Despite the countless adventure movies in which the hero travels to Mars or encounters a Martian, our reality does not hold as bizarre space travel initiatives.
Lets trace our contemporary initiatives from the George W. Bush Presidential Administration to our present day situation. Bush aimed to create a perception of space and its phenomena as the “new course” for American exploration and excellence, as Miles O’Brien and John King in 2004 reported Bush as saying that “with the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration — human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.” The modern day pursuit of Mars has been greatly promoted by Bush, even if not as much in budget action as in his spoken message.
NASA itself seems to echo this same hopefulness. Just two weeks ago it announced in a news release that it plans to launch its first Mars rover from California in March of 2016 to research more on the development of rocky planets. The release continues to explain that “Mars offers an opportunity to find clues no longer present on Earth about how rocky planets such as Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury formed and evolved.” By discovering more about Earth’s very own development, NASA will be better able to assess further requirements for sustainability on Mars.
Perhaps the most fascinating and most direct approach to interplanetary life is the Mars One Project. This not-for-profit organization has begun and administered several conceptual models for the prospect of solar system travel. They have had over 200,000 applicants for the 24 available spots on board their mission. According to their website, those who are ultimately chosen will be split into six teams of four and train for 10 years for a mission “not yet feasible or funded.” This certainly hurts Mars One’s credibility, as it seems to hold opposition to NASA’s long term plan for 2030 even without the logistics and scholarship to back up their own plan. That being said, its important to keep background in mind when regarding such initiatives as Mars One.
If you want to hear real feasibility on the prospect of Mars, listen to what Miriam Kramer of space.com has to say. Kramer asserts that the mission is certainly possible so long as key changes are implemented, citing that a “NASA-led manned mission to Mars is feasible if the space agency’s budget is restored to pre-sequestration levels. Putting the first humans on the Red Planet would also require international cooperation and private industry support.” In a nutshell, it boils down to funding, derived from both the federal budget and private sector investment; 2013 brought a relatively mere $17.7 billion– a significant amount until you learn that it is actually $59 million short of the preceding year. Mars has been proven possible in the abstract and continuously more so in reality, and it boils down to a societal agreement to place the funds in the hands of those who can make this initiative a reality.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/14/bush.space/
http://mars.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1784
One-Way Ticket To Mars? 200,000 Applicants To Be Narrowed To 24
http://www.space.com/24268-manned-mars-mission-nasa-feasibility.html
I like how you began with discussing the Bush administration and how the modern day pursuit of Mars has been greatly promoted by Bush despite the fact that not much funding has been allocated for its purposes. In my research I did not come across this; therefore this was an interesting new point to learn!
Disputes surrounding those kind of projects emanate from their enormous cost (funding is mostly constituted of Tax-payers money) while those projects are simply experiments and do not face a certain success. If proven successful, this could be a new unturned leaf for humanity. In the contrary, we simply wasted billions that could have been more adeptly used elsewhere.