The United States keeps investing heavily into NASA as a way to deal with environmental issues?

Maybe. What's feeding the people? Because their livestock can't live in the poisoned, extreme-CO2 environment, can it?
What's feeding them in space? I merely suggested that everything is easier on the ground no matter what happens to the environment....not that it would be nice or easy.
And I'm not going to defend turning the planet into a sewer, given a choice.
:cool:
 
What's feeding them in space? I merely suggested that everything is easier on the ground no matter what happens to the environment....not that it would be nice or easy.
Maybe he actually believes that food production in space would be with space fields, space crops and space farmers tending to space livestock. *rolls eyes*

Any spaceborne food production, which is likely to be needed for trips to Mars or the such that aren't nuclear-powered, would rely on vertical farming using these techniques. Which, of course, would still be harder to set up there than here and would require a lot more work and cost to ensure the reliability. After all, in the Tokyo arcology, if one farm fails, you can call the service workers. On your way to Mars, you can't. Of course, the very idea of having traditional farming up there will get one laughed out of whatever board votes on the budget. Carrying thousands or millions of tonnes of earth to space is stupidly expensive for no interesting use.
 
Maybe he actually believes that food production in space would be with space fields, space crops and space farmers tending to space livestock. *rolls eyes*
You might try, just try, not being a dick.:rolleyes: I know it's hard for you.
Any spaceborne food production, which is likely to be needed for trips to Mars or the such that aren't nuclear-powered, would rely on vertical farming using these techniques. Which, of course, would still be harder to set up there than here and would require a lot more work and cost to ensure the reliability. After all, in the Tokyo arcology, if one farm fails, you can call the service workers. On your way to Mars, you can't. Of course, the very idea of having traditional farming up there will get one laughed out of whatever board votes on the budget. Carrying thousands or millions of tonnes of earth to space is stupidly expensive for no interesting use.
Notice, I never said anything about going to Mars, either.:rolleyes: The delta-vee requirement for a return mission is lunatic, absent powered spacecraft (not available now).

And "not nuclear powered" doesn't imply solar sail (tho, in near term, that's the ideal option).

As for vertical farms in space? Maybe there it actually makes sense, tho I tend toward algae farms providing feed for goats, rabbits, & fish, all powered directly by solar thermal (not LED) & hydroponic (or airponic) farming, using lunar regolith as growth medium. (So no "growth fields".)
 
Notice, I never said anything about going to Mars, either.:rolleyes: The delta-vee requirement for a return mission is lunatic, absent powered spacecraft (not available now).

And "not nuclear powered" doesn't imply solar sail (tho, in near term, that's the ideal option).

As for vertical farms in space? Maybe there it actually makes sense, tho I tend toward algae farms providing feed for goats, rabbits, & fish, all powered directly by solar thermal (not LED) & hydroponic (or airponic) farming, using lunar regolith as growth medium. (So no "growth fields".)
It makes a lot of sense to have vertical farms pretty much everywhere. Reducing or eliminating transportation from farmland to cities would reduce a lot of the pollution issues, while offering higher quantities of higher quality produce all year long with little ecological cost thanks to our good friend the atom. Add to this the development of vat-grown meat and 2100 looks pretty likely to have prototypes of self-sufficient cities. Fission or fusion* for power, and recycling becomes the key to have a city where you need very little inputs while producing as little pollution as possible, perhaps even be negative.

As for powered spacecraft, the nuke solution remains the most likely to be used, since it could offer much higher ISP than chemical drives. Solar sails... meh, much less flexible overall in their choice of trajectory.

* Yes, as a reminder, the EU funds roughly half of this nice little project here:

ITER-chantier-012017.jpg


Which is quite important for humankind survival and more realistic than trying to move millions in space at a slower speed than the birth rate.
 
You're endorsing fusion, & I'm living in a fantasy world?:rolleyes:

How many decades has fusion been "just around the corner"? Four? Five? How many billions spent on research?

For half as much, we'd have working SPS & O'Neill habitats by now.:rolleyes: And spacecraft able to supply them, not at "half the birth rate". (Not to mention, the standard of living would be so much lower, the birth rate, globally, would be about half what it is now.)

As for that spacecraft you disbelieve in, recall, in 1960, it was impossible to fly 500 people at 500mph for 12h in the comfort of an armchair. In 1910, it was inconceivable. Today, millions do it every day.

You refuse to accept the same is even imaginable in space flight.:rolleyes:

Of course, you'll ignore this as inconvenient to your preconceptions, too.:rolleyes:
 
Mainly because sending humans out of low earth orbit is... unnecessary at the time being. It's way too expensive for what it brings. If we want to do scientific exploration, remote probes are much more effective than human beings.
As I've pointed out on this forum over and over again, this simply isn't true except for missions that human beings can't perform like landing on Venus or which would normally be automated anyway like astronomical observations. As far as things like Mars or lunar surface exploration is concerned, humans are clearly far more cost-effective than robots, inasmuch as they do more science (however you like to define that) per dollar, often way more science per dollar. For example, the Apollo missions returned about one thousand times more lunar material to Earth than the three successful Luna missions (382 kilograms versus 336 grams), and from a greater diversity of surface locations to boot (seven instead of three, two of which were rather close to each other). Sure, the Apollo program cost something like $100 billion, but the Luna missions didn't cost less than $100 million in total, especially when you consider the numerous failures the Soviets suffered. Indeed, there's a general trend in space exploration that the bigger, more complex, and more expensive your mission the more cost-effective it is on a science-per-dollar basis, and to some extent human missions are the apotheosis of that.

The real issue is that you have a big upfront cost to launching human missions versus crewed missions, and no one wants to pay that. It's basically Vimes' boot theory from Discworld, but with space exploration instead of boots and no one rich enough to pay for the good boots.

If you want some space industry, it'll most be for feeding Earth industries with raw materials and the handful of products that could only be built in zero-g environments.
I tend to agree, but you don't need to make up cost figures to argue that. You can just point out that the technology to actually build a space colony doesn't currently exist and will take decades at a minimum to develop, and that if anything the population of Earth is likely to shrink and consume fewer and fewer resources over the coming centuries, so what exactly would be the push to build huge habitats in space? Relatively small outposts and bases for research, mining, and manufacturing, sure, but big O'Neill cylinders? Seems unlikely.

Tell me again how the O'Neill hab will cost $500 billion.
I wouldn't actually be surprised if it costs more than that, because when you consider how large an O'Neill cylinder actually is that translates to a cost of $100 per ton: very low. Now, granted, a lot of the mass of an O'Neill cylinder comes in the radiation shield, which, while important for long-term safety, has no real importance to the actual structure of the habitat and doesn't necessarily need the same degree of care in construction, but nevertheless that figure is actually quite cheap. The real issue is that it's not considering that the economy is certainly going to be much bigger in real terms by the time anyone is seriously thinking about building an O'Neill cylinder, so spending that kind of cash would be more in the province of "major corporation" than "massive nation-state".
 
You're endorsing fusion, & I'm living in a fantasy world?:rolleyes:

How many decades has fusion been "just around the corner"? Four? Five? How many billions spent on research?
The picture I posted? It's a fusion plant being built. Not to check whether plasma can be achieved, but to scale up previous successful experiments to the level of power generation because it worked. It's engineering and amusingly, all scientific powers on Earth are on with it.

But then, you really seem to be unaware of actual technological development, as you repeatedly proved during your posts in this thread like ignoring tht vat-grown meat is a thing or that carbon-less power generation is working very well.
For half as much, we'd have working SPS & O'Neill habitats by now.:rolleyes: And spacecraft able to supply them, not at "half the birth rate". (Not to mention, the standard of living would be so much lower, the birth rate, globally, would be about half what it is now.)

As for that spacecraft you disbelieve in, recall, in 1960, it was impossible to fly 500 people at 500mph for 12h in the comfort of an armchair. In 1910, it was inconceivable. Today, millions do it every day.

You refuse to accept the same is even imaginable in space flight.:rolleyes:

Of course, you'll ignore this as inconvenient to your preconceptions, too.:rolleyes:
Now you're heing disinguenous again. I point out again and again the level of complexity you disregard and handwave away with your silly smileys while doing your utmost to look like simultaneously arrogant and un-knowledgeable about things.

Abusing smileys in a passive-aggressive way won't make you right. It will just make you look like an immature poster who can't drop his space fantasies when reality comes knocking.
As I've pointed out on this forum over and over again, this simply isn't true except for missions that human beings can't perform like landing on Venus or which would normally be automated anyway like astronomical observations. As far as things like Mars or lunar surface exploration is concerned, humans are clearly far more cost-effective than robots, inasmuch as they do more science (however you like to define that) per dollar, often way more science per dollar. For example, the Apollo missions returned about one thousand times more lunar material to Earth than the three successful Luna missions (382 kilograms versus 336 grams), and from a greater diversity of surface locations to boot (seven instead of three, two of which were rather close to each other). Sure, the Apollo program cost something like $100 billion, but the Luna missions didn't cost less than $100 million in total, especially when you consider the numerous failures the Soviets suffered. Indeed, there's a general trend in space exploration that the bigger, more complex, and more expensive your mission the more cost-effective it is on a science-per-dollar basis, and to some extent human missions are the apotheosis of that.


The real issue is that you have a big upfront cost to launching human missions versus crewed missions, and no one wants to pay that. It's basically Vimes' boot theory from Discworld, but with space exploration instead of boots and no one rich enough to pay for the good boots.
Nah, the big issue is that the cost of human space travel climbs much faster with distance than with machines. Going from the Earth to the Moon and back was a week-long mission that could be done in a cramped space. Mars or other places? It becomes years in which everything must go perfectly or you get a massive failure. And where the 'qualitative' complexity is already incredibly higher than with robots. Could human beings do hundreds times more research than modern rovers? Because we are likely to reach that ratio, possibly more if the failure risks need to get lower than rover missions.
I tend to agree, but you don't need to make up cost figures to argue that. You can just point out that the technology to actually build a space colony doesn't currently exist and will take decades at a minimum to develop, and that if anything the population of Earth is likely to shrink and consume fewer and fewer resources over the coming centuries, so what exactly would be the push to build huge habitats in space? Relatively small outposts and bases for research, mining, and manufacturing, sure, but big O'Neill cylinders? Seems unlikely.


I wouldn't actually be surprised if it costs more than that, because when you consider how large an O'Neill cylinder actually is that translates to a cost of $100 per ton: very low. Now, granted, a lot of the mass of an O'Neill cylinder comes in the radiation shield, which, while important for long-term safety, has no real importance to the actual structure of the habitat and doesn't necessarily need the same degree of care in construction, but nevertheless that figure is actually quite cheap. The real issue is that it's not considering that the economy is certainly going to be much bigger in real terms by the time anyone is seriously thinking about building an O'Neill cylinder, so spending that kind of cash would be more in the province of "major corporation" than "massive nation-state".
My issue is that a space colony is a less efficient spending of resources for the same result. But, yep, mining and research outposts are much more likely to become a thing.
 
what exactly would be the push to build huge habitats in space? Relatively small outposts and bases for research, mining, and manufacturing, sure, but big O'Neill cylinders? Seems unlikely.
Wouldn't you rather turn the planet into a park than a prison? Wouldn't you rather have all the industry off the planet's surface? I would.

If there's going to be mining & manufacturing in space (& IMO there should be), there will need to be some people. That, IMO, justifies one hab. If there's going to be SPS production to power Earth's industries & cities (all those arcologies & their cultured cattle:rolleyes:), there's going to need to be some people.

Once you've got that, you've got the driver for more people & more habitats.

And there will always be people who just want to go, because they can. (Tony Stark, your spacecraft is waiting.:openedeyewink:)

You've defended manned exploration missions. I'd go further: manned missions to Mercury, Venus, Titan, Pluto... Not colonies on Mars or the Moon, but permanent research stations.

That wants spacecraft construction & assembly in L4/L5, & that means O'Neill habs.
I wouldn't actually be surprised if it costs more than that, because when you consider how large an O'Neill cylinder actually is that translates to a cost of $100 per ton: very low.
And if you're launching from Earth's surface, it's insane. And if you only build one, it's going to be hideously expensive. What idiot does that? And where did I ever even hint at being so stupid?

The second hab will not cost $500 billion. Frankly, IMO, the first need not, either, given telefactors (& 3-D printing, & other labor-saving tech) are used to build it in the first place. Can that be done today? No, tho IMO it's not as far off as some would suggest.
 
Philosophers and historians discussing astrophysics and space colonization is actually legitimately interesting, my thanks for doing it.
It's be better though if the general knowledge about astronautics (astrophysics is more the science of stars, other stellar bodies and such) was more accurate than Popular Mechanics and whatever series and movies that take place in space. But then when the less unrealistic movies around there are silly things like Gravity that portray space suits as being easily configured and used in a matter of minutes or travel between space stations doable with a personal pack... well, it does make people dream, but it also give them completely oversimplified views of what makes sense in terms of engineering.

Respectfully yours,

A guy with actual STEM degrees who is annoyed at his majors described as TV magic by space cadets.
 
With respect; being talked down to because I said astrophysics instead of astronautics makes this decidedly less interesting. Indeed I imagine it (space travel) has more to do with celestial mechanics, as well, being that that is the branch of astronomy that studies traveling through space both on the person-ship level and the grander stellar level.
 
With respect; being talked down to because I said astrophysics instead of astronautics makes this decidedly less interesting. Indeed I imagine it (space travel) has more to do with celestial mechanics, as well, being that that is the branch of astronomy that studies traveling through space both on the person-ship level and the grander stellar level.
Sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound like a talkdown, just a vocabulary correction to make sure we were all talking about the same thing. Celestial mechanics, well, they give you a path to follow depending on what propulsion or lack thereof you have, and make for one of the most amusing things - IMHO - about space travel, AKA the DeltaV mapping of the solar system, which is awfully counter-intuitive yet describes a lot of the trouble encountered by mission planners.

You should check a few threads here if that field interests you, there's a very good one about a NASA Mars shot after the Soviets beat the US to the Moon.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...realistic-mission-to-mars-post-apollo.451873/

Also, google Orion drive if you want to see what happens when bored engineers want to solve the ISP issues in the most insanely awesome way.
 
The picture I posted? It's a fusion plant being built. Not to check whether plasma can be achieved, but to scale up previous successful experiments to the level of power generation because it worked. It's engineering and amusingly, all scientific powers on Earth are on with it.
As a physicist, albeit not a plasma physicist, I am not nearly as sanguine as you are that ITER will successfully demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power stations, at least to the extent necessary for DEMO to go ahead. There are many previous cases of people thinking, "Ah, we've got it" only to discover that, no, they haven't got it. Even more cases of discovering that something that seemed feasible in engineering terms wasn't (and yes, this applies to space habitats as well). I'm also not at all sanguine that fusion will ever become a major power source, because it seems likely to me to have the really killer problem with fission--viz., massive upfront capital costs and inflexibly large plant sizes.

Nah, the big issue is that the cost of human space travel climbs much faster with distance than with machines. Going from the Earth to the Moon and back was a week-long mission that could be done in a cramped space. Mars or other places? It becomes years in which everything must go perfectly or you get a massive failure. And where the 'qualitative' complexity is already incredibly higher than with robots. Could human beings do hundreds times more research than modern rovers? Because we are likely to reach that ratio, possibly more if the failure risks need to get lower than rover missions.
Current cost estimates put a Mars mission at being roughly in the same bracket as Apollo or the ISS, actually, although usually that involves only a few flights. Even the hideously overbuilt 90-day report plan was "only" going to cost $500 billion and give us a lunar base, majorly expanded ISS, and so on and so forth in addition to Mars missions...anyway, the answer (given the known cost of rover missions and the estimated costs of human missions) is absolutely yes. Compare, for instance, the distance traveled by Curiosity, which cost around 1% of what a human mission would cost: 20 kilometers, over a seven year period. Not terrible, especially for a robotic mission. Now compare to how far Apollo 17 astronauts traveled in their rover: 35 kilometers, 75% farther, and in just three days. That kind of difference matters, because if you can travel quickly you can visit more sites or more easily revisit sites if and when it's determined that they're more interesting than you expected. And that's just one thing, not to mention all the other advantages that humans bring to the table in terms of flexibility and capability.

Again, if pure cost-effectiveness was the only consideration we would have launched human Mars missions in the 1980s, because they clearly return a lot more on what you put in than robot missions. But no one is willing to put in the admittedly substantial upfront cost, so there's a compromise on robotic missions as being the only thing that's actually feasible to do given allocated funding.

Wouldn't you rather turn the planet into a park than a prison? Wouldn't you rather have all the industry off the planet's surface? I would.
Maybe, but the question is whether people will pay for that. I don't think they will. They'll be happy enough if there are large parks and relatively minimal environmental impact from industry where they live, which doesn't require going into space.

Once you've got that, you've got the driver for more people & more habitats.
Not really. Look at oil platforms, which is more or less what we're talking about. There hasn't exactly been a concerted effort to colonize the sea despite all that.

And if you're launching from Earth's surface, it's insane. And if you only build one, it's going to be hideously expensive. What idiot does that? And where did I ever even hint at being so stupid?
Launching off Earth's surface nothing, this is the total integrated cost for putting one together. For comparison, a 787 costs about $300 million and masses about 130 tons empty, which translates into a cost of $200 000/ton, while the Burj Khalifa cost about $1.5 billion and masses about a million tons, or about $1 500 per ton. Even with a high degree of automation and granting that a large portion of the mass is, as I said, in the radiation shield, I would consider a cost of $100/ton to be rather optimistic at best.
 
Respectfully yours
You've been anything but, so far.
A guy with actual STEM degrees who is annoyed at his majors described as TV magic by space cadets.
I never did that, & calling me "space cadet" is hardly "respectful". You'll also notice, you kept insisting the lifter equalled the habitat, not me. So where were your degrees? In your other suit?:rolleyes:

And I'm not the one claiming somebody else should shut up because I know better. I have been discussing something currently beyond the existing technology, & I'm fully aware it is. You haven't bothered to acknowledge that I might even be aware of that, you're so busy being smarter than everybody else.:rolleyes:

You'll also notice I wasn't rude until you started being a dick. I at least showed you that much courtesy, which is more than you & your degrees would do.
 
As a physicist, albeit not a plasma physicist, I am not nearly as sanguine as you are that ITER will successfully demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power stations, at least to the extent necessary for DEMO to go ahead. There are many previous cases of people thinking, "Ah, we've got it" only to discover that, no, they haven't got it. Even more cases of discovering that something that seemed feasible in engineering terms wasn't (and yes, this applies to space habitats as well). I'm also not at all sanguine that fusion will ever become a major power source, because it seems likely to me to have the really killer problem with fission--viz., massive upfront capital costs and inflexibly large plant sizes.
Of course ITER isn't the perfect solution, but I remain confident that it will work and give us at the very least an excellent experimental base for work. But then, I was talking about 2100 for autonomous cities. That gives us some margin if we want to get some thermonuclear plants in the meantime. For fission, TBH, I see them as the bedrock for a mixed energy generation suite, to ensure the continuous base over which the renewable sources will come.

And I'm really annoyed we foolishly stopped building plants for a couple decades, allowing us to lose so much of the know-how we have to learn again for EPR.
Current cost estimates put a Mars mission at being roughly in the same bracket as Apollo or the ISS, actually, although usually that involves only a few flights. Even the hideously overbuilt 90-day report plan was "only" going to cost $500 billion and give us a lunar base, majorly expanded ISS, and so on and so forth in addition to Mars missions...anyway, the answer (given the known cost of rover missions and the estimated costs of human missions) is absolutely yes. Compare, for instance, the distance traveled by Curiosity, which cost around 1% of what a human mission would cost: 20 kilometers, over a seven year period. Not terrible, especially for a robotic mission. Now compare to how far Apollo 17 astronauts traveled in their rover: 35 kilometers, 75% farther, and in just three days. That kind of difference matters, because if you can travel quickly you can visit more sites or more easily revisit sites if and when it's determined that they're more interesting than you expected. And that's just one thing, not to mention all the other advantages that humans bring to the table in terms of flexibility and capability.

Again, if pure cost-effectiveness was the only consideration we would have launched human Mars missions in the 1980s, because they clearly return a lot more on what you put in than robot missions. But no one is willing to put in the admittedly substantial upfront cost, so there's a compromise on robotic missions as being the only thing that's actual feasible to do given allocated funding.
Don't forget the political risks involved. Moreso than a financial investment, it's a huge political bet, that could end up being insanely costly for whoever tries it if something fails hard during the mission.

I'm... really of a mixed feeling when it concerns long range manned exploration. IMO, we should probably focus on slowly building unmanned asteroid-related capabilities, both for planetary defence and for potential mining. And let it be clear, I'm very much in favour of orbital industries, any real space capability will likely be built in space using in situ resources. But if we have to choose our investments in space, I'd rather go for incremental stuff in order to build whatever interplanetary craft that will eventually transport people to Mars orbit rather than go for planetary exploration missions straight away.

At the very least, scientific missions do have a clear value that cannot be obtained on Earth. Space habitats, OTOH... they don't make much, if any, sense when it is easier to build them right here on Earth.

EDIT: also, our small steps allow us to study in a relatively safe way the various medical and psychological issues related to long range missions, to make sure than when we send people on Mars, we'll know what the hell we're doing.
 
habitats, OTOH... they don't make much, if any, sense when it is easier to build them right here on Earth.
Not unless you plan on doing it all remotely. And frankly, polluting Earth more seems like a really, really bad idea.
issues related to long range missions
So you're fine with the lunatic expenditure of delta-vee for a manned mission to Mars as a stunt, but opposed to a permanent presence of Man in space in L5?:rolleyes:

Your priorities are desperately backwards. Mars ain't going anywhere. Build the habs, build the spacecraft construction & assembly facilities, & build the SPS to run them all, then explore the entire solar system, & stop worrying about the "psychological issues", because there won't be any to speak of on 3-4 day flights.:rolleyes:
 
Of course ITER isn't the perfect solution, but I remain confident that it will work and give us at the very least an excellent experimental base for work. But then, I was talking about 2100 for autonomous cities. That gives us some margin if we want to get some thermonuclear plants in the meantime. For fission, TBH, I see them as the bedrock for a mixed energy generation suite, to ensure the continuous base over which the renewable sources will come.

And I'm really annoyed we foolishly stopped building plants for a couple decades, allowing us to lose so much of the know-how we have to learn again for EPR.
I'm not really sure I would describe it as "foolish". Fundamentally the issue, in the United States, was that there was a tremendous boom in nuclear construction and then a bust because the plants were more expensive than expected and the demand for electricity was less. There's not a great deal of obvious way around this except maybe to make the boom less big so that there's more time to work out how to build nuclear plants cost-effectively and less gross over-construction that was going to get canceled no matter what.

Don't forget the political risks involved. Moreso than a financial investment, it's a huge political bet, that could end up being insanely costly for whoever tries it if something fails hard during the mission.
Sure, but that goes into why people aren't willing to put in the upfront cost.

I'm... really of a mixed feeling when it concerns long range manned exploration. IMO, we should probably focus on slowly building unmanned asteroid-related capabilities, both for planetary defence and for potential mining. And let it be clear, I'm very much in favour of orbital industries, any real space capability will likely be built in space using in situ resources. But if we have to choose our investments in space, I'd rather go for incremental stuff in order to build whatever interplanetary craft that will eventually transport people to Mars orbit rather than go for planetary exploration missions straight away.
Ah, then we largely agree, although perhaps from different perspectives. I feel that there's not much point to going to Mars unless we can go there regularly, and the only realistic way to do that is to reduce the cost to do a Mars mission enough that Congress (or what have you) is willing to go along, which in turn naturally calls for incremental development of technologies to do that, as well as investigating and developing methods for mitigating the risks involved.
 
I'm not really sure I would describe it as "foolish". Fundamentally the issue, in the United States, was that there was a tremendous boom in nuclear construction and then a bust because the plants were more expensive than expected and the demand for electricity was less. There's not a great deal of obvious way around this except maybe to make the boom less big so that there's more time to work out how to build nuclear plants cost-effectively and less gross over-construction that was going to get canceled no matter what.
I was talking about France. With the nuclearization, we built tons of plants, but once it was done, we stopped rather than starting to work on renewing them, AKA we achieved the goal of getting decarboned energy but we didn't really think about ensuring a long-term industry around it. A very costly mistake, IMO.
Sure, but that goes into why people aren't willing to put in the upfront cost.
Yep, but goes beyond the cost itself as an explanation.
Ah, then we largely agree, although perhaps from different perspectives. I feel that there's not much point to going to Mars unless we can go there regularly, and the only realistic way to do that is to reduce the cost to do a Mars mission enough that Congress (or what have you) is willing to go along, which in turn naturally calls for incremental development of technologies to do that, as well as investigating and developing methods for mitigating the risks involved.
Yep. Gotta make it cost-effective and politically safe enough for the decision to feel more attractive. Or tell them there's oil on Mars. I give 15 % chance for that to actually work, BTW, considering what the US Congress has shown in terms of scientific knowledge (capsizing island, anyone?).

In the meantime, I'm pretty satisified with the various missions being done. Cassini-Huyghens was awesome, and both Hayabusa as well as Rosetta allowed us to check some pretty important capabilities - if we want to intercept an asteroid with a less peaceful package, we have some know-how now.
 
Top