Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin appeared on 'The Space Show', hosted by Dr. David Livingston, on February 21, 2012.
During the 2-hour interview, Dr. Zubrin discussed the U.S. government's recent decision to reduce NASA's operating budget and the impact that will likely have on Mars exploration.
In addition, Dr. Zubrin talked about the growing commercial space industry and his new book, "Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism."
To listen to the interview with Dr. Zubrin, please click here.
The enclosed statement from the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American
Astronomical Society reinforces the Mars Society's view (one
that it has been stating publicly since October 2011) that any reduction in NASA's 2013 budget will place the future of a sustainable Mars exploration program at severe risk.
DPS Statement on FY 2013 NASA Budget, 2.20.12
The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration is in Grave Danger from Deep Cuts in the President’s Proposed Budget.
The
planetary exploration program has delivered a golden age of
robotic exploration of the Solar System that over the past decade that
has included a long series of stunningly successful missions. Among many
examples are the Mars rovers which have discovered that standing bodies
of water once existed on Mars, indicating past
habitable environments;
the Cassini mission to Saturn which discovered water erupting from
Saturn's moon Enceladus, imaged previously unseen structure in the
rings, and is mapping methane lakes and seas on Saturn's moon Titan;
MESSANGER which is now orbiting and mapping Mercury, revealing how
terrestrial planets evolve; Dawn, which is orbiting and mapping the
asteroid Vesta, revealing the earliest history of planet formation; and
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and GRAIL which are orbiting our Moon and
exploring deeply into its structure and origins. Other low-cost
missions have returned samples of a comet and the solar wind. These
missions have revolutionized our understanding of Earth, its origins,
and its place within the solar system and the larger universe. The
planetary science program complements and extends the discoveries and
breakthroughs in earth science, astrophysics, and heliophysics.
The Planetary Science community recently finished its Decadal Survey
under the auspices of the National Research Council of the National
Academies. Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade
2013-2022 recommends to NASA a program of balanced exploration and
scientific analysis, tempered by fiscal realism, which builds on the
immense progress of the last decade to continue expanding our
understanding of our solar system, and search for evidence of past or
even current life elsewhere in our solar system. The current golden age
of planetary exploration — the result of years of effort by scientists
and engineers supported at relatively low cost by a fascinated public
and bipartisan political support — is in grave danger from deep budget
cuts just as the next wave of discoveries beckons.
By Frank Morring Jr. & Amy Svitak, Aviation Week, 02.17.12
“Members
of the [U.S. space/science] community go to their congress people and say,
‘this doesn’t make any sense; why are we being punished when we were so
successful?’” says Scott Hubbard, who served as the agency’s first Mars
Program Director.
NASA faces a loss of confidence in its international
space-exploration leadership after the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from a
series of joint robotic missions to Mars with the European Space
Agency.
Instead of working with ESA’s ExoMars program on
sample-return precursor missions in 2016 and 2018, NASA’s Science
Mission Directorate (SMD) will join forces with the Human Exploration
and Operations (HEO) directorate and the Office of the Chief
Technologist to work up a medium-sized mission in 2018 that may meet the
needs of all three NASA units.
NASA’s
official announcement earlier this week regarding its 2013 operating budget
confirms what the Mars Society has been warning about since last October – that
the U.S. government has ceased to view the exploration of the planet Mars as a
priority, and that there is a complete lack of serious commitment for
international cooperation on space exploration.
If
the budget cuts proposed by the Obama administration are implemented, it will
not only destroy America’s Mars exploration program, but will also derail
that of our European friends. The ExoMars 2016 and 2018 missions have been planned as a joint NASA-ESA project, with the
Europeans contributing over $1 billion to the effort. However if the U.S.
betrays its commitment, European supporters of Mars exploration will be left
high and dry, and both the partnership and the missions will be lost.
“America’s
planetary exploration program, in particular that involving the Red Planet, is
one of the greatest chapters in the history of science, civilization and our
country.Its abandonment represents
nothing short of embracing America’s decline.This is unacceptable,” said Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin.
The
U.S. space program is facing a very critical situation, one that threatens to
set back the exploration of the planet Mars, the key to humanity’s future in
space, for decades to come, if not longer.The Mars
Society is calling upon its members and friends to mobilize now in
order to save America’s Mars exploration program.
We
need everyone to reach out to individual members of the relevant House and Senate subcommittees
that oversee space exploration funding and demand that the resources for the
ExoMars 2016 and 2018 missions be reinstated in the NASA budget this year!
This
is a fight we can and must win!It’s
time to speak up!
In
addition, please consider joining the upcoming Space Exploration Alliance (SEA)
Legislative Blitz in Washington, D.C., a three-day campaign (Feb. 26-28) to let members of Congress know that there is
strong constituent support for an ambitious U.S. space program, including broad and sustainable exploration of the planet Mars.
2012 Mars Society UK Annual General Meeting & Conference August 25, 2012 Leicester, United Kingdom More details to follow. ________________________________________
