TheMadCap Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 Excuse me? If you plan on colonizing the moon or mars --- all of them will not be professionals. Have "civilians" been to Earths orbit and the Space Station? Answer - On April 7, Hungarian-born billionaire software engineer Charles Simonyi boarded a Russian Soyuz spaceship bound for the International Space Station, to become one of only a handful of civilians to fly into orbit around the Earth. Woah, hang on there. I didn't realize you were talking colonization already. I think we've got to GET THERE and BACK before we go trying to live there. There is a MASSIVE difference between going to Mars and back, and attempting a permanent outpost there. There have been several civilians and two politicians in orbit, some on STS, some to MIR and ISS. See Tito, Dennis; Garn, Jake, and Nelson, Bill. As far as that goes, I am quite sure that the first and likely second wave of colonists would be either scientists or military personel before they start sending civies up. Although NO space voyage will EVER be considered safe by any means, space programs likely want to show they can routinely pull off landing and returning before deeming it "safe for civies" to go and fly, otherwise you get the whole Teacher in Space (Challenger, not Endeavour) fiasco... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsFan-4-Ever Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 Woah, hang on there. I didn't realize you were talking colonization already. I think we've got to GET THERE and BACK before we go trying to live there. There is a MASSIVE difference between going to Mars and back, and attempting a permanent outpost there. There have been several civilians and two politicians in orbit, some on STS, some to MIR and ISS. See Tito, Dennis; Garn, Jake, and Nelson, Bill. As far as that goes, I am quite sure that the first and likely second wave of colonists would be either scientists or military personel before they start sending civies up. Although NO space voyage will EVER be considered safe by any means, space programs likely want to show they can routinely pull off landing and returning before deeming it "safe for civies" to go and fly, otherwise you get the whole Teacher in Space (Challenger, not Endeavour) fiasco... military personel ?? To defend the engineers from little green man and their ray guns, or for life force sucking space vampires? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 military personel ?? To defend the engineers from little green man and their ray guns, or for life force sucking space vampires? Or the Klingons near Uranus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMadCap Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 military personel ?? To defend the engineers from little green man and their ray guns, or for life force sucking space vampires? You are aware that the astronaut corp is made up primarily of Navy and Air Force men and women? Hell, they were ALL military until the first group of shuttle astronauts were selected in the late 70's. To be precise, most are in the military or have been at sometime in thier careers. Actually, it caused quite a bit of head bumping internally for a while until they all got comfortable around each other. Access to space has been the province of government forever. It is only recently that private enterprise has been allowed to perform launches. This is one of the problems (IMO) with NASA, they are the biggest bully on the block. If you have an idea for a rocket or launch system, and you don't have thier blessing, you can forget it. So yes, the first people to walk on Mars will undoubtably be government sanctioned: either military and/or scientific personnel. A mission of that magnitude will absolutely necessitate government (tax payer) funds, so they get to say who goes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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