Why have we not yet traveled to Mars in CURRENT YEAR?

[Gaidax]

Because we're busy killing each other over imaginary friends and pretty baubles.

[Lightbull]

Space travel is really, really expensive.

[Forogil]

We normally don't plan one-way-trips involving humans with that high risk for no reason.

[Drungan]

If people with money or access to get money was sure there would be a profit to make from it within a reasonable timeframe ( lets say 50 years ) there would have been people there by now but what we find if we go there ...none know wé can only guess and could we bring the *materials* worthwhile from there back to earth ... no not as the tech is now.

there is talk and prep for a one way trip and that is first step, will be many years before we can do trips returning from there. not likely in our lifetime and this is the core of the issue .... not returning = no or little profit beside *being the first*

[MonsieuRoberts]

It's far, there's a lot of red dust and not much else, and you can't breathe there. Aside from research, there's not a lot that we can bring back for big bucks. And the people who wanted to go to space just for the heck of it had their moment in the 60s.

As soon as there's some tangible resource we need here that's there, it'll remain mostly uninhabited. By Humans, at least. You might however be able to go if you pay Musk some top dollar.

- - - Updated - - -

The argument seems to be that it'd be too hard and a waste of effort, but really it's not like we got anything from the moon landing except bragging rights. It's not about getting something out of it, it's about proving we can. Advancements with earthly utility that come out of it, such as bulletproof vests, are a nice bonus.

I say flags on every planet until we run out of flags, and carve our names in sunspots on the sun's surface as flags would immediately incinerate.

Because science isn't about why, it's about why not?!

I agree that it's important to have a goal greater than our perspective, but the people running the world's countries and corporations don't share that sentiment.

Who needs species-wide goals when you have cashflow?

[Deleted]

The return on the investment would be horrible?

Same reason humans don't go the moon anymore for decades now.

[zorkuus]

The argument seems to be that it'd be too hard and a waste of effort, but really it's not like we got anything from the moon landing except bragging rights.

They had an incentive to pursue those bragging rights back then... the cold war.

[Tackhisis]

Because the current technology level does not allow to land safely on celestial bodies, even less to launch from them.

[namecraft]

when there's a risk of the spacecraft exploding because of a mathematical error, it is not yet time to explore space.

[Puupi]

From a scientific point of view, We already visited mars with a robot.

The main reason getting humans to mars is hard us because mars is surrounded with small rocks rptating at the speed of bullets. They can damage the space ship easily.

Radiation and landing are the two biggest issues why we aren't there yet. Also, it's a one way trip with out current technology.

[Mormolyce]

It's harder than it looks.

Also we didn't have any need to measure dicks with the Russians. Although that might be changing...

[Hammerfest]

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit says that we can't go back to the moon because the technology was destroyed.



If we can't do that, then there's no way we're getting to Mars.

[Vash The Stampede]

Right now I blame these guys.

[Deleted]

Flying to Mars doenst give immediate money. Starting wars over and over does.

[Guyv3r]

I blame the church for all those years wasted.

Could be eating martian jelly beans while on vacation in IO by now!

[Deleted]

Trump wants to go to mars. It's just his daughter who wont want to go there, as she likes Snickers more.

SCNR.

[cubby]

I prefer "enclosed creationist" but yeah, I'm a flat earther.

Why? And what does that mean? And how does that affect a Mars landing endeavor?

(PM me if this isn't ok for the thread - I'm really curious)

[Krawu]

It's difficult and expensive. A trip to the moon is just 3 days there and three days back.
While NASA could probably make a manned Mars mission happen on their own, it would eat up their entire budget for several years, and if anything goes wrong the public outcry might kill space travel for several decades. Not only that, there wouldn't be any other research happening for that time.

Then there's the technical difficulties. We still don't know how long-term spaceflight affects humans exactly. Everybody knows about the muscle and bone loss, but it also does wonky things to your eyesight for example. Pretty sure they'd want to launch with a freshly refueled craft from orbit so they can do a much faster burn there, since every day you can shave off a 6-8 month voyage is precious. That's never been done before either. But a lot of tech is in the works now that might make it feasible in the next 20 or so years. A proper SSTO craft would be invaluable, or the Interplanetary Transport System that SpaceX is planning, though that one seems veeeeery Sci-Fi to me.

A lunar base to refuel and repair spacecraft would probably be the best thing ever, since you can actually have a dock there, and the moon has some water ice near the poles, so all you'd need is some solar panels to create abundant hydrogen fuel plus oxidizer. But again, somebody would have to do the necessary research first and then pay for it.

The last and in my opinion most difficult problem to solve is that of cosmic rays. Outside of Earth's magnetic field you're quite literally at the mercy of the stars' fury. Every star is an unshielded fusion reactor billions or trillions of times larger than any reactor humanity is likely to ever build. That's a LOT of Sieverts hitting you from every direction at all times. A mars mission would need to be shielded against that. either by putting water tanks in the outer hull around the astronauts or by generating a REALLY strong electromagnetic field around the craft. So it's either extremely heavy or will draw an insane amount of power and generate tons of waste heat that you'll need to get rid of. And of course, nothing like that has ever been built before.

So there's a lot of gateway tech that would make a Mars mission more safe or technically and economically feasible, and every one you can check off that list over the coming few years will make such an undertaking more likely:

-true SSTO Spacecraft
-mobile fusion reactor
-light and cheap radiation shielding
-more powerful engine technology
-moon base
-orbital refueling technology
-space elevator (extremely unlikely to ever work on earth)
-large enough gravity wheel to make the Coriolis effect trivial (on a spacecraft)
-orbital shipyard

-probably many more


On a personal note, I do believe that the fewer things we have in orbit the better. Nobody wants to see a runaway Kessler syndrome to make spaceflight near Earth impossible for a few centuries. So add "cleaning up space debris" to that list.

[want my Slimjim]

MOD WARNING:

Flat Earth Conspiracy bullshit will not be allowed here.

Flat Earth theory isn't bullshit

[Puupi]

Flat Earth theory isn't bullshit

Et tu, Brute?

Not that I'm surprised at all.