NASA aims to put man on Mars by 2037: "We are looking at the moon and Mars to build a civilisation for tomorrow and after that,' Griffin added in his remarks at a conference session attended by heads of the world's space agencies. President George W. Bush in 2004 announced an ambitious plan for the US to return to the moon by 2020 and use it as a stepping stone for manned missions to Mars and beyond"
This is a ridiculous waste of tax money.
Mars Society seeks to rescue crewed mission - space - 29 September 2007 - New Scientist Space: "It is not clear who inserted the banning provision into the House budget, but Dave Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, supported a ban that was outvoted in the Republican-controlled House last year. The Moon-Mars programme was proposed by President Bush in 2004. Democrats now control both the House and Senate."
2 comments:
"This is a ridiculous waste of tax money"
Not if make a war from space; the enemy can't destroy your rockets.
"Although faced with the new global challenges of terrorism and peer competition, the USA has been slow to adapt its cold war forces, and newer ‘warfighter’ strategy to meet them. Cyberspace and outer space offer the means to do this, via ‘responsive’ microsatellites and low-cost launchers, and broadband internet information and education services. The US military leadership is, however, not well enough versed in these technologies, with senior personnel largely lacking a space or technical background and having little appetite for change. If the USA is successfully to meet current challenges, it must first create a leadership that is technologically capable and philosophically attuned to change."Leadership for new US strategic directions
Simon P. Wordena, and Randall R. Correllb, ,
Department of Astronomy, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, bNational Security Consultant,
"Reagan also went on the offensive in the Arms Race, instigating the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983. This was an attempt to develop a space-based missile defense system, which would allow the USA to shoot down any incoming missiles using lasers. It never succeeded, but it did bring the USSR to the bargaining table, as they could not afford to keep up with the Arms Race. Together with the Soviet financial problems, SDI ended the Cold War."The Cold War/"A Forward Strategy to Freedom"
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Cold_War/%22A_Forward_Strategy_to_Freedom%22
"Meanwhile, Dolman—a teacher at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at the air base in Maxwell, Alabama—in his Astropolitik, drafts a general theory of spatial geopolitics, also modeled on the classics, including the Politische Geographie of the German school. Its motto “neoclassical astropolitics”, projects Mackinder and Spykman into Space: “He who controls the lower orbits controls the near Space around Earth. He who controls that Space dominates the Earth. He who dominates the Earth determines the future of mankind.” (see note 11). A thesis totally irrefutable in its perfect circularity.
But to revitalize American interest in the cosmos it is necessary to make profits, essential for maintaining strategic dominance. Dolman suggests to his government that they withdraw from the current judicial Space regime—a fictio like any branch of international law, of course, though a useful fig leaf for propagandistic of ideological employment. With its self-legitimated dominance of Space near to the Earth, Washington would provide for parceling it out “like the common pastures of Old England. The “regions of Space” would be divided amongst nations on the basis of parameters such as population or GNP, in order to render them profitable in the eyes of aspiring cosmic entrepreneurs. The geostationary belt could be divided into 360 slots, each one assigned to one state recognized by the UN (a perhaps involuntary incentive for geopolitical disintegration, seeing that the United Nations covers only 191 members). Furthermore: “We could section the Moon in some thousands of segments” and assign them to industrious private citizens "
worth to be read:
http://www.heartland.it/geopolitics_space_war.html
Mirel ..
I will eave aside the issue of near earth orbits as a military base.
The issue I addressed is that we should make or "cosmic" goal a manned trip to Mars. I would be very surprised if any but a tiny minority of scientists would supports this.
The issue with Qaeda-esque leaders, Bush, Ahmadinejad, Pope Benedict, .. any of these folks is that they live in an alternative reality where decisions that affect our real world depend on the fantasies these leaders inhabit.
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