I think repeatedly hitting the moon would have had the world shrugging, none of the sci fi was ‘hey we made it to the moon and… stayed there’.
A mission to the moon was a little under 2 weeks, a similar mission to mars would be well over two years. Sure, we could, but even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we’ve never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
Yes, the tech could be improved with more investment, but the sci-fi results of even settling mars is just unreasonably far out.
even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we’ve never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
It’s laughable how wrong this statement is. Someone else already posted about Magellan and Lewis & Clark, but there are SO MANY more examples in history. An expedition taking several years was the standard for centuries. One measured in months would have been considered pretty short until around the mid 20th century.
That is a fair point. There are still examples of multi-year expeditions without any stops for resupply, such as antarctic expeditions of the early 1900’s, but they are a lot fewer; and many of those didn’t turn out too great.
I suppose early antartic expeditions would be a decent comparison point, an exceedingly dangerous and long journey when people already know they almost certainly won’t find anything ‘nice’ there. I suppose we know more about Mars now than they did in the antarctic expeditions knew in advance, but I think they had the general idea of what they could possibly find as being grim enough to be doubtful of it being worth it.
I think repeatedly hitting the moon would have had the world shrugging, none of the sci fi was ‘hey we made it to the moon and… stayed there’.
A mission to the moon was a little under 2 weeks, a similar mission to mars would be well over two years. Sure, we could, but even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we’ve never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
Yes, the tech could be improved with more investment, but the sci-fi results of even settling mars is just unreasonably far out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition
It’s laughable how wrong this statement is. Someone else already posted about Magellan and Lewis & Clark, but there are SO MANY more examples in history. An expedition taking several years was the standard for centuries. One measured in months would have been considered pretty short until around the mid 20th century.
Ok, maybe I should have said single trips. Multi year expeditions involved many stops, a trip to Mars would be non stop.
That is a fair point. There are still examples of multi-year expeditions without any stops for resupply, such as antarctic expeditions of the early 1900’s, but they are a lot fewer; and many of those didn’t turn out too great.
I suppose early antartic expeditions would be a decent comparison point, an exceedingly dangerous and long journey when people already know they almost certainly won’t find anything ‘nice’ there. I suppose we know more about Mars now than they did in the antarctic expeditions knew in advance, but I think they had the general idea of what they could possibly find as being grim enough to be doubtful of it being worth it.
Not with nuclear thermal propulsion, it wouldn’t. Time to Mars is estimated at 45 days with them.