So, are you guys out hiring new war reporters to cover the about-to-begin new war with Iran?  I wouldn't delay.  How funny it is the things that a war criminal like Bush will do when left in power.  We simply wake up one morning and BANG there it is "Tehran Bombed: U.S. uses own WMD on sovereign nation!"  I've asked desperately before and I'll do so again.  PLEASE do an in-depth report on just how strong the Iranian military is and why the American people should not be so complacent about even the remote possibility of the U.S. starting yet another even more bloody war.  Iran is probably 20 TIMES stronger than Iraq was after it suffered its desert storm defeat and a 13-year arms embargo.  It is a dangerous path to tread to think that our armies cannot be beaten or that we can do no wrong.

As you know I could not be more AGAINST 'humans to mars' in this timeframe.  I think the two Mars rovers have aptly demonstrated the potential for rovers like no other mission.  Now, imagine sending rovers as large and as powerful as the Lunar Dune Buggy!  The Mars Society can talk all it wants about "human" missions but the truth is every EVA needs to return to the same humdrum spot, while A rover just keeps on truck’en tens if not hundreds of miles away from the initial landing site.  Just look at what 800 million did with the new Recon Orbiter able to send back 10 times the amount of data than all past mars missions combined.  For the 20 billion Zubrin proposes for Mars, we could send a similar/mission specific recon orbiter to Triton, Titan, several more to Mars, A few orbiter lander missions to Europa and Encelidus....  If exploration is what you want ROBOTS are the only way to go!  NASA should focus on a extremely large SST flyback booster that can also be a future SST passenger jet!  If anything will make space more accessable and eventually a place to colonize, it would be that!

P.S. I'm similarly disillusioned with the Planetary Society and have since cancelled my 15 year or so membership.  I am NOT in favor of the solar sail BS as it has already been shown the effect the solar wind has on that one large reflective satellite of the 60s, and they are as off course from any real objectives as I've ever seen.  A Pluto mission?  Um... Try Europa!  

P.S. Airbus sold over 700 aircraft at the Paris Airshow!  If it wasn't for this looming war with Iran, heck... this race might just sing with the glory of such extremely high technology.  

Hi, Alan  --  from one end of the Earth to the other!  Incas and Inuit!  And on to Mars!  Wonderful trip.  I'd even go to Washington but I'm a Canadian and I have my doubts they'd listen to me, though Mars should be on everyone's agenda for a visit.  

Sorry, that first paragraph was actually written for NBC Nightly News and for their investigation team.  It just happened to be in the same document I wrote the reply for here and must have gotten picked up in my hasty cut and past.  If we ever live through this era, I will be the most surprised.

Chris E. - Pessimism and Optimism in the same letter, even if it was not supposed to be so.  Watched your Paris Air Show and was suitably impressed.  We had our annual air show here this weekend - Hot Planes and Cool Cars - WWII planes, Tudor jets, acrobatics, group parachuting in the air, 1930 and 1940 cars, convertibles, etc., on the ground.  Missed it. Darn.

"Watched your Paris Air Show and was suitably impressed."

Hi Des!  Not sure I follow, was it on TV??  I'd love to see something like that but rarely treat myself.  

Oh... I try to be an optimist but things are getting pretty gloomy.  An attack on Iran could easily spark a world war like no other and as you know, I thiink even a temporary collapse of socity could trigger even far greater chaos than most believe.  It is unfortunate that people are not more prepared given that 'realistic preparations' aren't anything that shouldn't be done anyway.  

BTW, I don't disagree with sending humans to colonize an off-world location like Mars.  If you think about it though, a true colonization plan would cost tens of trillions of dollars and would be an absolutely global goal with robust and significanly different hardware than mere 'plant a flag' type exploration.  We'd need orbit to orbit transit sleds the size of naval figates to haul all the mining, and colonization hardware needed for a true plan.  If that is Zubrin's goal, he needs to get more committed to what it really would take than to kind-of-sort-of trick people into thinking an exploration mission is valuable to science and would also lead the way to eventual colonization.  The team that built spaceshipone (the composite guy...) said it best: don't waste time on the experimental stage, just do it!

Chris - you mentioned the Paris Air show in one of your blogs, so I looked it up, saw some pics of people around the ground show, and some pics of helicopters flying upside down and pics of fighter jets, etc.  Co-incidental with that, we had our little Hot Planes and Cool Cars air show here with The Canadian Snowbirds and the Blackhawks performing and some American planes as well.  

Space Colonies make good science fiction, bad practical science projects.  But money can be made by dressing passengers in air-tight suits, giving them shovels, and letting them dig holes in the Moon.  I just read that five Canadians are ready, willing and financially-able to pay a quarter-million each for such an 'adventure.'

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