Hi Adam -

When I checked in the mirror this morning, I was still E.P., though that is subject to chenge.

I have never been against manned Mars flight, but today my support is very weak. While once upon a time manned Mars flight was fairly important to me, it simply does not have that high a priority for me now. That makes me a heretic to Zubrinites of whatever denomination.

Mars is not Earth-like, and can not be made Earth-like.

While I like the fuel production on Mars aspect of it, I have always had great sceptisicism of the Mars Direct architecture, and this also makes me a heretic in the eyes of the Zubrinites, whether of the Mars Society or the Tumlinson sect therof.

It's a question of priorities. While CAPS is necessary, manned Mars flight is not. Further, the only way that manned Mars flight will EVER be done is if CAPS is done first. Why? While the general public will not pay for manned Mars flight alone, the infrastructure used for CAPS can later be used for manned Mars flight for a low marginal cost.

Additionally, the discovery of organisms on Mars may bring manned efforts there to a screeching halt, and I think that it is quite possible that such organisms may have evolved and survive today in the soil protected from radiation by several meters of Mars surface debitage.

What is good for CAPS is good for CAPS. What happens afterwards is open.

Furthrer heresy: If CAPS can be done with commercial launch vehicles, or clustered commercial launch vehicles, I do not need to see heavy launch vehicles developed. And while I appreciate the importance of the solid motors to regional economies, fine people making what is believed to be a fine product, I don't work for Thiokol as a lobbyist. IF, and this is currently open, the aluminum in these things is working as a catalyst in the freon-ozone reaction, and causing deaths by skin cancer, or affecting the climate in gross ways (no one looked at the atmospheric temperatures in the latest hurricanes, all focused on the water temperatures), I could live with their use ending. Further, given the nanoseconds involved in their failure, and the resultant lack of abort modes, the idea of using them to launch the one large nuclear reactor necssary for fuel production on Mars gives me pause.

Of course, I'm biased here. I have a cassette and micorcassette with interviews with Administrator Fletcher on the politics involved in how their use was adopted, and I're read the materials covering Thiokols lobbying efforts clean back to the days of the Saturn V in the early 1960's. I still don't know much about how Thiokol may have affected any effort to develop liquid boosters for the shuttle after Challenger, but right now I have my suspicions. Same goes for the RLV effort, and the clustered effort. Nixon offered Fletcher Titan III's as an alternative to the shuttle, but then Thiokol knew at that time that the Titan liquid boosters would be replaced with solids.

Finally, its a big world. While the Zubrinites think the US general public is willing to pick up the cost for this by themselves, I don't, and that further makes me a heretic.

Here at the zone, you have your True Believers and a heretic who infuriates them. The reason for this post was because the True Believers had simply lied to young Mr Vancil about the flight times involved in Aldrin cycling orbits. Its pretty stunning, but anybody who differs from Mars Direct, or the current implimentation effort, is a heretic, even a very highly skilled orbital mechanician.

Of course, none of this pertains to why these Mars enthusiats have adopted their cause with such a religious fervor. That may best be understood by reading "The Winged Gospel", which covers the aviation utopianism of the 1920's and 1930's.