If humans ever get to Mars, what might they do there? Would they use spare weapons-grade plutonium to heat up the red planet to a more Earth-like temperature, as one fanciful-sounding plan suggested? Probably not, according to Humboldt Mandell, a former chief of NASA's Mars programs. But he said a favored Mars exploration plan could be considerably quicker than the White House proposal for a moon base to be used as a stepping stone for a human mission to our next-door planetary neighbor. Some NASA officials wondered privately before Wednesday's announcement why they had been left out of discussions about the presidential program. Still, Mandell, a 40-year NASA veteran who left a year ago to become a research fellow at the University of Texas Center for Space Research, said the U.S. space agency has the technical know-how to accomplish the moon and Mars missions, though not necessarily as the White House envisions. For a start, Mandell said in a telephone interview that while a permanent moon base was possible, it would double the cost of any human mission to Mars.

"I have no objection to building a moon base, but if you're going to go to Mars, the cheapest way to do it is to base it on the Earth and then make Mars the second safest place in the solar system for humans, and then send the humans to Mars," Mandell said. He said there would be "logistical nightmares" lurking in the plan to transport equipment and humans to the moon and then launch a mission to Mars from there.


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Humboldt Mandell:-

"I have no objection to building a moon base, but if you're going to go to Mars, the cheapest way to do it is to base it on the Earth and then make Mars the second safest place in the solar system for humans, and then send the humans to Mars,"

At last, someone talking a bit of sense about sending humans to Mars! When G W Bush mentioned constructing a Moon Base as a "stepping stone to the red planet" by 2019, I couldn't stop myself laughing. Why, oh why, would we need a Moon Base??? Landing on the Lunar suface, setting up camp & then taking off again (towards Mars) is the most inefficient way of completing this task, because it would require a ridiculous amount of energy & rocket fuel. Plus mention the dangers & risks involved with landing & launching. I wander who made that muppet (G W Bush) come up with such sillyness?!

Even if they (NASA) were to build such a base, it would be interesting to see how they would fake it 2nd time round, just like the Apollo hoax. But then again the avaliability of better, more powerful computers would mean all the film shots & photos will look as real as ever!!! And we wouldn't know for sure would we?

As for putting man on Mars, although not impossible, I still think we are decades & decades (maybe centuries) away from achieving such a feat. After all, we still haven't put man on the Moon yet!! Lets wait & see what NASA & co come up with over the next 10 years or so . . . . .

Regards

SimpleSimon

Long live the truth!

We havent been on the moon? WTF u talking about eh?
/me slaps simplesimon around with a moonrock.

You can't seriously believe the lunar landings were hoaxes can you?
When China travels up there, they'll show you... They'll show you...

It's a good idea in the long run. Most of the fuel of the rockets ships now are just to give the ship enough power to leave the Earths atmosphere. Space ship will be alot different is there wasn't an atmospere for them to break through. More power, more speed and less fuel. Building a base on the moon will also be later used for (useless) SETI reasearch - probably use a crater to put a giant satellite dish and the next Hubble will be built on the moon which will produce even better images of space






SimpleSimon by name, SimpleSimon by nature

build a realty agency or do like we done the indians if life is there