Every Monday I’m going to conduct a poll about a question related to science in order to gain better insight into my readership as well as stimulate discussion. I would welcome suggestions for future polls.
Today’s poll is simple, and on the face of it the answer may seem obvious.
The question is whether the period between humans landing on the moon and Mars (40 years and counting…) will be longer than the time between humans landing on Mars and reaching Alpha Centauri.
The obvious answer to many may be Alpha Centauri. After all, it would take our fastest spacecraft today some 50,000 years to reach the nearest star. Suddenly an 18-month round trip to Mars doesn’t seem so bad.
However, I contend the answer might ultimately be Alpha Centauri. The pessimist in my believes I won’t live to see humans on Mars. The costs are simply too high, and the return may ultimately be too low considering the wealth of information that can be returned by robotic probes.
Anyway, I believe we’re really going to need some breakthrough propulsion technologies to make humans on Mars a reality. And perhaps, in that technological breakthrough, we’ll find the means to cut travel time to Alpha Centauri to a century or less. Or maybe we’ll even find a sci-fi technology like FTL drives.
Enough of my blathering.