[FPSPACE] Griffin's true reasons for the sizing of the Ares 5

[Michael K. Heney]

Why is it infuriating to you?  That suggests you believe that there is One 
True Way - and anyone who thinks otherwise is a Heretic.

I LIKE to see different people pushing different solutions.  People having 
different causes.  The fact that there are people working hard on "X" 
frees me to focus on working on "Y".  And we advance along many fronts.
But to suggest that others are wasting their time because they're not 
working on YOUR priority is misguided at best.

Add to this the fact that "defense in depth" is really a good idea.  You 
claim that "one is heading our way".  Which is true.  And if you keep 
projecting forward, so is another.  And another.  And at some point, 
there'll be one that's really really big - bigger than we can handle.
Or maybe we're mistaken about what we CAN handle, and out mitigation 
attempts fail.  In that case, having an emergency backup population on the 
moon, or Mars, or scattered throughout the solar system, suddenly becomes 
a Really Good Thing, if species survival is your goal.

There is no One True Way.  It's fine to evangelize your passions - but not 
at the expense of those of others.


On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, E.P. Grondine wrote:

>
> Hi Jens -
>
> It is truly infuriating for me personally to see the "lifeboat Mars" 
> rationalization being trotted out by manned Mars flight "enthusiasts".
>
> Consider for a second the lives saved in each case: 50 versus say 
> 60,000,000 for a small ocean impact, for example.
>
> Here's an idea: keep the ship from sinking in the first place.
>
> E.P. Grondine
> Man and Impact in the Americas
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Windows Live? Hotmail®: Celebrate the moment with your favorite sports pics. Check it out.
> http://www.windowslive.com/Online/Hotmail/Campaign/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_QA_HM_sports_photos_072009&cat=sports