January 09, 2004

• I hope this is true (well, the moon bit - manned Mars missions are basically fiction at this point).
• Tom Delay has made huge budget cuts to NASA in the past. My money is on Delay. Besides, the President doesn't even fund No Child Left Behind. Here's how everyone will know they are for real - when they talk about cost. I have been following this for awhile now and have yet to even how this will be worked into the budget. Speaking of Delay: this is priceless. DeLay seemed to feel the issue applied personally to him, and perhaps it did. He had graduated from the University of Houston at the height of the Vietnam conflict in 1970, but chose to enlist in the war on cockroaches, fleas and termites as the owner of an exterminator business, rather than going off to battle against the Vietcong. He and Quayle, DeLay explained to the assembled media in New Orleans, were victims of an unusual phenomenon back in the days of the undeclared Southeast Asian war. So many minority youths had volunteered for the well-paying military positions to escape poverty and the ghetto that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like himself. Satisfied with the pronouncement, which dumbfounded more than a few of his listeners who had lived the sixties, DeLay marched off to the convention.
• Speechless.
• Man, I really wish to go to Mars in my lifetime. I'm betting my money on the private sector.
• Is the President voluteering to be the first? 'Cause even I would chip in to donate for that.
• He's going to announce the next set of tax cuts as "a mission to Uranus."
• I'm most excited about Cassini-Huygens, which will reach Saturn on July 1.
• "Bush announces mission to Mars." Any news on when he plans to leave?
• President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon... This doesn't seem like the Bush we know and love. If he were being serious about it, he'd do what management across the globe do when there's a dangerous job on hand with a risk of death: send cheap expendible immigrant labour.
• "Bush announces 'Music in Schools' Initiative" and other stories, by Father Guido Sarducci.
• If he were being serious about it, he'd do what management across the globe do when there's a dangerous job on hand with a risk of death: send cheap expendible immigrant labour. Hey! For that I would risk crossing the border illegaly. Mr. Bush, Yo speako poquito English! Quiero go to Marte!
• There's a good discussion about this at metafilter at the moment.
• This post came in MoFi first. Why they use the same title? Did they stole it from us without making any backlink? I demand an explanation! (Follows manual instructions and shakes hand in MeFi's general direction)
• Bloody thieves - lets get em.
• Assuming costs are more or less equal, choose from the following: a) AIDS vaccine b) Quality universal health care for all Americans c) technology for unlimited clean renewable energy d) Some guy hitting golf balls on Mars
• ...shakes FIST AT MeFi's general direction. It seems I can't follow manual instructions...
• choose from the following: The truth is that d) is actually more easy to attain and costs much less than the other options. And the collateral benefits could help atain any of the other options.
• Zemat: If that's "the truth" and not just your opinion, please back it up with some facts. Also please give examples of collateral benefits of previous space initiatives (Apollo?) that have cured diseases or otherwise benefited mankind. As far as I recall, the only collateral benefit of Apollo has been to advance military technologies to help us kill more people from greater distances.
• Shamelessly stolen from this comment on metafilter: benefits from the space program (1, 2). Now I really should go and find some links of my own.
• I quickly perused the links you provided (I really have to go home now). Aside from the fact that the NASA link is a lobby effort designed to protect their own funding interests, most of the benefits listed are only peripherally connected to space efforts - as in Medical Imaging NASA developed ways to process signals from spacecraft to produce clearer images...This technology also makes possible these photo-like images of our insides. If NASA hadn't done it, the communications industry would have. Hey, I get the "neato" factor of space travel, it's just that I think there are higher priorities for the expense and effort.
• rocket88, I'm sorry for my above unchecked statement. I should have said that that was what I believe was the truth and not necesarily the factual truth. No need to get bitter, though. Now with the facts: a) AIDS vaccine: "Seventy-four companies now have 103 AIDS medicines either in human clinical trials or awaiting FDA approval... It can cost up to $200 million to get a drug through the federal approval process." That doesn't count government research costs and the possibility that this endeavour uses more human labor over longer periods of times that what NASA currently employs. b) Quality universal health care for all Americans: This depends on your moral perception of what would be "Quality universal healt care". Politics don't tend to agree on this. But don't say tax payer money is completely missused: Total costs in the United States for treating people with HIV disease were $7 to $8 billion in 1996 c) technology for unlimited clean renewable energy: That (except for the unlimited part, which is bogus at best) already exists and Renewable Energy Costs Keep Dropping
• Gah! I fuped uck the first link.
• One more thing. I must confess this wasn't a throughout research over the subject. I don't have the time or resources. But I will open a paypal account for all of you to fund it. I'll ask of you only for 100 billion dolars. Think! The collateral benefits could be enormous!!
• Obviously I'm uninformed, but I'd say that the $80 billion dollar figure for a manned mars mission is bullshit. I'd have imagined it would cost in the trillions. And there are number of issues which look like being a long way from any sort of solution, the health of the astronauts being the main one. The two things liekly to be most damaging to astronauts are problems associated with weightlessness and problems associated with prolonged exposure to radiation. The Effects of Weightlessness on Human Health and Performance in Space When they return after six months in Earth orbit, most astronauts have difficulty walking and some have to be carried from their spacecraft. Fortunately, they usually recover quickly as their bodies re-adapt to gravity. But what if they had just spent nine months in space on a transfer orbit to Mars, and instead of medical attention and rest they faced the arduous exploration of another planet? The Effects of Radiation on Astronauts Radiation is another. Right now, the countermeasure for radiation is limiting astronaut exposure--which means limiting the amount of time they're allowed to be in space. But on an long-term mission of exploration, the astronauts will have to be in space for months on end, and, importantly, the type of radiation in deep space is more damaging than the kind in low earth orbit. Even beyond that, there's the problem that this is likely to be a two year or more voyage (there and back again) which will have to be entirely self-sufficient, which is hugely problematic. The amount of redundancy needed will be huge, from food supplies to parts to medical supplies to fuel. Manned flight to Mars at this point just seems like a suicide mission. Whereas, with a moon base, a lot of these problems can be avoided - lots of short trips instead of one long trip - and though the costs are likely to be the same, the risk is much less (as long as we don't start using the moon as a nuclear dumping ground.
• Much respect to Zemat and dng for good links and good arguments. I can't, in my nowhere-near-expert way, believe a Mars shot could run into the trllions (how casually we toss these billions around!), the majority of the technology already being in place (assuming we take the scenic, nine-month route). Both of the objections that dng raises are bad news, but neither seems anywhere near insurmountable. If, y'know, they get some really clever people to work on it. I guess the ISS is probably a necessary stepping stone, in terms of research into radiation and weightlessness. It does distress me slightly, watching from across the pond, that the Republicans are generally better for space exploration that the Dems - albeit in a typically flag-waving way - just because those liberal bastards will insist on trying to cure the sick and prevent poverty before making really big spaceships that go whoooooooosshhhhh!!!! I can't justify space exploration in any practical sense - but I do feel incredibly strongly that we're letting ourselves down as a species if we don't. Small side point - compare and contrast the prose styles of dng's ESA and NASA articles. "Your genes might be damaged and confused". OK, admittedly we can't even put a limited-edition Blur single on Mars without crashing it into a crater, but at least we don't sound like we're writing for pre-schoolers... :-)
• dng, that's what I'm talking about when I say that a trip to Mars could spark other benefits. Part of the budget that would be used for the Mars project could go to finance research in solutions for the array of health problems that affect astronauts on long voyages. The solutions then could be applied to similar problems back on Earth. Obviously this costs are beyond what NASA takes into account, but these definetively apply to a much broader scope than just space travel. I'm not saying that this can justify a manned trip to Mars. These kind of research project could be carried with more sensate justifications in mind. And, indeed, they already are being carried out. One more link for those who want to be more in touch with reality about mars exploration.
• The collateral benefits would be tremendous - I mean, there is so much we can learn from that ancient civilization in canal construction alone! (said in all love and respect for Bradbury and his beautiful stories)
• I think I'm in agreement with you, Zemat, pretty much. And I like that Mars Institute link. Thanks.
• Everyone (pretty much) seems to be forgetting that the benefits of space-travel research extend to life on earth (including for businesses and workers.) This link Space Shuttle Research Benefits is from Y2K, but it does show that the program is not a closed system. If there are voices of reason in the Bush administration, perhaps they sold this on the theory that it would help create jobs and earnings (someday.)
• Sorry about all the extra space taken up.
• Zemat: It was never my intention to be bitter, and if I came across that way (in cold, unemotional print), I'm sorry. Thanks for providing the interesting links, although I still don't agree that a Mars mission would cost much less than an AIDS cure, public health care, or renewable energy. Your figures for AIDS medicines are for treatment, not a cure. ActUpNY's plan for a cocerted effort to find a cure has an estimated cost of 1.84 billion over 5 years. (A low estimate, if you ask me) Canadian-style public health care runs about $1800 per capita, which would be difficult to sell, politically, in the tax-hating US. Energy technologies like Hydrogen fuel cell and solar/wind are already here, and simply lack government action to make them competitive with fossil fuels. Space exploration is cool, and may well be imperitave to our species in the very long term, but I don't think it is vital for our generation. We have other issues to take care of first. If we could chip away at disease and war (God, I sound idealistic, don't I?) the economic collateral benefits would be huge...maybe enough for future generations to fund a moon base or Mars mission.
• The trouble with funding figures is that whenever research and development is needed, costs can never be accurately worked out. A cure for AIDS, a way to stop radiation poisoning, fusion reactors, a manned Mars jaunt - you could fund the research into them with the entirety of the American yearly budget for the next 100 years and not find a solution. Equally, you might find the answer next year. That's the thing accountants hate about R and D - its not fixed cost, and it never can be: there just might not be an actual cure for AIDS, say. I suppose my point is, going back to Zemat's mention of an $80billion price tag for a manned mission to Mars, that cost estimates always equal the upper limit of funding estimates, not any reasonable estimate on mission cost.
• rocket88, when I presented the links was not exactly with the intention to prove my point. I was somewhat unconvinced that they proved something at all since the figures are based on widely different situations. I didn't use the link about AIDS treatment costs to show the costs of research. If you look at my comment again I used a different article for that and the one you mentioned I used it for the part about Universal Health Care, just to show you that what the US spends in health care in a single year is not so far from the budget limit used by NASA for a single mission to Mars that would span for more than a decade. About government push for alternative energy sources. That doesn't really need the amount of money required for a mission to Mars. It needs a constant but low budget input (relative to health care, say) and a huge amount of political will. The current budget expenditure in NASA is minimun compared to other efforts. The US government spendings for 2003 where estimated to be $2,212 billion (2 effin' trillion dollars). My hyper-quick estimate for a mission to Mars for, let's say, 2045 is of about $500 billion. That means $17.5 billion a year, starting 2005. If the US does a little cut (15%) in other more wasteful efforts, in my opinion, like missile defense and occupation forces (without the need to scrap any project). they could get enough for surfin' on Venus, an universal cancer cure, and permanent motion engines. There's no need to ravage what already is too little expenditure in the space program just to rise a few pennies what's medicare worth for people right now. Getting more serious, They can't go foccusing all their budget on a single project because it would be wasteful. Money can't buy everything. You need a lot of people for research projects of that scale, and, although a raise in budget expenditure could increase the efforts there's a limit where you won't find enough interested people to push it foward. The same goes to space exploration. As more people you get involved more money you would need to expend on each individual to get something. Besides, they have already pushed NASA near the border of inexistance. If it still persist is because most of the people that are involved love space and won't their dreams die. And, if you ask me, that low estimate of $1.6 billion in 6 years for an AIDS cure is nuts. My first link about AIDS efforts implies that companies are already wasting more than that a year in cures and investment is falling due to low expectations in reaching a result in less than 10 years.
• I refused to spellcheck that by the way. It's too huge!
• My original comment was not arguing in favour of all-out pursuits of clean energy technologies, AIDS cure, or public health care (I'm Canadian...I already have public health care), or against increasing NASA's budget. I just think this is the wrong time to be talking about a massive project like a manned Mars mission, when there are other, more important (IMHO) issues to be addressed here on earth. Today's Globe and Mail has an interesting editorial on Bush's announced plans, quoting a cost estimate of one trillion dollars.
• My estimation was lower by a half. Heh. Well, the way you put you original comment (as a multiple choice question) seemed to imply it was one or the others. Sorry to misinterpret your comment.
• My estimation was lower by a half. Heh. Your estimation of the lower half, what? Yeah, unfortunately, the crushing realities that need addressing down here on earth sap away at most idealism for space.