ST.... the other day, you were all upset at how out of control Federal spending was and now you find fault with Bush for not sending a manned mission to Mars?SpidermanTuba said:When are we going to put a human on Mars, anyway, Mr. Bush?
Is this all that's been done so far, a commission has made a report?
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/mars/
It took us only 8 years to get to the Moon after JFK said to go and do it.
What are you waiting for Bush? Were you just putting us on?
Consider that the moon is 250,000 miles away and that Mars is 30+ million miles away on its closest approach to the Earth (a factor of 120 times in distance). It took astronauts 3 days to get to the moon, it would take at least a year to get TO Mars and a year to get back. The technical problems would be many times greater. Shielding the astronauts from solar bursts, the amount of fuel needed to get to and from Mars, the effects of extended weightlessness on the human body, what to do if there were a failure as in Apollo 13, the list is very long.
The cost of the moon shots was $135 B in 2005 dollars, what do you suppose a mission to Mars would cost? About $500B to $1 Trillion dollars at the very least.
One of the criticisms of the space program was that the money was better spent on fighting the problems here on Earth (i.e. poverty, hunger etc). I imagine that sending a man to Mars would invite a torrent of criticism and condemnation from Bush's opponents.