Per the Mars Society who presumably would be motivated to understate the cost:

Q: How much will sending humans to Mars cost?

A: Estimates of the cost of a human Mars exploration program over the years have been wildly disparate, leaving much confusion in their wake. On the high end of the scale was the Space Exploration Initiative proposed by President George H. W. Bush in 1989 at $450 billion; Mars Direct occupies the low end of the scale at roughly $30 billion.

http://www.marssociety.org/home/about/faq

Necessity is the mother of invention. Clearly, there were some major technological hurdles that had to be overcome before we could send a man to the moon--and we did it in less than 10 years. Hubble has been cost-efficient but I think the main problem is that there been a lack of focus in NASA. A manned flight to Mars would, I think, revitalize the program. And the technologies we develop to enable the manned flight to Mars will justify the cost. Unmanned flight simply has far fewer technological hurdles to overcome hence less of a pay-off in civilian applications.

freeman3 wrote:Necessity is the mother of invention. Clearly, there were some major technological hurdles that had to be overcome before we could send a man to the moon--and we did it in less than 10 years. Hubble has been cost-efficient but I think the main problem is that there been a lack of focus in NASA. A manned flight to Mars would, I think, revitalize the program. And the technologies we develop to enable the manned flight to Mars will justify the cost. Unmanned flight simply has far fewer technological hurdles to overcome hence less of a pay-off in civilian applications.

Yes, but the manned missions crowd out funding for the unmanned activity. If NASA's budget was unlimited, I'd agree. However, they end up having fewer funds (and fewer scientists) working on the unmanned stuff. Which cost more: Apollo OR Cassini, Voyager, WMAP, Spirit, Opportunity, Cassini, Chandra, Viking, AND Hubble? (These are the other 9 in the 10 greatest science missions of NASA per this website.) http://www.space.com/6378-nasas-10-grea ... sions.html

By the way, the space shuttle cost over $200 billion. Hubble cost $2 billion (and no one died in the process). I concede that the Space Shuttle launched Hubble, but there were cheaper ways to get it there.) Wouldn't you rather have 100 more Hubbles? If we are able to find intelligent life on other planets, that will dwarf landing on the moon or flying to the moon in its significance.

You make some good points RJ but your analysis understates the role of human psychology in space flight, I think. We're goal-oriented--the problem with the shuttle program was that there was no real goal other than to have reusable shuttles. What kind of goal is that?The Apollo program had a specific and very difficult goal--and we accomplished it. Like the Manhattan program in WW II. Additionally, manned flight captures our imagination. I'm not sure the Apollo program crowded out unmanned funding but I am almost positive that if you took out the money for the Apollo program most of the money would not have been spent on unmanned missions.

Remember too that a huge part of the reason for going to the moon was not space exploration per se but to beat the Russians after Sputnik. (A side note: my biology teacher cited Sputnik as a reason she got into science as there was a reemphasis on promoting scientific careers as a result)

Ultimately, what are our medium to long-term goals for the space program ? To me in the medium-term it would be some kind of human colonies on other planets. If we're going to get very far in actually exploring we need to have faster ships. I'm not sure what the time horizon is on that but that would seem to be long- term. And unless we can find a way to exceed the speed of light our space exploration is going to be pretty limited (though it would be nice to know we're not alone and we could exchange information with other intelligent life). What if a Hubble telescope finds some evidence of life 1000 light years away? Ok, now what. We send a message that takes 1000 years to get there? In any case , the Hubble has done great things and if it did find some evidence of intelligent life that would be a greater accomplishment still but I guess I am unclear as to why having many more of them would lead to a far greater impact.

Anyway, I think the Mars mission fits human needs of being goal-oriented, captures the imagination of the public, and also will help find partial answers as to what is needed to colonize other planets. It will pose a lot of problems that human beings--who love solving problems-- will surely fix. Unmanned flight does not have to account for human beings, hence less problems to fix, hence fewer technological breakthroughs.

I agree with you S. about the inspiration Apollo has given countless people. And from a practical, political standpoint, if the Russians had beat the Americans to the Moon the diplomatic and political consequences would be far too terrible to contemplate. The USSR might still exist as a powerful rival (or even enemy). It was also likely necessary for our national "conscience". Think what was going on in 1969. The Vietnam war was raging. A few years later the President would resign because of his corruption and abuse of power. I don't see us getting through that as a nation without any shred of pride or self-esteem without the lunar landings. But for some reason, just as Apollo 18 was readying, we gave up on it. And I doubt it was because of Watergate or Vietnam that that happened.

And of course from a global perspective it was a kind of sense that, even though it was [mostly] one country whose money and efforts achieved it---though that's really not entirely true, plenty of help did come from other countries as well, such as the ground stations especially the one in Australia, there was actually a documentary about it---it was still an achievement of "mankind". And the plaque left on the lunar surface confirms this; it reads: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon" with the signatures of the Astronauts engraved on it (as well as President Nixon's).

But there are things which can inspire people's careers equally as well. I think the "eye candy" of the Voyager and Hubble space telescope projects could equally inspire people to want to go into related careers, that sort of thing you mentioned above.

Don't think I'm down on space exploration here. I own a telescope myself and it's far more inspiring to look at it yourself, live and real-time, than to get photographs (which as I mentioned are themselves pretty inspiring.) I wish I had been born good at math, it might have launched me on a totally different career path, to which I'm sure various space projects at NASA would have inspired me to do. I agree with that part.

However, I want to ask you about the Space Shuttle since you seem to know more about it than I do.

Exactly why was it a failure, as far as cost-benefit?

hacker

The USSR might still exist as a powerful rival (or even enemy).

Because they landed on the moon?
Communism, and particularly authoritarian communism, is a deeply flawed economic and social system that collapses because it cannot meet the needs of the people for development for a long period of time. Landing on the moon would have done nothing to change the fundamental problems inherent in communism.

Well perhaps you're right, Ricky. But it certainly would have given them at least something of a new lease on life--even if a very temporary one--and hurt the diplomatic prestige of the United States quite a bit. In the very least, one could say that the American landing on the Moon first (and the Soviets not at all) accelerated the process of the Soviet demise. I'm sure Russians were keen to wave the flag in a fervor of patriotism when Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth or when Sputnik was launched. That certainly bolstered support for the Soviet government and official ideology, wouldn't you think?

I agree, now that you mention it, a Soviet lunar landing would not have allowed Communism and the USSR to survive forever. But certainly it would have put a little ammunition in their political guns, just as those political guns were starting to run out of ammunition.

But I'd still like to hear about why the Space Shuttle program may have been something of a boondoggle. While I had been told it was enormously costly, it surprised me that S. actually came close to calling it, if not an actual boondoggle, at least a colossal waste of money that could have been achieved other ways.

I love Sam Seaborn's from the West Wing response on why we should go to Mars.

'Cause it's next. 'Cause we came out of the cave and we looked over the hill and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the West and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration, and this is what's next.

or what Tom Hanks (jim lovell) said in "Apollo 13": "imagine if Christopher Columbus had come back from the New World and we decided there was no need to go back" (something like that).

hacker

imagine if Christopher Columbus had come back from the New World and we decided there was no need to go back"

I guess I would be talking Ojibwa, and you some other language.. And slavery would never have blighted the world for the next 400 years.

Unless you're native it's likely I'd be living in Ireland (or Austria-Hungary!) and speaking something else. But let's not get into a whatif thread on this one, lol.

Mars is a laudable goal if it can be done without breaking the bank.

rickyp wrote:hacker

imagine if Christopher Columbus had come back from the New World and we decided there was no need to go back"

I guess I would be talking Ojibwa, and you some other language.. And slavery would never have blighted the world for the next 400 years.

Sometimes it seems like you are talking Ojibwa now.

The shuttle was a waste of money because it was always wholly unnecessary. You don't need a shuttle to get satellites into orbit, the Russians have managed just fine without one and NASA seems to cope with the loss of one now that they've all been grounded. What you had with the shuttle was a re-usable spacecraft. It was built because NASA had been facing criticism about the supposed waste involved in sending up vessels into orbit which were then dumped in the sea and abandoned. Ignorant people who ought to have known better were heavily critical of this practice and so it was decided that they'd spend an absolute fortune on developing the shuttle, which could then be sold to the public as an example of frugality and efficiency. The reality was the complete opposite. It was always far more efficient to send up the old Apollo capsules or their equivalent. The shuttle was nothing but a vastly expensive PR exercise.

Well, I say that, it actually had another purpose which probably weighed more heavily on the minds of the politicians who made the decision to fund the program. It enabled them to push billions of dollars into their favoured aerospace contractors. The old, reliable technology for getting men into orbit had already been developed so there were no more profits to be made by the big defence companies. That clearly wasn't acceptable,and so lobbyists got to work...

Interesting story on Zakkaria yesterday about potential "moonshots" .
One was the development of fusion energy. Another, the mapping of the human brain.
One potential for extraterrestrial exploration was "remote avatars."
Probably a good idea for a movie.

remote avatars?