The price of the banking bailout? 16 colony missions to Mars

If you guys are anything like me, I'm sure you are equally saddened by the inward turn that Humanity has taken over the past couple of decades. Sure, we went to the moon and put a station in LEO, and now it seems like nobody gives a damn about reaching for the stars anymore.

The thought is driven home by simple mathematics, however. If you've never heard of Mars Direct then now would be a good time to brush up. Simply put, for an estimated 55 Billion USD you could send 20 people to permanently colonize the Red Planet. Seems like quite a large amount of money, and surely 20 people is far too small a number to create a bastion of Humanity so far from the womb of earth?

Well, here's the kicker. For the price of the banking bailout that went through last fall, we could have sent 16 missions to mars, each carrying 20 colonists! Do the math, that is a permanent population of 320 people building a foothold on another world. As the Mars Direct program called for using existing technology, the $55 billion estimated price tag included the whole 9 yards.

Hell, if the worlds 4 richest men got together and pooled their wealth they could put together 2 and a half missions between them, enough to claim the planet as territory for a corporation set up for the express purpose of exploiting the planet. What billionaire in history would scoff at the idea of owning his own damn planet? What corporation would scoff at the idea of masses of exploitable resources with no laws or government to resist the exploitation?

A can of worms, to be sure. I just wanted to add a little perspective however. For the price of one of the bailouts last year, we could have sent 16 manned interplanetary flights and colonized and entire bloody planet. If that isn't enough to make you sad for the state of space exploration in the modern world, I don't know what is.

But hey, at least when they kill the shuttle next year and de-orbit the ISS in 2015 things will get us back on the track of reaching the stars right guys? ...right?

Ha!

You give the untold wealth of the universe to the people, they might have power, and dreams, And figure out religion is a scam, the govt was lying to them, and they may end up being FREE.

We cant have that now, can we?

So, let's make excuses, turn people into slaves, and make as many excuses as we can for not going into space permanently.

Humanity in general did lost (temporary i hope, it is all about cycles of young->aging civilization) spirit for exploring. Space and even oceans/earth's inner structure. But if this bailout indeed saved jobs of millions of people - and i do not understand a lot in economics so cannot say if it was coorect, it was worth 20 missions to Mars i think.
Space program should create work places, not take it away.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge


Unfortunately all the bailout did was prop up a rotting system that is failing so that it would last a few more years. It's going to collapse, it just prolonged the inevitable.

The point of the thread was less specifically about the bailout, it simply served as a good example of how we squander wealth that could be used to drive the Human race into something infinitely more amazing than our current paths will. We don't have to wait centuries to expand to the stars, we could do it now, we have the means. No one is willing to make the initial investment in order to reap the rewards however, and as I pointed out above, the rewards truly are there for the person willing to take them.

aah, but if people lived on mars we would surely end up with some sort of eventual evidence of life there, and the government doesn't want that,now does it?

other than the people living there, i mean.

They could have paid off everyone's mortgage for the amount of money they have wasted. Banks are just making money out of thin air through fractional reserve banking.

You might as well give every bank in America their own printing presses because that is basically what they are doing. They are doing nothing but creating debt slaves out of us all. All we really have to offer is our labor. It's your labor that is worth something.

reply to post by D.E.M.


Well, then no argument here. We have to move forward, preferably not ruining what we have here on Earth of course. And there are means, just not a will. I think that interest in space should be reignited in general public and then all the spending could be justified. Doubt if it would happen this way though.
But i am not pessimic about the issue in general, what does not seem to come in times of peace will come in next space race between US and China. Again military will jump the progress and once corporations will smell probability of profit in near future (not in decades as now,after huge investment), space exploration (or plundering) will really begin.
This is how i see it

If either Bill Gates or Warren Buffett left the entirety of their Estates to NASA, then the price tag of Mars Direct could be covered.

Whereas it would take about 25 Sir Richard Bransons to do the same to cover the price tag of Mars Direct.

Thankfully, private Millionaires in the Tech Industry (kids who never grew up) like Jeff Bezos, John Carmack, Jim Benson, Elon Musk, Robert Bigelow, and Lord British (Richard Garriott) have all contributed major efforts towards civilian Space Exploration, and have begun making major in-roads where NASA has fallen short time and time again.

If our government doesn't deem Space Exploration to be worth the money, then we as private citizens must spend our own discretionary income/money on civilian and private programs instead of NASA!

Stop sippin the kool aid they have been teleporting people back and forth to mars for years now... everthing THEY say is an attempt to steer you and anyone else seeking truth away from the real truth. NASA, the space program, our modern space travel methods are all just a front to keep people sleeping. And the whole colonizing Mars thing has been happening for decades now, they have a decent sized population mainly underground. Wake up people threads like this is exactly what THEY want. THEY want your attention and focus to be on meaningless things like this while the real important issues go quietly under the rug. Before any of you flame me for not citing sources or for this being my 1st post and assuming im another disinfo agent, just know i have been a long time ATS follower and anything i post can be researched and there is ample proof out there that what im stating is accurate. Basically we can goto Mars for free, well our govt can...

Hehe it appears OP doesn't even understand the full gravity of his comments.

Claiming that it would pay for just 16 missions is crazy.

Since by the time we pay off the loans, we will have actually paid them a few times, (yay compounding interest). The actual number has got to be close to 50+ if not much more.

War 1, Humanity -1.

Originally posted by D.E.M.
If you guys are anything like me, I'm sure you are equally saddened by the inward turn that Humanity has taken over the past couple of decades. Sure, we went to the moon and put a station in LEO, and now it seems like nobody gives a damn about reaching for the stars anymore.

The thought is driven home by simple mathematics, however. If you've never heard of Mars Direct then now would be a good time to brush up. Simply put, for an estimated 55 Billion USD you could send 20 people to permanently colonize the Red Planet. Seems like quite a large amount of money, and surely 20 people is far too small a number to create a bastion of Humanity so far from the womb of earth?

Well, here's the kicker. For the price of the banking bailout that went through last fall, we could have sent 16 missions to mars, each carrying 20 colonists! Do the math, that is a permanent population of 320 people building a foothold on another world. As the Mars Direct program called for using existing technology, the $55 billion estimated price tag included the whole 9 yards.

Hell, if the worlds 4 richest men got together and pooled their wealth they could put together 2 and a half missions between them, enough to claim the planet as territory for a corporation set up for the express purpose of exploiting the planet. What billionaire in history would scoff at the idea of owning his own damn planet? What corporation would scoff at the idea of masses of exploitable resources with no laws or government to resist the exploitation?

A can of worms, to be sure. I just wanted to add a little perspective however. For the price of one of the bailouts last year, we could have sent 16 manned interplanetary flights and colonized and entire bloody planet. If that isn't enough to make you sad for the state of space exploration in the modern world, I don't know what is.

But hey, at least when they kill the shuttle next year and de-orbit the ISS in 2015 things will get us back on the track of reaching the stars right guys? ...right?

Does ANYBODY know WHAT they are doing on the ISS ?????
They are pouring BILLIONS into that thing........WHY ??????

reply to post by king9072


I fully understand the gravity of my comments, I merely wanted to point it out as simply as possible. At face value, the 900billion given to the banks in one bailout would have paid for 16 colony missions to mars, depositing 320 colonists, lock stock and barrel.


reply to post by downunderET


Microgravity research and other experiments that cannot be carried out on earth. You could have spent 5 minutes going to wikipedia and then hours reading the details, no need to shout.

From your tone, are you saying you object to the only maintained human presence in space? Are you endorsing an end to space exploration? Why? Would you rather that humans remain on this planet until we are extinct? That we never expand beyond our birth planet? That we trade the wealth and knowledge available in the stars in return for...what?