US Government Issues NASA Demand - ‘Get Humans to Mars By 2033’

originally posted by: soficrow

originally posted by: Byrd
a reply to: soficrow

Well, that's going to be interesting.

...they cut NASA's budget
...cut spending on the sciences
...lack of support for the sciences
...more difficult for foreign engineers and scientists to enter the US as the work force...


There's going to have to be a huge cultural change in Congress before we get the support we need to get people to Mars or the Moon. At this point, I think another country (possibly India, possibly Europe, maybe Russia or China) will beat us to the goal.

Looks like a faith based mission.

Who needs science when you already have really YUUUGE rockets? Point and fire.

I laughed!

You're right, though... he believes that all one has to do is send a directive to NASA - and doesn't understand just what the other pieces are that are needed to get us there. I think this is just a "feel good" move on his part to get people to like him. He's not willing to study or take advice, so this initiative will fail as well.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Liquesence

Actually, that's kind of a given for space missions now. An astronaut is trained in basic medical treatment like an EMT, and common medicines are available in first-aid kits. You might have 1 or 2 astronauts on a typical mission of 5 or 6 who are not qualified in medical care, but that's it.

Try 40 of them who are licensed physicians as well as astronauts.

And all the ones I've met (a really TINY number) were PhD's. So it's not just physically fit - you've got to be the very best of the best.

a reply to: Byrd

Need a space industry.

As you mentioned earlier other countries could be the first, India for instance is well on it's way to make space capabilities profitable. For now it's smaller rockets are proving very cost effective and recently they launched 100+ satellites on one rocket, 104 I think it was.

NASA has been a sinkhole of money, despite the wealth of knowledge and technical knowhow they've learnt along the way, for some the $ is the only important thing.

I have never believed the narrative of "colonizing Mars". For the sake of argument let's put aside all of the conspiracy surrounding Mars. Let's just assume the pictures we see are factual representations of Mars. That there is almost no atmosphere. Essentially, Mars is one of the most if not THE most inhospitable locations closest to Earth.

Why the hell would we ever want to "colonize" a place this inhospitable? It makes zero sense. None what so ever. There is absolutely nothing to gain by this. Assuming we could actually get humans to Mars in one piece (which we cannot) and assuming they can safely land (which we cannot) and assuming they can somehow safely return (which they cannot) then what are the possible gains for us to actually attempt something of this magnitude at this point in our evolution?

Someone in an above post made the comment that we have to take risks. I agree but any risk of this magnitude must be a mitigated risk. Unless we have some new technology on how to avoid dying from radiation exposure then we aren't going to make it. I mean seriously you guys / gals do realize that one of the stop gap measures on the ISS in the event of an unexpected solar flare to protect from radiation is for the astronauts to place bags of water as an radiation shield inside the ISS right? Bags of water is the most advanced form of radiation protection we have on the ISS as additional radiation protection insurance? Bags of water. And it is just a theory that it will help. It has never been proven.

Anyway...my point is there are way to many unknowns and any mission to send any humans now or in the next 10 years is going to end with people dying. I'm not being a pessimist...just a realist. We aren't exactly making massive evolutionary leaps in propulsion either. Unless NASA is going to make the Mars spaceship nuclear powered we won't be able to carry enough fuel for a round trip.

And the climate? Is NASA planning to cross train the astronauts as survivalists as well? Surviving in an inhospitable environment takes a very specific mindset. Sure they may be great scientists and engineers but survival in an environment like Mars is going to tax even the most hardcore mentality. There are going to be so many "what if" scenarios to plan for it's almost inconceivable.

Look...I'm not saying we don't give Mars a shot. I'm just saying that as of right now in this day and age based on what information is available for public consumption...we aren't ready nor are we advanced enough yet in our evolution of technology.

I would buy going to Mars for the purposes of mining for minerals before I buy colonization. Like I said...why would we want to colonize a planet with no breathable atmosphere, no easily accessible water, no means to cultivate and grow plants, and is basically rock and dust? It make absolutely zero sense.

Ok, we should not be going to Mars, to mine the place, or exploit it in any way.

We shall simply go as a voyage of discovery, in the name of science and human endeavour.

Firstly, why cant we use the Black Triangles as landing craft on Mars?

If they are as sophisticated as surmised, then they should have no problems flying around the Martian atmosphere.
If they are simple air breathers with noise cancelling tech.....then we are in trouble.

Secondly. How hard would it be to launch a Trident Nuclear Submarine into Earth orbit?

A submarine is an ideal space vehicle, it is already sealed to operate in a hostile environment, it wont need to carry 300+ sailors, so the interior can be gutted for say 50 Subonauts, to travel to Mars in luxury. It will need all the normal space station stuff to survive, Plus booster rockets, directional rockets, phasers, Photon torpedoes etc. It will need a resonating north pole- south pole magnetic field for human protection, easy to do with nuclear power. Will need to carry the Triangles and transportable habitation units to take to the surface. The "Ship" could orbit Mars, and travel back and forth to Earth, for years without refuelling, to obtain supplies.
The Ship would need to be modified with no coning tower, Windows along the side, a forward windowed or (multiple LCD screens) Bridge. And some sort of gravity producing tech....for most of the interior.

It would be like a big cruise liner in space. Dare I says......a atypical large "Cigar Shaped UFO", but completely Earth Human Tech.

You all know we could do this now, If all the various departments and black ops World, actually got together, instead of each fighting for crumbs from the taxpayers purse.

Call it the Interplanetary Earth Solar Xplorer "The Endeavour".....Captn. Cook would be proud.

Tried to search for more info on the two astronauts, bodily degeneration - could you please give me some more info, links etc? Thanks

Said by Government morons, what a shock!

Fantasy-land, same as decades ago.

a reply to: soficrow

One does indeed.

yes its great we should have been there by now but every president since nixon has done there best to curtail nASA. WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS CA THING ABOUT HEALTH CARE?

originally posted by: Miccey
Hmmm would that be 19THOUSAND and 508 billions
Or 19 point 508 billions?!?!?!?

And about all the hazards...GET OVER IT......
There IS a way to fix those problems, we
just have to find it...

Says the man pounding their head against the wall.

"If its impossible, it will just take a little longer."

maybe we should just take better care of the miracle we live on and evolved to exist on for millions of years ?

Isn't NASA a scam? I read there was a firmament above the earth and NASA is a hoax? You can simulate floating around in a plane by it free falling from the sky.

a reply to: Outlier13

Nice run down. Interesting about bags of water, never heard that contingency for up there. That is how they insulate the core of a reactor in operation , with twenty feet of water. Same with spent fuel 'pools', transport 'casks' and long term storage tanks (they are filled with water). I doubt that a few bags of water would provide much protection, but any is better than a naked CME sun bath.

In regards to colonizing Mars I agree, theres no point, other than resource extraction. They sell us the colonizing thing to get the next chess piece in world domination to orbit.

Like the Shuttles payload bay, and the ISS itself, fancy loadlifters (shuttles robot arm and payload bay can bring captured satellites back, too) and the ISS , nought but the most expensive hotel on the, I mean off the planet.

Oh and good platform for spying too...

As far as humans on Mars, we are already 'roving' around up there, human intervention is way too costly and dangerous. Imagine slow death by starvation or lack of oxygen for the team thats stranded before the 'colony' infrastructure is complete.

Maybe their kit will include cyanide tablets.

The requirements to protect living humans to Mars are almost impossible to account for. The only thing that will protect humans from a interplanetary trip in open space will be some kind of thick lead lined sarcophagus they will have to remain in maybe for days or weeks at a time should the sun 'hiccup'.

The job of prestaging the red planet with factories that produce oxygen and return fuel from the perma frost is multi phased, before people even arrive. The requirement to land them near enough to each other to be able to utilize them, difficult at best.

The actual logistics like your surmise are near impossible a waste of resources and doomed to fail. Why they never did this on the moon (and its a lot closer).

To get to the moon, land and return requires gigantic rockets, requiring massive load lifters like the Saturn Five, earth orbiters, trans lunar injection vehicles and landers with return engines and earth reentry vehicles. By the time they got to the moon they were sitting in a small tin can with three days air and one (untested) engine to blast off and return to moon orbit.

About that untested engine, it was a one use engine, not tested beforehand on earth, stowed aboard the cargo hold and placed on the Moon. If it failed to ignite for any reason, they would be marooned on the Moon forever, as well on Mars.

They want to go to Mars alright, to get and return some gold or such, the enticement for the rich to put up the cash to fund it.

Meh, they got enough gold, they want a 'return' on their investment, like the Great Mexico Wall, Welfare and Americas Infrastructure, theres little 'return' in that.

Now... making war, conquering the world and building pipelines, they are all over that.

a reply to: Outlier13

I know what you are saying. I think there is something else motivating this decision because it is being done without them bucking and ridiculing Trump.

Everything that Trump has said or proposed has been torn apart with a fine toothed comb and every molecule has been contested and ridiculed.

Maybe my tin foil hat is just too tight but this video keeps coming to mind.

Evacuate Earth
The end of the world doesn't have to mean the end of mankind. CGI and interviews with experts explore how we could leave the Earth.

In a doomsday scenario, the race is on to escape annihilation. If we had 75 years warning, would humankind be capable of evacuating the planet? This programme examines how you could flee your home habitat: from building a 25km-long spaceship capable of travelling trillions of kilometres to deciding which unlucky souls get left behind. Go with National Geographic Channel on a mission to Evacuate Earth.

Full Documentary, Space documentary, Evacuate Earth

This is such wonderful news. I have always considered exploration as a necessity for human kind.
It seems over the past 20-30 years much effort has been put into the development of technologies that are more harmful to society than good.
Let's invest more time in firing up the imagination once again.

I do hope NASA will work closely with the private sector on this.

originally posted by: proteus33
...WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS CA THING ABOUT HEALTH CARE?

Because I've been tracking the research on the long-term health impacts of space travel for decades - and I KNOW it's bad. I also know that the needed funding has NOT been allocated to proper protections or solutions.

If you look, you will find at least a couple old threads and many posts on this topic I posted over the past 14-odd years. (I don't have the time, suspect most have been "purged.") But here's what I did find with a quick search.


2014 post
2017 post made befor this thread

How does spending prolonged time in microgravity affect the bodies of astronauts?

POINT BEING: This is not a new concern for me.

yes we know space is bad place for humans but now we have a gov that is willing to spend money to get nasa back on track. new tech is always coming out the em drive for starters,fusion tech ,quantum computers, new advances in medicine, might help with the amount of time our guys actually spend in space traveling from planet to planet. i for one am truly excited by this but what we need to do is stop building stuff by having people putting in bids because the ones with the cheapest bids are the ones given the project and look what happened with space shuttle.

I find the thought of space travel fascinating and thrilling. I also would like to take a trip to Australia, but alas, living on a fixed retirement income makes that just about as likely as me going to Mars.

Of course, I could throw caution to the wind, spend the money that I can't afford, and go to Australia. I could pray that it lives up to my expectations, and hope that I still have a home to return to when the vacation is over.

I would like my country to chase space, but only after it has taken care of the men, women and children that are Earthbound. I would like my country to prioritise wisely, and spending billions on a fantasy trip to Mars at this time, I don't think is wise.

a reply to: proteus33

...we have a gov that is willing to spend money to get nasa back on track. new tech is always coming out the em drive for starters,fusion tech ,quantum computers, new advances in medicine,

Ya think? Get NASA back on track? Without science?

For starters, try terra-forming without climate science or environmental protection knowledge, using coal and oil as your off-planet energy sources. Or even just building a tiny little safe, self-sustaining bubble. Without science.

Trump Administration Seeks Big Budget Cuts for Climate Research

The administration is seeking a nearly 20 percent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's budget, including to its satellite division...

...That's on top of proposed reductions to climate research at U.S. EPA, including a 40 percent cut to the Office of Research and Development, which runs much of EPA's major research. The cuts specify work on climate change, air and water quality, and chemical safety. The Trump administration also has proposed 20 percent staffing reduction at EPA.

More than a dozen federal agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department and the Department of Energy, conduct climate research. Further cuts are expected, particularly at NASA

...The targeting of climate science goes beyond the work of NOAA and EPA. The Earth Science Division of NASA is another expected target.

The administration and congressional Republicans have already spoken about removing or replacing climate research at other federal agencies, as well.

Forget science! Just fire the damned rockets!

a reply to: RAY1990
That’s the problem. Whoever controls space and its resources controls the world.

India and China are makes huge leaps in progress and will have little concern on human safety.

America and the west cant afford to pussy foot around and worry around making things are 99.999999999999% safe. We need to just buck up and take the risks. Long as everyone sent up there is a volunteer and 100% are informed on known risks it should not matter.