Forests are being burned to the ground at a rate that is terrifying. 20% of the rain forest is already lost to this practice. As it progresses faster and faster scientists are warning there is a tipping point where the remaining rain forest will turn into desert.

The oceans are being fished out 4x times faster than their rate of replenishment. 90-95% of all big fish are gone. Immense dead zones are spreading across the globe at the same time cores reefs are dying. The oceans are acidifying as they sink up the carbon we spew into the air. How soon until the oceans are dead to any life?

Americans only see the fresh fish in every supermarket across the country. It’s end is coming fast. It is only still abundant and cheap because industrialized fishing and cheap labor all around the world have made it that way, temporarily.

Global warming is bearing down upon us and we haven’t even begun to do even a tiny fraction of what we will need to do to survive. There will be mass migrations and untold misery. But again humans seem to be unable to see the future even the tiniest bit if it means doing without something today.

The race to mars is very laughable. Especially all the speculation about water on Mars. We are going to run out of fresh drinking water for billions on this planet long before we ever find evidence of it on Mars.

I feel like the people who are so excited about exploring space are like young children. They have no real perspective on life around them. It is all about how something makes them feel. No regard for what’s going on around them.

Too bad we did this to ourselves. We could have gone in such a different direction. One where going to Mars was a real possibly. But that spaceship has sailed. We are about to reap what we have sown on this planet.

Good luck to all.

I’m also sorry to say that I can say nothing better about those who imply that space exploration should be set aside until we solve poverty, global warming, war, and so forth.

People! T-h-i-n-k through this idea a little more carefully — do you r-e-a-l-l-y think that the pittance we would save if we discontinued space exploration and development would be used to do these things? And do you really believe that the “powers-that-be” are spending all their time thinking about or promoting space exploration, and that THIS is why they don’t do more to address the other issues?

If you do, I can think of some great beach property you ought to consider investing in. It’s located on Ellesmere Island, the biggest island in Canada’s Arctic archpelago. The weather’s really nice there — for about three weeks of the year.

On a more positive note, a big “thank you” is in order for Bob Zubrin. He’s not perfect, but he’s done a lot to hold up the candle of reason and logic for those of us who care enough to inform ourselves about space and dare enough to dream about the world beyond that which lies before our eyes. Keep fighting the good fight.

Also, thanks to NPR for doing this.

I suggest we go to both places as part of a robust global space program that includes all the nations that might want to participate, as well as the burgeoning private space industry that is now developing.

This need not be an established government program, just a recognition that there are in fact many countries heading out into the solar system, and that there is a commercial space effort as well.

That’s where the space future is really headed.

Science before propaganda Tata.

- If we’re worried about the environment, let’s relieve the load on the ecosphere by getting off-planet. Let’s learn about appropriate eco-management by experiencing closed-system space travel and harsh-environment living.

- Mars is cheap (compared to bank bailouts and other recent dubious expenditures) and has major returns on investment. Look at your cell phone, tennis shoes, computer, television, etc.

- the biggest return on Mars investment is in education. More engineers, more scientists, etc. means a stronger, more vibrant economy. And that is America’s economic survival depends upon! Not more lawyers and mutual fund advisors.

Early explorers traveled for months at a time on the open ocean in desperately small vessels. The Apollo 11 craft’s livable (sp?) space is enormous, if you consider miniaturization over the past years. Astronauts would have the equivalent of a small, multi-story apartment in which to live during the trip and afterwards on the surface.

As Zubrin points out in his book, let’s not get over-worried about the psychological effects of long-term close quarters living. Man has done it before and man can do it again.

We’ve sent robots to Mars before and they’re great, but we should aspire to spreading our species to other planets. We are pioneers by nature and the inspiration, passion, and greater purpose will be only be realized by a human Mars mission, not by a nostalgic trip to the boring, old moon.

The moon is a dead end, not a stepping stone.

Human Mars Mission First!

One Key Question that was not raised in the program was WHY SEND A CREW OF HUMANS TO EITHER MARS OR THE MOON WHEN WE CAN SEND ROBOTS?

What will we learn or be able to do with men that we can’t do far less expensively with an unmanned mission? The cost and risks associated with an unmanned mission are drastically less then sending a crew of astronauts along. Robots do not breath, do not get bored, do not need to be feed or kept warm. They do not need to return home. And God forbid something goes wrong, they will not leave a nation morning their loss.

My opinion is that we should spend this treasure and effort on new unmanned missions throughout our solar system as well as new telescopes and technology to understand the universe beyond our solar system.

We are currently in a Golden Age of space exploration. Our telescopes are finding planets with similar attributes to Earth in distant solar systems throughout the Universe and our rovers are discovering important new details about our nearest neighbors. Ultimately questions that we have been asking ourselves for millennia are finally being answered with science.

ONE manned mission to either Mars or Back to the Moon will not yield nearly as much knowledge for humankind as the 100+ unmanned missions or new Hubble-like space telescopes that the same treasure could provide.

But as to which body we should (re)visit first, to me the most obvious difference between the Moon and Mars is that the Moon is three days away in the event of an emergency, while Mars is six months away. We have much to learn before we’re ready to establish long-term habitations on another world. Let’s do it on the nearby world first, and gain the experience. Or even on near-Earth asteroids. And then go to Mars.

Mars may be the more inspiring destination–and inspiration is indeed important–but I fear that a trip straight to Mars would be a repeat of the Apollo experience: a glorious triumph, followed by a collapse of public support, and another forty years before the next visit.

We can do it with humankind even though that permanent clipping might prove painful and dangerous (bonzai are fragile and likely to die more than other plants) but this is definitely not the future I dream for our world.

While it’s a cute psychological trick to suggest without directly stating that advocating space development is childish and immature, I would suggest instead asking yourself whether an ever-increasing population stuck in an increasingly cramped area with limited energy and land would ever permanently stop fighting over said energy and land? And does anyone seriously believe that said area would, in the long term, tend in the direction of increasing “cleanliness”?

Ever grown a potted plant? If you refuse to repot as it grows, no amount of care is going to save it in the long run. Stepping back from analogies to our actual situation, it’s going to take a lot of resources to make significant inroads into space. As long as we sit here on our pile of finite resources and wait, it’s only going to get harder.

The question of Mars vs. Moon isn’t trivial. The goal of getting to Mars was arbitrarily set at 30 years back in the 1970s, and the same projections of 30 years exist now. The only way to make it happen is to get the political push behind it. We’ve been to the Moon and found it has none of the resources (H2O, O2) needed for a sustained settlement, and all resources have to be sent from Earth to the Moon. Moon is little better than the Space Station in that regard. But Mars and its atmosphere and subsurface water offer everything we need. So, by all means, make Mars our prime directive! Moon can happen again as a footnote, but Mars must be our future.

Kudos to Dr. Zubrin, Buzz Aldrin, and the late Carl Sagan for their vision in founding respectively the Mars Society, National Space Soc., and Planetary Soc. And for the books they’ve written arguing for manned missions and enlightenment!
W. Ron Hess BeornsHall@earthlink.net

Mars is more similar to Earth. Water has altered the Martian rocks over hundred of millions of years and possibly started the process of Life. The Moon has been dry and sterile since it was created. On Mars, we have matter to look at and scrutiny to understand ourselves and the Universe.

Mars is less dangerous than the Moon thanks to a gravity twice as strong, some atmosphere to protect the astronauts against solar and cosmic radiations. The Martian dust is also possibly less aggressive than the Lunar dust which is more pristine and sharp because on Mars grains of dust have been somewhat worned out and softened by billion of years of atmospheric erosion.

Mars is more economical because we can use its atmosphere to produce our oxygen and methane to move and retruen to Earth. We can do it with today’s technology which is not the case with Helium 3 because, do not be mistaken, we CANNOT control the nuclear process which would allow us theoretically to use it. We can also benefit from Mars days and nights which are similar to ours (24h38mn) to work, grow vegetables, raise animals. We cannot do that on the Moon which has 14 hours day long night and where we have no choice but to use artificial light (except on very small areas at the poles).
The Moon has almost certainly no water.

During the trip, we can use artificial gravity as described by Robert Zubrin (rotation of the couple created by the last burnt out stage of the launcher tied to the habitat).

Let us not waver! Going to Mars can open us the door to Space and myriads of possibilities but…nothing is written. We have to decide it and we have to fund it. On to Mars!