Apollo became a short-changed project; missions were scrapped as Vietnam, race riots and the more in-your-face issues of the day became above-the-fold newspaper headlines. Few now remember those first lunar sojourns were to lead to a moon base, as well as a human mission to Mars, fostered by Apollo hardware and expertise.
Roger Launius, NASA's chief historian said that that when President John Kennedy announced the decision to send a man to the moon and bring him safely back within the decade, he had little time to put the plan into effect. A political window of only a few months existed in 1961 for Kennedy to put forward that edict and gain the needed political support.
"If the human exploration of Mars is to be conducted as government program, then what is the political situation or political challenge that has to be met if a human mission to Mars needs to be like a crash program?" Launius asked. "I don't see it looming like the international issues that loomed in the 1960s. Why do we have to do it right now...what's the political imperative from a politician's standpoint?"
Let's bring space history a little closer to today. In July 1989, then President George Bush stood on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum and proclaimed: "The time has come to look beyond brief encounters. We must commit ourselves anew to a sustained program of exploration of the solar system ... and yes, the permanent settlement of space."
Bush then pulled up anchor and placed the nation on two new astronomical headings. "And for the next century, back to the moon...back to the future...and this time back to stay. And then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet -- a mission to Mars."
"Mars and human space missions don't enter into the political arena and the candidates are not energized to even articulate a space policy, let alone a humans to Mars mission. Public space leadership needs to be present, but it doesnot exist today."
The Bush plan -- known as the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) -- was later to be "bushwacked" by NASA itself when the agency announced it would be a $450 billion, 30-year-long project. That assessment showed a bloated government at its best, allowing the tax-playing public to view NASA as a bureaucracy geared to drawing up wish lists to satisfy each space agency center. In both Congress and the public taxpayer's mind, SEI was dead on arrival.
So where are we today in regards to dispatching humans Mars-ward? For one, half the world's population did not experience Apollo. But as Mars evangelist Robert Zubrin has pointed out, the intellectual capital spawned by the moon landing effort is paying out in huge amounts. "There is a river of gold flowing down on America right now from Apollo's children," he said, while calling for a humans-to-Mars effort that will inspire a new generation of young people.
David Livingston of the School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California suggested that public funds might be available to begin a new human space program with a goal towards going to Mars, although it may be years hence, given the current political landscape.
"I believe the absence of the national and investment will is evidenced by the fact that space issues, and certainly humans to Mars, are void in all political campaigns and rhetoric. The focus is on social security, continued economic growth, large or small government, China, technology, etc. Mars and human space missions don't enter into the political arena, and the candidates are not energized to even articulate a space policy, let alone a humans-to-Mars mission. Public space leadership needs to be present, but it does not exist today," Livingston told SPACE.com.
One private sector idea, Livingston suggested, is that the government might offer non-cash tax benefits to companies willing to join in on the research and development, as well as take on operational costs necessary for a Mars mission.
Another concept is for media rights from a Mars mission to be assigned to a private group for sales and distribution to viewers on Earth.
But even in this regard, it's a tough sale.
"I think that it is much harder than getting public money because, for the most part, private money wants a payoff and cares little about the things that make up public policy," Livingston said.
How best then to get people on Mars?
Apollo 17 moonwalker, Harrison Schmitt, is a been there, done that kind of space explorer -- and a former Senator from New Mexico. An advocate of humans to Mars, as well as the planet's eventual settlement, he remains convinced that resources won't be available from the U.S. taxpayer, nor the worldwide taxpayer, in the foreseeable future.
Schmitt believes that perhaps the only way to get to Mars is to piggyback on the technology necessary for the commercial development of the moon. Using the moon and its mother lode of helium 3 resources can fuel terrestrial fusion power plants, he argues.
"If you can develop that enterprise and the technology necessary to support that enterprise, you have done a large portion of what it takes then to go to Mars," Schmitt said. "It brings the cost down to where it is something, conceivably, that the government and its taxpayers can afford to do," he said.
"It's conceivable that, 20 or 30 years from now, we will have a commercial reason to go to Mars. Just like 20 years ago, we didn't have a commercial reason to go back to the moon. We do now. I'm not going to ever say that there won't be a reason for the commercial sector to totally fund a mission to Mars. I don't know what that is right now...but I do know what it is for the moon. Given that infrastructure and technology base for the moon, then conceivably we can go onto Mars," Schmitt said.
So goes the moon...so goes Mars?
Sounds like humans to Mars is caught between a moon rock and a hard place.
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