Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Case In Point - Funny You Don't See It

It's Not Easy to Breath 3 Minutes In Vaccuum Or Survive Seconds In a Fireball
Mark Eby — (archived)

These are the simple points you can't seem to grasp. What scenario to you see eliminating an eight months supply of food or an eight month's supply of air. If you put much thought at all into your arguments you'd see these scenarios would probably eliminate a three days supply as well.

Your backup life support system comment was dealt with above. Thanks for at least trying to make intelligent arguments this time around. And again life support must work whether you are going to the Moon or Mars.

Going to the Moon doesn't tell you if Mars soil is toxic.

You don't wait to get to Mars to find our if IRSU works in ANY serious Mars plan. These types of gross distortions are why it's real hard to take most Moon firsters seriously. The systems are sent and finish producing propellent BEFORE humans would even leave. Zubrin's plan still includes an entire second unit just in case the first is damaged after human launch, but the technology would have already been proven. Going to the Moon first doesn't tell you if ISRU will work on Mars either so your whole line of argument is both spacious and factually wrong.

Read a book on Apollo13. Despite being very close to Earth there were very serious doubts they would make it back and many critical junctures at which they could have failed to return. That margin was barely enough to save them and any small deviation at several junctures would have been fatal. A three days distance provides very little additional safety factor. Even slightly more damage would have been fatal despite the distance.

In short your arguments consist of listing dangers of exploring Mars while ignoring both that going to the Moon does not alleviate most of them and that the remaining dangers also exist in going to the Moon.

Regards,
Mark

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