I’ve always been one of those who’s hated that we didn’t take what happened with the moon landings further than we did. I’ve never understood why we didn’t build a base on the moon. I’ve never understood why people aren’t there today. I’ve never understood why we didn’t set a goal for putting humans on Mars back then, as well.
I mean… okay… I do understand. We went to the moon in the first place because of the Cold War. It could be argued that we wouldn’t even have a NASA today if not for the Cold War, so…
But that doesn’t make the fact that we didn’t continue that momentum after the Cold War any less annoying. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s really sad that the Cold War was our only motivation.
But now…
Now, NASA’s new budget has been slightly increased, and they’ve been given a goal of putting people on Mars.
I should be excited by this. It’s something I support.
The problem?
From the Hill…
President Trump on Tuesday signed a bill authorizing funding for NASA while setting a new goal to send humans to Mars.
The president signed the bill in the Oval Office flanked by authors and sponsors of the bill, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
The law, known as the NASA Transition Authorization Act, gives the space agency $19.5 billion in funding for fiscal year 2018. It also asks the agency to create a plan to send a “crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s.”
Lawmakers also require NASA to create ways to “extend human presence, including potential human habitation on another celestial body and a thriving space economy in the 21st Century.”
NASA is receiving slightly more money than Trump requested in his 2018 budget blueprint. It included $19.1 billion for the agency, which would have been a modest funding cut.
So it looks like everything I’ve personally wanted for NASA is going to happen… under Agent Orange.
And I really don’t know how I feel about that…
Well…if the first colonists are all senior Republicans, I do not see a down side to the project especially if they can take some of our senior Tories.
It’s not going to happen; they’re just going to study it and develop core tech.
Trump probably thinks there’s an opportunity to develop real estate up there. He’s that ignorant. After all, you can grow potatoes on Mars!
Because it turns out that “making sci-fi fans’ fantasies come true” isn’t worth however many billion dollars it would take, and there are no other, more compelling reasons to do it.
I used to be excited by these sorts of ideas, but then I realised that they’re pretty much pointless. Sure, it would be really, really cool, but I’m no longer convinced that that’s a good enough reason.