraqistan Wars.
Don't kid yourself. We'd still be debating this, even if not one dime had been spent in those places.
Yes, it feels nice to say; "Man, we could be doing X, Y and Z in space, if we had a piece of what's being spent on wars a, b and c."
It does not automatically follow that that money would indeed be spent were those wars not being fought. The Federal budget would just be somewhat smaller. That's all.
Remember (and I do), we got to the Moon during the Vietnam War. Apollo rose (and fell) pretty much on its own, not for anything happening in Southeast Asia.
Having worked in the space program I never thought I would say it but this nation has more than enough problems to spend it's money on than tossing rockets to Mars. How about using some of NASA's brain power on solving our domestic problems. Same goes for Government contractors how about solving problems instead of making problems at the expense of the 99% er's?
I knew there would be one jackass to say something like this. Exploration of Mars is exactly what our collective tax money should be funding. We are all perfectly capable of taking care of our own health care and retirement.
ctvik
Boomer has a point and calling him a "jackass" is uncalled for.
He's right, unemployment, homelessness, lack of affordable health care and the fact that millions of children go to bed hungry IN THIS COUNTRY thanks to the failed policies of the previous administration are all issues that we should be addressing.
I want to see men and women go to Mars as badly as you, but until we address some of the issues here on Earth we an unprepared to reach for the stars.
That said, I believe the future of the Mars mission and the future of space exploration will be realized in a Private/Public partnership that may stretch across national boundaries.
We've answered some important questions about Mars recently. It has water. It had liquid water at some times in the past and perhaps even the present. It has an atmosphere. It also has radiation issues, extreme temperatures and no oxygen to speak of.
The next Mars mission will hopefully answer some of the remaining questions regarding Mars' past and that will determine Mars' future as far as human exploration/colonization is concerned.
Just let that lander find some extensive deposits of a valuable mineral or even evidence of past life and Richard Branson and others will be in partnership with SOMEBODY to fund a manned mission to Mars.
So, how about an apology to Boomer, and a little more compassion for your fellow travelers on this big blue rock in the darkness of the void? Let's take care of each other, because right now, we're all we've got. Let Mars take care of itself, it will still be there when we're actually ready to visit the red planet.
Happy Holidays
Skip,
I apologize to Boomer for the jackass comment.
First, our troubles are not the fault of our previous administration but the result of 80 or so years of social engineering.
As for Mars, my opinion is that all these baby steps we are taking are what is costing so much. Maybe we should just "go for it." Of course there will be danger, but the universe is a dangerous place. I'm sure it would not be difficult to find some volunteers willing to take that risk.
Happy Holidays to you too
skip - Don't point that finger just one way, the current administration hasn't fixed the situation either. The problem lies with ALL politicians regardless of party.
Boomer does not have a point, exactly how much would redirecting .5% of the federal budget do compared to the discoveries provided by NASA like the ingredient in baby formula that promotes brain and eye development previously found only in breast milk, cat scanners, the ability to calculate how strokes affect the brain, commercial airliner safety, and a thousand other things that benefit humans every day really change things?
Some of the most critical climate research on the planet is being conducted by NASA, in fact a good portion of all scientific research that actually has useful and piratical benefits is happening at NASA.
THis is one government agency that has given back to mankind FAR more thanit has consumed.
I firmly believe that money in politics is the absolute root of the problem... problem being the utter ineptitude of our government. Our so-called representatives act in their own best, short-sighted, interests in order to get elected / re-elected, and hold ever more prominent positions of power.
Money wins elections, that is a well documented fact (the candidate with the greatest funding wins over 90% of the time)... therefore politicians are always (unless term limited, or without re-election ambitions) completely dependent upon and beholden to special interests. They pass symbolic half measures and take every opportunity to pass the will of their most influential constituents ($$) into law, right under our noses.
Get money out of politics and we will begin to see a wave of candidates who speak for We The People, and think in terms of what is truly best for this nation. Congress isn't going to do this voluntarily the people must demand it:
www.getmoneyout.com
ctvik
Thank you very much for the civil response. I want to see humans on Mars and soon, at 61 I don't have all that long to wait, but I'd like to see us address some of our social problems as well.
Broken Arrow, I must politely disagree. The administration of GBII nearly drove us off a cliff and caused the near meltdown of the world economy. Our fiscal condition would not be nearly as bad today if he had kept his eye on the economic ball instead of going after Saddam. We would have gotten Bin Laden years earlier and would be out of Afghanistan by now if it hadn't been for GBII's mishandling of the situation.
That said.....
...I am sorry to have introduced politics into this discussion and apologize, my bad. I am often one of the voices decrying political and religious trolls wasting our time on this blog and here I found I've stepped in it with both feet. Mea culpa.
Let's just say we have some issues regarding our fellow man that need to be addressed AS WELL as funding NASA and future Mars missions.
I still think that men like Richard Branson and others with the financial means will have to get involved and will in the near future.
Happy Holidays
skip - Yeah, W definitely did not help things and probably made them a lot worse (really, who the #(&@^ starts TWO wars and lowers taxes??) But, neither democrat nor republican have done much to help the country vs the lobbyists and corporations that own them.
I can totally agree with you there. I would love to lower other spending and increase NASA's while telling NASA "Hey, btw, we have these more pressing issues that we would love you geniuses to help us out with". And I definitely see the true future of space resting in the hands of the private space industry. As it becomes more and more feasible for companies to turn a profit in space, we'll get further and further ahead.
Oh, and if you haven't checked out that link that CJSKS posted, I highly recommend it, a good movement to get behind.
Happy Holidays! :-)
No skip, It was been every administration and congress since the late 1800's that nearly drove us off the cliff. But if you absolutely must single people out, the Carter and Clinton administration, as well as Dodd were by far the most influential in creating this mess and to a lesser extent, Reagan and Nixon.
GW is on record having gone to congress multiple times asking them to audit and investigate Fannie and Freddie. He didn't have the power to do it, only congress did, yet they did nothing and specifically Dodd did nothing.
If you are going to inject politics into a discussion where it's not wanted, at least be sort of right about it.
While he talks with Rob't Zubrin tonight, I'll be feeding questions to Alan from IRC. Consider yourselves invited to ask questions or chat live with other listeners. Our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel is #VSpeak. If you're not already set up
1. Connect to
2. Create and use a log-in name
3. Enter #vspeak into the channel field.
4. NOTE: ‘Relay Rinq’ is not a person but a bridge to IRC chat.
5. Type into the text field along the bottom of the screen.
6. Begin questions with ‘QUESTION’ so it’s easy to spot.
"How about using some of NASA's brain power on solving our domestic problems."
When they re-name it the 'National Domestic Problem Administration,' we'll consider that.
If NASA stopped doing space and aeronautics, most of the people working it will go someplace where they can. You can't turn those engineers and scientists to solvers of (fill in blank) just because someone says so. A lot of our problems aren't about science and engineering, anyway...
I'm glad to hear that robotic missions to mars are coming to an end. How many more hundred thousand pictures of red rocks do you need? We need to get humans on Mars and get some inspiration going in this country again, like Apollo did for us and the entire world. And don't talk to me about the cost. The NASA budget is less than 1% of the total. Inspiration goes a long way to fixing other problems. We should also focus our efforts on getting there faster. 6 months each way is far too long to long to be exposed to deep space. Something is bound to go wrong.
"How many more hundred thousand pictures of red rocks do you need?"
You think humans on the surface won't also take any? Photographic documentation is part of science and exploration.
"We need to get humans on Mars and get some inspiration going in this country again, like Apollo did for us and the entire world."
If Apollo is an example, 'inspiration' will last as long as the third mission or so. I'm serious. Were it not for 'the problem,' Apollo 13 would have already been just another Moon mission. Attention spans aren't any longer today than in 1970, and one should not expect first-landing excitement to continue forever. Crowds no longer gather in Paris when a plane crosses the Atlantic non-stop...but aviation is an ongoing area of accomplishment, even though we've become quite used to it.
We need human spaceflight, to LEO and beyond, to become ongoing, economical, of commercial value wherever possible. Not completely dependent on government to happen. And, like maritime and aviation, a certain fraction will be interested, even 'inspired' by it...and know it's something that they have a real chance to be part of, and not have to enter the government astronaut lottery wherein they have a better chance of breaking into commercial sports than getting a mission assignment.
Yes, explore the solar system (which doesn't end at Mars, either), but like Antarctic exploration, do it as a worthwhile activity in its own right. Never make 'inspiration' a significant reason for doing so, for you will be disappointed in short order. Apollo is over. Don't expect to revive those glory days, just go out there and do what's needed. Let any 'inspiration' take care of itself.
'Inspiring' comment
I believe in goal driven, not mission driven, when it comes to our future in space. Clearly we don't agree on some key issues. - RC
I think the bigger problem is that we are running out of Pu-238. There is enough left for one more mission. No wonder robotic missions are coming to an end. You need power source once you get there and solar panels don't cut it.
Solar worked pretty well for Spirit and Opportunity.
Remind me why we can't use other not so rare radioactive isotopes for this purpose?
Obama will forever be remembered as the guy who killed the US space program. In fact, he's a crisis; a trgedy waiting to happen every single day. Who knows what other damage he will inflict upon this nation before we finally give him his pink slip in 2012?
By people who don't know what they're talking about... yeah sure. Do some reading on the "Vision for Space Exploration", which in 2005 set out to cancel the Shuttle by 2010, and having a replacement (manned Ares I) by 2014. Note the for year gap. Also be sure to look up NASA's funding during that time (lowest levels since 1960). Then see the Augustine Commission findings, which determined that Constellation was several years behind schedule on providing manned launches to LEO (I wonder why).
Then you might have a better idea.
p.s. Also note that while Constellation was cancelled, largely under the guidance of the Augustine Commission, most of what had been successfully developed under CxP (the 5-seg booster, the J-2x, and the Orion capsule) were all salvaged and will fly as part of the SLS. Also note that the shuttle was extended, and NASA's budget slightly increased under Obama.
Not that Bush or Obama really deserve much of the blame or credit... NASA essentially takes its direction from the Senate.
Now, would you like to explain your claim... How it is that Obama killed the space program?
MFranklin...To start, Obama didn't kill the space program (weak try for you.) Further...if he had, it would be due to MONEY. You know...the stuff he spends that you are so adamently against.
So decide...do you want space programs or reduced federal spending.
I want to increase funding to the space program and I want reduced federal spending. And it's completely realistic to want both. The only problem is that in order to do it you'd need to fix the budget and the tax code. And nothing gets accomplished in Washington D.C. anymore because everything is polarized in partisan politics.
Hey MF, wrong on all counts.
MFranklin has left the building apparently. You guys let too many facts get in the way of his programming. I'm sure he's frantically trying to get reassured of his confirmation bias on Faux Noise as we speak
Perhaps I may be wrong, but I'm at least partly right until MFranklin comes back with a rebuttal eh?
There are some unanswered questions that I don't think Zubrin or anyone else has addressed.
We're all well-aware of the physiological deterioration that occurs in zero-G. But even the lower-G of Mars would be enough to cause havoc with the human body. How would Mars colonists deal with that?
And how do they intend to generate a magnetic field around the planet? After all, the lack of a magnetic field may well be what caused the planet to lose its atmosphere and surface water in the first place. So, shielding humans from radiation is only part of the puzzle.
Natural shielding is the key in the short term. Building a Mars base below the surface will protect against radiation and micrometeorites. As for gravity, I think rigorous exercise is the cheapest solution. There are also things like gravity beds (which spin the user like a test tube in a centrifuge created a sensation of gravity). But that's still in testing phase. NASA also does a lot with vitamins and drugs to counteract the effects of some of this stuff. So, there are options. But you are right, these are real problems that need to be tackled still.
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that having even 1/6th the gravity of Earth would be enough to keep the human body from deteriorating as fast as it does in zero-g. So I would guess an hour or so of exercise would be needed to keep in ideal Earth-worthy condition. Trying to track down something solid on that...
Can't seem to find that exact prediction anywhere. Seems there was a research satellite that was going to be launched with mice, having the satellite spinning to provide Mars level gravity to study the long term effects, unfortunately it was canceled due to lack of funding :( Would have been really beneficial.
On top of all that, if we haven't even colonized our own oceans yet, isn't it a bit premature to be talking about heading for another planet? Sure, the ocean is a hostile environment, but compared to Mars, it's paradise. There's normal gravity, there's plenty of water, there's a ready source of oxygen, it's even better shielded from radiation than the surface of the Earth, the temperature is in the "Goldilocks" zone, there's plant life and lots of yummy animals to eat, etc., etc.
I'd prefer that we leave our oceans untouched. And depending on how deep we go, it's sometimes easier to build a space ship...
well, one idea would be to build a floating city out by the garbage slick so that we could clean it up and somehow make fuel out of the garbage.
now THAT I could go for.
A manned mission to Mars will never be achieved by one country over another. It is going to have to be a multi-national effort due to cost, technology, logistics, and so on. Any kind of large venture of space is going to have to be, and that isn't going to sit well with people. Space is man's future, and it should be embraced by all space faring nations, not a select few.
Agreed.
The ability to send people to Mars already exists. Unfortunately, the technology to keep them alive there and/or bring them back is still a couple decades away. What the Mars advocates seem to conveniently ignore it the -180 degree temperatures, the almost constant talcum powdre dust storms (that nobody has developed anything that will withstand or survive) and the fact that there is nothing to eat on Mars. Until food can be grown or synthesized in that environment, count on eating freeze dried food -- if there really is any water there -- and not having any entertainment or effective transportation (see dust storms above). Not practical, and I don't want my tax money being used to send people there.
I'd say more than a couple of decades away. Humans evolved in a one-G, temperate, radiation-shielded environment. Overcoming the results of millions of years of evolution ain't easy.
This may come as no surprise to you but you don't really get to choose what your tax money is spent on. Sure, we get to vote for representatives who hopefully represent your wishes as best they can, but in the end our tax money is spent on pantloads of stuff no one really wants to have it spent on. Personally I'd rather my taxes be spent on a mission to Mars than teaching people to swim (as Zubrin mentioned in the article). There are some things the federal government should do and some they shouldn't. I think it is up to the individual to learn how to swim, it's not up to society to pay for swimming lessons, unless it's for NAVY seal training. If the government pulls off the Mars mission then we all stand to benefit in myriad ways some of which are not tangible before it happens.
Mars temperatures are actually quite comparable to Antarctica's. So technically, you could walk around on Mars with some good arctic clothing and an oxygen mask and be fine.... well, and lots of SPF1000 sunscreen for the radiation heheh :-)
The other problems you mentioned are not insurmountable, and I'd rather we spend money on figuring out solutions for them as the same solutions could benefit us here on Earth in some way, shape, or form.
"Global warming and CO2 increases are a cause for celebration."
Thanks for your comments, folks. For a minute there thought I might be having way-too- early "Senior Moments" reading that.
All is well here.
:-)
Of all people nobody wants to explore Mars more than me, but I still think we're nowhere close yet. We need to send more (and way better) bots to look around more, and figure out how to make the trip not take nine months.
Just like global warming. Every 10 years they tell us we only have 10 years to save the planet. That's been going on for 30 years now. lol
While I have heard this reference in terms of landing on Mars (always 30 years away), and economically viable nuclear fusion (always 40 or 50 years away), I can't say I've ever heard it in reference to global warming/climate change, and I've been an avid reader of science and political news all my life. It doesn't even make sense, given that climate change is gradual in nature, not a single monumental event as in the other examples.
If anything, more recent findings suggest that we are beyond the proverbial "tipping point". Many of the effects of climate change are observable and indisputable, like ocean acidification and north pole "shrinkage" (lol). Whether all of these effects are anthropogenic in nature (and some, like ocean acidification clearly are), remains to be seen and are very difficult to prove.
@ economykiller
You know what killed the Buggy Whip industry? They didn't spend enough on lobbyists in Washington to block the automobile. Thank goodness that the coal mining, oil extracting, ICE vehicle producing industries in our great nation learned that lesson and are now making damn sure that we are not going to pursue viable alternative energy (e.g. Gen IV nuclear) and will bleed all of our oil reserves to the last drop before any of these businesses finally have to bite the bullet and adapt or dissolve.
In regard to financing: We shouldn't forget that there are now 65 BILLIONAIRES world-wide who have signed on with Gates and Buffet to "Give away during their lifetime or posthumously atleast 1/2 of their fortunes for GOOD CAUSES."
All it would take would be a cohesive , easily understood and uplifting presentation for some of them to invest, since THEY too are concerned with future generations even more than others ,obviously by their actions.
I can see a manned mission to Mars falling by the wayside because of economics. However, if I had a choice, I would much rather see an increase in the number of robotic missions and space based instruments like the JWST. The prospect of exploring Europa's ocean or Titan is much more appealing from a scientific and "wow" aspect than having humans setting foot on Mars. I also think that we're much closer technologically on being able to pull off the robotic missions as obviously we wouldn't have to factor in the human element.
Scientifically, perhaps... But from a "WOW" standpoint, I have to disagree. In the one case you are learning new things about strange environments like Titan or Europa (which is definitely neato stuff), and on the other you have human beings standing and working on another planet! Are you really telling me that the wow factor doesn't strike you as greater for human beings on another planet than it would be for learning something about the Europan ocean? I find that hard to believe.
The science is always amazing and ultimately very beneficial. I'm not arguing against that at all. I'm just saying that for human beings to actually make to and exist on and come back from a whole other planet would be MAJOR history and it would be crazy not to think that was a more "wow" moment than learning the exact composition and temperature of the Titanian lakes.
I see your point, but for me, it's all about potential. The potential that the JWST can detect biomarkers in the atmosphere of some distant world or a mission to Europa has the potential to find at least microbial life is very appealing. I think Titan is still a complete mystery and has so much more to offer in the way of not just science, but ground breaking science.
To see the first video transmitted from a human standing on the surface of Mars would no doubt be a unique experience, but that possibility seems so distant and our ability and commitment to do so feels like it is slipping away. The JWST is still alive and probes seem to be more acceptable in the current political and economic environment. I think there is also a bit of instant gratification going on too (I know real adult). In my fairy tale world we would spend the money and make the effort to do all of it plus establish a permanent base on the moon.
I agree 100%. I am just more inclined to work towards changing our current political and economic climate. I am not content to have NASA be so swayed by the ebb and flow of politics. But, as long as they get their money from the tax coffers I suppose that's how it's going to be. I think we just need to balance the budget, then I would imagine we would (should) have no problem starting the mission to Mars (or at least the Moon base mission).
We haven't even figured out how to take care of ourselves and others here on earth, and people still talk about leaving this planet for another - sounds selfish and blind to me. Throw money at helping people instead of at a whimsical (at best) delusion.
Yes we have. We just don't do it that efficiently as a culture. In small groups we are exceedingly good at taking care of ourselves.
"Throwing money at helping people" is a short term solution to a serious long term problem. Figuring out how to feed colonists on other planets will inevitably help people here at home. All of the other similar kinds of problems with human space travel are just like that. In figuring out how to travel in space we will inevitably figure out better ways to exist here at home.
Suspect the lines will be quite long for "One way tickets" if Hawking's predictions keep coming true re: "home."
:-)
Using current technology as discussed by the scientist, the last estimate to send people to Mars would take 13 months one way and 13 months back and cost about 400 billion dollars. Sorry, we cannot afford 400 billion. As to people "living" on Mars because of our over population or desire for more resources this is silly and stupid. Mars has about 1/3 the gravity of earth so humans would have a hell of time adjusting to Mars and then readjusting to earth, there is no atmosphere and the cost of sending any "resources" from Mars to the earth would be astronomical (excuse the pun). To go to Mars at a cost and time we can afford will require the use of nuclear energy combined with ion thrusters. Sorry Mr. Scientist but your way will never happen.
It will very likely cost more than 400 billion dollars and it's a very smart investment to make. But many people are unwilling to see that because all they can see is 10% unemployment (and higher in some areas). A fully fledged mission to Mars (if done on a scale similar to or greater than Apollo) will pull America out of the sink hole we are in. It will spur thousands of new inventions. It will change the world for the better. And there is plenty of science to be gleaned from it as well.
Actually, the "Mars Direct" mission architecture could place the first humans on the surface of Mars at a cost of roughly $30 billion. That is just $3 billion dollars per year, roughly the same amount we were spending annually on the recently retired space shuttle operations in LEO.
Whatever is done about trying to get to Mars, keep Russia out of it.
That's Zubrin's point of view too. But I personally find it a flawed point of view. Point being, if Roscosmos had collaborated with NASA on all those projects surely not all of them would have been failures. Collaboration and peer review will make Russia's success rate go up and their failure rate go down. And it's important for the nation's of this world to work together in order to share the financial burden. It's also just good for people to work together towards common peaceful goals. This "keep Russia out of it" mentality is childish.
Zubrin is kind of a crackpot. His theories tend to be a bit out there and are proven wrong again and again. For example - It appears he set out to disprove advocates for population control by showing the standard of living has increased significantly with population growth. With many graphs and charts showing that we have it better than our ancestors reaching back to the 1500's. DUH. Thanks Robert. He should extend his "predictions" out to when there are 10 trillion or a 100 trillion people living on the earth. According to his graphs, we'll all be living on 1000 acre estates in the Bahamas. Clearly there are some secondary variables he's missing in his simplistic calculations.
Personally, I think he's a good candidate for President of Mars. His next interview should be on his new home.
He is obviously not an objective scientist when he thinks of one potential benefit to warmer temperatures in some regions and then concludes that "Global warming and CO2 increases are a cause for celebration." There are downsides too, of course, and most people think those outweigh the benefits. Especially if it gets out of control.
Personally, I would just wonder about his qualifications to speak about global warming. As an objective scientist it is not ethical to speak out about a subject you're not intimately involved in. When it comes to rocket science I will defer to his understanding but when it comes to global warming I really don't think he has any room to talk.
But, on the same token, here we are commenting on these things in much the same way. He is only different because people actually think his opinion matters (in some cases). No one is going to spend any money based on my recommendations or opinions, but they tend to at least listen to him because he is an accredited scientist. So, as a person he is free to speak about whatever he wants, but as a rocket scientist I'd rather he stick to a big disclaimer in front of what he says. When I talk about science I say very often that I'm not a scientist. When he talks about global warming it would be nice to see him acknowledge that it's not his particular field of specialty. That's just my opinion. We're all entitled to free speech and frankly, I don't want to tell anyone what to say.
I am heartened to see some of the comments here regarding Dr. Zubrin's take on resource limitations on planet earth and the need for careful husbanding of what we have on this planet. Mars and other potential places for human colonization are by no means a sure thing from a practical standpoint, and to watch the population growth and greenhouse gas emissions rise without providing some means of controlling them is irresponsible. Control of greenhouse gases only needs the same technology advances are we are talking about here for a Mars mission; control of population takes no new technology, only education in those parts of the world where population increase is still unchecked, along with access of women (and maybe men too) to family planning services where they currently do not exist. By all means, it's in our DNA to explore the heavens, but let's explore ways to keep our home planet healthy at the same time.