Has NASA Lost Its Mojo?
Elon Musk plans manned mission to Mars by 2024, Mashable
“If things go according to plan, [we] should be able to launch people by 2024 with arrival in 2025,” said Musk. Musk noted that in order to build growing cities on Mars – putting his multi-planet species idea in action – SpaceX will need to develop the ability to transport larger numbers of people and millions of pounds of hardware.”
Why does SpaceX market space better than NASA?, Teslarati
“The question of what makes SpaceX so different in marketing space technology is still a difficult one for me as my personal reasons for admiring their progress has little to do with the aesthetics of the achievements. I admire the true progress they’re making and the relatability of what they’re developing to what their larger goals are. NASA may be truly making progress towards a “Journey to Mars”, but when compared to the advancements SpaceX has achieved, it seems more like thus far, they just have a guitar amp that “goes to 11″.”
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: We Should Settle Mars ‘Because It’s Cool’, Fortune
“We could build gigantic chip factories in space and just send little bits down,” he said. “We don’t have to build them here.” But then, sensing the obvious next question from the audience, Bezos interrupted himself to declare: “We will settle Mars. And we should, because it’s cool.”
I think SpaceX’s allure is mainly in its ability to capture the imaginations of young (and young-at-heart) people. SpaceX has an active presence on Youtube, Twitter, and other kinds of social media; and Elon himself is part of the popular culture (remember his cameo in “Iron Man 2”?). SpaceX’s webcasts have matured in a very short time from the NASA-style dry technical loop to newbie-friendly guided commentaries on each launch. A SpaceX launch/landing is an *event*, a spectator sport. Even people who know almost nothing about rocketry or space exploration look in to various sites (including this one) when a SpaceX launch goes off. Elon can also be counted on to make wild and often-inaccurate statements about lots of different things, but his energy and obvious passion for what he’s doing still comes through. And he does what he says he’s going to do. Often late, true, but he gets there. How many promises has NASA made and broken over the years?
NASA managed to make even journeys to the Moon boring, and their game never changed. They make space exploration about as exciting as a mathematics lecture — okay if you’re into mathematics, but unwatchable if you’re not. NASA’s weird combination of over-the-top hype and straitlaced, uninspired media production has been a mystery for decades now.
Instead of excited, smart, attractive people talking about the missions, goals, and hazards involved using slick video and graphics, NASA sends out some stammering po-faced scientists and program managers who are so afraid of saying the “wrong thing” that they barely bother saying *anything* worth listening to.
This whole Twitter #journeytomars hashtag campaign is a case in point: a lot of meaningless hype but without any media savvy to make it stick, vague promises of a mission some decades hence, an artists rendering or two, and an embarrassed silence from NASA when they are pressed for details.
Maybe NASA should take a little bit of the millions they’re wasting on the SLS and hire a decent outside PR firm.
The allure of SpaceX is their ability to build and fly hardware cheaply. On top of that, they’re actively working on reusability. Those first stage landings are exciting.
I’m sorry, but endless Powerpoint presentations and #JourneyToMars isn’t exciting because it isn’t *flying* anything!
I’d agree with that. I look at the Falcon performance and the sort of unmanned, planetary missions (my day job) that it could enable, and I get very interested. It’s what they are doing which is interesting, not what they are talking about maybe doing sometime in the future.
Over the years, the SpaceX critics have shifted their criticism from “SpaceX can’t do that” to “SpaceX can’t do that as soon as they say they can”.
If SpaceX slips 10 years for a successful landing of a Red Dragon on Mars, they will still be far ahead of what anyone else can land on Mars in terms of the size and mass of the lander. Scaling up our Mars landing technologies for very large landers is something NASA knows is needed, but is also something that is getting very little funding when compared to the vast amount of money being poured into SLS/Orion.
In the end, there is no substitute for flight testing.
I agree. NASA is the master of boredom. Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Surveyor 1. What has NASA done to popularize it? To link it to future goals and visions?
Add to it the failed NASA programs in the past for going to Mars and folks just don’t have faith in NASA doing what NASA says it will do. Its like an old athlete who was great in the day, but is now living on their reputation.
Oddly, today’s NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is of Surveyor 1. That’s odd, because it’s anniversary was June 2, not June 4. I’m inclined to think they forgot, but one of the people involved reads this forum and you reminded him.
That’s good. Hopefully they will remember June 8 is the 50th anniversary of the death of NASA test pilot Joe Walker who reached space in the X-15. He was also the first to pilot the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle. His career at NASA started with the old X-1 rocket plane.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers…
A good opportunity to recall those NASA pilots who pioneered rocket powered flight.
Then you have the 40th anniversary of Viking 1 and the 50th anniversary of Lunar Orbiter 1 this year. September is the 40th anniversary of the roll out of the Shuttle Enterprise. And of course in November is the 50th anniversary of the end of the highly successful Gemini program. Each is a great PR opportunity for NASA to recall and honor the past while proclaiming it’s vision for America’s future in space.
here is the allure
I am not sure simply generating public excitement is a sustainable course for NASA any more than it would be for NIH, NSF, NIST, DARPA, or any of the DOE national labs. Any government R&D agency has to produce useful advances in science and technology, not hype. For SpaceX the situation is different; it is marketing to customers and PR can build sales.
How does the #journeytomars nonsense “produce useful advances in science and technology”? This Mars stuff is pure NASA hype, not R&D in any sense engineers would recognize.
I agree completely. The solution is not better mojo, the solution is a better choice of strategic goals. I am curious what you would suggest.
NASA is a federal bureaucracy and its main strategic objective, like that of all federal bureaucracies, is to perpetuate itself. NASA’s director is also a political appointee, which means that he or she is always being blown to and fro by the winds of political and public opinion — how many of these grand twenty-year NASA plans have we seen, only to have them be canceled or abandoned when the new Administration comes into office? The ARM mission is nearly certain to face the axe regardless of who wins the Presidential election come November, and I’m giving 50/50 odds that the SLS is canceled as well (and that’s if it manages the first test flight with no problems; if it experiences problems, those odds get a lot worse). NASA cannot *have* strategic visions — their funding is too tied to the political cycle. What they need to do is just focus on doing research and pure science missions. They need to live within their means.
I’ve long advocated that NASA go back to being an advisory and pure R&D outfit — go back to being NACA, in other words. Or just eliminate them and transfer the relevant departments to the FAA or NSF.
If we must have a civilian space agency, get them out of the hardware business. NASA can do good work when money is no object, but since money is *always* an object, it’s pretty clear that NASA is not the best entity to build rockets and space hardware. And as a contracting agency, their oversight and management of their contractors is utterly atrocious (remember the bonus Perkin-Elmer got for their fine work on the badly-flawed Hubble main mirror?).
I have no real beef with the unmanned science-oriented programs at NASA (even though NASA’s cost-containment ability on these projects is horrendous — just look at the grotesque overruns on Webb/NGT). But I also think that a smaller NASA/NACA could manage a program like this just fine.
NASA doesn’t need “mojo” any more than the highway department or parks and rec department does. They need to be a smaller, more focused, and more efficient bureaucracy.
I agree. My major fear in regards to SpaceX is not that they will run into technical problems, they just seem to sail over those, but that NASA will block them from sending humans to Mars over some excuse like Planetary Protection. Appropriate planetary protection is fine, but NASA could easily go overboard at it and block SpaceX from ever getting a license to go to Mars.
The FAA is the licensing authority for commercial spaceflight.
Yes, but the FAA AST will ONLY issue licenses after other government agencies review the activities to ensure they are in compliance with U.S. law and treaty obligations.
One element of a mission to Mars, either robotic or human, will be ensuring compliance with Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty on protecting the environment of Celestial Bodies. That is the legal basis of planetary protection and so NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection will need to sign off on it before the FAA AST will issue a license.
So in essence NASA does have a veto over it. It would require a legal and political battle to overturn such a veto and since the issue is highly technical it will be a difficult one to fight.
A secondary issue is that currently the FAA AST only has authority to issue licenses for launch and recovery, not for activities on other Celestial Bodies or in deep space. But there has been a proposal to close this gap.
http://spacenews.com/white-…
Hopefully Congress will soon pass a law giving it the authority needed to license SpaceX’s Mars flights.
That’s a fairly normal procedure in the Wonderful World of Permitting.
Say I want, for instance, a Land Use Change. There’s a local agency empowered to do it but they will routinely query any other agency that might have a view: water management districts, Fish and Wildlife, etc. In some cases it’s administrative law, in some it’s Florida Statutes. And while it makes sense it’s frustrating sometimes when the issues are so obvious but somebody wants to CYA (CHA?).
Yes, but its also why you start the process as early as possible, so everyone is able to have their say.
That said I recall see a TV documentary on the Hoover Dam. It indicated it would take twice as long to build it today. The actual construction would take less time but it would take a decade or so to work through all the permits needed for it.
Would that come internally from NASA or from Congressional members pushing NASA to take it up?
Either or both depending on the politics of the moment. Then you also have the possibility of some well meaning but ill-informed environmentalists getting involved as well.
But it should be noted some scientists have already come out against humans on Mars.
http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
Planetary Society Does Not Want Humans on Mars.
My experience with the environmental groups is that they are very often much better informed than the official ‘decision makers’ with authority to approve.
I’m afraid you are damning environmentalist with faint praise.
Actually, any manned landing on Mars would violate all of NASA’s current planetary protection requirements. Habitats and space suits are not perfectly air tight. They leak. Not much, but venting even a tenth of a liter of air a person has just exhaled will produce an unacceptable amount of forward contamination. (I.e. more than is currently allowed by the standards for unmanned missions.)
As I understand it, NASA’s intention is to revisit and revise those standards before sending astronauts to Mars. That does seem to be a potential obstacle to a private Mars landing.
The question is if that makes sense given our current knowledge of biology. Its unlikely if any of the biological organisms would survive and if they did, or their traces were found, it would be easy with current DNA technology to identify them as being from Earth and not Mars.
Hopefully as Elon Musk gets closer to launch NASA will indeed review and revise those standards and being an enabler instead of a barrier to Mars exploration.
Agreed on the factual statements on Planetary protection requirements.
If NASA would revisit and revise the PP rules before sending NASA astronauts to Mars, why are the rules a problem for a private Mars landing?
So what is the purpose of the SLS for again? NASA lost it’s mojo because after the Apollo missions it wasn’t allowed to have any.
The purpose of the SLS is to keep aerospace jobs in Congressional space state’s districts.
Yes, the deterioration into near torpor of NASA as a learning organization. That tends, unfortunately, to be the natural trajectory of all large government bureaucracies. For reasons why this is so I’d advise some perusal of work in public choice economics.
Short version? Stupid and entitled people don’t have any superior job prospects when they luck into a government job. They cling to their positions like a mussel to a wharf piling. Smart, capable people have a lot of options. Stupid and entitled people hate smart, capable people because the latter pretty much can’t help making the former look bad. The stupid and entitled have a stronger interest in forcing out the smart and capable than the latter do in fighting to stay. Over time, bureaucracies come to consist almost entirely of the stupid and entitled.
Your quest to rejuvenate NASA is quixotic and almost certainly doomed. You’re a worthy fellow for attempting it, but the NASA of your salad days is gone and is massively unlikely to ever come back short of a President willing to apply the PATCO solution. Bureaucracies are like forests. They need a good rollicking fire now and then to burn out the deadwood and make room for new growth.
That’s a bit harsh (though not without a kernel of truth as well). NASA has many very smart and capable people working for it; the problem is that the stifling protocols, rules, and constraints in force at NASA often smother the talents and creativity of the people working there. You often see the same thing in other rigidly heirarchical institutions (like the military). This is not unique to government service, of course, but the “lifer” mentality in the civil service is a cliche precisely because it is so often encountered.
If you want a good read on an organization’s character, look how it behaves during a crisis. NASA’s response to the Apollo 1 fire, the Challenger explosion, and the loss of Columbia are all illustrative: NASA’s standard response is to turtle up, shift blame, and spawn “tiger teams” and committees and working groups that end up obscuring rather than revealing the problem. Nearly always, it takes external pressure for NASA to admit fault or error. Hardly anyone gets fired or even demoted — a sacrificial lamb might be chosen and then shuffled off to some desk job in DC, but that’s about it.
In organizations like that, excellence is not a virtue. High-achievers rock the boat. High-achievers cause problems and resentment among their peers. High-achievers get restless and upset when the pace of change is too slow. Which is why, organizationally, NASA doesn’t like high-achievers.
A broad over-statement, no doubt. Probably useful to separate engineers/ scientists from clerical positions.
OTOH: Whenever I do business with my local county it just makes me crazy. It’s the pace of the work where nothing is ever important enough to just hurry up and get it done.
And it is also true that those i local county service with my same post grad credentials tend not to be, shall we say, standouts. Mine is a creative field (yes, I know, creativity is part of many careers). The civil folks just wouldn’t last out here dealing with developers and HOAs.
I feel like I’m talking myself out of my own argument.
I spent nearly three decades with NASA, and for the most part everyone I met was talented and incredibly dedicated. Putting in the late night hours was the norm. And we weren’t paid very well compared to industry. The real issue is that the direction we went – what missions flew, what died, etc. was essentially dictated fron on high by what could at best be charitably described as a mad king who changed his mind every couple years. And what is interesting to me is that this frustration was felt by everyone, all the way up to the center directors (based on direct conversations). I strongly suspect that it even went up to HQ in DC. Basically, NASA as an organization is just twisted and turned constantly by the whims of the purse-holding legislature, who view it as a giant jobs program. As a result, there’s never any direction that makes any sense coming from the top. I think that’s problem #1. I will admit that I recently resigned, specifically out of frustration with the fact that we basically can see everything that’s going to happen for about two decades out (the length of time to bring one or two major mission cycles to fruition). And that two decades of absolutely nothing pretty much reaches the end of my personal (lifetime) planning horizon. Hence it was time to bow out and find something better to devote my energies to.
I’m not so sure I agree about the concerns of NASA managers at the centers. Working with them (but not inside), I’ve noticed that they have a strong tendency to want to bring work in to their center, branch, group, etc. It could variously be interpreted as genuinely wanting to contribute, wanting to take care of the people they supervise (by providing work for them to charge their time to) and simply wanting to justify and increase the importance of themselves and the organization they manage. It’s hard to tell which, unless you can read minds.
There are always reasons why a project can be improved by extra work, so it’s hard to criticize people in favor of doing so. But the exact same words and actions could also be motivated by self-interest.
On the other hand, someone really interested in the success of a project should, occasionally, decide that “perfect” is the enemy of “good”. That the extra work isn’t producing a significant improvement and just holding things back or using funds which could be better spent somewhere else. I’ve very rarely seen NASA managers turn down money, or say someone else’s group could better use it. When I’ve seen it, it the general response was to look at them as if they were speaking a foreign language or had suddenly sprouted a second head. That doesn’t inspire me with confidence in NASA managers’ intentions.
Isn’t it natural to get excited about a proposal and want to do it? And is it reasonable to expect once center to be so knowledgeable about the others, suggesting a different center for the work?
That is natural, and why it’s so hard to tell what someone’s motives are. But I’m thinking of cases where you know, going in, that your involvement would cost a significant amount without really making a significant improvement to a program. In that case, I would expect someone, even if they are excited by the prospect of being involved, to pass. I would also expect someone to know other people working in their field and what the specialize in. So I’d expect to hear “I could do that, but so-and-so over in center X’s division Y could do a better job for less: He’s already set up to do it and I’m not.” Or, “You don’t want me to build a custom design: There’s an off-the-shelf commercial product that does almost exactly what you want.” In my experience, it’s rare to hear someone say things like that.
I think it has now become apparent to nearly everyone that the mojo is gone. But, I think NASA lost it a while back and people only now are coming to the realization. First, I think the Apollo era leadership had it right with the direction they went in the early 1970s with a reusable Shuttle. It should have been improved upon and made more economical. Maybe it was simply the first generation and they needed to develop phase 2? The next generation of ‘leaders’ lost sight of what it was all about. They thought they were running an airline. while they were supposed to have been developing and establishing an economical transportation system. Now, five years after the termination, I think everyone is coming to the realization how they wasted our future, they threw it away.. But, they make for great museum pieces!
In 2004, on the heels of Columbia, the O’Keefe Administration recognized that NASA needed a mission and they were masterful in developing it, espousing it, and getting political support.
The subsequent Administrator wasted this effort when he tried to re-establish the ‘Apollo model’ of flags and footprints, a path NASA is continuing to follow today.
The current Administration has offered nothing of value. This includes Obama, Bolden, and both their minions. They keep repeating the tantric mantra ‘Mission to Mars’, as though that will get them somewhere. Not sure where they are going but they do not seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Well, Obama did kill the CEV, Ares I, and Ares V programs, but unfortunately Congress brought that program back as SLS/Orion. You mentioned NASA should have worked to make the shuttle more affordable over time. SLS/Orion is the opposite of that.
Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew are, so far, proving to be more affordable than a “traditional” NASA program like the shuttle (as you say, NASA thought it was “running an airline” with the shuttle program).
I don’t think one person or one organization, like Obama’s attempt to kill CEV and Ares, can do much constructive. In this case Congress asked what was the alternative, and when the Administration did not have one, Congress came back with Orion (not a change from CEV) and SLS (Ares 5-light). I think the nation was looking to NASA for leadership, coordination, and a meaningful plan, and NASA failed at it. NASA was supposed to represent the leadership of the nation in non-military space, but instead others, like commercial industry, have now taken over. Maybe this will work out well in the future, though it is still too early to tell. I don’t think NASA is leading any longer. NASA has sort of hitched their wagon to others’ plans and successes.
SLS/Orion is not leadership. It’s stagnation.
The Obama administration had a clear alternative to Constellation, supporting the rapid development of commercial crew and US commercial launch capabilities, new technology to further reduce the cost of access to space, commercial partnerships with the aeronautics industry to build US manufacturing, exports, and jobs, and improvements in environmental and Earth observation so that we would know what is happening to our environment and climate. NASA is most effective when it works in partnership with science and industry to achieve practical benefits for America.
I’d be interested in seeing some evidence that commercial cargo or commercial crew was actually ‘the plan’ of the Obama Administration. I don’t think it was. Commercial cargo got its start prior to Obama and under the earlier NASA Administrator. I think Obama let it ride and Bolden latched onto it as an alternative to what was not happening-Orion /CEV on what should have been a realistic schedule. Remember when Orion/CEV was “safe, simple and soon”? Remember when Norm Augustine met in 2010, the Orion people were still predicting they would be flying Orion by 2014-less than five years out. Sally Ride said maybe 2017 but 2019 was more likely. Now in 2016, the first Orion manned flights are being planned no earlier than 2021 and 2023 may be more realistic. So they are still at least 5 years out and maybe more like 8 years. NASA is losing ground. I think commercial crew took hold because (a) it wasn’t too expensive and (b) there wasn’t much of an alternative since NASA was not delivering.
The Commercial Space Act of 1996 made the call for commercial services for NASA. The next executive to the whitehouse used the space shuttle accident to push the VSE through congress that called for commercial cargo and crew. The VSE called for no new rockets, so the trade was made.. commercial cargo for the constellation program.
The next executive to whitehouse made the next trade.. SLS/Orion for commercial crew
The next executive will make the next trade off for a commercial destination .. a bigelow station in LEO
Really? A President that presents a NON BINDING budget PROPOSAL mearly has to write a zero in the box and it can kill programs? Gosh when did this start?
funny .. congress isn’t aware of this.
Anybody assessing NASA’s current planetary portfolio will find plenty of mojo.
I would disagree, Congress should have had NASA do a request for a commercial price per seat for a ride to LEO and then provide funding to be the anchor tenant for space station space to lease. If NASA would have been forced to start buying commercial like every other form of transportation and lab space all these points would be moot.
The problem with SLS is that it is far too expensive with far to low of a projected flight rate. It’s too big, too expensive, and too slow of a program to be useful.
Oh, NASA has a lot of science Mojo with strong practical value. Unfortunately, the part of NASA that deals with putting stuff in space is mired by politics, red-tape, antiquated thinking, and is a cost risk to science missions. I am working on a mission that requires a very vanilla launch. However, the cost of the launch is one of our largest uncertainties -a self-inflicted issue that is limiting the science value. NASA has to figure out how to go to LEO and GEO efficiently before thinking about Mars.
G.
“NASA has to figure out how to go to LEO and GEO efficiently…”
That part should be relatively easy. Just put out the launch contract for an open bid.
Agreed. NASA doesn’t need to figure out anymore how to get to LEO or GEO. Their efforts at lowering launch costs over the last 40 years have been less than spectacular. NASA just need to leave it to the market and buy from the lowest bidder.
NASA human space flight has been in bed with its contractors for far too long. Instead of figuring out efficient ways of doing things, NASA and its contractors try to keep the costs up and the budgets up too. Shuttle was a great example. There were absolutely no efforts over 3 decades to increase efficiency or reduce costs. There were no efforts to improve the vehicle. USA was a great place for retired civil servants to move to for increased paychecks. ISS today is much the same. There is essentially no DDT&E on Station today. There are no US assembly flights. All of this was finished between five years ago and 15 years ago. And yet the price never gets cheaper. Why is that?
SLS today is a relatively small modification to the Shuttle ET and SRB by comparison with what would be required if they were dealing with entirely new structures and motors, and yet the price is just as high as if they were developing it from scratch.
Orion is a great example. What was supposed to have been safe, simple and soon, and which NASA has now hired a significant portion of its development out to ESA-at no cost to NASA-the Service Module with many of the complex spacecraft systems, and yet the price never got any cheaper and the schedule is 3X longer than originally thought. Talk about the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned everyone about-this is it.
Space by committee.
As you say, contractors are all interested in the short term maximising their revenue, while ignoring the fact that space represents an endless area for growth.
Cheaper flights sooner for greater economic prospects later.
Lacklustre words like “SLS Block II sometime after 2030” “A manned mission to Mars possibly sometime in the 2030’s” are not inspiring words for the public “Mars Colonial Transporter capable or transporting 100 people” “hopefully Men on Mars by 2025” Now that’s inspiring, Now which is Nasa which is SpaceX.
I think another part of the problem is that not always to it’s own fault, NASA has released plenty of planned Mars missions and then had them never materialise.
The boy who cried wolf comes to mind, a lot of people when they read a NASA statement about planned manned missions beyond LEO no longer really believe it. Just another thought exercise for NASA staff to procrastinate around ultimately to go nowhere, while the organization as a whole ticks over on the backs of a few robotic missions.
Pure science is great, and robotic missions are important in that regard to, but for the “boldly going” element of human space exploration, exploitation and colonization, it leaves much to be desired.
I think this is why SpaceX has earned so much good will. I can’t say whether Musk’s plans will ultimately pan out but he’s been willing to take big risks, and his eye is firmly on a goal most people can get behind, which is a permanent human presence in space and on other worlds like Mars.
I get NASA’s funding woes contribute greatly to it’s image, but all the same it has it. One of an organization that has lost a real sense of purpose and drive. Space by committee.
“Elon Musk plans manned mission to Mars by 2024”
I’d like to see those plans Musk has (most certain it’s proprietary), personally I just don’t see it happening. Though SpaceX has made huge strides in capability, any reason why the Moon is simply not mentioned (or have to wait till next POTUS?).
“Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: We Should Settle Mars ‘Because It’s Cool'”
Exploring Mars would be cool (even though it has been a 20 year goal for more than 50 years) but settling it would not be cool. Similar to I don’t see a huge landrush to the Gobi Desert even though it’s a 1000 times easier to settle there than Mars, plonkingly obvious there’s no good reason to live there. I guess I just don’t get this Mars as a second Earth (and right now we’re not doing a good job with the first Earth).
“I’d like to see those plans Musk has (most certain it’s proprietary), personally I just don’t see it happening”
Maybe they will make that window, maybe not, however the point is there is a clear goal and everyone at SpaceX will be working hard towards that goal, if you don’t set tough goals there is nothing to aim for. When NASA had a clear but tough goal they landed men on the moon. No goal, No glory.
Actually, I just realized what it would mean if SpaceX keeps to their past performance and is behind schedule. If it takes them twice as long as Mr. Musk claims (launching eight years from now) that means a landing in 2033. Which would still be before any landing date suggested by NASA.
Delays etc are a fact of life, most people will happily accept that when they can see progress is being made which is always the case with Space X. Can the same be said of NASA?
Occasionally. My point was that even a factor of two schedule slip for SpaceX and _zero_ slip for NASA would get SpaceX to Mars first.
“Exploring Mars would be cool (even though it has been a 20 year goal for more than 50 years) but settling it would not be cool. Similar to I don’t see a huge landrush to the Gobi Desert even though it’s a 1000 times easier to settle there than Mars, plonkingly obvious there’s no good reason to live there. I guess I just don’t get this Mars as a second Earth (and right now we’re not doing a good job with the first Earth).”
One difference between the Gobi Desert and Mars is that if someone loses there mind and MAD becomes a reality there really isn’t too many places on Earth safe from the effects. Another reason is that of political reasons. Globalization has effected the world to the point that sovereignty has less meaning than it did in the past. The external factors (other nations policies) have more impact on a nation than any other time in history. On Mars the politics of Earth will have little effect on it due to the distance between Earth and Mars; as long as it is a self-sustainable colony of course.
At some point I think colonies in space stations are the way to go, but the technology for building mega structures in space just isn’t there yet. On mars (and the moon) there are resources available to make this happen sooner rather than later.
I think you are missing the main reason people have, historically, settled or colonized places on Earth. Quite often, it had nothing to do with a more comfortable or financially-rewarding place to live. Quite the opposite. Often, it’s been because they really don’t like the government where they live, or the society where they live, or are in legal trouble and want to go to any other jurisdiction, or are in legal trouble and got caught.
Whether or not any sort of extraterrestrial colony would offer such alternatives is an open question. I can’t really see it myself in the near term. But the comparison to the Gobi just doesn’t work because it’s moving to a less pleasant place to live without any improvement in the social or legal environment (with apologies to the people who live there.)
It has never been a goal it has been a talking point.
At the risk of peeing on the bouquet, I’ll note that plans, like ideas, are a dime-a-dozen. They may be more or less credible depending on the source of the plan, but until it happens, it’s all just vaporware.
I still need to hear a cogent rationale why people would go to Mars for reasons other than scientific exploration, in a manner analogous to the scientific research stations in Antarctica.
And given the difficulties and expense of putting a manned scientific station on Mars, I find it hard to believe a profit-seeking company would do that unless the taxpayers were footing the entire bill.
And that requires a broad societal commitment that is so far invisible.
“taxpayers were footing the entire bill.”
So far taxpayers have footed the bill of prospecting i.e. Curiosity, maybe have NASA do more development of new technologies (the N.A.C.A. model), then if profit seeking companies want to run with it and settle Mars then they can go for it at their own expense (though they’ll probably need additional capital and that’s when SEC should be sure these companies are not scamming investors).
Mars, Mars, Mars…. if these people think they’re so good that they can settle Mars why not do a demo human landing and return from the Moon. Moon is only three days away but Mars has always been “20 years” away!
Well, it depends on what you call a “cogent rationale”. Reasons have been given on this forum, several times (perhaps, several times a month.)
Since I just got back from vacation, why don’t I use that as an example. When I was in a new city, which I’d never seen before, why did I spend most of my time simply walking around at random and hanging out in street-side cafes? I hardly spent time at any of the usual tourist attractions. Why would anyone do that? I did so because I wished to, and since I was paying for the trip, I could do whatever I felt like.
If someone has enough money to go to Mars (or send someone there) and wishes to do so, that should be a sufficiently good reason. If he owns a company able to support the trip and orders _his_ company to do so, that’s also his business. I believe, if you check, that SpaceX is Mr. Musk’s company. It isn’t publicly traded and (if what I’ve read is correct) he retains majority ownership.
Economics, politics, etc.
The first settlers are likely the adventurers and so forth, then an economy is created and people move to service that economy and benefit, especially if they have legal and political issues here on Earth.
It’s the same rationale behind people moving to the Americas from the old world.
Back in the age of discovery the journey was long and extremely dangerous, What possible reason would people have to uplift themselves from mature and stable old world cities and towns? Apparently a wide variety of reasons.
Regarding SpaceX I’m certainly willing to give them a fair shot, since they came from nowhere and have made excellent strides in their plans, whereas NASA has unfortunately the air of a tired old retired boxer still pointing to his tarnished champion’s belt.
Mr. Musk’s tantalizing hints are having what is probably the desired effect. Each new piece of information is ramping up expectation in advance of the Big Kahuna– his September speech. It makes a lot of sense to get the media stirred up over the summer, lest the speech become a lead balloon.
As to me, I’m already ramped up.