Thank you for your input!

Political and governmental means use to be the only way to bring people into space. I beleive the public scientific knowledge has finally reached a critical level for the general entreprenuer to be capable of making manned flight vehicles and launch facilities. It's happening already and will remain so providing sound economic backing and a strong economy. There are too many of us (space geeks) out there to let this dream die easy.

The error in your poll is that it assumes the only way to get there is with government funding. Using this assumption and focusing on the the U.S., a manned mission to Mars is highly unlikely unless there is a military need to go there (and I can't think of any reason for this). NASA is irrelevant because its been part of their plans a number of times and never received the proper funding. The analysts, the associations, the media, and the public are all irrelevant in the discussion -- otherwise, there would be more interest. You can even say the President is irrelevant because it's been suggested before. At the end of the day, the only way to make it happen (and I'm not saying I am in favor of spending the money to go) is if a majority of Congress was in favor (and I don't see this happening) or if there is a military need.

Many of my responses to this survey were "neutral" as many of the actors, while very influental, can use that influence either way. For instance, the media is very influential, but can be either very discouraging or very encouraging. Also, several of these factors/actors while definitely enhancing advocacy, will only do so if they happen; i.e focussing events or a percieved threat to national security.

The survey was a bit confusing, I must admit. I hope I answered these properly.

My problem in principle is the overwhelming belief among regular folks and less sophisticated space advocates that the government should spearhead human spaceflight activites as a follow on to the Apollo-style approach.

There needs to be a reeducation regarding this matter. Human migration into space requires all sectors, to be sure, but the commercial sector will represent the bulk of activity in the long term. We need to understand the roles of each sector and determine the appropriate roles for each according to American tradition and the law. I talk more about this on my website if interested (http://www.philsmith.us/PhilSmith5.html).

I really thought your survey was very unclear. Unclear questions will lead to unclear results. I would encourage you to reformat your questions.

Also I concur with the other people who posted in this forum... ask anyone in the NewSpace companies if they thought the government was going to execute manned Mars missions... and they would say, "Yes, but not in my lifetime!". Commercial entities will take us out into space and onto Mars... not government initiatives.

The establishment of a space infrastructure is essential for the long term colonization of space. Missions to Mars before such an infrastructure is established is inherently dangerous. Buzz Aldrin has put forth the concept of Cycler Orbiters which can be used as shuttle vehicles from Earth to Mars. See the Space Station With Gravity article posted on my website to learn more about the establishment of a space infrastructure. The public must have a change in their attitude to develop a space infrastructure. There must be a real desire to colonize space. An event such as an asteroid or comet strike would serve to motivate humanity to reach out to space. Attitudes such as those of the socialists who want to spend all monies on welfare and social programs will always be a problem for those of us which want to go forward into the future as a space faring nation. Support for any space colonization program must be made superior to the luddite view that we don't need to go to space. I work at a University and it is always amazing to me how little support there is by the staff for space colonization. I have many fellow Physics professors who have clearly stated that they consider space exploration to be a waste of money. Some of these ignorant professors have very publicly stated that they do not want any manned programs. They want only robotic missions, i suspect because they think that they will maintain control over budgetary and programatic exploration. A manned program would not be good for them as they think there is no financial gain to be had. They have many times stated in discussions that no money can be made in space - so the only monies will be government monies. It is very much like the loony left teachers unions who see competition as a threat to their control over the education of young people. The same way vouchers takes power away from left wing teachers, a manned program would take power away from left wing professors who see all research as their own personal arena, which in their view is something that they are solely capable of doing with any validity. Working with loony left professors is very aggravating and discouraging. They are not the only people in the world who have a right and ability to pursue these goals. A capitalist such as myself is looked upon as a pariah by these morons.

I have to agree with many of the posted comments that the survey itself creates the impression that only some massive government-led, New Deal-style effort can get us to Mars. Had true private sector innovation and capitalism (as opposed to cronyism for big contractors) been allowed to flourish in the 1970s and 1980s, we would probably be much further ahead today in answering the problems of getting payloads into orbit more cheaply and designing sustainable space environment life support solutions, i.e, the factors that would make space travel (and subsequent colonization) a more routine and practical matter that is also profitable.

No offense meant, but you really need to get a native English speaker to rephrase your questions. You must realize that when you ask a poll question, it's not like asking a question in conversation, because the listener has no chance to ask you for clarification when a point is ambiguous or puzzling. And it's not like discussing science or technology issues, because there aren't any equations to help clarify the language. So your questions need to be absolutely crystal clear. You really need the help of someone who is an expert on all the subtle shades of meaning in written English.

Presidential declaration, miltary threat or compelling scientific evidence are not individually significant factors in motivating a human Mars mission. Combined, they may be, as was the case with the 60s Moon Race. Furthermore the increasing cost of energy globally, effecting the cost of all other things, will put the mission out of reach for individual nations for the near future. Private industry cannot provide the capital for the mission or have the incentive to maintain it. This will have to be an international effort, guided by motivated individuals, working at times against perceived public opinion and political will. Funding may come from any number of sources - governmental and private - and must have an organizational depth enabling continuity regardless the upheavals, natural, political or otherwise, encountered.

Fabio

Recommend to read "Blueprint for Space: Science Fiction to Science Fact" by Frederick Ordway and Randy Liebermann. Offers some interesting insights on "political readiness" in the historical context of the dawn of the space age.

Kind regards
Markus

There will be no human mission to Mars without the majority support of Congress, and this can't exist without the support of the public, and the public won't support it without encouragement from the major media. Individual and group advocacy is important for the long term (and would be extremely important if Congress were actually considering the issue) but does not have the power to bring it about.

I did not know how to rate "events" because it all depends on what events. I see only two things that could bring about media and public support (and thus congressional support) within the next 25 years: a) the discovery of life on Mars, or b) the launch of a human mission to Mars by some other nation. If either of those things were to happen, public attitudes would change very quickly. We wouldn't have gotten to the moon if it hadn't been a race, and won't get to Mars without one unless the public believes there is life there.

I found this survey useful if somewhat clumsy in its implementation and naive in its choice of options. Most polls of the political climate for the Mars exploration show support to be a mile wide and and an inch deep. The pitiful tendency of American citizens, and hence their reflected views in business and government, to always seek a cheap and short term answer to any technical question lies at the heart of the problem for space exploration.
Any real prospect for meaningful exploration programs will depend on finding ways to stimulate long term thinking. Conversely, changes in American socio-economic institutions to provide long term thinking and sound technical growth will tend to encourage space exploration because it is one natural arena where innovation can show its worth.

The survey instructions and background information were sorely lacking in detail, and the descriptions for each "question" were very poorly worded. I would encourage you to work with a native English speaker and re-structure/write your survey. What is the main purpose of the survey?

For example, in the first section, were we supposed to assign a rank (1-13) for each item so that each had a unique number (no two could be 5, for example), or could any of them range from 1-13? The meaning was unclear. If the latter was the case, then why did you have 13 divisions in the first place? 4 or 5 would be sufficient in my opinion.

I'm also not sure what you're getting at in your items dealing with "control of single political party and majority Congressional support". I think you're lumping too much in one basket here. At least explain what you mean rather than leaving it up to the interpretation of the survey taker.

Fabio,
Great job with the survey. I agree with one of the previous comments that the survey is a bit confusing, but I think once you sit down and give some thought to it -- the bugs work themselves out. I wanted to point out my personal opinion on all of this -- first, check out this article (http://www.space.com/news/ft_060331_nasa_china_congress.html). It talks about how the US is losing the unofficial space race to China. A few of the questions in your survey touched on the importance of "winning" a "space race". Wether it be pride, a security threat, political agendas, or just public support that ultimately pushes the US beyond LEO again, I agree with Rep. Dave Weldon that "We need to do more." Ya, we have a space program. Sure, we are excited about "exploration" and are busying ourselves with building a new infastructure in support of the President's vision for space exploration -- but if we don't pay attention and look up from our text books and arguements amongst ourselves, the US will not be the first back to the moon and will surely not be the first to Mars. And maybe its not about being first, maybe it's about working together -- but if that's the case, we aren't doing that very well either. I'm excited and re-energized when I meet folks like you and the other people I met at ISU who have a real vision and passion for human spaceflight. You are one of the few in the industry, I believe, that really "get it". You haven't forgotten that this is more than a 9-5 job and that arguing about petty details is unimportant. You know that it's a bigger project than any one nation can take upon themselves and you know it takes more than one presidential term to make it happen. I'll be interested to read your thesis after you finish it and see what everyone else out there thinks! Good job Fabio...

Whatever the subject is, money is always gonna bee an issue. Based upon this fact it is in my opinion indispensible to first take care of the environment on planet Earth, and its life. However,I believe that space studies can help us grow in science in general and therefore also in a way that can contribute to new knowledge of how to create a less polutet environment for the future. Maybe we can in the future create sorts of transportatioin that will take over for out todays airlplanes. And we might also be able to create public transportation maybe even automobile like transport based on knowledge that origin from space studies and expeditions.
If scientists within this field can come up with bypotheses in wich they can show great possibilities for this common goal. Yes, my opinion is that we have to spend more resources on space studies and also expeditions to get som experience.

I understand why you structured your survey the way you did. It's hard to quantify the opinions of a large number of people without putting the questions in the multiple choice form you did. I also think it makes it hard to get the nuances that are important summarized correctly. I wish you luck with the results.

Hi Fabio

The survey is an interesting idea and I hope you get useful feedback from it (although I think the comments will give you more fuel than the survey statistics)

Here is what I think could be required to flesh out views a little - counter or deeper questions if you like ...

First there is the issue Jim mentioned - the survey essentially assumes a NASA-led US-led initiative. However, do you think that a governmentally led and endorsed US mission to Mars is the only way?
Why I say this is the following:
Governmental lead did precious little to further the initiative to space tourism, which has also been implemented almost exclusively with non-US assets.
Strongest advocacy for Mars seems to be found outside NASA in the US, just as in the case for space tourism.
The US manned space program is arguably foundering whilst the robotic program is scoring spectacular successes.
It could be argued that the only successful regular manned space program (i.e, meeting anything like the requirements for transportation that a Mars mission would need) is the Russian, and that the hope for further large achievements in space belongs equally to Russia, China and India given their ability to draw on, in the former case, spectacularly successfull KISS infrastructure, and in the latter cases, the same sort of national pride motivation that took the US and USSR to space and the US to the Moon.
Of course, meeting this sort of nationally lead program from China might be the political motivation for the US to reengage in manned space seriously again.

The second issue that you did address, but in a way that seems not so direct, is what should I feel be at the top of all political agendas (but is not for most cases, greatly to the global community's detriment): The environment.
Like it or not, it is the key issue of this century. We did not follow the spectacular success of the early space race and the rewards of the overview effect by weaning ourself off fossil fuels and getting serious about a sustainable economy (both environmentally and ethically). This leads to various problems, which you did touch on:

First is the need to protect national dependency on dwindling resources by spending as much or more as converting to a sustainable economy would have cost - this includes both the direct costs of the assets, the indirect costs of protecting them, and the indirect indirect costs of having to deal with the results of decades of such policies generating large groups of discontents with the means to wage dirty war globally. Having declared permanent war this makes it very difficult to direct funds to other large national programs (for the US). Notable in the wind-down to the Apollo program was both the publics shift of attention and the financial drain of Vietnam.
It is not for nothing that Michael Foale compared the cost of the Iraq War (not the occupation, just the war) to a Mars Mission. NASA could have hired Zubrin and be well on the way by now, to put it crudely.

All this might be counteracted by the fact that the US military is currently in clover in terms of financing for advanced 'defence' (and even offense) research, which generally is very positive for space activities, to the extent that it spins off to the civilian declassified world. However this spin factor is mostly useful to unmanned mission and reconnaisance / surveying, I would contend.

Secondly there is the fact that blind adherence to the fossil fuel basis is ignoring, and therefore stoking fuel onto, the major problem of the resulting environmental decay, which together with demographic pressures is leading to 'natural distasters' and even 'natural man-made disasters' becoming a potential dominating factor politically. Hurricane Katrina is a great example of this. A major US quake or another Category 5* hurricane hitting equally unprepared regions can seriously dent the ability of the US or any other major country contributing to a serious governmental Mars program.

A further issue with the environment - do we have the resources left? I do not think we are about to run out of anything critical to build spacecraft directly, but at what point does this become an issue - where the availability of specialist metals for example prevents the sort of large scale project. This also could be a powerful motivating factor. Mining the asteroids might become as financially attractive as collecting Helium 3 from Regolith would be as soon as He-3 fusion becomes reality...

A final thought here. I would be concerned that 'we' are not producing enough of the right stuff in terms of numbers of educated and open-minded technologists and others to actually make another Apollo feasible. But this is only a gut feeling.

Now as to what I think will happen. Even though it is a problem orders of magnitude greater than achieving private sub-orbital flight, it may well be that sufficient private money and exasperation and lack of political vision combine to make the final manned Mars mission a private venture. Hopefully a genuinely global such, not a corporate prospecting mission or such, but this cannot be ruled out.
A wildcard that might support this is the renaissance of space interest and investment following a successful delivery on the nascent space tourism industry's sub-orbital dreams...
A very possible route would be private financing with Russian hardware and American and European Innovation.
The only alternative I can see is that the US Gov leadership gets sufficiently concerned / paranoid in a national security type of way to engage in a new space race with China and possibly India. Hopefully without having to divert via another (however weak) gravity well, of the Moon.
I am fully convinced that China will continue its program and can even see a China vs India to the Moon race scenario (perhaps this is why the US wants to divert)
There is even a small chance that another country or alliance of countries (read China possibly plus India and Russia) could do it before the 'west'
Preferably though there will be some sense reached and the whole thing done as it should be, as a truly global and non-nationalistic endeavour.

I fear though that we won't get there in time, unless we do something to change the underlying economic/environmental/ethical realities.

Sorry for a very long post. Hope it helps

Regards

Alan Pritchard
SSP 95, TA 99, MSS 2000.