A look see indeed! With the speculation over the Martian meteorite and weither it contained signs of life or not, mankind's interest has been piqued that little bit. Maybe even enough to inspire the actual voyage. This is why NASA is so interested in finding if there is water present. It is hard to sustain a team without out it if you have to haul all that mass with you. Yes, you can use fuel cells, whose by-product is water, but it simply isn't enough by itself. It would be easier to haul that water than to try and make by such means. There doesn't seem to be enough oxygen unless it is bound up in the soil with other elements. It is hard to realize just how much water a person consumes each day in one form or another unless you don't have any. Without doing laundry (a huge water consumer) the average Joe will use somewhere is the neighborhood of 8 gallons a day. Not a lot huh? But water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon, times the length of time to get there and back, plus ever how many are on the team. At that scope it becomes another ball game. So the more resources are there the less will be used in fuel/time to get there. But right you are, it is indeed worth a look see.
Well, I think that given the technical(as in life support), phisiological and mechanical(by,incomplete prediction of the required exercise and feeding along so much time,the effects of the lack of gravity etc) and psychological stresses to endure in such a long-as - never- made trip in relation with the potential time improvement in the investigation of Mars against the robotic probes,does not worth the risk of human lives at all;although the accumulation of particular evidences in the antarctic meteorite(if not contaminated),looks very appealing,Mars will be still there,let s keep on with robots,and go in person when is safe...
Rich Brown1b Astronomy 1010 and Geology 210 Hello,Iam a member of the Planetary Society and my membership is on the Planetary Society's MIllennium 2000 Directory. I have named a crater on the asteroid Eros [ The Peuerbach crater], and My my name is on the Cassini Huygen satellite probe to arrive at Saturn's moon Titan in 2004 [Team Captain Richardo Brown/ Clinton - Gore 96]. In the Directory I predicted that Earthlings will settle Mars in 2013
Planetary Society While sometimes I speculate on the negitives to be solved, let me say that I hope you are correct. Nothing would please me more. It is facisnating what the Planetary Society is doing with the solarsail stuff. It's about time someone took interest in it! A cheap way to power craft around the system.
