BUSTA MARS!

NASA is on a giddy spending spree. NASA has lots of help. Ever since President George W. Bush triumphantly declared (like “Mission Accomplished”) that the United States was “going to Mars,” the fist-pumping, chest-thumping, hyper-patriotic, yee-hah yayhoos have been addled by the jingo-bells going off in their heads and enthusiastically, if witlessly, serving as the “Amen” chorus for such a venture. Media types have also been caught up in the frenzy, morphing into pom-pom cheerleaders right before our eyes, and not many politicians, journalists or voters are willing to go out on a limb and suggest that the Emperor is buck-nekkid.

Americans (like George W. Bush) are still bloviated over the accomplishments of the Apollo missions. Most Americans seem to believe that a trip to Mars is just a bit longer than a trip to the Moon, and we have already done that, so no big deal, right? Yet, the lessons of Apollo 13 are utterly lost on us despite the fine movie of it made not too long ago. “Bidness” as usual. Failure (despite Apollo 13) is not an option for America.

NASA is a giant vampire tick that should have been pulled off the US tax-paying “dog” and burned a long time ago. NASA has been understandably fretting about the waning days of the shuttle missions, but Bush breathed new life therein with the Mars mission proposal, enabled by the know-nothing appropriating complicity of the Congress. Just how much taxpayer money has been spent to date on the manned mission to Mars? Does anyone REALLY know? Does it matter? President Obama has so much other controversy on his plate right now, that giving NASA a reality check is not likely high on his priority list, PLUS it won’t make him very many friends if he were to do that. NASA occupies almost deity status in the United States, and any politician who takes that agency on does so at his or her peril.

What is going on here? The mission has been officially declared, so the only thing left to do is to figure out how to build the technology to get ‘er done. It seems that no one (besides myself) has sat down and calculated just how long it will take for a manned mission to go to Mars, visit the planet for 3-4 days, then turn around and come home. There seems to be no appreciation for the realities, the main one being that such a mission will likely take between 18 and 32 months, given an average traveling speed of about 30,000 mph, and no one, it seems, has asked the basic, simple question of how can 3-6 people of disparate backgrounds live together in harmony for that period of time in a space the size of my bedroom, if that big?

I don’t know any THREE people I could spend 18 months with in such a confined space without KILLING them, if they had not already killed me first! I can hear it now: “Tom, if you fart one more time, I will beat your brains out!”

Get real! This mission is utter nonsense! There are no people on this planet who can go through the rigorous astronaut training and manage to accomplish such a mission. No one has the guts to simulate such an environment without fearing imprisonment for torture. Perhaps we should ask some of the Islamic detainees (ALLEGED terrorists) to volunteer for the mission in return for their freedom, like the “Dirty Dozen.” They are about the only humans anywhere who have experienced the likely conditions of confinement in a small space that would simulate what the Mars mission would be. “Gitmo” to Mars!

Congress needs to drive a big stake through the heart of NASA—now. The American taxpayer needs to be relieved of this run-a-MUCK agency that desperately searches for ways to piss away hard-earned tax dollars on nonessential stuff. The various LEGITIMATE scientific efforts being pursued through NASA space missions can be accomplished by out-sourcing them to other agencies or to the private companies that will be allowed to exclusively profit from those discoveries at taxpayer expense anyway.

There will NEVER be a successful manned mission to Mars. NEVER! How much taxpayer money is the Congress going to spend to find out this fundamental truth?