Which again is cool, but useless. And actually counter-productive, because we risk contaminating Mars with organic stuff coming from the Earth.
Memory foam, smart phone cameras, tech miniaturization in general, GPS, baby formula, cordless tools... just a tiny sliver of things we use daily that are directly attributable to the pursuit of space travel.
It is far from useless
And the public is not fooled. Whatever benefits they got from Apollo (Tang? Zero-G pens?) were not worth the cost. But no matter how long the USA lasts, it will always be remembered as the country that landed humans on the moon.
This is a massive loss for real science.
My opinion is that landing humans on Mars could be the start of a new age of exploration, which would massively benefit humanity. And the risk of contamination is worth the potential reward.
That's just my opinion, of course, but it happens to be NASA's opinion as well.
Of course, not only they depend on it, but also they love doing that. And as an engineer of course I find it cool. That's not a reason to say it's useful though.
> landing humans on Mars could be the start of a new age of exploration, which would massively benefit humanity. And the risk of contamination is worth the potential reward.
How informed is that? Let me say two things:
1. There may have been life on Mars. That we could discover an analyse with robots. Now the day a human lands on Mars, this ruins it. If we ever find a trace of life on Mars after that, we will never know if we brought it there or not. In terms of science, that is a massive loss.
2. Are you aware that if we ever reach Mars, it's the final stop? The next solar system is more than 4 light-years away. At the speeds we can reach, it would take tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of years for a ship to get there. See the problem? And that's the closest one.
Going to Mars is not helping us go further: there is nothing further, just empty space. Unless we revolutionise fundamental physics (but sending humans to Mars does nothing in that direction, you need physicists to discover new theories for that).
So why go to Mars? You think we can bring an atmosphere there and make it like the Earth? We demonstrably cannot survive on Earth, and somehow you think that we can take an empty planet like Mars and build an Earth from scratch there? Really?
This is not an argument over facts. This is a difference in preferences. I'm not going to convince you to prefer what I prefer. And the reverse is also true.
NASA is currently following my preferences, so I understand your frustration. The only consolation I can offer is that landing humans on Mars does not guarantee contamination (and robots on Mars are a risk too). If there is extant life on Mars, it will be different enough to tell it apart from Earth microbes. And past life (fossils, etc.) cannot be destroyed by Earth contamination.
But as I said, this isn't an argument over facts.
Was the first automobile so slow and clunky it was useless, or did it lead to the F1 cars of today?
Was Alan Touring’s computer so slow it was useless, or did it lead to this comment being typed on a device that is many orders of magnitude faster and smaller?
Going to Mars will teach us a lot. In the future when we go further it will be useful in ways we can’t imagine today.
There. Is. No. Further.
That's my issue with all that. It's pretty basic: check how far the next solar system is (I know you don't: it's 4+ light-years). Check the speeds we get when we send something out of the solar system (e.g. Voyager).
Sending something to the next solar system at speeds orders of magnitudes faster than we reach today (which we can't reach because... orbital mechanics) would take us tens of thousands of years (hundreds of thousands actually, I can't remember and at this point it does not matter).
Unless someone discovers wormholes or a similar revolution in physics, we are not going to another solar system, period. Contaminating Mars is not even helping doing that. It's like hoping that the Wright brothers' work would help discover vaccination.
After the Wright brother’s flight do you think people thought we would cross the Atlantic faster than the speed of sound sipping champagne, or go to the moon? “Impossible”
And so on.
You have no idea what will be possible on the future, but I hope we can get there by learning, not sticking our heads in the sand.
What is the alternative, not go to Mars?
And over all: start recognising that there is no point in sending humans to Mars other than "uh uh it's cool we sent someone there and they came back alive".
I have nothing against the fact that it is cool. And I watched Artemis enthusiastically because it is really, really cool. What I hate is when people seem to be so sure that this is "the new age of space exploration" and we will become a "multiplanetary species".
It's trivial to check how far the next star is (more than 4 light-years) and realise that we would need thousands of years to reach it, and there is no Earth there.
Mars is the last stop, and going there doesn't bring us anything. Instead of that, we can do actual science. Did you follow Rosetta, landing on a comet? Because this is not only super cool, but also real science. But nobody gives a shit about that, because we want humans in space for some reason.
Fair point but if you want to inspire other humans you need to send humans not robots.
