Return to the New Frontier

When John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, President Kennedy’s goal of landing an American on the Moon was less than a year old. Since Senator Glenn began his political career 24 years ago, not a single human being has gone to the Moon or anywhere else beyond Earth’s orbit. Yet the intense public interest in Glenn’s space shuttle flight and in last year’s Pathfinder mission on the surface of Mars is clear evidence that Americans yearn for bold new initiatives from their space program.

A few months ago, I attended the Founding Convention of the Mars Society. This was not a conference of space scientists and engineers alone. To explore and colonize a planet will require the efforts of people from many different walks of life. And they were there at this conference. There were presentations by botanists and biologists discussing the possibility of establishing self-sustaining ecosystems on Mars. There were presentations by business consultants and entrepreneurs discussing the prospects for privately financed Mars exploration and colonization. There were presentations by a 12-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy on what a manned Mars program will mean to their generation.

But is sending humans to Mars feasible? Yes, it is.

Because a lot of the technology we need to go to Mars already exists. We don’t need to develop it. In 1970, NASA had a plan to send men to Mars using Apollo technology. That was almost 30 years ago. That twelve-year-old girl could have been born on Mars. Think of how much technology has advanced in the last 30 years. For example, the navigation computers on the Apollo vehicles had about 2K of memory. Not 2 Meg, I said 2K. John Glenn’s Friendship 7 spacecraft didn’t even have a computer.

But won’t sending humans to Mars cost a lot of money? No, it won’t.

Now, first, let me give you the sticker shock. The current reference mission profile is estimated to cost 40 billion dollars for 5 flights. Think that’s a lot of money? Wouldn’t that look nice sitting in your bank account?

But we’re talking about a 40 billion dollar program over a 20-year period, and supported by more than 200 million Americans with disposable income. That’s about 10 dollars per person per year, and far less if the cost is spread out among other G7 nations. How many of you have seen Deep Impact? Armageddon? The Star Wars trilogy? The Star Trek movies? If we took all the money that these and other space fantasies have grossed, we’d be well on our way Mars. Senator Everett Dirksen once said, "A few billion here, a few billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money." Going to Mars isn’t real money, it’s just a few movie tickets.

In fact, in adjusted dollars, 40 billion is only half of what the Apollo program cost. And it would not be 40 billion dollars spent, but rather 40 billion dollars invested. Every dollar spent on Apollo returned 7 dollars to our economy in the form of new products and services. If you could get 700 percent return on your investment, you’d think that was a pretty good deal, wouldn’t you?

But why go to Mars? That’s the tough question. Not because there isn’t a good answer, but because there are many good answers.

For instance, did life once exist on Mars? Is it there even now, hidden below the surface? If life evolved on more than one planet in our Solar System, it means that life is common throughout the universe. It means that we are surrounded by star systems that harbor life, some of it intelligent. It means that we are not alone. This knowledge will profoundly change how we view ourselves as a species.

Will life continue to exist on Earth? Even if we avoid nuclear or biological war, we’re faced with global warming, deforestation, the ozone hole, and more. By studying the climate of Mars and other worlds, we gain knowledge that cannot be had by studying Earth alone. This knowledge is vital to our understanding of how human activity is impacting Earth’s continued ability to support life. This knowledge is imperative to our survival as a species.

Our American experiment in self-government could never have taken place in the "Old World." It required a new continent where vested interest in the past was nil and the promise of the future was vast. On Mars, the next "New World," new concepts of human rights await our discovery. These undiscovered freedoms will radically expand our concept of ourselves and of each other as individuals.

These are just three of the reasons to go to Mars. There are many more. In the aggregate, the reasons for going to Mars are compelling. The problem is boiling them down to a sound bite or a bumper sticker. In short, making it happen is a matter of marketing, of making people aware that, not only is this worth doing, but it is in our interest to do it.

It is not a matter of technology. It is not a matter of money. It is simply a matter of national will, and of national vision. We wanted to go to the Moon, so we did. When we decide to go to Mars, we can. John Kennedy’s "New Frontier" is still out there, and our fascination with John Glenn’s return to space shows us that the "New Frontier" is still within us.