BRUC%MIT-ML@sri-unix.UUCP (01/09/84)
From: Robert E. Bruccoleri <BRUC @ MIT-ML> I also read the Technology Review article on the manned mission to Mars and was deeply disappointed by it. If that turns into NASA's next big space project after a space station and lunar station, it will be crowning waste of effort, opportunity, and time. Like pyramids and palaces. Now that I've got everybody hot under the collar, let me explain what I mean. The biggest problem with a manned Mars mission right now is that it doesn't return very much to earth (so it'd be horrible politically, and we should learn that lesson from Apollo), and most importantly, it won't get many of us into space (I really want to go into space once before my life is up). It's an end unto itself, it doesn't establish much of an infrastructure for doing much else in space, and it could be blown away with a turn of the political wind. The amount of money involved for that Mars mission is probably adequate to get a space settlement started a la O'Neill's High Frontier. His idea being that all you really need to start a settlement that can house thousands of people and build enough solar polar plants to replace earth-based generated electrical is a lunar mass driver, an LEO to L5 (or so) mass driver shuttle, a chemical separation plant for processing lunar ore, and a general purpose manufacturing facility of fairly small capacity. The key point is that the manufacturing facility first be used to construct another separation plant and manufacturing facility (expensive or specialized components would come from earth so the space based technology required is not great), and then one would repeat the doublings enough times until you could crank out anything big you wanted. Settlements, solar power stations, ships, thousands of people living in space, plenty of energy for people on earth, no limits to growth, and no way to stop our exploration and use of space. Plus, a Mars mission would be a piece o' cake. Another point that the Technology Review article assumed was that manned bases should be planets. In fact, it would be cheaper and easier to build a base in space where you don't have to worry about gravity or weather or nightfall. If man does succeed to evolving to a space faring species, he will probably spend most of his time in structures of his own creation in free space because that's where most of the opportunities will lie.