Should we spend the $$$ to go to Mars?

[Lee of Red]

Originally Posted by Thor

Actually they are quite limited in what they can do, they are only (pardon the pun) scratching the surface of the planet.

Then we should be researching how to build terminator style robots to do our bidding for us.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Thor

Actually they are quite limited in what they can do, they are only (pardon the pun) scratching the surface of the planet.

If the existing robots aren't sufficient, you could send a human. Or, you could build a better robot. (Maybe with good unit conversion practices this time...)

[Bunk]

I'm all for a Mars mission. Such lofty human expeditions have massive intangible benefits.

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't think we need to spend a cent. We just need to sell land rights to all of the fast food franchises. Sell the mission naming rights to General Mills, sell labeling rights to the spaceship to the Nascar Sponsers.

Sell seats on the flight to celebrities.

And get er done.

[Azure]

The US is going to go bankrupt soon if they don't cut things like SS, Defense and Medicare.

Obviously they don't have the money to go to Mars.

[Daradon]

I also think the way to go is the business route. However, that's a tough sell too. Most companies are so tied to their stock prices that taking a risk in being in a project like this would make no sense to them as it's unlikely to bring much income.

Perhaps if there was a large enough group of companies, and the project caught the worlds attention and imagination (and I imagine it would) marketing and naming rights would make sense, but there would have to be an organizer with incredible vision and amazing business acumen.

Governments right now just can't afford it, and it's not just the States, who would have to lead it anyway.

But for their part, the world governments should look at changing the rules to space rights and exploration and stuff like that so it would be more profitable to companies. Really this is something they should be exploring and ammending anyway. I know it's a noble idea to say everything outside of earth belongs to everyone (or no one) but we're going to have to come up with some different, yet fair rules if we ever want to get off this rock.