![\"Mars,](\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7391\/9401648219_4040993111_o_d.png\")
<\/a>This afternoon\u00a0\u2013 during the girls (and Cochise\u2019s) nap time I shelled a basket of black beans.\u00a0 The yield was about a half of a zip-lock sandwich baggie of dried beans.\u00a0 A little disappointing, but under the weather conditions we\u2019ve had… eh, better than nothing at all, and there are many more bean plants to harvest yet.\u00a0 I\u2019ll probably get a jar full to tuck away for winter soup making.\u00a0 While shelling these I watched a YouTube video called Mars Underground<\/i>.<\/p>\nI was hoping it was a Sci-Fi movie.\u00a0 It started off like a sci-fi movie, then turned documentary.\u00a0 Then it started sounding like one of those conspiracy flicks and I expected them to say \u201cWe don\u2019t need to go to Mars, Martians are already here and in control of our Government.\u201d\u00a0 And I was prepared to believe it because that\u2019s one of the better excuses for the US government\u2019s insane behavior.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
What it turned out to be is an accounting of America\u2019s \u201cPlan\u201d to get to Mars.\u00a0 The reason I thought it was fiction at first was because NASA was laying out some pretty ambitious plans to put humans on Mars even before they had made it to the moon.\u00a0 Then they started talking about Project Mars.\u00a0 I remembered a little about that.<\/p>\n
The film interviews a number of people, but mostly focuses on aerospace engineer and author, Dr. Robert Zubrin who was excited by the launch of Sputnik when he was a kid, decided he wanted to be involved in space exploration and got himself a good education heavy on science and engineering.\u00a0 He landed a job with Martin Marieta (now Lockheed Martin) and set about making his dream come true.<\/p>\n
The Grand Plan for Mars<\/h1>\n
About that time NASA started talking about a grand plan to get to Mars.\u00a0 But it involved building a base on the moon and a space station in lunar orbit where ships would be assembled that would go to Mars.\u00a0 Lots of folks got excited.\u00a0 But when they presented Congress with the 455 billion dollar price tag (making it the second most expensive project ever; just behind World War II) Congress had a coronary and kicked the plan under the table.<\/p>\n
Dr. Zubrin was sent off to fly around the country to pitch the plan to NASA.\u00a0 They loved it.\u00a0 Or, the engineers did.\u00a0 When it got to the hierarchy, they snubbed it.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the Mars Direct plan snubbed their pet projects like the ISS.\u00a0 One of the reasons the NASA plan was so outrageous was that it needed to include everyone\u2019s pet project to get their support.\u00a0 So the NASA bosses kicked Mars Direct under the table.<\/p>\n Dr. Zubrin goes on at some length about how current (2008-2011) administration is \u201cdrawing dragons on the map\u201d to scare people away from wanting to leave L.E.O., saying \u201cIt\u2019s just too dangerous out there.\u00a0 We\u2019re not ready.\u201d\u00a0 Zubrin is probably underplaying it, NASA is probably over playing it.\u00a0 The truth is in there somewhere.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done a recent article on the dangers of deep space travel<\/a>. It is<\/i> dangerous.\u00a0 But so are a lot of things.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve done one of a Dutch firm that has picked up the baton and is well on the way to putting people on Mars<\/a>.\u00a0 The Dutch firm as a very high chance of actually doing it for two reasons:\u00a0 1) They are not involving ANY government nor asking for any public funds.\u00a0 It\u2019s all done as a private enterprise.\u00a0 2) They\u2019re not coming back.<\/p>\n Not having to provide for a return trip slashes the cost by 2\/3rds.\u00a0 They\u2019re not astronauts, they\u2019re colonists.\u00a0 Anyone who signs up goes to stay.\u00a0 I wonder if Zubrin will be among them.<\/p>\n Dr. Zubrin draws a lot of comparisons between the push for Mars and the original discovery and settling of North America.\u00a0 Sailing the oceans at that time was very dangerous and fraught with unknowns: dragons on the map.\u00a0 Conditions aboard the ships of the day were harsh, many died.\u00a0 But they came anyway.\u00a0 Gutting the American space program after the Apollo missions was a little like Christopher Columbus coming back from his first voyage with good news and gifts only to have Queen Isabella say, \u201cNo, I\u2019ve changed my mind\u2026 burn the ships.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Zubrin and his\u00a0team reviewed the now defunct plan and were amazed at the immense complexity of the monstrosity.\u00a0 Not only was it outrageously expensive, it would take many decades to complete.\u00a0 Not a viable plan in the modern world of politics where any single plan can have funding withdrawn at a moment\u2019s notice by a change in leadership.\u00a0 They came up with a plan that used off-the-shelf hardware and would put men on Mars in 10 years or less\u2026 and cost 1\/10th what NASAs plan would.\u00a0 They called it Mars Direct.<\/p>\nMars: the New World<\/h1>\n