January 08, 2004

MANIFEST DESTINY:

Bush to Announce Missions to Mars, Moon (SCOTT LINDLAW, 1/09/04, AP)

President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and establish a permanent human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night.

Bush won't propose sending Americans to Mars anytime soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade from now, one official said.

In addition to a returning trip to the moon for the first time since December 1972, the president also wants to build a permanent space station there.

Three senior officials said Bush wants to aggressively reinvigorate the space program, which has been demoralized by a series of setbacks, including the space shuttle disaster last February that killed seven astronauts.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week.


Well, Mars is the Red Planet.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 8, 2004 11:53 PM
Comments

While this is all nice I'd rather like to see private enterprise launching LEO missions from Texas ranches. Tourism too.

One of the rarely ackowledged accomplishments of the Reagan Administration was the 1984 Commercial Space Launch Act, which put the Department of Transportation (DOT) - and emphatically not the bureaucrats at NASA - in charge of regulating commercial space launches.

Whistfully waiting for the first Donald Trump of space..

Posted by: Gideon at January 9, 2004 12:55 AM

Not anytime soon is right.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 9, 2004 01:48 AM

The Donald Trump of Space Travel?

aaahh, that wasn't the top of my list of things to look forward to.

Posted by: h-man at January 9, 2004 05:48 AM

Yes, sadly, Harry is accurate. The time frame mentioned, "...more than a decade from now", will turn out to be close only if each year is measured in dog years.

Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at January 9, 2004 06:48 AM

Bruce:

So what? 70 years seems pretty quick to settle another planet.

Posted by: oj at January 9, 2004 08:06 AM

OJ -

"Betwixt cup and lip there's many a slip".

You do have a point there. I won't be around to see it, if it does happen. Let's just say I'm cynical about inter-generational government projects.

Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at January 9, 2004 08:10 AM

The bloggers at the British site Samizdata have been giving a lot of coverage to the privatized efforts toward space travel.

Especially everything that's happening in the western United States, that we seem to know nothing about!

The NASA behemoth isn't the only game in town.

Posted by: John J. Coupal at January 9, 2004 08:54 AM

Good. Make it a race.

Posted by: oj at January 9, 2004 09:05 AM

As someone who grew up in West Texas, Bush should know the first photos sent back by Spirit of the Red Planet look a lot like the area just north of his home town of Midland. Just add a few utility poles and fertilizer tanks to the scenery...

Posted by: John at January 9, 2004 09:47 AM

Orrin, read Ambrose's "The Greatest Thing in the World" about the outcome when you make a big transportation program into a race.

You wouldn't want to be on the first trip.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 9, 2004 11:31 AM

Yes, but the point isn't the first landing; it's Plymouth.

Posted by: oj at January 9, 2004 11:37 AM

Perhaps we could have a national referendum on who will be the first Americans to be sent to Mars. I have some nominations.

Posted by: Genecis at January 9, 2004 11:39 AM

I wish I could find a siting, but I recently read or saw a report on the effects of microgravity on humans. The results ain't pretty. In a nutshell, with current technology and understanding of physiology, the space Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock, Mars wouldn't be strong enough to plant the flag when they arrived, even if they exercised to try to avoid the effects.

Posted by: Chris at January 9, 2004 01:45 PM
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