If You Can't Beat the Laws of Physics...
Press coverage seems to indicate that while the President is anticipating a policy announcement governing a bold, new mission for NASA, it is liable to coincide with the State of the Union or even later (as opposed to my previously expressed hope that it would be on the centennial of flight). The generally accepted upshot, so far as I can see, is that the delay and further rumination seem to point in the direction of a willingness to make a real commitment, to a real goal, and not to do so lightly. The Mars Society is heavily engaged in an effort (to which I have contributed myself) to advocate for thorough, near-term manned exploration of Mars by burying the White House and Congress in letters, emails, faxes, and the like. And it does appear that there is a nontrivial chance (associated with the serious manner in which the White House is conducting the entire affair, and with the worsening political fortunes of the Orbital Space Plane) that a commitment to Mars might be in the offing, after all. A return to the moon may yet be framed as part of the package, but to have Mars as the real and honest goal is almost more than I could dare to hope for. Of course, I don’t have a problem with the OSP myself, although I object to the inane price tag; it seems like we have to have some way of getting people into space, and it would be better than the shuttle. But the OSP’s troubles do seem to indicate that the Administration is not willing to continue with business as usual by pinning all of NASA on a zero-adventure vehicle development program. I anxiously await the announcement, that much is certain.
Meanwhile, though, it might be interesting to venture a little further afield and look at some of the future possibilities for high adventure in deep space, by taking a look at the theoretical physics of interstellar travel. Now, on an engineering level, we have a pretty good grasp of what would go into an expedition within our immediate stellar neighborhood; assuming one doesn’t go too far away, and that one is willing to travel at a “modest” fraction of the speed of light (so as to make the energy requirements for propulsion more manageable), then the task is daunting but not inconceivable. The energy requirements are vast, and the time required grossly inconvenient, but such a mission would obviously be undertaken with other considerations than these as decisive factors. So for a human civilization that has developed to the point of having settled elsewhere in the solar system and harnessed extraterrestrial resources, such an undertaking begins to enter the realm of possibility.
Latest Articles