So who would fly on one of these... (Elon Musk and the BFR)

**elephant** · 10-05-17, 15:44

Unmanned missions are the way of the future. Send a drone to mars, collect samples, return samples to earth. End of story. We landed on the moon, which was a great achievement for the US considering the USSR beat us to space. There is absolutely no benefit or value to manned mission visiting Mars, Mercury, Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, Neptune, Venus, asteroids or comets etc. If the science community wasn't hell bent on evolution and searching the cosmos for early signs of the big bang and alien life, space exploration might have some value, I could see sending out a unmanned space ship to collect samples from Mercury, Mars and Venus and maybe some atmospheric samples of Jupiter and Saturn.

Landing a man on Mars will never be as big as landing a man on the moon. The Gemini and Apollo era was built on the greatest minds, mathematicians, scientist and engineers in this country. Men with slide rules, pencils and vellum and drafting tables not high powered super computers with AutoCAD and advanced simulation and stress analysis.

In todays times, it wouldn't be a man who first step foot on mars anyway. Liberals along with the science community would want someone gay, trans, but most likely a woman to be the first.

**Diamondback** · 10-13-17, 17:19

Why not Mercury? Too damn hot... an atmosphere that melts lead is No Bueno for human habitation. Venus looks pretty bleak too.

Best bets would be the Moon, and establishing forward bases on some of the bigger 'roids out in the Belt.

Take a ride? Meh, I'm holding out for my own personal Star Destroyer--and I don't mean one of those pansy little ones from the craptastic Prequel Trilogy.

**Honu** · 10-13-17, 20:44

there is a reason no humans are on the other planets

no desire at all to go live inside some station with no camping no outside etc..

**militarymoron** · 10-13-17, 23:01

The other day, Leanne Caret (President/CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security) mentioned the intention to send the SLS to Mars.

http://fortune.com/2017/10/11/boeing-mars-rocket/

**elephant** · 10-14-17, 01:30

Originally Posted by militarymoron

The other day, Leanne Caret (President/CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security) mentioned the intention to send the SLS to Mars.

http://fortune.com/2017/10/11/boeing-mars-rocket/

I think Mars is a big PR stunt so NASA can get more funding. the SLS mission was to resupply the ISI and heavy lifting, not interplanetary transportation. Going to the moon was a national commitment that ate up a lot of recourses and forced Northrop, Grumman, North American, NASA, USAF, MIT, Caltech, UCLA, Texas Tech, and rice to make a 100% contribution from 1961 to 1970. The US simply does NOT have the capital to fund a Mars mission. We would need $3 trillion a year for 4 consecutive years ($12 trillion) to make a Mars mission happen. I say lets pay off some debt first. NASA has already stated that need to build a vessel that could take a crew of 30+ from LEO to Mars (9 months) and bring enough supplies for 30 months including a Mars habitat that would need to be assembled from smaller sub assemblies (not happening). Its fantasy!! Just like global warming and 76 genders!! Going to mars aint going to happen, going back to the mood aint going to happen unsless a private corporation does so.

**Diamondback** · 10-14-17, 01:46

Going to the Moon, Mars and the outer solar system HAVE to happen as a matter of both species survival and natural resources. Unless you'd rather tell our generations of descendants to just sit here on this rock 'til the sun goes Red Giant and crispy-critters everything...

The sooner we begin colonization and terraforming, the sooner we have a dispersed "gene bank" so that if things go to hell here the species can continue elsewhere, or maybe our other settlemnts can send help.

We definitely need to start opening space up to private industrial operations, mining and manufacturing and yes even suborbital commutes and orbital tourism, rather than just letting the pure scientists have it as their private playground.

**turnburglar** · 10-15-17, 20:49

I get a really good chuckle seeing all of these: "humans are staying on earth" comments. Im sure the idea of crossing the Atlantic seemed impossible too....

And I don't know where such accurate figures of $12 trillion for a 30 man crew came from.... but shit I'd saying advancing humanity to a full blown interplanetary species is atleast as useful as nation building activities in the middle east. Elon and many other Billionaires are taking a serious interest in privatizing spaceflight IE MAKE A PROFIT OFF SPACE TRAVEL. To me that sounds way more hopeful than: "only the guberment is capable enough to get it done..."

Also Im pretty sure from the get go SLS block II had ideas of taking Orion capsules into a mars orbit.

**JC5188** · 10-16-17, 07:04

Really surprised, on this forum especially, that it hasn’t been mentioned...

For our continued military superiority, space tech advancement is CRITICAL.

I never consider space travel development “waste”, for that reason.

**Diamondback** · 10-16-17, 07:08

Originally Posted by JC5188

Really surprised, on this forum especially, that it hasn’t been mentioned...

For our continued military superiority, space tech advancement is CRITICAL.

I never consider space travel development “waste”, for that reason.

Space: not just the Final Frontier, but also The Ultimate High Ground.