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The FFA is being sued by numerous environmental groups. The groups charge the FAA did not do adequate pre-launch review of all the environmental considerations before allowing the launch of SpaceX. LINK!
Frankly, I did not know the FAA's approval was required. But here were are, headed to court. There are all sorts of damages claimed. Evidently there was even a fire started.
These groups can never be satisfied. I don't know that they will succeed in stopping all future super-heavy launches, but that is what they want to do.
Environmental groups have stopped oil drilling, dam building, nuclear power, and probably a bunch of things I have not listed.
Will this end up being the reason humans never go to mars?
TMK, all of those items opposed by various environmental groups proceed apace. But under possibly more stringent rules/laws than the corporates would like. That's not the same thing as stopping those activities altogether.
Humanity will go to Mars, if there's something there that's useful/necessary for humans. We'll probably go in any event, just to inventory what's there & determine what might be useful to humans.
TMK, all of those items opposed by various environmental groups proceed apace. But under possibly more stringent rules/laws than the corporates would like. That's not the same thing as stopping those activities altogether..............
No, not all.
Nuclear power is a good example of outside groups continuously suing until projects are dropped altogether.
The Yucca Mountain waste repository is another example.
The Supercollider at Waxahatchie, TX is another example of a project started with great enthusiasm by one administration and then - after spending billions - cancelled by another.
I don't think the environmentalists will be the sole reason for us never going to mars, but they will contribute. The earth-to-mars project would be so expensive and take so long that it would take financial backing from several administrations in succession. So there will not be a single reason we never go; it will be the plethora of problems.
Meanwhile, on the science front, every serious scientists knows humans cannot survive the 21 month trip to mars and back. For that matter, humans could probably not survive 21 months outside the earth's protective magnetosphere no matter where they went. ISS is still within the radius, so its occupants are protected. But Apollo astronauts, who actually left the magnetosphere, are 5 times as likely to suffer heart ailments than astronauts who never left Earth's orbit or who never flew at all, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. LINK!
Bad management, fiscal & political, poor resource use ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
No, not all.
Nuclear power is a good example of outside groups continuously suing until projects are dropped altogether.
The Yucca Mountain waste repository is another example.
TheSupercollider at Waxahatchie, TX is another example of a project started with great enthusiasm by one administration and then - after spending billions - cancelled by another.
...
As I recall, the Waxahatchie collider died for various reasons:
"Cancellation
"After $2 billion had been spent ($400 million by the host state of Texas, the rest by the Department of Energy[18]), the House of Representatives rejected funding on October 19, 1993, and Senate negotiators failed to restore it.[25] Following Rep. Jim Slattery's successful orchestration in the House,[25] President Clinton signed the bill that finally cancelled the project on October 30, 1993, stating regret at the "serious loss" for science.[26]
"Many factors contributed to the cancellation:[4] rising cost estimates (to $12bn);[27] poor management by physicists and Department of Energy officials; the end of the need to prove the supremacy of American science with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War; belief that many smaller scientific experiments of equal merit could be funded for the same cost; Congress's desire to generally reduce spending (the United States was running a $255bn budget deficit); the reluctance of Texas Governor Ann Richards;[28] and President Bill Clinton's initial lack of support for a project begun during the administrations of Richards's predecessor, Bill Clements, and Clinton's predecessors, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.[29] The project's cancellation was also eased by opposition from within the scientific community. Prominent condensed matter physicists, such as Philip W. Anderson and Nicolaas Bloembergen, testified before Congress opposing the project. They argued that, although the SSC would certainly conduct high-quality research, it was not the only way to acquire new fundamental knowledge, as some of its supporters claimed, and so was unreasonably expensive. Scientific critics of the SSC pointed out that basic research in other areas, such as condensed matter physics and materials science, was underfunded compared to high energy physics, despite the fact that those fields were more likely to produce applications with technological and economic benefits.[30]"
(from the same URL above - My emphasis)
I skimmed the Wiki article - opposition by outside groups wasn't mentioned in the article.
As I recall, the Waxahatchie collider died for various reasons:
"Cancellation
"After $2 billion had been spent ($400 million by the host state of Texas, the rest by the Department of Energy[18]), the House of Representatives rejected funding on October 19, 1993, and Senate negotiators failed to restore it.[25] Following Rep. Jim Slattery's successful orchestration in the House,[25] President Clinton signed the bill that finally cancelled the project on October 30, 1993, stating regret at the "serious loss" for science.[26]
"Many factors contributed to the cancellation:[4] rising cost estimates (to $12bn);[27] poor management by physicists and Department of Energy officials; the end of the need to prove the supremacy of American science with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War; belief that many smaller scientific experiments of equal merit could be funded for the same cost; Congress's desire to generally reduce spending (the United States was running a $255bn budget deficit); the reluctance of Texas Governor Ann Richards;[28] and President Bill Clinton's initial lack of support for a project begun during the administrations of Richards's predecessor, Bill Clements, and Clinton's predecessors, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.[29] The project's cancellation was also eased by opposition from within the scientific community. Prominent condensed matter physicists, such as Philip W. Anderson and Nicolaas Bloembergen, testified before Congress opposing the project. They argued that, although the SSC would certainly conduct high-quality research, it was not the only way to acquire new fundamental knowledge, as some of its supporters claimed, and so was unreasonably expensive. Scientific critics of the SSC pointed out that basic research in other areas, such as condensed matter physics and materials science, was underfunded compared to high energy physics, despite the fact that those fields were more likely to produce applications with technological and economic benefits.[30]"
(from the same URL above - My emphasis)
I skimmed the Wiki article - opposition by outside groups wasn't mentioned in the article.
I am considering opposition by the opposing political party to be an outside group, since they make themselves so.
There are a great many people who are opposed to spending money attempting to go to mars. It is extremely unlikely that both political parties will want to fund a mission, which if not futile, is certainly a waste of resources now that mars rovers are being sent.
Lawsuits, expense, improbability of success, and the presence of viable alternatives will add up. In the meantime, though, scientists will spend their entire careers working on it until it is cancelled for many of the same reasons Waxahatchie was. - "it was not the only way"; "unreasonably expensive" and so forth.
Even if a rover type vehicle that finds an extremely valuable resource and returns with it, the downward trajectory of economics on the future earth with its declining population would preclude a serious manned mars venture.
I am considering opposition by the opposing political party to be an outside group, since they make themselves so.
There are a great many people who are opposed to spending money attempting to go to mars. It is extremely unlikely that both political parties will want to fund a mission, which if not futile, is certainly a waste of resources now that mars rovers are being sent.
Lawsuits, expense, improbability of success, and the presence of viable alternatives will add up. In the meantime, though, scientists will spend their entire careers working on it until it is cancelled for many of the same reasons Waxahatchie was. - "it was not the only way"; "unreasonably expensive" and so forth.
Even if a rover type vehicle that finds an extremely valuable resource and returns with it, the downward trajectory of economics on the future earth with its declining population would preclude a serious manned mars venture.
Are you factoring in the likely scientific and technological advances that would result from a Herculean project like a manned mission to Mars?
Are you factoring in the likely scientific and technological advances that would result from a Herculean project like a manned mission to Mars?
No.
Since I don't think that effort will ever come to action, I don't count advances that might be made in the effort.
To be clear, I think globalization is coming to a halt, population will now begin to decline, and I believe humanity has just about reached its zenith in technology. From here we will de-industrialize and world economies will begin to shrink.
The current trend for women to have fewer children will continue to the point of baby humans being fairly rare. TFR of 0.5, maybe?....
We’ll never leave the cave. We’ll never control fire. We’ll never create a round thing to make transportation faster. We’ll never learn to master our environment. We’ll never learn to sharpen rocks for hunting. We’ll never use our mastery of fire and knowledge of elements to make iron, steel or any other metal. We’ll never learn to grow crops. We’ll never use agriculture to create permanent establishments where we create writing, math, or science. We’ll never create flying things. We’ll never create horseless carriages. We’ll never go to the moon. And we’ll definitely most certainly NEVER go to mars.
I think the common theme for all these examples is that all of them were undertaken to improve people's every day life. Or satisfy someone's curiosity with relatively modest, low risk free effort. The trip to Mars is an extremely expensive, very high risk endeavor that might be too much for the US government to fund and manage. It really needs to be a high profile international project to succeed.
I think the common theme for all these examples is that all of them were undertaken to improve people's every day life. Or satisfy someone's curiosity with relatively modest, low risk free effort. The trip to Mars is an extremely expensive, very high risk endeavor that might be too much for the US government to fund and manage. It really needs to be a high profile international project to succeed.
Nice take on the topic. Thank you. Things like fire, arrowheads, spear points, field crops, metals, the wheel, etc, all dealt with basic survival, were widely, even desperately needed, across the entire human race, and prove the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention.
I see no similar need to visit Mars, or even the moon, as robotic devices can gather, analyze and/or return samples to earth where advanced laboratories can provide the best analyses. Moon rocks did not add any new elements to the Periodic Table of Elements which should tip us off that there's not much new out there in space, all of which begs the question of why bother going to other space rocks since we're on the one with the most diversity.
The cost and complexity of putting inhabitants on the moon or Mars also begs an ethical question of why should billions of people, often desperately poor and in need of medical services, help fund a habitat for a mere handful of people.
At this point going to Mars is a solution in search of a problem when so many problems here on earth are yet to be resolved. A trip to Mars in another 100-200 years might be feasible if we can find a need that has to be filled and the technology of such a feat becomes both available and affordable.
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Nice take on the topic. Thank you. Things like fire, arrowheads, spear points, field crops, metals, the wheel, etc, all dealt with basic survival, were widely, even desperately needed, across the entire human race, and prove the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention.
I see no similar need to visit Mars, or even the moon, as robotic devices can gather, analyze and/or return samples to earth where advanced laboratories can provide the best analyses. Moon rocks did not add any new elements to the Periodic Table of Elements which should tip us off that there's not much new out there in space, all of which begs the question of why bother going to other space rocks since we're on the one with the most diversity.
The cost and complexity of putting inhabitants on the moon or Mars also begs an ethical question of why should billions of people, often desperately poor and in need of medical services, help fund a habitat for a mere handful of people.
At this point going to Mars is a solution in search of a problem when so many problems here on earth are yet to be resolved. A trip to Mars in another 100-200 years might be feasible if we can find a need that has to be filled and the technology of such a feat becomes both available and affordable.
I tend to agree that for the next few decades, at least, it will be strictly robotic missions to Mars and other celestial bodies, apart from the moon, until propulsion technology has improved considerably.
Multi year voyages are simply impractical right now, and for the immediate future. The amount of shielding and the need for some kind of artificial gravity, not to mention medical facilities, tons of food, water, oxygen, spare parts, and redundancy in life support systems and pretty much everything else… It’s just not feasible. Technically speaking, we could do it today, but the costs would be astronomical, multiple trillions of dollars.
In the meantime, robots can certainly continue to visit Mars, and in just a few years, they will be bringing samples back to Earth. There are also a couple of startups gearing up to explore the asteroid belt and search for valuable minerals.
It’s sad that the Russians chose to waste their shrinking national treasure and resources on a foolish military adventure in Ukraine. They have tremendous expertise and could have contributed a lot.
One thing I am really looking forward to is the period when robotic vehicles of some sort voyage to mars, moon and asteroids, pick up samples, and return with those samples.
I think the fantasy of a manned mission is wasting resources as scientists attempt to design solutions to problems that need never be solved while ignoring problems that must be solved.
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Bad management, fiscal & political, poor resource use ...
