The video clip below doesn’t show just anybody predicting settlements on Mars, but Pete Worden, Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. Now I’ll grant you that gives us a good fifty years to get there — but what kills me is that we have the technology today to do this, or to at least get started trying. In fact part of the problem I think is that NASA is just spread too thin; I’d love to see the agency with a single focus on manned space exploration with a realistic budget to match. But alas that could be fifty years off in the current political climate…

In this video planetary scientist Joel Levine states his case why we need to explore Mars. Levine feels that the geography of Mars makes the case for exploration — if we really want to understand our Earth and the idea of extraterrestrial life exploring the red planet is the best place to start. I think that given the state of NASA as geeks we really need to get our voices heard to accelerate this as a priority for our space program.

Not so long ago congress was picking apart NASA chief Charles Bolden for not having a solid plan for space exploration: This is putting the blame in the wrong place which belongs with congress. Frankly a trip to Mars or even just the Moon requires a huge financial investment. Unlike the 60s NASA is highly invested in an ancient space shuttle fleet that’s due to expire and a huge stake in a space station which is in mid-life, not to mention dozens of other side projects which involve everything to investigating climate change to send probes to the furthest reaches of the solar system.

Above: Keeping the space station flying until the year 2020 is already eating up a huge amount of money for NASA — and the space shuttles need to get there are well overdue to be replaced.

So it’s wrong to ask NASA to have a plan to go to Mars unless you’re coming to the table with money — in fact tons of money. Frankly giving NASA an extra 10% (which they aren’t getting) won’t do the trick, you’d have to double or triple their yearly budgets. And frankly NASA hasn’t seen that level of investment since the 60s. Add to that mix is the fact that the states that directly benefit from NASA are Florida, Texas and Alabama which re all places that have swallowed the notion that big government projects are evil while gladly reaping the benefits.

Above: Accounting for inflation in 2005 dollars the Apollo program would cost $135 billion.

Telling Bolden to come up with a plan isn’t what’s needed — what’s required is for those in congress to put up the cash or shut up. The previous strategy from the Bush era was to take the money and say something ridiculous like “we’ll get to the moon in twenty years and then to Mars in forty years”. A space program isn’t like a credit card that you pay off once a month over the course of years — pulling off a manned space mission is a serious engineering task which has to be done in a huge push. In that way a moon or Mars mission is no different than digging the Panama Canal or putting up the Empire State Building. Saying that you’re going to Mars in more than twenty years is really saying that you’re not doing anything.

Above: The Chinese space program doesn’t have to beg for money.

And least we forget there is a real space race on the horizon: Within the next five to ten years we’re going to watch China land on the moon. And what’s sad about this is that it’s an indication of a larger issue which is that as a nation we seem to be afraid to invest in science. Congress needs to get serious about the investment required to not just get NASA to Mars but to keep America on the cutting edge of technology.

This is a nice video that sums up the work of the Opportunity rover on Mars which was expected to be a 90 day mission, but that has been going string for six years. Of course my frustration watching this video is that one wishes that humans had made the trip instead of a robot — but the images are still impressive.

It’s impressive to see NASA send these cute toys to explore Mars to wander about — but the damn things always seem to break down. It’s frustrating to watch knowing that humans wandering about in spacesuits could be much more productive. I’ll grant you that the cost is much great, but it’s sad to me that the United States doesn’t seem to be serious yet about going to Mars. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that Obama gives NASA a budget boost, but NASA needs more than a gentle increase: It’s time to aim high again…

This interview with Buzz Aldrin is from my favorite local news source NY1 (they have the best coverage of everything from the state of the subway to local political issues). Shelley Goldberg usually does their kids coverage so while this isn’t on her beat she does an A+ job of talking with an Apollo astronaut about some heavy topics in a very short amount of time.

I just finished reading an amazing essay by Buzz Aldrin — Buzz of course is the second human to have walked on the surface of the moon during the Summer of 1969. Aldrin is currently pushing his book new book Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon, but what has warmed my heart is that instead of reliving the past he’s pushing for the idea that NASA needs to aim higher and not just land on Mars, but build a space colony there:

“What we truly need is not more Cold War-style competition but a destination in space that offers great rewards for the risks to achieve it. I believe that destination must be homesteading Mars, the first human colony on another world.

By refocusing our space program on Mars for America’s future, we can restore the sense of wonder and adventure in space exploration that we knew in the summer of 1969. We won the moon race; now it’s time for us to live and work on Mars, first on its moons and then on its surface.”

The first thing I can think of when reading this is “President Obama you’ve got to do this!” Yes I know the same old excuses — we’re in the middle of an economic crisis and are fighting two wars abroad. Yet if you look back at the 60s it was a much more chaotic era and we seemed to be doing so much more with space exploration.

Frankly now is the logical time to reboot NASA: The era of the space shuttle is over and we already see China taking steps toward the moon and India tagging not so far behind. I’d say to let China revisit the moon, chances are they’ll beat us there any way. Instead of recreating a 60s space race with China why not do something new and go to Mars instead? Yes it’s much harder than revisiting the moon, but that’s what makes it a worthy project.

The good news is that Peter Smith who led NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission predicts that within ten years we’ll find life on other planets — but the bad news for us fanboys with hopes of hanging out with Vulcans and Klingons is that E.T. may be a clump of lowly microbes sitting underneath a rock on Mars. Smith made this prediction during his recent “Journey of the Phoenix” presentation at the University of Delaware which included images from the Phoenix which touched down on the Martian arctic last year.

Although the Phoenix discovered no life, according to Smith the Martian arctic is similar to the Dry Valleys of Antarctica where tiny organisms can survive. And while the Phoenix Mars Mission didn’t find alien life forms confirmed the presence of frozen water just below the planet’s surface. In addition to that water the probe identified nutrients in the soil that could sustain microbes. Smith said “We’re ardently searching for evidence of life on our closest planet, I think it’s coming, I really do — at some point, we’ll turn over a rock, and by gosh there it is.”

The Phoenix came to an end on November 2nd last year when after several months Mars started to get cloudy and snowy causing the solar power for the spacecraft to dwindle and thus the Phoenix Mars lander entered the “Sleeping Beauty” mode. However Smith is optimistic, and said that the next mission to Mars will include a large rover the size of a MINI-Cooper, with big tires, which would last at least five years and travel to places of high interest, such as the edge of a canyon.

Smith also predicted that it’s only a matter of time until humans travel to the red planet. According to Smith this may happen within this century or a thousand years from now — but it is inevitable. In this video from October from last year Smith makes the case for further exploration:

Below Peter Smith at his April 16 University of Delaware lecture “Journey of the Phoenix” (Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson/University of Delaware):

Story source found via eurekalert.org.

In January the Mars rover program will turn five years old — it’s quite amazing to think how much we’ve learned about the red planet in such a short amount of time. To me this program is yet another argument why we should focus on a manned trip to Mars rather than returning to the moon.

As a new administration comes in I’m starting to see NASA push hard for the idea of returning to the moon. My own feeling is that this is going backwards, and people should speak up about it now. Frankly my larger worry is that in view of a major economic downturn that NASA will have their budget chopped yet again — and what sad is that there hasn’t been any serious investment in the program for almost forty years now. So here are my ten reasons why we should try to land on Mars by 2018 instead of going back to 1969:

1. Chances are very strong that China will get to the moon well before we do.

2. A lunar project is just a huge distraction if you’re serious about going to Mars.

3. We know for a fact that there’s no chance that life can live on the moon, this isn’t the case with Mars.

4. The Steven Hawking argument: If humans are serious about becoming dinosaurs Mars is the first logical place for colonize, so why not take our first baby steps?

5. It may take us twenty years to get to Mars — on a purely selfish level I’d like to live to see that in my lifetime.

6. From a scientific point of view we can learn as much from Mars as we can about the moon.

7. Returning back to the moon won’t inspire a new generation of scientists the way a trip to Mars would.

8. NASA does best when it has a single strong focus, a Mars project would give them a long term sense of mission that they don’t have now.

9. We’d have to invent a great deal of new technology to go to Mars, this would have a wealth of benefits in terms of spinoffs.

10. Because it is hard! Take a look at the 1961 Kennedy speech and tell me that you don’t feel ashamed about going back to the moon: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”

It turns out that NASA has discovered that under soil of Mars there are huge glaciers — what cool about this is that it means that a future manned visit to the red planet would be much easier to pull off. Scientists are now trying to figure out just how the ice got there in the first place, but to me that’s yet another argument why NASA should be focusing on a Mars mission instead of returning back to the moon (which China and India are already doing as we speak).

Here’s the the full story:

NASA Spacecraft Detects Buried Glaciers on Mars

“NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the Red Planet.

Scientists analyzed data from the spacecraft’s ground-penetrating radar and report in the Nov. 21 issue of the journal Science that buried glaciers extend for dozens of miles from the edges of mountains or cliffs. A layer of rocky debris blanketing the ice may have preserved the underground glaciers as remnants from an ice sheet that covered middle latitudes during a past ice age. This discovery is similar to massive ice glaciers that have been detected under rocky coverings in Antarctica.”

Everyone is mourning the loss of the Phoenix lander due to the harsh Martian winter, however I’m quite impressed with how this mission lasted much longer than anyone could have predicted:

Probe ends historic Mars mission

“NASA says its Phoenix lander on the surface of Mars has gone silent and is almost certainly dead. Engineers have not heard from the craft since Sunday 2 November when it made a brief communication with Earth. Phoenix, which landed on the planet’s northern plains in May, had been struggling in the increasing cold and dark of an advancing winter.”

My fanboy hope is that one day the work of this lander will lead to a live expedition to the red planet…