http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/3950099/

Can we keep this timeline? What are the technological challenges? Is this feasible and realistic?

Well, looking at this speech, I don't think it means a whole lot in practical terms. I'd agree with some of the strategy outlined here -- the shuttle and the space station need to be phased out, I think -- but I don't see where the money is supposed to come from, if the "war on terrorism" continues at the same level (and I personally don't think that is a war that can be "won" in any real sense) and if the economic strategy of future administrations continues to be tax cuts and deficits. The one ray of hope might be genuine international co-operation, and that seems difficult.

Personally, I'd like to see this happen, but I'm not optimistic.

To answer your questions directly:

1. Can we keep this timeline? I doubt it.

2. What are the technological challenges? Finding a good, reliable replacement for the trouble-prone shuttle. Other than that, I think the technological challenges will be minimal, up to the point of establishing a long-term base on the Moon. That will require new ways of thinking -- how do human beings survive on the Moon for any length of time without being too dependent on constant supplies from Earth? This will be a challenge, but I think there are enough scientific and engineering talent out there to solve these problems. (A trip to Mars is a much greater challenge.)

3. Is this feasible and realistic? I don't think so, for financial/political reasons.

We could so beat this timeline. Take the designs for the Apollo missions and rework to take advatage of the new technologies. Would even be much cheaper than the Shuttles (Which were a horrible design anyways). As for setting up and maintaining a viable moon base, No Problem. If you can build an adobe home you can build a moonbase. Just a big igloo shaped set of domes made using materials from the moon itself and a little tunneling to dig down to make the living and operational spaces (Necessary to protect against solar radiation).
Landing facilities again manufactured locally .
Want to make it even cheaper open it up to commercial interests. Cut the cost like crazy. The people who go would be so dedicated to the mission like you couldn't beleive. Offer a chance for future missions and the ability to explore it would go like crazy. Just for the opportunity to someday attempt to mine asteroids there are companies who would bend over backward to help make it happen.
I'd quit my job and join just to be a part of it.
All right I admit it I am a Sci Fi freak. Personally I beleive this would be worth it just for the amount of kids it would inspire. To give some kids the ability to dream of sights no one has seen before when they live on a world where every inch is availible on a detailed map and you can't walk ten feet without tripping over someones border. And the best you can really offer them is the chance to spend their lives paying a mortgage with what you earn at a career you might enjoy if you are one of the lucky ones.
Have SpaceSuit Will Travel
Yeah worth it for that alone.

I think you massively underestimate the technological challenge of living on the Moon. Firstly, you suggest building with local resources. What local resoyurces? The moon is a rock, as far as we know the surface is made of debris and basalt. There are trace amounts of aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, oxygen, silicon, and titanium, but not enough to mine or build anything significant out of. Whatever is built will need to be 95%+ shipped from earth.

Secondly, the structure needs to be bit more complicated than just an igloo to withstand solar radiation. have you looked at the surface of the moon recently? see all those craters? The moon is constantly being hit with micrometeorites, and with no atmosphere to slow them down, they pockmark the surface on a daily basis.

Then you need to survive. The ISS has oxygen brought from earth to breathe, as well as CO2 scrubbers. That is not practicable on a large scale, when more then 4-5 people are being supplied, and for more than smedium term periods. Due to an absence of organics, moon soil will not grow anything, so some kind of oxygen creation will be needed, and the only one that really exists is plants. LOTS of plants, fed, watered and fertilsed from earth.

Speaking of fed and watered, there is another serious problem. Again, not practical to mount storage runs from earth all the time due to cost. Food could be shipped in bulk, as long as people dont mind eating MREs forever, but water is far more serious a problem. There is no ice on the moon, so water will have to come from earth.

And so on. Frankly, I question the wisdom of a moon-base. HUGE expense, and what gain? There is a reason we stopped going to the moon in 1973, its because we had run out of things to do for the cost. I am sure given 30 years of technology, there is more we can do now, but is it enough the be worth the cost of building and maintaining an actual moon base?

Also, though I too like Science fiction, such things as mining asteroids will remain science fiction. It is impractical and pointless.

You for got one...one very important thing that they say the moon also has...Helium 3.

Here is an article for anyone who is interested to read.

Moon's Helium-3 Could Power Earth

And I thought that perhaps Bush was only going there to search for oil. To the best of my knowledge, controlled Fusion has been viewed as an elusive goal, much like the fabled Philosopher's Stone which could turn Lead into Gold. I have however only been told of Deuterium as a fuel source up until now.

Beware of hucksters promising cheap, endless supplies of power. Fifty years ago, nuclear energy promised to be so cheap after the spent fuel was sold back to the U.S. government, that power plants might have to give electricity to consumers for free.

No helium 3 is considered the optimum fuel for fusion. I have never read anything claiming it was a ridiculous fantasy idea. Do you have any sources to share? Maybe you are thinking of cold fusion?



I do not know about anyone claiming fusion would be free energy. I also know that for many countries nuclear energy has brought a lot more promises to fruition than it has in the US. Switzerland relies on nuclear power for over 40% of it's needs. France is at 80%.

I know this is not just a pursual of the US it is a world wide lead research and development area of science. I think as humans we owe it to ourselves to further our knowledge and to further our ideas, concepts and realities in science and technology and I don't think these kind of rewards can really be given a monetary value.

Besides the rumor is China wants to go the moon and get that Helium 3 too. Makes you wonder what kind of development is going on in with fusion that is not being discussed and presented in science mags etc.

I am far more inclined to place favor towards these kind of projects and money spending...this is so much more the type of image and action I would like to see my country participating in. Yes I am sure some are questioning why this money needs to be spent when it can go to better things...but our govt supports all kinds of R&D projects that would not get funding in the private world and honestly do not effect you or me or any large % of our population. My cousin is a biologist and she receives grant money every yr to go tramping off in the jungle of some islands most humans don't even know exists in order to study lizard migration.

Monetary gain should not always be our main objective

Fifty years ago, they weren't discussing fusion as a power source. I'm not even certain if the first Hydrogen bomb had been detonated yet. The United States promised power companies however, that if they built nuclear power plants, the government would purchase the spent fuel to process for making weapons, radioisotopes for medicine, etc. Due to the commercial value of the spent fuel; Nuclear power, they promised us, would be cheap, perhaps even free. I spent years fighting the construction of a nuclear power plant in Midland, Michigan, and my co-workers reminded me daily of that promise of cheap nuclear power.

I was not discussing cold fusion. Until I read the link about Helium 3, I had never heard of it. The article did however, lead me to write a bit of doggerel about THE WEALTHIEST MAN ON THE MOON.

I'll try to find a link to the article on my desk. Nevada wants to refuse storage of spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear wastes in Yucca Mountain, until the government can guarantee a safe storage plan for 300,00 years. The closest documentation I can find is Governor Kenny C. Guinn -- Statement of Reasons Supporting the Governor of Nevada's Notice of Disapproval of the Proposed Yucca Mountain Project (pdf-38K) . This document shows that the U.S> Government is planning a storage site they HOPE will be safe for 10,000 years, but which some experts feel is located on top of a potential volcano, and which all agree will be situated in ground water!

Like I said before I don't think fusion is being sold to us as cheap but rather as clean.

I am not a nuclear proponent. I just wanted to point out that even tho the US and most Americans view nuclear power as a failure and something that did not live up to the promises. It is not looked upon as such by many other nations.

I have read about Nevada...it is in the Yucca mountains. This happens the world over. Where is it all going? Hey maybe they can ship it to the moon!

1_Can we keep this timeline?

No I don't believe so (see question 3)


2_What are the technological challenges?

These are the easiest to overcome. The technology required to go to Mars is already more or less in place, Project Promotheus, and the old abandoned NERVA rockets could provide a mission with all the power needed to get there and back, and the only tricky parts would be the actual journey (human beings do not fare well when put under such strains) and the landing and taking off again.

And its the landing that I think will be most difficult. As Beagle2 demonstrated only a few weeks ago, landing on Mars is amazingly difficult. Its much worse than landing on Earth, because there is no help if anything goes wrong.

It may be possible to have a second lander module along, as a rescue boat, but even that is only a possible rescue alternative. If things went really wrong, the crew could be stranded on mars for months waiting for a rescue that might itself fail...


3_Is this feasible and realistic?

I don't believe its feasible given the parameters set out by GW Bush. There are several distinct missions all rolled up into one here, and each one is a significant step by itself. Landing on the Moon, building on the moon, construction of a Mars ship in Earth orbit, going to Mars, landing, taking off again and returning successfully.

All of these are major undertakings which require a lot of time, planning, but most of all money. And in the current geopolitical climate, I don't see where all this money is going to come from.

The last nuclear rocket programme (NERVA) to go to Mars was killed by the costs of the Vietnam war and I think its a bit strange to announce going to Mars with one voice whilst warning of a long term global war on terror and the increased military spending required by the expansion of American military bases with another.

And then there is the ISS. Are we simply to scrap it just because George W Bush says so? After all the time and effort that went into building it? A lot of people have commented that the ISS is a waste of time and money, and maybe they are right. But I see it as the only chance for humanity to get the experience it needs to understand the long term effects of living in a zero gravity environment. Unlike some of the previous posters I do believe humanity will expand outwards, and in order to do that we will need to learn.
Currently the ISS is our only school for that kind of learning. The Soviets clocked up a lot of time in orbit, and today the Americans can benefit from that, but we cannot be complacent about anything that is as risky, and costly as space science.
The repercussions of failure are staggering. The amount of lives lost, the money and the time spent and the political will to continue in the face of daunting set backs, all are inherent int heplan put forward. And there is also the benefits... are there any at all?
Will we learn much from going to Mars? We will be building new technology of course, all research leads to improvments, but do they, by themselves justify the cost, and possible cost of failure?

I think we should go to Mars, and I think we will. I wish it happens when I'm alive to see it, but I think that for as long as this planet is stricken with the misfortunes it has faced since September 2001, then I cannot see how such a mission can be justified.

If I am to be brutally honest. I'd rather see the world in peace first, but will that ever happen?
Why wait for something that is never coming? Why not ride a star and put forth all our attentions on matters which today we can barely comprehend?

Why live like worms on the surface when we might fly like the birds?

Can we keep this time line? What are the technological challenges? Is this feasible and realistic?

The challenges are set out in NASA's Mars Exploration Web site.

NASA's Mars 2005 Missions and beyond page states:
NASA's A Crewed Mission to Mars... states:

In the time frame that the President wants to land men on the moon, NASA (WHERE THE REAL ROCKET SCIENTISTS WORK.) expects that in the period of around 2014 - 2016, we may be able to send a probe to Mars and return with rock samples. A round trip will take about two and a half years in a best case scenario, and Mars does not orbit the Earth, it orbits the Sun. We need to launch, and return, in "windows of opportunity" where the planets can be expected to be close to each other. We need to be certain that the crew has adequate food, water, and breathable air for a 2-1/2 year trip, with adequate supplies to keep them alive if something goes wrong. We've already lost two complete shuttle crews. We haven't yet figured out how to reliably land probes on Mars. Things can go wrong!

Finally, there is the issue of getting Congress to pass a big enough tax cut to pay for this venture with the Bushcomic fiscal policies. It won't be passed before November, because it is an election year, and the politicians already have to answer to the voters for the present state of the economy, the tax cuts for the rich, unemployment, etc. Whether he wins, or whether he loses; after the election in November, George W. Bush will be a lame duck president. There will be no coattails to ride into the next election. I really see no scenario that would cause Congress to jump onto a fast track to rush a crew of Astronauts to Mars. The "fuzzy numbers" to meet the president's goals are around $1,000,000,000.00. Are you willing to sit down and write your Congressman a letter saying, "Let's write yet another blank check for Dumbya?" I'm not!

In a letter to the editor in The Detroit Free Press, Kathy Ventittelli and Teri DiCicco did suggest a crew we could send to Mars.