Griffin: US Could Have Reached Mars 20 Years Ago
February 17, 2006
For further information about the Mars Society, visit our website at
www.marssociety.org.

Speaking in testimony to the House Science Committee yesterday, NASA
Administrator Mike Griffin said that the USA could have sent
astronauts to Mars by the early 1980's.

According to reportage on CNN:

Griffin countered [remarks by Rep Sherwood Boehlert, (R-NY)]that
NASA has a lot of ground to make up to implement the Bush
administration's plan to phase out the troubled space shuttle program
by 2010 and focus on building spacecraft capable of a return to the
moon by 2018 and later a mission to Mars.

"The United States did have these capabilities," Griffin said. "We
allowed them to atrophy. We proactively made decisions as a country
that caused those capabilities to go away.

"If we were sitting here today with the capabilities that this nation
had purchased as of the end of the Apollo program, we could go to
Mars within a decade. We have a decade's worth of hard work in front
of us just to be able to get back to where we were.">

Griffin's remarks completely debunk the assertions made in some
quarters that human missions to Mars are a goal for the far future.
Had sensible policies been pursued in the past, American astronauts
would have walked on Mars during Ronald Reagan's first term in
office, and the first children born on Mars a decade later might be
entering middle school - on Mars - right about now.

The task now is to move forward. NASA's attempt to resume human
exploration is being hamstrung by the fact that it is wasting nearly
its entire human spaceflight budget on the Shuttle program, which is
not contributing towards reaching for the Moon or Mars in any way.

Only one more Shuttle flight is really needed: that to repair and
upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. That mission should be flown
without further delay. After that, the Shuttle program should be shut
down, and its $5 billion per year budget moved over to fund the
development of a heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV) and the other
flight elements needed to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars. The
HLLV could also be used to launch and complete the International
Space Station much more rapidly than can be done through prolonging
Shuttle operations.

Provided this policy is implemented, humans may yet reach Mars in our
time.

An in-depth discussion of the space policy issues facing NASA will be
held at the 9th International Mars Society Convention, L'Enfant Plaza
Hotel, Washington, DC, August 3-6, 2006. Registration for the
convention is now open at www.marssociety.org. If you wish to present
a talk at the convention on any subject bearing on the exploration or
settlement of Mars, please submit an abstract of no more than 300
words to msabstracts@aol.com. Abstract deadline is May 31, 2006.

For further information about the Mars Society, visit our website at
www.marssociety.org.