Chuck, I didn't intend my comments to indicate an either-or choice, but perhaps in a short period of time (<50 years) it actually is one. It's not clear we can even afford one of these options, let alone both. What's most of interest to me is the fragile confluence of political interest and national funding capacity that is necessary to even speak of a crewed mission to Mars or an ambitious presence on the Moon. Remember "2001: A Space Odyssey"? When that film was being made it looked like we'd land people on the Moon in time to fulfill Kennedy's vision, and then in another 20 years we'd have Pan-Am delivering people to orbiting hotels, a major, permanent base on the Moon, and crewed missions to the outer solar system. From the perspective of 1968 that vision of the future of space flight seemed both logical and inevitable. All that enthusiasm and know-how and then... phfft! Gone when the public lost interest. We're even more ADHD-afflicted today than we were 35 years ago. We face the prospect that, as with Apollo, we send a small number of successful short-term missions to Mars and then discover that we no longer have the will or the money to take it to the next level. Seth -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Chuck Hards Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 1:24 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Happy New Year (belated) Seth, I disagree in that it doesn't have to be an "either/or" case. Your argument is strictly for funding and policy priorities in your own lifetime, or a few decades beyond. Both need to be included in the exploration of the solar system-at-large, perhaps with a timescale of scores of years, not a couple of decades. Meaningful, large-scale lunar exploration, colonization, resource management, etc., will represent a huge monetary investment, one that will in a relatively short amount of time pretty much dwarf single manned missions to Mars. On Jan 2, 2008 1:16 PM, Seth Jarvis <SJarvis@slco.org> wrote:
So what's _really_ intriguing then becomes this question: Which world is the logical stepping stone for further exploration of the solar system - the Moon or Mars? I think the answer has to be the Moon.
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