What's NASA Up To And Other Space Stuff

[wiggin]

Well shit the bed.

Are you surprised in the slightest? It was always clear to me they didn't have the resources to do this seriously.

When Elon Musk tells me he wants to go to Mars, I believe him - he has a bajillion dollar company stuffed with engineers working on this problem right now. I still have my doubts about the viability of a real colony on Mars, but I think it's at least technically feasible to have a small, expensive, human presence on that planet, and that Musk (or NASA, or someone else with similar resources) can do it.

Don't get me wrong - I love reading KSR's Mars trilogy just as much as the next person. But there are deep flaws in his imagined future, given the supposed improvements in robotics, AI, nanotechnology, healthcare, materials science, propulsion systems, etc. that would be necessary to even consider developing a self-sustaining colony on Mars. And the cost is likely to be astronomical.

It cost us about $100 billion to put men on the moon for a few days. It cost us a bit more to put a small, fragile structure in LEO that can support a few people at a time - when we supply them with fresh food and gases every few months. To set up something permanent on Mars, it would likely be an order of magnitude larger, and even then would be extremely limited in ambition. Absent some quantum shift in technology, these are always going to be expensive, complex, limited projects.

[EyeKhan]

Are you surprised in the slightest? It was always clear to me they didn't have the resources to do this seriously.

I'm just surprised how ridiculous the reality is and disappointed the mainstream media hasn't exposed that reality.

[wiggin]

I'm just surprised how ridiculous the reality is and disappointed the mainstream media hasn't exposed that reality.

Every article about that project I've read has a certain note of incredulity when discussing it. It's not exactly a high priority for the MSM, but I haven't seen them fawning over it like it's actually going to happen. Pretty much every article I've seen raises the two big questions, about funding and technology. They might not be doing a very thorough job of investigative journalism on the project, but that's because these are fluff pieces. No one takes them seriously.