Re: What? No talk about the Mars Rover?
His father said something similar and nothing came of it. NASA estimated that getting to Mars would cost $400 Billion and suddenly everyone forgot about space programs. Rather than make some big, vague, grandiose statement of 'values' and 'idealism' we need a concrete and reachable goal. A genuinely reusable orbital vehicle would be a good, solid goal. The current shuttles are just experimental vehicles forced to serve as working shuttles. They are essentially disassembled and rebuilt after each flight. NOT cheap and not genuinely re-usable! We need that 'space plane' to actually get developed so that the cost of going into orbit can drop by 90 percent or so. From there it will be dramatically easier to get to Mars or anyplace else we want to go.
[ January 09, 2004, 22:26: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]
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