ESG7@DFVLROP1.BITNET (11/01/86)
There has been a fair bit of flamage against the idea of a Mars mission. I agree with the position that space industrialization is **not** directly served by one shot space missions for purposes of demagoguery. However the sad truth is that space travel is expensive. I believe it is possible to establish a profitable industrial base on Lunar and Martian resources. However, everyone will agree that to do this one must first have an infrastructure. Building this infrastructure will cost billions of dollars and take decades to set up. Is it likely that a congressman will support an enormously expensive project that won't become operational until long after he's out of office? The trick is to build up this infrastructure in small, politically acceptable pieces. Our politicians probably would not support the NASP if it was billed as a scientific project. However if you can convince them that the NASP is essential to get SDI battle stations into orbit, then they'll fund the thing. I think getting out of LEO (from a political standpoint) will be very difficult unless one can provide some sort of advantage that a politician can understand. Having an astronaut plant a flag on Mars is absolutely useless in terms of space industrialization. However to get him to Mars, one could justify building a really big space station in LEO or even one in lunar orbit. One could present arguments that it would be easier to build the Mars vehicle from lunar materials and thereby provide the basis for establishing a lunar base. I fully agree it is assinine that one can't simply argue directly for going into space because it's the right and profitable thing to do. However if politicians will only accept the argument that we should go to Mars because the Russians will beat us, then we should go for it and then milk the deal for all its worth in establishing an infrastructure.