‘Unwise Pursuit of the Unknown’

Easterbrook frightens us with the prospect that “Mars travel could take years.” But no one expected otherwise--except, possibly, Easterbrook.

He makes much of the potential expense. But nothing worth doing is ever easy (or cheap). It is precisely this fixation on costs by critics and bean-counters which guaranteed the Challenger disaster, and which has kept us from capitalizing on the investment made during the Apollo program. In the case of Challenger, the misguided cost-cutting is now seen to have resulted in enormous additional costs.

In fact, it is the Apollo program that offers hope that a manned Mars mission might be considerably cheaper than the inflated estimates put forward by the critics. During Apollo, we had to develop space technology from scratch. Today, we have the benefit of the investment made in space technology during Apollo--which means that a Mars mission might be done for less (in real dollars) than an equivalent of Apollo.

Why go to Mars? Listen to K. Tsiolkovsky, the Russian rocket pioneer: “The Earth is the cradle of humanity--but you cannot stay in the cradle forever.” So let’s go to Mars--and leave Easterbrook and others of like mind in their nice, safe cradle!

JAMES F. GLASS

Chatsworth