Thursday, May 27, 2004
Dispatches from Mars, Utah - Simulation, meet real life. By Steve Featherstone "Slate" diary from Mars hab
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Thursday, May 06, 2004
[Statement to the Moon to Mars committee]
I support a human mission to Mars as a concerted goal for NASA to pursue over the coming decades.
Currently the agency has no overarching directives to unite and excite its employees or financial supporters (i.e. taxpayers via Congress) for the long-term. Individual projects come and go, and contracts are gained and lost to certain districts in certain states, but these only provide a superficial level of support for the Agency and its future. Many members of Congress are interested in NASA because of the revenue it brings to their district (and the citizens therein), fewer members are interested in NASA because their constituents have expressed an excitement about the Agency and its future. A scientific mission to Mars could provide such a base of support, exciting both the employees of NASA and the taxpayers that pay their salaries.
Another very good reason to support a human mission to Mars is to inspire the future generation of scientists, in this country and beyond. Numerous indicators point to the fact that American supremacy in science and technology is failing. Patents filed, Ph.D.'s awarded, satellites launched, and retention of foreign scientists are just a few warning signs of the serious downward spiral the United States is headed towards unless something is done about it. One thing to do, which has proven successful in the past, is to excite people -- particularly students. The Sputnik era provides one example of an inspired generation, and we live in another. Graduate degrees in molecular biosciences and bioinformatics have undergone a huge increase in recent years, partially due to increased employment opportunities, and partially due to the intense interest and excitement generated by, for example, the sequencing of the human genome, and more than 120 other genomes to date.
These exciting developments do not go unnoticed by students and the public, as witnessed by the number of hits to the Mars Rover websites, for example. However, there is an important distinction between "mission-centric" excitement and "program-centric" excitement. The genome sequencing PROGRAMS are exciting because they are building an entire framework within which to think about the world in a new way. They are ongoing. Current NASA space MISSIONS are different -- they tend to provide point sources of excitement, but the framework has so far not been developed to take advantage of this excitement to build a deeper level of support for the Agency. I believe a human mission to Mars would provide such a framework.
More details on some of these thoughts can be found in the publication "Humans to Mars: The Political Initiative and Technical Expertise Needed for a Human Mission to Mars." This report is product of the 2002 NASA Ames Astrobiology Academy, of which I was a member. A hard copy will be forwarded, the electronic link is:
http://students.washington.edu/~rec3141/htm/files/HumansToMars-ExSummary.pdf
Thank you.
Eric Collins
NASA Academy, ARC 2002
http://www.humanstomars.org
I support a human mission to Mars as a concerted goal for NASA to pursue over the coming decades.
Currently the agency has no overarching directives to unite and excite its employees or financial supporters (i.e. taxpayers via Congress) for the long-term. Individual projects come and go, and contracts are gained and lost to certain districts in certain states, but these only provide a superficial level of support for the Agency and its future. Many members of Congress are interested in NASA because of the revenue it brings to their district (and the citizens therein), fewer members are interested in NASA because their constituents have expressed an excitement about the Agency and its future. A scientific mission to Mars could provide such a base of support, exciting both the employees of NASA and the taxpayers that pay their salaries.
Another very good reason to support a human mission to Mars is to inspire the future generation of scientists, in this country and beyond. Numerous indicators point to the fact that American supremacy in science and technology is failing. Patents filed, Ph.D.'s awarded, satellites launched, and retention of foreign scientists are just a few warning signs of the serious downward spiral the United States is headed towards unless something is done about it. One thing to do, which has proven successful in the past, is to excite people -- particularly students. The Sputnik era provides one example of an inspired generation, and we live in another. Graduate degrees in molecular biosciences and bioinformatics have undergone a huge increase in recent years, partially due to increased employment opportunities, and partially due to the intense interest and excitement generated by, for example, the sequencing of the human genome, and more than 120 other genomes to date.
These exciting developments do not go unnoticed by students and the public, as witnessed by the number of hits to the Mars Rover websites, for example. However, there is an important distinction between "mission-centric" excitement and "program-centric" excitement. The genome sequencing PROGRAMS are exciting because they are building an entire framework within which to think about the world in a new way. They are ongoing. Current NASA space MISSIONS are different -- they tend to provide point sources of excitement, but the framework has so far not been developed to take advantage of this excitement to build a deeper level of support for the Agency. I believe a human mission to Mars would provide such a framework.
More details on some of these thoughts can be found in the publication "Humans to Mars: The Political Initiative and Technical Expertise Needed for a Human Mission to Mars." This report is product of the 2002 NASA Ames Astrobiology Academy, of which I was a member. A hard copy will be forwarded, the electronic link is:
http://students.washington.edu/~rec3141/htm/files/HumansToMars-ExSummary.pdf
Thank you.
Eric Collins
NASA Academy, ARC 2002
http://www.humanstomars.org
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
New Scientist "NASA must transform to put men on Mars"
(Is it really so hard to use the word "humans"?
(Is it really so hard to use the word "humans"?
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
The New York Times > Science > U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences: "The United States' share of its own industrial patents has fallen steadily over the decades and now stands at 52 percent.
A more concrete decline can be seen in published research. Physical Review, a series of top physics journals, recently tracked a reversal in which American papers, in two decades, fell from the most to a minority. Last year the total was just 29 percent, down from 61 percent in 1983"
A more concrete decline can be seen in published research. Physical Review, a series of top physics journals, recently tracked a reversal in which American papers, in two decades, fell from the most to a minority. Last year the total was just 29 percent, down from 61 percent in 1983"
Saturday, May 01, 2004
