This is in reply to: <a href="http://www.habitablezone.com/space/messages/294547.html'>Thank you
Mary, Robert and Everyone;

Your feedback is always welcome. Debate is welcome, by me and anyone with an open mind.

Barry and Ed don't care to debate. I don't know why they don't debate. Either it would show their lack of knowledge or how erroneous their logic is... The argument Ed and Barry gives that Mars Nuts are delusional doesn't stand review. I'm willing and able to change my views with a reasoned debate. If Ed has proof that as we see more images of Mars people tend to be less interested in manned Mars mission this would be of interest to me. That he has never proven the case show me that he has is wrong. That Barry can only quote the same paragraph from a 10 or 15 paragraph article over and over says something about what he lack of interest in debate. I have shown to any reasonable person that our simulations are Human Factors engineering. There are many reasonable questions about our simulations. Non of which are based on wether we use duct tape or not.

Barry only picks on the trappings of the simulations. Like the costumes and props of a play are more important than the play itself. This is because he knows nothing of Human Factors engineering and doesn't really want to learn anything about it. He has no real bases for critic. Yet he is willing to criticizes without it. I don't respect him and I think rightly so. For similar reasons I don't respect Ed. Certainly not since he tried to tell me that mechanical counterpressure space suits were physically impossible! Oh, maybe a little earlier when he would never give me a straight answer on his claims about statistics...

The whole point in defending the Mars Society from these fallacious attacks is to protect our validity as an organization. Barry and Ed are slandering us, Mary! Barry charges we are there for the money. Ed charges we are delusional and a cargo cult. Both these charges have to be addressed and I have tried to show how we are doing valid science. Anyone with half a brain or experience working for nonprofits knows we have lots of bills, few donations and few paying members relative to the bills. The Euro Hab is siting in a storage building because nobody has the money to ship it off to Europe. The storage isn't donated, it cost us a great deal of money. We know reality very well we know our limits very well. As I've said many times we will increase fildelity of our work at FMARS and MDRS over time.

You got to ask your self why do Barry and Ed really attack the Mars Society and anyone interested in manned missions to Mars. Why are they trying to marginalize us? I don't think it is their stated reasons...

Barry's claims of danger of contamination are like some medieval priest pontificating on flight..."we can't build a heavier than air machine that can fly like the birds. That is a simple fact!" The whole point of sending people to Mars is it will stretch our ablities. It will introduce us to new ways of thinking about all sort of things like dust, life, materials science and it will create a need for more engineers and scientists.

The contamination of Earth or Mars is avoidable with more knowledge of the red planet and what is needed to protect us and Mars, if it is needed at all. It is an engineering problem, ask Tom Brosz or any of the engineers here.