Critical time (Mars Society defense)

From: Mark Collins [mailto:markac_99@...]

Support of a sustained continuous presence on Mars is going to be
very expensive. What do you expect to achieve at the end of it? The
best you can hope for is an independent Martian colony. Do you
honestly expect the tax payers of any country to provide billions
over many decades to produce an independent colony that will never
return any benefit to themselves?

Or a national government to work to deliberately create a new nation; one
perhaps too far away to retain control of?

Zubrin said forget private industry; it's not going to open the frontier for
us. Well, for these reasons I don't see a national program doing it either,
and can't see a 3rd alternative.

I say the idea of a Mars colony being the way forward into space is
the enemy. O'Neill's arguments were based on realism, sound
engineering and feasible economics. This is not so for the proponents
of Mars Direct.

Eh... let's say for the proponents of the mass settlement of Mars (and more
so for proponents of the terraformation of Mars). Mars Direct is fairly
near-term and is probably pretty doable (given a government in the same
frame of mind as the US in the days of Apollo).

The O'Neill viewpoint is based on hard facts and not
any emotional bias- he just looked at the best and most economical
way of doing things.

I found it telling that O'Neill once commented that a youth spent reading SF
in no way prepared him for the idea that perhaps our destiny lay not on
planets at all, but in orbit. I feel that much of the enthusiasm for Mars
derives more from our space-age mythology than hard-nosed analysis.

The responses I got were emotional and aggressive. Mars supporters
(particularly older ones) bear a grudge against O'Neill-ites from
back in the seventies when O'Neill's ideas were more prominent. They
now seem to take the view that they are on top and they intend things
to stay that way. They cling to the Mars-Direct plan like it's
humankind's last hope. Because Mars Direct does not involve any space
infra-structure it parodies the Apollo methodology of let's get there
as fast as possible without any thought for the future.

Maybe I am being a bit judgemental here as I only corresponded with a
few people, I have recently corresponded with a Mars supporter who
was much more supportive of a joint effort.

I'd say that your experiences were in no way atypical. They match up with
mine, and those of other HF supporters that I've heard from.

The Mars enthusiasts, at their most generous, can only seem to come as far
as saying, "Let us have everything that we want first, then you can have
what you want later."

Regards,

Mike Combs

From:
Mark Collins [mailto:markac_99@...]
Support of a sustained continuous presence on Mars is going to be
very expensive. What do you expect to achieve at the end of it? The
best you can hope for is an independent Martian colony. Do you
honestly expect the tax payers of any country to provide billions
over many decades to produce an independent colony that will never
return any benefit to themselves?

Or a national government to work to deliberately create a new nation; one perhaps too far away to retain control of?

Zubrin said forget private industry; it's not going to open the frontier for us. Well, for these reasons I don't see a national program doing it either, and can't see a 3rd alternative.
I say the idea of a Mars colony being the way forward into space is
the enemy. O'Neill's arguments were based on realism, sound
engineering and feasible economics. This is not so for the proponents
of Mars Direct.

Eh... let's say for the proponents of the mass settlement of Mars (and more so for proponents of the terraformation of Mars). Mars Direct is fairly near-term and is probably pretty doable (given a government in the same frame of mind as the US in the days of Apollo).

The O'Neill viewpoint is based on hard facts and not
any emotional bias- he just looked at the best and most economical
way of doing things.

I found it telling that O'Neill once commented that a youth spent reading SF in no way prepared him for the idea that perhaps our destiny lay not on planets at all, but in orbit. I feel that much of the enthusiasm for Mars derives more from our space-age mythology than hard-nosed analysis.
The responses I got were emotional and aggressive. Mars supporters
(particularly older ones) bear a grudge against O'Neill-ites from
back in the seventies when O'Neill's ideas were more prominent. They
now seem to take the view that they are on top and they intend things
to stay that way. They cling to the Mars-Direct plan like it's
humankind's last hope. Because Mars Direct does not involve any space
infra-structure it parodies the Apollo methodology of let's get there
as fast as possible without any thought for the future.
Maybe I am being a bit judgemental here as I only corresponded with a
few people, I have recently corresponded with a Mars supporter who
was much more supportive of a joint effort.

I'd say that your experiences were in no way atypical. They match up with mine, and those of other HF supporters that I've heard from.

The Mars enthusiasts, at their most generous, can only seem to come as far as saying, "Let us have everything that we want first, then you can have what you want later."

Regards,
Mike Combs