Mars in our lifetimes?
It is hard to predict the future but lets take a look at our past. Before I do that I think a lifetime needs to be defined so we know what we are talking about...so for sake of argument if the average person lives to be 75 years old then that means in about 37 years half of us will be gone so if I pick 40 years from now more than half of us will not be around to see it so lets pick 40 years as our number.Looking at the past 40 years would put us at 1969...hmmm, right when we landed on the moon. The last man left the moon in December 1972. Eugene Cernan is, to date, the last man to have walked on the Moon. Just before he returned to the Lunar Module for the last time, he said,
"As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future”
Well 40 years later we have not returned. Right now the U.S. space program has a stated goal to return to the moon. In 2005 NASA briefed senior White House officials on its plan to spend $100 billion and the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018. U.S. President George W. Bush called in January 2004 for the United States to return to the Moon by 2020 as the first major step in a broader space exploration vision aimed at extending the human presence throughout the solar system.
The Bush administration tried to put manned exploration of the solar system back at the center of the agenda with the Constellation program. And despite talk that the program would be killed, Barack Obama’s Human Spaceflight Plans Committee said they have no plans to curtail the program. If Constellation does proceed as planned, astronauts will be heading to the moon sometime after 2020, with Mars to follow some years afterward. For those not good at math that’s 11 years from NOW at the earliest. Or about a quarter of the time we have to see it.
Of course we are ignoring other countries and pretending that the U.S. is the only country with at space program... that is not at all true. As a matter of fact in a few years the U.S. will join other non superpowers in the inability to put a man into orbit and will have to by that capability from other countries. China seems to have the best chance at leaving earth, Russia does not seem to care anymore, and Japan (JAXA) just seems to small to really count right now. Any of them could if the had the resolve to get to the moon but Mars in the next forty years.....forget it.
So that leaves the U.S. as the sole player who is anywhere near planning a real trip to Mars...so are we serious? In the last forty years we bearly had enough resolve to build the Space Station and it came close to dying several times, we almost lost Hubble, Earth Observation did get a good boost with the EOS system. In all that, nothing near what we need to get to Mars...or even the moon.
So no, if you take a cold hard look at it, unless you are very young, you will not see man on Mars, and the moon is a real question too. Even if you are young you may not see man on Mars. There are serious issues that have to be resolved, not the least of which is cost. We need new technologies to do it right and we are just not there. We are taking baby steps and we need leaps to make Mars happen. With the improvement in robotic missions and the lower cost the benefit of a man on Mars becomes more limited to the realm of that WWII chant “Were here because were here, because were here because were here”. The value added is limited to the desire of mankind do expand and explore first hand and maybe....relocate. I wish I could see the day that we stand on the red planet bit the realist in me tells me that it just won’t happen. We will be lucky to see man back on the moon.
The children of today have not lived in a time when they could feel the awe and pride of man standing on another body in space. What has the older generation done to inspire and promote the youth of today, what is the legacy we are giving our children....that is the topic for another article...to finish this one, the answer is ...no.
HELP MY WINDOWS WON’T OPEN!!!
When I hear those words it is usually not due to someone wanting some ventilation in the house it is due to someone’s computer locking up, I only wish it was someone wanting a breeze. Windows … Hmmmm the blessing of computing for the masses has resulted in the mental torment of the masses. Normal humans (not techno geeks like us….) gain enormous pleasure in getting the application of the week to run on their PC and call the kids, call the wife, girlfriend to see the results of their handiwork. We have all had it happen, the excitement of showing off the new software package dashed by a Windows crash. It did bring me a small level of satisfaction when Bill Gates was doing a Windows demo in front of a huge audience and got the infamous blue screen of death. When it happens to you it is less public but no less frustrating. The stability of Windows has always been it’s real Achilles heal and with the release of Windows 7 we are ever hopeful, yet again, that THIS version of Windows really IS stable. (Yes I am a dreamer). To put it in biblical terms Windows 95 begat Windows 98, and we saw that it was sort of good. Windows 98 begat Windows 2000 and we saw that it was good. Windows 2000 begat Windows CE Windows ME and Windows NT, and we saw that it was not so good. Windows CE ME NT begat Windows XP and we saw that it was good. Windows XP begat Windows Vista and we saw that it was BAD and immediately went back to XP! Windows Vista begat Windows 7 and we HOPE it is good!
We has been testing Windows 7 since the beta came out and yes, there is hope. So far we are impressed with the interface and the ease of installation. The systems seemed stable and at least as good as XP was…(isn’t it sad when we hope something is a good as an old version). So keep the faith, we have seen the Windows 7 Beta and now the release of Windows 7 and so far….it is good.
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