Critical time (Mars Society defense)

John Frazer wrote:

>
> All lies; we just didn't lose interest in Apollo. It was
> deliberatrely killed.

I think there were two reasons it was killed: 1. We 'proved' we were 'better'
than the Russians and therefor achieved the actual mission goal. 2. Nixon
kill Apollo. Kennedy started Apollo. Kennedy beat Nixon in a very close
presidential race in 1960, and may have cheated a bit in Chicago (presumably,
based on subsequent data, Nixon cheated elsewhere but not as effectively).
Nixon, while a pretty good president in some ways, was not the nicest guy
around and didn't like getting beaten. Figure it out.

>
> You say that the Mars fanaticism is the enemy. I say that this
> viewpoint is another type of chauvanism. Keep the different space
> activist groups & interested people boxed into their little
> idealogical groups.

Many of the really difficult problems of space colonization must be solved by
a robust Mars program. In particular, launch vehicles and semi-closed
ecological life support. Don't waste your energy fighting people relatively
close to you. Mars consumes a few hundred million a year out of a $1.9
trillion federal budget. I think there are fatter targets for money (and
attention for that matter).

Al Globus
aglobus@..., (650) 604-4404
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

The dinosaurs weren't spacefaring. We are. I don't think that's an accident.
Maybe we are life's taxi to the stars.

I think we should:

1. Devote half of NASA's budget ($7 billion) to reaching NASA's 2020 goal of
reducing launch costs to Low-Earth-Orbit to $220/kg with a 0.01% failure
rate.
This should enable space tourism. The resulting orbital hotels will need to
develop efficient orbital life support and other necessary technologies.

2. Build orbital space colonies. The materials in the largest asteroid are
sufficient for orbital colonies with a combined surface area about 500 times
greater than Earth's. Eros alone could make over ten thousand space colonies,

each with about about 10 square kilometers of 1g living area.

3. After a few generations of orbital living, people won't need their colony
to be near Sol. Then small groups of colonies with populations in the
tens-of-thousands can set out on multi-decade journeys to nearby stars.

Except the launch goals, none of this is even a little bit official.