Reading. This article from a popular weekly news magazine argues against sending a manned spacecraft to explore Mars.

This article from a popular weekly news magazine argues against sending a manned spacecraft to explore Mars.

Why we should not Go to Mars: Someday people may walk on the planet, but not until it makes technological sense^.

“Two centuries ago, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St. Louis to explore the new lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, ” George W. Bush said, announcing his desire for a program to send men and women to Mars.² “They made that journey in the spirit of discovery.... America has ventured forth into space for the same reasons.”

Yet there are vital differences between Lewis and Clark’s expedition and a Mars mission. First, Lewis and Clark were headed to a place amenable to life; hundreds of thousands of people were already living there. Second, Lewis and Clark were certain to discover places and things of immediate value to the new nation. Third, the Lewis and Clark venture cost next to nothing by today’s standards. In 1989, NASA estimated that a people-to-Mars program would cost $400 billion, which inflates to $600 billion today. The Hoover Dam cost $700 million in today’s money, meaning that sending people to Mars might cost as much as building about 800 new Hoover Dams. A Mars mission may be the single most expensive non-wartime undertaking in U.S. history.

The thought of travel to Mars is exhilarating. Surely men and women will someday walk upon that planet, and surely they will make wondrous discoveries about geology and the history of the solar system, perhaps even about the very origin of life. Many times, I have stared up at Mars in the evening sky—in the mountains, away from cities, you can almost see the red tint—and wondered what is there or was there.

However, the fact that a destination is tantalizing does not mean the journey makes sense, even considering the human calling to explore. In addition, Mars as a destination for people makes absolutely no sense with current technology.

Present systems for getting from Earth’s surface to low-Earth orbit are so fantastically expensive that merely launching the 1, 000 tons or so of spacecraft and equipment a Mars mission would require could be accomplished only by cutting health-care benefits, education spending, or other important programs— or by raising taxes. Absent some remarkable discovery, astronauts, geologists, and biologists once on Mars could do little more than analyze rocks and feel awestruck beholding the sky of another world. Yet rocks can be analyzed by automated probes without risk to human life, and at a tiny fraction of the cost of sending people.

Space exploration proponents deride as lack of vision the mention of technical barriers or the insistence that needs on Earth come first. Not so. The former is rationality, the latter the setting of priorities. If Mars proponents want to raise $600 billion privately and stage their own expedition, more power to them; many of the great expeditions of the past were privately mounted. If Mars proponents expect taxpayers to foot their bill, then they must make their case against the many other competing needs for money. In addition, against the needs for health care, education, poverty reduction, reinforcement of the military, and reduction of the federal deficit, the case for vast expenditures to go to Mars using current technology is very weak.

Exercise № 55. Think over these tasks and present an argumentative essay on each of the topics.

1. What is more profitable for me: get a Bachelor degree diploma or gain precious knowledge in my profession?

2. What is better: get a hundred of friends or a friend in need is a friend indeed?

3. The United States or the Russian Federation: where life is more secured?