Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Pai

***MISSION TO MARS*** ***MISSION TO MARS***............................................................................................................................................................................................... 11AC – Leadership............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 41AC – Colonization.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 91AC – Solvency............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14

***INHERENCY............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 15Inherency - General....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16Inherency – NASA Budget............................................................................................................................................................................................. 17Inherency – Constellation.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 19Inherency – Research................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20

***LEADERSHIP UNIQUENESS.................................................................................................................................................................................. 21Space Leadership Low – General................................................................................................................................................................................. 22Space Leadership Low – Constellation......................................................................................................................................................................... 24

***LEADERSHIP GOOD............................................................................................................................................................................................... 25Space Leadership Good – General............................................................................................................................................................................... 26Space Leadership Good – STEM.................................................................................................................................................................................. 27Space Leadership Good – Jobs.................................................................................................................................................................................... 28Space Leadership Good – Hegemony.......................................................................................................................................................................... 29Space Leadership Good – Economy............................................................................................................................................................................. 31Space Leadership Good – Space Co-op....................................................................................................................................................................... 32

***NASA CRED UNIQUENESS.................................................................................................................................................................................... 34NASA Cred Low – General............................................................................................................................................................................................ 35NASA Cred Low – US Falling Behind/Brink................................................................................................................................................................... 37

***NASA CRED GOOD................................................................................................................................................................................................. 37NASA Good – General.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 38NASA Good – Space Leadership.................................................................................................................................................................................. 39NASA Good – Astronauts.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 42NASA Good – Jobs....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 43NASA Good – Economy................................................................................................................................................................................................ 44NASA Good – Military................................................................................................................................................................................................... 45NASA Good – STEM..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 48NASA Good – Soft Power............................................................................................................................................................................................. 49NASA Good – Hegemony............................................................................................................................................................................................. 50NASA Good – Clean Tech............................................................................................................................................................................................. 51NASA Good – Environment........................................................................................................................................................................................... 52NASA Good – Space Col.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 53NASA Good – Middle East............................................................................................................................................................................................ 54

***COLONIZATION UNIQUENESS.............................................................................................................................................................................. 54Extinction Inev – General.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 55Extinction Inev – Asteroids............................................................................................................................................................................................ 56Extinction Inev – Warming............................................................................................................................................................................................. 57Extinction Inev – Scarcity.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 58Extinction Inev – Supervolcanoes................................................................................................................................................................................. 60Extinction Inev – Disease.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 61

***COLONIZATION GOOD........................................................................................................................................................................................... 61Framework – Existential Risk***.................................................................................................................................................................................... 62Space Col Good – Resource Scarcity........................................................................................................................................................................... 65Space Col Good – Overpopulation................................................................................................................................................................................ 67Space Col Good – Disease........................................................................................................................................................................................... 68Space Col Good – Jobs................................................................................................................................................................................................ 70Space Col Good – Species Loss................................................................................................................................................................................... 71Space Col Good – Asteroid Mining............................................................................................................................................................................... 72Space Col Good – Quality of Life.................................................................................................................................................................................. 73

***SPINOFF ADVANTAGE........................................................................................................................................................................................... 74

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiSpinoff Advantage – 1AC Cards.................................................................................................................................................................................... 75Spinoff Advantage – General........................................................................................................................................................................................ 78Spinoff Advantage – Medical Technology..................................................................................................................................................................... 80Spinoff Advantage......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 81Spinoff Advantage – Water Recycling........................................................................................................................................................................... 82Spinoff Advantage – US Leadership............................................................................................................................................................................. 83Spinoff Advantage – The Kid’s Aren’t Alright................................................................................................................................................................. 85Spinoffs Good – Brain Drain.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 86Spinoffs Good – Competitiveness................................................................................................................................................................................. 87Spinoffs Good – NASA Leadership............................................................................................................................................................................... 88Spinoffs Good – Middle East......................................................................................................................................................................................... 89

***SOLVENCY – LEADERSHIP................................................................................................................................................................................... 89Solvency – Leadership – Space Exploration Policy....................................................................................................................................................... 90Solvency – Leadership – Tech/Military Dominance....................................................................................................................................................... 91Solvency – Leadership – Timeframe............................................................................................................................................................................. 92

***SOLVENCY – COLONIZATION............................................................................................................................................................................... 92Solvency – Colonization – General............................................................................................................................................................................... 93Solvency – Colonization – Constellation....................................................................................................................................................................... 97Solvency – Colonization – Terraforming........................................................................................................................................................................ 99Solvency – Colonization – One-Way Mission.............................................................................................................................................................. 101Solvency – Colonization – Moon Base........................................................................................................................................................................ 102Solvency – Colonization – Public/Private Partnership................................................................................................................................................. 103Solvency – Colonization – Timeframe......................................................................................................................................................................... 104Solvency – Colonization – More Colonies................................................................................................................................................................... 105Solvency – Colonization – Zubrin Prodict.................................................................................................................................................................... 106Solvency – Colonization – FYI Timeframe................................................................................................................................................................... 107Solvency – Colonization – AT: Not Self-Sufficient....................................................................................................................................................... 108Solvency – Colonization – AT: Space Diseases.......................................................................................................................................................... 109Solvency – Colonization – AT: Stress......................................................................................................................................................................... 110Solvency – Colonization – AT: Dust Storms................................................................................................................................................................ 111Solvency – Colonization – AT: Radiation.................................................................................................................................................................... 112Solvency – Colonization – AT: Food Supply................................................................................................................................................................ 113Solvency – Colonization – AT: Water Supply.............................................................................................................................................................. 114Solvency – Colonization – AT: Transportation............................................................................................................................................................. 115Solvency – Colonization – AT: Energy Production...................................................................................................................................................... 116Solvency – Colonization – AT: “Wait for better technology”......................................................................................................................................... 118Solvency – Colonization – AT: “Uninhabitable”........................................................................................................................................................... 119Solvency – Colonization – AT: Water.......................................................................................................................................................................... 120

***SOLVENCY – SPINOFFS....................................................................................................................................................................................... 120Solvency – Spinoffs – Manned Exploration................................................................................................................................................................. 121Solvency – Spinoffs – Tech Solves............................................................................................................................................................................. 122Solvency – Spinoffs – “Why Mars”.............................................................................................................................................................................. 123

***AT: K...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 123Overview Effect........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 124

***AT: CP.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 128AT: China CP – Perm.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 129AT: Privatization CP – Accountability.......................................................................................................................................................................... 130AT: Privatization CP – Fed Key................................................................................................................................................................................... 131AT: Privatization CP – No Solvency............................................................................................................................................................................ 132AT: Privatization CP – Russia DA............................................................................................................................................................................... 133AT: Privatization CP – NASA Key............................................................................................................................................................................... 134AT: Privatization CP – Humans Key............................................................................................................................................................................ 136AT: Privatization CP – Privatization Fails.................................................................................................................................................................... 137AT: Private Sector CP – Perm..................................................................................................................................................................................... 138AT: International CP – US Key.................................................................................................................................................................................... 139AT: International CP – Perm........................................................................................................................................................................................ 140AT: Private Sector CP – Bureaucracy blocks.............................................................................................................................................................. 141AT: Private Sector CP – Greed................................................................................................................................................................................... 142AT: Private Sector CP – Economic returns.................................................................................................................................................................. 143AT: Moon CP – No Solvency....................................................................................................................................................................................... 144

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiAT: Robots CP............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 145

***AT: DA.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 147AT: Politics – No PC Internal....................................................................................................................................................................................... 148AT: Obama Good – Aerospace Lobby........................................................................................................................................................................ 149AT: Obama Good – Bipart........................................................................................................................................................................................... 151AT: Obama Good – Plan Popular................................................................................................................................................................................ 153AT: Obama Good – GOP Likes Plan........................................................................................................................................................................... 157AT: Obama Good – Dems Like Plan........................................................................................................................................................................... 158AT: Elections – Plan Popular....................................................................................................................................................................................... 159AT: Spending DA – No Link......................................................................................................................................................................................... 160AT: Spending DA – Jobs Turn..................................................................................................................................................................................... 161AT: Spending DA – Plan is Cheap.............................................................................................................................................................................. 162AT: Econ DA’s – EPMD............................................................................................................................................................................................... 164AT: Econ DA’s – EPMD............................................................................................................................................................................................... 165AT: Econ DA’s – Aerospace Key to Economy............................................................................................................................................................. 166AT: Econ DA’s – Cost Covered by NASA.................................................................................................................................................................... 167AT: Econ DA’s – Cost Covered by NASA.................................................................................................................................................................... 168AT: Econ DA’s – IT’s Cheap........................................................................................................................................................................................ 169AT: Econ DA’s – N/U................................................................................................................................................................................................... 170AT: Econ DA’s – N/u................................................................................................................................................................................................... 171AT: Russia DA – Commies Can’t Be Trusted.............................................................................................................................................................. 172AT: Russia DA – Russia/US Relations High................................................................................................................................................................ 173AT: Russia DA – Russia Likes Nukes......................................................................................................................................................................... 175AT: Russia DA – Russia Is Incompetent..................................................................................................................................................................... 176AT: China DA – Relations Low – Dalai Lama Visit...................................................................................................................................................... 178AT: China DA – China Is Incompetent......................................................................................................................................................................... 179AT: China DA – No War – Interdependence/T Bills..................................................................................................................................................... 180AT: China DA – China Doesn’t Care........................................................................................................................................................................... 182AT: China DA – Thumper............................................................................................................................................................................................ 183

***AT: T....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 183AT: T-Its...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 184

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1AC – Leadership Contention – Space Race 2.0

US Space dominance is slipping now- the shuttle program was ended with no clear plan for the future. Klotz, 7/6/2011, Writer for NewsDaily, (Irene Klotz, “Shuttles’ end stirs doubts about U.S. space program” http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7643n8-us-space-shuttle-future/, Acc 7/20/11) NH CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, July 6, 2011 (Reuters) — As the clock ticks down to this week's final space shuttle launch, there is a mounting sense of uncertainty about future U.S. dominance in space. If all goes according to plan, Friday morning's launch of shuttle Atlantis on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station will mark the end of an era in the U.S. manned spaceflight program. But veteran former astronauts say the space program is in "disarray" and fear the end of the shuttles could mean a permanent decline in U.S. space leadership as well. Even one senior NASA official voiced pointed criticism recently about what he described as "poor policy" and the lack of any coherent leadership from Washington. The White House and NASA's leaders have insisted, however, that America still has a bright future in space. NASA is just retooling, officials have said, while adding that the U.S. space agency now plans to use some of the shuttle's budget to develop spaceships that can travel beyond the space station's 220-mile-high orbit, where the shuttles cannot go. "When I hear people say or listen to media reports that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human space flight, I have to say ... these folks must be living on another planet," NASA administrator Charlie Bolden said last week at a National Press Club luncheon. Scraping the shuttle also enables NASA to maintain the space station through at least 2020 -- five years beyond original budget projections, officials say. But what is most troubling to space enthusiasts is the gap between the shuttle's end and the start of a new program, with the roll-out of a new generation of spacecraft. "We're all victims of poor policy out of Washington D.C., both at the NASA level and the executive branch of the government and it affects all of us," NASA's launch director Mike Leinbach told his team after a final shuttle training run last week. "I'm embarrassed that we don't have better guidance. Throughout the history of the manned spaceflight program we've always had another program to transition into," he said. MIRED IN DEBATES NASA had been planning to return to the moon under a program called Constellation, but that was quashed due to funding shortfalls. The Obama administration instead called for a flexible approach to exploration that includes visits to an asteroid and eventually a human mission to Mars. Congress is mired in debates about what type of rocket to build and how much shuttle legacy hardware should be included. NASA points to the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that was assembled in orbit over the past 11 years, largely by space shuttle crews, as a major achievement. But with construction complete, NASA wants to turn over station crew ferry flights to private companies, even though none are expected to be ready to fly until around 2015. In the meantime, the United States will pay Russia to fly its astronauts, at a cost of more than $50 million a seat. Critics say launch-ready spaceships are a critical component of human space flight. Without that, the fear is that Russia, increasingly, or China and even Europe may step in to fill the void. "We're basically decimating the NASA human spaceflight program," said seven-time shuttle flier Jerry Ross. "The only thing we're going to have left in town is the station and it's a totally different animal from the shuttle." That sentiment is echoed by several Apollo-era luminaries, including the normally reticent Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 commander who 42 years ago was the first person to set foot on the moon. Armstrong and colleagues Gene Cernan, commander of the final U.S. moon mission in 1972 and Jim Lovell, commander of the nearly fatal Apollo 13 flight, publicly decried the state of the U.S. space program in a widely distributed column. "NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing," the astronauts wrote recently. "After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent."

Scenario One is Space Leadership:

First, loss of space leadership sends a worldwide perception of US decline- that’s key to heg. The Hindu, 7/11/2011, (“Moon, Mars, Venus – China aims high in Space” http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article2218797.ece, Acc 7/21/2011) NH

This year, a rocket will carry a boxcar-sized module into orbit, the first building block for a Chinese space station. Around 2013, China plans to launch a lunar probe that will set a rover loose on the moon. It wants to put a man on the moon, sometime after 2020. While the United States is still working out its next move as the space shuttle program winds down, China is forging ahead. Some experts worry the U.S. could slip behind China in human spaceflight - the realm of space science with the most prestige. “Space leadership is highly symbolic of national capabilities and international influence, and a decline in space leadership will be seen as symbolic of a relative decline in U.S. power and influence,” said Scott Pace, an associate NASA administrator in the George W. Bush administration. “One of the biggest advantages of their system is that they have five-year plans so they can develop well ahead,” said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane’s Space Systems and Industry. “They are taking a step-by-step approach, taking their time and gradually improving their capabilities. They are putting all the pieces together for a very capable, advanced space industry.” In 2003, China became the third country to send an astronaut into space on its own, four decades after the United States and Russia. In 2006, it sent its first probe to the moon. In 2008, China carried out its first spacewalk. China’s space station is slated to open around 2020, the same year the International Space Station is scheduled to close. If the U.S. and its partners don’t come up with a replacement, China could have the only permanent human presence in the sky. Its space laboratory module, due to be launched later this year, will test docking techniques for the space station. China’s version will be smaller than the International Space Station, which is the size of a football field and jointly operated by the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 European countries. China is not the only country aiming high in space. Russia has talked about building a base on the moon and a possible mission to Mars but hasn’t set a time frame. India, which has already achieved an unmanned orbit of the moon, is planning its first manned space flight in 2016. China, having orbited the moon and starting collecting data on it, is moving toward sending a man there - and beyond. It hopes to launch the rover-releasing moon probe in about two years. Chinese experts believe a moon landing will happen in 2025 at the earliest. “The lunar probe is the starting point for deep space exploration,” said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s moon-exploring program, in a 2010 interview posted on the national space agency’s website. “We first need to do a good job of exploring the moon and work out the rocket, transportation and detection technology that can then be used for a future exploration of mars or venus.”

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That solves nuclear war.Kagan 7 (Robert Kagan, adjunct Professor of History at Georgetown University, MPP JFK School of Government at Harvard University, PhD US History from American University, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “End of Dreams, Return of History,” July, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/end_of_dreams_return_of_histor.html)

Finally, there is the United States itself. As a matter of national policy stretching back across numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative, Americans have insisted on preserving regional predominance in East Asia; the Middle East; the Western Hemisphere; until recently, Europe; and now, increasingly, Central Asia. This was its goal after the Second World War, and since the end of the Cold War, beginning with the first Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton years, the United States did not retract but expanded its influence eastward across Europe and into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Even as it maintains its position as the predominant global power, it is also engaged in hegemonic competitions in these regions with China in East and Central Asia, with Iran in the Middle East and Central Asia, and with Russia in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The United States, too, is more of a traditional than a postmodern power, and though Americans are loath to acknowledge it, they generally prefer their global place as "No. 1" and are equally loath to relinquish it. Once having entered a region, whether for practical or idealistic reasons, they are remarkably slow to withdraw from it until they believe they have substantially transformed it in their own image. They profess indifference to the world and claim they just want to be left alone even as they seek daily to shape the behavior of billions of people around the globe. The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying -- its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible.

Second, US Space leadership is a powerful foreign policy tool- missions like the plan bolster credibility for Soft Power. Stone, 3/14/2011, Space policy analyst and strategist, (Christopher, “American leadership in space: leadership through capability” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1797/1, Acc 7/20/2011) NH Recently, Lou Friedman wrote a piece where he articulated his view on what American leadership in space means to many and what it means to him (see “American leadership”, The Space Review, February 14, 2011). When it comes to space exploration and development, including national security space and commercial, I would disagree somewhat with Mr. Friedman’s assertion that space is “often” overlooked in “foreign relations and geopolitical strategies”. My contention is that while space is indeed overlooked in national grand geopolitical strategies by many in national leadership, space is used as a tool for foreign policy and relations more often than not. In fact, I will say that the US space program has become less of an effort for the advancement of US space power and exploration, and is used more as a foreign policy tool to “shape” the strategic environment to what President Obama referred to in his National Security Strategy as “The World We Seek”. Using space to shape the strategic environment is not a bad thing in and of itself. What concerns me with this form of “shaping” is that we appear to have changed the definition of American leadership as a nation away from the traditional sense of the word. Some seem to want to base our future national foundations in space using the important international collaboration piece as the starting point. Traditional national leadership would start by advancing United States’ space power capabilities and strategies first, then proceed toward shaping the international environment through allied cooperation efforts. The United States’ goal should be leadership through spacefaring capabilities, in all sectors. Achieving and maintaining such leadership through capability will allow for increased space security and opportunities for all and for America to lead the international space community by both technological and political example. The world has recognized America as the leaders in space because it demonstrated technological advancement by the Apollo lunar landings, our deep space exploration probes to the outer planets, and deploying national security space missions. We did not become the recognized leaders in astronautics and space technology because we decided to fund billions into research programs with no firm budgetary commitment or attainable goals. We did it because we made a national level decision to do each of them, stuck with it, and achieved exceptional things in manned and unmanned spaceflight. We have allowed ourselves to drift from this traditional strategic definition of leadership in space exploration, rapidly becoming participants in spaceflight rather than the leader of the global space community. One example is shutting down the space shuttle program without a viable domestic spacecraft chosen and funded to commence operations upon retirement of the fleet. We are paying millions to rely on Russia to ferry our astronauts to an International Space Station that US taxpayers paid the lion’s share of the cost of construction. Why would we, as United States citizens and space advocates, settle for this? The current debate on commercial crew and cargo as the stopgap between shuttle and whatever comes next could and hopefully will provide some new and exciting solutions to this particular issue. However, we need to made a decision sooner rather than later. Finally, one other issue that concerns me is the view of the world “hegemony” or “superiority” as dirty words. Some seem to view these words used in policy statements or speeches as a direct threat. In my view, each nation (should they desire) should have freedom of access to space for the purpose of advancing their “security, prestige and wealth” through exploration like we do. However, to maintain leadership in the space environment, space superiority is a worthy and necessary byproduct of the traditional leadership model. If your nation is the leader in space, it would pursue and maintain superiority in their mission sets and capabilities. In my opinion, space superiority does not imply a wall of orbital weapons preventing other nations from access to space, nor does it preclude international cooperation among friendly nations.

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiRather, it indicates a desire as a country to achieve its goals for national security, prestige, and economic prosperity for its people, and to be known as the best in the world with regards to space technology and astronautics. I can assure you that many other nations with aggressive space programs, like ours traditionally has been, desire the same prestige of being the best at some, if not all, parts of the space pie. Space has been characterized recently as “congested, contested, and competitive”; the quest for excellence is just one part of international space competition that, in my view, is a good and healthy thing. As other nations pursue excellence in space, we should take our responsibilities seriously, both from a national capability standpoint, and as country who desires expanded international engagement in space. If America wants to retain its true leadership in space, it must approach its space programs as the advancement of its national “security, prestige and wealth” by maintaining its edge in spaceflight capabilities and use those demonstrated talents to advance international prestige and influence in the space community. These energies and influence can be channeled to create the international space coalitions of the future that many desire and benefit mankind as well as America. Leadership will require sound, long-range exploration strategies with national and international political will behind it. American leadership in space is not a choice. It is a requirement if we are to truly lead the world into space with programs and objectives “worthy of a great nation”.

Soft power prevents extinction – disease, climate change, terrorism, and great power war.Nye 8 (Joseph Nye, professor of international relations at Harvard University, “American Power After the Financial Crises,” http://www.foresightproject.net/publications/articles/article.asp?p=3533)

Power always depends on context, and in today's world, it is distributed in a pattern that resembles a complex three-dimensional chess game. On the top chessboard, military power is largely unipolar and likely to remain so for some time. But on the middle chessboard, economic power is already multi-polar, with the US, Europe, Japan and China as the major players, and others gaining in importance. The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations that cross borders outside of government control, and it includes actors as diverse as bankers electronically transferring sums larger than most national budgets at one extreme, and terrorists transferring weapons or hackers disrupting Internet operations at the other. It also includes new challenges like pandemics and climate change. On this bottom board, power is widely dispersed, and it makes no sense to speak of unipolarity, multi-polarity or hegemony. Even in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the giddy pace of technological change is likely to continue to drive globalisation, but the political effects will be quite different for the world of nation states and the world of non-state actors. In inter-state politics, the most important factor will be the continuing "return of Asia". In 1750, Asia had three-fifths of the world population and three-fifths of the world's product. By 1900, after the industrial revolution in Europe and America, Asia's share shrank to one-fifth of the world product. By 2040, Asia will be well on its way back to its historical share. The "rise" in the power of China and India may create instability, but it is a problem with precedents, and we can learn from history about how our policies can affect the outcome. A century ago, Britain managed the rise of American power without conflict, but the world's failure to manage the rise of German power led to two devastating world wars. In transnational politics, the information revolution is dramatically reducing the costs of computing and communication. Forty years ago, instantaneous global communication was possible but costly, and restricted to governments and corporations. Today it is virtually free to anyone with the means to enter an internet café. The barriers to entry into world politics have been lowered, and non-state actors now crowd the stage. In 2001, a non-state group killed more Americans than the government of Japan killed at Pearl Harbor. A pandemic spread by birds or travelers on jet aircraft could kill more people than perished in the first or second world wars. This is a new world politics with which we have less experience. The problems of power diffusion (away from states) may turn out to be more difficult than power transition among states. The problem for American power in the 21st century is that there are more and more things outside the control of even the most powerful state. Although the United States does well on the traditional measures, there is increasingly more going on in the world that those measures fail to capture. Under the influence of the information revolution and globalisation, world politics is changing in a way that means Americans cannot achieve all their international goals acting alone. For example, international financial stability is vital to the prosperity of Americans, but the United States needs the cooperation of others to ensure it. Global climate change too will affect the quality of life, but the United States cannot manage the problem alone. And in a world where borders are becoming more porous than ever to everything from drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism, America must mobilise international coalitions to address shared threats and challenges. As the largest country, American leadership will remain crucial. The problem of American power after this crisis is not one of decline, but realisation that even the largest country cannot achieve its aims without the help of others.

The plan solves- The US needs a successor to Constellation to maintain U.S. space leadership.Foust, ’10, Ph. D Planetary Sciences (Jeff, “NASA’s Course Correction, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/nasas-course-correction, 7/24/11)

The release of the budget proposal kicked off an extended debate about the space agency’s future, pitting advocates of Constellation, including companies working on the program and members of Congress representing districts where the work was being done, against entrepreneurial “NewSpace” companies and others seeking a different direction for human spaceflight. While past debates about NASA have focused on its level of funding, in 2010 nearly everyone accepted without question the $19 billion figure the administration proposed. Instead, the discussion was about how best to spend it. Supporters of Constellation leapt to the program’s defense, citing the progress that the program had made, such as the Ares I-X suborbital test flight the preceding October. Without a clear successor to Constellation in place, they warned, the United States would be in danger of ceding for an indefinite length of time its leadership in human spaceflight to Russia, China, and other countries. “This budget effectively ends America’s leadership in human space exploration,” claimed Representative Bill Posey (R.-Fla.) in a statement after the budget proposal’s release. Coupled with those strategic concerns were worries about job losses in places like Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Utah — which build or manage elements of Constellation — should the program be cancelled. Along with layoffs already planned with the impending end of the space shuttle program, local officials in those places worried about additional losses of thousands or even tens of thousands of jobs, all during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Many of those critical of the proposal to kill Constellation also opposed the proposal to develop a private-sector capacity to carry astronauts to space. Their worries stemmed from a perceived lack of experience by commercial space companies in human spaceflight. The prime example of such companies was SpaceX, the firm founded by high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002 to develop low-cost launch vehicles and one of two companies with NASA awards to develop ISS cargo transportation systems. At the time of the budget’s release, SpaceX had yet to perform the first launch of the Falcon 9 — the rocket it was developing for those ISS missions and other applications. “This request represents nothing more than a commercially-led, faith-based space program,” Senator Richard Shelby (R.-Ala.), the most strident critic of

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paithe administration’s commercialization plans, said at an April 2010 hearing on the NASA budget. “Today, the commercial providers that NASA has contracted with cannot even carry the trash back from the space station much less carry humans to or from space safely.”

Scenario Two is NASA Credibility:Only a US led Mission to Mars can revitalize NASA credibility and science McLane 10, Associate Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future”, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1 25 July 2011)

The only potential NASA program with a real ability to capture the enthusiastic support of the American public is a short duration, focused drive to send a human to live permanently on Mars. The targeted time horizon must be short—perhaps only a decade—so taxpayers in their own lifetime would be able to witness the event they are funding. This effort would salvage the aerospace industry and also breathe life back into the technological malaise that currently affects much of American society. Unlike the question posed by just what to do with the white-elephant International Space Station, if only one human begins to live on Mars (and the first missions must be one-way trips only) there will be no thought of ever abandoning the colony. In the turbulent 1960s the Apollo program distracted our country from severe social and political problems. In a like manner, a human presence on Mars would captivate the interest of the world and divert attention from the seemingly intractable issues that afflict the current generation on Earth. Naysayers claim the country can’t afford to send a person to Mars, but they forget we’ve successfully funded expensive space programs before and in tough economic times. Our space agency has relatively few direct government employees and distributes most of its money into the private sector all over the country. Some incorrectly believe that spending on NASA might divert funds from other needy government programs. One thing that keeps wealth in the US from being a “zero sum game” (where for some to win, others must lose) are those scientific developments that enable us to produce more output with less input. NASA is on the tip of this technology spear. Spending on the scientific segment of America is what keeps our standard of living moving ahead in a world of ever-diminishing natural assets. Rather than some fanciful and inaccurate speculation on what a tiny Mars outpost might cost, we should consider just what the country ought to be willing to spend. Forty years ago, at its peak, the US dedicated close to 1% of its Gross National Product (GNP) to the Apollo Moon landing. This was deemed affordable, in spite of the need to simultaneously fund an expensive war in Vietnam and massive new government welfare programs. In recent years the percent of our GNP that is devoted to space exploration is down in the range of one-quarter of one percent. America should easily be able to devote perhaps half a percent of its GNP each year—that’s just half the cost of Apollo, in a decade-long effort that would provide a permanent human presence on Mars. Such a program would receive enthusiastic, unwavering financial support when the entire world understands that humanity is finally embarked on a dramatic new course out into the universe. Just like the wildly successful (and profitable) Apollo moon landing effort, the human Mars landing should be an all-American project. Some experts claim that the return on investment (ROI) to the US from new and applied technology acquired during Apollo was as much as ten dollars in public benefit for each dollar our government spent. For a manned Mars program, do we really want to invite other countries to be partners and then have to share the tremendous ROI with them?

Second, That’s key to the economy- three reasonsa. Spin off technologies. AIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 22, 2011)

The Global Positioning System, originally designed for military use, is now relied on for many commercial applications including online banking transactions, ATMs, agriculture, air traffic and ground transportation systems and by emergency responders. As of March 19, 2010, there were 35 satellites in the GPS constellation according to the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing. Today the civilian market for GPS is worth nearly $5 billion. Maker of GPS hardware and software Garmin Ltd., saw total 2008 sales of $3.5 billion, more than doubling 2006 sales, according to Space News.

b. Mars mission- Job Growth and innovation. Choi, 11, Writer for Astrobiology Magazing, (Charles, “Red Planet for Sale? How Corporate Sponsors Could Send Humans to Mars” http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/news/redplanetforsalehowcorporatesponsorscouldsendhumanstomars, Acc 7/25) NH

The plan, which the researchers detail in the book, “The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet,” published last December, suggests that such a project could add 500,000 U.S. jobs over 10 years, boosting the aerospace industry and manufacturing sector. “A mission to Mars would motivate millions of students to pursue careers in science and technology, thereby providing corporate America with a huge talent pool of tech-savvy young scientists,” said Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who edited the book along with Levine. “Then there are the scientific and technological advances which would directly benefit the American people. Cell phones, GPS devices and satellite TV owe their existence to the space programs of the 1960s. The technologies which might be invented in support of a human mission to Mars stagger the imagination.” “There can be little doubt that a human mission to Mars will launch a technological and scientific revolution, create incredible business opportunities for corporate America, the manufacturing sector, and the aerospace industry, and inspire boys and girls across the U.S. to become scientists and engineers,” Schild said.

c. The aerospace industrySlazer 5/18/ 2011 (Aerospace Industries Association, Contributions of Space to National Imperatives, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/testimony_051811.pdf, Accessed 7/24/2011)

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiI am here on behalf of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)—we are an association of over 300 aerospace manufacturing companies and the highly-skilled employees who make the spacecraft, launch vehicles, sensors and ground support systems employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Defense, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and other civil, military and intelligence space organizations. This industry sustains nearly 11 million jobs, including many high-skilled, high-technology positions. The U.S. aerospace manufacturing industry remains the single largest contributor to the nation’s balance of trade, exporting $80.5 billion and importing $27.2 billion in relevant products in 2010, for a net surplus of $53.3 billion.1

Economic decline causes global nuclear warMead 9 (Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, New Republic, February 4, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8)

So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them in a progressively worse position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost ground to Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and professionals who want to develop a liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of religious extremists, populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal capitalist society for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable to the consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in wealthier societies. As a result, developing countries and countries where capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does. And, consequently, financial crises often reinforce rather than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet again. None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well . If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Pai

1AC – Colonization Contention – Space Colonization

Extinction is inevitable – first, dramatic environmental changes threaten existence on Earth and there is no framework for adaptation.Cairns 10 (John Cairns, Dept of Biological Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Global Crisis Collaboration: The Key to the Survival of Civilization in the 21st Century,” in Asian J. Exp. Sci. Vol. 24, No. 1, 33-38)

Crisis Collaboration The currently occurring, multiple predicaments in the environmental realm lack any robust evidence on global collaboration for any of the planet’s major crises: (1) global climate change, (2) acidification of oceans, (3) overpopulation, (4) ecological overshoot, (5) damage to the biospheric life support system. Failure to collaborate on any one of these five important issues could mean the end of civilization as presently known and even the extinction of the human species . Despite massive global climate change studies by thousands of scientists over the last decade and earlier studies of the past century, little significant progress has occurred in reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the component of explosive human population growth seems unable to even approach a dispassionate, free, and open exchange of ideas. The lack of literacy on acidification of the oceans, ecological overshoot, and damage to the biospheric life support system is appalling since human survival depends on an informed citizenry (as Thomas Jefferson opined). One can only hope that environmental literacy is improved and that intelligence does indeed have survival value. (1) Global Climate Change -- Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing rapidly, and even international conferences on the subject are not inspiring. A world-class climate scientist, James Hansen, has stated “that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution . The democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working” (Adam, 2009). (2) Acidification of Oceans -- The Inter Academy Panel on International Problems has issued a statement that ocean acidification is irreversible on timescales of at least tens of thousands of years. The consequent loss of carbonate ions produces a critical situation with production of shells and skeletons of marine organisms – carbonate ion concentrations are now lower than at any other time during the last 800,000 years (IAP, 2009). Surely, this matter requires urgent action as espoused by the G8+5 Academies’ Joint Statement (2009). (3) Overpopulation -- As of June 2009, the global human population was approaching 7 billion at the rate of approximately 215,000 new mouths each day. “. . . for a long time it was simply assumed that rising population was the main challenge facing humanity. But now we understand that the effect of rising population depends on how much people consume and produce , and as the world gets flat, more and more people are going to be consuming and producing more and more” (Jared Diamond as quoted in Friedman, 2008. When Diamond refers to world as getting flat, he is referring to a “level playing field” where people the world over have an equal opportunity to consume the world’s resources and produce goods for a global market. Thus, third world countries have more per capita income and compete for the world’s oil and other finite resources. However, people refuse to discuss overpopulation in rational terms. The problem can be simply stated – exponential human population growth cannot continue on a finite planet. Why has humankind refused to worry about such an obvious danger? Rubin (2009) notes : “That ’s primarily because from an Economist’s perspective, natural resources are effectively limitless.” However, in the early 21st century, recognition developed that the physical supply of oil was not infinite and alternatives (e.g., ethanol and tar sands) could not replace oil at present rates of consumption. Oil supplies are dwindling rapidly and prices are rising, even during a recession. How many people can the planet support without cheap oil? How much longer can humankind use fossil fuels at the current or greater rate without passing another global climatic tipping point? Moreover, cheap, abundant oil has been responsible for cheap, abundant food. Abundant food, including potable water, and greatly improved medical care have been responsible for unprecedented population growth. (4) Ecological Overshoot -- Most citizens and politicians are unaware of the colossal threat of ecological overshoot. Ecological overshoot day each year marks the day that humanity has used all the resources nature can generate for that year (www.footprintnetwork.org). In 2008, humankind used about 40% more than nature could regenerate in one year – clearly, a grossly unsustainable lifestyle. Schor and Willis (2009) discuss in detail the concept of conscious consumption, which refers to choices for reducing or altering consumption that are conscientiously made and motivated by values such as social justice, sustainability, corporate behavior, or workers’ rights. Conscious consumption does not always result in the desired effects: “Conscious consumers may believe they are supporting a different way of living and consuming, but the market turns resistance into a new and profitable market niche” (Schor and Willis, 2009). However, a perpetual recession cannot be counted on to keep consumption down, so conscious consumption seems to be the best alternative at present. Given the vast disparity in individual wealth globally, achieving collaboration on ecological overshoot will not be easy. In the United States and elsewhere in the world, substantial disparities exist in the income of the very rich and the very poor; the gap is still increasing. The awareness of such disparities must be increased (Editorial, 2009a). (5) Damage to the Biospheric Life Support System -- Earth has had a series of life support systems over billions of years, but the present one has served the genus Homo well for 2 million years and Homo sapiens for 160,000-200,000 years. Humans are making a serious mistake to assume that the biospheric life support system will always provide conditions favorable to humankind. Dramatic decline in biodiversity, loss of habitat, and global climate change, to mention a few illustrative examples, adversely affect the biospheric life support system. However, the biospheric life support system has maintained an atmospheric gas balance favorable to most present life forms, even though humans are not doing much to protect the integrity of the biospheric life support system. Both ecologists and ecotoxicologists are essential to assessing and monitoring the integrity and condition of the biospheric life support system, but this essential collaborative relationship has been developing far too slowly. Five Reasons for Concern (first published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) about increases in global mean temperature has been updated in the framework of global mean temperature in a Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences publication (Smith et al., 2009). (1) Risk to unique and threatened systems -- This reason for concern addresses the potential for increased damage to or irreversible loss of unique and threatened systems , such as coral reefs, tropical glaciers, endangered species, unique ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots, small island states, and indigenous communities. (2) Risk of extreme weather conditions -- This reason for concern tracks increases in extreme events with substantial consequences for societies and natural systems, such as the increase in the frequency, intensity, or consequences of heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, or tropical cyclones. (3) Distribution of impacts -- This reason for concern focuses on disparities of impacts. Some regions, countries, and populations face greater harm from climate change. Whereas, other regions, countries, or populations would be much less harmed – some may even benefit. The magnitude of harm can also vary within regions and across sectors and populations. (4) Aggregate damages -- This reason for concern covers comprehensive measures of impacts. Impacts distributed across the globe can be aggregated into a single metric, such as monetary damages, lives affected, or

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Pailives lost. Aggregation techniques vary in their treatment of equity of outcomes, as well as treatment of impacts that are not easily quantified. This reason for concern is based mainly on monetary aggregation available in the literature. (5) Risk of large-scale discontinuities -- This reason for concern represents the likelihood that certain phenomena (sometimes called singularities or tipping points) would occur, any of which may be accompanied by very large impacts. These phenomena include the deglaciation (partial or complete) of the West Antarctic or Greenland ice sheet and major changes in some components of Earth’s climate system, such as substantial reduction or collapse of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Increases in global mean temperature above circa 1990 measures are associated with higher risks (Hoag, 2009). Smith et al. (2009) summarize the level of risk in the five reasons for concerns. The first two reasons for concern – risks to unique and threatened systems and risk of extreme weather events – imply substantial impacts or risks between 1°C and 2°C above 1990 levels. Past risks were very low; a 1°C-2°C increase is more risky. The third and fourth reasons for concern – distribution of impacts and aggregate damages – reflect substantial risks beginning in the range between 2°C and 3°C. Above 2°C is very risky, with above 3°C becoming dangerous. The fifth reason for concern – risks of large-scale discontinuities – becomes a substantial risk when global mean temperature climbs more than 4°C or 5°C above the 1990 mean. Unless precautionary measures to prevent further increases in global mean temperature are taken, humankind (and most other species as well) will experience some very difficult, dangerous, and possibly fata l global climate changes (Hoag, 2009).

Second, an asteroid strike is inevitable – it categorically outweighs every impact.Globus 11 (Al Globus, curator for NASA, “Why Build Orbital Space Colonies?” http://space.alglobus.net/Basics/why.html,)

If we don't do something, sooner or later Earth will be hit by an asteroid large enough to kill all or most of us. That includes the plants and animals, not just people. Maybe this won't happen for millions of years. Maybe in 15 minutes. We don't know. For example, on 23 March 1989 asteroid 1989FC with the potential impact energy of over 1000 megatons (roughly the equivalent a thousand of the most powerful nuclear bombs) missed Earth by about six hours [Freedman 1995]. We first saw this fellow after closest approach. If 1989FC had come in six hours later most of us would have been killed with zero warning. It's unlikely, but a large comet or asteroid could impact the Earth in 15 minutes and eventually we will be be hit, for sure. We are hit by thousands of smaller asteroids every year and we don't see any of them before the collision. Detection of larger, Earth-threatening rocks is very far from complete. At the present rate it will take years before we find just 90% of them. Beside these inevitable cosmic disasters the long list of potential human-induced potential calamities -- nuclear war, ecological collapse, global warming, epidemics, etc. -- are less certain and far less dangerous, although much more likely in the near term. After all, the worst of these would probably kill less than three quarters of the people on the planet. A good sized asteroid will get us all. We have been warned. In October of 1990 a very small asteroid struck the Pacific Ocean with a blast about the size of the first atomic bomb; the one that leveled Hiroshima, Japan killing roughly 200,000 people in seconds. If this asteroid had arrived ten hours later it would have struck in the middle of more than a million U.S. and Iraqi soldiers preparing for war. It could have struck near U.S. forces. The U.S. would have thought Iraq attacked with a nuclear weapon. America would have used its immense nuclear arsenal to turn Iraq into a radioactive wasteland, and even one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. Don't worry though, these small asteroid strikes only happen about once a month [Lewis 1996b]. Besides, it gets worse. In 1908 a small asteroid (perhaps 50 meters across) hit Tunguska, Siberia and flattened 60 million trees. That asteroid was so small it never even hit the ground, just exploded in mid-air. If it had arrived four hours and fifty-two minutes later it could have hit St. Petersburg [Lewis 1996b]. At the time St. Petersburg was the capital of Russia with a population of a few hundred thousand. The city would have cease to exist. As it was, dust from the blast lit up the skies of Europe for days. Asteroid strikes this size probably happen about once every hundred years. However, this is just an average. Just because we got hit once doesn't mean we're safe for another hundred years. Indeed, there was another Tunguska-class strike in the Brazilian rain forest on 13 August 1930 [Lewis 1996b]. But don't worry, it gets worse. There are about 1,000 asteroids a kilometer or more in size that cross Earth's orbit (the path Earth takes around the Sun). About a third of these will eventually hit Earth [Lewis 1996a] if we don't do something about it. An asteroid strike this large can be reasonably expected to kill a billion people or so, depending on where it hits. A strike in China or India will kill more, in Antarctica less. Even a strike in the ocean would create a tsunami so enormous most people living near the coast would be drowned. A strike of this size is expected about once every 300,000 years or so. We might as well be playing Russian roulette. Admittedly, the revolver has 300,000 cylinders, but if we keep pulling the trigger long enough we'll blow our head off, and there's no guarantee it won't be the next pull. It's not just Earth. In 1178 our Moon was hit with by an asteroid creating 120,000 megatons explosion (about six times the force of Earth's entire atomic arsenal). The collision dug a 20 km (12 mile) crater. This strike was recorded by a monk in Canterbury, England. We are extremely lucky it didn't hit us. The moon is a smaller target and has much less gravity to attract an impactor. If a 120,000 megaton blast had hit the Earth our history would have been dramatically different. We're just lucky this one hit the Moon instead. The most recent large strike also missed Earth. In July 1994 the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 plowed into Jupiter. The comet broke up into roughly 20 large pieces before contact, but when the pieces hit they left a string of enormous explosions clearly visible to our telescopes. The scale of the destruction was staggering. Each impact was the equivalent of about 10 million megatons of TNT. If Shoemaker-Levy had hit Earth instead of Jupiter, in the extremely unlikely event you were alive you certainly wouldn't be reading this book. You'd spend every waking moment trying to survive. But don't worry, it gets worse. Sixty-five million years ago a huge asteroid several kilometers across slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The explosion was the equivalent of about 200 million megatons of dynamite, about the equivalent of all 20 pieces of Shoemaker-Levy. The blast turned the air around it into plasma - a material so hot electrons are ripped from the atomic nucleus and molecules cannot exist. This is the stuff the Sun is made of. Enormous quantities of red-hot materials were thrown into space, most of which rained down worldwide burning literally the entire planet to a crisp. Anything not underground or underwater was killed. Evidence gathered by the University of Colorado at Boulder suggests that all the dinosaurs above ground were incinerated in a few hours reference. Surprisingly, only about 75% of the plant and animal species on Earth were exterminated. What's surprising is that everything wasn't wiped out. This scenario has been repeated over and over, perhaps once every 100 million years or so. Each collision killed up to 95% of all species on Earth. As many as two-thirds of all species that ever existed may have been terminated by asteroids hitting the Earth. We know about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs because we found the crater. But what happens when an asteroid hits the ocean? After all, oceans cover two-thirds of the Earth's surface. Most asteroid strikes must be in water. Unless the asteroid is very large there won't be a crater. However, if you drop a rock into a lake it makes a wave. The larger the rock the bigger the wave. Drop a 400 meter (three football fields) diameter asteroid into the Atlantic Ocean and you get a tsunami 60 meters (yards) high [Willoughby and McGuire 1995]. Do that today and beach side property values will plummet due to the sudden and complete absence of any people or buildings. Almost every human culture has a flood story (for example, Noah's Arc). These may be the living memory of asteroids hitting the oceans. This is not idle speculation, there are several hundred thousand asteroids in near Earth orbits large enough to cause world- wide casualties by creating tsunamis [Freedman 1995]. Of course, if the asteroid is big enough, even a hit in the ocean will rearrange the Earth's crust. Researchers from the University of Toronto and the Geological

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiSurvey of Canada determined that an asteroid the size of Mt. Everest probably hit the Earth about 1.8 billion years ago, and literally turned part of the Earth inside out [http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14341]. The crater is about 250 kilometers (156 miles) wide. It's amazing that anything survived at all, but somehow a few of our single-celled ancestors lived through the ensuing hell. Life started on Earth over 3 billion years ago, but no large animals appeared until about 700 million years ago - perhaps because of the devastating bombardment Earth was still suffering through.

The window is closing – we must colonize space now.Tierney 7 (John Tierney, New York Times Columnist, “A Survival Imperative for Space Colonization”, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/science/17tier.html)

It might seem hard to imagine that humans would invent rockets and then never use them to settle other worlds, but Dr. Gott notes that past civilizations, notably China, abandoned exploration. He also notes that humans have been going into space for only 46 years — a worrisomely low number when using Copernican logic to forecast the human spaceflight program’s longevity. Since there’s a 50 percent chance that we’re already in the second half of the space program’s total lifespan, Dr. Gott figures there is a 50 percent chance it will not last more than another 46 years. Maybe the reason civilizations don’t get around to colonizing other planets is that there’s a narrow window when they have the tools, population and will to do so, and the window usually closes on them. “In 1970 everyone figured we’d have humans on Mars by now, but we haven’t taken the opportunity,” Dr. Gott says. “We should it do soon, because colonizing other worlds is our best chance to hedge our bets and improve the survival prospects of our species. Sooner or later something will get us if we stay on one planet. By the time we’re in trouble and wish we had that colony on Mars, it may be too late.” You could argue that he’s being too pessimistic about space exploration. The space program may be only 46 years old, but humans have been exploring new territory for tens of thousands of years, so by Copernican logic perhaps they’ll keep it doing it far into the future. But given recent trends — after going to the Moon, we now barely send humans into orbit — he’s right to be worried. If it’s true that civilizations normally go extinct because they get stuck on their home planets, then the odds are against us, but there’s nothing inevitable about the Copernican Principle. Earthlings could make themselves the statistical anomaly. When extinction is the norm, you may as well try to be special.

The risks associated with colonization are grossly exaggerated – Mars is the safest option for permanent settlement.Zubrin 10 (Robert Zubrin, Ph.D., President of the Mars Society, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html)

Opponents of human Mars exploration frequently cite several issues which they claim make such missions to dangerous to be considered at this time. Like the dragons that use to mar the maps medieval cartographers, these concerns have served to deter many who otherwise might be willing to enterprise the exploration of the unknown. It is therefore fitting to briefly address them here. 4.1. Radiation: It is alleged by some that the radiation doses involved in a Mars mission present insuperable risks, or are not well understood. This is untrue. Solar flare radiation, consisting of protons with energies of about 1 MeV, can be shielded by 12 cm of water or provisions, and there will be enough of such materials on board the ship to build an adequate pantry storm shelter for use in such an event. The residual cosmic ray dose, about 50 Rem for the 2.5 year mission, represents a statistical cancer risk of about 1%, roughly the same as that which would be induced by an average smoking habit over the same period. 4.2. Zero Gravity: Cosmonauts have experienced marked physiological deterioration after extended exposure to zero gravity. However a Mars mission can be flown employing artificial gravity generated by rotating the spacecraft. The engineering challenges associated with designing either rigid or tethered artificial gravity systems are modest, and make the entire issue of zero-gravity health effects on interplanetary missions moot. 4.3. Back Contamination: Recently some people have raised the issue of possible back-contamination as a reason to shun human (or robotic sample return) missions to Mars. Such fears have no basis in science. The surface of Mars is too cold for liquid water, is exposed to near vacuum, ultra violet, and cosmic radiation, and contains an antiseptic mixture of peroxides that have eliminated any trace of organic material. It is thus as sterile an environment as one could ask for. Furthermore, pathogens are specifically adapted to their hosts. Thus, while there may be life on Mars deep underground, it is quite unlikely that these could be pathogenic to terrestrial plants or animals, as there are no similar macrofauna or macroflora to support a pathogenic life cycle in Martian subsurface groundwater. In any case, the Earth currently receives about 500 kg of Martian meteoritic ejecta per year. The trauma that this material has gone through during its ejection from Mars, interplanetary cruise, and re-entry at Earth is insufficient to have sterilized it, as has been demonstrated experimentally and in space studies on the viability of microorganisms following ejection and reentry (Burchell et al. 2004; Burchella et al. 2001; Horneck et al. 1994, 1995, 2001, Horneck et al. 1993; Mastrapaa et al. 2001; Nicholson et al. 2000). So if there is the Red Death on Mars, we’ve already got it. Those concerned with public health would do much better to address their attentions to Africa. 4.4. Human Factors: In popular media, it is frequently claimed that the isolation and stress associated with a 2.5 year round-trip Mars mission present insuperable difficulties. Upon consideration, there is little reason to believe that this is true. Compared to the stresses dealt with by previous generations of explorers and mariners, soldiers in combat, prisoners in prisons, refugees in hiding, and millions of other randomly selected people, those that will be faced by the hand-picked crew of Mars 1 seem modest. Certainly psychological factors are important (Bishop 2010; Fielder & Harrison, 2010; Harrison & Fielder 2010; Suedfeld 2010). However, any serious reading of previous history indicates that far from being the weak link in the chain of the piloted Mars mission, the human psyche is likely to be the strongest link in the chain as Apollo astronauts have testified (Mitchell & Staretz 2010; Schmitt 2010). 4.5. Dust Storms: Mars has intermittent local, and occasionally global dust storms with wind speeds up to 100 km/hour. Attempting to land through such an event would be a bad idea, and two Soviet probes committed to such a maelstrom by their uncontrollable flight systems were destroyed during landing in 1971. However, once on the ground, Martian dust storms present little hazard. Mars’ atmosphere has only about 1% the density of Earth at sea-level. Thus a wind with a speed of 100 km/hr on Mars only exerts the same dynamic pressure as a 10 km/hr breeze on Earth. The Viking landers endured many such events without damage. Humans are more than a match for Mars’ dragons.

Existential risks are a prior question.

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiBostrom 2 (Nick Bostrom, Department of Philosophy, Yale University, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” http://www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html)

Our approach to existential risks cannot be one of trial-and-error. There is no opportunity to learn from errors. The reactive approach – see what happens, limit damages, and learn from experience – is unworkable. Rather, we must take a proactive approach. This requires foresight to anticipate new types of threats and a willingness to take decisive preventive action and to bear the costs (moral and economic) of such actions. We cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, social attitudes or national security policies that developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Existential risks are a different kind of beast. We might find it hard to take them as seriously as we should simply because we have never yet witnessed such disasters.[5] Our collective fear-response is likely ill calibrated to the magnitude of threat. Reductions in existential risks are global public goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to take countermeasures against a major existential risk. If we take into account the welfare of future generations, the harm done by existential risks is multiplied by another factor, the size of which depends on whether and how much we discount future benefits [15,16].

You have a responsibility to establish an academic framework for evaluating existential risk.Bostrom 2 (Nick Bostrom, Department of Philosophy, Yale University, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” http://www.transhumanist.com/volume9/risks.html)

Previous sections have argued that the combined probability of the existential risks is very substantial. Although there is still a fairly broad range of differing estimates that responsible thinkers could make, it is nonetheless arguable that because the negative utility of an existential disaster is so enormous, the objective of reducing existential risks should be a dominant consideration when acting out of concern for humankind as a whole. It may be useful to adopt the following rule of thumb for moral action; we can call it Maxipok: Maximize the probability of an okay outcome, where an “okay outcome” is any outcome that avoids existential disaster. At best, this is a rule of thumb, a prima facie suggestion, rather than a principle of absolute validity, since there clearly are other moral objectives than preventing terminal global disaster. Its usefulness consists in helping us to get our priorities straight. Moral action is always at risk to diffuse its efficacy on feel-good projects[24] rather on serious work that has the best chance of fixing the worst ills. The cleft between the feel-good projects and what really has the greatest potential for good is likely to be especially great in regard to existential risk. Since the goal is somewhat abstract and since existential risks don’t currently cause suffering in any living creature[25], there is less of a feel-good dividend to be derived from efforts that seek to reduce them. This suggests an offshoot moral project, namely to reshape the popular moral perception so as to give more credit and social approbation to those who devote their time and resources to benefiting humankind via global safety compared to other philanthropies. Maxipok, a kind of satisficing rule, is different from Maximin (“Choose the action that has the best worst-case outcome.”)[26]. Since we cannot completely eliminate existential risks (at any moment we could be sent into the dustbin of cosmic history by the advancing front of a vacuum phase transition triggered in a remote galaxy a billion years ago) using maximin in the present context has the consequence that we should choose the act that has the greatest benefits under the assumption of impending extinction. In other words, maximin implies that we should all start partying as if there were no tomorrow. While that option is indisputably attractive, it seems best to acknowledge that there just might be a tomorrow, especially if we play our cards right.

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1AC – Solvency US Space leadership is in decline and a new policy is needed to rally the country: a mission to mars is not only feasible within 10 years but the technology currently exists. Zubrin, 6/29/2011, president of the Mars Society and the aerospace R&D firm Pioneer Astronautics, which does research and development for NASA and other agencies, and author of the book “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must” (Robert, “To replace the shuttle: A mission to Mars” http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/29/zubrin.mars/, Acc 7/25/2011) NH

(CNN) -- America's human spaceflight program is now adrift. On July 8, the space shuttle is scheduled to make its final flight, and the Obama administration has no coherent plan for what to do next. Instead, as matters stand, the United States will waste the next decade spending $100 billion to support an aimless constituency-driven human spaceflight effort that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing. For NASA's human exploration effort to make any progress, it needs a concrete goal, and one that's really worth pursuing. That goal should be sending humans to Mars. As a result of a string of successful probes sent to the Red Planet over the past 15 years, we now know for certain that Mars was once a warm and wet planet, possessing not only ponds and streams, but oceans of water on its surface. It continued to have an active hydrosphere on the order of a billion years -- a span five times as long as the time it took for life to appear on Earth after there was liquid water here. Thus, if the theory is correct that life is a natural phenomenon emerging from chemistry wherever there is liquid water, various minerals and a sufficient period of time, then life must have appeared on Mars. Furthermore, we know that much of that water remains on that planet today as ice or frozen mud, with the soil of continent-sized regions of the planet assessed as being more than 60% water by weight. Not only that, scientists have discovered that Mars has liquid water, not on the surface, but underground, where geothermal heating has warmed it to create environments capable of providing a home for life on Mars today. We have found places where water flowed out of the underground water table and down the slopes of craters within the past 10 years. Indeed, we have detected methane emissions characteristic of subterranean microbial life emerging from vents in the Martian surface. These are either the signatures of Martian life or the proof of subsurface hydrothermal environments fully suitable for life. If we go to Mars and find fossils of past life on its surface, we will have good reason to believe that we are not alone in the universe. If we send human explorers, who can erect drilling rigs that can reach underground water where Martian life may yet persist, we will be able to examine it. By doing so, we can determine whether life on Earth is the pattern for all life everywhere, or alternatively, whether we are simply one esoteric example of a far vaster and more interesting tapestry. These things are truly worth finding out. Furthermore, Mars is a bracing positive challenge that our society needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The challenge of a humans-to-Mars program would be an invitation to adventure to every young person in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world." There will be more than 100 million kids in our nation's schools over the next 10 years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1% of them to pursue a scientific education, the net result would be one million more scientists, engineers, inventors and medical researchers, making technological innovations that create new industries, find new cures, strengthen national defense and generally increase national income to an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. But the most important reason to go to Mars is the doorway it opens to the future. Uniquely among the extraterrestrial bodies of the inner solar system, Mars is endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the development of a technological civilization. For our generation and those that will follow, Mars is the New World. We should not shun its challenge. And we are ready. As I show in detail in my just updated book, "The Case for Mars," we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars, despite its greater distance, than we were to send men to the moon in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy started the Apollo program. We got to the moon eight years later. For our generation and those that will follow, Mars is the New World. We should not shun its challenge. Future-fantasy spaceships are not needed to send humans to Mars. The primary real requirement is a heavy-lift booster with a capability similar to the Saturn V launch vehicle employed in the 1960s. This is something we fully understand how to engineer. The mission could then be accomplished with two launches. The first would send an unfueled and unmanned Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) to Mars. After landing, this vehicle would manufacture its own methane/oxygen return propellant by combining a small amount of hydrogen imported from Earth with a large supply of carbon dioxide acquired from the Martian atmosphere. The chemistry required to perform this operation has been widely practiced on Earth since the gaslight era. Once the propellant is manufactured, the crew is sent to Mars in a habitation module launched by the second booster. After a six-month voyage to Mars, the hab module is landed near the ERV and used as the crew's base for exploring the Martian surface. Using spacesuits for protection in the thin Martian atmosphere, the astronauts would then spend the next year and a half exploring for past or present life, and then enter the return vehicle for a six-month voyage home. The hab module is left behind on Mars, so each time a mission is flown, another habitation is added to the base. There is nothing required by such a plan that is beyond our technology. The issue is not money. The issue is leadership. NASA's average Apollo-era (1961-73) budget, adjusted for inflation, was about $19 billion a year in today's dollars, only 5% more than the agency's current budget. Yet, the NASA of the '60s accomplished 100 times more because it had a mission with a deadline and was forced to develop an efficient plan to achieve that mission and then had to build a coherent set of hardware elements to achieve that plan. If President Barack Obama were willing to provide that kind of direction, we could have humans on Mars within a decade. The American people want and deserve a space program that really is going somewhere. It's time they got one. Fortune favors the bold. Mr. President, seize the day.

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Inherency - General Four problems with US space science and explorationAbbey and Lane, 2009 (George Abbey and Neal Lane, United States Space Policy: Challenges and Opportunities Gone Astray, July 21, 2011)

Our 2005 paper addressed four serious barriers that would need to be overcome in order for the United States to realize the enormous potential of space science and exploration: 1) the negative impact of U.S. export controls on U.S. space commerce and international cooperation; 2) the projected shortfall in the future U.S. science and engineering workforce; 3) inadequate planning for NASA’s future; and 4) the erosion of international trust and cooperation in space. We stressed the importance of balance in NASA’s programs, including the need for strong science, engineering, and environmental (for example, Earth-observation) research components—as well as human space exploration —and expressed concerns about the danger that the research programs would be cut back to make progress on VSE. We felt it was critical to the nation’s future civil space effort that NASA not become a single-mission agency. That was four years ago. Today not only are those barriers still standing, they are even more daunting because the significant political and economic changes that have occurred since our paper’s publication in 2005 make the task of overcoming these obstacles even more challenging.

15***INHERENCY

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Inherency – NASA Budget NASA’s budget doesn’t allow accomplishment of key missions. Santini, 1/13/11, Writer for AFP News, (Jean-Louis, “NASA Says it can’t Afford New Rocket, Spacecraft (Update) http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-nasa-rocket-spacecraft.html, Acc 7/20/2011) NH

The plan to make a first launch of a new rocket and space capsule to carry astronauts by 2016 "does not appear to be possible" within the projected budget, NASA said in a report to legislators. Four members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation shot back that the plan is not optional and that the US space agency must find a way. "The production of a heavy-lift rocket and capsule is not optional. It's the law," said a joint statement issued late Wednesday by Senators John Rockefeller, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Bill Nelson and David Vitter. "NASA must use its decades of space know-how and billions of dollars in previous investments to come up with a concept that works. We believe it can be done affordably and efficiently -- and, it must be a priority." The Senate committee released a copy of the NASA report, which the US space agency had not issued publicly but presented to lawmakers on January 10. It said that NASA fears it does not have the adequate funds according to budgets outlined in the fiscal year 2011 and President Barack Obama's 2012 budget request. "None of the design options studied thus far appeared to be affordable in our present fiscal conditions, based upon existing cost models, historical data, and traditional acquisition approaches," said the NASA report. The US space agency said no structures match the three criteria set out by its administrator for developing a future exploration system that is "affordable, sustainable and realistic." NASA said it would continue to study the matter and would issue another report to Congress in April. That report will aim "to update our approach based on the plans described herein and, if necessary, modifications based on the outcome of FY 2011 appropriations and the president's FY 2012 budget request." The final two -- or if the budget allows, three -- space shuttle flights are set to take place this year, with Discovery scheduled to launch February 24 and Endeavour on April 19, before the fleet is retired for good. According to expert John Logsdon, the NASA report comes as no surprise, because the US space agency administrator Charles Bolden has already informed top Senators that the plan before them was unrealistic. "Even if they got more money I don't think they could achieve it by 2016," said Logsdon, former Director of the Space Policy Institute at The George Washington University, adding that 2018 or 2020 might be more feasible. "Something this big will require more than five years," he said. Logsdon added that the apparent clash between senators and NASA was actually "the beginning of a dialogue." "There is no doubt in my mind that NASA wants to build this heavy lift vehicle," Logsdon said. "It's also clear to me that based on NASA analysis they cannot do it under the conditions that have been written in the authorization act. "So they have to go back and forth for some period of time so that Congress understands the basis of the NASA conclusion."

Currently there is not a sufficient amount of money to support space exploration – has no focus.Cernan 2010, Commander Apollo 17 (Eugene Cerman USN (ret.), Commander, Apollo 17, Astronaut (ret.), Before the Committee on Science and Technology United States House of Representatives May 26, 2010,http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/052610_Cernan.pdf, July 22, 2011)

And, when one examines details of the FY2011 budget proposal, nowhere is there to be found one penny allocated to support space exploration. Yes, there has been much rhetoric on transformative technology, heavy lift propulsion research, robotic precursor missions, significant investment in commercial crew and cargo capabilities, pursuit of cross-cutting space technology capabilities, climate change research, aeronautics R&D, and education initiatives, all worthwhile endeavors in their own right. Yet nowhere do we find any mention of the Human Exploration of Space and nowhere do we find a commitment in dollars to support this all important national endeavor. We (Armstrong, Lovell and I) have come to the unanimous conclusion that this budget proposal presents no challenges, has no focus, and in fact is a blueprint for a mission to “nowhere.”

America is losing its superiority in colonizing space – other countries are surpassing the US.Kaufman, 2008, writer for the Washington Post (Marc, US Finds It's Getting Crowded Out There, http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/152/25824.html, July 24,2011)

China plans to conduct its first spacewalk in October. The European Space Agency is building a roving robot to land on Mars. India recently launched a record 10 satellites into space on a single rocket. Space, like Earth below, is globalizing. And as it does, America's long-held superiority in exploring, exploiting and commercializing "the final frontier" is slipping away, many experts believe. Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields -- and owns half the military satellites currently orbiting Earth - - experts say the nation's superiority is diminishing, and many other nations are expanding their civilian and commercial space capabilities at a far faster pace . "We spent many tens of billions of dollars during the Apollo era to purchase a commanding lead in space over all nations on Earth," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, who said his agency's budget is down by 20 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 1992. "We've been living off the fruit of that purchase for 40 years and have not . . . chosen to invest at a level that would preserve that commanding lead." In a recent in-depth study of international space competitiveness, the technology consulting firm Futron of Bethesda found that the globalizing of space is unfolding more broadly and quickly than most Americans realize. "Systemic and competitive forces threaten U.S. space leadership," company president Joseph Fuller Jr. concluded. Six separate nations and the European Space Agency are now capable of sending sophisticated satellites and spacecraft into orbit -- and more are on the way. New rockets, satellites and spacecraft are being planned to carry Chinese, Russian, European and Indian astronauts to the moon, to turn Israel into a center for launching minuscule "nanosatellites," and to allow Japan and the Europeans to explore the solar system and beyond with unmanned probes as sophisticated as NASA's. While the United States has been making incremental progress in space, its global rivals have been taking the giant steps that once defined NASA:. Following China's lead, India has announced ambitious plans for a manned space program, and in November the European Union will probably approve a proposal to collaborate on a manned space effort with Russia. Russia will soon launch rockets from a base in South America under an agreement with the European company Arianespace, whose main launch facility is in Kourou, French Guiana. . Japan and China both have satellites circling the moon, and India and Russia are also working on lunar orbiters. NASA will launch a lunar reconnaissance mission this year, but many analysts believe the Chinese will be the first to return astronauts to the moon. . The United States is largely out of the business of launching satellites for other nations, something the Russians, Indians, Chinese and Arianespace do regularly. Their clients include

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiNigeria, Singapore, Brazil, Israel and others. The 17-nation European Space Agency (ESA) and China are also cooperating on commercial ventures, including a rival to the U.S. space-based Global Positioning System. . South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil have plans to quickly develop their space programs and possibly become low-cost satellite launchers. South Korea and Brazil are both developing homegrown rocket and satellite-making capacities.

American dominance in space is still present but is rapidly declining. Kaufman, 2008, writer for the Washington Post (Marc, US Finds It's Getting Crowded Out There, http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/152/25824.html, July 24,2011)

The study by Futron, which consults for public clients such as NASA and the Defense Department, as well as the private space industry, also reported that the United States is losing its dominance in orbital launches and satellites built. In 2007, 53 American-built satellites were launched -- about 50 percent of the total. In 1998, 121 new U.S. satellites went into orbit. In two areas, the space prowess of the United States still dominates. Its private space industry earned 75 percent of the worldwide corporate space revenue, and the U.S. military has as many satellites as all other nations combined. But that, too, is changing. Russia has increased its military space spending considerably since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In May, Japan's parliament authorized the use of outer space for defense purposes, signaling increased spending on rockets and spy satellites. And China's military is building a wide range of capabilities in space, a commander of U.S. space forces said last month. Last year, China tested its ground-based anti-satellite technology by destroying an orbiting weather satellite -- a feat that left behind a cloud of dangerous space debris and considerable ill will.

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Inherency – Constellation Obama currently shifting away from NASA’s Constellation Program. Chang 2010 (Kenneth, New York Times, Obama Calls to End NASA’s Moon Program, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/02nasa.html, July 24, 2011)

President Obama is calling on NASA to cancel the program that was to return humans to the Moon by 2020, and focus instead on radically new space technologies. Mr. Obama’s 2010 budget proposal for NASA asks for $18 billion over five years for fueling spacecraft in orbit, new types of engines to accelerate spacecraft through space and robotic factories that could churn soil on the Moon — and eventually Mars — into rocket fuel.Plans for a new mission to leave Earth’s orbit will probably not be spelled out for a few years, and the budget proposal makes it clear that any future exploration program will be an international collaboration, not an American one, more like the International Space Station than Apollo. “I think this is a dramatic shift in the way we’ve gone about particularly human spaceflight over the past almost 50 years,” said John M. Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University who was one of about a dozen people who were briefed about the NASA proposal Sunday evening. “It is a somewhat risky proposition,” Dr. Logsdon said, “but we’ve been kind of stuck using the technologies we’ve developed in the ’50s and ’60s.” To pay for the new technology development, the budget calls for a complete stop in NASA’s Constellation program, the rockets and spacecraft that NASA has been working on for the past four years to replace the space shuttles. “We are proposing canceling the program, not delaying it,” Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Sunday. The proposal would officially end aspirations to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020 — President George W. Bush’s “vision for space exploration” developed in the aftermath of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. In place of the Moon mission, Mr. Obama’s vision offers, at least initially, nothing in terms of human exploration of the solar system. What the administration calls a “bold new initiative” does not spell out a next destination or timetable for getting there. In the meantime, instead of using the Constellation’s Ares I rocket and Orion crew capsule to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, $6 billion would instead go to financing space taxi services from commercial companies.

Obama is killing the Constellation Program which is key to space colonization. Moser 2010, (Apollo subsystem manager for the Command Module and Launch Escape System Structure; orbiter subsystem manager for the structure and thermal protection systems (tiles); orbiter deputy project manager; and director of engineering, Benefits Of The Constellation Program, http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/jsp_includes/articlePrint2.jsp?storyID=xml/awst_xml/2010/02/22/AW_02_22_2010_p08-204176-01.xml&headLine=, July 24, 2011)

President Barack Obama’s 2011 NASA budget proposal puts the U.S. leadership in space at risk (AW&ST Feb. 8, p. 20). It will have just the opposite results of President John F. Kennedy’s space initiatives. Under those initiatives, America developed technologies and capabilities that benefit every human in the U.S. every day, such as weather, navigation and communication satellites. The lunar exploration program with astronauts and robots was not the sole reason for these capabilities, but was the spark plug. Obama’s proposed budget cancels the Constellation Program—the follow-on to the lunar program—under which technologies and systems to explore the Moon and Mars would be developed. We were not smart enough then to realize the benefits from the Kennedy initiatives, and we are not smart enough to envision the new benefits. It does not make sense to cancel the Constellation Program, which is making good progress, and focus on climate change, developing an undefined rocket, and relying on the Russians and concepts by the private sector for human space transportation. NASA should be allowed to continue with the Constellation Program and encourage and enable the private sector to provide transportation services in parallel with the government systems.

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Inherency – Research NASA shifting from manufacturing aircraft to aeronautical research – increases international collaboration. Chang 2010 (Kenneth, New York Times, Obama Calls to End NASA’s Moon Program, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/02nasa.html, July 24, 2011)

Dr. Logsdon said the officials said NASA would evolve into a role more akin to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which preceded NASA. The committee did not manufacturer aircraft, but performed aeronautical research that was adopted by aircraft manufacturers. “The assumption is that there are technological breakthroughs out there ready to be discovered and exploited,” Dr. Logsdon said. “I’m impressed and a little surprised how large the investment in new technology is planned to be. It does represent a shift away from developing systems to developing technologies before developing systems.” If the approach succeeds, it could jumpstart a vibrant space industry, but it is also risky. By canceling Ares I, NASA would have no backup if the commercial companies were not able to deliver. One likely competitor for the commercial crew contract is Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX for short. But its Falcon 9 rocket, the one that would be used to carry astronauts to the space station, has yet to have its first launching. When SpaceX, a startup led by Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, won in 2006 a contract to carry cargo to the space station, the company said it would have six flights of the Falcon 9 by the end of 2009. Conversely, another likely competitor, United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has decades of experience building space hardware for NASA, and its rockets, the Delta IV and the Atlas V, have successfully carried military and commercial satellites to space. But modifications needed for carrying astronauts could be costly and the launch alliance has also experienced delays and cost overruns. NASA has also not yet spelled out how it would go about verifying that commercial rockets are sufficiently safe for carrying astronauts. A worry is also that the decades of expertise and experience within NASA in operating spacecraft will be lost, and that the commercial companies might stumble as they learn. A move to an international collaboration would also make future exploration programs susceptible to buffeting from diplomatic winds on Earth. For example, after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, lawmakers questioned whether the United States should continue flying astronauts on the Russian Soyuz rockets. While more countries would share the cost, an international collaboration would probably be more expensive and cumbersome to manage, and could be slowed down by delays of any of the partners.

Space program is losing ground due to Obama’s actions.Bishop 2010 (Rob, U.S. Representative “Space Cuts Short Sighted”, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700011837/Space-cuts-short-sighted.html)

In 1969, when American astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, he uttered the famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."Roughly 40 years later, President Barack Obama has proposed a NASA budget that would end our efforts to get back to the moon, cancel the replacement for the space shuttle, cripple our capabilities in space and hurt our national security. This "one small budget step" would be a giant leap backward for American leadership in space and security.

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Space Leadership Low – General U.S. losing space leadershipLoureiro ’10 (Luis A. Retired Uruguayan Army Major for Launchspace, http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Free_World_Is_Losing_NASA_Space_Leadership_999.html, 7/20/11)

As a consequence of the international financial crisis many countries around the world have decided to drastically reduce their budgets, cutting spending in a myriad of programs from small private activities to large public projects. In the United States, to the astonishment of the world, NASA's budget has been "redirected" to simple LEO applications and some inexpensive research programs. Can this be true? This is the agency that has contributed most to America's prestige with its innovative and extraordinary achievements in space, from the time of early explorations of the universe to today's highly advanced technological achievements. Is prestige important? Not only is prestige important, it is part of the American tradition, part of American life and by extension, America's preeminence lights the free world and provides hope and support that other nations, too, can shine and succeed. The budget is important for any administration. Traditionally, most countries around the world wait for a signal from America - the scientific and technological leader - and rely upon America to protect their freedoms. Until now, countries pursuing space programs have not competed against America or against each other, but they will now have to continue alone or somehow partner with other countries. Without NASA's leadership, who will guide the world in peaceful space applications? Without NASA there is a void of experienced leaders well grounded in science. Indeed, we are approaching a new era in which space will be exploited by private, political, economic and military interests - not only in LEO, but also in deep space exploration. Will countries continue along the moral high ground of benefiting all mankind with the fruits of exploration and innovation or will space become a battleground for national greed and gain? America should not decide NASA's future merely on the basis of budgetary expedience. Space exploration is a matter that affects the rights and freedoms of people around the world.

Space leadership is not assured- shuttle cut Hallion, 2010, Richard P. Hallion is an aerospace historian who served 11 years as the Air Force historian and has written widely on aerospace technology and airpower topics, (Richard Hallion, “An Inflection Point in the Space Race” http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2010/October%202010/1010point.aspx, Acc 7/21/2011) NH

Manned space exploration has bolstered US science and strength, but the Administration may just give up on it. For decades, the US civil and military space communities have been bound together by their pursuit of space power. What is beneficial to one is beneficial to the other. More importantly, what is injurious to one is injurious to the other. In the years between the world wars, civil and military aviation research and development programs produced a technology base to support civil and military aviation alike. In the same way, civil and military space research and development of the postwar years built the foundation for today’s US space dominance. The question is, will America long continue to enjoy such supremacy? The answer is far from clear. Today, America’s civil space authorities can no longer say with any certainty that the United States will remain dominant in space, or even build many of its own launch vehicles. It is an extraordinary situation, one that would have been inconceivable to the many architects of American space power. After NASA retires its last space shuttle next year (and sets adrift thousands of skilled space workers), US astronauts will have to hitch rides on Russia’s Soyuz, paying $50 million apiece for the privilege, to get to a space station funded by the American taxpayer. Those taxpayers might be forgiven for asking who really "won" the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon-Khrushchev-Kosygin-Brezhnev-era space race. The answer is that the space race is not over. When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins journeyed to the moon, planted a flag, and left footprints in its dust back in July 1969, they won that particular race. No scientific and technological triumph, however great, suffices for all time to ensure the national superiority or even security.

Status Quo-With the Final Landing of Atlantis, US Space Leadership Is EndingStreich 7/21/2011, (Retired Professor of History, July 21, 2011, Is the End of the Space Shuttle Program More than Mere Symbolism, http://www.suite101.com/content/is-the-end-of-the-space-shuttle-program-more-than-mere-symbolism-a380857, Accessed 7/25/11)

Many older Americans can still tell you where they were on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong uttered the famous words, “…one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” This was the Apollo 11 mission and for many Americans the “space race” had been won. Surpassing the Soviet Union in space was an essential ingredient in winning the Cold War. It was symbolic of American technological superiority and power. It was also a visible symbol for America’s youth: almost everyone wanted to grow up to be an astronaut. The final space shuttle flight on July 21, 2011, however, ended America’s space hegemony, leaving many to question who really benefited when the Cold War ended.

With the July 21, 2011 end of the space shuttle program and the closing of Mission Control, thousands will be unemployed and the United States will rely upon Russia to fly American astronauts to the International Space Station. Additionally, space travel has been relegated to private industry. Despite the cost, however (an estimated $200 billion), critics of the decision to end the program believe that the U.S. will be set back for decades. In a period of budget cuts and debt considerations, Republicans in the Congress are seeking even greater defunding of NASA appropriations.

US Space leadership is slipping- the shuttle program ended with no plan for future improvement.Cherry, 5/29/2011, Writer for Bay Area News, (Mary, “Moon men: U.S. space leadership slipping” http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_area/news/article_9857fa1d-60e9-511c-81a7-e7eb08e87c1f.html, Acc 7/20/2011) NH

21***LEADERSHIP UNIQUENESS

Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiNeil Armstong and Eugene Cernan, the first and last men to walk on the moon, joined Jim Lovell, whose ill-fated Apollo 13 mission cut short his journey to the lunar surface, have written a column in USA Today, suggesting that President Obama advisors, “in searching for a new and different NASA strategy with which the president could be favorably identified, have ignored NASA’s operational mandate.” After tracing America’s awesome achievements of the past five decades, the retired astronauts note how the Constellation program NASA was developing to venture back to the moon and on to Mars enjoyed near unanimous support in Congress and the Bush administration but fell behind schedule and was deemed “not viable” by a review panel, due to inadequate funding. When the president failed to include funds for Constellation in his 2010 budget, “it sent shock waves throughout NASA, the Congress and the American people. Nearly $10 billion had been invested in design and development of the program,” they said. “The response to Kennedy's bold challenge a half-century ago has led to America's unchallenged leadership in space. We take enormous pride in all that has been accomplished in the past 50 years. And we have the people, the skills and the wherewithal to continue to excel and reach challenging goals in space exploration. LEADERSHIP SLIPPING However, they continue, “today America's leadership in space is slipping. NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years. “Congress has mandated the development of rocket launchers and spacecraft to explore the near-solar system beyond Earth orbit. But NASA has not yet announced a convincing strategy for their use. After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent. “Kennedy launched America on a new ocean. For 50 years we explored the waters to become the leader in space exploration. Today, under the announced objectives, the voyage is over. John F. Kennedy would have been sorely disappointed.”

US Space leadership is slipping- budget cuts, combined with no plans for the future, are destroying US leadership on the final frontier. Armstrong, Lovell, and Cernan, 5/24/2011, Former Commanders of Lunar Missions, (Neil, Jim, and Gene,“Column: Is Obama grounding JFK’s Space legacy?” http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-05-24-Obama-grounding-JFK-space-legacy_n.htm, Acc 7/20/2011) NH

By 2005, in keeping with President Kennedy's intent and America's resolve, NASA was developing the Constellation program, focusing on a return to the moon while simultaneously developing the plans and techniques to venture beyond, and eventually to Mars. The program enjoyed near-unanimous support, being approved and endorsed by the Bush administration and by both Democratic and Republican Congresses. However, due to its congressionally authorized funding falling victim to Office of Management and Budget cuts, earmarks and other unexpected financial diversions, Constellation fell behind schedule. An administration-appointed review committee concluded the Constellation program was "not viable" due to inadequate funding. President Obama's proposed 2011 budget did not include funds for Constellation, therefore essentially canceling the program. It sent shock waves throughout NASA, the Congress and the American people. Nearly $10 billion had been invested in design and development of the program. Many respected experts and members of Congress voiced concern about the president's proposal. Some supported the president's plan,but most were critical. The supporters' biases were often evident, particularly when there was a vested or economic interest in the outcome. Obama's advisers, in searching for a new and different NASA strategy with which the president could be favorably identified, ignored NASA's operational mandate and strayed widely from President Kennedy's vision and the will of the American people. "We intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation." — President Kennedy Congress, realizing the devastating effects to the plans, program and morale of those trying to keep America in the forefront of exploring the universe and expanding the human frontier, worked diligently to steer NASA's program back toward Kennedy's goals. Congress passed an authorization bill directing NASA to begin development of a large rocket capable of carrying humans toward the moon and beyond and to continue development of a multipurpose spacecraft based on the configuration that was being developed in the Constellation program. However, the president's 2012 budget reduced funding significantly below the authorized amount for both the big rocket and the multipurpose crew vehicle. On the other hand, the president's budget had significantly increased funding over the congressional direction in the area of space technology research programs and the development of rockets and spacecraft by the commercial entrepreneurs. Congress stated that rather than depending on NASA subsidies, the development of commercial sources to supply cargo and crew to the International Space Station should be a partnership between government and industry. Entrepreneurs in the space transportation business assert that they can offer such service at a very attractive price — conveniently not factoring in the NASA-funded development costs. These expenditures, including funds to insure safety and reliability, can be expected to be substantially larger and more time consuming than the entrepreneurs predict. The response to Kennedy's bold challenge a half-century ago has led to America's unchallenged leadership in space. We take enormous pride in all that has been accomplished in the past 50 years. And we have the people, the skills and the wherewithal to continue to excel and reach challenging goals in space exploration. But today, America's leadership in space is slipping. NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years. Congress has mandated the development of rocket launchers and spacecraft to explore the near-solar system beyond Earth orbit. But NASA has not yet announced a convincing strategy for their use. After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent

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Space Leadership Low – Constellation NASA declining- overburdening and the cancellation of Constellation. Schmitt, 2010, former U.S. senator and NASA astronaut who flew on the Apollo 17 mission, chaired the NASA Advisory Council from 2005-2008. He currently is an aerospace consultant and adviser, and author of “Return to the Moon.” (Harrison “Space Policy and the Constitution, #1” http://americasuncommonsense.com/blog/tag/space-program/, Acc 7/21/2011) NH

With a new Cold War looming before us, involving the global ambitions and geopolitical challenge of the national socialist regime in China, President George W. Bush attempted to put America back on a course to maintain space dominance. What became the Constellation Program comprised his 2002 vision of returning Americans and their partners to deep space by putting astronauts back on the Moon, going on to Mars, and ultimately venturing beyond. Unfortunately, like all Presidents since Eisenhower and Kennedy, the Bush Administration lost perspective about space. Inadequate budgeting and lack of Congressional leadership and funding during Constellation’s most important formative years undercut Administrator Michael Griffin’s effort to fully implement the Program beginning in 2004. Delays due to this period of under-funding have rippled through national space capability until we must retire the Space Shuttle in 2011 without a replacement to access to space. Now, we must pay at least $63 million per seat for the Russians to ferry Americans and others to the International Space Station. How the mighty have fallen. Not only did Constellation never receive the Administration’s promised funding, but the Bush Administration and Congress required NASA (1) to continue the construction of the International Space Station (badly under-budgeted by NASA Administrator O’Keefe, the OMB, and ultimately by the Congress), (2) to accommodate numerous major over-runs in the science programs (largely protected from major revision or cancellation by narrow Congressional interests), (3) to manage without hire and fire authority (particularly devastating to the essential hiring of young engineers), and (4) to assimilate, through added delays, the redirection and inflation-related costs of several Continuing Resolutions. Instead of fixing this situation, the current Administration did not retain Administrator Griffin, the best engineering Administrator in NASA’s history, and now has cancelled Constellation. As a consequence, long-term access of American astronauts to space rests on the improbable success of an untested plan for the “commercial” space launch sector to meet the increasingly risk adverse demands of space flight.

Experts agree NASA is falling behind Cherry, Bay Area Citizen, May 29, 2011 (Mary Alys Cherry, Moon men: U.S. Space leadership slipping, http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_area/news/article_9857fa1d-60e9-511c-81a7-e7eb08e87c1f.html, July 24, 2011)

Neil Armstong and Eugene Cernan, the first and last men to walk on the moon, joined Jim Lovell, whose ill-fated Apollo 13 mission cut short his journey to the lunar surface, have written a column in USA Today, suggesting that President Obama advisors, “in searching for a new and different NASA strategy with which the president could be favorably identified, have ignored NASA’s operational mandate.” After tracing America’s awesome achievements of the past five decades, the retired astronauts note how the Constellation program NASA was developing to venture back to the moon and on to Mars enjoyed near unanimous support in Congress and the Bush administration but fell behind schedule and was deemed “not viable” by a review panel, due to inadequate funding. However, they continue, “today America's leadership in space is slipping. NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years. “Congress has mandated the development of rocket launchers and spacecraft to explore the near-solar system beyond Earth orbit. But NASA has not yet announced a convincing strategy for their use. After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent.

The budget cut for NASA will end US space dominance Jones, Feb 2010, NASA astronaut (Tom Jones, a scientist, speaker, author and four-time NASA shuttle astronaut, Launching NASA on a Path to Nowhere: Analysis, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/4344602, July 25, 2011)

The president released his FY 2011 budget Monday, and his policy for NASA's human spaceflight program sets the nation on a course to second-class status in space. Instead of setting our national sights on the moon, nearby asteroids, or more distant destinations, President Obama is declaring that human spaceflight is unimportant to U.S. national interests. The new budget, announced Monday, seems merely an attempt to disguise the demise of U.S. leadership in space. The president does away with Constellation, its Orion spacecraft, and its Ares I and Ares V boosters. The abrupt cancellation means the U.S. no longer wishes to send its explorers to the frontiers of knowledge and spacefaring skill. We are deliberately choosing to have no better space capability than do Russia, China, or India. While NASA hopes its commercial effort will produce a ship that can service the ISS, the end of Constellation defers indefinitely the building of a heavy-lift rocket. Without such a Saturn V-class launcher, Americans will never get out of low Earth orbit (where we have been marooned for nearly 40 years). Instead, the Ares V heavy-lifter has been replaced with "research and development" on building such a vehicle, someday. With no ability to launch humans past the ISS, we will watch, helpless to follow, as China pursues its determination to be the next nation to send its explorers into deep space. By proposing a budget for NASA that barely exceeds inflation, and failing to renew a commitment to send the U.S. beyond low Earth orbit, the administration is turning away from the dominance in space technology America has enjoyed since Apollo. This nation once put its confident footprints on the moon. Following the president's misguided course, we will trudge in retreat from the frontiers and promise of space.

Space expert say US leadership won't last long in this competitive era Porges, April 2011, Popular Mechanics (Seth Porges, Astronaut John Glenn on the Future of Space Programs, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/astronaut-john-glenn-on-the-future-of-space-programs, July 25, 2011)

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiJohn Glenn's biography reads like that of a superhero: first American to orbit Earth, then a United States senator and eventually the oldest person to go into space. So when PM ran into him at a recent gathering at Ohio State University (home of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs), we couldn't help but ask him his thoughts on the current space program and America's world standing. “I think this country got to be what it is and to be a leader among nations because of two basic things. One was education, and the second was we put more into basic research. And we're not doing that anymore. We're now being out-competed by these other nations around the world, and our leadership position will fall if that continues for very long. Are we going to do basic research in space that is valuable for our economy and position in the world? That's what we're losing. I'd hate to see us lose the research that is very valuable, when our nation needs to be more competitive than it ever had to before. While we're still ahead in research and higher education, those leadership positions aren't going to be with us forever."

Budget cuts affect NASA's research capabilities used for critical missionsFox, May 2010, Health and Science Editor (Maggie Fox, NASA'S outdated labs jeopardize research: report, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/11/us-nasa-research-idUSTRE64A4WZ20100511, July 25, 2011) (Reuters) - Many of NASA's research labs are old, and budget cuts have seriously jeopardized scientific research at the space agency, according to a National Research Council report released on Tuesday. Bureaucratic changes mean that staff running the labs have to spend an inordinate amount of time asking for money while their facilities disintegrate, a panel of experts appointed by the council said. "The fundamental research community at NASA has been severely impacted by the budget reductions that are responsible for this decrease in laboratory capabilities, and as a result, NASA's ability to support even NASA's future goals is in serious jeopardy," they conclude in the report. The panel found that NASA has systematically neglected research laboratories at six NASA centers -- the Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the Glenn Research Center in Ohio, Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, Langley Research Center in Virginia, and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. "Without adequate resources, laboratories can deteriorate very quickly and will not be easily reconstituted." For instance, the report found the amount NASA needs to spend for maintenance has grown from $1.77 billion in 2004 to $2.46 billion in 2009. "Approximately 20 percent of all NASA facilities are dedicated to research and development: on average, they are not state of the art: they are merely adequate to meet current needs," it adds. "Over 80 percent of NASA facilities are more than 40 years old and need significant maintenance and upgrades to preserve the safety and continuity of operations for critical missions."

Space policy and budget cuts threaten NASA leadership Morring, May 2010, Aviation Week (Frank Morring, U.S. Space Leadership Seen At Risk, http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/asd/2010/05/03/11.xml&headline=U.S.%20Space%20Leadership%20Seen%20At%20Risk&channel=space, July 25, 2011)

A preliminary version of an upcoming report on the link between national security and U.S. commercial launch capabilities warns that U.S. leadership in space is threatened by poor coordination in setting space policy. David Berteau, director of the CSIS Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group that is preparing the report, said he could not validate Hamre’s charge about China’s Long March launcher reliability. But he and Gregory Kiley, a lead analyst on the report, cautioned that U.S. space policymaking is “stovepiped,” even though it affects the defense, civil, commercial and intelligence space sectors. While CSIS identified “as many as 29 recently completed or ongoing space launch studies within the U.S. government,” it found no one group within the government had oversight on them all. As an example, Berteau said, “we did not anticipate the president’s budget decision” on NASA, which could have significant impact on U.S. commercial launch capability if it is used to deliver crews to the International Space Station. ***LEADERSHIP GOOD

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Space Leadership Good – General U.S. Space leadership internalMacauley and Alexander, ’08, Research Director (Molly, United States civil space policy, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6cEWjF0uCooC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=mars+United+States+leadership&ots=lqX9AzczC_&sig=a0Up3aMz-dB4Qe6g1w6UHm9GBOo#v=onepage&q=mars%20United%20States%20leadership&f=false , 7/24/11)

The concept of leadership played into discussions of sustainability in at least three ways. Some participants argued that strong leadership al the senior levels of NASA and the government is an essential factor in planning, articulating, and promoting NASA's program. In this context, some speakers viewed as a matter of considerable urgency the need for senior leaders to face up to what was described as a program that cannot be executed within the allotted budget. Second, there were calls for members of the space community, both inside and outside the government, to lead by establishing credible program cost estimates and earning out programs within realistic budgets. Third, several participants argued that a space program that puts the United States in an international leadership role would have the greatest national impact and public support.While some speakers expressed frustration over what was perceived to be an unrealistic current plan, some also posited that arguments can be made for increasing NASA's budget. One speaker recalled that in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, when NASA was trying to cope with the impacts of the Challenger accident and near-simultaneous failures of all major expendable launch vehicles, the agency was successful in securing additional funds that were important across multiple pans of NASA's program. Securing larger budgets required convincing arguments. This outcome was illustrated by a colloquy between two participants in which one suggested that the current situation is as if "we're a group of people having dinner and there wasn't enough food. Then we brought in a 300-lb visitor.... The best solution would be more food." to which a colleague replied. 'And if your visitor were important enough, you might get it."Participants offered diverse opinions about the relative leadership roles of NASA and the scientific community in achieving and operating within affordable budgets. Some noted that it has been common practice has been for NASA to ask the community to recommend the best science and then leave the determination of how to accomplish that science to NASA. Odicrs cited experiences in which active participation by the outside community had led to important successes in bringing or keeping projects within realistic bounds. Examples of the latlcr included Earth science community efforts in the 1990s lo define an affordable Earth Observing System program; Mars Science Laboratory science team efforts to bring the mission cost back within budget limits: and the recent National Research Council (NRC) assessment of candidates for Beyond Einstein program missions, a study that included engineers, managers, and cost experts working alongside scientists on the committee.1International leadership as a central motivating factor for die civil space program was also a recurring theme One speaker noted that a country might strive to exercise leadership in space for two different reasons—for prestige or for "techno-nationalism" (i.e.. using technology to support national and geopolitical interests). Some speakers suggested thai space-related efforts in many parts of the world have been influenced by what the United States undertakes: if the United States docs it. others want lo do so as well. Although iliac were differing opinions voiced about whether China poses a threat lo U.S. leadership in space, several speakers argued that if the public saw China as having somehow taken the lead, there would be an immediate reaction of alarm in die United Stales. As noted in Chapter 2. one speaker introduced the idea of theUnited States as a hegemon in space, thai is, a nation thai has been capable of exerting a dominant influence over others. Speakers suggested thai the United Stales has an opportunity to choose to be the lasl unilateralist hegemon before the world goes global or lo be a benevolent hegemon. leading the world in a collaborative effort on behalf of the international community.

The US should invest in NASA—it would revitalize the Aerospace Industry and science and tech developmentAerospace Industries Association 11, trade association representing the nation's leading manufacturers and suppliers of aircrafts and other technology (“Use Taxpayer Dollars For America's Space Program - Not Russia's” http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/21/3784697/use-taxpayer-dollars-for-americas.html 25 July 2011)

With the retirement of the historic space shuttle, the United States now runs the risk of becoming a supplicant: we will have no choice but to pay the Russians $60 million a seat to send a U.S. astronaut to the International Space Station. Instead of funding Russia's space program, it would seem to anyone with the long view that these taxpayer dollars would be better spent investing in new NASA programs for commercial space flight and Mars exploration. These initiatives would put thousands of soon to be unemployed aerospace workers back to work and advance science and technology in countless ways. Indiscriminate cuts in our aerospace research and development programs will have little short-term impact on our deficit but far reaching consequences for our economic health.

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Space Leadership Good – STEM Lack of space leadership directly trades off with science educationDowd, 2009, Senior fellow of the Fraser Institute (Alan W. Dowd, Surrendering Outer Space, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5421, 7/20/11)

America’s short attention span soon moved on. Likewise, interest in space-related education plummeted. With the Apollo generation retiring, the talent pool of American physicists, designers, and engineers is rapidly draining away. “Fifty years ago,” according to Griffin, “almost twice as many bachelor’s degrees in physics were awarded in the United States than in 2004.” He notes that American students are falling behind their peers in other industrialized nations in math and science. Worse, “in 2000, 38 percent of technology PhDs were conferred upon foreign-born graduate students, most of whom return to their home countries.”3 This was not the case at the beginning of the Space Age. William Pickering came to America from New Zealand to study at Cal Tech; he then led the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during its most critical and consequential decades. Washington plucked an army of rocket scientists from Germany after World War II. Chief among them, of course, was Wernher Von Braun, father of the Jupiter rocket that answered Sputnik and, later, the Saturn V that carried American astronauts to the moon. In short, we have regressed from insourcing space operations to outsourcing them.

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Space Leadership Good – Jobs US must go to Mars or risk losing heg—it provides jobs and crowds out any competitionMcLane 10, Associate Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future”, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1 25 July 2011)

The aerospace industry must get behind this concept before it is too late. A permanent human presence on Mars would generate so much new work that the profits would seem as if the fat years of the Cold War had returned. But, this time, instead of building secret weapons that bring us closer to our own destruction, we would work together to expand humanity out into the solar system where we naturally belong. Either we pursue this effort now and reap enormous benefits, or discouraging scenarios will develop. Our current staff of expert practitioners will disperse, thus squandering the billions of dollars the US has spent over the past 50 years becoming the world leader in human space flight. If we wait a decade or two, the ever-increasing capability of smart robots could well mean that humans will never go to live on another planet. If humanity ceases to dare to explore and move out into a new wilderness, we lose a thing that makes us special and different from all other life. If America discards its hard-won preeminence in human spaceflight, another nation is likely to appreciate the opportunity, take the challenge, go to Mars, and become the new world leader. I hope we do not have to watch that happen.

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Space Leadership Good – Hegemony US leadership is directly linked to space capabilities Haynes, April 1, 2009, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIV NORFOLK VA JOINT ADVANCED WARFIGHTING SCHOOL (Tracey L. Hayes, Proposal for a Cooperative Space Strategy with China, http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA530117, July 21, 2011)

Currently, the U.S. has superior space systems and technology when compared to all other nations. U.S. military operations have become increasingly dependent on the capabilities that space provides and without it, U.S. military power would drastically be rendered less effective and essentially deaf and blind. In order to continue leading in the space arena, the U.S. will have to make political and funding decisions concerning space that could affect the future of space warfare and of national security. Without a specific road ahead, complicated by an era of economic downturn, the U.S. could potentially lose its leadership role in space operations. Arguably, China will be first in line to challenge the U.S. The U.S. response to China's rise as a space power must be reflected in a balanced cooperative strategy in which challenges are managed and opportunities exploited. To prove that a cooperative strategy is prudent, the current space mission areas will be briefly addressed to give a foundation of current U.S. capabilities. Then the current U.S. space policy and security strategies will be reviewed to establish the legal parameters in place and establish a strategic framework. A review of current Chinese space capabilities, activities and policy will help establish Chinese threat and/or intent. An analysis on why a cooperative strategy is appropriate will transition into a proposed U.S.-China Cooperative Space Strategy.

Space systems aid national security AIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 23, 2011)

Space systems are a critical utility of the 21st century and a vital component of U.S. national security in a dangerous world. These complex systems provide missile warning and defense; environmental monitoring; secure global communications; positioning, navigation and timing; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and other key national security capabilities on which our nation and warfighters rely. Once seen strictly as strategic assets for use by the Intelligence Community and national leadership, today’s space systems are now also helping power virtually every critical capability supporting the U.S. government and the warfighter and are intricately woven into the fabric of the U.S. and global economy.

Space systems are key to military ops and intelligence collection – We must maintain leadership Clapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

In executing the National Space Policy, our National Security Space Strategy seeks to maintain and enhance the national security benefits we derive from our activities and capabilities in space while addressing and shaping the strategic environment and strengthening the foundations of our enterprise . The U.S. defense and intelligence communities will continue to rely on space systems for military operations, intelligence collection, and related activities; access to these capabilities must be assured. We must address the growing challenges of the congested, contested, and competitive space environment while continuing our leadership in the space domain.

US Space Leadership Key to National SecurityAIA 2011 (Aerospace Industries Association, Maintain US Global Leadership In Space, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/issues_policies/space/maintain/, Accessed 7/25/11)

U.S. space efforts — civil, commercialand national security — drive our nation’s competitiveness, economic growth and innovation. To maintain U.S. preeminence in this sector and to allow space to act as a technological driver for current and future industries, our leadership must recognize space as a national priority and robustly fund its programs. Space technologies and applications are essential in our everyday lives. Banking transactions, business and personal communications as well as emergency responders, airliners and automobiles depend on communications and GPS satellites. Weather and remote sensing satellites provide lifesaving warnings and recurring global measurements of our changing Earth. National security and military operations are deeply dependent upon space assets. The key to continuing U.S. preeminence is a cohesive coordination body and a national space strategy. Absent this, the myriad government agencies overseeing these critical systems may make decisions based upon narrow agency requirements. The U.S. space industrial base consists of unique workforce skills and production techniques. The ability of industry to meet the needs of U.S. space programs depends on a healthy industrial base. U.S. leadership in space cannot be taken for granted. Other nations are learning the value of space systems; the arena is increasingly contested, congested and competitive. Strong government leadership at the highest level is critical to maintaining our lead in space and must be supported by a healthy and innovative industrial sector.

Space Leadership Key to space dominanceRinne February 10, 2010 (Aerospace Industries Association, Space As the Ultimate Base, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10402650903539836, Accessed 7/25/11)

In the tradition of all great empires, the United States has established a network of foreign military bases from which to project force in the world. The United States’ 1,000 such bases in 130 different nations serve to intimidate rivals and foes—and, if need be, forcibly bend them to its will. For an empire that seeks to encompass the globe, however, domination of the land, sea, and air is no longer sufficient. To control the earth, the United States must also control space. In the twenty-first century, dominance in space (and, by extension, ‘‘cyberspace’’) is now essential to maintaining

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paieconomic and military supremacy. Space technology—from intelligence-gathering and communications satellites orbiting above, to missile defense batteries and drone aircraft piloted by remote control on the ground—enables the Pentagon to ‘‘knit together’’ its separate services and agencies, diverse missions, and global network of bases into one integrated war-fighting unit.

Space leadership is key to US power projection- it’s a unique opportunity for the US to lead. Schmitt, 2010, former U.S. senator and NASA astronaut who flew on the Apollo 17 mission, chaired the NASA Advisory Council from 2005-2008. He currently is an aerospace consultant and adviser, and author of “Return to the Moon.” (Harrison “Space Policy and the Constitution, #1” http://americasuncommonsense.com/blog/tag/space-program/, Acc 7/21/2011) NH

Again, if we abandon leadership in deep space to the any other nation or group of nations, particularly a non-democratic regime, the ability for the United States and its allies to protect themselves and liberty for the world will be at great risk and potentially impossible. To others would accrue the benefits—psychological, political, economic, and scientific—that the United States harvested as a consequence of Apollo’s success 40 years ago. This lesson has not been lost on our ideological and economic competitors. American leadership absent from space? Is this the future we wish for our progeny? I think not. Again, future elections offer the way to get back on the right track.

Cutting space programs squanders key opportunity for leadershipRep. Wolf, US House Appropriations subcommittee, 2010 (Frank, Don’t Forsake US Leadership in Space, http://spacenews.com/commentaries/100425-dont-forsake-leadership-space.html Accessed 7/21/11)

Space exploration has been the guiding star of American innovation. The Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and shuttle programs have rallied generations of Americans to devote their careers to science and engineering, and NASA’s achievements in exploration and manned spaceflight have rallied our nation in a way that no other federal program — aside from our armed services — can. Yet today our country stands at a crossroad in the future of U.S. leadership in space. President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget proposal not only scraps the Constellation program but radically scales back U.S. ambition, access, control and exploration in space. Once we forsake these opportunities, it will be very hard to win them back. As Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan noted on the eve of the president’s recent speech at Kennedy Space Center, Fla.: “For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature.”

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Space Leadership Good – Economy U.S. space leadership is key to the economy, national security, international relations, and human survivalClapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

During the past 50 years, U.S. leadership in space activities has benefited the global economy, enhanced our national security, strengthened international relationships, advanced scientific discovery, and improved our way of life. Space capabilities provide the United States and our allies unprecedented advantages in national decision-making, military operations, and homeland security. Space systems provide national security decision-makers with unfettered global access and create a decision advantage by enabling a rapid and tailored response to global challenges. Moreover, space systems are vital to monitoring strategic and military developments as well as supporting treaty monitoring and arms control verification. Space systems are also critical in our ability to respond to natural and man-made disasters and monitor longterm environmental trends. Space systems allow people and governments around the world to see with clarity, communicate with certainty, navigate with accuracy, and operate with assurance. Maintaining the benefits afforded to the United States by space is central to our national security, but an evolving strategic environment increasingly challenges U.S. space advantages. Space, a domain that no nation owns but on which all rely, is becoming increasingly congested, contested, and competitive. These challenges, however, also present the United States with opportunities for leadership and partnership. Just as the United States helped promote space security in the 20th century, we will build on this foundation to embrace the opportunities and address the challenges of this century. The National Security Space Strategy charts a path for the next decade to respond to the current and projected space strategic environment. Leveraging emerging opportunities will strengthen the U.S. national security space posture while maintaining and enhancing the advantages the United States gains from space. Our strategy requires active U.S. leadership enabled by an approach that updates, balances, and integrates all of the tools of U.S. power. The Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community (IC), in coordination with other departments and agencies, will implement this strategy by using it to inform planning, programming, acquisition, operations, and analysis.

Ditching the U.S. space program would destroy the global economyClapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

Space is increasingly contested in all orbits. Today space systems and their supporting infrastructure face a range of man-made threats that may deny, degrade, deceive, disrupt, or destroy assets. Potential adversaries are seeking to exploit perceived space vulnerabilities. As more nations and non-state actors develop counterspace capabilities over the next decade, threats to U.S. space systems and challenges to the stability and security of the space environment will increase . Irresponsible acts against space systems could have implications beyond the space domain, disrupting worldwide services upon which the civil and commercial sectors depend.

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Space Leadership Good – Space Co-op The U.S. seeks a nationally united space program to promote peace and relationsClapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

We seek a safe space environment in which all can operate with minimal risk of accidents, breakups, and purposeful interference. We seek a stable space environment in which nations exercise shared responsibility to act as stewards of the space domain and follow norms of behavior. We seek a secure space environment in which responsible nations have access to space and the benefits of space operations without need to exercise their inherent right of self-defense. We seek to ensure national security access to space and use of space capabilities in peace, crisis, or conflict. We seek to meet the needs of national leaders and intelligence and military personnel, irrespective of degradation of the space environment or attacks on specific systems or satellites. Enhancing these benefits requires improving the foundational activities of our national security space enterprise – including our systems, our acquisition processes, our industrial base, our technology innovation, and our space professionals. A resilient, flexible, and healthy space industrial base must underpin all of our space activities. We seek to foster a space industrial base comprised of skilled professionals who deliver those innovative technologies and systems that enable our competitive advantage. Our space system developers, operators, and analysts must deliver, field, and sustain national security space capabilities for the 21st century.

Manned Mars Missions support co-op between nationsRampelotto ’11 (Pabulo Henrique, Journal of Cosmology, “3 Why Send Humans to Mars? Looking Beyond Science”, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars151.html) Accessed 7/25/11

Furthermore, the benefits of close cooperation among countries in space exploration have been made clear on numerous missions. International crews have been aboard the Space Shuttle many times, and the Mir Space Station has hosted space explorers from many nations. After the realization of the International Space Station, human exploratory missions to Mars are widely considered as the next step of peaceful cooperation in space on a global scale. Successful international partnerships to the human exploration of the red planet will benefit each country involved since these cooperation approaches enrich the scientific and technological character of the initiative, allow access to foreign facilities and capabilities, help share the cost and promote national scientific, technological and industrial capabilities. For these reasons, it has the unique potential to be a unifying endeavor that can provide the entire world with the opportunity for mutual achievement and security through shared commitment to a challenging enterprise.

Space cooperation creates collective security agreements that solve the economy, eliminate terrorism, prevent war, and prevent space militarization. Worden, 2011, Director of the NASA Ames Research Center. Prior to becoming Director, Dr. Worden was a Research Professor of Astronomy, Optical Sciences, and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. Dr. Worden retired from the U.S. Air Force as a brigadier general in 2004 after 29 years of Active service. During his career, he commanded the 50th Space Wing, which is responsible for more than 60 Department of Defense satellites. Worden received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific technical papers in astrophysics, space sciences, and strategic studies. (Simon, “Future Strategy and Professional Development: A Roadmap” in “Toward a theory of spacepower : selected essays,” published by Charles Lutes, peter Hays, Vincent Manzo, Lisa Yambrick, Elaine Bunn. http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/images/space/Space_319-339_Worden.pdf, Acc 7/22/2011.) NH

The first and possibly most potent element of soft power is inclusion in global utility services. Inclusion of a nation, group of nations, or even private concerns in the development of a global utility such as Galileo is a potent inducement for a desired behavior. Europe's experience with China and its inclusion in Galileo is a positive demonstration of this potential. Once connected by the utility, the parties have a strong mutual interest in protecting and advancing it. This provides a lever to bind and influence diverse interests. Finally, the possibility of being denied access to one or more global utilities in response to aggression by a state can be a compelling dissuasion from embarking on a hostile tack. Without global information support mechanisms, a nation would find its economy swiftly devastated. A related concept to global utilities is the rising importance of a global information connectivity or infosphere. The rise of a global information marketplace, largely originating in the Internet, is apparent. Although some of the explosive growth of the 1990s has slowed, the Internet is still the fastest growing impetus to global commerce. Equally important is its role as a marketplace of ideas—a two-edged sword, as the Internet has become a medium through which modern terrorist groups recruit members and plan acts. Yet the global infosphere could also mean the end of narrow, fundamentalist ideologies. Modern terrorists do best recruiting among disillusioned and often isolated young individuals. These same individuals might have been recruited and organized through the Internet, but that same medium can and will also expose them to broader and more inclusive philosophies. A second element of future soft power is to connect the world into a global infosphere. Again, confidence building is a key driver. Space capabilities are integral to this linkage to build cohesion and shared values as space communications segments are the only way to reach much of the developing world. Indeed, India's interest in space began as a way to link remote regions and foster development and education across the entire society. India's success in forming a coherent and rapidly developing nation out of diverse peoples and traditions can be partly attributed to building this space-based connectivity.14 With the emergence of low-cost space capabilities such as those developed by SSTL, numerous nations can now afford space developments. However, one or even a handful of low Earth orbit satellites provides limited capability, whereas constellations of small satellites can provide significant capability. If a group of nations pools their efforts, each one providing a single satellite, all can benefit from a new space capability. The Disaster Monitoring Constellation discussed earlier is a prototype of such a multinational system. This cooperation represents a third approach to soft power—a means whereby smaller nations can pool capabilities to provide significant new space options. In the process of building the capability, the member nations also build technology interdependence and open new economic opportunities in other spheres. The concept of collective security is a longstanding one. During the Cold War, both competing blocs established collective security arrangements where an attack on one party would be met with a response from all. This was particularly effective for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); its collective defense arrangements kept the peace in Europe

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paifor almost half a century. Only with the end of the Cold War did conflict again break out on the European continent. Yet even with the disturbances in the former Yugoslavia, NATO's collective response has proven effective. Part of the key to collective security is in the pooling of defense resources, but even more important are the perception aspects of collective security arrangements. A potential aggressor must face the prospect of united defense against him. The psychological and societal impact of standing alone against united opposition is a significant factor in preventing war and aggression. A similar concept is especially applicable to global space security. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of cooperative international space development is its symbolic value as a pathfinder for other agendas. During the Cold War, space cooperation in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz test project became a symbolic first in an attempt to lead to broader cooperation in arms control and other security and economic issues. The symbolic role of civil space cooperation truly blossomed in the International Space Station. Despite the political difficulties of building and maintaining such a complex space effort, its symbolic value to both governments and people has carried it through. It has been particularly valuable as a means whereby the United States and Russia have been able to divert technical expertise (particularly within Russia immediately after the end of the Cold War) from missile proliferation endeavors. In a similar vein, a European Community European Space Program is viewed by many as the path to broader European unity. Recently, the United States and India have used civil space cooperation as a step in building closer ties for united action against terrorism. With the major new U.S. push for human exploration of the Moon and Mars, cooperative programs in these areas could similarly prove to be effective vanguards for other agendas.

Multilateral Action in Space with Independent Missions Leads to Space LeadershipFriedman, Ph.D. Former Executive Director of the Planetary Society, February 14, 2011 (Lou, American leadership http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1778/1, Accessed 7/20/11)

It is true that American leadership can be used as a nationalistic call to advance American interests at the expense of non-American interests. But more often it may be used as an international call for promoting mutual interests and cooperation. That is certainly true in space, as demonstrated by the International Space Station, Cassini-Huygens, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Europa Jupiter System Mission, Mars 2016/2018 and Earth observing satellites. These are great existing and proposed missions, which engage much of the world and advance the interests of the US and other nations, inspire the public, and promote cooperation among technical and scientific communities worldwide. Yet space exploration and development are often overlooked in foreign relations and geopolitical strategies. Sometimes, the connection between space exploration and foreign relations has even been belittled in the space community. I refer to the NASA administrator’s foray into the Middle East last year, promoting science, math, and technology as a way to reach out to Muslim nations. It is true that he used some unfortunate wording, such as “foremost purpose,” but it was great that the administration wanted the space program to be part of its overarching international efforts to engaging the Muslim community in peaceful pursuits. Apollo and the International Space Station were both accomplishments motivated more by international and geopolitical interests than they were by space enthusiasm. It’s my view that space ventures should be used to advance American engagement in the world. (For example, with China on the space station and Russia in Mars Sample Return.) American leadership in space is much more desired that resented—except when it gets used unilaterally, as in the past Administration’s call for “dominance in cislunar space.” Asian countries (China, Japan, India) are especially interested in lunar landings; Western countries, including the US, much less so. However, cooperating with Asian countries in lunar science and utilization would be both a sign of American leadership and of practical benefit to US national interests. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been a leader advocating such cooperation. At the same time American leadership can be extended by leading spacefaring nations into the solar system with robotic and human expeditions to other worlds.

U.S. space leadership leads to peaceful space, relations, and defense against attacksClapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

The National Security Space Strategy draws upon all elements of national power and requires active U.S. leadership in space. The United States will pursue a set of interrelated strategic approaches to meet our national security space objectives: • Promote responsible, peaceful, and safe use of space; • Provide improved U.S. space capabilities; • Partner with responsible nations, international organizations, and commercial firms; • Prevent and deter aggression against space infrastructure that supports U.S. national security; and • Prepare to defeat attacks and to operate in a degraded environment.

NASA leadership helps countries to develop technology and a peaceful space programLoureiro 3/02/10 retired Uruguayan army major (Luis, The Free World Is Losing NASA's Space Leadership, http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Free_World_Is_Losing_NASA_Space_Leadership_999.html , 7/21/11)

Not only is prestige important, it is part of the American tradition, part of American life and by extension, America's preeminence lights the free world and provides hope and support that other nations, too, can shine and succeed. The budget is important for any administration. Traditionally, most countries around the world wait for a signal from America - the scientific and technological leader - and rely upon America to protect their freedoms. Until now, countries pursuing space programs have not competed against America or against each other, but they will now have to continue alone or somehow partner with other countries. Without NASA's leadership, who will guide the world in peaceful space applications? Without NASA there is a void of experienced leaders well grounded in science. Indeed, we are approaching a new era in which space will be exploited by private, political, economic and military interests - not only in LEO, but also in deep space exploration. Will countries continue along the moral high ground of benefiting all mankind with the fruits of exploration and innovation or will space become a battleground for national greed and gain? America should not decide NASA's future merely on the basis of budgetary expedience. Space exploration is a matter that affects the rights and freedoms of people around the world. The rights and the dreams of many countries are closely tied to NASA, ESA and other recognized space agencies. The rich history of NASA brought the world Voyager 1, Apollo, robots on Mars, Kepler, Cassini-Huygens, Curiosity and so many more. Citizens of foreign countries around the globe hope and pray for a changed view of NASA among America's political leaders. NASA's successes and legacy are not only America's heritage, but that of all free countries. We long to discover new scientific horizons in space that will improve our lives and allow our countries to succeed and to live in a peaceful future.

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NASA Cred Low – General NASA leadership/credibility lowEconomy in Crisis‘10 (Dustin Ensinger a non-profit corporation dedicated to educating legislators and the American public on the destruction of our country's industrial base, the impact this has on national and economic security, and how it effects our standard of living. We publish critical but overlooked facts and figures, keeping our readers up-to-date with daily articles regarding the U.S. economy., Economy in Crisis, http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/nasa-losing-its-leadership-role-space-exploration) Accessed 7/24/11

Having already been knocked off its perch as the world’s top manufacturer, soon to be surpassed as the world’s largest economy and rapidly ceding international political influence, the U.S. could also lose its leadership role in space exploration. President Barack Obama is traveling to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thursday to unveil his administration’s plans for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s human space flight program. After announcing steep cuts to some NASA programs in February, critics have assailed the plan, saying the cuts will devastate the space program. "For the United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature," a group of former astronauts and NASA officials wrote to the president in a letter. The president plans to shutter the Constellation program, which was supposed to eventually take American astronauts back to the moon. The administration said the program, which is still years in the making after $9 billion, was too costly and too slow. The president also plans to shutter the space shuttle program, which takes astronauts to the international space station. The president has said that he would encourage private companies to pick up the slack and develop the technology to fill the gap. In the mean time, the administration plans to hitch rides in Russian spacecrafts to the international space station. "America’s only path to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz (at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat with significant increases expected in the near future) until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves," the letter from the former astronauts, which included Neil Armstrong, the first man to land on the moon, said. The budget cuts could provide an opening for an American rival to take the lead in the space exploration. At the same time that the U.S. is cutting its NASA budget, nations such as China, Russia, Brazil and India are ramping up their programs. The European Union also appears to be emerging as a worthy adversary as well. But, more than just national pride is at stake in the 21st Century space race. Being the leader in the field could pay huge economic dividends down the road. “Losing the lead in space has national-security and industrial consequences,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Such industries as shipping, airlines and oil exploration depend on orbiting satellites to gather and send essential data. TV signals, cell phones, ATMs, some credit card machines and many Internet connections rely on space technology. Recent estimates peg global civilian and military spending on space and space-related technologies at more than $260 billion annually.”

NASA credibility low because of animal radiation testing Feldstein, 2010, Editor for Change.org, (Stephanie, “NASA Engineer Resigns Over Radiation Testing on Monkeys” http://news.change.org/stories/nasa-engineer-resigns-over-radiation-testing-on-monkeys, Acc 7/20/2011) NH

And she's not the only who disagrees with NASA's giant leap backward into animal testing. Save the Primates reports that Animal Defenders International and the European Space Agency have both spoken out against NASA's planned primate experiments. ESA's director, Jean-Jacques Dordain, wrote that the ESA "declines any interest in monkey research and does not consider any need or use for such result." NASA's space monkey experiments are pointless, irrelevant and inhumane. And the ethical black hole could end up jeopardizing the ability of international space agencies to work together on future space exploration projects . So, if the experiments aren't telling us anything new, won't resolve the real problem of finding effective radiation shielding technology and are opposed internally and internationally, why is NASA sticking by their plan? It might have something to do with the $1.75 million taxpayer-funded price tag. This comes at a time when NASA has cut programs due to budget shortfalls and announced potential layoffs of up to 5,000 employees. But animal cruelty is never the right way to try to balance a budget, and it's not helping NASA's credibility with their European partners or American taxpayers. Tell NASA to stop nuking monkeys. The new frontier should be a humane one.

34***NASA CRED UNIQUENESS

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NASA Cred Low – US Falling Behind/Brink US risks falling behind in space race Dowd, 2009, Senior fellow of the Fraser Institute (Alan W. Dowd, Surrendering Outer Space, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5421, 7/20/11)

However, America’s command of the ultimate high ground is increasingly precarious. The Washington Post reports that in the past decade Russia has put more satellites into space than has the U.S. In fact, 53 U.S.-built satellites were launched in 2007, down from 121 in 1998.4 Moreover, many other nations are planting their banners in space; China is the most active newcomer. The Europeans are pooling their resources to deploy ever more sophisticated space assets. According to the Washington Post, Japan is committed to using space assets to buttress its national defense; India recently launched ten satellites on just one rocket; and Brazil, Israel, Singapore, and a growing list of other nations are deploying a range of space assets. That list includes Iran, which has plans to put five satellites into orbit by 2010.

The US is already on the brink of losing the space race due to fading preeminenceClark 09, former editor of DoDBuzz and Pentagon correspondent for Military.com (Colin Clark, “US Losing Space Race”, http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/10/19/us-losing-space-race/ 21 July 2011)

The nation that made it to the Moon in 12 years now struggles to build a satellite in that time and is at risk of losing its preeminence in space.Those words come from one of the top four space intelligence lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, chairman of the House Select technical and tactical intelligence subcommittee, who spoke before an audience of some 1,200 intelligence practitioners and industry at the Geoint annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. Ruppersburger noted that 20 years ago the U.S. had 70 percent of the commercial satellite market which is now down to 27 percent. The country faces serious risks to its launch industry , he said, noting that France continues to build new launchers and improve its technologies .“Their companies are getting stronger and ours are getting weaker,” he said.It isn’t just commercial communications satellites and space exploration where the US is fading. A string of enormous and nearly complete failures in developing intelligence satellites has left the administration and Congress exceedingly wary of funding new programs, such as the new spy satellite program approved in April by President Obama. “We can’t afford any more failures,” he said.

U.S. needs leadership in space race to meet resource needsKaplan ‘10 (Jeremy A. Kaplan, Fox News, “The Race to the Red Planet”, http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/27/road-red-planet-mars-nasa-china/) Accessed 7/25/11

" If there is a race, the major and minor players are yet to be determined ," he told FoxNews.com. "And unlike the Cold War space race, it may not be one to show off technological superiority -- but one that is focused on partnerships for resource needs (terrestrially, such as oil and food), and/or political standing. Commercial interests on celestial bodies would be a possibility, but a longer term one." Hertzfeld noted the key issue standing before the U.S. and NASA when it comes to reaching Mars: money. And he asked: "Will either the U.S. or China (or someone else) commit the large amount of capital over a long period of time to these projects?" NASA is currently coordinating with a variety of commercial businesses to facilitate manned missions to Mars, including SpaceX, the United Launch Alliance (a partnership that includes Boeing Corp.), Orbital Sciences Corp., and others. Which one will successfully build our next-generation rocket for manned spaceflight remains a much debated question -- and representatives from NASA did not respond to multiple requests from FoxNews.com for comments for this story. NASA isn't resting on its laurels, however, or leaving the entire mission up to private enterprise. The space agency has given the green light for development of a 2013 Mars orbiter mission to investigate the mystery of how Mars lost much of its atmosphere, a program called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) mission.

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NASA Good – General Space program benefits – laundry list AIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 22, 2011)

In essence, virtually all military operations – and even many critical civilian economic functions – rely on national security space. The services require national security space for warfare planning, environmental monitoring, missile warning, situational awareness, secure communications, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. The nation relies on space systems and the industry that provides them for missions that are increasingly complex and important to U.S. global preeminence.

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NASA Good – Space Leadership NASA key to US space leadershipLoureiro, March 2, 2010, Retired Uruguayan Army Major (Louis, The Free World Is Losing NASA's Space Leadership, http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Free_World_Is_Losing_NASA_Space_Leadership_999.html, July 20, 2011)

I carefully read your comments every week and think it's time to share with you an article prepared for Launchspace readers on the subject of U.S. manned space programs. Since I live abroad you may think it not appropriate for me to comment on these programs. Nevertheless, NASA is much more than an American tradition and patrimonial treasure; it is the world's hope for better space exploration and understanding. As a consequence of the international financial crisis many countries around the world have decided to drastically reduce their budgets, cutting spending in a myriad of programs from small private activities to large public projects. In the United States, to the astonishment of the world, NASA's budget has been "redirected" to simple LEO applications and some inexpensive research programs. Can this be true? This is the agency that has contributed most to America's prestige with its innovative and extraordinary achievements in space, from the time of early explorations of the universe to today's highly advanced technological achievements. Is prestige important? Not only is prestige important, it is part of the American tradition, part of American life and by extension, America's preeminence lights the free world and provides hope and support that other nations, too, can shine and succeed. The budget is important for any administration. Traditionally, most countries around the world wait for a signal from America - the scientific and technological leader - and rely upon America to protect their freedoms. Until now, countries pursuing space programs have not competed against America or against each other, but they will now have to continue alone or somehow partner with other countries. Without NASA's leadership, who will guide the world in peaceful space applications? Without NASA there is a void of experienced leaders well grounded in science. Indeed, we are approaching a new era in which space will be exploited by private, political, economic and military interests - not only in LEO, but also in deep space exploration. Will countries continue along the moral high ground of benefiting all mankind with the fruits of exploration and innovation or will space become a battleground for national greed and gain? America should not decide NASA's future merely on the basis of budgetary expedience. Space exploration is a matter that affects the rights and freedoms of people around the world. The rights and the dreams of many countries are closely tied to NASA, ESA and other recognized space agencies. The rich history of NASA brought the world Voyager 1, Apollo, robots on Mars, Kepler, Cassini-Huygens, Curiosity and so many more. Citizens of foreign countries around the globe hope and pray for a changed view of NASA among America's political leaders. NASA's successes and legacy are not only America's heritage, but that of all free countries. We long to discover new scientific horizons in space that will improve our lives and allow our countries to succeed and to live in a peaceful future.

NASA Spaceflight is a source of National Pride-translates to global leadershipSlazer 5/18/2011 (Aerospace Industries Association, Contributions of Space to National Imperatives, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/testimony_051811.pdf, Accessed 7/24/2011)

And then there are space program benefits that don’t have a dollar figure attached—those unquantifiable “know it when you see it” benefits that reap long-term rewards—increasing our nation’s pride in our abilities and garnering attention from across the globe. These include the already mentioned Apollo program, the space shuttle and International Space Station, numerous planetary spacecraft which have revealed the wonders of our solar system as well as spacecraft which have helped us understand our home planet and the universe. If there is one area where the world unquestionably looks to the United States for leadership, it is in our space program.

Investment in NASA crucial to maintain US space leadership Shipman, Jun 2008, The Telegraph (Tim Shipman, Buzz Aldrin: Invest in Nasa to beat the Chinese to Mars, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2211940/Buzz-Aldrin-Invest-in-Nasa-to-beat-the-Chinese-to-Mars.html, July 24, 2011)Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, has issued a stark warning that America must invest now in the space agency Nasa, or surrender leadership of space exploration to Russia and China. Mr Aldrin, 78, said: "To me it's abysmal that it has come to this: after 50 years of Nasa, and after putting about $100 billion into the space station, we can't get our own astronauts to our space station without relying on the Russians." He said his message to the next president is this: "Retain the vision for space exploration. If we turn our backs on the vision again, we're going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century." Meanwhile Russia may adapt and enlarge its own Soyuz spacecraft in order to accommodate tourists, giving them an effective monopoly of travel into low earth orbit. India is also a keen participant in space, regularly launching satellites and with plans to start testing a prototype reusable launch vehicle later this year that could take off and land like an aeroplane. Last year Japan became the first country since the Apollo programme to launch an unmanned lunar orbiter. They have a stated goal of setting up a manned moon base by 2030.

US dominance will get pulled down further now by the lack of NASA’s human spaceflight program—space will develop without usThomas 11, columnist for The Sun Sentinel (Cal Thomas, “Loss of manned spaceflight endangers US dominance”, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-07-11/news/fl-ctcol-space-shuttle-calt-0711-20110711_1_manned-space-flight-space-exploration-new-space-policy/2 21 July 2011)

There is disagreement between the current NASA leadership and NASA's old guard who say the failure to commit to manned space flight endangers America's dominance in space. The Obama administration announced plans in February 2010 to cancel the "Constellation" program, the goal of which was to return Americans to the moon, Mars and beyond. Two months later, he presented a new space policy, which he said would "increase NASA's budget by $6 billion over the next five years … increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world … and extend the life of the International Space Station." As to space exploration, "nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space than I am," he said. That remains to be seen. Meaningful deep-space exploration requires human participation for meaningful

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Pairesults. And, according to The New York Times, NASA is facing "a brain drain that threatens to undermine safety as well as the agency's plans." No more shuttles, no need for rocket scientists. "The good guys," the Times reports, "see the end coming and leave." Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin believes the space agency has "lost its way." In an article for Air & Space magazine in 2007, Griffin set out the philosophical argument for "The Real Reason We Explore Space:" "Most of us want to be, both as individuals and as societies, the first or the best in some activity … a second reason is curiosity. … Finally we humans have, since the earliest civilizations, built monuments. We want to leave something behind to show the next generation … what we did with our time here. This is the impulse behind cathedrals and pyramids, art galleries and museums." Retired shuttle astronaut Jack Lousma summed up to me the dangers inherent in the loss of American leadership in manned space flight: "In days gone by, and in order to capture support for a new space initiative, NASA would offer all kinds of rationale to sideline critics and to make the 'sale', that is, spin-off innovative new products, strengthen national security, inspire education, manage Earth's resources, capture 6-7 times return on investment, etc. … Nobody was far-sighted enough during the Apollo buildup to 'sell' the public and to blunt criticism, by predicting a computer in every home, the Internet, GPS, cellphones, medical instrumentation and a host of other 'far-out' inventions. This will happen again, despite Obama, who has put a huge obstacle in the way, temporarily, I believe, but not until we have lost the 'best and brightest' of space flight, along with tens of thousands of experienced and dedicated space workers."

Removing the human space program cedes US space leadership—former astronauts contendAbrams 10, Associated Press (Jim Abrams, “Former astronauts disagree with Obama’s plan for NASA” http://www.dallasnews.com/health/medicine/20100513-Former-astronauts-disagree-with-Obama-s-3792.ece, 20 July 2011

WASHINGTON - The first man to walk on the moon said Wednesday that President Barack Obama's plans to revamp the human space program would cede America's longtime leadership in space to other nations. Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan , the last astronaut on the moon, told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing that the Obama plan was short on ambition. Cernan said that he, Armstrong and Apollo 13 Commander James Lovell agreed that the administration's budget for human space exploration "presents no challenges, has no focus, and in fact is a blueprint for a mission to 'nowhere.' " Lovell, while not present at the hearing, issued a prepared statement opposing Obama's NASA budget. John Holdren, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the administration "is steadfast in its commitment to space exploration." Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, reminded critics that NASA's current budget of $18 billion may be a high water mark because of budget constraints. Obama would extend the life of the International Space Station until at least 2020, promote privately built craft to fly to the space station as the shuttle ends its service, make a decision no later than 2015 on a heavy lift rocket and plan for a trip to an asteroid by 2025 and then on to Mars. Armstrong said plans to wait for the private aerospace industry to develop low-earth-orbit spacecraft would result in limiting the U.S. to buying passage to the space station from Russia. "I believe the president was poorly advised," he added. Holdren said the Obama plan was devised after an extensive and open process.

End of space flight equals end of space hegemonyThe Economic Times June 6, 2011 (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/end-of-space-shuttle-end-to-us-dominance-of-space/articleshow/9123255.cms )

WASHINGTON: The flight into space by NASA's space shuttle Atlantis on this Friday will mark end of the shuttle era, but many believe it may also mean the end of US hegemony in the space. Although NASA has led numbers of manned flights into space for three decades, no additional such flights are planned for the moment. Top officials at the space agency, however, maintain this isn't the end of this country's manned effort in space, rather just the beginning of a new chapter. "I don't think this means the end of US crewed flights, but we're in a period of uncertainty and we don't know for how long," Valerie Neal , the official in charge of the shuttle area at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, said. "I think that what's a little disappointing is that we really don't have a clear vision of what it is that's going to come after," Neal said. "There's uncertainty in NASA and among the general public." After this NASA shuttle flight, private companies will be in charge of developing the technology for future space vehicles. This will enable the US space agency to focus on other projects, like working out the logistics of a manned Mars mission or travelling to an asteroid, two of the goals President Barack Obama set out in his new space strategy, says NASA director Charles Bolden . Although, the companies with which NASA has signed agreements to develop new spacecraft "are making some optimistic predictions" about when the new space vehicles will be ready, Neal said, "the truth is that they have still not been prepared". As a nation, we are in "the final part of the second great era of space exploration," similar to what we went through in the 1970s after the last Apollo mission, the programme that succeeded in putting men on the moon, he added.

The US needs to invest even more in NASA in order to complete missions due to competition for resources from other countries.Dowd, 2009, Senior fellow of the Fraser Institute (Alan W. Dowd, Surrendering Outer Space, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5421, 7/20/11)

Given the technological feats America has attempted and achieved in space — putting 12 men on the moon and bringing them home, conducting dozens of shuttle missions, building a permanent space station, sending unmanned spacecraft beyond this solar system — the memorial hall of American astronauts still seems remarkably and mercifully small. In short, transporting people into space (the hard part) and back (the harder part) is not going to be risk-free or cheap in the lifetime of anyone who remembers the first Columbia mission, and it will never be both risk-free and cheap. The competition for resources has grown more intense, not less. NASA actually received an infusion of cash from the stimulus package and a bump from Obama’s 2010 budget, but much of the money is earmarked for climate-monitoring satellites. As the Space Foundation’s Elliot Pulham observed, it is not nearly enough for the U.S. to “hold on to its eroding leadership position in space.” Another factor in this shuttle-replacement debacle is a lack of foresight and a lack of will. As Griffin bluntly put it, “I am concerned that America’s potential as a great nation is withering away

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paidue to benign neglect, apathy, complacency, and a lack of leadership.” We’ve been here before. Almost six years elapsed between the Apollo-Soyuz linkup in 1975 and America’s next manned space mission, the maiden voyage of Columbia.

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NASA Good – Astronauts The budget cuts pose a safety risk to scientists because they were made without scientific consultationRep. Wolf, US House Appropriations subcommittee, 2010 (Frank, Don’t Forsake US Leadership in Space, http://spacenews.com/commentaries/100425-dont-forsake-leadership-space.html Accessed 7/21/11)

I believe the plan that has been put forward not only has dangerous consequences for U.S. leadership and education, but also may endanger our astronauts’ safety and further limit our access to the international space station. Strategic concerns aside, it’s further troubling that the White House plan was hastily developed without proper vetting from NASA’s scientific, engineering and human spaceflight experts. The Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee noted in its report that “space operations are among the most demanding and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans.” NASA’s work force has 40 years of experience in human spaceflight, having learned by tragedy and success. That is why it should be the NASA experts — not political appointees in the White House — who determine the safest course of action for human spaceflight.

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NASA Good – Jobs Funding space programs have a trade off in boosting US economyAIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 21, 2011)

Today’s national security space systems are now integrated into virtually all aspects of our economy. Space systems provide modern business communications , commercial remote sensing and d igital television and music for millions of consumers. Space system industry sales in 2009 topped $40 billion, bolstering thousands of American jobs. Federal funding remains a driver for the industry, and for national security space systems it accounted for more than half the $42.6 billion the U.S. government spent for space capabilities in 2008. Industry continues to develop and build the government and commercial systems that are vital to our defense and economic health, contributing billions of dollars to our GDP. Without U.S. industry and its workforce, we would lack a resource capable of developing, building and operating the critical space systems.

NASA will provide 11,800 jobs per yearAtkinson, April 13, 2010 (Nancy Atkinson, study says 11,800 jobs to be created per year by commercial space flight, http://www.universetoday.com/62657/study-says-11800-jobs-to-be-created-per-year-by-commercial-space-flight/, July 20,2011)

The Commercial Spaceflight Federations says that an independent study reveals the new NASA Commercial Crew and Cargo Program funding proposed in the space agency’s FY2011 Budget Request will result in an average of 11,800 direct jobs per year over the next five years, nationwide. “The Tauri Group’s analysis indicates a peak of 14,200 direct jobs in FY2012″ said Brett Alexander, Commercial Spaceflight Federation President, “will result from the design and development of capsules to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station, ‘human rating’ of rockets, upgrades to launch infrastructure at Cape Canaveral, launch vehicle manufacturing, and demonstration launches during the development phase.”The Tauri Group estimates that from NASA’s proposed spending of $5.8 billion on Commercial Crew and an additional $312 million on Commercial Cargo from FY2011 to FY2015 will create the jobs.

The budget plan for NASA leaves over thousand employees jobless Pappalardo, Sep 2010, Popular Mechanics (Joe Papalardo, This Is the New Look of NASA, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/this-is-the-new-look-of-nasa, July 25, 2011)

After a year of uncertainty, Congress finally agreed on a NASA budget. It's a bipartisan-approved, $19 billion plan that gives NASA a new direction. The decision should quell doubts following President Barack Obama's move to end the Constellation moonshot program, which his predecessor started. Although the budget is approved through 2013, November elections could reshape Congress and introduce more uncertainty. Here's a cheat sheet of the legislation. The budget authorizes another Shuttle flight, delaying the vehicle's retirement by several months. The flight will cost $500 million from NASA's budget, sort of an unfunded mandate, but will not preserve the jobs of 1400 employees at United Space Alliance, who will be laid off this Friday.

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NASA Good – Economy Losing Space Race Means Economic DownturnsEnsinger, April 15, 2010, (Dustin, Economy in Crisis, NASA is Losing Its Leadership Role in Space Exploration, http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/nasa-losing-its-leadership-role-space-exploration . Accessed 7/20/11)

Having already been knocked off its perch as the world’s top manufacturer, soon to be surpassed as the world’s largest economy and rapidly ceding international political influence, the U.S. could also lose its leadership role in space exploration. President Barack Obama is traveling to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thursday to unveil his administration’s plans for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s human space flight program. After announcing steep cuts to some NASA programs in February, critics have assailed the plan, saying the cuts will devastate the space program." For the United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature," a group of former astronauts and NASA officials wrote to the president in a letter.The president plans to shutter the Constellation program, which was supposed to eventually take American astronauts back to the moon. The administration said the program, which is still years in the making after $9 billion, was too costly and too slow. The president also plans to shutter the space shuttle program, which takes astronauts to the international space station. The president has said that he would encourage private companies to pick up the slack and develop the technology to fill the gap. In the mean time, the administration plans to hitch rides in Russian spacecrafts to the international space station. "America’s only path to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz (at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat with significant increases expected in the near future) until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves," the letter from the former astronauts, which included Neil Armstrong, the first man to land on the moon, said. The budget cuts could provide an opening for an American rival to take the lead in the space exploration. At the same time that the U.S. is cutting its NASA budget, nations such as China, Russia, Brazil and India are ramping up their programs. The European Union also appears to be emerging as a worthy adversary as well. But, more than just national pride is at stake in the 21st Century space race. Being the leader in the field could pay huge economic dividends down the road. “Losing the lead in space has national-security and industrial consequences,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Such industries as shipping, airlines and oil exploration depend on orbiting satellites to gather and send essential data. TV signals, cell phones, ATMs, some credit card machines and many Internet connections rely on space technology. Recent estimates peg global civilian and military spending on space and space-related technologies at more than $260 billion annually.”

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NASA Good – Military National Security Depends on NASASlazer 5/18 2011 (Aerospace Industries Association, Contributions of Space to National Imperatives, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/testimony_051811.pdf, Accessed 7/24/2011)

The U.S. military and national security communities rely on the space industrial base to provide them with capabilities they require to keep our nation secure. Our space industrial base designs, develops, produces and supports our spacecraft, satellites, launch systems and supporting infrastructure. These systems are often produced in small or even single numbers. We need to keep this base healthy to maintain our competitive edge. Interruptions or cancellations negatively impact large companies and can be catastrophic to smaller firms—often the only entities with the unique abilities to produce small but critical components on which huge portions of our economy, infrastructure and security depend. As an example, only one firm in the United States produces ammonium perchlorate—a chemical used in solid rocket propellants including the space shuttle solid rocket motors, other space launchers and military applications. Retiring the shuttle will impact all these other users as costs rise due to a smaller business base. The U.S. military and national security communities rely on the space industrial base to provide them with capabilities they require to keep our nation secure. Due to export restrictions on space technology and limited commercial markets for space systems, key elements within industry often must depend on stable government programs for survival. This two-way, symbiotic relationship means that in order to keep our overall national security strong, both sides of this relationship are critical. Given the lack of a large external space market, such as exists in civil aviation, if government spending pulls back from investing in the space domain—be it in NASA, the Defense Department or Intelligence Community—the industrial base will shrink accordingly. This will mean capacity loss and potentially leaves the United States incapable of building certain national security assets in the future.

Space programs are important for our nation's defense military AIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 21, 2011)

Today’s national security space assets have become critical components of the U.S. military, our national security and our economy. Once seen strictly as “strategic” assets for use by the Intelligence Community and national leadership, today’s space systems are now enabling virtually every critical capability supporting the U.S. government and our warfighters: command and control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); weather and climate monitoring; improvised explosive device (IED) detection; global positioning, navigation and timing; global communications; precision strike and missile defense. In addition, national security space systems once relied upon solely by the U.S. government are now a vital part of our critical economic infrastructure. With the increasing importance of space to our economy, warfighters and national security, the space domain faces very serious challenges. According to government leaders and the Defense Department’s preliminary Space Posture Review, other countries are making significant advances and today’s space environment is more “contested, congested and competitive” than ever.

First Strike for space is eroding NOWSadeh, ’09, Assistant Professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota (Eligar, Report and Editorial: National Space Symposium 2009, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14777620903376066, 7/21/2011)

Space stability issues differ from the Kent-Thaler conception of first-strike stability in that nuclear forces are not directly involved, so the risk of prompt catastrophic damage in the event of a deterrence failure is not nearly as great. However, several other strong parallels exist between first-strike stability in space and in the nuclear realm. First, space support substantially enhances operational warfighting capabilities in the terrestrial domain that are threatening to potential enemies. At the same time, satellites are difficult to defend against adversaries with capabilities to attack them. As a result, space, like the nuclear realm, is an offense-dominant environment with substantial incentives for striking first should war appear probable. Second, deterrence failures in space, though not as immediately catastrophic as nuclear deterrence failures, could, nonetheless, be very costly given the resources invested in orbital infrastructure and the many security and economic functions that benefit from space support. And, like nuclear deterrence failures, the costs of warfare in space would likely be shared by third parties due to global economic interdependence and multinational ownership of many space systems—all the more so if kinetic attacks on satellites litter important orbits with debris. Finally, there is a parallel between nuclear and space deterrence in that significant thresholds are perceived in both realms, the crossing of which could lead to reprisals, follow-on attacks, and rapid escalation.4

US space-military assets are at risk – data showsMorgan, ’10, Ph.D. in Policy Studies (Forrest, Deterrence and First-Strike Stability in Space, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG916.pdf, 7/22/2011)

The end of the Cold War muted such concerns for a while, but they reemerged as the United States repeatedly demonstrated its space enabled dominance in conventional warfare. The 1991 Gulf War is often described as the “first space war” due to the many ways that space services were used in support of U.S. and coalition forces. But the space support provided in that conflict was only a foretaste of what was to come. In July 1995, the Global Positioning System (GPS) achieved full operational capability, with 24 satellites on orbit providing continuous, precise positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) support to military and civilian users around the globe. With that capability came a whole new class of precision weapons—from gravity bombs to cruise missiles—using GPS data to guide them to their targets. Moreover, as advanced, space-enabled command-and-control systems were developed to integrate near-real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and GPS data, a new generation of network-centric warfare concepts emerged, propelling U.S. forces toward a transformation in conventional warfighting effectiveness,

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paiwhich the United States repeatedly demonstrated in the post–Cold War era in conflicts from the Balkans to the Middle East to South Asia. While such dramatic increases in capability have pleased U.S. leaders, they have also called attention to how much U.S. military forces have come to depend on space support. Many strategic thinkers Much of that preparation involved reorganizing military space operations to better integrate with and support conventional warfighting functions. The Air Force created Air Force Space Command for that purpose on June 21, 1982, and the Navy followed suit with Navy Space Command on October 1, 1983. The nation’s first unified command for military space operations, U.S. Space Command, was inaugurated on September 23, 1985. The Army activated its service component, the Army Space Agency, in 1987, then reorganized it to form Army Space Command in April 1988. Deterrence and First-Strike Stability in Space: A Preliminary Assessment have questioned whether, in any serious confrontation, an adversary capable of attacking U.S. space systems would refrain from doing so and thereby allow the United States to retain its conventional warfighting advantage unchallenged. Some have pointed to vulnerabilities on the ground. Indeed, satellite ground stations and other portions of the space-support ground infrastructure have long been susceptible toattack, but the degree of threat they face in limited conventional conflict is probably not very great.15 There is relatively little payoff in attacking most elements of the ground infrastructure because multiple satellite control stations and ground processors provide redundant capabilities for commanding satellites and receiving and processing critical data streams. Moreover, most satellite constellations could operate for days or even for weeks without any ground support, although mission effectiveness and satellite state-of-health would degrade over time. Finally, most satellite ground stations will always be outside the contested area in any particular crisis or limited war. Attacking them would violate U.S. sovereignty or the sovereignty of friendly states, thereby incurring risks of escalation. All things considered, ground infrastructure attacks present immediate risks to the perpetrator while offering little probability of significant near-term impacts on U.S. space capability, so satellite ground stations would probably not be attractive targets in limited conventional conflicts.

Asymmetric Weapons can destroy important assets – historical data comparedMorgan, ’10, Ph.D. in Policy Studies (Forrest, Deterrence and First-Strike Stability in Space, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG916.pdf, 7/22/2011)

Strengthening first-strike stability in space could be a tough challenge given the nature of the domain and the extent to which the United States depends on vulnerable systems there. To put the problem in perspective, we must first consider how, over the history of U.S. space operations, the emphasis has shifted from supporting national strategic missions almost exclusively in the early years to enabling U.S. conventional military dominance in the post–Cold War era. At the same time, there has been a shift from a period when satellites though inherently fragile, were relatively isolated from threats due to the inability of most adversaries to reach them, to the present condition in which continued satellite fragility, coupled with the spread of space weapon technology, is creating a distinct first-strike advantage that could manifest as a surprise attack in space against selected U.S. systems at the onset of a future conflict.

Manned Mars Missions both stimulate the global economy and provide technological innovationsRampelotto ’11 (Pabulo Henrique, Journal of Cosmology, “3 Why Send Humans to Mars? Looking Beyond Science”, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars151.html) Accessed 7/25/11

The engineering challenges necessary to accomplish the human exploration of Mars will stimulate the global industrial machine and the human mind to think innovatively and continue to operate on the edge of technological possibility. Numerous technological spin-offs will be generated during such a project, and it will require the reduction or elimination of boundaries to collaboration among the scientific community. Exploration will also foster the incredible ingenuity necessary to develop technologies required to accomplish something so vast in scope and complexity. The benefits from this endeavor are by nature unknown at this time, but evidence of the benefits from space ventures undertaken thus far point to drastic improvement to daily life and potential benefits to humanity as whole. One example could come from the development of water recycling technologies designed to sustain a closed-loop life support system of several people for months or even years at a time (necessary if a human mission to Mars is attempted). This technology could then be applied to drought sufferers across the world or remote settlements that exist far from the safety net of mainstream society. The permanence of humans in a hostile environment like on Mars will require careful use of local resources. This necessity might stimulate the development of novel methods and technologies in energy extraction and usage that could benefit terrestrial exploitation and thus improve the management of and prolong the existence of resources on Earth. The study of human physiology in the Martian environment will provide unique insights into whole-body physiology, and in areas as bone physiology, neurovestibular and cardiovascular function. These areas are important for understanding various terrestrial disease processes (e.g. osteoporosis, muscle atrophy, cardiac impairment, and balance and co-ordination defects). Moreover, medical studies in the Martian environment associated with researches in space medicine will provide a stimulus for the development of innovative medical technology, much of which will be directly applicable to terrestrial medicine. In fact, several medical products already developed are space spin-offs including surgically implantable heart pacemaker, implantable heart defibrillator, kidney dialysis machines, CAT scans, radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer, among many others. Undoubtedly, all these space spin-offs significantly improved the human`s quality of life. At the economical level, both the public and the private sector might be beneficiated with a manned mission to Mars, especially if they work in synergy. Recent studies indicate a large financial return to companies that have successfully commercialized NASA life sciences spin-off products. Thousands of spin-off products have resulted from the application of space-derived technology in fields as human resource development, environmental monitoring, natural resource management, public health, medicine and public safety, telecommunications, computers and information technology, industrial productivity and manufacturing technology and transportation. Besides, the space industry has already a significant contribution on the economy of some countries and with the advent of the human exploration of Mars, it will increase its impact on the economy of many nations. This will include positive impact on the economy of developing countries since it open new opportunities for investments.

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NASA Good – STEM Investment in NASA key to the aerospace industry, tech spinoffs and STEM educationZucker ’11 (Rick, Executive Vice President of National Space Society, 7/17/11 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2011/07/17/nasa_deserves_support/)

THE FINAL launch of the space shuttle is a bittersweet one. It is a celebration of an important era in space flight, but it also highlights that we do not as yet have a replacement capability. Efforts to lend government support to the burgeoning private-launch sector are met with resistance, if not suspicion. Efforts to enable NASA to conduct a sustainable program of scientific research and human exploration, which would provide untold benefits to life on Earth, fall victim to shortsighted political expediency. Our failure to provide sufficient, sustained funding for NASA has also led to layoffs of thousands of irreplaceable, highly skilled aerospace workers. In this environment, it is difficult to inspire students to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to become the next generation of aerospace marvels. NASA’s budget is the driver of so many of our technological advances, and of much of our industrial and economic strength. NASA’s budget is only one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget. Yet the enormous return on investment that we receive from NASA’s relatively small budget falls by the wayside. Instead of increasing funding for NASA, efforts are underway in Congress to decrease funding. When will we ever learn?

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NASA Good – Soft Power Space missions create opportunities to deepen US relations with other nations AIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 22, 2011)

As highlighted by the 2010 National Space Policy, as the space environment becomes increasingly congested and dangerous for U.S. space assets, it is more important than ever that the United States work cooperatively with other nations.35 Cooperation can take the form of joint U.S. industry and allied nation industry work on space system development or cooperation between the U.S. and foreign governments on ways to manage space traffic and debris. U.S. security interests can be more effectively addressed through close cooperation with our allies, friends and partners in space, yielding benefits for both U.S. industry and the protection of U.S. space capabilities. In addition, according to the White House’s 2010 National Security Strategy, the United States should “deepen cooperation” with our international allies and friends and work with all nations on the responsible and peaceful use of space.36 Working with our allies and partners in the space domain can result in preserving the flow of commerce and global communications. Countries like India with growing space sectors hold a wealth of potential new opportunities for U.S. companies seeking to diversify their business. Yet to fully maximize the recommendations for international cooperation in the National Space Policy, the United States needs a modern export control system that keeps sensitive technologies out of the wrong hands, while facilitating technology trade and cooperation with our friends and allies in a timely manner that supports U.S. interests. Partnership with international allies also helps to create interdependencies that may provide incentives to maintain a safe space environment and long-term investments in space systems. While international cooperation in space is and should be a national priority, increased international competition requires measures to maintain U.S. global leadership and to counter the indigenous space capabilities being developed by some countries.38 As the U.S. government considers partnering with other nations on space systems, the importance of maintaining a healthy U.S. space industrial base remains a priority.

NASA is becoming more of a tool for foreign policy, because US leadership is going through a strategic changeStone 3/14/11 space policy analyst and strategist (Christopher, American leadership in space: leadership through capability, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1797/1, 7/22/11)

When it comes to space exploration and development, including national security space and commercial, I would disagree somewhat with Mr. Friedman’s assertion that space is “often” overlooked in “foreign relations and geopolitical strategies”. My contention is that while space is indeed overlooked in national grand geopolitical strategies by many in national leadership, space is used as a tool for foreign policy and relations more often than not. In fact, I will say that the US space program has become less of an effort for the advancement of US space power and exploration, and is used more as a foreign policy tool to “shape” the strategic environment to what President Obama referred to in his National Security Strategy as “The World We Seek”. Using space to shape the strategic environment is not a bad thing in and of itself. What concerns me with this form of “shaping” is that we appear to have changed the definition of American leadership as a nation away from the traditional sense of the word. Some seem to want to base our future national foundations in space using the important international collaboration piece as the starting point. Traditional national leadership would start by advancing United States’ space power capabilities and strategies first, then proceed toward shaping the international environment through allied cooperation efforts. The United States’ goal should be leadership through spacefaring capabilities, in all sectors. Achieving and maintaining such leadership through capability will allow for increased space security and opportunities for all and for America to lead the international space community by both technological and political example. As other nations pursue excellence in space, we should take our responsibilities seriously, both from a national capability standpoint, and as country who desires expanded international engagement in space. The world has recognized America as the leaders in space because it demonstrated technological advancement by the Apollo lunar landings, our deep space exploration probes to the outer planets, and deploying national security space missions. We did not become the recognized leaders in astronautics and space technology because we decided to fund billions into research programs with no firm budgetary commitment or attainable goals. We did it because we made a national level decision to do each of them, stuck with it, and achieved exceptional things in manned and unmanned spaceflight. We have allowed ourselves to drift from this traditional strategic definition of leadership in space exploration, rapidly becoming participants in spaceflight rather than the leader of the global space community. One example is shutting down the space shuttle program without a viable domestic spacecraft chosen and funded to commence operations upon retirement of the fleet. We are paying millions to rely on Russia to ferry our astronauts to an International Space Station that US taxpayers paid the lion’s share of the cost of construction. Why would we, as United States citizens and space advocates, settle for this? The current debate on commercial crew and cargo as the stopgap between shuttle and whatever comes next could and hopefully will provide some new and exciting solutions to this particular issue. However, we need to made a decision sooner rather than later.

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NASA Good – Hegemony Space programs have become critical factor to US hegemonyAIA, September 2010, The nation’s most authoritative and influential voice of the aerospace and defense industry, AIA represents nearly 150 leading aerospace and defense manufacturers, along with a supplier base close to 200 associate members. (Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base , http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/aia_report_tipping_point.pdf, July 21, 2011)

Most Americans are familiar with the role fighter aircraft, submarines and tanks play in national security. However, because satellites are not readily visible, the importance of space infrastructure is not always recognized. Yet military and intelligence space efforts have grown from the dawn of the space age to become absolutely critical to our national defense and economy. The early years of national security space were characterized by our national needs during the Cold War. U.S. national security space efforts were distinguished by clear national priorities, stable funding levels, a growing and diverse industrial base and a good degree of risk tolerance. For instance, the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) acclaimed Corona program endured despite twelve successive launch failures.5 The national drive to achieve and maintain U.S. leadership in space helped achieve many of the truly amazing space capabilities upon which our troops, national leaders and economy rely today.

US Heg changes world in 5 waysArmitage and Nye, 07, (Richard is Former Deputy Secretary of State for George W. Bush and Joseph Dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard, A Smarter, More Secure America, http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf, 7/25/2011)Our view, and the collective view of this commission, is that the United States must become a smarter power by investing once again in the global good—providing things that people and governments in all quarters of the world want bu t cannot attain in the absence of American lea dership . By complementing U.S. military and economic might with greater investments in its soft power, America can build the framework i t needs to tackle tough global challenges. Specifically, the United States should focus on five critical areas : Alliances, partnerships, and institutions: Rebuilding the foundation to deal with global challenges; Global development: Developing a unified approach, starting with public health; Public diplomacy : Improving access to international knowledge and learning; Economic integr ation : Increasing the benefits of trade for all people; Technology and innovation: Addressing climate change and energy insecurity.

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NASA Good – Clean Tech NASA has a major role in the innovation of clean energy because of their research capabilitiesNASA 2007 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, NASA’s Role in Green, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/greenspace/nasas-role.html, 7/25/11)

The extraordinary combination of information scientists, computer engineers, Earth and atmospheric scientists, astrobiologists, ecologists, nanotechnologists, modelers, robotics and sensor engineers, fluid dynamicists, life support researchers, and systems engineers has the potential to make a significant contribution to the vital transition from petroleum-based energy to sustainable, carbon-neutral energy sources. With fossil fuels reaching their limits of availability and desirability, and with climate change, air pollution, and national and international energy security at stake, the challenge of advancing alternative, clean energy sources may well be a matter of global survival. NASA’s basic research capabilities, applied science and engineering expertise, and strong systems engineering heritage, as well as extensive experience collaborating with other government entities (including DoE and DoD), industry, and academia all provide NASA with a unique ability to play a critical role in the planning and implementation of a national energy program. In fact, NASA was a major player in the Federal response to the 1970s energy crisis, developing solar, wind, thermal reactor, efficient engine, and battery technologies. Today, NASA brings to the table an extensive list of capabilities in the areas of photovoltaics, geothermal, wind power, fuel cells, batteries, solar power, power management and distribution, flywheels, Stirling/Brayton engines, alternate fuels (both biologically-derived and hydrogen-based), magnetic levitation, and thermoelectrics. The Agency will continue to develop these technologies, making them smaller, lighter, and more efficient to meet the future needs of both human and robotic space exploration. Now, NASA has a unique opportunity to quickly apply these advanced technologies to the down-to-Earth challenge of creating clean, renewable energy systems for all of us.

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NASA Good – Environment NASA key to helping prevent future environmental problems because of their monitoring capabilitiesNASA 2007 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, NASA’s Role in Green, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/greenspace/nasas-role.html, 7/25/11)

NASA’s Earth Science program is one of the government’s best-kept secrets. The Agency has spent over 20 years building spacecraft and collecting the measurements that are now used to model climate and the environment across the globe. With 14 operating satellites, 7 missions in development, and about 1700 Research Grants, NASA’s Earth Science program exceeds the combined efforts of all other Earth Science programs in the world. NASA systems are engaged in observing our Earth, from land and ecosystem processes to the oceans to the atmosphere—all of the systems that help determine the Earth’s climate. For example, the A-Train constellation of Earth Observing Satellites circle the Earth collecting data, following one another on nearly-identical orbits, only seconds or minutes apart. This allows for an unprecedented number of observations and measurements to be taken over the same location at about the same time, but with different instruments collecting different types of data. The data can then be merged to create an integrated model of our living Earth. Now, more than ever, NASA can continue this important work of predicting, monitoring, and responding to our Earth’s changing climate. The development of global climate models has come a long way, but more detailed models are needed that can predict local and regional effects, such as the onset of a growing season, or the proper moisture content of fields for irrigation. Today, these capabilities are in early development by NASA and can be used to greatly improve agricultural practices around the world. The monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, the local/regional effects of deforestation, ocean pH, and temperature change are also critical factors for NASA missions to measure and fully understand. Finally, how will the world respond to this threat of global change? The tremendous wealth of knowledge and capabilities within NASA may be used to plot a course for our future. These three pillars of NASA Earth Sciences—global prediction, monitoring, and response—will only become more and more important as human expansion, modernization, and urbanization increasingly impact the Earth’s environment.

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NASA Good – Space Col NASA key to future colonization efforts because of research being done on space-based life support systemsNASA 2007 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, NASA’s Role in Green, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/greenspace/nasas-role.html, 7/25/11)

Every living organism requires a healthy supporting environment. For approximately the past 3.8 billion years, a wide variety of interdependent Earth systems have created an environment that sustains life. As astronauts leave Earth and venture into the harsh environment of space, they must bring artificial life support systems to replace the functions provided by these natural Earth systems. These space-based life support systems include air revitalization, water recovery, and waste management, as well as control systems for many other important factors such as temperature, humidity, and cabin pressure. To reduce the high cost of lifting resources into orbit, space life support systems must be extremely small and lightweight. Since there is little power to spare in space, they must also be very energy efficient. Space life support systems also need to be extraordinarily reliable and low-maintenance, as malfunctions can lead to mission failure and repairs in space are time consuming and demanding on the crew. Additionally, these systems can increase self-sufficiency by regenerating vital resources from waste materials. These requirements for sustainable systems in space—small, lightweight, energy-efficient, low-maintenance, and low waste—are the same as those that can make systems work even better here on Earth. Thus, the capabilities developed to enable human exploration in space can be potentially applied on Earth to make cleaner, more sustainable living possible here today. NASA’s technical excellence and engineering expertise offer critical resources for jump-starting sustainable systems technologies for use in private and commercial sectors. With a strong commitment to public/private partnerships and commercial technology transfer, NASA knowledge and technologies can help make sustainable living practical and affordable for everyone.

NASA administrator believes Obama's budget plan will help revitalize NASA Bettex, May 2010, MIT News Office (Morgan Bettex, NASA Chief Defends Obama's Space Plan, http://www.space-travel.com/reports/NASA_Chief_Defends_Obama_Space_Plan_999.html, July 25, 2011)

In a lecture on Monday at MIT, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. defended President Barack Obama's controversial plans for the U.S. space agency's future and touted the president's plan to invest billions of dollars in basic science research.Some in Congress have criticized Obama's proposal to cancel the Constellation program, which would have sent humans to the moon by 2020, saying such a move will effectively cede U.S. space leadership to other nations. But Bolden noted that the White House's plan would also invest an additional $6 billion in NASA over the next five years, including a 60-percent increase in earth sciences research funding, as well as a 20-percent increase in planetary sciences research.Such an expansion could revitalize NASA's ties with institutions like MIT, which has played an instrumental role in the agency since NASA was founded in 1958."The frustration for me is that we always talk about the cancellation of Constellation," former astronaut Bolden said of his appearances before Congress and interviews with the media, in which he has been grilled over the president's plan. "But we are adding an incredible amount of money for research.""The budget for science, engineering and technology development, testbeds and flight experiments is extraordinary, and if realized, will help NASA once again become the agency to realize exploration (both human and robotic) and major technological breakthroughs both in space and here on Earth," Newman said."The president, with my full agreement, made a change - a big change," Bolden said of Obama's decision to undertake a new direction for NASA, adding that the agency's fundamental goal "to boldly advance the human presence beyond the cradle of Earth," has not changed, and that Mars remains an "especially compelling target."

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NASA Good – Middle East NASA will implement soft power in the Muslim world to strengthen international relationsHarnden 6/06/2010 Daily Telegraph’s US editor (Toby, Barack Obama: Nasa must try to make Muslims 'feel good', http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html, 7/22/11)

Charles Bolden, a retired United States Marines Corps major-general and former astronaut, said in an interview with al-Jazeera that Nasa was not only a space exploration agency but also an "Earth improvement agency". Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things. "One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." He added: "It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim [nations]." Byron York, a conservative columnist for the Washington Examiner, characterised Mr Obama's space policy shift as moving "from moon landings to promoting self-esteem"

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Extinction Inev – General The human race is doomed without space colonization – laundry listFalconi, 1975 (Oscar Falconi,”THE CASE FOR SPACE COLONIZATION - NOW!- and why it should be our generation's #1 priority”,1975,nutri.com)

1. Genetic Manipulation - A good possibility that peaceful research now taking place will evolve uncontrollable 100% lethal epidemics from man-made organisms. 2. Mass Vaccination - of populations with vaccines that were insufficiently researched and tested, or improperly prepared, either accidentally or deliberately. Mass sterility, death, or genetic destruction, now or later, could result. 3. Ecological "Flip" - The establishment of a very different, but stable, environmental equilibrium by man's exceeding an unknown pollution threshold level. a. Atmospheric pollution, affecting earth's thermal balance, from auto, industry, or SST effluents. b. Atmospheric pollution, affecting the ozone layer, from aerosol sprays, SST's, and nitrogen oxides from a limited nuclear war. c. Ocean pollution, from industrial wastes and human sewage. The manner of man's demise, soon, by important authorities. d. Weather (or climate) manipulation, but with no knowledge of short and long term effects, or threshold levels. The effect of reactor effluent Krypton-85. 4. World War III - Third World nuclear capability plus irresponsible, impulsive, actions of incompetents, or a great nuclear holocaust due to large quantities of superweapons: B-52's, B-l's, Minuteman III, Polaris, Trident, etc. , and their Russian counterparts, resulting in man's extinction due to excessive worldwide radiation level or by inducing an ecological flip. 5. Chemical, Bacteriological, Biological, or Germ Warfare, resulting in uncontrolled epidemics, long term genetic effects, or an ecological flip, eliminating human life. 6. Nuclear Reactors - The present controversy centers around major accidents, leakage, transport of fuel and waste, sabotage, release of extremely carcinogenic plutonium, waste disposal, theft of fuel or waste by individuals or terrorist groups. 7. Advanced Experimentation - Furious competition in all fields of research, possibly initiating some catastrophe which man had no reasonable possibility of predicting. Modern lasers, particle accelerators, etc., are creating effects unknown in the universe until now. Also, a research breakthrough could tempt a country to undertake world conquest, accidentally ending all human life. 8. Short or Long-Term Genetic Effects - due to: a. Irresponsible mass vaccination or fluoridation. b. Mass ingestion of vast quantities of large numbers of untested food additives. c. Massive irradiation from television sets, medical X-rays, and industry. d. Accidental or deliberate leakage from many nuclear reactors now extant or planned. e. Deterioration, leakage, theft, or sabotage of underground or underwater radioactive waste disposal sites. Above have been listed many different ways in which man can be wiped out. Further study should uncover many, many more. And surely no amount of study will be able to ferret out the vast number of very subtle, and thus very unpredictable ways of ending our fragile human existence. We should marvel at how the aerosol problem was predicted before there was any indication of a problem. Many thanks are due chemists Molina and Rowland, for they just may have given mankind a few more important years on Earth. Examining the above list, both known and unknown, one must be impressed with its quantity, variety, and subtlety. Hopefully these deleterious effects will only add, and not multiply. We might allay our fears by applying some sort of "Environmental Superposition Theorem" and thus justify addition instead of multiplication, but again, we just don't know. In our ignorance we should take urgent steps to protect man's future and proceed with the colonization of space immediately.

Human-caused mass extinction imminentElewa 2009, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. Professor of Micropaleontology and Paleoecology, Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Minia University, Egypt. (Ashraf, The History, Origins, and Causes of Mass Extinctions http://journalofcosmology.com/Extinction102.html July 21, 2011)

In the history of our planet there have been at least five major mass extinctions, and a number of minor extinctions (Elewa 2008a,b,c; Raup 1992; Raup and Sepkoski, 1982). These include the Ordovician Mass Extinction, the Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous Mass Extinction. In addition to the big five, some scientists believe there have been additional major mass extinctions, including as many as 4 extinctions during Cambrian era. According to Joseph (2009a,b) these additional extinction events include the Paleoproterozoic (2.3 to 1.8 bya), the Sturtian (725 mya to 670 mya), the Marinoan/Gaskiers (640 to 580 mya), and the Ediacaran extinctions (540 mya). Many scientists also believe we are now experiencing a sixth mass extinction, which is driven by Homo sapiens (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000; Elewa 2008a; Jones 2009; Ruddimann 2005; Steffen et al. 2007). There is considerable evidence that extinction has been accelerating over the last 500 years; and with the advent of weapons of mass destruction, and industrial poisons, pharmaceuticals, and other wastes which are dumped into the oceans and atmosphere (Levy and Sidel 2009; McKee 2009, Tonn 2009); , it could be said the human race is flirting with self-destruction and may trigger a world-wide mass extinction which could wipe humanity from the face of the Earth (Jones 2009). Typically, numerous species may die off simultaneously, resulting in a mass extinction, or a few individual species may die out in isolation leaving the vast majority unscathed. Extinction is so common that it can be considered an integral and perhaps an essential feature of life on Earth (Bradshaw and Brook 2009; Elewa 2008a,b,c; Ward 2009). According to Prothero (1998) of the 5 to 50 billion species which have ever lived on this planet, only about fifty million are alive today. This means that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct! In the future, will humans number among the exceptions?

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Extinction Inev – Asteroids NASA is paying some attention to the risk of asteroids but doesn’t have an adequate program.Globus 2011, April 29, 2011, curator for NASA (Al, Space Settlement Basics, http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Basics/wwwwh.html, July 21, 2011)

These are just a small sampling of the cosmic threats to Earth. We are living in an orbital shooting gallery. There are lot of objects out there and, someday, many of them are going to hit something - the Sun, another planet, or Earth (some will also be ejected from the solar system). Of the known near earth asteroids, between 25 and 875 large objects will hit the Earth causing global devastation and another 400 to 6250 smaller objects will strike the Earth's oceans causing tsunamis devastating coastal regions [Willoughby and McGuire 1995]. We just don't know when. We don't know if the next strike will be in five minutes or 50 million years, but we do know it will happen. It's just a matter of time. Only mankind can end this threat. If we don't do it, no one else will. No one else can. Fortunately, we are starting to pay attention. The first step is to simply find the dangerous asteroids and comets. NASA has a small program to locate potential Earth killing asteroids - those more than a kilometer (a bit more than half a mile) across. At the current rate it will be decades before they are all found. If one of the unfound has our number on it, it's not only Houston that will have a problem. Even an asteroid only a couple hundred meters (yards) across may, if it hit the Atlantic Ocean, create a wave that would completely wash over Florida, making it irrelevant in the next Presidential election. We aren't even trying to find the near-Earth asteroids in this size range, although NASA is reportedly formulating a plan to present to Congress. We have found hundreds of kilometer-sized Earth orbit-crossing asteroids and determined their orbits well enough to know that these, at least, pose no threat in the immediate future, although one does have a small chance of getting us in 2036. If we took this particular threat seriously, we would have time to divert it. In principle, such an asteroid can be given just a little shove and will then miss Earth. While we're not sure of the best way to do this, if we knew a collision was coming one can be confident that every scientist and engineer on the planet would be bent to the task. Funding would not be a problem. Who knows, faced with such a cosmic threat we might even stop killing each other temporarily.

Space colonization can help protect earth from asteroid and meteorite hazards (near-earth-object impacts)Siegfried, 2005 (W.H. Siegfried,”Space Colonization—Benefits for the World”, 2005, Boeing)

Over the last decade a large mass of evidence has been accumulated indicating that near-Earth-object (NEO) impact events constitute a real hazard to Earth. Congress held hearings on the phenomenon in 1998, and NASA created a small NEO program. Since 1988, a total (as of 7 August 2002) of some many thousand near-Earth objects (of which about 1,000 are larger that 1 km in diameter) have been catalogued that are potentially hazardous to Earth. New discoveries are accelerating. In just the last few months, a 2-mile-wide crater was discovered in Iraq dating from around 2000 to 3000 B.C. This impact was potentially responsible for the decline of several early civilizations. A similar crater was recently discovered in the North Sea. Major events have occurred twice in the last hundred years in remote areas where an object exploded near the Earth’s surface bur did not impact (such as in Russia). If either of these events had occurred over a populated area the death toll would have been enormous. Our armed forces are concerned that an asteroid strike could be interpreted as a nuclear attack, thus triggering retaliation. What higher goals could Space Colonization have than in helping to prevent the destruction of human life and to ensure the future of civilization? The odds of an object 1 km in diameter impacting Earth in this century range between 1 in 1,500 and 1 in 5,000 depending on the assumptions made. A 1-km-diameter meteoroid impact would create a crater 5 miles wide. The death toll would depend on the impact point. A hit at Ground Zero in New York would kill millions of people and Manhattan Island (and much of the surrounding area) would disappear. The resulting disruption to the Earth’s environment would be immeasurable by today’s standards. A concerted Space Colonization impetus could provide platforms for early warning and could, potentially, aid in deflection of threatening objects. NEO detection and deflection is a goal that furthers international cooperation in space and Space Colonization. Many nations can contribute and the multiple dimensions of the challenge would allow participation in many ways—from telescopes for conducting surveys, to studies of lunar and other planet impacts, to journeys to the comets. The Moon is a natural laboratory for the study of impact events. A lunar colony would facilitate such study and could provide a base for defensive action. Lunar and Mars cyclers could be a part of Space Colonization that would provide survey sites and become bases for mining the NEOs as a resource base for space construction. The infrastructure of Space Colonization would serve a similar purpose to the solar system as did that of the United States Interstate Highway system or the flood control and land reclamation in the American West did for the United States development. In short, it would allow civilization to expand into the high frontier.

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Extinction Inev – Warming Global Warming is here and nowWood, 2009 Atmospheric Trust Litigation, (University of Oregon), Law Professor Mary C. Wood (Mary Atmospheric Trust Litigation http://www.law.uoregon.edu/faculty/mwood/docs/atmo.pdf July 20, 2011)

Leading climate scientists warn that Earth is in “imminent peril,” on the verge of runaway climate heating that will impose catastrophic conditions on generations to come. In their words, continued carbon pollution will cause a “transformed planet” – an Earth obliterated of its major fixtures, including the polar ice sheets, Greenland, the coral reefs, and the Amazon forest. The annihilatory trajectory launched by humans over the past century threatens to trigger the planet’s Sixth mass extinction – the kind that hasn’t occurred on Earth for 65 million years. Should Business as Usual continue even for a few more years, our children and their descendants – future Humanity for untold generations — will be pummeled by floods, hurricanes, heat waves , fires, disease, crop losses, food shortages, and droughts as part of a hellish struggle to survive within a deadly greenhouse of our own making. In a world of runaway climate heating, these unrelenting disasters would force massive human migrations and cause staggering numbers of deaths – ultimately resulting in Humanity’s “self-destruction.” As author Fred Pearce states: “Humanity faces a genuinely new situation. . . . a crisis for the entire life-support system of our civilization and our species.” “It is highly unlikely that, absent judicial intervention, the political branches will achieve the requisite carbon reduction in the short time remaining before irrevocable climate thresholds are passed. Straight-jacketed by political concerns, the legislative and executive branches and their representative agencies continue to permit actions that drive runaway greenhouse gas emissions. In both the legislative and executive arenas, lobbyists for huge carbon industries viciously fight climate legislation and regulation. “Global warming is a complex phenomenon and not readily understood by the average citizen. Attempts by the fossil fuel industries to obfuscate the threat, combined with outright suppression of scientific conclusions by the Bush II administration, have engendered climate confusion among citizens.” “As leading psychologists observe, humans are hard-wired by evolution to ignore long-term threats like global warming. ” “Until Americans actually feel the consequences of climate change on a daily basis, the issue may not become salient enough to create the political pressure for a national carbon reduction effort – and by then it may be too late. “. . . even when Americans demand climate action, they are easily misled to believe that small measures will achieve climate stability. Citizens are accustomed to addressing social problems through progressive, incremental policy that creates building blocks to larger transformation. Few citizens understand the concept of “carbon math” or deadlines imposed by Nature. While these political encumbrances are classic to natural resource issues, they are dangerously amplified in the present situation, because the imminence of the climate tipping point forecloses many of the standard political processes that would normally provide solutions over the years. Time-consuming educational and democratic initiatives may not propel the citizenry to force government action in the narrow window of time remaining.

Effects of global warming evident today, symptoms are escalatingBiello, 2007 American Publisher (David State of the Science: Beyond the Worst Case Climate Change Scenario http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=state-of-the-science-beyond-the-worst-climate-change-case July 20, 2011)

Climate change is "unequivocal" and it is 90 percent certain that the "net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) —a panel of more than 2,500 scientists and other experts—wrote in its first report on the physical science of global warming earlier this year. In its second assessment, the IPCC stated that human-induced warming is having a discernible influence on the planet, from species migration to thawing permafrost. Despite these findings, emissions of the greenhouse gases driving this process continue to rise thanks to increased burning of fossil fuels while cost-effective options for decreasing them have not been adopted, the panel found in its third report. The IPCC's fourth and final assessment of the climate change problem—known as the Synthesis Report—combines all of these reports and adds that "warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change." Although countries continue to debate the best way to address this finding, 130 nations, including the U.S., China, Australia, Canada and even Saudi Arabia, have concurred with it. "The governments now require, in fact, that the authors report on risks that are high and 'key' because of their potentially very high consequence," says economist Gary Yohe, a lead author on the IPCC Synthesis Report. "They have, perhaps, given the planet a chance to save itself." Among those risks: Warming Temperatures—Continued global warming is virtually certain (or more than 99 percent likely to occur) at this point, leading to both good and bad impacts. On the positive side, fewer people will die from freezing temperatures and agricultural yield will increase in colder areas. The negatives include reduced crop production in the tropics and subtropics, increased insect outbreaks, diminished water supply caused by dwindling snowpack, and increasingly poor air quality in cities. Heat Waves—Scientists are more than 90 percent certain that episodes of extreme heat will increase worldwide, leading to increased danger of wildfires, human deaths and water quality issues such as algal blooms. Heavy Rains—Scientific estimates suggest that extreme precipitation events—from downpours to whiteouts—are more than 90 percent likely to become more common, resulting in diminished water quality and increased flooding, crop damage, soil erosion and disease risk. Drought—Scientists estimate that there is a more than 66 percent chance that droughts will become more frequent and widespread, making water scarcer, upping the risk of starvation through failed crops and further increasing the risk of wildfires. Stronger Storms—Warming ocean waters will likely increase the power of tropical cyclones (variously known as hurricanes and typhoons), raising the risk of human death, injury and disease as well as destroying coral reefs and property. Biodiversity—As many as a third of the species known to science may be at risk of extinction if average temperatures rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

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Extinction Inev – Scarcity Resourses depleting, space exploration necessary to replenishNASA Headquarters, 2010 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Space Colonization http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/pathfinders/colony.htm July 20,2011)

One of the major environmental concerns of our time is the increasing consumption of Earth's resources to sustain our way of life. As more and more nations make the climb up from agricultural to industrial nations, their standard of life will improve, which will mean that more and more people will be competing for the same resources. While NASA spinoffs and other inventions can allow us to be more thrifty with Earth's treasures, once all is said and done, its raw materials are limited. Space colonies could be the answer to the limitations of using the resources of just one world out of the many that orbit the Sun. The colonists would mine the Moon and the minor planets and build beamed power satellites that would supplement or even replace power plants on the Earth. The colonists could also take advantage of the plentiful raw materials, unlimited solar power, vacuum, and microgravity in other ways, to create products that we cannot while inside the cocoon of Earth's atmosphere and gravity. In addition to potentially replacing our current Earth-polluting industries, these colonies may also help our environment in other ways. Since the colonists would inhabit self-supporting environments, they would refine our knowledge of the Earth's ecology. This vision, which was purely science fiction for years and years, caught the imagination of the public in the Seventies, leading to the establishment of the organization known today as the National Space Society.

Earth’s resources are depleting quickly, colonization key to save the earth Austen 11 (Ben Austen a graduate of UC Berkeley and Georgetown Law School., Popular science, http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/after-earth-why-where-how-and-when-we-might-leave-our-home-planet, March 16, 2011)

Earth won’t always be fit for occupation. We know that in two billion years or so, an expanding sunwill boil away our oceans, leaving our home in the universe uninhabitable—unless, that is, we haven’t already been wiped out by the Andromeda galaxy, which is on a multibillion-year collision course with our Milky Way. Moreover, at least a third of the thousand mile-wide asteroids that hurtle across our orbital path will eventually crash into us, at a rate of about one every 300,000 years. Why? Indeed, in 1989 a far smaller asteroid, the impact of which would still have been equivalent in force to 1,000 nuclear bombs, crossed our orbit just six hours after Earth had passed. A recent report by the Lifeboat Foundation, whose hundreds of researchers track a dozen different existential risks to humanity, likens that one-in-300,000 chance of a catastrophic strike to a game of Russian roulette: “If we keep pulling the trigger long enough we’ll blow our head off, and there’s no guarantee it won’t be the next pull.” Many of the threats that might lead us to consider off-Earth living arrangements are actually man-made, and not necessarily in the distant future. The amount we consume each year already far outstrips what our planet can sustain, and the World Wildlife Fund estimates that by 2030 we will be consuming two planets’ worth of natural resources annually. The Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, an international humanitarian organization, reports that the onslaught of droughts, earthquakes, epic rains and floods over the past decade is triple the number from the 1980s and nearly 54 times that of 1901, when this data was first collected. Some scenarios have climate change leading to severe water shortages, the submersion of coastal areas, and widespread famine. Additionally, the world could end by way of deadly pathogen, nuclear war or, as the Lifeboat Foundation warns, the “misuse of increasingly powerful technologies.” Given the risks humans pose to the planet, we might also someday leave Earth simply to conserve it, with our planet becoming a kind of nature sanctuary that we visit now and again, as we might Yosemite. None of the threats we face are especially far-fetched. Climate change is already a major factor in human affairs, for instance, and our planet has undergone at least one previous mass extinction as a result of asteroid impact. “The dinosaurs died out because they were too stupid to build an adequate spacefaring civilization,” says Tihamer Toth-Fejel, a research engineer at the Advanced Information Systems division of defense contractor General Dynamics and one of 85 members of the Lifeboat Foundation’s space-settlement board. “So far, the difference between us and them is barely measurable.” The Alliance to Rescue Civilization, a project started by New York University chemist Robert Shapiro, contends that the inevitability of any of several cataclysmic events means that we must prepare a copy of our civilization and move it into outer space and out of harm’s way—a backup of our cultural achievements and traditions. In 2005, then–NASA administrator Michael Griffin described the aims of the national space program in similar terms. “If we humans want to survive for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, we must ultimately populate other planets,” he said. “One day, I don’t know when that day is, but there will be more human beings who live off the Earth than on it.”

The Earth’s resources are being depletedMitchell 2010 Dr. John F. B. Mitchell,2010;American Meteorological Society; Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Meteorological Office, London Road, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 2SY, United Kingdom.http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442%281997%29010%3C0245%3AOMOGWB%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Over the last two decades there has been increasing interest in the influence of human activity on climate. Particular attention has been given to the effects of increases in carbon dioxide resulting from deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, and other greenhouse gases including chlorofluorocarbons and methane. Greenhouse gases tend to warm climate by reducing the efficiency with which longwave radiation escapes to space. In most cases, their lifetimes are sufficiently long that they are well mixed throughout the troposphere and lower stratosphere, so their concentrations vary little from the global mean. The possible climatic effects of increasing greenhouse gases have been summarized in various reviews (McCracken and Luther 1984; Dickinson 1986; Houghton et al. 1990, 1992, 1996). Results of numerical studies using general circulation models (GCMs) show that the warming is likely to be greater over land than sea, and greater in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. All models produce an increase in global mean evaporation and precipitation consistent with increased radiative heating of the surface, and enhanced longwave cooling from the warmer atmosphere (e.g., Mitchell et al. 1987). The regional changes vary from model to model, though almost all models produce increased precipitation in the southeast Asian monsoon and a reduction in soil moisture over southern Europe in summer. Many models also produce a reduction in soil moisture over much of North America in summer. These projected changes have formed the basis of many impact assessment studies including McTegart and Sheldon (1992). Burning fossil fuels also leads to the release of sulfur, which oxidizes and forms hydrated sulfate aerosols (see, e.g., Pruppacher and Klett 1978). These particles scatter sunlight and hence tend to cool climate. In contrast to

55

Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paigreenhouse gases, aerosols have a lifetime of a week or two, so they tend to be concentrated around or immediately downwind of the main industrial regions. It is only in the last few years that estimates of the geographical distribution of anthropogenic sulfate loading have been made (e.g., by Langner and Rodhe 1991; Taylor and Penner 1994). The estimates have been used, along with various assumptions on the radiative properties of the aerosol, in low resolution climate models to assess the climate effects of sulfate particles (Taylor and Penner 1994; Le Treut et al. 1996; Mitchell et al. 1995a; Roeckner et al. 1996).

The time is now- we go for the challenge, and for the futureZubrin 2010, Ph.D., President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 21, 2011)

Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The space program itself needs challenge. Consider: Between 1961 and 1973, under the impetus of the Moon race, NASA produced a rate of technological innovation several orders of magnitude greater than that it has shown since, for an average budget in real dollars virtually the same as that today ($19 billion in 2010 dollars). Why? Because it had a goal that made its reach exceed its grasp. It is not necessary to develop anything new if you are not doing anything new. Far from being a waste of money, forcing NASA to take on the challenge of Mars is the key to giving the nation a real technological return for its space dollar. A humans-to-Mars program would also be an challenge to adventure to every child in the country: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world." There will be over 100 million kids in our nation's schools over the next ten years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1% of them to scientific educations, the net result would be 1 million more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers and doctors, making innovations that create new industries, finding new medical cures, strengthening national defense, and increasing national income to an extent that dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. Mars is not just a scientific curiosity, it is a world with a surface area equal to all the continents of Earth combined, possessing all the elements that are needed to support not only life, but technological civilization. As hostile as it may seem, the only thing standing between Mars and habitability is the need to develop a certain amount of Red Planet know-how. This can and will be done by those who go there first to explore. Mars is the New World. Someday millions of people will live there. What language will they speak? What values and traditions will they cherish, to spread from there as humanity continues to move out into the solar system and beyond? When they look back on our time, will any of our other actions compare in value to what we do today to bring their society into being? Today, we have the opportunity to be the founders, the parents and shapers of a new and dynamic branch of the human family, and by so doing, put our stamp upon the future. It is a privilege not to be disdained lightly. In conclusion, the point needs to be made again. We are ready to go to Mars. Despite whatever issues that remain, the fundamental fact is that we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we were to send people to the Moon in 1961, when John F. Kennedy initiated the Apollo program. Exploring Mars requires no miraculous new technologies, no orbiting spaceports, and no gigantic interplanetary space cruisers (Zubrin 1997). We can establish our first outpost on Mars within a decade. We and not some future generation can have the eternal honor of being the first pioneers of this new world for humanity. All that's needed is present-day technology, some 19th century industrial chemistry, some political vision, and a little bit of moxie.

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Extinction Inev – Supervolcanoes Supervolcanoes threaten human existenceBritt 05-writer, editor for live science(Robert Roy Britt, Managing Editor of LiveScience,Super Volcano Will Challenge Civilization, Geologists Warn)http://www.livescience.com/200-super-volcano-challenge-civilization-geologists-warn.html

Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia. "An area the size of North America can be devastated, and pronounced deterioration of global climate would be expected for a few years following the eruption," Self said. "They could result in the devastation of world agriculture, severe disruption of food supplies, and mass starvation. These effects could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilization."

Data and geological studies go affBritt 05-writer, editor for live science(Robert Roy Britt, Managing Editor of LiveScience,Super Volcano Will Challenge Civilization, Geologists Warn)http://www.livescience.com/200-super-volcano-challenge-civilization-geologists-warn.html

The warning is not new. Geologists in the United States detailed a similar scenario in 2001, when they found evidence suggesting volcanic activity in Yellowstone National Park will eventually lead to a colossal eruption. Half the United States will be covered in ash up to 3 feet (1 meter) deep, according to a study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Explosions of this magnitude "happen about every 600,000 years at Yellowstone," says Chuck Wicks of the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied the possibilities in separate work. "And it's been about 620,000 years since the last super explosive eruption there."

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Extinction Inev – Disease Genetic engineering or some doomsday virus ensures extinction.Hawking, 2001 (Stephen Hawking, Cosmologist of Cambridge University, “A 16th Oct. 2001 WARNING by Cosmologist PROF. STEPHEN HAWKING”, October 16th 2001)

"The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus . . . unless we set up colonies in space. Although Sept. 11th was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race like nuclear weapons do," said the Cambridge University Scientist. "In the long term, I'm more worried about biology. Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. The danger is that, either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us. I don't think the human race will survive . . unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet." All of the above concerns were expressed a quarter century ago in this following article by Mr. Falconi. BUT, the "original" concept of escaping from earth in order to back up and preserve our civilization, as expressed by Mr. Falconi, was preconceived by over a quarter-century in the following prophetic paragraph: "We must keep the problems of today in true proportions: they are vital - indeed of extreme importance - since they can destroy our civilisation and slay the future before its birth. The crossing of space may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety valve that is needed to preserve it."

Human Extinction From Epidemics and Genetic ManipulationFalconi, 1975 (Oscar Falconi,”THE CASE FOR SPACE COLONIZATION - NOW!- and why it should be our generation's #1 priority”,1975,nutri.com)

About 30,000,000 persons died in the summer and fall of 1918 of "Spanish" influenza. This was about 2% of the world's population and far more than were killed in the 4 years of World War I. Between 1346 and 1368 the "Black Death", probably a bubonic plague, killed 25,000,000 persons just in Europe alone - about 1/4 of its population. In some parts of Europe over 3/4 of the population died. We should interpret these historical facts as an ominous warning of man's vulnerability to forces beyond his comprehension and well beyond his control. Less than a thousandth of an ounce of a certain bacterial toxin is enough to kill the entire human population. Bacteria, their toxins, and other substances that are even more deadly, very probably exist in many of the chemical, bacteriological, biological, and germ warfare laboratories of the world. Important questions are: Can these substances kill ALL human life? How secure are they from theft or leakage? Can they be controlled if used? In 1974, at the now-famous Asilomar meeting, a group of 140 leading genetic researchers discussed the hazards of genetic manipulation, set guidelines, and pledged themselves to restrict certain aspects of their work in order to protect mankind from the potentially disastrous consequences of what modern science can create in a test tube. These scientists realized that they could produce a deadly virus or strain of bacteria against which there was no protection. From France: "The threat of disseminating new infectious germs that have never existed in nature could provoke uncontrollable epidemics." And from the U.S. National Acadamy of Sciences: "Man has always been vulnerable to mass hazards, such as plagues and earthquakes, but he now has the capability of creating his own monumental disasters in a way never before possible." But is a moratorium on experimentation in genetic manipulation the answer? Can one really believe that Russian, Israeli, or Chinese researchers will abide by such an agreement? Can you picture a German or Indian scientist, on the verge of a spectacular breakthrough, stopping his research? Of course not! He'll merely postpone publication. The final result of any such agreement is that the United States will have unilaterally disarmed itself in the field of genetic manipulation. What's more, American scientists will no longer be in the position to lead an orderly, safe, development of the field. Advances will now be taking place clandestinely in backroom labs worldwide. Most scientists have the best intentions, but when God, country, or career enter the scene, nearsightedness can prevail. In just the 4 years since the previous edition of this book, the progress made in genetic engineering and gene-splicing technology has been absolutely startling. The "miracle" of the creation, by man, of primitive life from mere inorganic chemicals is just around the corner. Also possible is the total destruction of intelligent life by some means that could never be predicted - and only understood in hindsight. So we have ourselves a dilemma: On the one hand we must carry on genetic research, and on the other hand we must stop. How do we resolve this situation? The only answer seems to be that we allow genetic research to continue, as it would anyway, but that we take immediate steps to construct a backup colony away from earth in the event the genetic experiments get out of control.

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Framework – Existential Risk*** Every second that is wasted not towards colonizing planets costs at least 100 trillion potential lives – constant loss of energy that isn’t harnessedBostrom, 2003, Professor at Oxford University (Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School Director, Future of Humanity Institute Director, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology University of Oxford, “Astronomical Waste: The Oppurtunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development”, Utilitas, Vol. 15, No. 3,http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html, July 25, 2011)

As I write these words, suns are illuminating and heating empty rooms, unused energy is being flushed down black holes, and our great common endowment of negentropy is being irreversibly degraded into entropy on a cosmic scale. These are resources that an advanced civilization could have used to create value-structures, such as sentient beings living worthwhile lives. The rate of this loss boggles the mind. One recent paper speculates, using loose theoretical considerations based on the rate of increase of entropy, that the loss of potential human lives in our own galactic supercluster is at least ~10^46 per century of delayed colonization.[1] This estimate assumes that all the lost entropy could have been used for productive purposes, although no currently known technological mechanisms are even remotely capable of doing that. Since the estimate is meant to be a lower bound, this radically unconservative assumption is undesirable. We can, however, get a lower bound more straightforwardly by simply counting the number or stars in our galactic supercluster and multiplying this number with the amount of computing power that the resources of each star could be used to generate using technologies for whose feasibility a strong case has already been made. We can then divide this total with the estimated amount of computing power needed to simulate one human life. As a rough approximation, let us say the Virgo Supercluster contains 10^13 stars. One estimate of the computing power extractable from a star and with an associated planet-sized computational structure, using advanced molecular nanotechnology[2], is 10^42 operations per second.[3] A typical estimate of the human brain’s processing power is roughly 10^17 operations per second or less.[4] Not much more seems to be needed to simulate the relevant parts of the environment in sufficient detail to enable the simulated minds to have experiences indistinguishable from typical current human experiences.[5] Given these estimates, it follows that the potential for approximately 10^38 human lives is lost every century that colonization of our local supercluster is delayed; or equivalently, about 10^31 potential human lives per second. While this estimate is conservative in that it assumes only computational mechanisms whose implementation has been at least outlined in the literature, it is useful to have an even more conservative estimate that does not assume a non-biological instantiation of the potential persons. Suppose that about 10^10 biological humans could be sustained around an average star. Then the Virgo Supercluster could contain 10^23 biological humans. This corresponds to a loss of potential equal to about 10^14 potential human lives per second of delayed colonization. What matters for present purposes is not the exact numbers but the fact that they are huge. Even with the most conservative estimate, assuming a biological implementation of all persons, the potential for one hundred trillion potential human beings is lost for every second of postponement of colonization of our supercluster.[6]

Therefore, the advancing of technology is the greatest action that can be done, no matter how small – saves trillions of potential livesBostrom, 2003, Professor at Oxford University (Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School Director, Future of Humanity Institute Director, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology University of Oxford, “Astronomical Waste: The Oppurtunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development”, Utilitas, Vol. 15, No. 3,http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html, July 25, 2011)

From a utilitarian perspective, this huge loss of potential human lives constitutes a correspondingly huge loss of potential value. I am assuming here that the human lives that could have been created would have been worthwhile ones. Since it is commonly supposed that even current human lives are typically worthwhile, this is a weak assumption. Any civilization advanced enough to colonize the local supercluster would likely also have the ability to establish at least the minimally favorable conditions required for future lives to be worth living. The effect on total value, then, seems greater for actions that accelerate technological development than for practically any other possible action. Advancing technology (or its enabling factors, such as economic productivity) even by such a tiny amount that it leads to colonization of the local supercluster just one second earlier than would otherwise have happened amounts to bringing about more than 10^31 human lives (or 10^14 human lives if we use the most conservative lower bound) that would not otherwise have existed. Few other philanthropic causes could hope to mach that level of utilitarian payoff. Utilitarians are not the only ones who should strongly oppose astronomical waste. There are many views about what has value that would concur with the assessment that the current rate of wastage constitutes an enormous loss of potential value. For example, we can take a thicker conception of human welfare than commonly supposed by utilitarians (whether of a hedonistic, experientialist, or desire-satisfactionist bent), such as a conception that locates value also in human flourishing, meaningful relationships, noble character, individual expression, aesthetic appreciation, and so forth. So long as the evaluation function is aggregative (does not count one person’s welfare for less just because there are many other persons in existence who also enjoy happy lives) and is not relativized to a particular point in time (no time-discounting), the conclusion will hold. These conditions can be relaxed further. Even if the welfare function is not perfectly aggregative (perhaps because one component of the good is diversity, the marginal rate of production of which might decline with increasing population size), it can still yield a similar bottom line provided only that at least some significant component of the good is sufficiently aggregative. Similarly, some degree of time-discounting future goods could be accommodated without changing the conclusion.[7]

We must reduce existential risk – maximize the probability that we will colonize spaceBostrom, 2003, Professor at Oxford University (Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School Director, Future of Humanity Institute Director, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology University of Oxford, “Astronomical Waste: The Oppurtunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development”, Utilitas, Vol. 15, No. 3,http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html, July 25, 2011)

59***COLONIZATION GOOD

Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiIn light of the above discussion, it may seem as if a utilitarian ought to focus her efforts on accelerating technological development. The payoff from even a very slight success in this endeavor is so enormous that it dwarfs that of almost any other activity. We appear to have a utilitarian argument for the greatest possible urgency of technological development. However, the true lesson is a different one. If what we are concerned with is (something like) maximizing the expected number of worthwhile lives that we will create, then in addition to the opportunity cost of delayed colonization, we have to take into account the risk of failure to colonize at all. We might fall victim to an existential risk, one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.[8] Because the lifespan of galaxies is measured in billions of years, whereas the time-scale of any delays that we could realistically affect would rather be measured in years or decades, the consideration of risk trumps the consideration of opportunity cost. For example, a single percentage point of reduction of existential risks would be worth (from a utilitarian expected utility point-of-view) a delay of over 10 million years. Therefore, if our actions have even the slightest effect on the probability of eventual colonization, this will outweigh their effect on when colonization takes place. For standard utilitarians, priority number one, two, three and four should consequently be to reduce existential risk. The utilitarian imperative “Maximize expected aggregate utility!” can be simplified to the maxim “Minimize existential risk!”.

Extinction impacts outweigh all elseMatheny 07, Bloomberg School of Public Health (Jason Matheny, Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction, http://jgmatheny.org/matheny_extinction_risk.htm, July 22, 2011)

We may be poorly equipped to recognize or plan for extinction risks (Yudkowsky, 2007 ). We may not be good at grasping the significance of very large numbers (catastrophic outcomes) or very small numbers (probabilities) over large timeframes. We struggle with estimating the probabilities of rare or unprecedented events (Kunreuther et al., 2001 ). Policymakers may not plan far beyond current political administrations and rarely do risk assessments value the existence of future generations.18 We may unjustifiably discount the value of future lives. Finally, extinction risks are market failures where an individual enjoys no perceptible benefit from his or her investment in risk reduction. Human survival may thus be a good requiring deliberate policies to protect. It might be feared that consideration of extinction risks would lead to a reductio ad absurdum: we ought to invest all our resources in asteroid defense or nuclear disarmament, instead of AIDS, pollution, world hunger, or other problems we face today. On the contrary, programs that create a healthy and content global population are likely to reduce the probability of global war or catastrophic terrorism. They should thus be seen as an essential part of a portfolio of risk-reducing projects. Discussing the risks of "nuclear winter," Carl Sagan (1983) wrote: Some have argued that the difference between the deaths of several hundred million people in a nuclear war (as has been thought until recently to be a reasonable upper limit) and the death of every person on Earth (as now seems possible) is only a matter of one order of magnitude. For me, the difference is considerably greater. Restricting our attention only to those who die as a consequence of the war conceals its full impact. If we are required to calibrate extinction in numerical terms, I would be sure to include the number of people in future generations who would not be born. A nuclear war imperils all of our descendants, for as long as there will be humans. Even if the population remains static, with an average lifetime of the order of 100 years, over a typical time period for the biological evolution of a successful species (roughly ten million years), we are talking about some 500 trillion people yet to come. By this criterion, the stakes are one million times greater for extinction than for the more modest nuclear wars that kill "only" hundreds of millions of people. There are many other possible measures of the potential loss—including culture and science, the evolutionary history of the planet, and the significance of the lives of all of our ancestors who contributed to the future of their descendants. Extinction is the undoing of the human enterprise.

There’s loss of potential lives every moment we aren’t colonizing.Bostrom 03, Ph.D. philosophy (Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School Director, Future of Humanity Institute Director, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology University of Oxford, Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development Utilitas Vol. 15, No. 3 (2003): pp. 308-314 http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.htm)

As I write these words, suns are illuminating and heating empty rooms, unused energy is being flushed down black holes, and our great common endowment of negentropy is being irreversibly degraded into entropy on a cosmic scale. These are resources that an advanced civilization could have used to create value-structures, such as sentient beings living worthwhile lives. The rate of this loss boggles the mind. One recent paper speculates, using loose theoretical considerations based on the rate of increase of entropy, that the loss of potential human lives in our own galactic supercluster is at least ~10^46 per century of delayed colonization.[1] This estimate assumes that all the lost entropy could have been used for productive purposes, although no currently known technological mechanisms are even remotely capable of doing that. Since the estimate is meant to be a lower bound, this radically unconservative assumption is undesirable. We can, however, get a lower bound more straightforwardly by simply counting the number or stars in our galactic supercluster and multiplying this number with the amount of computing power that the resources of each star could be used to generate using technologies for whose feasibility a strong case has already been made. We can then divide this total with the estimated amount of computing power needed to simulate one human life. As a rough approximation, let us say the Virgo Supercluster contains 10^13 stars. One estimate of the computing power extractable from a star and with an associated planet-sized computational structure, using advanced molecular nanotechnology[2], is 10^42 operations per second.[3] A typical estimate of the human brain’s processing power is roughly 10^17 operations per second or less.[4] Not much more seems to be needed to simulate the relevant parts of the environment in sufficient detail to enable the simulated minds to have experiences indistinguishable from typical current human experiences.[5] Given these estimates, it follows that the potential for approximately 10^38 human lives is lost every century that colonization of our local supercluster is delayed; or equivalently, about 10^31 potential human lives per second. While this estimate is conservative in that it assumes only computational mechanisms whose implementation has been at least outlined in the literature, it is useful to have an even more conservative estimate that does not assume a non-biological instantiation of the potential persons. Suppose that about 10^10 biological humans could be sustained around an average star. Then the Virgo Supercluster could contain 10^23 biological humans. This corresponds to a loss of potential equal to about 10^14 potential human lives per second of delayed colonization. What matters for present purposes is not the exact numbers but the fact that they are huge. Even with the most conservative estimate, assuming a biological implementation of all persons, the potential for one hundred trillion potential human beings is lost for every second of postponement of colonization of our supercluster.

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiAny action towards colonization benefits mankindBostrom 03, Ph.D. philosophy (Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School Director, Future of Humanity Institute Director, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology University of Oxford, Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development Utilitas Vol. 15, No. 3 (2003): pp. 308-314 http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.htm)

In light of the above discussion, it may seem as if a utilitarian ought to focus her efforts on accelerating technological development. The payoff from even a very slight success in this endeavor is so enormous that it dwarfs that of almost any other activity. We appear to have a utilitarian argument for the greatest possible urgency of technological development. However, the true lesson is a different one. If what we are concerned with is (something like) maximizing the expected number of worthwhile lives that we will create, then in addition to the opportunity cost of delayed colonization, we have to take into account the risk of failure to colonize at all. We might fall victim to an existential risk, one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.[8] Because the lifespan of galaxies is measured in billions of years, whereas the time-scale of any delays that we could realistically affect would rather be measured in years or decades, the consideration of risk trumps the consideration of opportunity cost. For example, a single percentage point of reduction of existential risks would be worth (from a utilitarian expected utility point-of-view) a delay of over 10 million years. Therefore, if our actions have even the slightest effect on the probability of eventual colonization, this will outweigh their effect on when colonization takes place. For standard utilitarians, priority number one, two, three and four should consequently be to reduce existential risk. The utilitarian imperative “Maximize expected aggregate utility!” can be simplified to the maxim “Minimize existential risk!”

There are many opportunities lost every second we aren’t colonizingBostrom 03, Ph.D. philosophy (Nick Bostrom, Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School Director, Future of Humanity Institute Director, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology University of Oxford, Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development Utilitas Vol. 15, No. 3 (2003): pp. 308-314 http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.htm)

From a utilitarian perspective, this huge loss of potential human lives constitutes a correspondingly huge loss of potential value. I am assuming here that the human lives that could have been created would have been worthwhile ones. Since it is commonly supposed that even current human lives are typically worthwhile, this is a weak assumption. Any civilization advanced enough to colonize the local supercluster would likely also have the ability to establish at least the minimally favorable conditions required for future lives to be worth living. The effect on total value, then, seems greater for actions that accelerate technological development than for practically any other possible action. Advancing technology (or its enabling factors, such as economic productivity) even by such a tiny amount that it leads to colonization of the local supercluster just one second earlier than would otherwise have happened amounts to bringing about more than 10^31 human lives (or 10^14 human lives if we use the most conservative lower bound) that would not otherwise have existed. Few other philanthropic causes could hope to mach that level of utilitarian payoff. Utilitarians are not the only ones who should strongly oppose astronomical waste. There are many views about what has value that would concur with the assessment that the current rate of wastage constitutes an enormous loss of potential value. For example, we can take a thicker conception of human welfare than commonly supposed by utilitarians (whether of a hedonistic, experientialist, or desire-satisfactionist bent), such as a conception that locates value also in human flourishing, meaningful relationships, noble character, individual expression, aesthetic appreciation, and so forth. So long as the evaluation function is aggregative (does not count one person’s welfare for less just because there are many other persons in existence who also enjoy happy lives) and is not relativized to a particular point in time (no time-discounting), the conclusion will hold. These conditions can be relaxed further. Even if the welfare function is not perfectly aggregative (perhaps because one component of the good is diversity, the marginal rate of production of which might decline with increasing population size), it can still yield a similar bottom line provided only that at least some significant component of the good is sufficiently aggregative. Similarly, some degree of time-discounting future goods could be accommodated without changing the conclusion

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Space Col Good – Resource Scarcity Space colonization will solve energy shortages – leading to more reliable technology. Siegfried, 2003, writer for the Boeing Company, Integrated Defense Systems (W.H., Space Colonization - Benefits for the World, http://www.aiaa.org/participate/uploads/acf628b.pdf, July 24, 2011)

The world population has finally recognized that we are polluting our nest. We are using energy at a prodigious rate (Fig. 1) (Siegfried, 1991). There is a demonstrated connection between the cost of energy, its availability and a nation’s standard of living. Long-term clean energy sources must be provided to assist not only with our future needs, but also with those of all nations’ current requirements. Energy sources are an important part of environmental thrusts. Nuclear research is progressing, but it does not promise near-term solutions and developing nations are reaching a plateau of available power. The emerging nations’ need for power must be balanced against potential environmental damage from such dangers as fossil fuel emissions (if there were enough fuel available), which could be greater than nuclear energy risks. Currently, the United States annually consumes approximately 3 trillion Kwh’s of electrical energy and, if this rate grows at only 2% per year, by 2050 United States power requirements will be around 9 trillion Kwh’s per year. Total world needs, assuming a very low use by developing nations (not a conservative estimate) easily exceeds an estimated 20 trillion Kwh’s by 2050. Even with an attendant tripling of non-nuclear systems, such as hydroelectric to avoid fossil fuel depletion, nuclear power system generation would have to increase by a factor of 6 to meet requirements. This increase in nuclear energy production flies in the face of a rising discontent with adverse environmental effects of nuclear waste disposal, where some plants are being converted to utilize fossil fuels. A clean renewable source of energy must be found and implemented. Space Colonization can lead to solutions to this problem. Three potential energy sources are described in Table 1. Helium 3, solar power satellites (SPS), and a lunar (solar) power system (LPS) all have significant feedback potential for other commercial applications. A space-based energy system would be global in scale and funding and would thus be a challenging goal for macro-engineering management to achieve. This management experience would be globally shared and would be utilized for other global projects. Robotics and artificial intelligence would also benefit from the use of smart and capable robots to autonomously conduct such functions as space assembly and lunar mining and processing. Computer systems would be extended in capacity and reliability, energy-transfer technology would be enhanced, and materials research would quest for more efficient space systems and learn to utilize in-situ materials. SPS and LPS will require advancement in photovoltaic cell technology. This quest can also influence transportation technology because at least one of the solutions could lead to more efficient space propulsion. This would reduce travel times and minimize exposure to potentially debilitating space environments.

Energy scarcity causes world war – the US will end the world to secure oilFoster 8 (Researcher, Department of Sociology at University of Oregon, July/August Monthly Review, V. 60, Issue 3, http://wev.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=108&sid=475161c-c144-4086-668-4f361866ba80%40sessionmgr102)

The tightening oil situation has prompted the rapid on the ground growth of U.S. energy imperialism, beyond the continuing Iraq and Afghan wars. The security of Saudi Arabia remains an overriding focus. If Washington's plans for a massive expansion of investment and production in Saudi Arabia, which according to the U.S. Department of Energy needs to double its oil output by 2030, depends on the feudal kingdom remaining in place. Meanwhile, there is rising social tension, emanating from the vastly unequal distribution of the country's oil revenues. Ninety percent of private sector jobs go to foreigners. The sexes are entirely segregated. The repressive structure of the society conceals massive popular resentment. Any destabilization of the society would likely prompt U.S. military intervention. As James Howard Kunstier has written in The Long Emergency, "a desperate superpower might feel it has no choice except to attempt to control the largest remaining oil fields on the planet at any cost"-particularly if faced by growing rivalry from other states. The United States has sought to counter the possibility of an energy alliance between Russia, China, Iran, and Central Asian oil states by expanding its military bases in Afghanistan and Central Asia, notably its Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan on the border of oil-rich Kazakhstan. Threats of U.S. "preemptive" military intervention directed at Iran meanwhile have been continuous, based on its alleged attempts to acquire nuclear weapons through the aggressive pursuit of nuclear energy, and its "interference" in Iraq. Iran's pursuit of nuclear power, as a 2007 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed, is due to an oil export decline rate of 10-12 percent, arising from the growth of domestic energy demand plus a high rate of oil field depletion and a lack of investment growth in expanded capacity. This led to Iran's recent inability to meet its OPEC oil export quota. The current trend points to the likelihood of Iranian petroleum exports falling to zero by 2014-15. From the standpoint of Western energy and national security analysts, Iran's government and its national oil corporation have adopted the monopolistic policy of underinvesting in oil, deliberating slowing its production in expectation of continually rising prices, thereby holding back on the lifeblood of the world economy. During the last few years the U.S. military has dramatically increased its bases and operations in Africa, particularly in the Gulf of Guinea. United States expects to get 20 percent of its oil imports from Africa by 2010, and 25 percent by 2015. The U.S. military set up a separate Africa Command in 2007 to govern all U.S. military operations in Africa (outside Egypt). Washington sees itself as in direct competition with Beijing over African oil-a competition that it perceives not simply in economic but also military-strategic terms. U.S. ruling interests also have increased their threats directed at Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and other Latin American states, accusing them of "resource nationalism" and presenting them as dangers to U.S. national security. Washington has made one attempt after another to unseat Venezuela's democratically elected president Hugo Otavez and to overthrow Venezuela's BoIivarian Revolution, with the dear object of regime change. This has included stepping up its massive military intervention in Colombia and backing the Colombian military and its intrusions into neighboring countries. In 2006 the U.S. Southern Command conducted an internal study, declaring that Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and conceivably even Mexico (which was then facing elections with a possible populist outcome) offered serious dangers to U.S. energy security. "Pending any favorable changes to the investment climate," it declared, "the prospects for long-term energy production in Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico are currently at risk." The military threat was obvious. All of this is in accord with the history of capitalism, and the response of declining hegemons to global forces largely outside their control. The new energy imperialism of the United States is already leading to expanding wars, which could become truly global, as Washington attempts to safeguard the existing capitalist economy and to stave off its own hegemonic decline. As Simmons has warned, "If we don't create a solution to the enormous potential gap between our inherent demand for energy and the availability of energy we will have the nastiest and last war we’ll ever fight. I mean a literal war.

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Space Col Good – Overpopulation Space Colonization Solves Over-PopulationO'Neill, 1974 (Gerard O’Neill,Proffesor of Physics at Princeton,”The Colonization of Space”,September,1974)

By about 2050, then, figure 4 indicates that emigration to the colonies could reverse the rise in Earth's population, and that the acceleration of the solution could be dramatically fast: Within less than 30 years, Earth's population could be reduced from a peak of 16.5 billion people to whatever stable value is desired. I have suggested 1.2 billion as a possible optimum; it corresponds to the year 1910 in Earth history. The reduction in population density in the space communities could be equally rapid, and within another 40 years new construction could thin out the communities to a stable density of 1.43 people per hectare, about one hundredth of the ecological limit. The total land area in the colonies would then be more than three times that of Earth. We can hope that, in contrast to this worst-case example, some progress toward zero population growth will be made in the next 75 years. Any such progress will hasten the solution, reduce Earths population peak, and hasten the day when the population densities on Earth as well as in the colonies can be reduced to an optimum value.

Rising demand leads to nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare.Ehrlich and Ehrlich 6 (Paul Ehrlich, Prof. Pop. Studies and Biological Sciences @ Stanford U, and Anne Ehrlich, Senior Research Assoc. in Dept. Biological Sciences @ Stanford U, “Enough Already,” New Scientist, September 30th, 2006, Lexis)

Expanding populations also create rising demands for food, energy and materials. The strain this puts on ecosystems and resources in developing countries is compounded by demands from industrialised nations keen to exploit everything from timber and tropical fruits to metals and petroleum. Shortages of fresh water are increasingly common, jeopardising food production among many other problems. Rising oil prices may now be signalling the end of cheap energy, which also poses a threat to successful development. At the same time, mounting evidence of global warming makes reducing fossil-fuel use imperative. If the 5 billion-plus people in developing nations matched the consumption patterns of the 1.2 billion in the industrialised world, at least two more Earths would be needed to support everyone. Politicians and the public seem utterly oblivious to what will be required to maintain crucial ecosystem services and an adequate food supply in the face of rapid climate change and an accelerated loss of biodiversity. The future looks grim, unless patterns of consumption change - with rich nations causing less environmental damage and poor ones consuming more, but adopting the newest, cleanest and most efficient technologies for energy use and production of goods and services. It seems likely that by 2050 nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction will be in the hands of most nations and many subnational groups. Imagine a well-armed world, still split between rich and poor, with unevenly distributed resources and a ravaged environment. Unless we act now, future generations will not have to imagine .

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Space Col Good – Disease Space colonization leads to increased understanding of the human immune system – solves aging and HIVSiegfried, 2003, writer for the Boeing Company, Integrated Defense Systems (W.H., Space Colonization - Benefits for the World, http://www.aiaa.org/participate/uploads/acf628b.pdf, July 24, 2011)

Many current human problems are the result of failures of the body’s natural immune system. We can diagnose many of these problems and have made great strides in ameliorating the symptoms, but to date, understanding immune system function and enhancement is seminal. Both United States and Russian long-term space missions have induced similar red blood cell and immune system changes. Hematological and immunological changes observed during, or after, space missions have been quite consistent. Decreases in red cell mass were reported in Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Soyuz, and Mir programs—probably due to diminished rates of erythrocyte production. Space flight at microgravity levels may produce changes in white blood cell morphology and a compromise of the immune system. Skylab studies indicated a decrease in the number of T lymphocytes and some impairment in their function. Certain United States and Russian findings suggest that space flight induces a transient impairment in immune system function at the cellular level. Space flight offers a clinical laboratory unlike any place on Earth that may lead to an improved understanding of the function of the human immune system. Perhaps cures of aging, HIV, and other immune function-related illnesses can result from a comprehensive approach to Space Colonization.

Infections disease spread risks global extinctionSteinbruner 98 – Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution [John D., “Biological weapons: A plague upon all houses,” Foreign Policy, Dec 22, LN]

It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat have not depended on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has developed physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. An infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some 20 variations of the HIVvirus have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of aids each year. Malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera-once thought to be under control-are now making a comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century, changing conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a whole.

Aids causes genocide, ethnic cleansing, and economic collapse— makes war more likely and increases the impact SINGER 2002 (Peter, John M. Olin Post-doctoral Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, Survival, Spring. This is not the bioethicist/activist Peter Singer.)

A recurring themes at all of these meetings was the new danger presented by the epidemic, not just in terms of direct victims of the disease itself, but also to international security. Speaking at the UN Security Council session, James Wolfensohn, the head of the World Bank, stated, “Many of us used to think of AIDS as a health issue. We were wrong…nothing we have seen is a greater challenge to the peace and stability of African societies than the epidemic of aids…we face a major development crisis, and more than that, a security crisis.”2 Peter Piot, chairman of the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), similarly noted that “Conflicts and AIDS are linked like evil twins.”3 In fact, this connection made between the epidemic of AIDS and the danger of increased instability and war was also one of the few continuities between the way the Clinton and Bush administration foreign policy teams saw the world. Basing its assessment on a CIA report that discussed an increased prospects of “revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, genocide, and disruptive regime transitions” because of the disease, the Clinton Administration declared it a “national security threat” in 2000.4 While it was originally accused of pandering to certain activist groups, by the time of Secretary Powell’s confirmation hearings the next year, the lead foreign policy voice of the new administration had also declared it a “national security problem.” He later affirmed that it presented “a clear and present danger to the world.”5 Similarly, US Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky stated that “HIV/AIDS is a threat to security and global stability, plain and simple”6 The looming security implications of AIDS, particularly within Africa, are thus now a baseline assumption of the disease’s danger. However, this threat has barely been fleshed out and the mechanisms by which experts claim that “AIDS has changed the landscape of war” are barely understood. 7 This article seeks to fill this space. AIDS not only threatens to heighten the risks of war, but also multiply its impact . The disease will hollow out military capabilities, as well as state capacities in general, weakening both to the point of failure and collapse. Moreover, at these times of increased vulnerability, the disease also creates new militant recruiting pools, who portend even greater violence, as well putting in jeopardy certain pillars of international stability. In isolation, this increased risk of war around the globe is bad enough, but there are also certain types of cross-fertilization between the disease and conflict, intensifying the threat. The ultimate dynamic of warfare and AIDS is that their combination makes both more likely and more devastating . It is no overstatement that AIDS is “…the greatest disease challenge that humanity has faced in modern history.”8 More people will die from the disease than any other disease outbreaks in human history, including the global influenza epidemic of 1918-9 and the Bubonic Plague in the 1300s. Over 22 million worldwide have already been killed and it is projected that, at current rates, another 100 million more will be infected just by 2005.9

Human immortality wutMichael D. West, Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine concentrating on the biology of cellular aging, June 2010, “Immortal Stem Cells for Anti-Aging Therapies”, http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2010/jun2010_Immortal-Stem-Cells-for-Anti-Aging-Therapies_01.htm | Suo

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Now, with iPS technology, which is a way of performing the equivalent of cloning without using an egg cell or making an embryo, everyone believed from the start that it would also transport the cell back to immortality, since that is what happens in cloning. But when we looked at telomeres in several widely used iPS cell lines we saw they were all short. In the paper we just published,14 our survey showed that, although all iPS cell lines out there do reactivate telomerase and otherwise look like embryonic stem cells, they do not properly reset the clock of aging because their telomeres remain shorter than they should be. The good news is that we found a way to identify iPS cells that have reset the clock of aging. And so while iPS cell technology is not as efficient as cloning in rapidly and reliably reversing the clock of aging, we’ve shown in this paper that it can be made to work quite simply. So the ability to reverse the aging of human cells both from the standpoint of embryological development and in terms of the clock of aging and in an ethically non-problematic manner, and to do it on a commercial and affordable scale, makes regenerative medicine an attractive pathway to profoundly intervene in human aging.

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Space Col Good – Jobs Space colonization increases cooperation abroad.Siegfried, 2003, writer for the Boeing Company, Integrated Defense Systems (W.H., Space Colonization - Benefits for the World, http://www.aiaa.org/participate/uploads/acf628b.pdf, July 24, 2011)

There are also many sociological benefits of Space Colonization. We must remember that such an endeavor cannot be implemented by one any agency or single government. A world policy would be needed. In the United States, the combined efforts of NASA, DOE, DOI, DOT, DOC, and others would be focused in addition to our broad industrial base and the commercial world. It should be noted that the eventual space tourism market (tapping in to the world annual $3,400 billion market or the United States $120 billion per year “adventure travel” market) (Reichert, 1999) will not be based on the work of isolated government agencies but, rather, evolve from a synergistic combination of government, travel industry, hotel chains, civil engineering, and, yes, a modified version of industry as we know it today. The change in emphasis from our present single-objective missions to a broadband Space Colonization infrastructure will create employment here on Earth and in space for millions of people and will profoundly change our daily life on Earth. This venue, initiated by short suborbital followed by short orbital and then orbital hotel stays (Collins, 2000) has already begun with brief visits to the ISS. Once systems evolve that can reduce the cost of a “space ticket” to some $10,000 to $50,000 US, the market will grow.

A push for space colonization will increase the number of doctorates received in the US – increasing education. Siegfried, 2003, writer for the Boeing Company, Integrated Defense Systems (W.H., Space Colonization - Benefits for the World, http://www.aiaa.org/participate/uploads/acf628b.pdf, July 24, 2011)

Problems within the education program in the United States have been analyzed many times. Rising illiteracy, 35% of all scientist and engineers being foreign born, and the 50% or higher foreign doctorate candidates who return to their country of origin after receiving degrees are examples. United States science and engineering schools are recognized throughout the world for their standards of excellence, but the number of United States students is declining based on a decreasing interest by the younger generation in the sciences and engineering. We must encourage young students to select engineering and science for studies as is happening in the rest of the world. Space Colonization can provide that stimulus. During the Apollo program, as NASA spending increased, so, too, did the number of doctorates received (Fig. 3). When NASA spending decreased following the Apollo program, so did the number of doctorates received a few years later (Collins, 2000). This time lag occurred because many students were well on their way to achieving their degrees. Once it was clear that funding and federal support had been reduced, the student population plummeted. We now face the prospect of many of the people trained in the sciences reaching retirement. Where are the replacements? A long-term worldwide commitment to Space Colonization could help. We must convince our present elementary school students to commit to science and engineering for these are the keys to our future.

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Space Col Good – Species Loss Colonization Solves for Endangered speciesO'Neill, 1974 (Gerard O’Neill,Proffesor of Physics at Princeton,”The Colonization of Space”,September,1974)

Bird and animal species that are endangered on Earth by agricultural and industrial chemical residues may find havens for growth in the space colonies, where insecticides are unnecessary, agricultural areas are physically separate from living areas, and industry has unlimited energy for recycling.

Biodiversity prevents extinctionDiner 94 (Major David N., Prof. Enviro. Law, Admin. And Civil Law Dept. @ Judge Advocate General’s School of US Army, former member of Judge Advocate General’s Corps, US Army, “The Army and the Endangered Species Act: Who’s Endangering Whom?” Military Law Review 143 (Winter 1994): 172-173)

1. Why Do We Care? -- No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a single- minded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. 67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. 68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, 69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, 70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. 71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. 72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. 73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew 74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. 75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 mankind may be edging closer to the abyss .

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Space Col Good – Asteroid Mining Colonies could mine asteroidsO'Neill, 1974 (Gerard O’Neill,Proffesor of Physics at Princeton,”The Colonization of Space”,September,1974)

* the asteroid belt is a rich source of raw materials, already exposed and differentiated. * transport from the belt to L5 can be done in a way analogous to ocean freight on Earth; that is, in very large units, with low fuel costs and very small crews. In space, it may be most practical to eliminate the freighter hulls entirely. A TLA-type reaction motor can run on free solar power and transport an entire asteroid to L5, perhaps with no crew at all. food-raising costs, production costs and shipping costs among the communities should all be lower than on Earth because of ideal growing conditions, proximity of farms to consumers, availability of unlimited solar power and the convenience of zero-gravity and high-vacuum environments for production and transportation.

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Space Col Good – Quality of Life Space colonization sublimates ethnic strife and improves quality of lifeSiegfried, 2003, writer for the Boeing Company, Integrated Defense Systems (W.H., Space Colonization - Benefits for the World, http://www.aiaa.org/participate/uploads/acf628b.pdf, July 24, 2011)

Aside from the more demonstrable returns that would come from Space Colonization, there are a host of intangible benefits (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 2000; Mankins, 2001; Mankins, 1997; Siegfried, 2000a; Siegfried, 1999). Mankind has always been goal-driven. The accessibility of journeys to space destinations could become a great motivational factor to the general population and a goal for emerging societies (Koelle, 2002). It could become a new commercial industry similar to the explosive growth of travel and adventure trips spawned by the jet age. We could expand our living space, create at least a second home for Earth-based life forms through development of lunar colonics and, eventually, perhaps terraforming Mars. We can potentially sublimate some of our ethnic strife in a common reach to the universe. We will better understand our Earth’s environment and evolutionary history and rekindle the spirit of adventure that we experienced during the frontier days. Space Colonization will benefit from burgeoning technology here on Earth but will also spawn the creation of as-yet- undreamed leaps. It could lead to potential storage or disposal venues for waste material and, by its very nature, provide the impetus for whole new generations of transportation, housing, and environmental control systems. The development of low-cost access systems will spawn flight rates similar to our terrestrial tourist frequencies and, coupled with the development of new space businesses and a space infrastructure, will implement humankind’s expansion throughout space. It has been 30 years since we left our Moon. It is time to return, this time to stay (Siegfried, 1997; Siegfried, 2001; Siegfried, 2000b).

New capabilities will make the world a better place – we can achieve global understandingGlobus, 2011, curator for NASA (Al, Why Build Orbital Space Colonies?, http://space.alglobus.net/Basics/why.html, July 21, 2011)

It's a little hard to argue against making great places to live for people, but there's a catch. It will be very expensive. True, the current space program is not particularly expensive, less than 1% of the U.S. federal budget. However, space colonization will cost a great deal. Why should we spend money on space when there are so many problems here on Earth? After all, isn't feeding the hungry and healing the sick more important than building cities in space? Yes, it is, which is why we spend far more money on feeding the hungry and healing the sick than on space exploration. However, our elected representatives, in unusual fit of wisdom, seem to understand that if we spend all of our money on today's problems we will never create tomorrow's solutions. This wisdom has been handed down by a thousand generations of farmers. Every farmer knows that he must save some of his crop for next year's seed. If you eat your seed corn, you'll starve next year. Similarly, every successful society spends some of its wealth developing new capabilities. New capabilities that will create even more wealth in the future. Space colonization can create such vast wealth that tomorrow's poor would seem rich to us. Furthermore, space colonization can directly solve some of today's most critical problems. For example, space has already contributed to global understanding. Communication satellites have made world-wide communication, and occasionally even dialogue, an everyday reality. While there is still plenty of misunderstanding to go around, every TV carries footage of foreign lands every day. Any of the hundreds of millions (soon to be billions) of people on the internet can connect to foreign web sites in a few minutes. The full implications of this radical change in communication patterns is yet to be seen. Space has helped keep the peace. In particular, spy satellites were critical in keeping the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. from destroying each other with nuclear weapons in the Cold War. Each side could see what the other was doing, rather than assuming the worst. It is quite likely we owe spy satellites our lives. Without them the two great super-powers may well have blundered into war, destroying much of civilization with their massive nuclear arsenals.

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Spinoff Advantage – 1AC Cards Strong government commitment to space exploration is necessary to ensure human survival.Barker, 2011, masters degrees in physics, psychology, mathematics, and space architecture, working on PhD in planetary geology, biomedical engineer at Johnson Space Center for nearly 20 years, flight controller and propulsion/robotics system engineer at International Space Station (Donald, On survival, goals, and human space flight, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1884/1, July 24)

We ask ourselves, will today’s most advanced form of architecture, space architecture, be in any way heralded in another 450 years? With ongoing advances in technology we might expect developments in space architecture during 2011 to be substantial and on par with the passage of time. Yet, as with all endeavors which do not overtly show dividends or do not directly favor a specific group or individual, the space program is heading into a void of darkness that does not have an inspired or motivating destination or goal. It has been 50 years since a goal of first placing a human in space, 40 years since the nation first sent humans to the Moon, 30 years of operating a “marvelous flying machine”—the Space Shuttle—and now 12 years of building and tending the ISS. Now and for the foreseeable future, a continuing reduction and dilution of funding will combine to limit present and future programs alike. As a result, our definition of building habitable structures has been diminished and left to arena of reinvention instead of invention. I routinely wonder how we will maintain leadership and inspire future generations , and have no clear answer. The United States will not be building anything in space for a long time, it seems. Even the unmanned side of the house, the James Webb Space Telescope, seems to be in jeopardy these days. That being said, the potential demise of our human space program is not for a lack of passion, intellect, or ideas, nor does there seem to be a lack in public enthusiasm. Instead, our problems can be traced to inconsistency and the lack of any true visionary patronage . Architectures being developed for use in space this year within our country include NASA’s newly titled Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), one of the several Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative vehicles, Bigelow Aerospace’s inflatable habitats and even Virgin Galactic’s suborbital thrill ride. All of these, though, have yet to be realized and flown reliably, and alone really only provide an ongoing capability that has existed ever since Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight in 1961. And, unfortunately, very few will be truly commercial as significant funding is still being provided for many of these vehicles from the federal government. Novel, momentous, and inspiring designs and mission studies for sending humans to Mars, the Moon, and even near Earth objects abound. Having been a fervent Mars enthusiast and activist, I still hold fast to the belief that there is no magical technology that will vastly enable human planetary exploration out at that magical 30-year mark that so many others keep deferring. Ideally, what is really needed is a true and unalterable commitment (i.e., money is what makes us go-round and off the world) to see such endeavors through to fruition. Therefore, during this hiatus in American human launch capability the space community needs to come together, to take the lead, and begin the forging of the best of our abilities to advance the most efficient, sustainable, and lasting designs that will allow humans to truly expand beyond Earth and become permanent inhabitants of space. Much as Columbus did at the end of the 15th century in securing the patronage of the Spanish monarchy, we need to invigorate and induce the patronage of those within our government who are immune to the short-sighted and short-term diseases and will work to implement such exploration to fulfillment. Again, the question as to why we should be doing this needs to be asserted, and ultimately the answer is for the survival of our species; all else is frosting. Whatever the realized architecture, it has no need to await radically new technologies or knowledge to bolster the transcendence of humanity to a multi-world species should we really choose that goal. We need to get off the couch and take risks: cold, hard, calculated risks. Only thorough such fulfillments, combined with a healthy understanding of history, will humanity’s chances of survival be affirmed. It is time to seed a new global age of inspiration, understanding, innovation, migration, and discovery.

A manned Martian landing is feasible and cheap with our current technology, and if started now will reach mars by 2016.Zubrin, 5/14/11 (Robert, Masters in Aeronautics and Astronautics president of Pioneer Astronautics and of the Mars Society BA in math Ph.D in Nuclear Engineering, How We Can Fly to Mars in This Decade – And on the Cheap, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576317493923993056.html?KEYWORDS=robert+zubrin)

SpaceX, a private firm that develops rockets and spacecraft, recently announced it will field a heavy lift rocket within two years that can deliver more than twice the payload of any booster now flying. This poses a thrilling question: Can we reach Mars in this decade? It may seem incredible—since conventional presentations of human Mars exploration missions are filled with depictions of gigantic, futuristic, nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceships whose operations are supported by a virtual parallel universe of orbital infrastructure. There’s nothing like that on the horizon. But I believe we could reach Mars with the tools we have today, or will have in short order. Here's how it could be done: The SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket will have a launch capacity of 53 metric tons to low Earth orbit. This means that if a conventional hydrogen-oxygen chemical rocket upper stage were added, it would have the capability of sending 17.5 tons on a trajectory to Mars, placing 14 tons in Mars orbit, or landing 11 tons on the Martian surface. The company has also developed and is in the process of demonstrating a crew capsule, known as the Dragon, which has a mass of about eight tons. While its current intended mission is to ferry up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station, the Dragon’s heat shield system is capable of withstanding re-entry from interplanetary trajectories, not just from Earth orbit. It’s rather small for an interplanetary spaceship, but it is designed for multiyear life, and it should be spacious enough for a crew of two astronauts who have the right stuff. Thus a Mars mission could be accomplished utilizing three Falcon Heavy launches. One would deliver to Mars orbit an unmanned Dragon capsule with a kerosene/oxygen chemical rocket stage of sufficient power to drive it back to Earth. This is the Earth Return Vehicle. A second launch will deliver to the Martian surface an 11-ton payload consisting of a two-ton Mars Ascent Vehicle employing a single methane/oxygen rocket propulsion stage, a small automated chemical reactor system, three tons of surface exploration gear, and a 10-kilowatt power supply, which could be either nuclear or solar. The Mars Ascent Vehicle would carry 2.6 tons of methane in its propellant tanks, but not the nine tons of liquid oxygen required to burn it. Instead, the oxygen could be made over a 500-day period by using the chemical reactor to break down the carbon dioxide that composes 95% of the Martian atmosphere. Using technology to generate oxygen rather than transporting it saves a great deal of mass. It also provides copious power and unlimited oxygen to the crew once they arrive. Once these elements are in place, the third launch would occur, which would send a Dragon capsule with a crew of two astronauts on a direct trajectory to Mars. The capsule would carry 2500 kilograms of consumables—sufficient, if water and oxygen recycling systems are employed, to support the two-person crew for up to three years. Given the available payload capacity, a light ground vehicle and several hundred kilograms of science instruments could be taken along as well. The crew would reach Mars in six months and land their Dragon capsule near the Mars Ascent Vehicle. They would spend the next year and a half exploring. Using their ground vehicle for mobility and the Dragon as their home and laboratory, they could search the Martian surface for fossil evidence of past life that may have existed in the past when the Red Planet featured standing bodies of liquid water. They also could set up drilling rigs to bring up samples of subsurface water, within which native microbial life may yet persist to this day. If they find either, it will prove that life is not unique to the Earth, answering a question that

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paithinking men and women have wondered upon for millennia. At the end of their 18-month surface stay, the crew would transfer to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, take off, and rendezvous with the Earth Return Vehicle in orbit. This craft would then take them on a six-month flight back to Earth, whereupon it would enter the atmosphere and splash down to an ocean landing. There is nothing in this plan that is beyond our current level of technology. Nor would the costs be excessive. Falcon Heavy launches are priced at about $100 million each, and Dragons are even cheaper. Adopting such an approach, we could send expeditions to Mars at half the mission cost currently required to launch a Space Shuttle flight. What is required, however, is a different attitude towards risk than currently pervades the space policy bureaucracy. There is no question that the plan proposed here involves considerable risk. So does any plan that actually involves sending humans to Mars, rather than talking about it indefinitely. True, there are a variety of precursor missions, technology developments and testing programs that might be recommended as ways of reducing risk. There are an infinite number of such potential missions and programs. If we try to do even a significant fraction of them before committing to the mission we will never get to Mars. But is it responsible to forgo any expenditure that might reduce somewhat the risk to the crew? I believe so. The purpose of the space program is to explore space, and its expenditures come at the cost of other national priorities. If we want to reduce risk to human life, there are vastly more effective ways of doing so than by spending $10 billion per year for the next two or three decades on a human spaceflight program mired for study purposes in low Earth orbit. We could spend the money on childhood vaccinations, fire escape inspections, highway repairs, better body armor for the troops—take your pick. For NASA managers to demand that the mission be delayed for decades while several hundred billion dollars is spent to marginally reduce the risk to a handful of volunteers, when the same funds spent elsewhere could save the lives of tens of thousands, is narcissistic in the extreme.The Falcon Heavy is scheduled for its first flight in 2013. All of the other hardware elements described in this plan could be made ready for flight within the next few years as well. NASA’s astronauts have gone nowhere new since 1972, but these four decades of wasteful stagnation need not continue endlessly. If President Obama were to act decisively, and bravely embrace this plan, we could have our first team of human explorers on the Red Planet by 2016. The American people want and deserve a space program that is really going somewhere. It’s time they got one. Fortune Favors the Bold. Mr. President, seize the day.

A manned Martian landing is feasible and cheap with our current technology, and if started now will reach mars by 2016.Zubrin, 5/14/11 (Robert, Masters in Aeronautics and Astronautics president of Pioneer Astronautics and of the Mars Society BA in math Ph.D in Nuclear Engineering, How We Can Fly to Mars in This Decade – And on the Cheap, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576317493923993056.html?KEYWORDS=robert+zubrin)SpaceX, a private firm that develops rockets and spacecraft, recently announced it will field a heavy lift rocket within two years that can deliver more than twice the payload of any booster now flying. This poses a thrilling question: Can we reach Mars in this decade? It may seem incredible—since conventional presentations of human Mars exploration missions are filled with depictions of gigantic, futuristic, nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceships whose operations are supported by a virtual parallel universe of orbital infrastructure. There’s nothing like that on the horizon. But I believe we could reach Mars with the tools we have today, or will have in short order. Here's how it could be done: The SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket will have a launch capacity of 53 metric tons to low Earth orbit. This means that if a conventional hydrogen-oxygen chemical rocket upper stage were added, it would have the capability of sending 17.5 tons on a trajectory to Mars, placing 14 tons in Mars orbit, or landing 11 tons on the Martian surface. The company has also developed and is in the process of demonstrating a crew capsule, known as the Dragon, which has a mass of about eight tons. While its current intended mission is to ferry up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station, the Dragon’s heat shield system is capable of withstanding re-entry from interplanetary trajectories, not just from Earth orbit. It’s rather small for an interplanetary spaceship, but it is designed for multiyear life, and it should be spacious enough for a crew of two astronauts who have the right stuff. Thus a Mars mission could be accomplished utilizing three Falcon Heavy launches. One would deliver to Mars orbit an unmanned Dragon capsule with a kerosene/oxygen chemical rocket stage of sufficient power to drive it back to Earth. This is the Earth Return Vehicle. A second launch will deliver to the Martian surface an 11-ton payload consisting of a two-ton Mars Ascent Vehicle employing a single methane/oxygen rocket propulsion stage, a small automated chemical reactor system, three tons of surface exploration gear, and a 10-kilowatt power supply, which could be either nuclear or solar. The Mars Ascent Vehicle would carry 2.6 tons of methane in its propellant tanks, but not the nine tons of liquid oxygen required to burn it. Instead, the oxygen could be made over a 500-day period by using the chemical reactor to break down the carbon dioxide that composes 95% of the Martian atmosphere. Using technology to generate oxygen rather than transporting it saves a great deal of mass. It also provides copious power and unlimited oxygen to the crew once they arrive. Once these elements are in place, the third launch would occur, which would send a Dragon capsule with a crew of two astronauts on a direct trajectory to Mars. The capsule would carry 2500 kilograms of consumables—sufficient, if water and oxygen recycling systems are employed, to support the two-person crew for up to three years. Given the available payload capacity, a light ground vehicle and several hundred kilograms of science instruments could be taken along as well. The crew would reach Mars in six months and land their Dragon capsule near the Mars Ascent Vehicle. They would spend the next year and a half exploring. Using their ground vehicle for mobility and the Dragon as their home and laboratory, they could search the Martian surface for fossil evidence of past life that may have existed in the past when the Red Planet featured standing bodies of liquid water. They also could set up drilling rigs to bring up samples of subsurface water, within which native microbial life may yet persist to this day. If they find either, it will prove that life is not unique to the Earth, answering a question that thinking men and women have wondered upon for millennia. At the end of their 18-month surface stay, the crew would transfer to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, take off, and rendezvous with the Earth Return Vehicle in orbit. This craft would then take them on a six-month flight back to Earth, whereupon it would enter the atmosphere and splash down to an ocean landing. There is nothing in this plan that is beyond our current level of technology. Nor would the costs be excessive. Falcon Heavy launches are priced at about $100 million each, and Dragons are even cheaper. Adopting such an approach, we could send expeditions to Mars at half the mission cost currently required to launch a Space Shuttle flight. What is required, however, is a different attitude towards risk than currently pervades the space policy bureaucracy. There is no question that the plan proposed here involves considerable risk. So does any plan that actually involves sending humans to Mars, rather than talking about it indefinitely. True, there are a variety of precursor missions, technology developments and testing programs that might be recommended as ways of reducing risk. There are an infinite number of such potential missions and programs. If we try to do even a significant fraction of them before committing to the mission we will never get to Mars. But is it responsible to forgo any expenditure that might reduce somewhat the risk to the crew? I believe so. The purpose of the space program is to explore space, and its expenditures come at the cost of other national priorities. If we want to reduce risk to human life, there are vastly more effective ways of doing so than by spending $10 billion per year for the next two or three decades on a human spaceflight program mired for study purposes in low Earth

72

Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paiorbit. We could spend the money on childhood vaccinations, fire escape inspections, highway repairs, better body armor for the troops—take your pick. For NASA managers to demand that the mission be delayed for decades while several hundred billion dollars is spent to marginally reduce the risk to a handful of volunteers, when the same funds spent elsewhere could save the lives of tens of thousands, is narcissistic in the extreme.The Falcon Heavy is scheduled for its first flight in 2013. All of the other hardware elements described in this plan could be made ready for flight within the next few years as well. NASA’s astronauts have gone nowhere new since 1972, but these four decades of wasteful stagnation need not continue endlessly. If President Obama were to act decisively, and bravely embrace this plan, we could have our first team of human explorers on the Red Planet by 2016. The American people want and deserve a space program that is really going somewhere. It’s time they got one. Fortune Favors the Bold. Mr. President, seize the day.

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Spinoff Advantage – General Space programs have empirically acted as an all-in-one stimulus package .

O’Neill, 2/8/09, Ph.D in Solar Physics and the Space Science Producer for Discovery News (Ian, “Can a Mission to Mars Stimulate the Economy?”, http://www.astroengine.com/2009/02/can-a-mission-to-mars-stimulate-the-economy/)

Space stimulates more than the imagination of over-active teenagers. It can boost the economy , really. Let’s look very briefly at what history has taught us. Back in 1962, President Kennedy outlined his vision for the future of US manned spaceflight. For now, let’s forget the Soviet Union, Cuba and nuclear weapons, I’ll get back to that bit in a minute. Kennedy did his fantastic, stirring speech at Rice University, Houston about the challenge of landing man on the Moon and that the US would step up to the plate and “do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” It was a moment that defined the Space Race, it was a moment that laid the foundations of the Apollo Program and manned spaceflight as we know it. There’s no better example about how a space programme can influence a nation’s economy, the Apollo missions stimulated economic growth, they generated huge political strength, they created a whole generation of highly skilled engineers, scientists and specialists, they even motivated the educational system, enriching the children of the day. If you ever needed an all-in-one stimulus package, the Apollo Program was it.

NASA spinoffs have, and will continue to, make life better for everyone on the planetBolden, 2010, Administrator of NASA (Charles F, Foreword of Spinoff 2010, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2010/pdf/Spinoff2010.pdf, 7/21/11)

Since NASA’s inception in 1958, the Agency has been charged with ensuring its research and development activities can be shared and applied beyond the space community. NASA spinoffs are one result. These are the technologies and products the Agency has success- fully shared with industry, which in turn has developed and refined them for many benefits, including medical advances, a cleaner environment, safer households, and more convenience in our daily lives. NASA is always finding ways to bring the benefits of space exploration back to Earth. You will find NASA in the average household in many ways. It might not be obvious that the air purifier in a refrigerator or a hand- held cordless vacuum came about as a result of space missions, but they did. In fact, NASA’s research and development has had a major and positive impact on public welfare. Technologies we can trace to the earliest days of the Space Program have improved water purification systems. NASA inno- vations have brought us advanced home insulation and fire-resistant fabrics used by firefighters and soldiers. NASA technology can even be found in infant formula and modern semi truck design. The list is expansive. As a Nation, we have received a significant return on our investment in space, and we have advanced our capabili- ties in many areas thanks to this ongoing flow of NASA ideas and technology. NASA defines a spinoff as a commercially available product, service, or process that takes NASA-related technology and brings it to a broader audience. While the original purposes were mission-related, the technologies now are filling needs in everyday life. From robotics-based nutrition programs to better swimsuits and other sports equipment, NASA innovation has advanced our standard of living. Since 1976, NASA has been documenting these spinoffs. It is an interesting and varied history. We are pleased to present to you this annual report on our latest innovations and ways we are inspiring people beyond our science and exploration missions. We see it this way: NASA provides a spark of inspira- tion, a seed of technology, and then industry carries the ball forward and transforms it into something the general public can use. Water purification technology origi- nally developed for the International Space Station, for instance, can bring clean water to people in remote areas where there is none. The things we learn in the coming decade on the station and in the development of new systems for reaching deep space will have far-reaching benefits. In this sense, spinoffs are representative of the new era of global exploration. The new age of exploration will require innova- tive and robust technology development. NASA will continue to pursue fresh innovations and partnerships, and the Agency’s renewed commitment to research and development will bring benefits to people everywhere in the decades to come. We truly can make life better for everyone on the planet.

NASA’s technology benefits everyone, and inspires a new generation of scientistsBraun, 2010, (Robert D. Chief Technologist of NASA, Spinoff 2010, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2010/pdf/Spinoff2010.pdf, 7/21/11)

NASA’s new technology investments represent an important aspect of our overall national investment in research, technology, and innovation, designed to stimu- late our economy, create new inventions and capabilities, and increase our global economic competitiveness. We predict that as the Agency continues to push technologi- cal boundaries and follow in its proud tradition of doing things that have never been done before—and sometimes things that had never been thought possible—it will carry on producing new and exciting technologies that will, no doubt, further improve our lives back here on Earth. While NASA’s research does indeed provide valu- able scientific outcomes and clear public benefits, there is perhaps another “spinoff” even more lucrative than the benefits we see from these industry partnerships. As President Obama noted in an address to the National Academy of Sciences, in which he invoked the many tangible benefits of the Nation’s investment in the Apollo Program, “The enormous investment of that era—in science and technology, in education and research funding—produced a great outpouring of curiosity and creativity, the benefits of which have been incalculable.” NASA’s investment in new technologies is also an investment in our country’s future. Today’s children will be inspired by NASA’s bold new vision, and our new technology and innovation emphasis will create a pipeline of young engineers, scientists, and mathematicians to serve our future national needs, inspiring wonder in a new generation, sparking passions, and launching careers.

NASA cuts kill defense innovationSlazer, May 2011 (Frazer, Vice President of the Aerospace Industries Association, Senate Hearing “Contributions of Space to National Imperatives http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=e26b4dcb-ee2c-4ada-95fa-b996c307692d)

Interruptions or cancellations negatively impact large companies and can be catastrophic to smaller firms—often the only entities with the unique abilities to produce small but critical components on which huge portions of our economy, infrastructure and security depend. As an example, only one firm in the United States produces ammonium perchlorate—a chemical used in solid rocket propellants including the space shuttle solid rocket motors, other space launchers and military applications. Retiring the shuttle will impact all these other users as costs rise due to a smaller business base

Given the lack of a large external space market, such as exists in civil aviation, if government spending pulls back from investing in the space domain—be it in NASA, the Defense Department or Intelligence Community—the industrial base will shrink accordingly. This will mean capacity loss and potentially leaves the United States incapable of building certain national security assets in the future

Mission to Mars stimulates the US economy, increases intellectual capital, is financially feasible, and presents the possibility of geothermal power.

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiZubrin, 2011, President of Mars Society and Pioneer Astronautics (Robert, Robert Zubrin on Why We Must Go to Mars, http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/tms-in-the-news/robertzubrinonwhywemustgotomars, July 25)

ZUBRIN: I would say that an Apollo program to reach for Mars before the end of his second term is exactly what is needed to stimulate the US economy out of the slump it’s in. That’s what the first Apollo program did. The US economy was in recession in ’61, ’62; in fact, the stock market fell 30% in September 1962, the same month Kennedy gave his famous speech “We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard.” Apollo stimulated the economy. We had 6% rates of economic growth in this country in the mid-Sixties, significantly because of Apollo. Not only did it stimulate the US economy in the Sixties, it has stimulated it ever since, because what it also did is to inspire millions of young people to go into science and engineering. We actually doubled the number of science graduates in this country in the 1960s at every level – high school, college, PhD. And we’re still benefiting from that intellectual capital today. The 40-year-old technological entrepreneurs who built Silicon Valley in the 1990s were the 12-year-old little boy scientists of the 1960s.SNIDER: Is there currently a rough estimate for how much a manned mission to Mars might cost, in current dollars?ZUBRIN: I believe if we adopted the Mars Direct program, which I lay out in my book The Case for Mars, we could have humans on Mars within ten years of program start at a cost of around $50 billion in today’s money. At the time I wrote The Case for Mars it was around $30 billion. But that’s the nature of it – very small money compared to these giant bailouts and other things which ultimately are not going to do anything for the nation. Intellectual capital of the nation is its true wealth.SNIDER: You mentioned The Case for Mars. It’s been 13 years since The Case for Mars was published, and in it you laid out – as you mentioned – the Mars Direct plan for getting people to Mars. But in those 13 years our knowledge of the Red Planet has grown exponentially, and the Mars Direct plan goes back almost 20 years, which is an eternity when it comes to our knowledge of the solar system. Given the current state of knowledge about Mars, what would you change (if anything) if you were writing The Case for Mars today?ZUBRIN: Well, based on discoveries just last week we now know where there are hydrothermal vents on Mars, and I would target those sites for exploration. They announced the discovery of methane vents on Mars, and those could either be created by life living in hydrothermal vents, or it could be created by geothermal activity of the hydrothermal vents themselves, but either way, you’ve got a hydrothermal environment underground. That means geothermal power; it also means the best possible place to look for life.

NASA innovations pay off between 3:1 and 21:1 in commercial returnsHsu, 2011 , science journalist (Jeremy, The truth about NASA's space tech spinoffs, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43772079/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/truth-about-nasas-space-tech-spinoffs/)

No defining study has yet come up with the hard numbers about spaceflight's impact on innovation, Launius said. And different economic studies have suggested that investment in the space program has per dollar payoffs ranging from 3:1 all the way up to 21:1. But signs exist all around us in daily life. For instance, NASA's need for smaller, lighter electronics in space has helped drive the greater trend toward shrinking smartphones and other miniaturized gadgets. "Miniaturization was an attractive area that NASA pushed very hard to make sure it could have more capability per square inch and pound flown into space," Launius said. For now, another way to look at the space program's impact on innovation is to consider life without spaceflight, Launius said. People could kiss goodbye to much of today's instantaneous global telecommunications supported by satellites, not to mention those handy GPS devices that sit in people's cars and smartphones. "Ten years ago I looked it up my destination on a big old map and figured out ways to hold that while driving," Launius said. "Today, I punch in the GPS and away we go."

The Aerospace Industry is the only industry that can provide economic stability in the USCollins and Autino, 10 –(Life & Environmental Science, Azabu University AND ** Andromeda Inc., Italy (Patrick and Adriano, “What the growth of a space tourism industry could contribute to employment, economic growth, environmental protection, education, culture and world peace,” Acta Astronautica 66 (2010) 1553–1562, science direct)

Increasing the opportunities for profitable, stable investment requires continual creation of new industries [16]. Governments today typically express expectations for employment growth in such fields as information technology, energy, robotics, medical services, tourism and leisure. However, there are also sceptical voices pointing out that many of these activities too are already being outsourced to low-cost countries which are catching up technologically in many fields [20]. Most of the new jobs created in the USA during the 21st century so far have been low-paid service work, while the number of US manufacturing jobs has shrunk rapidly [21]. It is thus highly relevant that aerospace engineering is a field in which the most technically advanced countries still have a substantial competitive advantage over later developing countries. Hence, if a commercial space travel industry had already been booming in the 1980s, the shrinkage in aerospace employment after the end of the ‘‘cold war’’ would have been far less. Consequently it seems fair to conclude that the decadeslong delay in developing space travel has contributed to the lack of new industries in the richer countries, which is constraining economic growth and causing the highest levels of unemployment for decades.

The rapid economic development of China and India offers great promise but creates a serious challenge for the already rich countries, which need to accelerate the growth of new industries if they are to benefit from these countries’ lower costs without creating an impoverished under-class in their own societies. The long-term cost of such a socially divisive policy would greatly outweigh the short-term benefits of low-cost imports. The development of India and China also creates dangers because the demands of 6 billion people are now approaching the limits of the resources of planet Earth. As these limits are approached, governments become increasingly repressive, thereby adding major social costs to the direct costs of environmental damage [22]. Consequently, as discussed further below, it seems that the decades-long delay in starting to use the resources of the solar system has already caused heavy, selfinflicted damage to humans’ economic development, and must be urgently overcome, for which a range of policies have been proposed in [23,24].

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Spinoff Advantage – Medical Technology NASA spin offs improve medical techHsu 7/15/2011 (Jeremy, science rporter for msnbc.com, “The Truth About NASA’s Space Tech Spinoffs” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43772079/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/truth-about-nasas-space-tech-spinoffs/)

NASA has recorded about 1,600 new technologies or inventions each year for the past several decades, but far fewer become commercial products, said Daniel Lockney, technology transfer program executive at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. It's also tough to predict exactly what technologies may come out of the space program. "We didn't know that by building the space shuttle main engines we'd also get a new implantable heart device," Lockney said. "There's also a bunch of stuff we don't know we're going to learn, which leads to serendipitous spinoffs." Gauging the impact of such tech spinoffs on society has similarly proven tricky, especially if people try to figure out the investment return payoff from human spaceflight or broader space exploration. "The reality is, I think there's an enormous payback that comes from investing in space," Roger Launius, space history curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. "But it may be at a level that's less tangible and more macro when we trace a technology."

NASA spinoffs spur medical tech

Slazer, 5/18/11 (Frank, Vice President of Aerospace Industries Association, “Contributions of Space to National Imperatives”, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/testimony_051811.pdf)

Since its beginnings, NASA has been at the forefront in developing new technologies to meet the challenges of space exploration and much of what has been developed has had benefits in other areas. The list of NASA-derived innovations is impressive and wide-ranging, including memory foam cushions, video image stabilization technology, cordless power tools, power sources for heart defibrillators, ventricular assist pumps for heart disease, portable breathing systems for firefighters and many others. These NASA-enabled innovations are not just old history; for example, today the International Space Station is enabling us to develop new vaccines to protect people from Salmonela and MRSA pathogens by exploiting the organism’s response to the weightless environment. Past NASA investments such as the Apollo moon landing program stimulated technology development like the miniaturization of electronic circuits. Electronic computers were first created during World War II, but miniaturization in the 1960’s enabled the first personal computers to be created in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s— by a generation of inventors who grew up during the Apollo era. In fact, today a number of new commercial space systems are being developed by entrepreneurs who have made their fortunes in information technology or other fields, but whose intellectual development was inspired during Apollo.

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Spinoff AdvantageNASA sparks innovation and spinoffs which benefit our everyday livesBolden, 2010, (Administrator of NASA, Charles F, Foreword of Spinoff 2010, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2010/pdf/Spinoff2010.pdf, 7/21/11)

NASA is always finding ways to bring the benefits of space exploration back to Earth. You will find NASA in the average household in many ways. It might not be obvious that the air purifier in a refrigerator or a hand- held cordless vacuum came about as a result of space missions, but they did .In fact, NASA’s research and development has had a major and positive impact on public welfare. Technologies we can trace to the earliest days of the Space Program have improved water purification systems. NASA inno- vations have brought us advanced home insulation and fire-resistant fabrics used by firefighters and soldiers. NASA technology can even be found in infant formula and modern semi truck design. The list is expansive. As a Nation, we have received a significant return on our investment in space, and we have advanced our capabili- ties in many areas thanks to this ongoing flow of NASA ideas and technology.NASA defines a spinoff as a commercially available product, service, or process that takes NASA-related technology and brings it to a broader audience. While the original purposes were mission-related, the technologies now are filling needs in everyday life. From robotics-based nutrition programs to better swimsuits and other sports equipment, NASA innovation has advanced our standard of living.Since 1976, NASA has been documenting these spinoffs. It is an interesting and varied history. We are pleased to present to you this annual report on our latest innovations and ways we are inspiring people beyond our science and exploration missions.We see it this way: NASA provides a spark of inspira- tion, a seed of technology, and then industry carries the ball forward and transforms it into something the general public can use. Water purification technology origi- nally developed for the International Space Station, for instance, can bring clean water to people in remote areas where there is none. The things we learn in the coming decade on the station and in the development of new systems for reaching deep space will have far-reaching benefits. In this sense, spinoffs are representative of the new era of global exploration.The new age of exploration will require innova- tive and robust technology development. NASA will continue to pursue fresh innovations and partnerships, and the Agency’s renewed commitment to research and development will bring benefits to people everywhere in the decades to come. We truly can make life better for everyone on the planet.

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Spinoff Advantage – Water Recycling Various challenges for a Mars mission will spur the development of various technologies, including water recycling Rampelotto, 11, (Pabulo, Department of Biology, Why send humans to mars?, Journal of Cosmology, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars151.html)

The engineering challenges necessary to accomplish the human exploration of Mars will stimulate the global industrial machine and the human mind to think innovatively and continue to operate on the edge of technological possibility . Numerous technological spin-offs will be generated during such a project , and it will require the reduction or elimination of boundaries to collaboration among the scientific community . Exploration will also foster the incredible ingenuity necessary to develop technologies required to accomplish something so vast in scope and complexity. The benefits from this endeavor are by nature unknown at this time, but evidence of the benefits from space ventures undertaken thus far point to drastic improvement to daily life and potential benefits to humanity as whole. One example could come from the development of water recycling technologies designed to sustain a closed-loop life support system of several people for months or even years at a time (necessary if a human mission to Mars is attempted). This technology could then be applied to drought sufferers across the world or remote settlements that exist far from the safety net of mainstream society. The permanence of humans in a hostile environment like on Mars will require careful use of local resources. This necessity might stimulate the development of novel methods and technologies in energy extraction and usage that could benefit terrestrial exploitation and thus improve the management of and prolong the existence of resources on Earth. The study of human physiology in the Martian environment will provide unique insights into whole-body physiology, and in areas as bone physiology, neurovestibular and cardiovascular function. These areas are important for understanding various terrestrial disease processes (e.g. osteoporosis, muscle atrophy, cardiac impairment, and balance and co-ordination defects). Moreover, medical studies in the Martian environment associated with researches in space medicine will provide a stimulus for the development of innovative medical technology , much of which will be directly applicable to terrestrial medicine . In fact, several medical products already developed are space spin-offs including surgically implantable heart pacemaker, implantable heart defibrillator, kidney dialysis machines, CAT scans, radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer, among many others. Undoubtedly, all these space spin-offs significantly improved the human`s quality of life.

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Spinoff Advantage – US Leadership The US will not be the Space Technology Leader for longClapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

Space is increasingly competitive. Although the United States still maintains an overall edge in space capabilities, the U.S. competitive advantage has decreased as market-entry barriers have lowered (see Figure 3). The U.S. technological lead is eroding in several areas as expertise among other nations increases. International advances in space technology and the associated increase in foreign availability of components have put increased importance on the U.S. export control review process to ensure the competitiveness of the U.S. space industrial base while also addressing national security needs . U.S. suppliers, especially those in the second and third tiers, are at risk due to inconsistent acquisition and production rates, long development cycles, consolidation of suppliers under first-tier prime contractors, and a more competitive foreign market. A decrease in specialized suppliers further challenges U.S. abilities to maintain assured access to critical technologies, avoid critical dependencies, inspire innovation, and maintain leadership advantages. All of these issues are compounded by challenges in recruiting, developing, and retaining a technical workforce.

US strategy refocus required to sustain scientific leadership.Turpen, 2009 , nuclear security expert, associate at Booz Allen Hamilton and formerly of the Henry L. Stimson Center (Elizabeth, Leveraging Science For Security: A Strategy For The Nuclear Weapons Laboratories In The 21st Century, http://www.stimson.org/books-reports/leveraging-science-for-security-a-strategy-for-the-nuclear-weapons-laboratories-in-the-21st-century/)

The United States is quickly losing its leadership position in science and technology (S&T). We are seeing this in our schools, our research institutes, in the intelligence community, and in our National Laboratories. Thus, it is imperative that a set of new and strategic grand challenges be identified and pursued to re-establish and assure the nation's global S&T leadership in the 21st century. In addition, turning the tide to address this crisis will require formidable leadership in key Cabinet and White House positions and steadfast emphasis on science as a catalyst to the economic recovery, competitiveness, and security. Most importantly, the new administration must devise a national S&T strategy that brings all of the nation's laboratories together in collaboration with industry and academe to tackle the nation's dominant challenges, particularly those pertinent to national security.

Now is the key time for aerospace leadershipAlbaugh 4/27 -- Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the International Academy of Astronautics (4/27/2011 , Jim Albaugh, “Keeping America’s Lead in Aerospace”, Speech to the 10th Annual Aviation Summit US Chamber of Commerce, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/newsroom/speeches_testimony/)

I believe we’re at a crossroads. No one is ahead of America in aerospace, at least not yet. The U.S. is the undisputed leader . We build the most efficient and capable commercial airplanes in the world. The weapons systems we produce are unmatched,Our commercial and military satellites are phenomenal in what they can do,And our orbital manned space program – a program the United States will walk away from this year – is second to none.But our leadership is being threatened by other countries intent on replacing the U.S. as the world’s leader in aerospace. Today, we’re not trying to reclaim our lead. We’re trying to keep it. The question is: Will we take the steps required to maintain our leadership? Or will we allow aerospace and aviation to join the list of industries that America used to lead?

Mars provides an opportunity to invigorate students. Aldrin, 2009, Apollo 11 astronaut (Buzz, Time to Boldly Go Once More, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071502940.html)

Robotic exploration of Mars has yielded tantalizing clues about what was once a water-soaked planet. Deep beneath the soils of Mars may lie trapped frozen water, possibly with traces of still-extant primitive life forms. Climate change on a vast scale has reshaped Mars. With Earth in the throes of its own climate evolution, human outposts on Mars could be a virtual laboratory to study these vast planetary changes. And the best way to study Mars is with the two hands, eyes and ears of a geologist, first at a moon orbiting Mars and then on the Red Planet's surface.Mobilizing the space program to focus on a human colony on Mars while at the same time helping our international partners explore the moon on their own would galvanize public support for space exploration and provide a cause to inspire America's young students. Mars exploration would renew our space industry by opening up technology development to all players, not just the traditional big aerospace contractors. If we avoided the pitfall of aiming solely for the moon, we could be on Mars by the 60th anniversary year of our Apollo 11 flight.

A Mars mission is imperative for educational leadership.

Ehlmann et. al, 2002 , Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis (Bethany, Jeeshan Chowdhury, R. Eric Collins, Brandon DeKock, F. Douglas Grant, Michael Hannon, Stuart Ibsen, Jessica Kinnevan, Wendy Krauser, Julie Litzenberger, Timothy Marzullo, Rebekah Shepard, Humans to Mars: The Political Initiative and Technical Expertise Needed for Human Exploration of the Red Planet, http://www.reric.org/htm/files/HumansToMars-ExSummary.pdf

Educating and inspiring America’s youth has long been a priority of the space program. “To inspire the next generation of human explorers” (NASA Mission, 2002) is the most compelling reason for the United States to support a human mission to Mars. The United States counts on advanced technology for economic stability and national security, which in turn depends on the ability of American universities to supply the science and engineering workforce. NASA has been a key to fostering this base since its inception, but America is now on the verge of a major shortage of Americans in the natural sciences and engineering. The Bureau of Labor predicts a 20% employment increase in engineering and a 15% increase in the physical sciences in the next 10 years, but as the Hart-Rudman Commission report states simply “U.S. need for the highest quality human capital in science, mathematics, and engineering is not being met” (NSF, 2002). In physics and advanced mathematics, American seniors score significantly below the international average on tests. While this is usually attributed to problems within the schools themselves, a general disinterest in math and science also contributes to American high school students’ poor performance. The trend continues at the undergraduate level. Comparing degrees granted between 1975 and 1999, the United States has a

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paipoor percentage increase compared to other nations. This decline is also reflected in the downward trend of the U.S. relative to other nations in science and engineering degrees granted per capita to 24 year olds (NSF, 2002). At the graduate level, the problem continues. Figure 1a highlights the rapid increase in Asia and Europe’s granting of doctoral degrees in natural sciences and engineering compared to our own. Additionally, within U.S. universities, 25% of graduate students in the sciences and nearly 40% of the graduate students in engineering, mathematics, and computer science are foreign-born (NSF, 2002). Based on this data, we see the decreasing production of U.S. scientists and engineers is not a global trend, but an American problem.

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Spinoff Advantage – The Kid’s Aren’t Alright Aerospace is key to future STEM students – key to future high tech industriesSlazer, 5/18/11 (Frank, Vice President of Aerospace Industries Association, “Contributions of Space to National Imperatives”, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/testimony_051811.pdf)

Developing the aerospace workforce of the future is a top issue for our industry. NASA’s space programs remain an excellent source of inspiration for our youth to study the STEM disciplines—science, technology, engineering and math—and to enter the aerospace workforce. In fact, the exciting periods of our space program history are reflected in the demographics of our industry and the influx of young workers they engendered. Unfortunately, the state of education for our young people is today in peril, including poor preparation for STEM disciplines. American students today rank 25th in math and 17th in science internationally. Low graduation rates of students in those fields and an overall lack of interest in STEM education contribute to a looming shortage of workers qualified to become professionals in our high tech industries. In a study done by Raytheon, one of our member companies, most middle school students said they would rather do one of the following instead of their math homework: clean their room, eat their vegetables, go to the dentist or even take out the garbage. This lack of interest extends into interest in aerospace. For example, in a 2009 survey 60 percent of students majoring in STEM disciplines found the aerospace and defense industry an unattractive place to work.2 One of the reasons for the lack of interest in aerospace and defense could be the uncertainty of NASA programs.3 Just as the recent Wall Street crisis turned young people away from financial careers, lack of job security in aerospace will hurt recruiting 2 2009 Experience Industry Survey. 3 2007 National Academies: Building a Better NASA Workforce. 5 efforts. The video gaming industry has captured the magic to attract young people, while space—despite its history and potential—has lagged behind. In some instances, our own employees discourage their children from pursuing careers in aerospace engineering due to the uncertainty of future programs and career prospects. A commitment to a robust human spaceflight program will help attract students to STEM degree programs and help retain the current workforce—which also benefits national security space programs, many of which are not in the open .

Mars is necessary to inspire the next generation of scientists.Zubrin, 2011, President of Mars Society and Pioneer Astronautics (Robert, To replace the shuttle: A mission to Mars, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/29/zubrin.mars/index.html?hpt=hp_c2, July 25)

Furthermore, Mars is a bracing positive challenge that our society needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The challenge of a humans-to-Mars program would be an invitation to adventure to every young person in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world."There will be more than 100 million kids in our nation's schools over the next 10 years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1% of them to pursue a scientific education, the net result would be one million more scientists, engineers, inventors and medical researchers, making technological innovations that create new industries, find new cures, strengthen national defense and generally increase national income to an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program.

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Spinoffs Good – Brain Drain NASA cuts causes scientist brain drainSlazer, May 2011 (Frazer, Vice President of the Aerospace Industries Association, Senate Hearing “Contributions of Space to National Imperatives http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=e26b4dcb-ee2c-4ada-95fa-b996c307692d)

Fluctuating budgets and delayed programs take their toll on schedule, production and maintaining a skilled workforce—exacerbated by the winding down of the space shuttle program. This funding and programmatic instability may result in the permanent loss of this highly skilled, unique human capital by reducing the options for retaining this specially trained and skilled workforce. Our nation’s aerospace workforce is a perishable national treasure; experienced aerospace talent, once lost, may be unrecoverable and new workers without this critical experience may take years to train. Unfortunately, the on-again off-again plans for the Shuttle’s replacement over the past decade have led to considerable uncertainty not only at NASA—where civil service positions are protected—but across the entire industrial base where firms are faced with wrenching decisions to let highly skilled personnel go because of the lack of clear direction.

Plan solves brain drainAlbaugh 4/27 -- Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the International Academy of Astronautics (4/27/2011 , Jim Albaugh, “Keeping America’s Lead in Aerospace”, Speech to the 10th Annual Aviation Summit US Chamber of Commerce, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/newsroom/speeches_testimony/)

I think another reason why too few of today’s students are pursuing careers in math, science and technology is because we haven’t inspired them with exciting goals. Young people around the world are looking for the same thing – a career that challenges them, allows them to grow and reach their potential, and connects them to something greater than themselves. We can attract tomorrow’s engineers by capturing their imagination and letting them be part of an exciting mission that will shape the 9 future … just as my generation was drawn into aerospace by President Kennedy’s call to land a man on the moon. I think there are very compelling missions for this generation. They will rebuild and save the Spaceship we are all on together, our planet Earth. This generation will find the solutions to global warming, energy independence and health care. They will rebuild this country’s and the world’s infrastructure …and will change aerospace in untold ways.

Only immediate implentation for the plan solves brain drainMcLane, ’10 [James C., Associate Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, his writings in support of a human presence on Mars have appeared in Harper’s and other major magazines around the world; “Mars as the key to NASA’s future,” June 1, 2010; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1] The only potential NASA program with a real ability to capture the enthusiastic support of the American public is a short duration, focused drive to send a human to live permanently on Mars. The targeted time horizon must be short—perhaps only a decade—so taxpayers in their own lifetime would be able to witness the event they are funding. This effort would salvage the aerospace industry and also breathe life back into the technological malaise that currently affects much of American society.

Unlike the question posed by just what to do with the white-elephant International Space Station, if only one human begins to live on Mars (and the first missions must be one-way trips only) there will be no thought of ever abandoning the colony. In the turbulent 1960s the Apollo program distracted our country from severe social and political problems. In a like manner, a human presence on Mars would captivate the interest of the world and divert attention from the seemingly intractable issues that afflict the current generation on Earth.

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Spinoffs Good – Competitiveness Strong Aerospace Industry essential to US security and economic competitionCommission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, panel formed by President Bush and Congress in 2001, Oct 31 2002 [Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, “Commission Study Shows Economic Importance of U.S. Aerospace and Aviation Industry at the National, State, and Local Levels,” http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9708].

WASHINGTON- According to a report released today the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, the U.S. civil and commercial aerospace and aviation industry employed more than two million workers in 2001, with an annual average wage of $47,700. The industry has a major economic and employment impact in all 50 states and is a substantial force in civil, military, and space manufacturing and operations in nearly half of the nation's states. The statistics are revealed in an extensive national and state-by-state analysis of the aerospace and aviation industry released here today by the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, a 12-member panel formed in 2001 by President George W. Bush and the U.S, Congress. The industry statistical study - U.S. Aerospace and Aviation Industry: A State-by-State Analysis - examines the industry by direct employment, wages, establishments, and payroll. The 112-page report provides government officials, industry leaders, academicians, and others with objective, comparative economic data about the industry in today's national and global economy. In releasing the report, Commission Chairman Robert S. Walker noted that "A strong aerospace industry is essential to enable the United States to defend itself, compete in the global marketplace, maintain a highly skilled workforce, and provide all Americans with the ability to travel safely and securely anywhere in the world." Walker further explained, "The data will assist policymakers and the public in understanding the economic stakes at hand as the commercial aerospace industry faces the challenges of market forces, homeland security, and foreign competition.

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Spinoffs Good – NASA Leadership Mission to Mars is within our technological ability and provides the incentive for NASA leadership.Zubrin, 2011, President of Mars Society and Pioneer Astronautics (Robert, To replace the shuttle: A mission to Mars, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/29/zubrin.mars/index.html?hpt=hp_c2, July 25)

America's human spaceflight program is now adrift. On July 8, the space shuttle is scheduled to make its final flight, and the Obama administration has no coherent plan for what to do next.Instead, as matters stand, the United States will waste the next decade spending $100 billion to support an aimless constituency-driven human spaceflight effort that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.For NASA's human exploration effort to make any progress, it needs a concrete goal, and one that's really worth pursuing. That goal should be sending humans to Mars.As a result of a string of successful probes sent to the Red Planet over the past 15 years, we now know for certain that Mars was once a warm and wet planet, possessing not only ponds and streams, but oceans of water on its surface. It continued to have an active hydrosphere on the order of a billion years -- a span five times as long as the time it took for life to appear on Earth after there was liquid water here.Thus, if the theory is correct that life is a natural phenomenon emerging from chemistry wherever there is liquid water, various minerals and a sufficient period of time, then life must have appeared on Mars.Furthermore, we know that much of that water remains on that planet today as ice or frozen mud, with the soil of continent-sized regions of the planet assessed as being more than 60% water by weight. Not only that, scientists have discovered that Mars has liquid water, not on the surface, but underground, where geothermal heating has warmed it to create environments capable of providing a home for life on Mars today.We have found places where water flowed out of the underground water table and down the slopes of craters within the past 10 years. Indeed, we have detected methane emissions characteristic of subterranean microbial life emerging from vents in the Martian surface. These are either the signatures of Martian life or the proof of subsurface hydrothermal environments fully suitable for life.If we go to Mars and find fossils of past life on its surface, we will have good reason to believe that we are not alone in the universe.If we send human explorers, who can erect drilling rigs that can reach underground water where Martian life may yet persist, we will be able to examine it. By doing so, we can determine whether life on Earth is the pattern for all life everywhere, or alternatively, whether we are simply one esoteric example of a far vaster and more interesting tapestry. These things are truly worth finding out.Mars is a bracing positive challenge that our society needs.Furthermore, Mars is a bracing positive challenge that our society needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The challenge of a humans-to-Mars program would be an invitation to adventure to every young person in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world."There will be more than 100 million kids in our nation's schools over the next 10 years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1% of them to pursue a scientific education, the net result would be one million more scientists, engineers, inventors and medical researchers, making technological innovations that create new industries, find new cures, strengthen national defense and generally increase national income to an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program.But the most important reason to go to Mars is the doorway it opens to the future.Uniquely among the extraterrestrial bodies of the inner solar system, Mars is endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the development of a technological civilization. For our generation and those that will follow, Mars is the New World. We should not shun its challenge.And we are ready. As I show in detail in my just updated book, "The Case for Mars," we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars, despite its greater distance, than we were to send men to the moon in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy started the Apollo program. We got to the moon eight years later.For our generation and those that will follow, Mars is the New World. We should not shun its challenge. Future-fantasy spaceships are not needed to send humans to Mars. The primary real requirement is a heavy-lift booster with a capability similar to the Saturn V launch vehicle employed in the 1960s. This is something we fully understand how to engineer.The mission could then be accomplished with two launches. The first would send an unfueled and unmanned Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) to Mars.After landing, this vehicle would manufacture its own methane/oxygen return propellant by combining a small amount of hydrogen imported from Earth with a large supply of carbon dioxide acquired from the Martian atmosphere. The chemistry required to perform this operation has been widely practiced on Earth since the gaslight era.Once the propellant is manufactured, the crew is sent to Mars in a habitation module launched by the second booster. After a six-month voyage to Mars, the hab module is landed near the ERV and used as the crew's base for exploring the Martian surface.Using spacesuits for protection in the thin Martian atmosphere, the astronauts would then spend the next year and a half exploring for past or present life, and then enter the return vehicle for a six-month voyage home. The hab module is left behind on Mars, so each time a mission is flown, another habitation is added to the base.There is nothing required by such a plan that is beyond our technology.The issue is not money. The issue is leadership. NASA's average Apollo-era (1961-73) budget, adjusted for inflation, was about $19 billion a year in today's dollars, only 5% more than the agency's current budget.Yet, the NASA of the '60s accomplished 100 times more because it had a mission with a deadline and was forced to develop an efficient plan to achieve that mission and then had to build a coherent set of hardware elements to achieve that plan. If President Barack Obama were willing to provide that kind of direction, we could have humans on Mars within a decade.The American people want and deserve a space program that really is going somewhere. It's time they got one. Fortune favors the bold. Mr. President, seize the day.

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Spinoffs Good – Middle East Space-based technologies support Middle Eastern governments and reconstruction.Raymond, 2009, Brigadier General and Director of Programs at Air Force Space Command (John, A Day without Space: Synthesis Event, http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/763.pdf, July 21)

Commercial imagery for Iraqi and Afghani governments: theater space personnel acquired 650 gigabytes of commercial imagery for Iraqi Ministry of Water, assisted the Government of Afghanistan with DMSP and soil moisture products, NASIC developed commercial space products for both governments, most recently, satellite imagery was used to support Afghan elections, helped plan polling sites, movement of ballot boxes and basing for National Police response teams. We also have done a lot of support for the Iraqi and Afghanistan governments. When I was there, we provided commercial imagery. When I was in Afghanistan, I met with a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) that we have throughout the country to help the local governments of Afghanistan do projects to help the citizens. This team had a USAID guy assigned to that team to teach crop rotation and crop management. When I first talked with him, he said, “I am really struggling with moisture content.” We were able to provide useful imagery. We provided just recently (and this wasn’t me; I got this yesterday from the current space operator) commercial imaging so that they can figure out the best places to do polling and the movement of ballot boxes. So again, this is another example, maybe not a bomb dropping example, but another example of space capabilities providing good stuff to today’s fight.

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Solvency – Leadership – Space Exploration Policy Funding the US Space Exploration Policy key to NASA credibility and space leadershipAIA ’09 (http://www.aia-aerospace.org/newsroom/aia_news/2009/nasa_funding_critical_to_us_leadership_in_space/) Accessed 7/24/11

NASA stands front and center as the most visible representation of the U.S. space program and is critical to our country’s future leadership and competitiveness, AIA Vice President of Space Systems J.P. Stevens said Thursday. “Over the last 50 years, space technologies have increasingly become an important part of our nation’s economic, scientific and national security fabric,” Stevens said in testimony to the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. “However, other nations are making rapid advancements, and our leadership in space is no longer guaranteed.” AIA strongly supports the current proposed NASA budget of $18.7 billion, however, Stevens noted that zero growth is budgeted through 2013. "This is a real concern. The Chinese absolutely want to send humans to the moon and are putting in the resources to make it happen,” said Stevens in response to a question. “If we continue to delay our programs, it's quite possible that the Chinese will return to the moon first.” Stevens made a number of recommendations regarding NASA reauthorization, including treating the U.S. Space Exploration Policy and Constellation Program as a national priority to minimize the impending gap in U.S. human spaceflight. He also urged funding for NASA in a number of other critical areas be strengthened including aeronautics for timely development of the Next Generation Air Transportation System and education initiatives to attract youth to careers with NASA and the aerospace industry. Finally, the Commercial Space LaunchAmendment, which expires this year, needs to be renewed to keep the U.S. space launch industry healthy.

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Solvency – Leadership – Tech/Military Dominance US military and tech dominance directly correlated to space capabilitiesDowd, 2009, Senior fellow of the Fraser Institute (Alan W. Dowd, Surrendering Outer Space, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5421, 7/20/11)

A decade later, the Bush administration declared that America’s “national security is critically dependent upon space capabilities, and this dependence will grow.” This statement had already been underscored by the early phases of the “Global War on Terror,” which Bush called “the first war of the 21st century.” The nation’s initial counterstrikes against al Qaeda were thrown by satellite-guided cruise missiles. Since then, U.S. pilots have been using Joint-Direct Attack Munitions (jdam) to pound terrorists and their sponsors. The jdam continually receives data from gps satellites to lock on and destroy targets in any weather and at any time of day. In May 2008, gps-guided Tomahawk missiles, launched by Navy vessels, hit al Qaeda bases in Somalia. Raytheon, the smart missile’s manufacturer, proudly notes that more than 1,900 Tomahawks have been fired in combat, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Likewise, the Predator drone, which transmits images and information via satellite to faraway command centers, has enabled U.S. forces to attack targets within minutes rather than days. Retrofitted with Hellfire missiles, the Predator has struck targets in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Its next-generation cousin, the Reaper, has weaponry grafted into its systems. Instead of just two Hellfires, the Reaper has 14 and flies higher and faster than the Predator. Thanks to satellite links, the Reaper can be piloted by a technician 7,000 miles away. In addition, an updated version of the Reaper, due to be deployed in 2010, will be equipped with the ominously named “Gorgon Stare,” which will give controllers and commanders the ability to eye a target from 12 different angles across a four-kilometer radius. As Air Force News explains, if 12 different terrorists scatter from a building in 12 different directions, “Gorgon Stare could dedicate one angle to each.” Predators and Reapers are using satellites to transmit 16,000 hours of video every month to troops on the ground and commanders around the world.In other words, these are anything but glorified remote-control toys. In fact, the Predator and Reaper are so central to the battle against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other militants in Pakistan’s laughably misnamed “federally administered tribal areas” that observers have dubbed this front “the drone war.” The blame for our current position rests with Congress and the White House, with Democrats and Republicans.

Stopping funding for space prevents further space research to develop technology and assetsDowd, 2009, Senior fellow of the Fraser Institute (Alan W. Dowd, Surrendering Outer Space, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5421, 7/20/11)

According to General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Intentional interference with space-based intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, navigation and communication satellites, while not routine, now occurs with some regularity.” He warned the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2007 that America’s “increasing appetite for space-based technical solutions . . . could become our Sword of Damocles.” Indeed, the ability to attack U.S. space assets is no longer limited to a select club of military powers. Anti-satellite weapons, satellite-jamming equipment, and microsatellites are inexpensive and increasingly accessible on the global market. “To minimize the threat to our space capabilities now and in the future,” Cartwright has argued, “we need continued support of programs that enhance our space situational awareness, space protection capabilities, and satellite operations in order to preserve unfettered, reliable, and secure access to space.”Civilian programs must be viewed as part of this mix. It pays to recall that many shuttle missions have been strictly military missions, some of them highly classified. Indeed, the link between manned spaceflight, national security, and satellites should not be brushed aside. The space shuttle, after all, is a manned satellite, performing functions, gathering information and conducting operations (such as rescue, repair, and experimentation) that unmanned satellites cannot. It’s hard to imagine that, during the 5-year gap without a shuttle, the U.S. will be better served by unmanned satellites and Russian-piloted rockets than by Americans deploying into space on American vessels. Just as the United States relies on space, much of the world relies on the United States to ensure the unencumbered use of space. Protecting what Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called “the 21st century’s global commons — in particular, space and cyberspace” is America’s duty, just as protecting the sea lanes fell to America after World War II. But can America defend the heavens without the capacity to deliver its own into space? We will soon find out, because other countries will not stand still while the United States regroups.

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Solvency – Leadership – Timeframe The time is now for U.S. space leadership – as other nations recognize the importance of space, we must take the leadClapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

Space is vital to U.S. national security and our ability to understand emerging threats, project power globally, conduct operations, support diplomatic efforts, and enable global economic viability. As more nations and non-state actors recognize these benefits and seek their own space or counterspace capabilities, we are faced with new opportunities and new challenges in the space domain.

Time is running out – as space becomes more congested we must take action now Clapper ’11, Director of National Intelligence (James R., National Security Space Strategy, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/space/nat_secur_space_strat_sum_jan2011.pdf, 7/21/11)

Today’s space environment contrasts with earlier days of the space age in which only a handful of nations needed to be concerned with congestion . Now there are approximately 60 nations and government consortia that own and operate satellites, in addition to numerous commercial and academic satellite operators (see Figure 2). This congestion – along with the effects of operational use, structural failures, accidents involving space systems, and irresponsible testing or employment of debris-producing destructive ASATs – is complicating space operations for all those that seek to benefit from space.

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Solvency – Colonization – General The first orbital colony would take a while to build but colonization would follow quickly.Globus 2011, April 29, 2011, curator for NASA (Al, Space Settlement Basics, http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Basics/wwwwh.html, July 21, 2011)

How long did it take to build New York? California? France? Even given ample funds the first settlement will take decades to construct. No one is building a space settlement today, and there are no immediate prospects for large amounts of money, so the first settlement will be awhile. If Burt Rutan's prediction of affordable orbital tourism in 25 years is correct, however, it's reasonable to expect the first orbital colony to be built within about 50 years. If the first settlement is designed to build additional settlements, colonization could proceed quite rapidly. The transportation systems will already be in place and a large, experienced workforce will be in orbit.

Mars is environmentally habitable and more economical than EarthWeinstein, 2003 (Leonard M. Wienstien, “Space Colonization Using Space-Elevators from Phobos”, 2003, NASA Langley Research Center)

The expansion of civilization beyond Earth might be done completely without planetary colonization, using large space habitats such as suggested by O’Neill (1978). However the need to obtain and move huge quantities of material to the desired locations, and construction of such huge habitats, is not realistic for the near future. A planet would have much more readily available structural material, and a foundation to build on. The infrastructure to support a space-based industry and civilization could best be located on a planet, and the best candidate for a planetbased extension of humankind is Mars. While Lunar and small space-based manned habitats are also likely, the large surface areas and available raw materials on Mars’ surface would support the greatest population size. Mars also has several features that are particularly attractive. These include a modest CO2 atmosphere, the presence of large amounts of water at the poles and in the ground, the proximity of the moons Phobos and Deimos, and the proximity to the asteroid belt. Zubrin (1997) gave a detailed discussion of the possible occupation of Mars by humankind. Mars, like the Earth, has a significant gravity well, and a direct rocket system to go into space from Mars is still very energy-expensive. A rocket lifting from the surface of Mars and going into low orbit requires a velocity change of over 3.6 km/s. Direct lift from Mars, followed by a trajectory to Earth or other destinations, would require a total of over 6 km/s for the elliptical transfer orbit, followed by a deceleration velocity change of about 2 to 3 km/s to orbit Luna or the Earth. These missions would require a large amount of fuel and a rocket thrust several times the weight of the fully loaded rocket to take off from Mars. If a truly economical method of lifting people and material out of the gravity well of Mars were possible, then Mars could support the major portion of space-based activity far more economically than directly from Earth. This is particularly important for extensive industrial capability, which would require a broad base of support facilities. A practical system would also have to have self sufficient life support systems including food production. The present paper describes a method to lift people and supplies from the surface of Mars with relatively little fuel, and to also boost vehicles and materials on their way toward Earth or the asteroid belt. Large amounts of raw material could be obtained from Phobos and sent to the Earth/Moon system with a far smaller amount of fuel than would be otherwise needed to support space industry.

The time is now- we go for the challenge, and for the futureZubrin 2010, Ph.D., President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 21, 2011)

Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The space program itself needs challenge. Consider: Between 1961 and 1973, under the impetus of the Moon race, NASA produced a rate of technological innovation several orders of magnitude greater than that it has shown since, for an average budget in real dollars virtually the same as that today ($19 billion in 2010 dollars). Why? Because it had a goal that made its reach exceed its grasp. It is not necessary to develop anything new if you are not doing anything new. Far from being a waste of money, forcing NASA to take on the challenge of Mars is the key to giving the nation a real technological return for its space dollar. A humans-to-Mars program would also be an challenge to adventure to every child in the country: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world." There will be over 100 million kids in our nation's schools over the next ten years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1% of them to scientific educations, the net result would be 1 million more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers and doctors, making innovations that create new industries, finding new medical cures, strengthening national defense, and increasing national income to an extent that dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. Mars is not just a scientific curiosity, it is a world with a surface area equal to all the continents of Earth combined, possessing all the elements that are needed to support not only life, but technological civilization. As hostile as it may seem, the only thing standing between Mars and habitability is the need to develop a certain amount of Red Planet know-how. This can and will be done by those who go there first to explore. Mars is the New World. Someday millions of people will live there. What language will they speak? What values and traditions will they cherish, to spread from there as humanity continues to move out into the solar system and beyond? When they look back on our time, will any of our other actions compare in value to what we do today to bring their society into being? Today, we have the opportunity to be the founders, the parents and shapers of a new and dynamic branch of the human family, and by so doing, put our stamp upon the future. It is a privilege not to be disdained lightly. In conclusion, the point needs to be made again. We are ready to go to Mars. Despite whatever issues that remain, the fundamental fact is that we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we were to send people to the Moon in 1961, when John F. Kennedy initiated the Apollo program. Exploring Mars requires no miraculous new technologies, no orbiting spaceports, and no gigantic interplanetary space cruisers (Zubrin 1997). We can establish our first outpost on Mars within a decade. We and not some future generation can have the eternal honor of being the first pioneers of this new world for humanity. All that's needed is present-day technology, some 19th century industrial chemistry, some political vision, and a little bit of moxie.

Mars Colonization must be made the priority, scientists agree the time is now and we have the capabilities

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiZubrin 2010, Ph.D., President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 21, 2011)

The time has come for America to set itself a bold new goal in space. The recent celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings have reminded us of what we as a nation were once able to accomplish, and by so doing have put the question to us: are we still a nation of pioneers? Do we choose to make the efforts required to continue to be the vanguard of human progress, a people of the future; or will we allow ourselves to be a people of the past, one whose accomplishments are celebrated not in newspapers, but in museums? There can be no progress without a goal. The American space program, begun so brilliantly with Apollo and its associated programs, has spent most of the subsequent four decades without a central goal. We need such an overriding goal to drive our space program forward (Zubrin 1997). At this point of history, that goal can only be the human exploration and settlement of Mars (Mitchell & Staretz, 2010; Schmitt 2010; Schulze-Makuch & Davies 2010). Some have said that a human mission to Mars is a venture for the far future, a task for “the next generation.” Such a point of view has no basis in fact (Zubrin 1997). On the contrary, the United States has in hand, today, all the technologies required for undertaking an aggressive, continuing program of human Mars exploration, with the first piloted mission reaching the Red Planet Mars within a decade. We do not need to build giant spaceships embodying futuristic technologies in order to go to Mars. We can reach the Red Planet with relatively small spacecraft launched directly to Mars by boosters embodying the same technology that carried astronauts to the Moon more than a quarter-century ago. The key to success comes from following a travel light and live off the land strategy that has well-served explorers over the centuries humanity has wandered and searched the globe. A plan that approaches human missions to the Red Planet in this way is known as the “Mars Direct” approach. Here’s how it would work.

Mars Colonization must be made the priority, scientists agree the time is now and we have the capabilities Zubrin 2010, Ph.D., President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 21, 2011)

At an early launch opportunity, for example 2018, a single heavy lift booster with a capability equal to that of the Saturn V used during the Apollo program is launched off Cape Canaveral and uses its upper stage to throw a 40 tonne unmanned payload onto a trajectory to Mars. Arriving at Mars 8 months later, it uses friction between its aeroshield and Mars' atmosphere to brake itself into orbit around Mars, and then lands with the help of a parachute (Zubrin 1997). This payload is the Earth Return Vehicle (ERV), and it flies out to Mars with its two methane/oxygen driven rocket propulsion stages unfueled. It also has with it 6 tonnes of liquid hydrogen cargo, a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor mounted in the back of a methane/oxygen driven light truck, a small set of compressors and automated chemical processing unit, and a few small scientific rovers. As soon as landing is accomplished, the truck is telerobotically driven a few hundred meters away from the site, and the reactor is deployed to provide power to the compressors and chemical processing unit. The hydrogen brought from Earth can be quickly reacted with the Martian atmosphere, which is 95% carbon dioxide gas (CO2), to produce methane and water, and this eliminates the need for long term storage of cryogenic hydrogen on the planet's surface. The methane so produced is liquefied and stored, while the water is electrolyzed to produce oxygen, which is stored, and hydrogen, which is recycled through the methanator. Ultimately these two reactions (methanation and water electrolysis) produce 24 tonnes of methane and 48 tonnes of oxygen. Since this is not enough oxygen to burn the methane at its optimal mixture ratio, an additional 36 tonnes of oxygen is produced via direct dissociation of Martian CO2. The entire process takes 10 months, at the conclusion of which a total of 108 tonnes of methane/oxygen bipropellant will have been generated. This represents a leverage of 18:1 of Martian propellant produced compared to the hydrogen brought from Earth needed to create it. Ninety-six tonnes of the bipropellant will be used to fuel the ERV, while 12 tonnes are available to support the use of high powered chemically fueled long range ground vehicles. Large additional stockpiles of oxygen can also be produced, both for breathing and for turning into water by combination with hydrogen brought from Earth. Since water is 89% oxygen (by weight), and since the larger part of most foodstuffs is water, this greatly reduces the amount of life support consumables that need to be hauled from Earth. The propellant production having been successfully completed, in 2020 two more boosters lift off the Cape and throw their 40 tonne payloads towards Mars. One of the payloads is an unmanned fuel-factory/ERV just like the one launched in 2018, the other is a habitation module containing a crew of 4, a mixture of whole food and dehydrated provisions sufficient for 3 years, and a pressurized methane/oxygen driven ground rover. On the way out to Mars, artificial gravity can be provided to the crew by extending a tether between the habitat and the burnt out booster upper stage, and spinning the assembly. Upon arrival, the manned craft drops the tether, aero-brakes, and then lands at the 2018 landing site where a fully fueled ERV and fully characterized and beaconed landing site await it. With the help of such navigational aids, the crew should be able to land right on the spot; but if the landing is off course by tens or even hundreds of kilometers, the crew can still achieve the surface rendezvous by driving over in their rover; if they are off by thousands of kilometers, the second ERV provides a backup. However assuming the landing and rendezvous at site number 1 is achieved as planned, the second ERV will land several hundred kilometers away to start making propellant for the 2020 mission, which in turn will fly out with an additional ERV to open up Mars landing site number 3. Thus every other year 2 heavy lift boosters are launched, one to land a crew, and the other to prepare a site for the next mission, for an average launch rate of just 1 booster per year to pursue a continuing program of Mars exploration. This is only about 15% of the rate that the U.S. currently launches Space Shuttles, and is clearly affordable. In effect, this dogsled approach removes the manned Mars mission from the realm of mega-fantasy and reduces it to practice as a task of comparable difficulty to that faced in launching the Apollo missions to the Moon (Zubrin 1997). The crew will stay on the surface for 1.5 years, taking advantage of the mobility afforded by the high powered chemically driven ground vehicles to accomplish a great deal of surface exploration. With an 12 tonne surface fuel stockpile, they have the capability for over 24,000 kilometers worth of traverse before they leave, giving them the kind of mobility necessary to conduct a serious search for evidence of past or present life on Mars - an investigation key to revealing whether life is a phenomenon unique to Earth or general throughout the universe. Since no-one has been left in orbit, the entire crew will have available to them the natural gravity and protection against cosmic rays and solar radiation afforded by the Martian environment, and thus there will not be the strong driver for a quick return to Earth that plagues conventional Mars mission plans based upon orbiting mother-ships with small landing parties. At the conclusion of their stay, the crew returns to Earth in a direct flight from the Martian surface in the ERV. As the series of missions progresses, a string of small bases is left behind on the Martian surface, opening up broad stretches of territory to human cognizance.

Only a Mission to Mars can revitalize NASA, science education and sets the ground work for colonization

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiZubrin, ’05, PhD Nuclear engineering, Masters Aeronautics and Astronautics (Robert, “Getting Space Exploration Right”, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/getting-space-exploration-right, 7/24/11)

It is not enough that NASA’s human exploration efforts “have a goal.” The goal selected needs to be the right goal, chosen not because various people are comfortable with it, but because there is a real reason to do it. We don’t need a nebulous, futuristic “vision” that can be used to justify random expenditures on various fascinating technologies that might plausibly prove of interest at some time in the future when NASA actually has a plan. Nor do we need strategic plans that are generated for the purpose of making use of such constituency-based technology programs. Rather, the program needs to be organized so that it is the goal that actually drives the efforts of the space agency. In such a destination-driven operation, NASA is forced to develop the most practical plan to reach the objective, and on that basis, select for development those technologies required to implement the plan. Reason chooses the goal. The goal compels the plan. The plan selects the technologies. So what should the goal of human exploration be? In my view, the answer is straightforward: Humans to Mars within a decade. Why Mars? Because of all the planetary destinations currently within reach, Mars offers the most—scientifically, socially, and in terms of what it portends for the human future. In scientific terms, Mars is critical, because it is the Rosetta Stone for helping us understand the position of life in the universe. Images of Mars taken from orbit show that the planet had liquid water flowing on its surface for a period of a billion years during its early history, a duration five times as long as it took life to appear on Earth after there was liquid water here. So if the theory is correct that life is a naturally occurring phenomenon, emergent from chemical complexification wherever there is liquid water, a temperate climate, sufficient minerals, and enough time, then life should have appeared on Mars. If we go to Mars and find fossils of past life on its surface, we will have good reason to believe that we are not alone in the universe. If we send human explorers, who can erect drilling rigs which can reach underground water where Martian life may yet persist, we will be able to examine it. By doing so, we can determine whether life on Earth is the pattern for all life everywhere, or alternatively, whether we are simply one esoteric example of a far vaster and more interesting tapestry. These things are truly worth finding out. In terms of its social value, Mars is the bracing positive challenge that our society needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The challenge of a humans-to-Mars program would be an invitation to adventure to every young person in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: “Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world.” This effect cannot be matched by just returning to the Moon, both because a Moon program offers no comparable potential discoveries and also because today’s youth cannot be inspired in anything like the same degree by the challenge to duplicate feats accomplished by their grandparents’ generation. There will be over a hundred million kids in our nation’s schools over the next ten years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra one percent of them to pursue a scientific education, the net result would be one million more scientists, engineers, inventors, and medical researchers, making technological innovations that create new industries, find new cures, strengthen national defense, and generally increase national income to an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. But the most important reason to go to Mars is the doorway it opens to the future. Uniquely among the extraterrestrial bodies of the inner solar system, Mars is endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the development of a technological civilization. In contrast to the comparative desert of the Moon, Mars possesses oceans of water frozen into its soil as ice and permafrost, as well as vast quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, all in forms readily accessible to those clever enough to use them. These four elements are the basic stuff not only of food and water, but of plastics, wood, paper, clothing—and most importantly, rocket fuel. In addition, Mars has experienced the same sorts of volcanic and hydrologic processes that produced a multitude of mineral ores on Earth. Virtually every element of significant interest to industry is known to exist on the Red Planet. While no liquid water exists on the surface, below ground is a different matter, and there is every reason to believe that underground heat sources could be maintaining hot liquid reservoirs beneath the Martian surface today. Such hydrothermal reservoirs may be refuges in which survivors of ancient Martian life continue to persist; they would also represent oases providing abundant water supplies and geothermal power to future human settlers. With its 24-hour day-night cycle and an atmosphere thick enough to shield its surface against solar flares, Mars is the only extraterrestrial planet that will readily allow large scale greenhouses lit by natural sunlight. In other words: Mars can be settled. In establishing our first foothold on Mars, we will begin humanity’s career as a multi-planet species. Mars is where the science is, Mars is where the challenge is, and Mars is where the future is. That’s why Mars must be our goal.

The space program can revitalize our nation and set our goals straight. Cernan 2010, Commander Apollo 17 (Eugene Cerman USN (ret.), Commander, Apollo 17, Astronaut (ret.), Before the Committee on Science and Technology United States House of Representatives May 26, 2010,http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/052610_Cernan.pdf, July 22, 2011)

The space program has never been an entitlement, it’s an investment in the future – an investment in technology, jobs, international respect and geo-political leadership, and perhaps most importantly in the inspiration and education of our youth. Those best and brightest minds at NASA and throughout the multitudes of private contractors, large and small, did not join the team to design windmills or redesign gas pedals, but to live their dreams of once again taking us where no man has gone before. If this budget proposal becomes the law of the land, these technicians, engineers, scientists, a generation removed from Apollo, yet re-inspired by the prospect of going back to the moon and on to Mars, will be gone – where I don’t know – but gone. America’s human space flight program has for a half century risen above partisan differences from Eisenhower to Kennedy to the present day. The challenges and accomplishments of the past were those of a nation – never of a political party or of any individual agenda. Those flags that fly on the moon today are neither blue flags nor are they red flags – they are American Flags. We are at a cross road. If we abdicate our leadership in space today, not only is human spaceflight and space exploration at risk, but I believe the future of this country and thus the future of our children and grandchildren as well. Now is the time for wiser heads in the Congress of the United States to prevail. Now is the time to overrule this Administration’s pledge to mediocrity. Now is the time to be bold, innovative and wise in how we invest in the future of America. Now is the time to re-establish our nation’s commitment to excellence.

Mars is ideal to sustain human life and a colony is the best option – possible living conditions and a two year trip.Collins, 2008, Lecturer, The City Law School, City University, London, UK, (David Collins, Lecturer, The City Law School, City University, London, UK. B.A.Hon., J.D.(Toronto), M.Sc., B.C.L. (Oxford), http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/scitech/volume142/Documents/Collins.pdf, July 21, 2011)

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiSerious interest in Mars will continue to intensify for two important reasons. First, Mars is far more capable of sustaining human life than any other planetary body in the Solar System. Roughly half the size of Earth, and with about the same amount of dry land, Mars' gravity and temperature are within the range of human tolerance. It is already known that Mars possesses vast resources of frozen carbon dioxide from which the important fuels of oxygen, deuterium and helium-3 can be derived. Liquid water, which could be used both for its oxygen and for irrigation in agriculture, is now thought to exist not far beneath the planet's surface. The presence of water also raises the potential that isolated ecosystems may exist on Mars. Such ecosystems could provide genetic material that could be used to treat illnesses. Mars' atmosphere, temperature and air pressure could be made to sustain human life through a complex process called terraforming, rendering the planet a potential refuge for humans should Earth become uninhabitable. Mars has a 24-hour day. Mars is the only such celestial body in the solar system to have a 24 hour day other than Earth, which could allow greenhouses to be used to create gases necessary for human life. Many useful ores also may exist on Mars that could be used to facilitate habitation. Secondly, land claims on Mars will become more significant precisely because of its isolation from Earth. While Mars is close by astronomical standards(it is as little as 56 million kilometers away), with our current technology a mission to Mars would last at minimum two years and regular "return trips" to Earth are consequently unrealistic. It is therefore much more probable that Mars will eventually host a permanent, autonomous colony than, for example, the Moon. This much greater time frame for travel necessitates a commitment to reliable, independent system and infrastructure. Claims staked on land, such as mining, agricultural and settlement rights could last for whole life spans of colonists or beyond.

Mars Can Be Easily Altered for Human Life-Mars is Strikingly Similar to Earth Red Colony 2010-Why Colonize Mars? http://www.redcolony.com/features.php?name=whycolonizemars Mars has water, frozen underground and at the polar caps. There is evidence that this water has, in the past and present, flooded the surface in liquid form. Signs of erosion can be found on the slopes of craters and volcanoes. Geological features resembling those on Earth suggest that Mars was once a wet and hospitable planet. A day on Mars is 24.5 hours long. Mars is a third the size of Earth, but it has as much land area as the seven continents combined. Its gravity is 2.7 times less than that of Earth: enough to remain flat-footed on the surface, but a low enough escape velocity to make launching from Mars relatively simple. Remember, it was much easier for Apollo to lift off from the moon than it was to leave Earth. Construction materials would be lighter as well, facilitating labor in the early colony. The health benefits of such an environment are unknown, but it is theorized that Mars might prevent and relieve forms of arthritis and back pain. Also, Martian-born children might be taller than their Terran cousins. Both planets have seasons and similar rotational patterns. Mars is roughly in the same heat-range as Earth, being next-door in the solar system, and if it had a thicker atmosphere it is likely the two planets would share the same climate. Today, Mars's temperature varies from +1°F to -178°F, with an average global temperature of -85°F. That's cold, but still the solar system's most hospitable for humans.

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Solvency – Colonization – Constellation The Constellation Program is the first step to colonizing space. Crisostomo 2010 [Christian, staff writer for opentalk magazine “NASA's Constellation Program Planning To Take Initiative For Moon Colonization” http://www.opentalkmagazine.com/technology/space-discovery/3021-nasas-constellation-program-planning-to-take-initiative-for-moon-colonization.html, July, 24 2011)

The Constellation program started as a planned successor to the Apollo program. It is a multi-faceted project that concentrated on three primary factors: the need to apply improved technologies to current spacefaring technology, the need to go beyond the current achievements in space travel and the need to initiate research to eventually colonize other planets. The program was literally meant to be taken as a first step towards the future human exploration of the entire interplanetary neighborhood. Application of advanced 21st century technology would be crucial for the Constellation program’s success. On the navigation and safety part, the Orion crew module and the Altair lunar module will be installed with the most advanced computers to aid astronauts in their journey. Spacesuits will be redesigned and redeveloped to provide astronauts with highly improved mobility during extra-vehicular activity. Numerous fail-safe devices are to be installed to ensure the safety of the crew; even if the mission doesn’t turn out to be a success. Various systems are also slated for research and improvement to make the astronauts’ stay at the moon better and much more pleasant. The Apollo program previously used the gigantic Saturn V rocket to send both the Apollo Command/Service module and Lunar module into the moon. The Constellation program however, plans to launch both modules separately. This was a plan to cut costs of lifting heavier payloads off into space, and also because of the large difference in size of both modules. Upon reaching low-Earth orbit, both modules would be docked together, and would be guided on its trip to the moon by an Earth Departure Stage. The initial plan of the Constellation program was to send astronauts to the moon by the year 2020 and let them stay for about a week. The next stage involves the establishment of a base camp that would let more astronauts stay for about half a year. After that, NASA plans to create a permanent thriving colony that can live on the moon using the resources available there by the year 2030-2050. It is a massively ambitious project that would have to be well funded to succeed. Unfortunately in February 1, 2010, United States President Barack Obama called for a cancellation of the program; as seen in its exclusion from the 2011 United States federal budget. We are now just left to wonder if the program could ever carry out its vital mission to propel the United States back again as the leader in human space flight .

Constellation can be continued – funding is adequate. Cernan 2010, Commander Apollo 17 (Eugene Cerman USN (ret.), Commander, Apollo 17, Astronaut (ret.), Before the Committee on Science and Technology United States House of Representatives May 26, 2010,http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/052610_Cernan.pdf, July 22, 2011)

In contrast to the five-year review of the overall Constellation architecture plus the carefully monitored program development, the Augustine Committee was required to provide their report in 90 days. The report contained several suggestions and alternatives to Constellation, few of which were included in the FY2011 budget, but ultimately the Committee came to the conclusion that Constellation’s architecture had been well managed and is indeed executable, providing it has the appropriate funding that had been denied for several years. Important to note is that the Committee was directed to base their conclusions and recommendations not on the FY2009 budget, but rather on the FY2010 budget from which tens of billions of dollars had already been removed between 2010 and 2020. Additionally, their conclusions were based upon a 2015, not 2020, life span for the ISS and did not take into account ongoing requirements for access to LEO at other inclinations. Naturally, the Augustine Committee concluded that Constellation was not doable within the constraints of The Administration’s mandated guidelines and budget restrictions. Under these constraints, one might have expected the conclusions to be predetermined. More importantly, however, the funding proposed for FY2011, if prudently administered, is more than adequate to continue the development of Constellation. It is unknown how much time and thought was put into the existing budget proposal for FY2011, or by whom this proposal was generated, but it is common knowledge that few if any of those government agencies referred to above were asked to participate, nor, of significant note, was the DOD or the engineering or management expertise that exists throughout NASA today. With no transparency, one can only conclude that this proposal was most likely formulated in haste by a very few within the Offices of Management and Budget (OMB) and Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), with the alleged involvement of the NASA Deputy Administrator, and by his own admission, with little or no input from the NASA Administrator himself. Neither did NASA’s Center Directors, nor senior NASA management throughout the agency, nor program managers have any input. If that is indeed the case, the originators quite likely were promoting their own agenda rather than that of NASA and America’s commitment to Human Space Exploration as directed by Congress in the Authorization Bills of 2005 and 2008. With the submission of FY2011 budget, The Administration and the originators of this proposal were either misinformed or showing extreme naivete, or I can only conclude, are willing to take accountability for a calculated plan to dismantle America’s leadership in the world of Human Space Exploration resulting in NASA becoming nothing more than a research facility. In either case, I believe this proposal is a travesty which flows against the grain of over 200 years of our history and, today, against the will of the majority of Americans.

The Constellation Program allows Mars missions like the DRA 5Price et. al, 2009, Principal Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, (Hoppy Price, Alisa M. Hawkins, Torrey O. Radcliffe, Austere Human Mission to Mars, http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/41432/1/09-3135.pdf, July 25, 2011)

The Design Reference Architecture 5 (DRA 5) is the most recent concept developed by NASA to send humans to Mars in the 2030 time frame using Constellation Program elements. It was developed by a multi-center NASA design team, with most of the work performed in 2007. DRA 5 is optimized to meet a specific set of requirements that would provide for a robust exploration program to deliver a new six-person crew at each biennial Mars opportunity and provide for power and infrastructure to maintain a highly capable continuing human presence on Mars. DRA 5 was intended to be a reference point that was neither a minimum mission nor an overly ambitious one. This paper examines an alternate approach more toward the minimum end of the scale. Most of the elements of this paper were taken from the DRA 5 study. The DRA 5 study Addendum has a table of “Example Contingencies, Fallbacks, and Descope Options”, and many of them were exercised in the “austere” architecture described in this paper as an option for the human exploration of Mars. The impetus behind the austere architecture is to offer an approach that might have lower

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Solvency – Colonization – Terraforming We Can Heat Up Mars-PFCs Marinova 2001-(Margarita Marinova, NASA Ames Research Center) Global Warming on Mars http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast09feb_1/

Margarita Marinova, an undergraduate student at MIT, believes she has an answer to both problems: use artificially created perfluorocarbons (PFCs) to initiate the planetary warming process. Marinova has been studying the warming effects of PFCs, in collaboration with Chris McKay, a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the Ames Research Center. McKay was one of the organizers of the terraforming conference where Marinova presented her research. PFCs have several advantages. First, they are super-greenhouse gases. A little bit does a lot of warming. Second, PFCs have a very long lifetime. This causes serious problems on Earth, but their longevity would be a positive factor on Mars. Third, they do not have any negative effects on living organisms. Finally, unlike their chemical cousins, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), PFCs don't deplete ozone. Ozone in Earth's atmosphere provides protection against ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which is harmful to life. On Mars, building up an ozone layer in the atmosphere would be an important goal of terraformers. "You don't want to destroy ozone," says Marinova, "because it's a UV protector."

Terraforming Mars is Becoming More Feasible-Bacteria Friedmann 2001-NASA Researcher(Imre Friedmann, Biology Professor, Director of Polar Desert Research Center) Greening Of The Red Planet science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast26jan_1/

On Earth, compost is made up primarily of decayed vegetable matter. Microorganisms play an important role in breaking down dead plants, recycling their nutrients back into the soil so that living plants can reuse them. But on Mars, says Friedmann, where there is no vegetation to decay, the dead bodies of the microorganisms themselves will provide the organic matter needed to build up the soil. The trick is finding the right microbe. "Among the organisms that are known today," says Friedmann, "Chroococcidiopsis is most suitable" for the task. Chroococcidiopsis is one of the most primitive cyanobacteria known. What makes it such a good candidate is its ability to survive in a wide range of extreme environments that are hostile to most other forms of life. Chroococcidiopsis has been found growing in hot springs, in hypersaline (high-salt) habitats, in a number of hot, arid deserts throughout the world, and in the frigid Ross Desert in Antarctica. "Chroococcidiopsis is the constantly appearing organism in nearly all extreme environments," Friedmann points out, "at least extreme dry, extreme cold, and extremely salty environments. This is the one which always comes up."

Terraforming Mars Is Possible-Different Methods and Steps Zubrin 1999-Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Robert Zubrin, Bachelor Degree in Mathematics with a Masters and PhD in Nuclear Engineering, Works for Lockheed Martin Astronautics) The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/mars.html

Potential methods of terraforming Mars have been discussed in a number of locations.5, 6. In the primary scenario, artificial greenhouse gases such as halocarbons are produced on Mars and released into the atmosphere. The temperature rise induced by the presence of these gases causes CO2 adsorbed in the regolith to be outgassed, increasing the greenhouse effect still more, causing more outgassing, etc. In reference 6 it was shown that a rate of halocarbon production of about 1000 tonnes per hour would directly induce a temperature rise of about 10 K on Mars, and that the outgassing of CO2 caused by this direct forcing would likely raise the average temperature on Mars by 40 to 50 K, resulting in a Mars with a surface pressure over 200 mbar and seasonal incidence of liquid water in the warmest parts of the planet. Production of halocarbons at this rate would require an industrial establishment on Mars wielding about 5000 MW or power supported by a division of labor requiring at least (assuming optimistic application of robotics) 10,000 people. Such an operation would be enormous compared to our current space efforts, but very small compared to the overall human economic effort even at present. It is therefore anticipated that such efforts could commence as early as the mid 21st Century, with a substantial amount of the outgassing following on a time scale of a few decades. While humans could not breath the atmosphere of such a Mars, plants could, and under such conditions increasingly complex types of pioneering vegetation could be disseminated to create soil, oxygen, and ultimately the foundation for a thriving ecosphere on Mars. The presence of substantial pressure, even of an unbreathable atmosphere, would greatly benefit human settlers as only simple breathing gear and warm clothes (i.e. no spacesuits) would be required to operate in the open, and city-sized inflatable structures could be erected (since there would be no pressure differential with the outside world) that could house very large settlements in an open-air shirt-sleeve environment.

Mars was once habitable, terraforming is possibleMckay, 2004 Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center (Christopher The Physics, Biology, and Environmental Ethics of Making Mars Habitable http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12448997 July 20, 2011)

The considerable evidence that Mars once had a wetter, more clement, environment motivates the search for past or present life on that planet. This evidence also suggests the possibility of restoring habitable conditions on Mars. While the total amounts of the key molecules - carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen - needed for creating a biosphere on Mars are unknown, estimates suggest that there may be enough in the subsurface. Super greenhouse gases, in particular, perfluorocarbons, are currently the most effective and practical way to warm Mars and thicken its atmosphere so that liquid water is stable on the surface. This process could take ~100 years. If enough carbon dioxide is frozen in the South Polar Cap and absorbed in the regolith, the resulting thick and warm carbon dioxide atmosphere could support many types of microorganisms, plants, and invertebrates. If a planet-wide martian biosphere converted carbon dioxide into oxygen with an average efficiency equal to that for Earth's biosphere, it would take >100,000 years to create Earth-like oxygen levels. Ethical issues associated with bringing life to Mars center on the possibility of indigenous martian life and the relative value of a planet with or without a global biosphere

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiTerraforming IS possiblePopoviciu, 2010 "Ovidius" University of Constanţa, Natural Sciences and Agricultural Sciences Faculty, Constanţa, Romania (Dan, Terraforming Mars via the Bosch Reaction: Turning Gas Giants Into Stars, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars102.html July 21, 2011)

Several methods for terraforming Mars, to make it habitable to humans, have been proposed by various authors (Graham, 2006, Moss, 2006; Zubrin & McKay, 1997). The proposals include giant orbital mirrors, controlled asteroid impacts, nuclear mining or the use of halocarbons to warm the planet and create an atmosphere (Birch, 1992; Zubrin & McKay, 1997; Fogg, 1998; Hiscox, 2000; Graham, 2004, 2006; International Space University, 2005; Marinova et al., 2005; Moss, 2006; Orme & Ness, 2007, McInnes, 2010). The general idea behind all these methods is that heating the Martian atmosphere should release carbon dioxide and other gaseous volatiles from the polar caps, permafrost and regolith reserves, triggering a runaway greenhouse effect thereby trapping heat and warming the planet. This would bring medium temperatures closer to those on Earth, and create a substantial atmosphere and planetary water cycle. It is unknown if microbes already populate the red planet. However, it is well established that archae, bacteria, and simple eukaryotes terraformed Earth, and created its oxygen atmosphere, and were also largely responsible for the temperature extremes, from global warming to global cooling, for the first 4 billion years (Joseph 2010). Therefore, a variety of microorganisms could be also be deployed to Mars.

Bosch Reaction terraforming: Mars will be habitable with enough hydrogenPopoviciu, 2010 "Ovidius" University of Constanţa, Natural Sciences and Agricultural Sciences Faculty, Constanţa, Romania (Dan, Terraforming Mars via the Bosch Reaction: Turning Gas Giants Into Stars, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars102.html July 21, 2011)

It took 4 billion years of terraforming before oxygen levels rose sufficiently and for temperature extremes to become less extreme, thereby making Earth habitable for complex oxygen-breating creatures (Joseph 2010). Increased oxygen levels also triggered the formation of a protective ozone, which allowed for innumerable species to emerge from the ocean and beneath the soil, and to walk, crawl, or slither across the earth (Joseph 2010). Although microbial and other means of terraforming should be considered, a more rapid method of making Mars habitable in just a few decades could be achieved through the Bosch reaction. Although the Bosch reaction has been suggested as a terraforming method for Venus and the Jovian moons, it has also been criticised for its greenhouse effect, which would be undesirable in the case of Venus (Birch, 1991, Cantrell, 2009). The Bosh reaction might be ideal for Mars. The Bosch reaction involves gaseous carbon dioxide and hydrogen and produces solid carbon (graphite) and water vapor as follows: CO2 + 2 H2 → C + 2 H2O The reaction requires high temperatures (530 – 730 °C), is accelerated by an iron, nickel or cobalt catalyst and is exothermal (Wilson, 1971). How could this be useful to the terraformation of Mars? First of all, it generates heat (10% of invested heat). The water vapor produced is a strong greenhouse gas. Furthermore, black graphite dust would lower the planet’s albedo, reducing its reflectivity and warm the surface. The problem is that a consistent source of hydrogen is needed.

Yes terraforming – solar reflectionFogg, 1996 (Martyn J. Fogg, degree in physics and geology and a master's degree in astrophysics working on a Ph.D. in planetary science, TERRAFORMING MARS: A REVIEW OF RESEARCH, April 28, 2010, http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/paper1.htm

Another way to warm Mars would be to increase its input of solar energy by reflecting light that passes the planet down to its surface. The use of orbiting mirrors to do this is a common suggestion in terraforming-related discussions (e.g. Oberg, 1981) and some outline designs have been published (Birch, 1992; Zubrin and McKay, 1993; Fogg 1995a). Whilst all are necessarily large in size, none are unfeasible in principle and their masses are surprisingly modest. A mirror system specifically designed as part of a runaway greenhouse scenario was presented by Zubrin and McKay (1993). By balancing gravitational and light pressure forces, they determined that a 125 km-diameter solar sail-mirror could be stationed 214,000 km behind Mars where it could illuminate the south pole with an additional ~ 27 TW. This should be sufficient to raise the polar temperature by ~ 5 K which, according to some models, should be sufficient for cap evaporation. At first glance, the size of such a mirror and its mass (200,000 tons of aluminium) may appear too grandiose a concept to take seriously.

It would only take 100 yearsFogg, 1996 ( Martyn J. Fogg, degree in physics and geology and a master's degree in astrophysics working on a Ph.D. in planetary science, TERRAFORMING MARS: A REVIEW OF RESEARCH, April 28, 2010, http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/paper1.htm

Runaway greenhouse scenarios of terraforming promise much: that through comparatively modest engineering (at a level far less than the integrated activity of humanity on the Earth) Mars can be transformed into a planet habitable for anaerobic life in roughly a century. Conditions would still be hostile, akin to an arid and chilly Precambrian, but far less so than those on the present Mars. Further terraforming might follow ecopoiesis by, for example, arranging for photosynthesis to oxygenate the atmosphere. Long timescales of > 100,000 years have been cited for this step (Averner and MacElroy, 1976; McKay et al.,1991) although it appears reasonable that this might be reduced by at least a factor of ten if the biosphere is actively managed to optimise net oxygen production (Fogg, 1993a, 1995a).

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Solvency – Colonization – One-Way Mission A one-way mission resolves any potential issuesDavies 10 (Paul Davies, <Ph.D.1> <Journal of Cosmology> The Human Mission to Mars. Colonizing the Red Planet November, 2010, http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents12.html)

In our view, however, many of these human and financial problems would be ameliorated by a one-way mission. It is important to realize that this is not a "suicide mission." The astronauts would go to Mars with the intention of staying for the rest of their lives, as trailblazers of a permanent human Mars colony. They would be resupplied periodically from Earth, and eventually develop some "home grown" industry such as food production and mineral/chemical processing (Zubrin and Baker 1992; Zubrin and Wagner 1997). Their role would be to establish a "base camp" to which more colonists would eventually be sent, and to carry out important scientific and technological projects meanwhile. Of course, the life expectancy of the astronauts would be substantially reduced, but that would also be the case for a return mission. The riskiest part of space exploration is take-off and landing, followed by the exposure to space conditions. Both risk factors would be halved in a one-way mission, and traded for the rigors of life in a cramped and hostile environment away from sophisticated medical equipment. On the financial front, abandoning the need to send the fuel and supplies for the return journey would cut costs dramatically, arguably by about 80 percent. Furthermore, once a Mars base has been established, it would be politically much easier to find the funding for sustaining it over the long term than to mount a hugely expensive return mission.

One Way mission to Mars is key to colonization Fisher 10 (Max Fisher, degree in business administration http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/10/should-we-colonize-mars-one-way/18610/, October 20, 2010)

The human colonization of Mars has been bouncing around science fiction and even legitimate scientific discussion for decades. But it's typically been proposed with the assumption that Mars would expand humanity's foothold rather than become an entirely new start. But that's just about what astronomy professors Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies propose in a stone-serious paper for the Journal of Cosmology, "To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars." And they're not talking about the distant future--they see this happening relatively soon, and say they propose the "one-way" mission mostly as a way to get around the financial costs that they say keep us from colonizing Mars right now. One approach could be to send four astronauts initially, two on each of two space craft, each with a lander and sufficient supplies, to stake a single outpost on Mars. A one-way human mission to Mars would not be a fixed duration project as in the Apollo program, but the first step in establishing a permanent human presence on the planet. The astronauts would be re-supplied on a periodic basis from Earth with basic necessities, but otherwise would be expected to become increasingly proficient at harvesting and utilizing resources available on Mars. Eventually the outpost would reach self-sufficiency, and then it could serve as a hub for a greatly expanded colonization program . It's not clear exactly what these four intrepid spirits are supposed to do once they get to Mars, which the Mars Rover confirmed is totally devoid of even the most basic grocery stores, not to mention other essentials such as shelter or oxygen. The authors suggest they "eventually develop some 'home grown' industry such as food production and mineral/chemical processing." Demonstrating a somewhat hazy understanding of multinational politics, the authors suggest that a "permanent multicultural and multinational human presence on another world would have major beneficial political and social implications for Earth." Just like the United Nations? It's unclear whether Schulze-Makuch and Davies plan on having the first batch of four colonists reproduce, as they will "endure some radiation damage to their reproductive organs" during the trip. However, after "several decades," they foresee about 150 colonists, all living underground to protect from the sun's radioactive rays, "which would constitute a viable gene pool to allow the possibility of a successful long-term reproduction program."

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Solvency – Colonization – Moon Base First stop moon base, next stop MarsBritt 2005, Senior Science Writer (Robert, Senior Science Writer, Perfect Spot Found for Moon Base, http://www.space.com/957-perfect-spot-moon-base.html July 2011)

Researchers have identified what may be the perfect place for a Moon base, a crater rim near the lunar north pole that's in near-constant sunlight yet not far from suspected stores of water ice. Permanently sunlit areas would provide crucial solar energy for any future Moon settlement, a goal for NASA outlined last year by President George W. Bush. Such sites would also have resort-like temperatures compared with other lunar locations that fluctuate between blistering heat and unfathomable cold. Equally important, in the permanently shadowed depths of craters around the lunar north pole, water ice may lurk, according to previous but unconfirmed observations. Melted, it would be vital for drinking. Broken into hydrogen and oxygen, the water could provide breathable air and be used to make rocket fuel for a trip to Mars. That fits in neatly with the White House vision of using the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars.

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Solvency – Colonization – Public/Private Partnership The money to fund space travel must come from profits in space – we must involve the private sector, but the USFG must still pilot the shuttleEgan 2011, Kreso, April 17, 2011, WPI Undergraduates (Michael, John, Expediting Factors In Developing a Successful Space Colony, http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-041911-134845/unrestricted/IQP_Final.pdf, July 20, 2011)

Because of this, the required capital must come from profits acquired in space. This is why it is so important for initial space activities to be profit oriented. A successful commercial system must also be established before a colony can exist in space. “The history of human exploration indicates that some commercial payoff is essential if the exploratory effort is to be sustained” (Shipman, 245). Without a method of generating profits, sending humans to space will eventually need to stop because the resources and interest will be depleted. Some level of government and private cooperation is also necessary because the experience and resources of government space agencies is needed but without the lofty visions and profit based motives of the newer private sector, space colonies will never be more than a science fiction dream. Because space industries are mostly not profitable up front, commercial activity in space will not happen for a long if left up to the private sector alone (Shipman, 294). This is why it is so important for the two sides to collaborate and work towards the same goal. Doing so will provide the struggling government space program with a fresh strategy, and the private industry with the infrastructure and wisdom needed to succeed. Creating the first colony in space is not something that will happen on its own. The initiatives must be started to make it feasible, because otherwise the required technology and investments will never come about on their own. A breakthrough in propulsion would serve as the catalyst to this entire process. Better means of propulsion will not only lower the costs of space transportation enough to make commercial efforts feasible but also spark enough interest to improve outdated technology. This would allow for increase human activity and presence in space and would mark the first step in sending humans to live permanently somewhere other than earth. The following graphs show cost and profit estimates for various commercial ventures in space and act as a starting point for analysis on what is required to make a colony in space feasible as an initial investment and as a long term business opportunity.

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Solvency – Colonization – Timeframe A launch plan must be prepared by 2035 – perfect window of opportunityAdimurthy, et.al, October 2010, Ph.D., Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) (V. Adimurthy, Priyankar Bandyopadhyay, Madhavan Nair, Expedition to Mars. The Establishment of a Human Settlement, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars128.html, July 20, 2011)

There are many who envision a human mission to Mars before the end of the next decade (Joseph 2010; Mitchell and Staretz 2010; Zubrin 2010). However, if we were to wait until 2035, this window of opportunity would shorten the trip considerably, to a little over 200 days, which makes it more practical for settlement and resupply. Thus, the the initial plans for Mars settlement may take place 25 years into the future, beginning in 2035. This 2035 opportunity offers a trajectory to Mars, from a circular Earth orbit of 400 km or so, and is achieved through a velocity addition of around 3.7 km/s. Upon reaching Mars, another velocity reduction of a little less than 1 km/s is employed in conjunction with aero-capture to enter into an elliptic Mars Orbit that is an eccentric areocentric orbit of 250 km • 34000 km. The 2035 opportunity can be utilized to send necessary infrastructure and other materials to Mars for eventual human settlement. During the very next opportunity in 2037, the crew can experience a typical transit time of a little less than 180 days to Mars. Crew can stay on Mars for about 540 days and can return to Earth in 2040. During any of these opportunities, it is also possible to achieve Trans Mars Insertion (TMI) using Moon and Earth gravity assists (Penzo, 1998).

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Solvency – Colonization – More Colonies Colonizing Mars is only the first step and leads to further space settlementsAdimurthy, et.al, 2010, Ph.D., Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) (V. Adimurthy, Priyankar Bandyopadhyay, Madhavan Nair, Expedition to Mars. The Establishment of a Human Settlement, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars128.html, July 20, 2011)

Mars is a unique and universal place, not for one group, not for one creed, not for one nation but for the entire humanity (Mitchell and Staretz 2010). The human mission to Mars will be a major step towards fulfilling the age old dream and human desire to explore the planets. It may take a large number of missions to Mars to perfect the technology associated with human travel to deep space. It may take the crew a few weeks or months to acclimatize to the gravity of Mars (about 0.38 g). After the crew has acclimated, the initial surface activities would focus on transitioning from a lander mode to a fully functional surface habitat mode (Boston 2010; Gage 2010b; Schulze-Makuch and Davies, 2010; Zubrin 2010). This would include performing all remaining setup and checkout operations that could not be performed prior to landing, as well as transfer of hardware and critical items from the pre-deployed Mars-Ascent-Descent Vehicle System. Thus, a new beginning for the humanity is ushered in. The journey to Mars will be a first step toward colonizing the entire cosmos.

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Solvency – Colonization – Zubrin Prodict Dr. Zubrin is over-qualified to write about MarsSchmidt, 6/27/11 (Klaus, Staff writer for space fellowship, “This Week On The Space Show”, http://spacefellowship.com/news/art26063/this-week-on-the-space-show.html)

Dr. Robert Zubrin is a noted author and the Founder of The Mars Society. The Mars Society, an international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars by both public and private means. Dr. Zubrin is also President of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace R&D company located in Lakewood, Colorado. Dr. Zubrin was formerly a Staff Engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, he holds a Masters degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Washington. Zubrin is the inventor of several unique concepts for space propulsion and exploration, the author of over 100 published technical and non-technical papers in the field, and was a member of Lockheed Martin’s “scenario development team” charged with developing broad new strategies for space exploration. In that capacity, he was responsible for developing the “Mars Direct” mission plan, a strategy which by using Martian resources, allows a human Mars exploration program to be conducted at a cost 1/8th that previously estimated by NASA. Zubrin is known internationally as one of the most creative engineers working in the aerospace industry today, and he and his work have been subject of much favorable press coverage in The Economist, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the London Times, The Washington Post, Fortune Magazine, Newsweek, Air and Space Smithsonian, Popular Science, Omni, Space News, and many other publications. He is the holder of two US Patents, and has two more pending. In addition to his technical publications, Dr. Zubrin is the author of “The Case for Mars: How We Shall Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must,” published by Simon and Schuster’s Free Press Division in Oct. 1996, and “Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization,” published by Tarcher Putnam in Aug. 1999, and “Mars on Earth” published by Tarcher Penguin in Sept. 2003. His book, “The Holy Land,” is a science fiction satire of the current situation in the Middle East. Dr. Zubrin has also written a play about Benedict Arnold. His latest book, “How To Live On Mars: A Trusty Guidebook To Surviving And Thriving On The Red Planet,” is a must read.

Robert Zubrin’s Credentials are astronomicalScott, January 2000 (Jim, Review: New Real Estate, Vol 88 pg 85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/27857972?&Search=yes&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmars%2Bcolonization%2Bzubrin%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3Dmars%2Bcolonization%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don)

Robert Zubrin is big on the long view of space exploration. But his credentials – a top-drawer space engineer and author of the best selling The Case for Mars – Give him enough reign to take us on a stepladder to the stars. Zubrin also is president of the Mars Society, a group of scientists and engineers intent on the human exploration and colonization of Mars as quickly and efficiently as possible. From Mars to the stars, Zubrin has done his homework once again, his many equations in the book may leave lay readers reeling.

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Solvency – Colonization – FYI Timeframe A mission to mars would take 6 monthsDavies 10 (Paul Davies, <Ph.D.1> <Journal of Cosmology> The Human Mission to Mars. Colonizing the Red Planet November, 2010, http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents12.html)

There are several reasons that motivate the establishment of a permanent Mars colony. We are a vulnerable species living in a part of the galaxy where cosmic events such as major asteroid and comet impacts and supernova explosions pose a significant threat to life on Earth, especially to human life. There are also more immediate threats to our culture, if not our survival as a species. These include global pandemics, nuclear or biological warfare, runaway global warming, sudden ecological collapse and supervolcanoes (Rees 2004). Thus, the colonization of other worlds is a must if the human species is to survive for the long term. The first potential colonization targets would be asteroids, the Moon and Mars. The Moon is the closest object and does provide some shelter (e.g., lava tube caves), but in all other respects falls short compared to the variety of resources available on Mars. The latter is true for asteroids as well. Mars is by far the most promising for sustained colonization and development, because it is similar in many respects to Earth and, crucially, possesses a moderate surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water and carbon dioxide, together with a range of essential minerals. Mars is our second closest planetary neighbor (after Venus) and a trip to Mars at the most favorable launch option takes about six months with current chemical rocket technology.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Not Self-Sufficient Mars Can Produce Income-Mining Red Colony 2010-Why Colonize Mars? http://www.redcolony.com/features.php?name=whycolonizemars

There is an abundance of rare metals on Mars such as platinum, gold, silver, and others. Shipping from Mars to Earth, as mentioned above, is much easier than the other way around. Even more promising is the proximity of the asteroid belt to Mars. Dactyl, the moon orbiting the asteroid Ida shown in this picture, is 1.4 kilometers in diameter, yet it contains more iron that the human race has used in its entire existence. These asteroids could be mined near Mars and shipped from the planet for little cost. What we could see develop is a triangle trade route, much like the one in the 18th century between Britain, the West Indies, and America. The economic potential is colossal.

Mars Has Methods of Profit-Possible Metals and Ideas Zubrin 1999-Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Robert Zubrin, Bachelor Degree in Mathematics with a Masters and PhD in Nuclear Engineering, Works for Lockheed Martin Astronautics) The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/mars.html)

It is this question that has caused many to deem Mars colonization intractable, or at least inferior in prospect to the Moon. After all, the Moon does have indigenous supplies of helium-3, an isotope not found on Earth and which could be of considerable value as a fuel for thermonuclear fusion reactors. Mars has no known helium-3 resources. Because of its complex geologic history, Mars may have concentrated mineral ores, with much greater concentrations of ores of precious metals readily available than is currently the case on Earth due to the fact that the terrestrial ores have been heavily scavenged by humans for the past 5000 years. It has been shown9 that if concentrated supplies of metals of equal or greater value than silver (i.e. silver, germanium, hafnium, lanthanum, cerium, rhenium, samarium, gallium, gadolinium, gold, palladium, iridium, rubidium, platinum, rhodium, europium, etc.) were available on Mars, they could potentially be transported back to Earth at high profit by using reusable Mars-surface based single stage to orbit vehicles to deliver the cargoes to Mars orbit, and then transporting them back to Earth using either cheap expendable chemical stages manufactured on Mars or reusable cycling solar sail powered interplanetary spacecraft. The existence of such Martians precious metal ores, however, is still hypothetical. Another alternative is that Mars could pay for itself by transporting back ideas. Just as the labor shortage prevalent in colonial and 19th century America drove the creation of Yankee Ingenuity's flood of inventions, so the conditions of extreme labor shortage combined with a technological culture and the unacceptability of impractical legislative constraints against innovation will tend to drive Martian ingenuity to produce wave after wave of invention in energy production, automation and robotics, biotechnology, and other areas. These inventions, licensed on Earth, could finance Mars even as they revolutionize and advance terrestrial living standards as forcefully as 19th Century American invention changed Europe and ultimately the rest of the world as well. Inventions produced as a matter of necessity by a practical intellectual culture stressed by frontier conditions can make Mars rich, but invention is not the only way that Martians will be able to make a fortune. The other way is trade.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Space Diseases Mars is totally sterile – there is no capacity for organic material to exit the planet, and pathogens wouldn’t affect humans anywayZubrin, 2010 October 2010, Ph.D., astronomical engineer, President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 20, 2011)

4.3. Back Contamination: Recently some people have raised the issue of possible back-contamination as a reason to shun human (or robotic sample return) missions to Mars. Such fears have no basis in science. The surface of Mars is too cold for liquid water, is exposed to near vacuum, ultra violet, and cosmic radiation, and contains an antiseptic mixture of peroxides that have eliminated any trace of organic material. It is thus as sterile an environment as one could ask for. Furthermore, pathogens are specifically adapted to their hosts. Thus, while there may be life on Mars deep underground, it is quite unlikely that these could be pathogenic to terrestrial plants or animals, as there are no similar macrofauna or macroflora to support a pathogenic life cycle in Martian subsurface groundwater. In any case, the Earth currently receives about 500 kg of Martian meteoritic ejecta per year. The trauma that this material has gone through during its ejection from Mars, interplanetary cruise, and re-entry at Earth is insufficient to have sterilized it, as has been demonstrated experimentally and in space studies on the viability of microorganisms following ejection and reentry (Burchell et al. 2004; Burchella et al. 2001; Horneck et al. 1994, 1995, 2001, Horneck et al. 1993; Mastrapaa et al. 2001; Nicholson et al. 2000). So if there is the Red Death on Mars, we’ve already got it. Those concerned with public health would do much better to address their attentions to Africa. 4.4.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Stress This is a myth invented by the media – relative stress level is exceedingly lowZubrin, 2010 October 2010, Ph.D., astronomical engineer, President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 20, 2011)

Human Factors: In popular media, it is frequently claimed that the isolation and stress associated with a 2.5 year round-trip Mars mission present insuperable difficulties. Upon consideration, there is little reason to believe that this is true. Compared to the stresses dealt with by previous generations of explorers and mariners, soldiers in combat, prisoners in prisons, refugees in hiding, and millions of other randomly selected people, those that will be faced by the hand-picked crew of Mars 1 seem modest. Certainly psychological factors are important (Bishop 2010; Fielder & Harrison, 2010; Harrison & Fielder 2010; Suedfeld 2010). However, any serious reading of previous history indicates that far from being the weak link in the chain of the piloted Mars mission, the human psyche is likely to be the strongest link in the chain as Apollo astronauts have testified (Mitchell & Staretz 2010; Schmitt 2010).

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Dust Storms Mars’ atmosphere contains dust storms – landers empirically endure them without taking damageZubrin, 2010 October 2010, Ph.D., astronomical engineer, President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 20, 2011)

4.5. Dust Storms: Mars has intermittent local, and occasionally global dust storms with wind speeds up to 100 km/hour. Attempting to land through such an event would be a bad idea, and two Soviet probes committed to such a maelstrom by their uncontrollable flight systems were destroyed during landing in 1971. However, once on the ground, Martian dust storms present little hazard. Mars’ atmosphere has only about 1% the density of Earth at sea-level. Thus a wind with a speed of 100 km/hr on Mars only exerts the same dynamic pressure as a 10 km/hr breeze on Earth. The Viking landers endured many such events without damage. Humans are more than a match for Mars’ dragons.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Radiation Radiation isn’t dangerous and there’s sufficient protection.Zubrin, 2010 October 2010, Ph.D., astronomical engineer, President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 20, 2011)

Opponents of human Mars exploration frequently cite several issues which they claim make such missions to dangerous to be considered at this time. Like the dragons that use to mar the maps medieval cartographers, these concerns have served to deter many who otherwise might be willing to enterprise the exploration of the unknown. It is therefore fitting to briefly address them here. 4.1. Radiation: It is alleged by some that the radiation doses involved in a Mars mission present insuperable risks, or are not well understood. This is untrue. Solar flare radiation, consisting of protons with energies of about 1 MeV, can be shielded by 12 cm of water or provisions, and there will be enough of such materials on board the ship to build an adequate pantry storm shelter for use in such an event. The residual cosmic ray dose, about 50 Rem for the 2.5 year mission, represents a statistical cancer risk of about 1%, roughly the same as that which would be induced by an average smoking habit over the same period.

Shields and yoga solve radiationAdimurthy, et.al, 2010, Ph.D., Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) (V. Adimurthy, Priyankar Bandyopadhyay, Madhavan Nair, Expedition to Mars. The Establishment of a Human Settlement, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars128.html, July 20, 2011)

Radiation in space is a major issue to contend with (Straume et al., 2010). From the standpoint of humans in interplanetary space, the two important sources of radiation for Mars expedition are, the heavy ions (atomic nuclei with all electrons removed) of galactic cosmic ray and sporadic production of energetic protons from large solar particle events (Straume et al., 2010). The constant bombardment of high-energy galactic cosmic ray particles delivers a lower steady dose rate compared with large solar proton flares which on occasion deliver a very high dose in a short period of time (of the order of hours to days). Various active and passive shielding options to protect astronauts from space radiation are described by Seedhouse (2009) and Straume et al., (2010). Another important factor for Mars expedition is absence of gravity during Mars transfer trajectory (Moore, et al. 2010). One of the major effects of prolonged weightlessness seen in long-duration space flights has been a reduction in bone mineral density (Harrison and Fiedler 2010; Moore, et al. 2010). In this context, alternate medicinal systems like ayurveda hold promise in alleviating ailments resulting from weightlessness. Formulations comprising Terminalia arjuna, Withania somnifera and Commiphora mukul are well known for their bone remineralization (Mitra et al., 2001). At the same time, the efficacy of ayurvedic formulations in zero gravity conditions needs to be ascertained. Similarly, physical exercise and yoga can help maintain physiological and psychological health of the crew. Some aspects of yoga exercises are the theme of experiments conducted during the joint Indo-Soviet manned space program in Salyut-7 (Wadhawan et al. 1985: Harland, 2005). The results suggest that yoga exercises have definite beneficial effects in preventing muscular atrophy and on the psycho-physiological well being during space flight.

We Can protect From Radiation-Other Spaceship Materials Cucinotta 2004-(Frank Cuicinotta, NASA Space Radiation Health Project) Can People Go To Mars http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/17feb_radiation/)

Finding out is the mission of NASA's new Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), located at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. It opened in October 2003. "At the NSRL we have particle accelerators that can simulate cosmic rays," explains Cucinotta. Researchers expose mammalian cells and tissues to the particle beams, and then scrutinize the damage. "The goal is to reduce the uncertainty in our risk estimates to only a few percent by the year 2015." Once the risks are known, NASA can decide what kind of spaceship to build. It's possible that ordinary building materials like aluminum are good enough. If not, "we've already identified some alternatives," he says. How about a spaceship made of plastic? "Plastics are rich in hydrogen--an element that does a good job absorbing cosmic rays," explains Cucinotta. For instance, polyethylene, the same material garbage bags are made of, absorbs 20% more cosmic rays than aluminum. A form of reinforced polyethylene developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center is 10 times stronger than aluminum, and lighter, too. This could become a material of choice for spaceship building, if it can be made cheaply enough. "Even if we don't build the whole spacecraft from plastic," notes Cucinotta, "we could still use it to shield key areas like crew quarters." Indeed, this is already done onboard the ISS. Left: Bricks of reinforced polyethylene--the building blocks of future spacecraft? [More] If plastic isn't good enough then pure hydrogen might be required. Pound for pound, liquid hydrogen blocks cosmic rays 2.5 times better than aluminum does. Some advanced spacecraft designs call for big tanks of liquid hydrogen fuel, so "we could protect the crew from radiation by wrapping the fuel tank around their living space," speculates Cucinotta.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Food Supply Mars is a Self Supplying Food SourceO'Neill, 1974 (Gerard O’Neill,Proffesor of Physics at Princeton,”The Colonization of Space”,September,1974)

The agricultural areas are separate from the living areas, and each one has the best climate for the particular crop it is to grow. Gravity, atmosphere and insolation are earthlike in most agricultural cylinders, but there is no attempt there to simulate an earthlike appearence. Selected seeds in a sterile, isolated environment initiate growth, so that no insecticides or pesticides are needed. (The evolution time for infectious organism is long, and resterilization of a contaminated agricultural cylinder by heating would not be difficult.) All food can be fresh, because it is grown only 20 miles from the point of use. The agricultural cylinders can be evenly distributed in seasonal phase, so that at any given time several of them are at the right month for harvesting any desired crop.

NASA researchers are working to develop food for a thousand day Mars mission. Andrews, 7/5/2011, writer for Food Safety News, (James, “NASA: Planning for Safe Food in Orbit and to Mars” http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/07/planning-for-safe-edible-food-in-orbit-and-to-mars/, Acc 7/25/2011) NH

Here on Earth, food suppliers face enough challenges when it comes to keeping their products safe all the way from the farm to the dining room. But for a small team of NASA food scientists, the dining room in question might be 40 million miles from home and on hiatus from gravity when astronauts dig into a salmon fillet or grilled pork chop. If transporting food across the country posits a list of safety considerations, launching it out of the atmosphere exponentially compounds them. At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the scientists behind NASA's advanced food technology (AFT) project are busy devising a safe, nutritious and robust menu to launch with the first manned mission to Mars. Their goal: Preserve 180 foods and beverages to stay safe and nutritious for more than five years. So far, they've achieved that with seven products, all meat. Michele Perchonok, Ph.D, manages NASA's shuttle food system and works on the AFT project, which she spoke about in a presentation at the fifth annual Food Technology Innovation & Safety Forum in May. When describing the progress NASA's food program has made during the last 50 years, she borrowed a tagline from the old Virginia Slims advertisements: "You've come a long way, baby." "In the beginning, we didn't even know if we could swallow or digest food in weightlessness. No idea," Perchonok said. "Well, good news is, we can." Today's astronauts benefit in safety and palatability from their predecessors' less savory mealtimes. No longer do they fly with "tubes and cubes," the notorious combination of space paste in aluminum squeeze-tubes and gelatin-coated, bite-sized cubes of indecipherable origin. Instead, modern space food comes in serving-sized, vacuum-sealed packaging, boasting selections such as chicken salad and shrimp cocktail -- both part of an essential variety meant to keep astronauts not just full, but content. As Perchonok explained, one crucial element of space travel that many overlook is the psychological comfort that a tasty, varied food supply provides. "We have these four requirements: nutritious, safe, acceptable and minimizing resources, and 'acceptable' includes variety," she said. "You can't go to Mars with seven meat items." For a trip to Mars, the AFT team needs to plan enough meals to sustain six crew members on a 1,000 day journey -- that's six months each way, plus a year-and-a-half-long spell on Mars until Earth orbits close again. Because of the time it will take to prepare all the food and launch most of it to Mars ahead of the crew's arrival, everything needs to last up to five years. But limitations abound. Estimates for the cost of launching one pound of material into orbit often report between $5,000 and $10,000, so when propelling food all the way to Mars, NASA needs to use the minimal packaging necessary. Still, they keep in mind that insufficient or ineffective packaging can lead to faster nutrient decay. Right now, the plan to launch a 22,000 pounds food stockpile would include roughly 3,300 pounds of packaging with the current plastic vacuum pouches. And while those pouches suffice for shuttle missions and 6- to 12-month stints on the International Space Station, they won't cut it for a Mars mission. The problem is: After neutralizing microbe growth in the pouches through high-heat treatment, the sugars and proteins in the food still react over time in an unappetizing chemistry of nutrient degradation. Tests show nutrients like Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and thiamine all dropping in concentration dramatically even after just a year in the pouch. With current packaging, astronauts heading home from Mars would find their once-vibrant fruit salad replaced by blackened, unidentifiable mush. "No one wants to eat those pears that have been retorted [high-heat sterilized] after two years," Perchonok said. "Very sad." Part of this problem can be solved with new advancements in sterilization, namely pressure-assisted thermal sterilization and microwave sterilization, methods that neutralize microbes without subjecting foods to high levels of heat. These techniques should slow nutrient degradation considerably, but NASA will need new packaging to adopt them. The AFT team wants to come up with packaging that has the same effective preservation properties as the U.S. military's foil ready-to-eat meal pouches, but in a plastic. Foil won't cooperate with microwave sterilization -- plus, it's just too heavy. In the meantime, the team will try to cut back on packaging overall by loading more nutrients into drinks, reducing water content in food and adjusting toward a diet that uses more calories from fat -- efficiencies that could ideally cut down the packaging weight -- and waste -- by close to 40 percent. And without the technology to purify and recycle wastewater, aspiring Mars visitors would likely never launch in the first place. A successful mission will require the crew to reuse close to 100 percent of their water, including urine, sweat and everything but the perspiration lost in suits during Mars walks. Even the moisture from feces will be dried out and recycled back through the purifier. Perhaps the most surprising solution the AFT team has considered, however, is to have the crew grow fruits and vegetables in environmentally sealed chambers during their stay on the red planet. To make it work, they would need to eventually dry out the excess plant material to reclaim the water, but the operation would be a source of fresh, crunchy textures -- a delight missing from pre-packaged space food. By Perchonok's estimation, NASA's entire AFT team consists of roughly 3.3 full-time researchers, considering several of them divide their time among multiple projects. Fortunately, they still have some time to plan. Perchonok said NASA aims to launch a Mars mission by 2035 at the earliest, which she hopes will give her enough time to retire as food program manager before the crew learns they might have to go 1,000 days without coffee.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Water Supply Polar craters have water ice deposits which can be tappedVillanueva, 2010 (John Carl Villanueva, “Space Colonization”, March 30 2010)

With water, people can grow plants, which can then serve as sources of food. Energy is not a problem since Solar energy is readily available on the Lunar surface. Since there is no atmosphere on the Moon, energy from the Sun can reach solar panels unhindered. Solar panels are already being used to power satellites and even the Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity, so there’s no question to their reliability. Spirit and Opportunity are two mobile robots that are currently exploring the surface of the Red Planet. As with regards to the water problem, a possible solution may lie in the water ice deposits found in some polar craters on the Moon. Data gathered by the LCROSS lunar impact mission presented proofs of the presence of water ice there. If space colonization on the Moon is not possible, then there’s always Mars. Mars possesses many attributes that make it a very good candidate for colonization. Mars has a similar axial tilt to the Earth’s, giving it seasons similar to ours. It has a thin atmosphere that can partially shield inhabitants from solar and cosmic radiation. Best of all, like the Moon, Mars also has water ice deposits on its surface.

CO2 condensation and multiple hydrated sources existDavis, 2005 (Leonard Davis, Senior Space Writer,”Space Colonization: The Quiet Revolution”,23 Feb 2005, Space.com)

The red planet is also wrapped in abundant carbon dioxide which will be fairly easy to condense, he said. Water availability on Mars is another huge plus. There is abundant evidence of past water activity on Mars. It should be present in permafrost at higher latitudes on the planet. It may also be present in hydrated minerals, McCullough stated. "The availability of water on Mars in significant quantities would once again simplify our projected industrial activities. This makes extensive bases leading to colonies more likely," McCullough concluded

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Transportation False – we can import manufactured goods from earthZubrin 96-American aerospace engineer(Robert Zubrin, American aerospace engineer and author,The Case for Colonizing Mars)http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-colonize.html

Mars is the best target for colonization in the solar system because it has by far the greatest potential for self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, even with optimistic extrapolation of robotic manufacturing techniques, Mars will not have the division of labor required to make it fully self-sufficient until its population numbers in the millions. Thus, for decades and perhaps longer, it will be necessary, and forever desirable, for Mars to be able to import specialized manufactured goods from Earth. These goods can be fairly limited in mass, as only small portions (by weight) of even very high-tech goods are actually complex. Nevertheless, these smaller sophisticated items will have to be paid for, and the high costs of Earth-launch and interplanetary transport will greatly increase their price.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Energy Production Every form of energy can be obtained at low cost.O'Neill, 1976 (Gerard ONeill, Physicist @ Princeton, “Space Colonies:The High Frontier”, February 1976)

Energy for agriculture would be used directly in the form of sunlight, interrupted at will by large, aluminum shades located in zero gravity in space near the farming areas. An advanced sewage system would quickly and efficiently turn wastes into pure water and agricultural chemicals. The air, constantly filtered, would be cleaner than in any city on earth. Non-polluting light industry would probably be carried on within the living-habitat, convenient to homes and shops. Heavy industry, though, could be located in nearby external non-rotating factories because of the advantages of zero gravity. The combination of zero gravity and breathable atmospheres would permit the easy assembly–without cranes, lift-trucks, or other handling equipment–of very large, massive products. These products could be the components of new colonies, radio and optical telescopes, large ships for the further exploration of the solar system, and power plants to supply energy for the earth. Within a century, other industries might be shifted to space colonies because of the abundant, free, pollutionless energy supply and the greater efficiency made possible by zero gravity and the vacuum of space. Process heat for industry, at temperatures of up to several thousand degrees, would be obtainable at low cost, simply by the use of aluminum-foil mirrors to concentrate the ever-present sunlight. In space, a passive aluminum mirror with a mass of less than a ton and a dimension of about 100 meters, could collect and concentrate, in the course of a year, an amount of solar energy which on earth would cost over a million dollars at standard electricity rates. Electrical energy for a space community could be obtained at low cost, within the limits of present technology, by a system consisting of a concentrating mirror, a boiler, a conventional turbogenerator, and a radiator, discarding waste heat to the cold of outer space. It appears that, in the environment of a space community, residents could enjoy a per capita usage of energy many times larger even than what is now common in the United States, but could do so with none of the guilt which is now connected with the depletion of an exhaustible resource.

Travel Between colonies would be Easy, Non-Polluting, and EfficientO'Neill, 1974 (Gerard O’Neill, Professor of Physics at Princeton,”The Colonization of Space”,September,1974)

Life In the colonies The key statements so far have been based on known facts, on calculations that can be checked and on technology whose costs can be estimated realistically. The discussion, however, would be sterile without some speculations that must, of course, be consistent with the known facts. With an abundance of food and clean electrical energy, controlled climates and temperate weather, living conditions in the colonies should be much more pleasant than in most places on Earth. For the 20-mile distances of the cylinder interiors, bicycles and lowspeed electric vehicles are adequate. Fuel-burning cars, powered aircraft and combustion heating are not needed; therefore, no smog. For external travel, the simplicity of engineless, pilotless vehicles probably means that individuals and families will be easily able to afford private space vehicles for low-cost travel to far distant communities with diverse cultures and languages. The "recreational vehicles" of the colonial age are therefore likely to be simple spacecraft, consisting of well furnished pressure shells with little complexity beyond an oxygen supply and with much the same arrangement of kitchen facilities and living space as are found today in our travelling homes.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: “Wait for better technology” This argument is illogical- it’s like saying Columbus should have waited for a 747 before discovering America. McLane, 2010, Associate Fellow in the American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has written articles for Harper’s and other major magazines around the world. (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1, Acc 7/25/2011) NHSome suggest we should wait for better technology to arrive so we can make a human trip to Mars safer. How very silly! What if Columbus had decided not to travel across the Atlantic until he could go on a steamship? Ironically, the risk of human death for a manned Mars landing is probably in the same order of magnitude as the danger Columbus faced 500 years ago. Today, the knowledge that’s needed to put a hero on Mars either exists right now, or is close at hand. Such a voyage and the founding of an outpost will be very difficult and, in fact, it is just barely possible. That’s one of the exciting attractions of the effort.

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: “Uninhabitable” A living structure has already been designed that protects astronauts. Science Daily, 6/1/2011, Source for research news, (“Working Toward Sending humans to Mars” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110531115400.htm, Acc. 7/25/2011.) NH

"One of the big issues, in terms of a manned mission to Mars, is creating living quarters that would protect astronauts from the elements -- from radiation to meteorites," says textile engineering student Brent Carter. "Currently, NASA uses solid materials like aluminum, fiberglass and carbon fibers, which while effective, are large, bulky and difficult to pack within a spacecraft." Using advanced textile materials, which are flexible and can be treated with various coatings, students designed a 1,900-square-foot inflatable living space that could comfortably house four to six astronauts. This living space is made by layering radiation-shielding materials like Demron™ (used in the safety suits for nuclear workers cleaning up Japan's Fukushima plant) with a gas-tight material made from a polyurethane substrate to hold in air, as well as gold-metalicized film that reflects UV rays -- among others. The space is dome-shaped, which will allow those pesky meteors, prone to showering down on the red planet, to bounce off the astronauts' home away from home without causing significant damage. "We're using novel applications of high-tech textile technology and applying them to aerospace problems," explains Alex Ray, a textile engineering student and team member. "Being able to work with classmates in aeronautical engineering allowed us to combine our knowledge from both disciplines to really think through some original solutions."

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Solvency – Colonization – AT: Water The technology for water production already exists and is being improved. Science Daily, 6/1/2011, Source for research news, (“Working Toward Sending humans to Mars” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110531115400.htm, Acc. 7/25/2011.) NH

Students also tackled another major issue preventing a manned mission to Mars -- water supply. Currently, astronauts utilize something called a Sabatier reactor to produce water while in space. The Sabatier process involves the reaction of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, with the presence of nickel, at extremely high temperatures and pressure to produce water and methane. "We wanted to find a way to improve the current Sabatier reactor so we could still take advantage of the large quantities of carbon dioxide available on Mars, and the fact that it is relatively easy to bring large quantities of hydrogen on the spacecraft, since it is such a lightweight element," says recent aerospace engineering graduate Mark Kaufman, who was also on the design team. Current Sabatier reactors, Kaufman explains, are long, heavy tubes filled with nickel pellets -- not ideal for bringing on a spacecraft. The student groups worked to develop a fiber material to which they applied nickel nanoparticles to create the same reaction without all the weight and volume. They believe their redesigned Sabatier reactor would be more feasible to carry along on a future space shuttle.

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Solvency – Spinoffs – Manned Exploration Human space exploration is more efficient, necessary for survival, and inspires the next generation. Shostak, 2010 , author and senior astronomer at SETI institute (Seth, Why Hominids and Space Go Together, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/is-manned-spaceflight-obsolete/, July 24)

Send the hardware, not the hominids. That’s the between-the-lines message that many have discerned in President Obama’s newly enunciated vision for NASA. The president wants the space agency to dial back its development of rockets that could sling astronauts into orbit or take them to the cratered landscapes of the Moon. As consequence, you can expect a greater emphasis on robotic exploration of the solar system. Sounds like a good deal. After all, heaving orbiters, rovers and other mechanical missionaries to nearby worlds is cheaper than sending humans, and the robots don’t insist on a round-trip ticket. So has “man in space” become an anachronism, a short-lived side effect of superpower rivalry? No. There are good – even compelling – reasons for a human presence in space. To begin with, robots can’t do everything well. When it comes to looking for life on Mars, it’s been said that a human explorer could survey that world’s rusty landscape at least 10 times faster than a rover. If we want to know if life is a miracle or merely a cosmic commonplace, human exploration may be essential . Second, we are living on a world with limited real estate and finite resources. Both are expected to become critically stretched within a century. Frankly, homo sapiens will be a flash in the pan if we don’t get some members of our species off the planet. So whether we construct colonies in orbit around Earth or build underground condos on the moon or Mars, our future demands learning how to send people to space. Third, there’s the enormous appeal of space flight to young people. Ask any kid what interests them more: constructing autonomous rovers or going to Mars? The answer is obvious and so is the implication for NASA’s future. And finally, there’s this: we need a frontier. Some part of each of us wants to “boldly go,” to explore and experience the unknown. The claim that stepping across the threshold of the unknown is too costly or too dangerous wouldn’t have impressed Magellan or Lindbergh. It shouldn’t impress us.

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Solvency – Spinoffs – Tech Solves Nuclear propulsion solves and is doable nowGenta & Rycroft 06 – (Giancarlo, Genta: Professor of Machine Design and Construction at the Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. Rycroft: CAESAR Consultancy. Rycroft, Michael: Cambridge Atmospheric, Environmental and Space Activities and Research CAESAR Consultancy. “Will space actually be the final frontier of humankind?” Acta Astronautica Volume 58, Issue 5, March 2006, Pages 287-295. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576506000130)

With present technology, we can reach the Moon and travel to Mars [1], [18] and [19]. Space exploration, and even colonization, is more a matter of commitment—or the lack of that—than of technology. However, our know-how is barely sufficient to make space travel routine. In this light, research must be more focused on cost reduction than on performance increase, and more on those fields allowing a return on investment than on those linked with science alone. Technology can reduce the cost of space travel to the point where private investors can enter the business of deep space exploration, and exploitation, and not only deal with operations in low Earth orbit. One field with the potential to change technology deeply and to produce those advances which will enable humankind to become an actual spacefaring species is materials science. All the main revolutions in technology were accompanied by the use of new materials, to the extent that we specify the periods of human development by the type of material which was predominant or which was then first used (stone age, bronze age, iron age). In spite of the fact that the iron age started in the West a few millennia ago, iron was very costly and used only for selected applications. Wood remained the basic material for the construction of machines until well into the industrial revolution. Aviation advances in the 20th century would not have been possible without aluminium alloys and titanium steel for turbine blades. Materials with ratios of strength/mass and stiffness/mass higher than those of present day materials will allow us to build launch vehicles far more compact than those in use today. An example is the single-stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicle, thought to be impossible in the 1960s. New materials could make them the cheap and readily available access to space in the third millennium. The same is true for skyhooks (space elevators) [7] and [8]. When they were proposed, those who analysed their feasibility stated that they were just dreams: not only their stressing exceeded that of the strongest materials, but also the maximum theoretical strength of an ideal material. Today the performance of carbon nanotubes is such that skyhooks seem to be feasible, at least from the technological viewpoint. Advances in the field of materials are necessarily slow. Apart from the difficulties and the large investments involved, experience in the use of new materials has to be accumulated gradually. Before innovative materials can be applied in critical elements, designers must gain confidence in their use, manufacturers must develop reliable technologies, and many diverse problems must be overcome. Finally, accelerated ageing tests on new materials are only partially reliable, so nobody can actually know how a recently developed material will behave under all conditions for a few years, or even decades, after its invention. A quick visit to the Moon or Mars is feasible using current materials—most parts of space vehicles are made of the light alloys used for WW2 aircraft. But large space dwellings, like those described by O’Neill [20], or interplanetary reusable spaceships to ferry people and materials to Mars, and beyond, need radically new materials. Another need is for new propulsion technologies. The limitations of chemical propulsion are well known. Propulsion devices in which the source of energy is separated from the propellant are needed. This was realized in the 1960s when several programmes to construct nuclear rockets were started. The reason that they were discontinued has more to do with politics and ideology than with technology, and more to do with perception than with reality. A nuclear-powered spacecraft could travel safely to Mars with humans aboard. In retrospect, we can note that the failure to proceed with nuclear propulsion is one of the main reasons for our failure to meet the expectations of the early space age. Nuclear propulsion, either in the form of nuclear thermal or of nuclear electric rockets, is the ‘main road’ to space. All can agree that, if humankind wants to become a spacefaring species, it must pursue nuclear propulsion [1] and [21]. The alternatives (solar thermal, solar electric, or even solar sails) often suggested more for political than for technological reasons, are without doubt very useful technologies which should be pursued [1]. But they fall short of accomplishing what nuclear propulsion can achieve. Nuclear thermal propulsion is the only concept which can simultaneously provide a fairly high specific impulse (even if not as high as that obtainable using electric propulsion) and a high thrust, without the need for a very long period of development. It could propel the large spacecraft needed for carrying humans as far as Mars, and beyond, and within reasonable travel times.

We have the tech and get to Mars within the decadeRobert Zubrin, austronautlical engineer, PHd, President of the Mars Society, Journal of Cosmology, October-November 2010, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now,http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, DOA: 1/11/11

Some have said that a human mission to Mars is a venture for the far future, a task for “the next generation.” Such a point of view has no basis in fact (Zubrin 1997). On the contrary, the United States has in hand, today, all the technologies required for undertaking an aggressive, continuing program of human Mars exploration, with the first piloted mission reaching the Red Planet Mars within a decade. We do not need to build giant spaceships embodying futuristic technologies in order to go to Mars. We can reach the Red Planet with relatively small spacecraft launched directly to Mars by boosters embodying the same technology that carried astronauts to the Moon more than a quarter-century ago. The key to success comes from following a travel light and live off the land strategy that has well-served explorers over the centuries humanity has wandered and searched the globe. A plan that approaches human missions to the Red Planet in this way is known as the “Mars Direct” approach. Here’s how it would work.

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Solvency – Spinoffs – “Why Mars” Mars is the only practical option for viable space travel.Thompson, 2011, Ph.D., Lexington Institute (Loren, New Study: Human Spaceflight - Mars Is The Destination That Matters, http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/announcements/newstudyhumanspaceflight-marsisthedestinationthatmatters, July 25)

The greatest adventure in human history is ending in its infancy. NASA's human spaceflight program, a signature achievement of American civilization, is dying. The program was conceived during the bleak days following Russia's launch of Sputnik in 1957, and then was energized by President John F. Kennedy's proposal in 1961 to put astronauts on the Moon by decade's end. NASA succeeded, landing Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin on the lunar surface only 98 months after Kennedy inspired the nation with his vision.If you grew up during that decade (as I did) and heard the bold rhetoric about new frontiers and carrying freedom's message into the cosmos, you couldn't help but be moved. America had a sense of mission back then that is largely missing from political discourse today, and the human spaceflight program epitomized the hopes of a new generation for the future. It is unsettling to see how our confidence has shriveled during the intervening years, both at NASA and in the broader political culture. AtNASA’s Space Shuttle program is about to shut down and the Constellation program conceived to replace it with manned missions to the Moon and Mars has been canceled by the Obama Administration. What remains of the human spaceflight program looks unlikely to survive an era of budget cutting and cultural pessimism.There is only one way that the human spaceflight program can be rescued from the decaying orbit into which it was launched by the Challenger disaster in 1986: NASA must define a goal for the program that justifies the vast expenditures required and inspires the nation in the same way President Kennedy did in 1961. Going back to the Moon or visiting an asteroid won't do the trick. Only a series of manned missions to Mars will . Our astronauts will need to go to other places before they attempt a landing on the Martian surface, but if those missions aren't justified as initial steps in a long-term plan to visit the Red Planet, then they aren't going to happen. To put it bluntly, the public doesn't care about spending hundreds of billions of dollars to go someplace we already went a generation ago. It needs a new destination and a new rationale to convince it that NASA's human spaceflight program still makes sense.A series of missions to Mars answers the mail because the Red Planet is by far the most Earth-like place in the reachable universe beyond our own world. It has water. It has sunlight. It has atmosphere. It has seasons. In fact, it probably has everything required to support a self-sustaining human colony someday -- unlike the other planets, or the Moon, or an asteroid. And it also has a host of lessons to teach us about the fate of our own planet as the solar system evolves, because it is clear that the Martian environment has changed greatly over time. Mars was once a warmer, wetter place, perhaps a place hosting life. It may still host life today, although conditions seem to have grown more hostile. But we'll never know unless we put men and women on the Martian surface for an extended period to investigate.This month, the Lexington Institute is releasing a report entitled Human Spaceflight: Mars is the Destination that Matters. It explains the scientific reasons why NASA should focus the human spaceflight program on a series of manned missions to Mars two decades from now, and arrange lesser missions to support that ultimate goal. It also argues that if NASA manages its programs carefully, it can put astronauts on Mars in a little over twice the time it took to get to the Moon for no more money than it was already planning to spend on human spaceflight. And it warns that if Mars is not the goal, then there won't be any human spaceflight program 20 years from now, because America has too many other pressing needs to be spending several hundred billion dollars on visiting an asteroid with no greater purpose in mind. What NASA's human spaceflight program needs right now is a vision of the future tied to the politics of the present -- a vision that can help restore the sense of purpose we as a people have lost .

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Overview Effect Space colonization leads to a transformation of consciousness that solves warFrank White, SETI researcher, 1990, The SETI FactorMany scholars and scientists see benefits in opening up the “space frontier.” It provides an opportunity to divert nationalistic energies away from war and toward peaceful cooperation ventures; it also offers an expanded range in which to work out new forms of societal and political interaction. In the Overview Effect, I pointed out that space exploration also provides an opportunity for human awareness to evolve and transform itself because it provides us with a new perspective on the earth, the universe, and ourselves. The defining feature of the space development subculture is a refusal to consider the future of humanity as confined to the surface of one planet. While members of the space development community may be concerned about the future of Earth, it is not because they plan to stay here. They see themselves as the leaders in creating a “spacefaring civilization,” and making humanity into a “multi-planet species.”

Space exploration could eventually lead to a higher level of consciousness in humans.Mitchell and Staretz, 2010 October 2010, Sc. D Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Apollo 14 Lunar module pilot, sixth person to walk on the moon (Edgar, Our Destiny – A Space Faring Civilization?, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars104.html, July 20, 2011)

Perhaps for these reasons, by necessity, extra-terrestrial civilizations have survived and evolved far beyond technological adolescence and have developed the technologies for inter-stellar travel because they have evolved to higher states of consciousness. If so, they will likely have recognized the need to live in harmony with nature and all that that implies. This would likely include highly evolved self-discipline, ethics, and universal spiritual values first less they would have otherwise long ago destroyed themselves by their command of such powerful technologies. States of consciousness have been studied for centuries by Tibetan Buddhist monks. The most profound state they refer to is known as Nirvikalpa Samadhi. It is a level of the highest spiritual attainment and evolution , the state of deep undifferentiated awareness in which there is only the Self within a transcendent observing entity. There are no thoughts or objects in mind. It is a state beyond time and space. The Self expands and merges into the entire field of mind so that pure awareness is all that exists. After attaining this state one has complete understanding of cosmic wisdom and one feels that he is in complete union with the Creative Source of all that is. At this point all ordinary concerns and everything else become subordinate to this union and lose all meaning. In this state unconditional love is the organizing principle of the universe . We do not mean to imply that all highly advanced extraterrestrial civilizations have reached such a state. Perhaps the oldest and most advanced have. It is likely that if their entire civilization and all individuals comprising it had reached it, they likely would no longer be interested with the Earthly concerns of humans on this little remote planet in the backwaters of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is more likely that for evolved self reflective beings throughout the cosmos, there is a spectrum of consciousness that reaches from two extremes. On the left end of this spectrum a state of consciousness exists with concern only for promoting the self, accompanied with outright disdain or malevolence towards other living beings. On the opposite end of such a spectrum perhaps is a state of consciousness similar to Nirvikalpa Samadhi. On such a cosmic scale most humans would be placed to left of center busily pursuing their own self interests where their use of technology has far outpaced the values and ethics necessary to use them wisely. Our expectation is that extra-terrestrial intelligences are shifted by varying degrees beyond human civilization more to the right end of the spectrum. Hopefully as humanity takes its place among space faring civilizations we will evolve more to the right as well. If human history teaches us anything, failure to do so is no longer a viable option.

Exploring Mars allows us to see the world through a new lens and causes us to reconsider what it means to be human.Kramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

The exploration and settlement of Mars provides a rare opportunity to reconsider our ethical, political, philosophical, and economic relationships with non-human life (very broadly defined) relatively free of many of the constraints that have framed and limited our analyses throughout our many histories. Manned and robotic exploration throughout and beyond our solar system also fosters reconsideration of our obligations to future generations and allows for expansion of membership in the class that constitutes those generations. This paper argues that the concept of “future generations” should not be limited to Homo sapiens, as currently defined. Opportunities for a higher ethical standard within the context of the discovery of extraterrestrial life are discussed in terms of a thought experiment and mechanisms to allow future generations to be represented in these ethical discussions are suggested.

We’re trapped by earthly ethical and moral standards now, but the search for life provides a new, more enlightened perspective to how we view the worldKramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

Now that there is proof of water ice on Mercury, Mars, our Moon, comets and elsewhere in our solar system and that there are deep liquid water oceans beneath the ice crust of Jupiter's moon Europa, the chances for discovery of present or pre-existing extraterrestrial biological entities in our system and in our galaxy are no longer remote [9], [10] and [11]. The search for signs of life in and beyond our solar system is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) priority, and it may be more of a matter of when rather than a question of if, and it may happen very

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paisoon, possibly within the next few decades [12]. But regardless of whether or not extinct or extant biological entities are discovered or whether of Earth origin or representative of an independent bio-chemical genesis, if our initial attempts at extraterrestrial human explorations do not also consider redefining our ethical standards, a valuable opportunity for philosophical advancement will be lost. As Mark Lupisella aptly wrote, “How we react to this kind of discovery (extraterrestrial life on a microbial scale) will define who we are as a species” [13]. Today, the potential for extraterrestrial discoveries allows such ethical reconsideration relatively free of many of the constraints that have framed and limited our analyses throughout our many histories. As expressed by Tae-Chang Kim and Allen Tough, “Fresh perspectives can lead to innovative actions,” and life on Mars or elsewhere would certainly provide such perspective [14]. It is critical, therefore, that we address the ethical issues that will rapidly evolve from such a find prior to that event, for from the moment of discovery forward there will be immense political, commercial and perhaps even theological pressures that may steer us from a more enlightened and consistent ethical policy [15] and [16]. Philosophies of bio-ethics have been constrained throughout much of human history by various limiting factors. These include, but are certainly not confined to, direct and indirect “worth” of various species and environments to humans, cultural significance, and taxonomic status [17].

Current ethical standards are biased – only humans have a say.Kramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

How, then, might our exploration of another world such as Mars, Europa, Ganymede, or even our own Moon provide an opportunity to consider a new relationship with non-human biological entities? How might this work in that we do not know if such entities even exist? One of the most difficult aspects of defining an ethical standard applied to non-humans is that while we intimately share our lives there is very limited dialog among species, and certainly none at a philosophical level that I am aware of [28]. Humans do the analysis and derive ethical standards focused through the lens of human perception; other species have little say in the process. This makes it extremely difficult for humans to not be biased and anthropocentric, to not depend on the relative utility of other species and our long history of viewing most other life as a means to further our own survival and pleasure. Compounding this difficulty is the validity of our assumptions about their degree of sentience and, perhaps, sapience that are largely based on our technological ability to detect and measure those abilities. How, then, might we develop a just bioethical standard that would guide our actions affecting biological entities that have no voice, much less extraterrestrial entities that have yet to be discovered?

Technology limits our ethical standards – we only evaluate what we can detect. This in itself is ethically wrong and a contradiction, our ignorance should not lead to non-ethical treatment. Therefore, extending ethical consideration to everything is the best method from an moral standpoint.Kramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

A significant stumbling block in the progression of ethical thought has been a general preconception that a perfect ethical standard is both definable and attainable while simultaneously limiting membership to those entities deemed worthy of ethical treatment. Such relativism produces standards later found contradictory and ethically unacceptable, triggering the need for redrafting ethical criteria. For example, centuries ago a man might have been considered an ethical person within his culture and community yet still own slaves, abuse children as directed by family custom and hold wives as chattel. As the conditions of all manners of such subjugation were socially challenged and determined to be unethical (i.e., could not be ethically justified by newly evolving ethical standards), the circle of consideration was widened to include the formerly excluded. Similarly, mistreatment of select animals (e.g., cruelty to horses and bear baiting) was challenged as being unethical, and again many species have been subsequently protected from those forms of harm (e.g., dogs, a range of vertebrate farm and research animals, and even fish and invertebrates) [33]. Through time, we generally widen the circle of ethical consideration; it is seldom constricted except, for example, during times of war, catastrophe or periods of “social readjustments.” The generally accepted standard in many countries is that all humans have a right to ethical consideration. In addition to our species, a limited subset of animals has been added in some countries (e.g., horses and great apes). A significant factor for such inclusion is our parallel growth of empathy toward them fostered by increased knowledge about them. Where we can ascertain that they experience pain, that they may be self aware, that they are more intelligent than expected or that they possess a sense of purpose we are more likely to extend ethical consideration. Accordingly, as our tools and technology improve our ability to ascertain the presence of their pain or measure their intelligence we may be unable to avoid being in an ethical bind if we do not also extend consideration where we have not before. For example, recent development of acoustical detection technologies, the computers and software to analyze complex data sets to discern meaningful patterns, and satellite imagery allowing accurate observation and mapping of humpback whales allow a greater appreciation of their complex communication, social structure and other factors than was possible before [34]. They are far more intelligent than previously believed, and many people have elevated their ethical consideration of that species as a result. Another example is provided by technologies that now allow us to consider the creativity of social insects at solving structural and logistical problems [35] and [36]. Research on the possible function of “swarm intelligence” (as opposed to an individual's solitary capacities) in some invertebrate species is ongoing, challenging our common definitions of intelligence [37]. Even plants have been found to communicate when attacked by herbaceous insects [38] and hints of altruism are being studied [39]. Can we assume they do not sense and respond to pain in ways we cannot yet detect, much less measure? Will the circle of ethical consideration be broadened to include them should our technology evolve to detect their pain or the other factors we use to screen where ethical consideration is allowed and where it is not? In sum, we should not be too quick to ethically categorized non-human species when the criteria for such determinations are possibly limited by our technology. This becomes especially critical when we are assessing extraterrestrial biological entities. I pose that it is justifiable to extend ethical consideration to them, even those of microbial size and bio-complexity, because of our present ignorance. By extending ethical consideration from its ancient core of just a select subset of humans, to all humans, to other sapient species, to sentient species, to all life and eventually to ecosystems and landscapes both on Earth and elsewhere we will end the cycle of exclusion followed by apology that has been a product of our ethical thinking for millennia. Rather than parse where we will provide ethical consideration and where we will not based on our Earthly experience we can start fresh with a new

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We have obligations to future generations to establish a culture of foresight.Kramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

The qualifications for membership in future generations are changing, and changing rapidly. Our descendents may no longer necessarily be limited to traditionally defined Homo sapiens. Rather, our species is becoming less distinct and singular as evidence of close natural interrelatedness and blending with other species at the cellular and molecular level grows and as techniques and processes allowing artificial sharing of genomes among species, xenotransplantation (using non-human biological materials in humans, such as pig valves to correct malfunctioning human hearts), mechanical and cybernetic augmentation and other modifications shatter the singular definition of human [48]. In Buddhist thought, the concept of future generations decidedly embraces a multitude of species and recognizes life as a shared process among species. As described by the current Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), “Even though there is a chance you may be reborn as a creature, perhaps even on a different planet, the idea of reincarnation gives you reason to have direct concern about this planet and future generations”[43]. If we were to encounter our descendents six generations from now, we may not recognize them as human, and it may not matter that they are not in a current taxonomic or physiological sense. How might Rawls’ and others’ theories be adapted to provide guidance on our obligation to future generations that include a diversity of post-humans he did not likely imagine, extraterrestrial species and even systems, such as landscapes? Two significant volumes published in 1994 by the Institute for the Integrated Study of Future Generations comprise a series of papers presented in Kyoto that year addressing alternative futures with a focus on future generations [14] and [49]. Many of the contributors spoke directly to expanding definitions and liberating past analyses of our obligations by articulating a futures perspective. An underlying message was that yes, we have obligations to future generations, but those generations may not mirror those of the present, ideologically, politically, socially, culturally, or even biologically. But that hardly concludes that we do not share their worlds or have obligations to them. As expressed by Richard Slaughter, we can best recognize and fulfill our obligations if we accept that we in the present and those in our futures are linked in much the same way as we are to past generations. Our actions in the present have consequence, and as such we have the moral obligation to consider their impact on future generations and whatever they comprise. He concludes that establishing a culture of foresight is “arguably the greatest gift the present generation could give to futures ones” [50].

Exploring space without reconsidering our ethical obligations to other life-forms or landscapes causes us to miss a chance for advancement.Kramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

The ongoing search for extraterrestrial life on Mars and elsewhere in our solar system provides an ideal opportunity to explore ethical obligations in a fresh context, and using the products of such discussions we can better reconsider definitions of what it means to be human and our concepts of participation as part of universal life itself. But we must ask these questions and work toward their resolution prior to their discovery. Should we leave the questions unanswered, Earth's conflicting and often indefensible ethical standards will be exported and may become truly universal, representing a forward contamination of a philosophical sort. The purpose of this article is not to argue or campaign for or against equal rights among all biological entities, both Earthly and extraterrestrial, or to pray for extending rights to the rocks they might live on. The current age of space exploration allows us to imagine and plan for fantastic physical structures and architectures, engineering projects on other planets that dwarf anything attempted on Earth, innovation and amazing new knowledge in physics, chemistry, and engineering. But we tend to see ourselves, as a species, as Homo sapiens, as the primary actors. We have entered radically foreign environments, yet we continue largely unchanged in our ways of thinking and our ways of acting. If we initiate exploration, colonization, and exploitation of other worlds without also rethinking our relationship with the environments we will share and all they offer, biological as well as physical, we will have missed a prospect for advancement. To many, providing representation for extraterrestrial biological entities seems a stretch of reason, but it is humbling to recall that in the nineteenth century, “the highest court in California explained that Chinese had not the right to testify against white men in criminal matters because they were a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point … between whom and ourselves nature has placed an impassable difference” [26]. Ethics has progressed to be more inclusive and there is little to argue that it would not continue to evolve to be even more comprehensive. As the current Dalai Lama has suggested, “we have to check our motivation and ensure that (our ethical) foundation is compassion, … (that we take) the widest possible perspective, … (and that) in the face of any real ethical challenge, we must respond in a spirit of humility, recognizing not only the limits of our knowledge (both collective and personal) but also our vulnerability to being misguided in the context of such a rapidly changing reality.”

Space exploration makes us reconsider what is ethical and what is not – extraterrestrials haven’t been relegate to terrestrial standards yet, and new standards must be established prior to discovery. Kramer, 2011 June 2011, Ph. D., University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Political Science, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (William R., Colonizing Mars – An opportunity for reconsidering bioethical standards and obligations to future generations, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328711000498, July 20, 2011)

First, utility: The degree of ethical consideration afforded non-human life is influenced by how useful such life is to humans, how much an individual organism is “worth” to humans and its “value” to humans. Conversely, where non-human life poses an economic obstacle, ethical consideration tends to be withheld. For example, in the West we generally apply a higher ethical standard when dealing with horses than we do with rats. There are laws hundreds of years old protecting horses from cruelty, but until very recently little was said of ethical standards directed at the protection of

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Pairodents. Current U.S. laws and practices serve primarily to caution that we house, use and kill them with a minimum of pain and trauma, but only when they are in our employ, such as in scientific experimentation. Wild rats are generally not addressed; wild horses often are. An example applicable to space is provided by the potential for forward contamination (biological contamination of outer space by Earth's microbes) due to unsterilized vehicles and equipment that may land or crash on bodies such as Mars. It has been argued that a high degree of sterilization is essential to keep Earth life inadvertently transported to Mars from confounding the ongoing search for Martian life and to decrease the chances that contamination might disrupt such alien life. That conservative approach of sterilizing vehicles to a higher standard, however, has been challenged as failing cost-benefit analyses; “Such a strategy will impose additional costs on an already strained (space exploration) program”. The conclusion discounts both the ethical consideration of possible alien entities in addition to the scientific and economic potentials they may offer. Second, cultural significance: The Hawai’ian kapu and ‘aumakua systems, in part, serve to protect certain species of wild animals, plants, and even inanimate objects such as rocks from human harm. While such practices serve to protect and preserve them, many other cultural practices strain ethical justification, such as maiming and sacrificing animals in religious practices and a variety of blood sports, such as dog, cock, and bull fighting staged for entertainment. In contrast, no extraterrestrial biological entity (with a few exceptions) plays a significant role in human culture; none are eaten, none are used in sacrificial or other ceremonies, none are actively hunted for sport or entertainment except in Hollywood productions. The exceptions would be the cultural significance of extraterrestrial bodies, such as the Moon and Sun, in a spiritual, religious, or artistic context. Third, our taxonomic classification systems are largely based on degrees of evolutionary relatedness, and that provides a valuable tool for understanding the diversity of Earth's organisms and their phylogenetic relationships. But taxonomic status is very much a human construct. Until recently, most taxonomic treatments placed humans at the topmost “branch of the tree” or at the apex of a pyramid of all species. Relegation of other species to various sub-levels has been influenced by the organisms’ relative relatedness to humans and an assumption of the degree of exhibited sentience (evidence that the organism perceives and reacts to its environment) and sapience (that it has developed sophisticated abilities to reason and be reflective) [24]. Higher ethical standards are generally applied to organisms “higher” up the evolutionary chain. We tend to confer greater ethical consideration to a bird than we do to a clam, there is very little consideration of plants unless they have cultural significance (such as revered trees), and microbial-scale life is afforded next to no ethical consideration at all [25] and [26]. Consideration is also often tempered by our assessment of the degree of physical pain and emotional trauma that an organism experiences. As our ability to detect such sensation in other organisms has increased, so has our ethical consideration. For example, vivisection of dogs is no longer considered the ethical procedure it was in much of Europe through the first half of the 17th Century. As stated by Jeremy Bentham in 1789, “The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?” [27]. That argues well for our history of ethical advancement, but also demonstrates that such behavior in the past was guided predominantly by our ability to detect and then acknowledge suffering. Without acknowledgement we were free to inflict our will with reduced ethical restraint. When in the realm of extraterrestrial entities, can we presume to make such judgments? The opportunity we now have is that extraterrestrial biological entities have yet to be discovered and, as such, they have no utility or utilitarian value or worth. We share no history with them; they are neither heroes nor villains in our cultures, so their place within the context of our cultures has not been established. They have no taxonomic status and have not, therefore, fallen into a possibly prejudicial preconception of “place” or ranking. And we have no measure of if they suffer physically or emotionally or if those terms are even appropriate or applicable. They are free in that they are unknown. However, the moment that extraterrestrial biological entities are discovered, opportunities to craft protocols and policies that foster enlightened relationships less biased and confined by predominantly utilitarian and exploitive motives and other influences will decrease. Compounding this immediacy, human–extraterrestrial relationships established at our first encounter have the incredible power of legal, political and cultural precedent; after discovery, it will become increasingly difficult to alter the aforementioned relationships as special interests become entrenched, bureaucracies calcify to match Earth-oriented protocols and priorities, procedures grow routine, and opportunities to critique motives diminish. It is not difficult to imagine the immense commercial pressure to afford less ethical consideration to an entity discovered at a prime mining site on Mars, for example, as opposed to one found in a far less valuable location, or a microbe-like form possessing enzymes that promise the potential of tremendous financial gains through patenting and industrial use contrasted with one of little obvious biochemical potential. We must, therefore, resolve our policies regarding extraterrestrial ethical issues prior to their discovery, before we know whether or not they exist; prior to learning of their possible commercial value and before we can assess their capacity for suffering. In the context of space exploration we are provided a rare moment to craft policies that reconsider what is ethical and what is not. Once extraterrestrials are discovered, such entities will rapidly be relegated to terrestrial ranking and an opportunity for creative and liberating new approaches to humans’ relationship with the greater biological universe will be lost until the next new world is “conquered.”

Overview effect makes humanity more environmentally consciousSpace.com 2006 (August 5, Space Tourism: Face Time With Earth, http://www.space.com/news/060805_space_ecotourism.html, )

Ask anybody that has blasted off Earth and shot into space...the view out the window is tremendous. Given the promise of privately built spaceships routinely skyrocketing from spaceports around the globe, rubbernecking customers will be afforded exceptional looks at Mother Earth and deep space. For some, it's flat out thrill. There's also the magic of microgravity as keepsake moments. And handheld photographs taken out windows can freeze-frame your personal space trek for later show-and-tell parties. But by all accounts, face time with Earth from space is a bonding experience. Author Frank White coined it the "Overview Effect" in his 1987 book, The Overview Effect - Space Exploration and Human Evolution. The book's pages capture the comments from space travelers about how viewing Earth from space affected perceptions of themselves, their planet of origin, and their own place in space and time. In love with our world The scenery from Earth orbit stirs up many thoughts, observed space traveler, Tom Jones, a veteran shuttle flyer and spacewalker, as well as author of the acclaimed book, Sky Walking: An Astronaut's Memoir (Smithsonian Books - Collins, February 2006). "On nearly every one of my 52 days in orbit, my most enjoyable time was spent viewing and photographing Earth from space," Jones told SPACE.com. Trained as a planetary scientist, he was most interested in the varied geologic provinces of the globe. "But it was impossible not to be struck by the sheer beauty of the scene laid out before me. The delicate appearance of the atmosphere, its clouds and storms, and the incredible palette of colors exhibited by the landscape and vegetation made me vividly aware of Earth's interrelated complexity, in a way that is impossible to gain by mere classroom study," Jones explained. Jones said that he launched spaceward prepared to study the planet...and returned truly in love with our world. "My overwhelming sense was of Earth's uniqueness as a harbor for life. As a resident of this world, it's impossible not to see it now as a place both graced and threatened by mankind," Jones said. "Becoming a space traveler nearly inescapably makes one an advocate for careful stewardship of our environment." Universal demand for windows The role of space ecotourism as a marketing theme has not gone unnoticed by spaceline operators. "We as a species couldn't survive on this planet now without space," said Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic -

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paithe Sir Richard Branson group that's busy selling seats on passenger-carrying suborbital SpaceShipTwo rocket planes. Look for a fleet of these spaceships to roll out the hangar doors at Scaled Composites of Mojave, California. The work is led by aerospace designer, Burt Rutan, and his team. First toted to high altitude for release by a huge carrier plane, a SpaceShipTwo will transport paying passengers - at $200,000 a seat - up to the edge of space and back down to terra firma. "Space is absolutely crucial to the survival of humankind given the level of population we have got," Whitehorn told SPACE.com. From monitoring Earth's weather and crop production to gauging climate change and helping to move goods and services around the globe - satellites have proven of colossal value, he added. "We wouldn't know about issues of the planet's safety if it wasn't for space," Whitehorn suggested. "From our point of view, the ecotourism fits well with suborbital space tourism flights. Many of the people who want to fly with us are very environmentally conscious." Whitehorn said there is a universal demand by customers for windows. "Being able to see the Earth from a viewing port is absolutely crucial." And in true "keep the customer satisfied" fashion, SpaceShipTwo designs will have loads of windows, even in the floor of the spacecraft, Whitehorn said. "You can view forwards, backwards and outwards in every direction." Environmentally friendly: air-launch The ecotourism theme also plays well when considering the role of air-launched spaceships - for both suborbital and eventual orbital trips. "Not only have you got an economic breakthrough in launch costs, but also we have to look at the environmental constraints that will be put upon the space industry, long-term," Whitehorn said. Given the projected launch rates of people and payloads, he added, ground-based rocketry and the effluents spewed into the air by those liftoffs - especially by solid fuel motors - will likely not be environmentally and politically acceptable within a generation, he predicted. Air-launched spaceships are "environmental breakthrough technology," said Stephen Attenborough, head of Astronaut Relations for Virgin Galactic. "It's environmentally thousands of times cleaner than any other system in the past," he told SPACE.com. Attenborough said that the tempo of the environmental debate can be enhanced by flying passengers into space. "In reading the accounts of astronauts, it's evidently a life-changing experience," Attenborough said. "They do come back with very firm views about the environment, the fragility of the atmosphere, our place in space, and ways of better managing the planet." The technology of SpaceShipTwo and its derivates, Attenborough noted, "may well be the key to actually exploiting space for the benefit of mankind...to a far greater degree than we've been able to do in the past, but without destroying the planet in the meantime."

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AT: China CP – Perm U.S. willing to co-op with China on Mars MissionsNews Post India ’11 (http://www.newspostindia.com/2011-05-07-united-states-china-may-jointly-undertake-mars-mission) Accessed 7/22/11

U.S. President Barack Obama views China as a potential partner for an eventual human mission to Mars that would be difficult for any single nation to undertake, a senior White House official told lawmakers.Testifying May 4 before the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice and science, White House science adviser John Holdren said near-term engagement with China in civil space will help lay the groundwork for any such future endeavor. He prefaced his remarks with the assertion that human exploration of Mars is a long-term proposition and that any discussion of cooperating with Beijing on such an effort is speculative.“(What) the president has deemed worth discussing with the Chinese and others is that when the time comes for humans to visit Mars, it’s going to be an extremely expensive proposition and the question is whether it will really make sense — at the time that we’re ready to do that — to do it as one nation rather than to do it in concert,” Holdren said in response to a question from Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a staunch China critic who chairs the powerful subcommittee that oversees NASA spending. Holdren, who said NASA could also benefit from cooperating with China on detection and tracking of orbital debris, stressed that any U.S. collaboration with Beijing in manned spaceflight would depend on future Sino-U.S. relations.

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AT: Privatization CP – Accountability Only the government can effectively run human spaceflight because it provides accountabilitySchmeiser 11, business and technology writer (Lisa Schmeiser, “Is the space race over for the U.S.?”, http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/62854 20 July 2011)

America needs to recommit to the space program on a national level. A renewed sense of purpose would ignite new generations of scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs. A heftier budget would kindle those sparks. So why should the government be heading up the next phase of manned space exploration? Why not private industry? First, the groundwork that has already been laid belongs to we, the people. Taxpayers funded American space exploration. It is a national asset, not something to be given away for private profit. Secondly, space operations sponsored by NASA are accountable to the American people in a way that private operations would not be. Space exploration is lethal. There will be casualties in the future. Loss of life should never be reduced to the cost of doing business. We will lose intrepid explorers, and when we do, their deaths need to count for something. In a culture of public accountability -- which NASA had, and has -- people have to take responsibility for their work. Transparency in both triumphs and setbacks is the way in which every American maintains their ownership in the mission, and it provides mutual accountability between Americans and space explorers. By contrast, when private industry takes over the manned space exploration game, their catastrophic accidents can be hidden or regarded as an unfortunate condition of reaching profitability.For the past 40 years, NASA has worked with the challenges of a comparatively tiny budget and the restrictions of aging technology pushed to, or past, its limits. Imagine what it could do if better funded and allowed to embrace some of the most successful traits of the private tech sector today.America's identity ultimately rests in its citizens' embracing ideas -- those about freedom, which manifest themselves both in the rights we take for granted and the risks our explorers have taken for decades. Our economy is powered by ideas. Let's boost both by recommitting to our country's space program.

NASA is moving towards private sectors Singla, Jul 2011, CNBC (Vinita Singla, CNBC, NASA Takes a New Route in Space Leadership, http://www.cnbc.com/id/43470129/NASA_Takes_a_New_Route_in_Space_Leadership, July 24, 2011)

The end of NASA’s space shuttle program will limit U.S. manned flight in the short term but is unlikely to threaten the country's long-term competitiveness in the space sector. Washington is actively promoting the privatization of lower orbital space flight as it redirects billions of dollars on next generation projects to explore deep, or outer, space, while counting on a continuation of international cooperation on big-budget, R&D projects as the International Space Station, or ISS. "NASA feels strongly that it is time to do things differently and get out of owning and operating low-Earth orbit transportation and hand that off to the private sector," says NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz. "As we move forward, we will continue the United States' leadership in space and derive all the benefits that flow from it. Tomorrow's space program is taking shape right now." President Obama is an outspoken booster of the space program and supports a 2011 NASA budget close to its 2010 level; he has challenged NASA to duplicate past glory and prowess by exploring deep space and reaching Mars by the 2030s. Current U.S. space spending, including the proposed $19 billion NASA budget, dwarfs that of other countries. At the same time, however, existing and potential rivals such as Russia, China, India and the U.K. are ratcheting up spending as America's budget flattens. That disparity is causing concern in some quarters, as is other countries' willingness to share technology and an over-reliance on the privatization strategy. For one, skeptics point out that it will be several years before the private sector has built a craft capable of taking U.S. astronauts to the ISS. In the meantime, the U.S. will pay for rides on Russia's Soyuz craft, as it has been doing since 2009. "We will be buying seats on Soyuz and are temporarily out of competition. Down the line when new technologies and new spacecraft are approved and implemented we could conceivably jump ahead again," says Janet Stevens of the Space Foundation. “From a national pride perspective, it’s a blow." NASA's position on the space station transportation issue is simply that the U.S. needs to stop "outsourcing this work to foreign governments," says Schierholz. Contracts between NASA and private companies are already in place.

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AT: Privatization CP – Fed Key Government key- structural roadblocks prevent private involvement in such a large mission. Choi, 11, Writer for Astrobiology Magazing, (Charles, “Red Planet for Sale? How Corporate Sponsors Could Send Humans to Mars” http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/news/redplanetforsalehowcorporatesponsorscouldsendhumanstomars, Acc 7/25) NHAstronauts have never set foot on Mars, and like the Apollo missions that sent men to the moon, the mission to Mars would need teams of engineers and other scientists working together over many years, with cost concerns more about staying under a projected budget than earning big profits. Governments also pioneered space travel due to the risky and untested aspects of venturing into such territory. Only after pushing boundaries to make voyages into space safer, more routine and less expensive, could business go where they once feared to tread. “I think it likely most people would find it difficult to conceive there wouldn’t be any government involvement in such a mission,” said space-law expert Timothy Nelson at New York-based law firm Skadden. “The possession of a rocket alone would probably trip you up on the military regulations that govern the ownership of missile technology in the United States. Not to sound too cynical, but space rockets were built as a byproduct of the arms race.”

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AT: Privatization CP – No Solvency CP doesn’t solve – no plan for success or metric to measure itWu, Apr 15, 2010, represented Oregon’s 1st Congressional District (David, “Debate: Obama's Space Privatization Plan Is a Costly Mistak’e” http://www.aolnews.com/2010/04/15/debate-obamas-space-privatization-plan-is-a-costly-mistake/, 7/25/11)

In place of Constellation, the Obama administration supports the development of commercial capabilities for delivering Americans to the space station and beyond. This may sound good rhetorically, but it fails to meet the standards of sound space policy. The president's plan to privatize space exploration rests on ill-defined objectives and unsubstantiated assumptions. For instance, the administration has not adequately explained where the space program's shifted trajectory will lead our nation and cannot explain how its plan affects our nation's previously established goals of returning humans to the moon by 2020 and some day sending astronauts to Mars and beyond. Without clearly defined goals, including specific destinations and timelines for reaching them, how can we ensure that taxpayers are receiving an adequate return on their investments in space exploration? It is simply unwise to carry out such a dramatic shift in how our nation conducts space exploration without a clear objective in mind . More concerning is the administration's inability to explain what assumptions were used in developing its proposed commercial crew-delivery strategy . In testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee on Feb. 25, NASA administrator Charles Bolden admitted that his agency had not conducted a single market survey on the potential costs of privatizing space exploration. Instead, the administration relied solely on information provided by the aerospace industry when formulating its plans for privatizing the human spaceflight program. While these estimates may indeed be accurate, we cannot know for sure what the potential costs associated with this dramatic move will be without independent, unbiased estimates. Simply put, the president's vision lacks clearly defined objectives and metrics for measuring success. The administration cannot adequately explain where the space program's shifted focus will lead. And the president's justification for privatizing human space exploration relies on the proverbial fox guarding the hen house. The American people deserve better. The Constellation program is not perfect. But putting all of our eggs in a private-sector basket is simply too risky a gamble. If the president's plan is implemented, we would be jeopardizing our nation's lead in space exploration, and we would be jeopardizing our children's future. The space program encourages us to reach for the stars in both our dreams and our actions. It helps drive innovation, and it challenges us to find creative solutions to technological challenges . Moreover, it inspires America's next generation of scientists and engineers to pursue their passions -- something we must have if our nation is to compete in the 21st century global economy . The president's plan to privatize our spaceflight program will hinder our nation's ability to remain at the forefront of human achievement for generations to come. We must reconsider.

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AT: Privatization CP – Russia DA Privatization of space industry increases conflicts and forces US to depend on Russia Pouzanov ’11 (International Affairs, No. 1, Vol.0057, 2011, page(s): 238-250, “Russia-U.S. Space Partnership”, http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/24551613)

The decision of the Obama Administration to entrust the development of new transport spacecraft to private companies can increase the number of such conflicts, because the ISS program keeps making changes, while private companies must fulfill their obligations to clients. Contracts have been signed with top space corporations, yet no significant results have appeared so far. Before real flights to the ISS begin, spacecraft must be certified, yet they are undergoing only ground tests for the moment. Only three space shuttle flights are left (February, April, and summer of 2011), and no planned replacement exists so far. The lack of American cargo spacecraft may create problems for the US, especially given the highly political nature of the project. Dependence on Russia is totally unacceptable for many American citizens and congressmen. The Russian side has also tried to get the most out of its partner, which has not helped matters, either, even though such an approach is understandable. As of late, there has arisen a certain tension between the international participants of the space project, who are trying to define their territories clearly, although this is hardly possible. Russia has transport vehicles yet very limited communication possibilities, and power is also mostly provided by U.S. solar cells. Countries have begun once again to measure their contributions to determine what others owe them. Moreover, certain participants are unhappy about their share of space time on board the ISS and have asked for more.

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AT: Privatization CP – NASA Key Aerospace Industries rely on spinoff technology first developed by NASABlakey, 2011 (Marion, President and CEO of Aerospace Industries Association, http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2011/03/federal-barriers-to-innovation.html?page=2

Here in D.C., federal contractors often get caught up in the latest agency rule or other decree that governs our businesses. These day-to-day issues – as important as they are – are a world away from the building blocks that have made our enterprises successful. So, what am I talking about? Whether you’re in aerospace and defense, telecom or some other high technology industry, innovation has and always will be core to success. For aerospace, innovation has been our lifeblood since the Wright Brothers’ first forays into flight. Transformation of innovative concepts and technologies into enhanced national security capabilities to support the warfighter often begin at NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA. Spin-offs eventually find their way to the commercial marketplace — to everyone’s benefit. It’s difficult to conceive of a military or civilian world devoid of the Internet, stealth or GPS. And yet, obstacles to such innovation seem to be growing. My first example is an obvious one: Pressures on the federal budget, which may put at risk funding for important precompetitive and inherently risky technologies, which carry enormous promise if only they can be better researched . Regulatory and administrative policies and processes that discourage investments that lead to innovation are also significant barriers. As organizational expert Margaret Wheatley said, “The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity.” Also diminishing the industry's ability to support innovation is the U.S. tax policy. The Tax Code must foster competitiveness, such as a much-needed permanent research and development tax credit, rather than produce disincentives for U.S.-based investment and job creation. And finally, a particularly troubling constraint to innovation is in attracting a talented science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce. A highly-skilled STEM culture is essential to our national security, prosperity, and ability to innovate . Northrop Grumman CEO and President Wes Bush said it best a few weeks ago in a speech to the Northern Virginia Technology Council: “… for many critical skills, there is no substitute for actually building something. If we don’t have new projects, those skills will atrophy.” For contractors, innovation requires a partnership with federal government. The Defense Department in particular, rather than imposing a burden on industry through the imposition of overreaching regulations that hobble industry and increase costs, should reward creativity and performance, promote fairness and stability and create incentives for cost savings and equitable risk-reward relationships. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Under Secretary Ash Carter deserve credit for their efforts with the Efficiency Initiative, which seeks to make the department smarter in its program planning and acquisitions, but more needs to be done to make doing business with DOD a sound value proposition, especially in today’s economic environment. So as you hurry to your next meeting or contemplate the next difficult business decision on your plate, it’s worth taking a moment to consider how innovation drives your business. The external barriers I’ve just described are not insignificant and if not addressed will make a real difference to your bottom line.

Space Privatization Fails, NASA key to technological InnovationWu 2010, (David, US Representative, Debate: Obama’s Space Privatization plan is a costly mistake, AOL news, http://www.aolnews.com/2010/04/15/debate-obamas-space-privatization-plan-is-a-costly-mistake/)

The president's plan to privatize space exploration rests on ill-defined objectives and unsubstantiated assumptions . For instance, the administration has not adequately explained where the space program's shifted trajectory will lead our nation and cannot explain how its plan affects our nation's previously established goals of returning humans to the moon by 2020 and some day sending astronauts to Mars and beyond. Without clearly defined goals, including specific destinations and timelines for reaching them, how can we ensure that taxpayers are receiving an adequate return on their investments in space exploration? It is simply unwise to carry out such a dramatic shift in how our nation conducts space exploration without a clear objective in mind. More concerning is the administration's inability to explain what assumptions were used in developing its proposed commercial crew-delivery strategy. In testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee on Feb. 25, NASA administrator Charles Bolden admitted that his agency had not conducted a single market survey on the potential costs of privatizing space exploration. Instead, the administration relied solely on information provided by the aerospace industry when formulating its plans for privatizing the human spaceflight program. While these estimates may indeed be accurate, we cannot know for sure what the potential costs associated with this dramatic move will be without independent, unbiased estimates . Simply put, the president's vision lacks clearly defined objectives and metrics for measuring success. The administration cannot adequately explain where the space program's shifted focus will lead. And the president's justification for privatizing human space exploration relies on the proverbial fox guarding the hen house. The American people deserve better. The Constellation program is not perfect. But putting all of our eggs in a private-sector basket is simply too risky a gamble. If the president's plan is implemented, we would be jeopardizing our nation's lead in space exploration, and we would be jeopardizing our children's future. The space program encourages us to reach for the stars in both our dreams and our actions. It helps drive innovation, and it challenges us to find creative solutions to technological challenges. Moreover, it inspires America's next generation of scientists and engineers to pursue their passions -- something we must have if our nation is to compete in the 21st century global economy. The president's plan to privatize our spaceflight program will hinder our nation's ability to remain at the forefront of human achievement for generations to come. We must reconsider.

Privatization currently killing NASAWu, Apr 15, 2010, represented Oregon’s 1st Congressional District (David, “Debate: Obama's Space Privatization Plan Is a Costly Mistak’e” http://www.aolnews.com/2010/04/15/debate-obamas-space-privatization-plan-is-a-costly-mistake/, 7/25/11)

In place of Constellation, the Obama administration supports the development of commercial capabilities for delivering Americans to the space station and beyond. This may sound good rhetorically, but it fails to meet the standards of sound space policy. The president's plan to privatize space exploration rests on ill-defined objectives and unsubstantiated assumptions. For instance, the administration has not adequately explained where the space program's shifted trajectory will lead our nation and cannot explain how its plan affects our nation's previously established goals of returning humans to the moon by 2020 and some day sending astronauts to Mars and beyond. Without clearly defined goals, including specific destinations and timelines for reaching them, how can we ensure that taxpayers are receiving an adequate return on their investments in space exploration? It is simply unwise to carry out such a dramatic shift in how our nation conducts space exploration without a clear objective in mind. More concerning is the administration's inability to explain what assumptions were used in developing its proposed commercial crew-delivery strategy. In testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee on Feb. 25, NASA administrator Charles Bolden admitted that his agency had not conducted a single market survey on the potential costs of privatizing space exploration. Instead, the administration relied solely on information provided by the aerospace industry when formulating its plans for privatizing the human spaceflight program. While these estimates may indeed be accurate, we cannot know for sure what the potential costs associated with this dramatic move will be without independent, unbiased estimates. Simply put, the president's vision lacks clearly defined objectives and metrics for

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paimeasuring success. The administration cannot adequately explain where the space program's shifted focus will lead. And the president's justification for privatizing human space exploration relies on the proverbial fox guarding the hen house. The American people deserve better. The Constellation program is not perfect. But putting all of our eggs in a private-sector basket is simply too risky a gamble. If the president's plan is implemented, we would be jeopardizing our nation's lead in space exploration, and we would be jeopardizing our children's future. The space program encourages us to reach for the stars in both our dreams and our actions. It helps drive innovation, and it challenges us to find creative solutions to technological challenges . Moreover, it inspires America's next generation of scientists and engineers to pursue their passions -- something we must have if our nation is to compete in the 21st century global economy. The president's plan to privatize our spaceflight program will hinder our nation's ability to remain at the forefront of human achievement for generations to come. We must reconsider.

NASA a key agent – privatization failsMcLane, 2010 (Jim, Engineer at NASA, Could a mission to Mars be funded commercially?, Universe Today, http://www.universetoday.com/75263/could-a-human-mars-mission-be-funded-commercially/)

Private money could jump start a manned Mars mission,” McLane said, “but persuading billionaires to invest based on some speculative financial return is doomed to fail. I believe rich folks might be willing to help pay to put a human on Mars, but the motivations would be philanthropy and patriotism, not financial gain. Several wealthy citizens might contribute seed money (say a quarter billion dollars or so) to finance a detailed study of the design options for a one way human mission – a concept that thus far NASA refuses to consider. Such a study would reveal the technical practicality of the one-way mission and the relative cheapness of the approach. The study would probably show that a human presence on Mars would cost little more than a human moon base assuming the same 10 year time span for accomplishing both programs.”

NASA is the key agent, no others can solveBraun, 2010, (Robert D., Chief Technologist of NASA Spinoff 2010, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2010/pdf/Spinoff2010.pdf, 7/21/11)

As a research and development agency, NASA plays a vital role in America’s innovation engine and, as such, its future economic prosperity and security. The President’s FY 2011 budget request for NASA is part of a larger national research and development effort in science, technology, and innovation that will lead to new products and services, new business and industries, and high-quality, sustainable jobs. NASA’s new technology and innovation investments are required to enable new approaches to NASA’s current aeronautics, science, and exploration missions and allow the Agency to pursue entirely new missions including sending humans into deep space to compelling destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and Mars. In tandem with these technology investments, NASA will continue to ensure an American presence in space aboard the International Space Station and empower a robust and competitive American com- mercial space program. NASA’s new Space Technology programs will foster cutting-edge, competitively sponsored research and tech- nology development efforts in academia, industry, the NASA Centers, and other government entities, rebuilding our core competencies and allowing innovative techno- logical solutions to today’s challenges. These new space technology investments will create a more vital and pro- ductive aerospace industry and address broader national needs, such as energy, health and wellness, and national security. NASA’s technology, expertise, and facilities are already a valuable national asset with a long history of providing innovation and inspiration for the good of the American public. Since its first days, NASA has nurtured partner- ships with the private sector to facilitate the transfer of its technologies to improve the lives of Americans and people around the world.

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AT: Privatization CP – Humans Key Human space flight is key to innovation – Robots can’t solve Crawford, 2010, (Ian A., Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Birkbeck College, Astrobiological Benefits of Human Space Exploration, http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ast.2010.0476, 7/21/11)

An ambitious program of human space exploration, such as that envisaged in the Global Exploration Strategy and considered in the Augustine Commission report, will help advance the core aims of astrobiology in multiple ways. In particular, a human exploration program will confer significant benefits in the following areas: (i) the exploitation of the lunar geological record to elucidate conditions on early Earth; (ii) the detailed study of near-Earth objects for clues relating to the formation of the Solar System; (iii) the search for evidence of past or present life on Mars; (iv) the provision of a heavy-lift launch capacity that will facilitate exploration of the outer Solar System; and (v) the construction and maintenance of sophisticated space-based astronomical tools for the study of extrasolar planetary systems. In all these areas a human presence in space, and especially on planetary surfaces, will yield a net scientific benefit over what can plausibly be achieved by autonomous robotic systems. A number of policy implications follow from these conclusions, which are also briefly con- sidered.

Manned Mars missions generate more data than robotic missions, and inspire generations to comeEhlmann, 3/8/05, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Washington University (Bethany, “Humans to Mars: A feasibility and cost–benefit analysis”, http://www.sc-eco.univ-nantes.fr/~tvallee/Calcul/doc/Humans%20to%20Mars%20%20A%20feasibility%20and%20cost%96benefit%20analysis.pdf)

It is argued that machined missions are less expensive and are thus the preferred method of exploration , following the NASA’s former “faster, cheaper, and better” motto. However, if machined missions are subject to technical limitations and fail to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, then are they really the better method of exploration? Even as machines become more autonomous and self-sustaining, a machine will not soon have the ability to behave as an innovative and adaptive scientist, quickly synthesizing information and shifting from one pursuit to another [9]. With training, a human can operate tens to hundreds of pieces of equipment. This can be compared to the Mars Exploration Rovers that landed in 2004 and carry a payload of five scientific instruments and a rock abrasion tool. By virtue of superior mobility, planning and analytical capability, and an ability to shift context, for example from microscopic sand grains to cliff rock strata, a human Mars explorer would greatly increase scientific data volume. Sending humans does increase the magnitude of the negative effects of a mission failure, however. This fact increases the hesitancy of political leaders to underwrite a mission. For that reason, further justification for a human mission to Mars than simply science objectives is required.

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AT: Privatization CP – Privatization Fails Privatizing Companies doesn’t work, empirically proven Handlin, 10 , space writer and college student (Daniel, “Looking For A Silver Bullet”, The Space Review, 5/3, “The Space Review”, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1619/1)

TSPR was an idea hatched in the days of the Clinton Administration as part of an attempt to drastically reduce the cost of defense acquisition in the aftermath of the Cold War. The underlying premise behind TSPR was that too much money was being spent on government employees who specialized in defense acquisition and who oversaw defense contracts let to private companies. Instead of relying on government to oversee the development of weapons systems, TSPR had the contractor itself totally responsible for the performance of the system it delivered—hence Total System Performance Responsibility. This is quite reminiscent of what the Obama Administration is proposing; rather than have NASA oversee spacecraft development at each contractor, NASA will simply specify its requirements and then let the private contractors take responsibility for delivering the spacecraft, supposedly precipitating huge economies in cost and time.Except, TSPR did not work. In fact, not only did it not work, but as former Martin Marietta head A. Thomas Young recently stated before the House Science and Technology Committee, “Projects were a disaster and TSPR was judged by all to be a total failure.” In essence, what happened is that the USAF and NRO eliminated many of their key project managers and systems engineers, thereby losing decades of institutional knowledge and memory for systems engineering and management of large-scale space projects. Space projects that were “beneficiaries” of the TSPR approach include the Future Imagery Architecture (which the New York Times called “the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects”), the NPOESS weather satellite, (whose cost had increased by about $7 billion—more than 100%—since its inception in 1994, and which was cancelled in February) and SBIRS High (which a 2003 DoD report said “could be considered a case study for how not to execute a space program”—and it was only about $1 billion and 33% over budget when that report was written; today it is more than $7.5 billion over budget and nearly a decade behind schedule). NASA, of course, does not develop its spacecraft in house. As the president himself pointed out during his KSC speech, since the dawn of the Space Age NASA has always had private contractors develop its manned spacecraft, from McDonnell’s Mercury to North American’s Apollo to Lockheed Martin’s Orion. While NASA has had a key role in setting the design parameters for these spacecraft, at the end of the day it is the private companies that executed the detailed design and construction. It is thus unclear what advantage would accrue in letting private companies “develop spacecraft for LEO access” unless NASA were to withdraw the stifling bureaucratic and governmental overhead that causes government acquisition to be so expensive in the first place. In other words, the new Obama paradigm will have private companies, using government funding but without the overhead of government management, delivering technically complex space systems for a single-customer market.

Humans key to Mars Mission, allows for more scientific returnLevine, 4/12/11 (Joel S., senior research scientist in the Science Directorate of NASA's Langley Research Center, The Exploration of Mars by Humans: Why Mars? Why Humans?, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/the-exploration-of-mars-by-humans-why-mars-why-humans/237143/)

Why humans? Humans are unique scientific explorers and observers. Humans have unique capabilities for performing scientific measurements, observations and sample collecting. Human attributes needed for exploration and scientific discovery include: intelligence, adaptability, agility, dexterity, cognition, patience, problem solving in real-time, in situ analyses -- more science in less time. Humans can obtain previously unobtainable scientific measurements on the surface of Mars. Humans possess the abilities to adapt to new and unexpected situations in new and strange environments, they can make real-time decisions, have strong recognition abilities and are intelligent. Humans can perform detailed and precise measurements of the surface, subsurface and atmosphere while on the surface of Mars with state-of-the-art scientific equipment and instrumentation brought from Earth. The increased laboratory ability on Mars that humans offer would allow for dramatically more scientific return within the established sample return limits. The scientific exploration of Mars by humans would be performed as a synergistic partnership between humans and robotic probes, controlled by the human explorers on the surface of Mars. Robotic probes could explore terrains and features not suitable or too risky for human exploration. Under human control, robotic probes could traverse great distances from the human habitat covering distances/terrain too risky for human exploration and return rock and dust samples for analysis and interpretation to the habitat from great distances. The Apollo experience showed the great value of humans in the scientific exploration and discovery process on other worlds.

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AT: Private Sector CP – Perm Private sector CPs not mutually exclusive – Private sectors and the government must work together Olson 5/04/10 Member of the Republican party (Pete, US must remain the global leader in exploring space, http://thehill.com/special-reports/technology-may-2010/96035-us-must-remain-the-global-leader-in-exploring-space, 7/25/11)

Make no mistake, the government and the private sector roles are not mutually exclusive: They are parts to the equation. In fact throughout its existence, NASA has partnered successfully with industry to develop and complete the missions we have given the agency. Human space exploration is not solely a government one. The partnership with commercial entities is critical, and the efforts and work of commercial providers should be commended, both as partners in the Constellation program and for those working to send cargo to the International Space Station and eventually humans into orbit. When President Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, a major component was an increased participation by the commercial sector, first in cargo missions to the station, and eventually crewed missions. The 2005 and 2008 NASA Authorization Acts supported those goals. They were worthy goals then, and they are even more so today. A balance between government and private enterprise is good and will continue. But understanding who takes the lead is critical, and that is what is being changed in this new proposal. Once private sector companies demonstrate they can safely meet the goals NASA has met, the private sector can take it over, and NASA can move on to the next challenge. This balance will keep our workforce motivated, enhance the private/civil space program partnership and, ultimately, be a better use of taxpayer dollars.

NASA is cooperating with private sectors and creating successful missions more Kluger, Dec 2010, Time (Jeffrey Kluger, Astronauts Inc.: The Private Sector Muscles Out NASA, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2037089,00.html#ixzz1TAVDFGYY, July 15, 2011)

So it was something of a departure last week when, after an unmanned version of what may well be the next spacecraft that will carry American astronauts into orbit took off from Cape Canaveral and returned home safely, the first official dispatch read simply: "SPLASHDOWN!!!" Unfamiliar too was how the announcement was made: it was a tweet. That tonal change was by no means the most important thing that made the launch of the fancifully named Falcon 9 booster and Dragon space capsule different from all the granddaddy Saturns and Titans that have gone before it. Far more significant was that this ship was privately designed and privately built, the brainchild of the California-based rocketry start-up SpaceX, owned and operated by engineer Elon Musk, who also created PayPal. If old NASA hands winced at this kind of giddy talk, they kept it to themselves — and wisely so. In the face of contracting federal budgets and an expanding private sector, the space agency of the golden years is being blown up and rethought — transformed from a government operation into a public-private partnership that, so its advocates say, will replace the politics, stodginess and glacial pace of Washington with the speed, nimbleness and accountability of the marketplace. But even old-school rocketeers — including Griffin himself — recognize the current reality, which is that without the private sector, America may simply not have the wallet to put human beings into space for a very long time. Giving private companies skin in the game may be an inevitable step if we don't want to become an earthbound nation, but what worries detractors is whether it's a prudent one. The privatization of at least some of the manned space program has been inevitable for a while — particularly since 2003, when the loss of the shuttle Columbia made it clear that the entire aging shuttle fleet was becoming too risky to fly. NASA had made only the sketchiest plans for a shuttle replacement, so in 2006, Griffin created an office called Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) within the agency to draw private companies into the business of helping to deliver cargo and crew to the International Space Station, even as NASA developed its own Earth-orbital rockets too. "It's a historical truth that government goes into those areas in which there is no private-sector profit motive, and the private sector follows behind," says Phil McAlister, acting director of NASA's Commercial Space Flight Development team. "We think the time is right to transition that part to the private sector."

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AT: International CP – US Key The US is the best possible actor, because a majority of NASA’s missions are based on international cooperationRendleman 2010 colonel for USAF (James, Improving International Space Cooperation, http://strategicspacesolutions.com/Public-papers/Intl-Space-Coop%206-5-10.pdf, July 22, 2011)

The hope in international projects is that one plus one will equal three—that the diverse resources, skills, and technologies of the partners will achieve synergy, adding up to more than the sum of their parts.8 NASA as an institution certainly believes in the promise of cooperation. Of its forty-two on-going space and Earth science missions, over half have international participation. Of missions it has under development, nearly two-thirds involve international contribution and participation. Much of the astronomy and astrophysics community is gratified to see that NASA is leveraging and expanding international investments in its great science enterprise.9

US space leadership requires independent accomplishments – NASA agreesNASA, ’11 (Leadership in Space, http://history.nasa.gov/riderep/leadspac.htm, 7/24/2011)

The United States has clearly lost leadership in these two areas, and is in danger of being surpassed in many others during the next several years. The National Space Policy of 1982, which “establishes the basic goals of United States policy,” includes the directive to “maintain United States space leadership.” It further specifies that “the United States is fully committed to maintaining world leadership in space transportation,” and that the civilian space program “shall be conducted ... to preserve the United States leadership in critical aspects of space science, applications, and technology.” Leadership cannot simply be proclaimed - it must be earned. As NASA evaluates its goals and objectives within the framework of the National Space Policy, the agency must first understand what is required to “maintain U.S. space leadership,” since that understanding will direct the selection of national objectives. Leadership does not require that the U.S. be preeminent in all areas and disciplines of space enterprise. In fact, the broad spectrum of space activities and the increasing number of spacefaring nations make it virtually impossible for any nation to dominate in this way. Being an effective leader does mandate, however, that this country have capabilities which enable it to act independently and impressively when and where it chooses, and that its goals be capable of inspiring others - at home and abroad - to support them. It is essential for this country to move promptly to determine its priorities and to make conscious choices to pursue a set of objectives which will restore its leadership status. Leadership results from both the capabilities a country has acquired and the active demonstration of those capabilities; accordingly, the United States must have, and also be perceived as having, the ability to meet its goals and achieve its objectives. A U.S. space leadership program must have two distinct attributes. First, it must contain a sound program of scientific research and technology development - a program that builds the nation’s understanding of space and the space environment, and that builds its capabilities to explore and operate in that environment. The United States will not be a leader in the 21st Century if it is dependent on other countries for access to space or for the technologies required to explore the space frontier. Second, the program must incorporate visible and significant accomplishments; the United States will not be perceived as a leader unless it accomplishes feats which demonstrate prowess, inspire national pride, and engender international respect and a worldwide desire to associate with U.S. space activities.

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AT: International CP – Perm The US must be involved in any mission relating to Mars—they have had more successes on Mars than any other country O’Neill 08, space producer for Discovery News and British solar physicist (Ian, “The “Mars Curse”: Why Have So Many Missions Failed?” http://www.universetoday.com/13267/the-mars-curse-why-have-so-many-missions-failed/ 23 July 2011)

To date, 26 of the 43 missions to Mars (that’s a whopping 60%) have either failed or only been partially successful in the years since the first Marsnik 1 attempt by the Soviet Union in 1960. In total the USA/NASA has flown 20 missions, six were lost (70% success rate); the Soviet Union/Russian Federation flew 18, only two orbiters (Mars 2 and 3) were a success (11% success rate); the two ESA missions, Mars Express, and Rosetta (fly-by) were both a complete success; the single Japanese mission, Nozomi, in 1998 suffered complications en-route and never reached Mars; and the British lander, Beagle 2, famously went AWOL in 2003. Despite the long list of failed missions, the vast majority of lost missions to Mars occurred during the early “pioneering” years of space exploration. Each mission failure was taken on board and used to improve the next and now we are entering an era where mission success is becoming the “norm”. NASA currently has two operational satellites around Mars, Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The European Mars Express is also in orbit. The Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to explore the Martian landscape as their mission keeps on getting extended. Recent mission losses, such as the British Beagle 2, are inevitable when we look at how complex and challenging sending robotic explorers into the unknown. There will always be a degree of human error, technology failure and a decent helping of bad fortune, but we seem to be learning from our mistakes and moving forward. There definitely seems to be an improving trend toward mission success over mission failure. Perhaps, with technological advancement and a little bit of luck, we are overcoming the Mars Curse and keeping the Galactic Ghoul at bay as we gradually gain a strong foothold on a planet we hope to colonize in the not-so-distant future…

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AT: Private Sector CP – Bureaucracy blocks Private companies fail – can’t deal with the bureaucratic roadblocks that prevent tech spinoffsHandlin, 10 - space writer and college student (Daniel, “Looking For A Silver Bullet”, The Space Review, 5/3, “The Space Review”, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1619/1)

TSPR was an idea hatched in the days of the Clinton Administration as part of an attempt to drastically reduce the cost of defense acquisition in the aftermath of the Cold War. The underlying premise behind TSPR was that too much money was being spent on government employees who specialized in defense acquisition and who oversaw defense contracts let to private companies. Instead of relying on government to oversee the development of weapons systems, TSPR had the contractor itself totally responsible for the performance of the system it delivered—hence Total System Performance Responsibility. This is quite reminiscent of what the Obama Administration is proposing; rather than have NASA oversee spacecraft development at each contractor, NASA will simply specify its requirements and then let the private contractors take responsibility for delivering the spacecraft, supposedly precipitating huge economies in cost and time.Except, TSPR did not work. In fact, not only did it not work, but as former Martin Marietta head A. Thomas Young recently stated before the House Science and Technology Committee, “Projects were a disaster and TSPR was judged by all to be a total failure.” In essence, what happened is that the USAF and NRO eliminated many of their key project managers and systems engineers, thereby losing decades of institutional knowledge and memory for systems engineering and management of large-scale space projects. Space projects that were “beneficiaries” of the TSPR approach include the Future Imagery Architecture (which the New York Times called “the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects”) , the NPOESS weather satellite, (whose cost had increased by about $7 billion—more than 100%—since its inception in 1994, and which was cancelled in February) and SBIRS High (which a 2003 DoD report said “could be considered a case study for how not to execute a space program”—and it was only about $1 billion and 33% over budget when that report was written; today it is more than $7.5 billion over budget and nearly a decade behind schedule).

NASA, of course, does not develop its spacecraft in house. As the president himself pointed out during his KSC speech, since the dawn of the Space Age NASA has always had private contractors develop its manned spacecraft, from McDonnell’s Mercury to North American’s Apollo to Lockheed Martin’s Orion. While NASA has had a key role in setting the design parameters for these spacecraft, at the end of the day it is the private companies that executed the detailed design and construction. It is thus unclear what advantage would accrue in letting private companies “develop spacecraft for LEO access” unless NASA were to withdraw the stifling bureaucratic and governmental overhead that causes government acquisition to be so expensive in the first place. In other words, the new Obama paradigm will have private companies, using government funding but without the overhead of government management, delivering technically complex space systems for a single-customer market.

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AT: Private Sector CP – Greed Private Mars Mission bad, Greed and lack of regulation hinder scientific progressKiger, 5/10/11 (Patrick J., Science Writer and contributor to many publications from the LA Times to Discovery.com, “Is this a good idea? A private mission to Mars?”, http://blogs.discovery.com/good_idea/2011/05/is-this-a-good-idea-a-private-mission-to-mars.html)

I also can think of a lot of reasons why allowing the private sector to explore and possibly colonize Mars could be a bad idea , as well. For one, the primary purpose of such a venture would have to be generating a profit, rather than simply acquiring knowledge and making it available to scientists all over the world. What if private Mars explorers chose to keep their research data proprietary and gave access only to those willing to pay a hefty price? That could stunt scientific progress. Additionally, there aren't any government regulatory agencies on Mars to oversee how a commercial colony and protect workers or the Martian environment. We could end up with a 21st-century version of the Dutch East India Company, the outfit that basically was given free license to commit all sorts of crimes to benefit its shareholders.

Profit motive ensures technology is hoarded by the ‘haves’ – replicates Dutch East India Company with no regulations protecting workers rights.Zubrin, 2011, founder of the National Space Society (Robert, “Is this a good idea? A private mission to Mars?” http://blogs.discovery.com/good_idea/2011/05/is-this-a-good-idea-a-private-mission-to-mars.html, 7/25/11)

I also can think of a lot of reasons why allowing the private sector to explore and possibly colonize Mars could be a bad idea, as well. For one, the primary purpose of such a venture would have to be generating a profit, rather than simply acquiring knowledge and making it available to scientists all over the world. What if private Mars explorers chose to keep their research data proprietary and gave access only to those willing to pay a hefty price? That could stunt scientific progress. Additionally, there aren't any government regulatory agencies on Mars to oversee how a commercial colony and protect workers or the Martian environment. We could end up with a 21st-century version of the Dutch East India Company, the outfit that basically was given free license to commit all sorts of crimes to benefit its shareholders. (Here's an insightful blog post by libertarian commentator Bonnie Kristian on that subject.)

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AT: Private Sector CP – Economic returns NASA is the best place for the government to spend money, and has previously provided a return on the investmentWhittington, 7/16/11 (Mark R., author of The Last Moonwalker and a BA in History, Do Commercial Spin-offs Help Justify Projects like NASA's Space Shuttle?, http://news.yahoo.com/commercial-spin-offs-help-justify-projects-nasas-space-164200551.html)

The spin-off argument has occasionally been oversold, but it is not a frivolous one. Various studies about the economic effects of the Apollo program, including one done by Chase Econometrics in the 1970s, suggest that Apollo actually delivered more economic value to the American economy than it cost. That is a remarkable feat for any government program. Whether the space shuttle program, which cost upwards to $200 billion, has had a similar effect is yet to be determined. A study of the shuttle program along the lines of Apollo would be interesting and revealing, however. Some space program critics suggest, with some justification, that building and launching rockets is an inefficient way to get heart pumps, sleeker trucks, and other spin-off products. On the other hand, one has difficulty imagining the US government spending the money more efficiently than at NASA. There being no space program, the money would very likely have been spent on social welfare programs or pork barrel projects of little value when one considers how government works .

No profit motive – can’t see returns after costs of getting off the rockDinkin, 2004, PhD who runs a space program (Sam, “Space privatization: road to freedom,” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/193/1, 7/25/11)

Gagnon states, “As the privateers move into space...they hope to mine the sky. Gold has been discovered on asteroids, helium-3 on the moon, and magnesium, cobalt and uranium on Mars.” If only this were viable, I would have a much easier time arguing for colonization. There are not too many things worth $10,000/pound in propellant to get something back from the Moon or more from Mars. Gold weighs in at $6,250/pound. Even Helium-3 (3He) does not fit the bill. Let’s wait for someone to have a commercially viable reactor before we invest in going to the Moon to extract the 3He on a large scale.

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AT: Moon CP – No Solvency The environment on the moon is incapable of producing necessities for plants to grow – which means no crops for us.Zubrin 11, writer for Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Robert, The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization, http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/mars.html, July 21, 2011)

But the biggest problem with the Moon, as with all other airless planetary bodies and proposed artificial free-space colonies (such as those proposed by Gerard O'Neill8) is that sunlight is not available in a form useful for growing crops. This is an extremely important point and it is not well understood. Plants require an enormous amount of energy for their growth, and it can only come from sunlight. For example a single square kilometer of cropland on Earth is illuminated with about 1000 MW of sunlight at noon; a power load equal to an American city of 1 million people. Put another way, the amount of power required to generate the sunlight falling on the tiny country of El Salvador exceeds the combined capacity of every power plant on Earth. Plants can stand a drop of perhaps a factor of 5 in their light intake compared to terrestrial norms and still grow, but the fact remains; the energetics of plant growth make it inconceivable to raise crops on any kind of meaningful scale with artificially generated light. That said, the problem with using the natural sunlight available on the Moon or in space is that it is unshielded by any atmosphere. (The Moon has an additional problem with its 28 day light/dark cycle, which is also unacceptable to plants). Thus plants grown in a thin walled greenhouse on the surface of the Moon or an asteroid would be killed by solar flares. In order to grow plants safely in such an environment, the walls of the greenhouse would have to be made of glass 10 cm thick, a construction requirement that would make the development of significant agricultural areas prohibitively expensive. Use of reflectors and other light-channeling devices would not solve this problem, as the reflector areas would have to be enormous, essentially equal in area to the crop domains, creating preposterous engineering problems if any significant acreage is to be illuminated.

Humans will be needed in space – robots can’t do everything.Liss, 2003, Senior Vice President National Space Society (Jeffrey G. Liss, JD from Harvard Law School, “Why We Do – And Must – Go Into Space”, February, 2003, http://www.nsschapters.org/policy-cmte/files/WHY-JGL_302.pdf, July 24, 2011)

It has been argued that, even if we did not intend to settle space, machines can do everything in space that humans can. Not so. The true legacy of the human space program has been the thousands of engineers, scientists, and technicians who were inspired to stay in school and achieve. These are the hightech dynamos that have driven our technology economy. So, too, will the challenge of space continue to inspire and drive the next generation. Meeting these challenges will force us to stretch our technology, prove our talent, advance our science, and, as with every frontier, evolve new ways of thinking and living together. No other focused effort promises so much benefit. Robots lack flexibility. People are needed to build, maintain, fix the machinery -- from Hubble-like telescopes to small lab equipment to the robots themselves. As we haven't yet created fully automated, self-repairing machines on Earth, we surely cannot rely on them in space. Likewise, people will be needed on the spot to conduct much of the research in space, to look at what is happening and make those adjustments that are immediately necessary or unexpectedly promising. If robots could replace humans in our laboratories, all the laboratories on Earth would not still be staffed by people.

The US is Prepared to Travel to Mars-More Prepared Than The Moon Gangale 2004-(Thomas Gangale, Executive director of OPS-Alaska) Why Should We Send Humans to Mars?http://www.ops-alaska.com/mars/Why_Humans_to_Mars.htm In 1969, NASA presented a plan to the Nixon Administration to send humans on Mars 12 years later. The report by President Richard Nixon's Space Task Group concluded, "NASA has the demonstrated organizational competence and technology base, by virtue of the Apollo success and other achievements, to carry out a successful program to land man on Mars within 15 years." Since that time, there have been no insurmountable barriers to landing humans on Mars... except the societal will. With each robotic mission to Mars, with each new advance in technology, the technical problem of sending humans to Mars becomes easier. What once were "known unknowns" become "knowns," and "unknown unknowns" become "known unknowns." Once we know that we don't know something, we can research the problem and master it. This is not to say that it will not be a difficult, dangerous, and expensive endeavor. It will be. However, at this point, we are far better prepared to send humans to Mars than we were to send humans to the Moon when John Kennedy made the decision to do so in 1961. At the time that Kennedy issued his stirring challenge to the nation, America had only 15 minutes of experience in human spaceflight--none of it actually in orbit around the Earth--yet eight years later humans walked on the Moon. In 1961, we had not sent a single successful robotic mission to the Moon--much less to any planet--yet eight years later humans walked on the Moon. In 1961, we had launch vehicles capable of putting only a couple of thousand pounds into orbit around the Earth--yet eight years later humans walked on the Moon. In the 35 years that it has been feasible to launch a humans to Mars program, we have chosen not to. We will do so when the necessary social and political forces align, and that is something that is difficult to predict. It could happen tomorrow, or it might not happen for generations.

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AT: Robots CP Human Exploration to Mars is more effective than robotic explorationRuff, 2011 (Steven W., PhD at School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars151.html)

Mars is a real place to me, at least the few square kilometers of it in Gusev crater where the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit roamed from January of 2004 to March 2010. I had the privilege of naming hundreds of rocks along its route, which perhaps means that I've named more features on Mars than any other person on Earth. Some of those rocks I can even recognize from orbit, thanks to the incredible resolution of the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. I've looked at those rocks and the landscapes that contain them using the rover's eyes - its black and white as well as color cameras. The cameras produced stereo 3D images, making the rocks and landscapes even more real to me. I've spent many hours gazing into those scenes and frequently experience the sensation of actually being there. My job on the Spirit team was to look at rocks not just with cameras, but also with a thermal infrared spectrometer called Mini-TES. I learned that the squiggly lines of emissivity spectra serve to readily distinguish one rock from another, allowing me to recognize common classes. Typically we'd work among a particular class before moving onto another one as the geology changed along Spirit's route. In some cases, earlier rock classes would show up farther down the trail, presenting a spectrum that was like a familiar face to me. In this way, I developed an even more intimate familiarity with this place on Mars. Spirit outlived even the wildest speculations about its lifespan, making possible the remarkable discoveries about the igneous, aqueous, and aeolian processes that shaped the landscape that it and we roamed. But despite these successes, I became painfully aware of the shortcomings of robotic exploration of Mars. In a word, it is cumbersome. It took years of painstaking effort to explore just those few square kilometers of Gusev crater. Many tens of humans had to participate to guide the rover along a path that was carefully chosen to maximize both safety and science potential. Although Spirit proved to be much more robust and capable than anyone imagined, its speed and mobility were limiting factors. And despite a science payload exquisitely adapted to the tasks it was designed for, surely we failed to recognize and understand important clues to the geologic history we came to investigate. The experience of exploring a planet with a rover is both incredibly exciting and rewarding and incredibly frustrating. It is science by committee modulated by engineering constraints. Many on the science team echoed the sentiment that a human geologist could have performed the years of exploration done by Spirit in just a few weeks or perhaps days. It's true that Spirit's amazing toolkit is still unavailable to a terrestrial field geologist. But simple tools combined with the eyes, hands, boots, and brain of a human far outstrip the capabilities of a rover, even those of the next generation Mars Science Laboratory. Given the impossibility of real- time interaction between a human and a robotic surrogate across the millions of kilometers separating Earth from Mars, robotic exploration will never replace what is achievable by humans. Here I am focused on the scientific achievements. The ones that arise from humanity expanding into the solar system, by definition, require humans. Robots should never be viewed as a substitute for humans directly experiencing another world. A one-way mission to Mars is a bold plan that could expedite the gathering of information about an endlessly fascinating place. The exciting possibility of finally learning whether life ever took hold beyond Earth is profound motivation to send human life there. With sufficient resources, skills, and knowledge, human explorers sent to Mars would be adept at exploring for alien life while preserving their own. In the process, the vicarious thrill and satisfaction that Earth- bound humans have experienced even from robotic missions, would be compounded in ways immeasurable. Given the trajectory of human exploration and settlement, it is not a question of whether Mars will become a target but when.

Humans key to Mars Mission, allows for more scientific returnLevine, 4/12/11 (Joel S., senior research scientist in the Science Directorate of NASA's Langley Research Center, The Exploration of Mars by Humans: Why Mars? Why Humans?, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/the-exploration-of-mars-by-humans-why-mars-why-humans/237143/)

Why humans? Humans are unique scientific explorers and observers. Humans have unique capabilities for performing scientific measurements, observations and sample collecting. Human attributes needed for exploration and scientific discovery include: intelligence, adaptability, agility, dexterity, cognition, patience, problem solving in real-time, in situ analyses -- more science in less time. Humans can obtain previously unobtainable scientific measurements on the surface of Mars. Humans possess the abilities to adapt to new and unexpected situations in new and strange environments, they can make real-time decisions, have strong recognition abilities and are intelligent. Humans can perform detailed and precise measurements of the surface, subsurface and atmosphere while on the surface of Mars with state-of-the-art scientific equipment and instrumentation brought from Earth. The increased laboratory ability on Mars that humans offer would allow for dramatically more scientific return within the established sample return limits. The scientific exploration of Mars by humans would be performed as a synergistic partnership between humans and robotic probes, controlled by the human explorers on the surface of Mars. Robotic probes could explore terrains and features not suitable or too risky for human exploration. Under human control, robotic probes could traverse great distances from the human habitat covering distances/terrain too risky for human exploration and return rock and dust samples for analysis and interpretation to the habitat from great distances. The Apollo experience showed the great value of humans in the scientific exploration and discovery process on other worlds.

Robotic probes do not provide any information from new areas, they only generate more questions.Thompson April ’11- writer for the Lexington Institute (Loren, Human Spaceflight http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf

Robotic probes of the Martian surface have tended to raise more questions than they answer . For example, the discovery of sand dunes, gullies, pebbles and composite rock clearly points to the presence of water over long periods of time, but scientists at present can only speculate about where the water came from, or where it has gone. This is a vital question, since if Mars has large reserves of water as many scientists suspect, that would make it a more plausible place to have produced life. Life first emerged on Earth over three billion years ago, when conditions were much different than today and in some respects similar to the present environment of the Red Planet. The relevance of lessons learned from exploration of Mars to the future of mankind on Earth makes any mission there fundamentally more important than visits to other destinations that the human spaceflight program might undertake.

The Human Mission to Mars is scientifically feasible, cost effective, and preferable to robotic missions for a slew of reasons. Robert Zubrin, austronautlical engineer, PHd, President of the Mars Society, Journal of Cosmology, October-November 2010, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now,http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, DOA: 1/11/11

During the summer of 1996, NASA scientists revealed a rock ejected from Mars by meteoric impact which showed strong evidence of life on Mars in the distant past (McKay et al., 1996). If this discovery could be confirmed by actual finds of fossils on the Martian surface, it would show that the origin of life is not unique to the Earth, and thus by implication reveal a universe that is filled with life and probably intelligence as well. From the point of view of humanity learning its true place in the universe, this would be the most

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paiimportant scientific enlightenment since Copernicus. Robotic probes can help out in such a search, but by themselves are completely insufficient (Drake, 2010; Gage 2010; Schmitt 2010). Fossil hunting requires the ability to travel long distances through unimproved terrain, to climb steep slopes, to do heavy work and delicate work, and to exercise very subtle forms of perception and on-the-spot intuition . All of these skills are far beyond the abilities of robotic rovers. Geology and field paleontology requires human explorers, real live rockhounds on the scene (Schmitt 2010). Drilling to reach subsurface hydrothermal environments where extant Martian life may yet thrive will clearly require human explorers as well. Put simply, as far as the question of Martian life is concerned, if we don’t go, we won’t know. Reason # 2: For the Challenge. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The space program itself needs challenge . Consider: Between 1961 and 1973, under the impetus of the Moon race, NASA produced a rate of technological innovation several orders of magnitude greater than that it has shown since, for an average budget in real dollars virtually the same as that today ($19 billion in 2010 dollars). Why? Because it had a goal that made its reach exceed its grasp. It is not necessary to develop anything new if you are not doing anything new. Far from being a waste of money, forcing NASA to take on the challenge of Mars is the key to giving the nation a real technological return for its space dollar. A humans-to-Mars program would also be an challenge to adventure to every child in the country: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world." There will be over 100 million kids in our nation's schools over the next ten years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1% of them to scientific educations, the net result would be 1 million more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers and doctors, making innovations that create new industries, finding new medical cures, strengthening national defense, and increasing national income to an extent that dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. Reason # 3: For the Future: Mars is not just a scientific curiosity, it is a world with a surface area equal to all the continents of Earth combined, possessing all the elements that are needed to support not only life, but technological civilization. As hostile as it may seem, the only thing standing between Mars and habitability is the need to develop a certain amount of Red Planet know-how. This can and will be done by those who go there first to explore. Mars is the New World. Someday millions of people will live there. What language will they speak? What values and traditions will they cherish, to spread from there as humanity continues to move out into the solar system and beyond? When they look back on our time, will any of our other actions compare in value to what we do today to bring their society into being? Today, we have the opportunity to be the founders, the parents and shapers of a new and dynamic branch of the human family, and by so doing, put our stamp upon the future. It is a privilege not to be disdained lightly. 6. Conclusion In conclusion, the point needs to be made again. We are ready to go to Mars. Despite whatever issues that remain, the fundamental fact is that we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we were to send people to the Moon in 1961, when John F. Kennedy initiated the Apollo program. Exploring Mars requires no miraculous new technologies, no orbiting spaceports, and no gigantic interplanetary space cruisers (Zubrin 1997). We can establish our first outpost on Mars within a decade. We and not some future generation can have the eternal honor of being the first pioneers of this new world for humanity. All that's needed is present-day technology, some 19th century industrial chemistry, some political vision, and a little bit of moxie.

Robots don’t solve for discoveryHawking and Rahls, June 16 20 09 , (Stephen, “ smartest person on the planet , Chuck, person who interviewed Hawking, Manned vs Robotic Space Missions?,” http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/06/robotic-missions-are-much-cheaper-and-may-provide-more-scientific--information-but-they-dont-catch-the-public-imagination-in.html, (7/24/11)

What is not commonly known however is that many of NASA's leading scientists also champion human exploration as a worthy goal in its own right and as a critically important part of space science in the 21st century. In a past issue of Scientific American Jim Bell, an astronomer and planetary scientist at Cornell University, and author of “Postcards from Mars,” notes that “…you might think that researchers like me who are involved in robotic space exploration would dismiss astronaut missions as costly and unnecessary.” But he then he goes on, “Although astronaut missions are much more expensive and risky than robotic craft, they are absolutely critical to the success of our exploration program." The heart of the debate is this: robotic machines will only do what they are programmed to do; they are not programmed to detect weirdness: the unimaginable, the unknown, the strange non-carbon life that we may have encountered on Mars, for example with the two Viking vehicles, in 1976. Each carried equipment for sampling the Martian soil and miniature chemistry laboratories to test the samples for signs of life.The results these automated labs radioed back to Earth were enigmatic: the chemical reactions from the Martian soil were strange, unlike anything seen on Earth. But they were also unlike any reactions that living organisms would produce. Ben Bova, the science-fiction author of Titan and The Aftermath, his most recent novels in is his ongoing series about the expansion of the human race throughout the Solar System, points out in an interview that most scientists examining the Viking results, reluctantly concluded that was lifeless: "But the fact is that the landers were equipped only to detect signs of Earth-type life. The chemical reactions observed could have been the results of Martian life. They certainly were not ordinary inorganic chemistry."

Humans are more mobile and practical than robots for exploring MarsRuff, Ph. D. ASU Professor January 2011 (Steven W., Journal of Cosmology, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars151.html, Accessed 7/25/11)

Spirit outlived even the wildest speculations about its lifespan, making possible the remarkable discoveries about the igneous, aqueous, and aeolian processes that shaped the landscape that it and we roamed. But despite these successes, I became painfully aware of the shortcomings of robotic exploration of Mars. In a word, it is cumbersome. It took years of painstaking effort to explore just those few square kilometers of Gusev crater. Many tens of humans had to participate to guide the rover along a path that was carefully chosen to maximize both safety and science potential. Although Spirit proved to be much more robust and capable than anyone imagined, its speed and mobility were limiting factors. And despite a science payload exquisitely adapted to the tasks it was designed for, surely we failed to recognize and understand important clues to the geologic history we came to investigate. The experience of exploring a planet with a rover is both incredibly exciting and rewarding and incredibly frustrating. It is science by committee modulated by engineering constraints. Many on the science team echoed the sentiment that a human geologist could have performed the years of exploration done by Spirit in just a few weeks or perhaps days. It's true that Spirit's amazing toolkit is still unavailable to a terrestrial field geologist. But simple tools combined with the eyes, hands, boots, and brain of a human far outstrip the capabilities of a rover, even those of the next generation Mars Science Laboratory. Given the impossibility of real- time interaction between a human and a robotic surrogate across the millions of kilometers separating Earth from Mars, robotic exploration will never replace what is achievable by humans. Here I am focused on the scientific achievements. The ones that arise from humanity expanding into the solar system, by definition, require humans. Robots should never be viewed as a substitute for humans directly experiencing another world.

Robotic missions are popular, but manned missions more important for space breakthroughsKazan 09 (Casey, Editor of DailyGalaxy.com, “Stephen Hawking: Manned vs Robotic Space Mission?”, http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/06/robotic-missions-are-much-cheaper-and-may-provide-more-scientific--information-but-they-dont-catch-the-public-imagination-in.html, July 2011)

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"Robotic missions are much cheaper and may provide more scientific information, but they don't catch the public imagination in the same way, and they don't spread the human race into space, which I'm arguing should be our long-term strategy. If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before." -Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University. Will unmanned robotic missions be able to detect weird microscopic life-forms they are not programmed to recognize that might be lurking below the surface of Mars, or beneath the murky seas of Jupiter's jumbo moon, Europa? The answer to this question is at the core of one of the greatest of the ongoing debates in space exploration: the question of man vs. unmanned robotic missions. NASA currently operates more than 50 robotic spacecraft that are studying Earth and reaching throughout the solar system, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond. Another 40 unmanned NASA missions are in development, and space agencies in Europe, Russia, Japan, India and China are running or building their own robotic craft. What is not commonly known however is that many of NASA's leading scientists also champion human exploration as a worthy goal in its own right and as a critically important part of space science in the 21st century. In a past issue of Scientific American Jim Bell, an astronomer and planetary scientist at Cornell University, and author of “Postcards from Mars,” notes that “…you might think that researchers like me who are involved in robotic space exploration would dismiss astronaut missions as costly and unnecessary.” But he then he goes on, “Although astronaut missions are much more expensive and risky than robotic craft, they are absolutely critical to the success of our exploration program."

Human missions more effective than robotic missionsKazan 09 (Casey, Editor of DailyGalaxy.com, “Stephen Hawking: Manned vs Robotic Space Mission?”, http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/06/robotic-missions-are-much-cheaper-and-may-provide-more-scientific--information-but-they-dont-catch-the-public-imagination-in.html, July 2011)

The heart of the debate is this: robotic machines will only do what they are programmed to do; they are not programmed to detect weirdness: the unimaginable, the unknown, the strange non-carbon life that we may have encountered on Mars, for example with the two Viking vehicles, in 1976. Each carried equipment for sampling the Martian soil and miniature chemistry laboratories to test the samples for signs of life.The results these automated labs radioed back to Earth were enigmatic: the chemical reactions from the Martian soil were strange, unlike anything seen on Earth. But they were also unlike any reactions that living organisms would produce. Ben Bova, the science-fiction author of Titan and The Aftermath, his most recent novels in is his ongoing series about the expansion of the human race throughout the Solar System, points out in an interview that most scientists examining the Viking results, reluctantly concluded that was lifeless: "But the fact is that the landers were equipped only to detect signs of Earth-type life. The chemical reactions observed could have been the results of Martian life. They certainly were not ordinary inorganic chemistry." The debate over the meaning of the Viking results, Bova concludes, is still unsettled, more than 30 years later. But a human biologist or biochemist could have learned a lot more and settled the matter, one way or the other, within a few hours.

Human exploration not necessary - robots can do our job better.Globus 2011, April 29, 2011, curator for NASA (Al, Space Settlement Basics, http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Basics/wwwwh.html, July 21, 2011)

If you ask NASA what the space program is about they will say science and exploration, and for the robotic spacecraft program that's probably true. But most of the money doesn't go to robots; it goes to human space flight. Unfortunately for humans in space, robots have vastly outperformed humans in space exploration and science. We like to think of ourselves as great explorers, and we are. Humans have explored every nook and cranny of Earth above the water line, and a great deal of the oceans as well. In space, humans have visited the Moon and Low-Earth Orbit. On the other hand, robots have visited Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and several comets and asteroids - at far less cost. Not only are robots much cheaper, they have produced far more scientific data. Deciding which data to gather and analyze is best done by humans, but this can be done by sending orders from Earth to robots in space. Some people will wave their hands and say that humans are smarter, more capable, and more flexible than robots. That's true, but it doesn't mean humans do a better job of gathering data. We don't need to make theoretical arguments about whether humans or robots do the best space science. We've flown human and robot space missions for over 40 years and we've got the results. If we could measure scientific output, then we would know if humans or robots are best.

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AT: Politics – No PC Internal Space co-op not linked to political problemsPouzanov ’11 (International Affairs, No. 1, Vol.0057, 2011, page(s): 238-250, “Russia-U.S. Space Partnership”, http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/24551613)

THE SOVIET UNION and the United States began to cooperate in the exploration of space at the very beginning of their manned space programs. Space turned out to be a very convenient area of cooperation that is not connected to political problems. It is noteworthy that peak periods of joint work coincided with moments of particularly strained relations between the two superpowers (the first during the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the second during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the development of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative). U.S. President J.F. Kennedy voiced the first proposal to make a joint space flight in September 1963 at the UN General Assembly. Nevertheless, the proposal was rejected by the USSR based on considerations of the prestige of the Soviet state and social system and the intense competition for leadership in space. By that time, the Soviet Union had launched the first artificial Earth satellite and sent the first man into space. America was trying to catch up with the USSR with the help of a powerful team of scientists led by Werner von Braun. The main area of competition at the time was a manned mission to the Moon, and both sides did everything to win. Victory was eventually on the side of the Americans: the first successful launch of the Apollo lunar program took place in 1968, and Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon's surface on July 21, 1969. In the Soviet Union, the manned lunar program ran up against major difficulties despite considerable achievements in flights of unmanned spacecraft and was eventually abandoned.

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AT: Obama Good – Aerospace Lobby Turn yo disad fool-

1. Aerospace industry loves the plan for lots of reasons-

a. They profit no matter what- lucrative NASA contracts for a mission to mars are the ONLY NASA PROGRAM with this potential. McLane, 2010, Associate Fellow in the American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has written articles for Harper’s and other major magazines around the world. (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1, Acc 7/25/2011) NH

The constantly increasing development time for modern aircraft and military weapon systems typically result in huge program cost increases over original budget estimates. Fears that temperamental, exotic high tech equipment might be inappropriate, or (in the case of armaments), inadequate to counter potential enemies suggest that the business will experience more turbulent times ahead. However, there is one possibility that would guarantee a substantial boom in aerospace and ensure that our country remains in the forefront of modern technology. This opportunity centers on NASA. The suppliers and contractors that service NASA, both big and small, appreciate the advantages of working for the space agency. The pay is steady, predictable, and programs last for decades. The work is often structured in a manner so contractors can’t lose money! The space agency is poorly funded and obsessed with risk aversion so projects are hardly ever finished on schedule, thus ensuring that contractor profits extend over many years. Projects are often cancelled before they ever reach maturity, so one never really knows if efforts were good enough to succeed. The only potential NASA program with a real ability to capture the enthusiastic support of the American public is a short duration, focused drive to send a human to live permanently on Mars. The targeted time horizon must be short—perhaps only a decade—so taxpayers in their own lifetime would be able to witness the event they are funding. This effort would salvage the aerospace industry and also breathe life back into the technological malaise that currently affects much of American society.

b. A mission to mars requires aerospace participation. (not as good, 1ar maybe?)McLane, 2010, Associate Fellow in the American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has written articles for Harper’s and other major magazines around the world. (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1, Acc 7/25/2011) NH

The program will require new ways to work with the massively consolidated contractors who now dominate the American aerospace business. NASA can certainly provide better leadership, decision-making, and direction than it has demonstrated in recent years. While the new administrator has brought hope for a renaissance in attitude at NASA, a successful manned Mars program will require superior technical leaders at all levels. We did it before during Apollo with gutsy folks you can read about in the history books, people like Bob Gilruth, Wernher von Braun, George Low, and Gene Krantz.Today many decision-makers at NASA are business managers, schedulers, ex-astronauts, and systems analysts who are generally unknown and not held in special awe by the engineers who work under them. Indeed why should they be? Most will eventually abandon Civil Service careers for higher-paying jobs with NASA’s own suppliers.

The aerospace lobby makes it rain on Olympia SnoweLasker 8 (John Lasker, Inter Press Service News Agency, "Aerospace Lobby Wages Its Own Election Campaign," September 5, http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=43804)

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sep 5 (IPS) - "In about the time it takes you to drive into a gas station, insert your credit card in the pump, fill the tank, take your receipt, and get back on the road, a foreign power can use a missile to disable the U.S. communications satellite that made your transaction possible." This dire claim didn't come from the Pentagon. Rather, it is on the website of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a trade and lobby group representing more than 100 of the nation's leading aerospace and aerospace defence manufacturers. The scenario was echoed in a recent U.S. Air Force commercial that showed a missile obliterating a satellite - a commercial the Centre for Defence Information (CDI), a Washington-based think tank that researches space weapons, says was not factually correct and constituted a "blatant exploitation of people's concerns about space". The Air Force eventually admitted that a single missile shooting down one satellite would not send the United States back to the 19th century, and pulled the commercial, conceding that was "misleading". Most modern communication satellites that handle bank transactions, GPS and cell phone calls orbit at 12,000 miles above Earth's surface. Satellites that beam television signals are in geostationary orbit, which is at 22,500 miles. No current anti-satellite weapon - at least those that are not classified - has been tested past low-Earth orbit, which is roughly 100 to 1,200 miles high, CDI says. "The A erospace Industries Association is being unnecessarily histrionic about the threat to satellites," Victoria Samson, a senior analyst for CDI, told IPS. "The GPS constellation was (also) built so that missing one satellite wouldn't bring down the whole system." What is notable about AIA's claim is how it is being used - as part of a stepped-up campaign to convince politicians, voters and aerospace employees that "America's future depends on maintaining space leadership ". It is a broad statement encompassing several aspects of the U.S. space industry, such as educating the aerospace workforce of the future. But some experts say it also means the U.S. needs to somehow find a way to protect its 400-plus satellites - an undertaking that could result in billions for aerospace industry defence contractors. A powerful lobby in Washington, the aerospace industry accounted for over 650,000 jobs and 184 billion dollars in sales in 2006. The AIA's president and CEO, Marion Blakey, was a former head of the Federal Aviation Administration. Her predecessor, John Douglass, is a former assistant secretary of the Navy, and was named one of Washington's top lobbyists last year by "The Hill ", an influential congressional newspaper. Patrick McCartan, AIA's director for legislative affairs, is a former aide to Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. He, too, was ranked a " top rainmaker " by The Hill . With election season in full swing, the AIA is calling for "cutting-edge defence research", along with defence spending being "no less than 4 percent of the U.S. GDP", which was 13.8 trillion dollars for 2007, amounting to roughly 550 billion dollars. That is near the current level, if you include the spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is widely known that "Star Wars II" - resurrected this decade by George W. Bush administration "space hawks" -

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paihas been a cash cow for aerospace industry giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing , the Pentagon's top two defence contractors . Together, they currently have 73 lobbying groups working Capital Hill , according to Opensecrets.org, which tracks campaign funding and its relation to public policy. Also telling is the campaign money the aerospace industry has contributed during the 2008 election cycle. Historically, the industry has given more to Republicans than Democrats - millions more. Yet as of mid-summer, OpenSecrets.org reports the aerospace industry has split its staggering total of 6.9 million dollars down the middle: half to Democrats, and half to Republicans . "We have met with every campaign staff for months now - McCain, Obama and every other campaign," Matt Grimison, AIA's communications director, told IPS. "We are casting a wide net to make sure these issues are being considered by everybody ." Experts say this is because the Democratic Party currently controls Congress, as it did back in 1994. In both the Senate and the House, two Democrats chair each branch's Defence Appropriations committees. Meaning, Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawai'i and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania hold the keys to billions for future projects. "The industry is realising it needs more access to Democrats," said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Centre of Responsive Politics, which also runs Opensecrets.org. "The Democrats control Congress, and therefore defence policy. This election is the (aerospace industry's) most Democratic since 1994." Democratic candidate Barack Obama has promised to not weaponise space, unlike his challenger, Sen. John McCain. Obama has also vowed to cut unnecessary missile defence funding. However, the strategy of focusing on Congress could pay off, considering both Sen. Inouye and Rep. Murtha are considered "space hawks" by peace activists.

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AT: Obama Good – Bipart Bipartisan support for NASA – secures thousands of jobsBay Area News 5/20/10 (Kristi Nix, Democrats, Republicans hold NASA support rallies, http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/pearland/news/article_de1b2316-c5c3-5a65-9b6a-a5539fd3e836.html, 7/24/11)

“It’s easy to blame folks. It’s easy to blame people for what’s going on around us,” Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough said. “But, the blame game doesn’t get the job done. What the people of America want and deserve are people who will come together to find solutions for the problems we face. Republican, Democrat, Independent, tea party, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to find solutions to keep those jobs at Johnson Space Center and we need to all be united around that cause.” U.S. Congressman Gene Green said the NASA community should have the chance overcome the missteps made by the Constellation Mission Program. “I have to admit Constellation, the research and the $9 million has not led to the work we think we need,” Green said. “But, we can learn from that research. We don’t need to throw that out. We should give those workers a different task and find something that will get us back to space in a U.S. vehicle.” But, job security was the topic on most everyone’s mind. “Our dream is to make sure everybody has a job,” Green said. “Not just somebody that wears a white collar, or wears a green collar or a blue collar. Jobs are important. That’s why these jobs at NASA are important. I’m just glad the machinists have those jobs there and I want to make sure they have more jobs at Johnson Space Center because I know they’re going to get paid fairly if they have a bargaining unit there to do it.” Echoing words from Judge Yarbrough’s speech, Congressman Gene Green reminded the Democrats in attendance they need to be willing to work with Republicans to save NASA jobs. “I will be glad to stand toe to toe and shoulder to shoulder whether you’re the Republican Senator from Texas, whether you’re a Democratic member of Congress, whether you’re a union member or what, to save these jobs,” he said. “That ought to be our message; we’re working to save jobs at NASA. We’re not trying to divide us. We’re trying to unite our efforts to save these jobs at Johnson Space Center.” Despite the potential for job losses at Johnson Space Center, U.S Congressman Al Greenurged Democrats to continue to support the President. “President Obama is President of all the people. But, more importantly he is President because of the people at this meeting,” Green said. “We supported President Barack Obama. We helped to put President Barack Obama in office. We want to work with the President to bring back jobs and save jobs. This is our President. Let’s not turn our backs on each other. Let’s turn to each other. Let’s not look at the differences. Let’s look for the common ground we can stand on together so we can work together.

Bipart support for the NASA – Aerospace ContractsAchenbach, ’11, B.A. ptx (Joel, “As NASA transitions, U.S. space politics in a state of flux”, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-nasa-transitions-us-space-politics-in-a-state-of-flux/2011/07/05/gHQAJVkozH_story.html, 7/25/11)

Consider that, as the space shuttle retires, a Democratic president wants the private sector to take over what used to be a Big Government responsibility — the job of ferrying astronauts to low Earth orbit. President Obama’s policy shift, announced in 2010, meant the cancellation of a government-owned rocket, the Ares 1. That move drew resistance from conservative Republicans such as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama. Some Democrats also chafed at the administration’s policy pivot. What these Republicans and Democrats have in common is that they come from states where aerospace firms have benefited from traditional NASA contracts. “Space has rarely been a partisan issue,” said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. Although space policy has a bipartisan foundation, it’s in a moment of painful transition. The final shuttle flight occurs amid protest from former astronauts and retired NASA managers who think the Obama administration is letting the U.S. space program slide into disarray.

Bipartisan support for space exploration of MarsCook, ’11 (Doug, Exploration Program Status, http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/509766main_509766main_NAC_Exploration_Program_Status_20110111.pdf, 7/25/11)

• The Congress approved and the President signed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010 – Bipartisan support for human exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit • The law authorizes: – Extension of the International Space Station until at least 2020 – Strong support for a commercial space transportation industry – Development of a multi-purpose Crew V ehicle and heavy lift launch capabilities – A “flexible path” approach to space exploration opening up vast opportunities including near-Earth asteroids and Mars – New space technology investments to increase the capabilities beyond Low Earth Orbit

Bipart Congress support for Obama’s mission to MarsTaylor, 7/21/11 (Heber “Clippings: The end of the shuttle program”, 7/25/11) President Obama has laid out an ambitious vision for human spaceflight that will take American astronauts beyond where we’ve ever been before — with the ultimate goal being a human mission to Mars. This plan speeds up the development of technology to take us deeper into space and anticipates travel to a series of destinations including asteroids, our own Moon, the moons of Mars, and eventually Mars itself. The President’s vision — negotiated with bipartisan support from Congress — allows NASA to focus its resources on exploration and innovation, while leveraging private sector resources to continue taking Americans to the International Space Station in low Earth orbit whose mission has been extended until at least 2020.

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AT: Obama Good – Plan Popular The Plan is popular- both public support and republican backing for US Space Leadership. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 7/5/2011, a Nonpartisan “fact tank”, (“Majority Sees U.S. Leadership in Space as Essential”, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2047/poll-space-exploration-shuttle-program-final-mission, Acc 7/20/2011) NH

On the eve of the final mission of the U.S. space shuttle program, most Americans say the United States must be at the forefront of future space exploration. Fifty years after the first American manned space flight, nearly six-in-ten (58%) say it is essential that the United States continue to be a world leader in space exploration; about four-in-ten say this is not essential (38%). Looking back on the shuttle program, a majority (55%) say it has been a good investment for the country. However, this is lower than it was in the 1980s; throughout the early years of the shuttle program, six-in-ten or more said the program was a good investment. Majorities in nearly all demographic groups say it is essential that the U.S. continue to be at the vanguard of space exploration. And partisan groups largely agree that American leadership is vital, although this view is more prevalent among Republicans. Two-thirds of Republicans (67%) say the nation must continue to play an international leadership role in space exploration; smaller majorities of Democrats (54%) and independents (57%) say this. Shuttle Has Been "Good Investment" As the shuttle program comes to a close 30 years after its first mission, 55% of Americans think the program has been a good investment for the country; 36% do not think so. In August 1981, four months after the first shuttle flight, 66% said the program was a good investment. About two-thirds of college graduates (66%) say the shuttle program has been a good investment, as does a smaller majority of those with some college education (57%). Among those with no college experience, assessments of the value of the shuttle program are more mixed: 47% say it has been a good investment, while 43% say it has not. Americans with annual family incomes of $75,000 or more give more positive evaluations to the shuttle program than those with lower incomes. By greater than two-to-one those with higher incomes say the program has been a good investment (67% good vs. 27% not good); those with annual incomes of less than $30,000 are divided in their views (44% good, 47% not good). And while about six-in-ten Republicans (63%) and independents (60%) say the program has been a good investment, Democrats are more muted in their appraisals (48% good investment). Benefits of Space Program Large majorities say that the space program has helped encourage interest in science, led to scientific advances and contributed to feelings of patriotism. But no more than about four-in-ten say that the program has contributed "a lot" in any of these areas. Overall, 39% say it has contributed a lot to encouraging interest in science, 35% say it has contributed some while 22% think it has contributed not much or nothing. Nearly as many (38%) say the space program has contributed a lot to scientific advances that all Americans can use, while 34% think it has done a lot for feelings or pride and patriotism. There are only modest political and demographic differences in opinions about the space program's contributions. More men than women say the program contributes a lot to scientific advances (by 45% to 31%) and encouraging interest in science and technology (44% to 35%).

Congress Supports NASA’s future space exploration after MPCV decisionFroust 5/25/11 Aerospace analyst, journalist, and publisher (Jeff, Congressional support for NASA’s MPCV decision, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2011/05/25/congressional-support-for-nasas-mpcv-decision/, 7/25/11)

The “key decision” that NASA announced Tuesday regarding the agency’s space exploration plans was not too surprising, and perhaps a bit underwhelming: NASA is transitioning its existing work on the Orion spacecraft to the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). In the NASA statement and media teleconference later that day, NASA indicated there would be effectively no major modifications to Orion to become MPCV, but offered little in the way of specifics on the cost of the MPCV or when it would be ready to begin flights. The MPCV was included in the NASA authorization act last year with a specific requirement to “continue to advance development of the human safety features, designs, and systems in the Orion project.” There was, then, an expectation that NASA would do what it announced yesterday, and transition its existing Orion contract to the MPCV; there was also some frustration in Congress that NASA was taking a long time to make that decision. Now, though, that NASA has done just that, members of Congress are expressing their support for that move, while pressing NASA to also make a decision soon on the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lifter. “This is a good thing,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said in a statement. The decision “shows real progress towards the goal of exploring deep space” and also helps Florida, he added, since hundreds will be employed at the Kennedy Space Center to process the MPCV for launch. The release also notes that NASA administrator Charles Bolden called Nelson personally to inform him of the decision. In that call, Bolden told the senator that soon “NASA will be making further decisions with regard to the ‘transportation architecture’ of a big deep space rocket.” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) also supported the decision. “After more than a year of uncertainty and delay, NASA has come to the same conclusion that it reached years ago — Orion is the vehicle that will advance our human exploration in space,” she said in a statement (not yet posted online.) She reminded NASA, though, that it “must continue to follow law” and announce plans for the SLS. “NASA needs to follow this important step by quickly finalizing and announcing the heavy lift launch vehicle configuration so that work can accelerate and the requirements of the law can be met.”

There is support in Congress for NASA to go back to the moon for economic and military benefitsFroust 4/7/11 Aerospace analyst, journalist, and publisher (Jeff, Posey wants to go back to the Moon, http://www.spacepolitics.com/category/congress/page/6/, 7/25/11)

Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) has been vocal recently about making human spaceflight NASA’s top priority in a constrained budget environment. Now he’s more specific: not only does he want to support human spaceflight, he wants NASA to return to the goal from the Vision for Space Exploration of sending humans back to the Moon, and is making a long shot bid to make that happen. In an op-ed in Florida Today on Thursday, Posey says he plans to introduce legislation “calling for NASA to resume the goal set forth in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act to return to the moon.” In the op-ed, Posey reiterates a number of past arguments about supporting human spaceflight, including its role as an “economic driver” and its military importance (again, as in his statement recently to the House Budget Committee, likening space to “Earth’s Golan Heights.”) He doesn’t go into detail, though, about why a return to the Moon would do more on those fronts than something like the administration’s plans for human missions beyond Earth orbit that don’t, at least in the foreseeable future, including missions to the lunar surface. “We must make the moon mission our highest

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Congress being urged to support NASA due to leadership threats by China and Russian moon colonization plansFroust 3/31/11 Aerospace analyst, journalist, and publisher (Jeff, Posey: direct NASA towards human spaceflight, http://www.spacepolitics.com/category/congress/page/6/, 7/25/11)

Yesterday the House Budget Committee took testimony from fellow members of the House on various issues as it prepares work on a budget resolution for fiscal year 2012. That included a statement from Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who spoke out on the need to fully fund NASA’s human spaceflight programs, cranking up the rhetoric in the process. Posey’s statement followed familiar themes: NASA’s human spaceflight program was adrift thanks to the Obama Administration’s decision to cancel Constellation, with implications for American leadership and national security, even while the administration sought increase spending on climate change research and commercial spaceflight. And he sought to make those points with blunt language. “By failing to set priorities within NASA’s budget, the Administration has left NASA with no priorities,” he said. “Should Congress fail to step in where the Administration has left a leadership void we will be making an unacceptable compromise in our national security and lose economic and intangible benefits from our space program.” Among his other statements, he claimed that China and Russia “have announced plans to colonize the Moon–they are not going there to collect and study rocks like we did.” What they are going to do is left to our imaginations, but it was clear he was playing up the military significance of space: “Human space flight is a matter of national security. Space is the world’s military high ground, our Golan Heights if you will.” Later, he warns of the consequences of “one day without your cell phones, one day without your laptops, one day without a weather report, one day without your GPS, one day not being able to use your credit card or withdraw cash from the bank,” all made possible by satellites (but not related to human spaceflight).

The public supports NASA and space exploration, but not more spending – clear goal to get to Mars leads to spending popularityFoust, 7/24/11, PhD political sciences (Jeff, “Polls suggest support for space exploration but not bigger budgets”, http://www.spacepolitics.com/category/nasa/, 7/25/11)

The end of the shuttle program, in addition to prompting its share of political reactions, was also a cue for pollsters, who used the occasion to seek out the public’s views on a variety of space issues. The responses suggest the public, while generally supporting NASA, is reluctant to let the shuttle go and also not eager to give the agency more money. On the shuttle, Rasmussen Reports poll from mid-July found that 50% of respondents concluded the shuttle program was worth the expense to taxpayers, versus 27% who didn’t think it had been worth it. A CNN/ORC poll last week also found that half of respondents thought the end of the shuttle program would be “bad” for the US, versus a third who thought it would have no effect and 16% who thought it would be good. An Investor’s Business Daily (IBD)/TIPP poll from last week also found that 56% opposed ending the shuttle. There’s still interest in human spaceflight and space exploration in the post-shuttle era, though. The Rasmussen poll found that 74% thought it to be at least somewhat important for the US to have a human spaceflight program (73% also supported robotic space exploration), while the IBD/TIPP poll found that 65% thought the US should have a “leading” or “active” role in space exploration. The IBD/TIPP poll, though, noted that 72% didn’t believe the current administration has a “clear plan for space exploration”. The CNN/ORC poll reported that 64% of respondents believe it’s very or fairly important for the US to be ahead of other countries in space exploration, and 75% thought the US should develop its own crewed spacecraft.

Bipart support for Constellation program – cutting NASA funding faces opposition on The Hill pushed by scientists, engineers, students, and anyone concerned with job creation.Olson, 2010 , House Science and Technology Committee Representative (Pete, Abandoning human space flight is shortsighted, http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/79811-abandoning-human-space-flight-is-shortsighted, July 24)

A bipartisan group of legislators from the House and Senate stand in firm opposition to the president's plan to cancel NASA's Constellation program . Constellation is NASA's next-generation system to replace the space shuttle upon its retirement. There only five more flights scheduled. Constellation is the means to return to the moon and eventually on to Mars. The administration's intention to cancel Constellation represents its single largest cut in their FY11 budget proposal. Funds will be shifted to commercial entities to provide crew and cargo to the International Space Station. The life of the ISS has been extended to at least 2020, as it was initially slated to be deorbited in 2015. It is shortsighted to view abandoning human space flight as the means to portray fiscal discipline. In a budget that increases federal spending, particularly in the areas of science and education, why cut a program that has served as a primary resource for both? Then why would the administration turn its back on thousands of high-paying, highly skilled jobs nationwide at this time if jobs are supposed to be the number one priority of this administration? Japan, India and China have set their sights on the moon. Why are we pulling back America's dominance in human space flight? It is deplorable that the president would willingly accept second-tier status for the U.S. on an issue of this magnitude. President Obama said he would take a scalpel to the budget instead of a sledgehammer, but even a scalpel can nick an artery. This decision is the elimination of a job creator, economic innovator and symbol of American exceptionalism. The administration purports that they are committed to human space flight by saying they have increased NASA's budget by $1 billion. But the president's own commission appointed to review human spaceflight said that it would take a minimum of $3 billion to have any kind of robust program. Since its inception, the challenges American scientists and engineers overcame in getting man into space and on the moon brought forth a slew of cutting-edge technologies that made their way into our daily lives. And now, the administration is willing to throw away a half-century of scientific progress for a sub-orbital taxicab . The administration would like to foster commercial providers with our human space flight capabilities. Commercial participation is a good thing, and something that everyone agrees with, but it's simply not ready to take humans into space safely, and should not be the sole means for our country's access to space . Congress twice passed authorization bills, in 2005 and 2008, endorsing Constellation. The administration has disregarded that guidance, and as such has met resistance . White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the administration was not going to back down "just because they (Constellation supporters) have a powerful constituency on the Hill or K Street." The constituencies the White House should be worried about are America's scientists, engineers, and students whom they will discourage through this shortsighted action. They must also acknowledge the loss of thousands of jobs. This

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paiaction stymies America's global prominence through yet another shortsighted economic decision by the Obama administration. The president has a voice in the budget process, but Congress does as well. This issue is far from resolved.

Mars is the ONLY NASA program that will generate support from either major political partyThompson, 4/11 (Loren, Ph.D in government and Bachelors in Political Science, “Human Spaceflight: Mars is the destination that matters”, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf)Although NASA consumes less than one-percent of the federal budget, it does not connect well with the current economic or social agendas of either major political party. The broad support for the human spaceflight program early in its history was traceable largely to the ideological rivalry between America and Russia that produced the Moon race. Today, no such external driver exists to sustain support of human spaceflight across the political spectrum. The program therefore must generate some intrinsic rationale -- some combination of high purpose and tangible benefit -- to secure funding. Recent efforts at generating a compelling rationale, such as the “flexible path” and “capabilitiesdriven” approaches currently favored by the space agency, are inadequate. They do not resonate with the political culture. In the current fiscal and cultural environment, there is only one goal for the human spaceflight program that has a chance of capturing the popular imagination: Mars. The Red Planet is by far the most Earth-like object in the known universe beyond the Earth itself, with water, seasons, atmosphere and other features that potentially make it habitable one day by humans. In addition, its geological characteristics make it a potential treasure trove of insights into the nature of the solar system -- insights directly relevant to what the future may hold for our own world. And Mars has one other key attraction: it is reachable. Unlike the hundreds of planets now being discovered orbiting distant stars, astronauts could actually reach Mars within the lifetime of a person living today, perhaps as soon as 20 years from now.

The Plan is Popular, Americans support manned space missionsRon Sachs Communication, 6/7/11 (AP News, Poll: Americans Want Space Program to Continue, http://www.wctv.tv/APNews/headlines/Poll_Americans_Want_Space_Program_to_Continue_123358308.html)

In a dramatic new Sachs/Mason-Dixon poll, an overwhelming majority of Americans say they don’t want America’s manned space program to end and they believe the United States should continue to be a global leader in space. The results of the poll follow the recent return of the Space Shuttle Endeavour – the penultimate NASA Space shuttle mission. “Human space flight symbolizes American ingenuity, innovation and imagination and any effort to ensure our nation remains at the forefront of manned space flight is strongly supported by the American people ,” said Ron Sachs, President of Ron Sachs Communications. “The American people are emotional about maintaining our nation’s leadership in this important scientific endeavor.”

The only way for NASA to justify spending to the American public is through a mission to MarsThompson, 4/11 (Loren, Ph.D in government and Bachelors in Political Science, “Human Spaceflight: Mars is the destination that matters”, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf)

This all makes sense from a budgetary and scientific perspective. What’s missing is a grasp of the rationale required to sustain political support across multiple administrations. While exploration of the Moon’s far side or nearby asteroids may have major scientific benefits, those benefits are unlikely to be appreciated by politicians struggling to reconcile record deficits. NASA’s current research plans do not connect well with the policy agendas of either major political party, and the flexible path will not change that. To justify investments of hundreds of billions of dollars in human spaceflight over the next 20 years while entitlements are being pared and taxes are increasing, NASA must offer a justification for its efforts commensurate with the sacrifices required. Mars is the only objective of sufficient interest or importance that can fill that role. Thus, the framework of missions undertaken pursuant to the flexible-path approach must always be linked to the ultimate goal of putting human beings on the Martian surface, and the investments made must be justified mainly on that basis. The American public can be convinced to support a costly series of steps leading to a worthwhile objective, but trips to the Moon and near-Earth objects aren’t likely to generate sustained political support during a period of severe fiscal stress.

Mission to Mars is the only politically viable way to sustain the spaceflight program – cost of the program is not enough to disrupt the political supportThompson, 11/9/10 (Loren B., Ph.D in government and Bachelors in Political Science, “Sending Americans To Mars Is An Affordable Mission”, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/sending-americans-to-mars-is-an-affordable-mission)

One of the greatest achievements in history, NASA's human spaceflight program, is dying. With the best of intentions, the Obama Administration has put the astronaut program on a path that leads nowhere, and therefore will not be able to sustain political support . There is a better way. For the same amount of money NASA plans to spend on a series of disconnected initiatives, the White House can place mankind in a trajectory that leads to a human landing on Mars, and a permanent colony after that. It will take a long time, because budgets are limited and the technology to put people on the Red Planet does not yet fully exist. But Mars is the one goal that can justify the kind of expenditures required to maintain a human spaceflight program over the long haul. Not only will it keep the highly skilled workforce of NASA's space centers employed on a major national mission for decades to come -- with each center contributing specialized pieces to the overall effort -- but it will define all the intermediate missions required to prepare for the ultimate goal.

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AT: Obama Good – GOP Likes Plan Republicans want more NASA funding – economy and militaryFoust, ’09, PhD political science (Jeff, “Republicans Who Want to Spend More on NASA”, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/03/12/republicans-who-want-to-spend-more-on-nasa/, 7/25/11)

In an op-ed that appeared in Thursday’s edition of The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, Congressman Ralph Hall (R-TX), ranking member of the House Science and Technology Committee, makes the case for increasing NASA’s budget. The arguments he makes in favor of NASA are pretty standard: the US needs to stay ahead of encroaching international rivals like China and India, NASA gets a tiny part of the overall federal budget, the agency and its technological contributions help the economy, and the space program encourages students to pursue science and engineering careers. Hall in particular is concerned, like many others, about the Shuttle-Constellation gap. “Accelerating development of the Constellation system would keep American tax dollars working for us here at home and have a multiplier effect throughout the economy by stimulating high-tech manufacturing and networks of suppliers around the country,” he writes. “The extra, relatively small investment to fully fund NASA would provide incalculable economic and national security advantages.” He does not specify, though, exactly how much additional money would be needed to “fully fund” NASA. Meanwhile, at the other end of the seniority spectrum, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who won the seat last November previously held by Dave Weldon, tells TCPalm.com that he has asked the chairman and ranking member of the House Budget Committee for extra money for NASA for both extending the life of the Shuttle and accelerating Constellation. “Neither the U.S. nor the rest of the world can afford to rely on China or Russia to transport materials into space,” he writes. “[T]hese two nations just don’t have the technology or the success record that we have had with space.” (That may come as a bit of a surprise to the Russians, given their proud history of numerous space firsts.) Posey also notes that he has written to President Obama to ask him to select a nominee for NASA administration “as soon as possible”. “NASA cannot afford to remain without an Administrator at this critical juncture. Major decisions are being made that will greatly affect our nation’s future in space,” he writes in the letter to the president. “If this transition is not done right, not only will thousands of American workers at the nation’s space centers and their families be severely and adversely affected, but our nation’s leadership in space will further erode.” All good arguments, but how likely is the president to be persuaded by a freshman representative of the opposing party?

Republicans want mission to MarAltman, ’11 (George, “Top budget hawk Jeff Sessions still wants U.S. to fly to Mars”, http://blog.al.com/live/2011/03/top_budget_hawk_jeff_sessions.html, 7/25/11)

WASHINGTON — The federal government, “in a word, is broke,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions. But the Mobile Republican, who has become one of the GOP’s biggest advocates for cutting federal spending, thinks the country should still pay for rockets to Mars. “It is the one activity that defines the United States as the world’s technological leader,” Sessions said. “If we lose that, and others surpass us ... then I think it will be seen as a passing of the baton.” Those views are shared by some other fiscally minded Alabama Republicans — Republicans whose districts include NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

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AT: Obama Good – Dems Like Plan Democrats oppose NASA cuts House Committee, ’11 (House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, “Science Democrats Urge Administration To Let NASA Get On With Developing the Nation's Future Human Space Exploration Vehicles”, http://democrats.science.house.gov/press-release/science-democrats-urge-administration-let-nasa-get-developing-nations-future-human, 7/25/11)

In her opening statement, Committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) told Administrator Charles Bolden that she expected him to be on the receiving end of a lot of unhappiness and irritation on the part of many Members and added “That’s unfortunate, because the fault doesn’t lie with you. It’s my understanding that you have had a plan ready to announce for some time, but you haven’t been able to get the final okay to make it public.” Congresswoman Johnson added “That said, it is now past time for a decision and a plan to be announced.” She urged Administrator Bolden to “strongly convey to those in the Administration who are dithering that it is time to move forward and let NASA get on with the tasks that the nation has asked it to undertake. At this critical juncture, we need to move ahead expeditiously to build the Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle in a way that makes use of the human spaceflight skills and knowledge-base NASA has worked so hard to achieve and that inspires the next generation of explorers, engineers, and scientists.” Reflecting on NASA’s challenge of meeting congressional expectations in an atmosphere of reduced funding, Congresswoman Johnson stated “And to those of my colleagues on the Majority side who are critical of the Administration’s stewardship of NASA, I also hope that you will convey to your colleagues in Congress that NASA cannot do what we are asking it to do if its budget keeps getting cut. The proposed House CJS appropriation level for NASA is one that, if enacted, will simply add more stress to an agency and dedicated workforce that is already trying to do “more with less”, and at the end of the day will put America on a path to relinquish its space leadership.” In his statement for the record, Acting Ranking Member of the Committee’s Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Jerry Costello (D-IL) echoed Congresswoman Johnson’s concern about the need to come to grips with a final SLS decision. He stated: “It is very clear that this Committee strongly supports NASA moving forward as quickly and efficiently as possible to develop our next generation human spaceflight transportation systems, SLS and MPCV. It is critical that we solidify and focus these programs in the near term so we do not lose the talented aerospace workforce that is facing an uncertain future with the end of the Shuttle Program. While we have a vision for what the future of NASA’s mission is, we need to move confidently to get there. The Administration and NASA must lead the way.”

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AT: Elections – Plan Popular Survey shows Americans support US to continue space leadershipPew Research, July 5, 2011 (Pew Research for the People & the Press, Majority Sees U.S. Leadership in Space asEssential http://people-press.org/2011/07/05/majority-sees-u-s-leadership-in-space-as-essential/1/, July 24, 2011)On the eve of the final mission of the U.S. space shuttle program, most Americans say the United States must be at the forefront of future space exploration. Fifty years after the first American manned space flight, nearly six in-ten (58%) say it is essential that the United States continue to be a world leader in space exploration; about four-in-ten say this is not essential (38%). Looking back on the shuttle program, a majority (55%) say it has been a good investment for the country. However, this is lower than it was in the 1980s; throughout the early years of the shuttle program, six-in-ten or more said the program was a good investment. Majorities in nearly all demographic groups say it is essential that the U.S. continue to be at the vanguard of space exploration. And partisan groups largely agree that American leadership is vital, although this view is more prevalent among Republicans. Two-thirds of Republicans (67%) say the nation must continue to play an international leadership role in space exploration; smaller majorities of Democrats (54%) and independents (57%) say this.

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AT: Spending DA – No Link TWO POSSIBLE TAGS:

a. No spending tradeoff and turn- spending on science is key to the economy and high standards of living.

Or

b. History is on our side- NASA received more funding during a worse economic crisis without destroying the economy.

McLane, 2010, Associate Fellow in the American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has written articles for Harper’s and other major magazines around the world. (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1, Acc 7/25/2011) NHNaysayers claim the country can’t afford to send a person to Mars, but they forget we’ve successfully funded expensive space programs before and in tough economic times. Our space agency has relatively few direct government employees and distributes most of its money into the private sector all over the country. Some incorrectly believe that spending on NASA might divert funds from other needy government programs. One thing that keeps wealth in the US from being a “zero sum game” (where for some to win, others must lose) are those scientific developments that enable us to produce more output with less input. NASA is on the tip of this technology spear. Spending on the scientific segment of America is what keeps our standard of living moving ahead in a world of ever-diminishing natural assets. Rather than some fanciful and inaccurate speculation on what a tiny Mars outpost might cost, we should consider just what the country ought to be willing to spend. Forty years ago, at its peak, the US dedicated close to 1% of its Gross National Product (GNP) to the Apollo Moon landing. This was deemed affordable, in spite of the need to simultaneously fund an expensive war in Vietnam and massive new government welfare programs. In recent years the percent of our GNP that is devoted to space exploration is down in the range of one-quarter of one percent. America should easily be able to devote perhaps half a percent of its GNP each year—that’s just half the cost of Apollo, in a decade-long effort that would provide a permanent human presence on Mars. Such a program would receive enthusiastic, unwavering financial support when the entire world understands that humanity is finally embarked on a dramatic new course out into the universe.

NASA plan has no economic riskG.A.O., ’11 (COMMERCIAL LAUNCH VEHICLES NASA Taking Measures to Manage Delays and Risks, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11692t.pdf, 7/25/2011)

NASA’s intended use of the COTS Space Act agreements was to stimulate the space industry rather than acquiring goods and services for its direct use. Traditional FAR contracts are to be used when NASA is procuring something for the government’s direct benefit.13 NASA policy provides that funded Space Act agreements can only be used if no other instrument, such as a traditional FAR contract, can be used.14 Therefore, Space Act agreements and FAR-based contracts are to be used for different purposes. In considering the use of funded Space Act agreements for COTS, NASA identified several advantages. For example:Even With Identified Advantages, NASA Has Taken Measures to Address Risks to COTS Strategy The government can share costs with the agreement partner with fixed government investment. Payment to partner is made only after successful completion of performance-based milestones.

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AT: Spending DA – Jobs Turn b. Turn- Mission to mars creates massive job gain. (1AR)McLane, 2010, Associate Fellow in the American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has written articles for Harper’s and other major magazines around the world. (James, “Mars as the key to NASA’s future” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1, Acc 7/25/2011) NHThe aerospace industry must get behind this concept before it is too late. A permanent human presence on Mars would generate so much new work that the profits would seem as if the fat years of the Cold War had returned. But, this time, instead of building secret weapons that bring us closer to our own destruction, we would work together to expand humanity out into the solar system where we naturally belong.

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AT: Spending DA – Plan is Cheap No link – we’re just 10 Years 20% of NASA’s old budget Zubrin 1999-Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Robert Zubrin, Bachelor Degree in Mathematics with a Masters and PhD in Nuclear Engineering, Works for Lockheed Martin Astronautics) The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/mars.html)

The exploration phase of Mars colonization has been going on for some time now with the telescopic and robotic surveys that have been and continue to be made. It will take a quantum leap, however, when actual human expeditions to the planet's surface begin. As I and others have shown in numerous papers, if the Martian atmosphere is exploited for the purpose of manufacturing rocket fuel and oxygen, the mass, complexity, and overall logistics requirements of such missions can be reduced to the point where affordable human missions to Mars can be launched with present day technology. Moreover, by using such "Mars Direct" type approaches, human explorers can be on Mars within 10 years of program initiation, with total expenditure not more than 20% of NASA's existing budget.

Mission to Mars is affordable- only a fifth of original estimateZubrin 2010, Ph.D., President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 21, 2011)

3. We Can Afford It Such is the basic Mars Direct plan. In 1990, when it was first put forward, it was viewed as too radical for NASA to consider seriously, but over the next several years with the encouragement of then NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Mike Griffin, the group at Johnson Space Center in charge of designing human Mars missions decided to take a good hard look at it. They produced a detailed study of a Design Reference Mission based on the Mars Direct plan but scaled up about a factor of 2 in expedition size compared to the original concept. They then produced a cost estimate for what a Mars exploration program based upon this expanded Mars Direct would cost. Their result; $50 billion, with the estimate produced by the same costing group that assigned a $400 billion price tag to the traditional cumbersome approach to human Mars exploration embodied in NASA's 1989 "90 Day Report." I believe that with further discipline applied to the mission design, the program cost could be brought down to the $30 to $40 billion range. Spent over ten years, this would imply an annual expenditure on the order of 20% of NASA’s budget, or about half a percent of the US military budget. It is a small price to pay for a new world.

The plan costs $50 billion dollars per year.Dinkin, 2004 (Sam Dinkin, “Colonize the Moon before Mars”, September 7th 2004)

Mars is an excellent colonization spot and should be colonized because it is a great place to live. If we are going places as a species, we have to start somewhere. Right now, the level of space commitment by all actors on Earth is about $50 billion a year. This level of commitment would pay for about twenty Mars Direct-style missions every two years. This is a feasible budget for the colonization of Mars. Many technologies can be optimized if the focus of Earth space efforts was colonization. Cyclers could be placed in permanent Earth-Mars transfer orbit. In situ resource utilization could eliminate the need for hydrogen shipment from Earth. Better crew selection could eliminate the need for humans to take a return trip. If the goal of human presence on Mars is to colonize it, $50 billion a year can do it well. It will probably take decades of subsidy before a Mars colony could sustain itself. A twenty-year program of $50-billion-a-year subsidies would hit a trillion dollars. This is an affordable sum for a rich planet. It would be an excellent idea to get started if this were the only space colonization option. There is a much better option, however, teasing us as it hangs in the sky.

Cost is not an issue – spent over 10 years, the cost would only be half a percent of the US military budgetZubrin, 2010 October 2010, Ph.D., astronomical engineer, President of the Mars Society (Robert, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, July 20, 2011)

Such is the basic Mars Direct plan. In 1990, when it was first put forward, it was viewed as too radical for NASA to consider seriously, but over the next several years with the encouragement of then NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Mike Griffin, the group at Johnson Space Center in charge of designing human Mars missions decided to take a good hard look at it. They produced a detailed study of a Design Reference Mission based on the Mars Direct plan but scaled up about a factor of 2 in expedition size compared to the original concept. They then produced a cost estimate for what a Mars exploration program based upon this expanded Mars Direct would cost. Their result; $50 billion, with the estimate produced by the same costing group that assigned a $400 billion price tag to the traditional cumbersome approach to human Mars exploration embodied in NASA's 1989 "90 Day Report." I believe that with further discipline applied to the mission design, the program cost could be brought down to the $30 to $40 billion range. Spent over ten years, this would imply an annual expenditure on the order of 20% of NASA’s budget, or about half a percent of the US military budget. It is a small price to pay for a new world.

A human mission to Mars would cost $20billion, and a colony would cost $145billion over a 10 year periodJoseph, 2010 August 2010, Ph.D. (Rhawn, Marketing Mars: Financing the Human Mission to Mars and the Colonization of the Red Planet, http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars110.html, July 21, 2011)

Most estimates envision a Mars' mission with expenditures of less than $25 billion. For example, in 2002, the European Space Agency (ESA) proposed a joint mission with Russia which would cost $20 billion. This was a two spacecraft proposal, one carrying a six-person crew and the other the supplies. The mission would take about 440 days to complete with three astronauts visiting the surface of the planet for two months. Russia originally envisioned a manned Mars mission by 2015 (New Scientist, July, 2002). In 2007, NASA chief administrator, Michael Griffin suggested a human mission to Mars could cost as little as $11 billion. However, NASA's vague goal would be to put humans on Mars after the year 2035 (AFP

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/PaiSep 24, 2007). NASA's current five-year budget is around $86 billion and the $11 billion estimate for a Human Mission to the Red Planet may be unrealistic. Thus, it is possible that a two year round trip journey to Mars could be accomplished with expenditures of around $20 billion whereas a more ambitious mission involving the establishment of a permanent Mars' base would cost considerably more. According to NASA, a single space shuttle cost around 1.6 billion dollars. Estimates are that the entire space shuttle program, since the program became operational in 1981, has cost $145 billion, with much of those costs having accrued in the first 10 years. Therefore, it could be estimated that a Mission to Mars and the establishment and maintenance of a permanent colony, with space craft journeying to and from the Red Planet, could cost around $145 billion over a 10 year period.

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AT: Econ DA’s – EPMD Plan Boosts Economic GrowthOlson, 2010 , House Science and Technology Committee Representative (Pete, Abandoning human space flight is shortsighted, http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/79811-abandoning-human-space-flight-is-shortsighted, July 24)

A bipartisan group of legislators from the House and Senate stand in firm opposition to the president's plan to cancel NASA's Constellation program . Constellation is NASA's next-generation system to replace the space shuttle upon its retirement. There only five more flights scheduled. Constellation is the means to return to the moon and eventually on to Mars. The administration's intention to cancel Constellation represents its single largest cut in their FY11 budget proposal. Funds will be shifted to commercial entities to provide crew and cargo to the International Space Station. The life of the ISS has been extended to at least 2020, as it was initially slated to be deorbited in 2015. It is shortsighted to view abandoning human space flight as the means to portray fiscal discipline. In a budget that increases federal spending, particularly in the areas of science and education, why cut a program that has served as a primary resource for both? Then why would the administration turn its back on thousands of high-paying, highly skilled jobs nationwide at this time if jobs are supposed to be the number one priority of this administration? Japan, India and China have set their sights on the moon. Why are we pulling back America's dominance in human space flight? It is deplorable that the president would willingly accept second-tier status for the U.S. on an issue of this magnitude. President Obama said he would take a scalpel to the budget instead of a sledgehammer, but even a scalpel can nick an artery. This decision is the elimination of a job creator, economic innovator and symbol of American exceptionalism. The administration purports that they are committed to human space flight by saying they have increased NASA's budget by $1 billion. But the president's own commission appointed to review human spaceflight said that it would take a minimum of $3 billion to have any kind of robust program. Since its inception, the challenges American scientists and engineers overcame in getting man into space and on the moon brought forth a slew of cutting-edge technologies that made their way into our daily lives. And now, the administration is willing to throw away a half-century of scientific progress for a sub-orbital taxicab. The administration would like to foster commercial providers with our human space flight capabilities. Commercial participation is a good thing, and something that everyone agrees with, but it's simply not ready to take humans into space safely, and should not be the sole means for our country's access to space. Congress twice passed authorization bills, in 2005 and 2008, endorsing Constellation. The administration has disregarded that guidance, and as such has met resistance. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the administration was not going to back down "just because they (Constellation supporters) have a powerful constituency on the Hill or K Street." The constituencies the White House should be worried about are America's scientists, engineers, and students whom they will discourage through this shortsighted action. They must also acknowledge the loss of thousands of jobs. This action stymies America's global prominence through yet another shortsighted economic decision by the Obama administration. The president has a voice in the budget process, but Congress does as well. This issue is far from resolved.

Aerospace key to US economy US Department of Commerce, 11 (June 21, 2011, “Aerospace Industry is Critical Contributor to U.S. Economy According to Obama Trade Official at Paris Air Show”, http://trade.gov/press/press-releases/2011/aerospace-industry-critical-contributor-to-us-economy-062111.asp)

“The U.S. aerospace industry is a strategic contributor to the economy, national security, and technological innovation of the United States ,” Sánchez said. “The industry is key to achieving the President’s goals of doubling exports by the end of 2014 and contributed $78 billion in export sales to the U.S. economy in 2010.” During the U.S. Pavilion opening remarks, Sánchez noted that the aerospace sector in the United States supports more jobs through exports than any other industry. Sánchez witnessed a signing ceremony between Boeing and Aeroflot, Russia’s state-owned airline. Aeroflot has ordered eight 777s valued at $2.1 billion, and the sales will support approximately 14,000 jobs. “The 218 American companies represented in the U.S. International Pavilion demonstrate the innovation and hard work that make us leaders in this sector,” said Sánchez. “I am particularly pleased to see the incredible accomplishments of U.S. companies participating in the Alternative Aviation Fuels Showcase, which demonstrates our leadership in this important sector and shows that we are on the right path to achieving the clean energy future envisioned by President Obama.” The 2011 Paris Air Show is the world’s largest aerospace trade exhibition, and features 2,000 exhibitors, 340,000 visitors, and 200 international delegations. The U.S. aerospace industry ranks among the most competitive in the world, boasting a positive trade balance of $44.1 billion – the largest trade surplus of any U.S. manufacturing industry. It directly sustains about 430,000 jobs, and indirectly supports more than 700,000 additional jobs . Ninety-one percent of U.S. exporters of aerospace products are small and medium-sized firms.

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AT: Econ DA’s – EPMD NASA is the best place for the government to spend money, and has previously provided a return on the investmentWhittington, 7/16/11 (Mark R., author of The Last Moonwalker and a BA in History, Do Commercial Spin-offs Help Justify Projects like NASA's Space Shuttle?, http://news.yahoo.com/commercial-spin-offs-help-justify-projects-nasas-space-164200551.html)

The spin-off argument has occasionally been oversold, but it is not a frivolous one. Various studies about the economic effects of the Apollo program, including one done by Chase Econometrics in the 1970s, suggest that Apollo actually delivered more economic value to the American economy than it cost. That is a remarkable feat for any government program. Whether the space shuttle program, which cost upwards to $200 billion, has had a similar effect is yet to be determined. A study of the shuttle program along the lines of Apollo would be interesting and revealing, however. Some space program critics suggest, with some justification, that building and launching rockets is an inefficient way to get heart pumps, sleeker trucks, and other spin-off products. On the other hand, one has difficulty imagining the US government spending the money more efficiently than at NASA. There being no space program, the money would very likely have been spent on social welfare programs or pork barrel projects of little value when one considers how government works .

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AT: Econ DA’s – Aerospace Key to Economy Aerospace leadership key to economyAlbaugh 4/27 -- Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the International Academy of Astronautics (4/27/2011 , Jim Albaugh, “Keeping America’s Lead in Aerospace”, Speech to the 10th Annual Aviation Summit US Chamber of Commerce, http://www.aia-aerospace.org/newsroom/speeches_testimony/)

But there are steps we can take. Most every nation that is serious about sustaining and strengthening its industry has an industrial policy. Ours is one of market forces. In my mind, it is not clear, coherent or comprehensive enough. I’m not saying we need a policy that defines specific outputs and production, or that we should build things that aren’t needed. But we do need to start the dialogue about an industrial strategy to ensure the long-term viability of our defense and industrial base. It’s critical to our long-term economic and national security. We can’t wake up some morning and decide we want a certain capability and find there are no contractors with the required technologies or the experience and wherewithal to do a complex development program. This is an area where we all can encourage dialogue. To some people in commercial aviation, the defense industrial base might not seem essential, but think about commercial aviation without it… without GPS … without heads-up display… without satellite communications… without radar… I could go on and on. When you realize that the defense industrial base affects all of us in this room, I think you can begin to see the value in all of us speaking out on it.

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AT: Econ DA’s – Cost Covered by NASA Human Mission to Mars Is not barred by cost considerations due to NASA’s existing budgetEhlmann, 3/8/05, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Washington University (Bethany, “Humans to Mars: A feasibility and cost–benefit analysis”, http://www.sc-eco.univ-nantes.fr/~tvallee/Calcul/doc/Humans%20to%20Mars%20%20A%20feasibility%20and%20cost%96benefit%20analysis.pdf)

One common argument against a human mission to Mars is the expense. We will not attempt to put a price tag on a mission in this document since such a figure requires a detailed mission architecture, but it is instructive to place a range of cost estimates in context. In general, costs for a human Mars mission range from a low of $20 billion [12] to a high of $450 billion [13]. The latter estimate includes use of the moon as a launch point. Here we examine the relative costs of each by assuming an order of magnitude price range, between $30 billion and $300 billion. The lower number represents twice NASA’s annual budget of about $15 billion [14]. If we spread human Mars mission costs over ten years, this would account for only 20% of NASA’s annual budget per year , spending $3 billion per year. The current budget for the Mars Exploration Program is 15% of this value, at about $450 million per year [14]. Placing mission cost in a different context, the annual cost of the high end number, spread over 30 years, is approximately the same amount that the tobacco industry spends on advertising each year , around $8.2 billion [15]. A commonly expressed fear is that money for a Mars mission would take away money from the human services sector. The budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tallies almost $490 billion annually, with a FY2003 increase of 6.3%. The HHS increase alone, $30 billion FY2003, is equivalent to the low-end cost estimate of a human Mars mission. Putting it another way, a Mars mission would be cost-equivalent to 0.5% of the HHS annual budget. We conclude then that a human mission to Mars is not barred by cost considerations. Indeed, cost is relatively small compared to other federal government endeavors and the mission’s considerable benefits .

Mars mission financially feasible.Ehlmann et. al, 2002 , Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis (Bethany, Jeeshan Chowdhury, R. Eric Collins, Brandon DeKock, F. Douglas Grant, Michael Hannon, Stuart Ibsen, Jessica Kinnevan, Wendy Krauser, Julie Litzenberger, Timothy Marzullo, Rebekah Shepard, Humans to Mars: The Political Initiative and Technical Expertise Needed for Human Exploration of the Red Planet, http://www.reric.org/htm/files/HumansToMars-ExSummary.pdf

One common argument against a human mission to Mars is the expense. We won’t attempt to put a price tag on a mission in this document since such a figure requires a detailed mission architecture, but it is instructive to place a range of cost estimates in context. In general, costs for a human Mars mission range from a low of $20 billion to a high of $450 billion (the latter estimate which includes use of the moon as a launch point) (Zubrin, 1997). Here we examine the relative costs of each by assuming an order of magnitude price range, between $30 billion and $300 billion.The lower number represents twice NASA’s annual budget of about $15 billion (NASA, 2002b). If we spread human Mars mission costs over ten years, this would account for only 20% of NASA’s annual budget per year, spending $3 billion per year. The current budget for the Mars Exploration Program is 15% of this value, at about $450 million per year (NASA, 2002b). Placing mission cost in a different context, the low-end cost number is approximately equal to the cost of every inhabitant of the United States buying one 16 oz. bottled water per month for 10 years. The annual cost of the high-end number is approximately the same amount that the tobacco industry spends on advertising each year, around $8.2 billion (FTC, 1999). A commonly expressed fear is that money for a Mars mission would take away money from the human services sector. The budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tallies almost $490 billion annually, with a FY2003 increase of 6.3%. The HHS increase alone, $30 billion FY2003, is equivalent to the low-end cost estimate of a human Mars mission. A human to mission to Mars then is not barred by cost considerations. Indeed, cost is relatively small compared to the benefits.

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AT: Econ DA’s – Cost Covered by NASA Finances should not be an issue for a mission to marsMcLane, ’10 [James C., Associate Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, his writings in support of a human presence on Mars have appeared in Harper’s and other major magazines around the world; “Mars as the key to NASA’s future,” June 1, 2010; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1635/1]

Naysayers claim the country can’t afford to send a person to Mars, but they forget we’ve successfully funded expensive space programs before and in tough economic times. Our space agency has relatively few direct government employees and distributes most of its money into the private sector all over the country. Some incorrectly believe that spending on NASA might divert funds from other needy government programs. One thing that keeps wealth in the US from being a “zero sum game” (where for some to win, others must lose) are those scientific developments that enable us to produce more output with less input. NASA is on the tip of this technology spear. Spending on the scientific segment of America is what keeps our standard of living moving ahead in a world of ever-diminishing natural assets.Some suggest we should wait for better technology to arrive so we can make a human trip to Mars safer. What if Columbus had decided not to travel across the Atlantic until he could go on a steamship?Rather than some fanciful and inaccurate speculation on what a tiny Mars outpost might cost, we should consider just what the country ought to be willing to spend. Forty years ago, at its peak, the US dedicated close to 1% of its Gross National Product (GNP) to the Apollo Moon landing. This was deemed affordable, in spite of the need to simultaneously fund an expensive war in Vietnam and massive new government welfare programs. In recent years the percent of our GNP that is devoted to space exploration is down in the range of one-quarter of one percent. America should easily be able to devote perhaps half a percent of its GNP each year—that’s just half the cost of Apollo, in a decade-long effort that would provide a permanent human presence on Mars. Such a program would receive enthusiastic, unwavering financial support when the entire world understands that humanity is finally embarked on a dramatic new course out into the universe .

NASA can afford to put humans on mars by redirecting funds from other initiativesThompson, 11/9/10 (Loren B., Ph.D in government and Bachelors in Political Science, “Sending Americans To Mars Is

An Affordable Mission”, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/sending-americans-to-mars-is-an-affordable-mission)One of the greatest achievements in history, NASA's human spaceflight program, is dying. With the best of intentions, the Obama Administration has put the astronaut program on a path that leads nowhere, and therefore will not be able to sustain political support . There is a better way. For the same amount of money NASA plans to spend on a series of disconnected initiatives, the White House can place mankind in a trajectory that leads to a human landing on Mars, and a permanent colony after that. It will take a long time, because budgets are limited and the technology to put people on the Red Planet does not yet fully exist. But Mars is the one goal that can justify the kind of expenditures required to maintain a human spaceflight program over the long haul. Not only will it keep the highly skilled workforce of NASA's space centers employed on a major national mission for decades to come -- with each center contributing specialized pieces to the overall effort -- but it will define all the intermediate missions required to prepare for the ultimate goal.

The Mission can adapt to economic times – the horse will take care of the cart.Thompson, 11/9/10 (Loren B., Ph.D in government and Bachelors in Political Science, “Sending Americans To Mars Is

An Affordable Mission”, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/sending-americans-to-mars-is-an-affordable-mission)For now, though, it is challenging enough simply to get a single crew to the Red Planet and back. That could be done in 20 years if the government's finances were as sound as when President Kennedy committed to a Moon landing in 1961 (which was accomplished in less than a hundred months). But because federal finances are deeply in deficit today, the plan for a Mars landing must be stretched out to a point where it fits within the existing NASA budget. That means conducting a series of increasingly demanding missions that lead to the Moon, to more distant asteroids, and then on to Mars -- with each mission contributing more to our understanding of how humans will fare during long periods in space, and how technologies mesh to make more challenging missions feasible. The plan can speed up or slow down as necessary to accommodate fiscal realities. But the important thing is to establish a goal that is sustainable, one which can help organize and prioritize all the other things the human spaceflight program must do. If the Obama Administration can grasp the logic of making Mars the goal, then it may create a legacy that history will still recall a thousand years hence.

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AT: Econ DA’s – IT’s Cheap Exploring space is inexpensiveGenta & Rycroft 06 – (Giancarlo, Genta: Professor of Machine Design and Construction at the Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. Rycroft: CAESAR Consultancy. Rycroft, Michael: Cambridge Atmospheric, Environmental and Space Activities and Research CAESAR Consultancy. “Will space actually be the final frontier of humankind?” Acta Astronautica Volume 58, Issue 5, March 2006, Pages 287-295. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576506000130)

But is it true that space is very costly? Compared, for example, with the cost of military activities, space is not expensive at all. The cost of space exploration is not higher than that of other human activities, and in several cases it is lower. The cost of the construction of a new motorway or a railway, for instance, is comparable with, or even more than, that of sending a robotic probe to Mars or to the outer solar system. The sum spent every year by any large corporation in advertising compares with the cost of a sizeable space enterprise. Even the yearly budget of large criminal organizations is higher than that needed yearly to maintain an outpost on the Moon! The point, then, is not just a matter of money. What is lacking is the willingness to invest in an enterprise making little profit in the short term, yet one with good long term prospects for business. In the long term space exploration, or rather space exploitation, is essential to generate resources for a sustainable development on Earth. The commercial use of space here shows that funding is not lacking in the sectors where space activities are financially rewarding, as in the telecommunications business. This must not be underestimated since, in recent years, privately funded space activities have attracted more money than that directly spent by space agencies. Another important sector is that of Earth observation and navigation satellites, where the large investments required fit well within the traditional fields of governmental organizations [1] and where many countries, such as China, India or Indonesia, are now very active. Obviously, the same holds also for defence. Exploration has only occasionally been felt to be an important goal for governments. Even then it is only when other motivations are added to the expansion of scientific knowledge or to the discovery of new ‘territories’. National security considerations or a perception of national superiority have always been one of the strongest of such drivers [1]. That was the case for the most active phase of space exploration which culminated in the Apollo missions. Many examples in history come to mind. While Columbus’ voyages to America were funded by the Spanish government (in the context of wider political priorities), other expeditions of the same period were funded in other ways. Magellan's expedition around the world proved to be a very good business. In spite of the fact that just one ship out of the three which set sail from Spain came home, the selling of the spices brought back more than made up for the expenses which the organizers had to withstand.

The Plan is cheap and will only account for a small fraction of the debtRobert Zubrin, austronautlical engineer, PHd, President of the Mars Society, Journal of Cosmology, October-November 2010, Human Mars Exploration: The Time Is Now,http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars111.html, DOA: 1/11/11

Such is the basic Mars Direct plan. In 1990, when it was first put forward, it was viewed as too radical for NASA to consider seriously, but over the next several years with the encouragement of then NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Mike Griffin, the group at Johnson Space Center in charge of designing human Mars missions decided to take a good hard look at it. They produced a detailed study of a Design Reference Mission based on the Mars Direct plan but scaled up about a factor of 2 in expedition size compared to the original concept. They then produced a cost estimate for what a Mars exploration program based upon this expanded Mars Direct would cost. Their result; $50 billion, with the estimate produced by the same costing group that assigned a $400 billion price tag to the traditional cumbersome approach to human Mars exploration embodied in NASA's 1989 "90 Day Report." I believe that with further discipline applied to the mission design, the program cost could be brought down to the $30 to $40 billion range. Spent over ten years, this would imply an annual expenditure on the order of 20% of NASA’s budget, or about half a percent of the US military budget. It is a small price to pay for a new world.

Long-term cost of terraforming mars not highHoward, 25 Mar. 1999, , Professor of education at Colby collage (Adam, “Destination Mars,” http://www.byzantinecommunications.com/adamhoward/homework/college/terraforming.html, July 20th)

Many critics cite economic reasons against terraforming Mars. They tell us that the costs are prohibitively high. But are the costs really so high? The economist's standard answer applies here: it depends...on the time scale one chooses to view the project. In the short term, a large outlay of capital will be required, in the tens of billions of dollars, first to establish a colony, then to build the greenhouse gas factories. Twenty to thirty billion dollars is not cheap, but it's roughly in the same range as a single major military procurement for a new weapons system; it's in the same range as the money the United States government gave to Mexico in one afternoon in the summer of 1995 (Zubrin xix).

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AT: Econ DA’s – N/U Double dip is in the cards – slowed growth and recession forecasts prove

Barr, 7/18/11 (Colin, “Goldman says recession risk rising”, http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/18/goldman-says-recession-risk-rising/, 7/25/11)

Goldman Sachs , which just seven months ago was the loudest voice for a stronger than expected U.S. recovery, now expects U.S. output to creep ahead at a snaillike 1.5% clip in the second quarter and a less than vigorous 2% in the third. Friday's call stands as quite a comedown for economist Jan Hatzius, who in May forecast a 2% expansion in the second quarter and a 3.25% gain in the third quarter – numbers that themselves represented a retreat from the firm's bullish start-of-the-year forecast. A forecast downgrade alone doesn't spell economic downturn, of course, but there is ample reason to suspect a deeper malaise is at work: Consumer confidence fell "off a cliff" last month, Bank of America economist Joshua Dennerlein wrote in a note to clients Friday, dropping almost 20% in the most recent reading. That puts the consumer sentiment index at a level last seen in 2009, when Citi (C) was assumed to be bankrupt and the stock market fetched half its current price. Dennerlein wants to blame that plunge on the debt ceiling debacle, but Hatzius notes less soothingly that final sales rose at a sub-tepid 0.5% clip in the first half. That is almost always a sign of economic contraction, even when nuts in Washington aren't trying to blow up the economy for the sake of appearing "fiscally responsible." Double dip, here we come.

Economy growth is slow and not making progress – unemployment and growth rates prove

Zarroli, 7/12/11 (Jim, “The Problem With A Slow-Growth Economy”, http://www.npr.org/2011/07/12/137770847/the-problem-with-a-slow-growth-economy, 7/25/11)

In the United States the recession officially ended two years ago, but in much of the country housing prices are still falling, jobs are hard to come by and growth remains weak. A low growth rate is much more than just a number. Economists say that over time weak growth can have an insidious effect on a country's prospects and options in ways not everyone appreciates. This was supposed to be the year the U.S. economy finally gained traction. Instead, it looks more and more like it's stuck in the mud, says former Federal Reserve member Alan Blinder. "The economy has been disappointing on the low side consistently for several months now and that makes me and other people worry that maybe this slow growth will linger longer than we now think," he says. During the first three months of the year, the U.S. economy grew by just 1.9 percent while China grew 9.7 percent. Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute says the weak U.S. growth rate is part of a disturbing pattern. "Ever since the mid-1970s the pace of expansion has been stairstepping down in every expansion so that the last expansion was the weakest expansion on record on every count, including GDP and jobs," he says. Achuthan says it's not clear why this is happening. It might be demographics, or globalization, or simply an inevitable fact of life for a mature economy. But the implications of the weak growth rate are profound. For one thing, it means U.S. companies have fewer opportunities to grow. Wisconsin-based Husco International, which makes components for hydraulic equipment, has had a rough past few years because many of its customers are in the construction business, says CEO Austin Ramirez. "It's hard to be optimistic, overly optimistic, about the market," he says. "We'll figure it out and we'll get things under control, and the U.S. housing market will recover. Am I optimistic it's going to happen in the next three months as opposed to the next 18 months? I don't know." But Husco is doing well in part because it has sought business in emerging markets where growth is much stronger. "They're just building a lot of infrastructure. You know China is investing a huge amount of infrastructure into roads and bridges and railroads, and to do that they need hydraulic components — same story in India," Ramirez says. When U.S. companies face weaker growth they do less hiring, which means unemployment is higher. Blinder says a 2 percent growth rate wouldn't matter much if the nation had a healthy job market. "But when you have a 9 percent unemployment that means you're sitting at the bottom of a deep hole and you need to climb out," he says. "Two percent is not climbing out at all. In fact, 2 percent is burrowing in slightly deeper." And Blinder says the slow pace of hiring is especially hard on young people trying to enter the workforce. Richard White, who heads the Rutgers University career office, says the job market for graduating students is more challenging than it was a few years ago. "Obviously a higher growth rate means more jobs, more choices, more offers," he says. White says students graduating right now sometimes have to accept lower salaries and less attractive jobs than they used to. And over time they pay a price for that. "If you look over the long haul, starting behind — particularly in an economy that is growing much more slowly than we all would hope — they may not catch up over time," he says. Slow growth also makes it much harder for cities and states to repair their finances. Not only does the cost of safety-net programs stay high, but tax revenues stay low. "You have high unemployment, you pay out high unemployment benefits, Medicaid benefits go up, food stamps benefits go up and, much more importantly, tax receipts go down," Blinder says. But none of this is forever. Achuthan says even with moderate growth the U.S. economy will recover eventually, if given enough time. In the 1990s growth wasn't especially strong, he says, but the expansion lasted a long time, and that eventually brought unemployment down to near-record lows. He says the same thing could happen now. "Two percent's not bad if you can get 10 years of it," he says. "It's really bad if you only get a couple years of it, and that's the challenge here." But to achieve that kind of stable, long-term growth means avoiding any further recessions. And that won't be easy. In the meantime, a public that's lived through the booms and busts of the past two decades may have to learn to live with diminished expectations.

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AT: Econ DA’s – N/u No econ recovery, slow growth – weak job market, high gas prices, low consumer spending

Associated Press, 7/15/11 (“Mixed data shows slow growing economy”, http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110715/BUSINESS/107150312/Mixed-data-shows-slow-growing-economy, 7/25/11)

A mixed slate of reports Thursday showed the economy is being held back by high gas prices and sluggish hiring. Economists are forecasting a pick-up in growth in the second half of the year. But the latest data revealed only faint signs of a turnaround. The Commerce Department said retail sales ticked up only 0.1 percent last month, after declining the previous month. Consumers spent more on cars and in big chain stores in June, but less on furniture and appliances. The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits dropped last week by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 405,000, the lowest level in three months. Still, applications have been above 400,000 for 14 straight weeks, reflecting the weak job market. U.S. companies paid less for raw materials and factory goods in June, a separate report showed. The decline in wholesale prices was driven by the steepest fall in energy prices in nearly two years. Gas prices dropped by the most since last May, the Labor Department said. Still, businesses and motorists are paying nearly a dollar more per gallon than they were a year ago. That has forced many consumers to forgo discretionary purchases. Growth in retail sales has slowed since February -- around the same time that gas prices began to surge. "Consumers are fatigued," said Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS Global Insight. "The only real good news on the consumer side of the economy is that gasoline prices started to fall, but are still relatively high." JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli said the bank lowered its growth forecast for the July-September period based on the latest data on stockpiles. He said it expects only 2.5 percent growth, down from its initial estimate of 3 percent. That's not much higher than the 2 percent growth most analysts expect for the first half of the year. "Clearly the recent stalling in employment growth has forced households to be a bit more careful with their cash," said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics. "For the moment, these data will do little to dispel fears that the economic recovery is going nowhere."

Econ failing – slow GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation prove – no rebound coming

Isidore, 7/6/11 (Chris, “Slow Growth, Weak Hiring Next For Economy”, http://www.clickondetroit.com/money/28458689/detail.html, 7/25/11)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Almost no one is satisfied with the current state of the U.S. economy. But economists say the outlook is pretty bleak too . Sluggish economic growth will continue into 2012, if not beyond, with only modest hiring and high unemployment, according to a CNNMoney survey of 27 economists. The economists predict that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic health, will grow at only a 2% annual rate in the second quarter, little improved from the 1.9% growth rate in the first three months of the year. For the full year, they're projecting growth of 2.6% -- even weaker than in 2010. While they expect growth to pick up to 3% in 2012, that's just barely enough to get employers hiring at a significant pace. Expectations started off strong in 2011, with some economists looking for growth as high as 4.3% in the first quarter. But momentum waned in the spring after the Japanese earthquake shook the world economy and oil prices rose precipitously. Since then, economists have slashed forecasts for growth going forward, with some raising the risk of a new recession. "The start-and-stop recovery we have experienced over the last year and a half is stifling the momentum necessary for business confidence to rise materially and hiring to gain traction," said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial. Forecasts for the job market aren't much better. The June jobs report due Friday is expected to show 120,000 jobs added to payrolls, with businesses adding 130,000 as government employment continues to decline. Typically, the economy needs to add about 150,000 just to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate is expected to fall only slightly to 9% from 9.1% in May. Hiring for all of 2011 is expected to come in just under 2 million jobs. And unemployment is expected to be at 8.7% at the end of this year. The economists blame the hiring slump on uncertainty about consumer demand and Washington's future actions on debt, health care reform and financial regulation. While the forecast is slightly better for hiring next year, with economists expecting about 200,000 jobs being added on average each month, that will only be enough to bring unemployment down to 8.1% by the end of 2012. For that reason, most economists don't expect the Federal Reserve to start reining in the economy anytime soon, even though inflation is likely to pick up. The economists predict overall prices will rise about 3.2% this year, up from 1.2% last year. Only two economists expect a rate hike from the central bank this year, while about half expect the Fed's next move will be to raise rates in 2012 or later. Others expect lower-profile steps, like setting an explicit inflation target or changing the interest rate paid on excess reserves. None of them expect the Fed to embark on another round of asset purchases to pump cash into the economy, a controversial effort known as quantitative easing, although Keith Hembre, chief economist of Nuveen Asset Management said that could happen if there is a European sovereign debt default or an unexpected hard landing for the Chinese economy.

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AT: Russia DA – Commies Can’t Be Trusted Russia cannot be trusted with space leadership due to increasing tensions between Russia and other ISS alliesPage 8/28/08 journalist for Space news article (Lewis, Keep Shuttle flying, don't trust Russia, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/27/mccain_calls_for_shuttle_extension/ , 7/21/11)

At present, NASA's plan is that the shuttle fleet would not fly beyond 2010. From then until the arrival of new rockets and capsules under the Constellation programme - to launch at the earliest in 2014 - America would possess no ship capable of putting an astronaut into space. In particular, flights to the International Space Station (ISS) would be dependent on Russian Soyuz vehicles. With tensions high between Russia and its ISS partners regarding the recent fighting in Georgia and Russia's subsequent recognition of breakaway Georgian regions, many are reluctant to rely on Moscow for space lift. Senator McCain says he is also upset with the Russians over their sales of weapons and other technology to countries such as Iran, and argues that funding Soyuz manufacture indirectly assists ballistic-missile development by America's possible enemies. Prospects for a non-Russian astronaut ship before Constellation seem slim. There have been proposals for Europe to build a man-rated version of its "Jules Verne" cargo module, but the ESA so far seems just as keen on a cheaper collaborative effort with Russia. Tech zillionaire Elon Musk's Falcon rocket programme is intended to offer a crewed capsule called "Dragon" in time, but at present is struggling with technical mishaps after a third consecutive launch failure for the Falcon 1. The upcoming Falcon 9 rocket - the version which could potentially carry astronauts to orbit - has yet to fly.

Russia cannot be trusted with space leadership, because of their past failure to pay off ISS debt Space Daily 9/26/02 news site for space industry professionals (Space Daily Washington Expects Russia To Honor Its Obligations To Space Station, http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iss-02j.html , 7/21/11)

The Russian space agency had warned earlier in the day, however, it can no longer afford to meet its commitments to help build and supply the International Space Station. "The situation (in the Russian space industry) is difficult" and "there are risks" that the ISS operations may be suspended, Russian Space Agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov told AFP in Moscow. His remarks came a day after the press quoted space official Valery Ryumin as saying the situation had become "desperate" and he had written to NASA to discuss "temporarily suspending" the station. Russian space construction company, Energia, forced to borrow money, has been having trouble repaying its debts which amount to one billion roubles (about 32 million dollars) because of insufficient state subsidies. NASA acknowledged in the statement that it has heard of Energia's troubles. "NASA has received some preliminary indications that the primary Russian contractor for the ISS is having financial difficulties and is discussing the potential impact to ISS resulting from these difficulties with the responsible officials" at its Russian counterpart, the statement said. Nevertheless "NASA and the United States government fully expect that the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and the Russian government will meet their commitments under the International Space Station agreements," NASA said.

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AT: Russia DA – Russia/US Relations High Russia wants to cooperate with US in space- needs US support for high-cost projectsPasztor 2010, (Andy, Wall Street Journal, Russia Seeks Cooperation with US in Space Effort, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575252842393481092.html Accessed 7/21/11)

WASHINGTON—Russian leaders are trying to use the current thaw in relations with the U.S. to enhance cooperation in space, pushing for joint exploration efforts extending past the life of the international space station.Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov spoke over the weekend with Charles Bolden, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and gave the Kremlin's strongest indication to date that it wants to team with the U.S. to explore more deeply into the solar system.In a speech and brief interview Monday, Mr. Ivanov said the time is right for the two countries to share financial and engineering resources on possible ventures that would be launched past 2020 and travel beyond low-earth orbit. The two countries already collaborate extensively on the space station, an international consortium that includes Russia, the U.S. and several other countries. The station, which operates in low-earth orbit, is slated to continue for at least another decade.Both countries need increasing international support to advance in space. With the U.S. space-shuttle fleet slated for retirement next year and Congress and the White House at loggerheads over its replacement, NASA will be entirely dependent on Russian rockets and capsules to get astronauts to the space station for the next several years. Russia's space ambitions, meanwhile, require outside financial support. In his speech to a meeting organized by the Nixon Center, a foreign-policy group, on Monday, Mr. Ivanov pointedly referred to the immense cost of space exploration.The Obama administration has also opened the door for enhanced space cooperation, and Kremlin officials appear persuaded the time is right to begin talks about new ventures. Mr. Ivanov said in the speech that "I firmly believe that all our cooperation in space" so far "should bring more and more fruits." Although he didn't mention details, Mr. Ivanov said that "it's time to look beyond" low-earth orbit.

Russia-US Space Relations Good-Currently Collaborating on Nuclear EngineEaton 2011 (Kit, April 5, 2011, Russia, US plan a Nuclear-Powered Space Rocket, Making Mars Mission More Feasible, http://www.fastcompany.com/1744745/russia-us-plan-a-nuclear-powered-space-rocket-should-we-worry, Accesses 7/21/11)

The Russian federal space agency has revealed that on April 15th, the U.S. and Russia will meet to discuss the development of a future joint nuclear-engine powered rocket project. The announcement was made by agency director Anatoly Perminov, and the joint project will also include other nations with a "high level of reactor manufacturing technology." This list could include France, Britain, Germany, China, and Japan. The design is to be completed by 2012, and Russia alone expects to inject around 17 billion rubles ($600 million). The intention is to create a powerful engine that could surpass conventional rocket-fueled engines, and even make a manned mission to Mars plausible. The inclusion of Japan in this list will raise many an eyebrow, considering the ongoing nuclear disaster that's befallen the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the aftermath of Japan's earthquake, and the debate on the future of nuclear power the affair has ignited around the world. But what exactly is a nuclear rocket? The idea is surprisingly old, in fact. All rockets work, at heart, in exactly the same way: They make use of Newton's third law of action and reaction to propel themselves forwards by propelling something else in the other direction. In conventionally-fueled rockets, the propellents are a chemical mix that typically burns at high temperatures, resulting in a rapid expansion of gas by-products fired out of the engine bell. Check out the video of the Space Shuttle Main Engines being fired below, demonstrating their astonishing power. Nuclear rockets work in exactly the same way, except that the fuel is superheated by being pumped around the hot core of a thermonuclear reactor. It's similar to the way some types of nuclear power stations turn water into steam to propel a turbine--just on a smaller scale, and with the super-hot fuel fired out of a rocket engine bell. Liquid hydrogen is often postulated as a good fuel, since it rapidly expands when heated, and extensive technology to carry it in tanks inside rockets already exists. In a design like this, the nuclear engine has several benefits over conventional designs: There's only the need to carry one fuel (unlike, for example, the Space Shuttle's oxygen-hydrogen engines) meaning you can carry more fuel for longer flights, and there are many fewer working parts than a conventional rocket engine requires, which boosts reliability. Russia and America both worked on the technology for decades, between the 1950's and 1970's, with many successful test runs of the US Project NERVA (pictured above) and Rover, and several Russian efforts (in the video at the end, sadly in Russian) which included the RD-041 engine--but all were ground-based, and no nuclear engine ever flew. But it seems the new multinational nuclear rocket engine probably will be built and fly into space. Which will raise inevitable security and safety concerns. Yet there are several things to bear in mind. Most importantly, nuclear rockets are by their very design unlikely to be used to lift a rocket off the ground--they work much better in the upper atmosphere and in space, meaning there's little risk that any fuel which was radioactively contaminated would affect the ground. Secondly, if a nuclear-powered rocket were to explode on the way into space (memories of Challenger will remain for decades), then the nuclear core would probably remain largely intact--by its design it has to operate under extremely high temperatures and pressures, making it much more survivable in any kind of ground impact. And nuclear reactors have, in fact already been flown into space: These ones were designed to generate electricity, and are the secret behind the Voyager mission's longevity.

Russia no longer views space as a competition with the US- Cooperation is key for both countriesArkhipov and Pronina 2011 (Illya and Lyubov April 5, 2011, Russia Speeds Up Space Mission Plans as US may cut funding http://www.aia-aerospace.org/newsroom/aia_news/2011/use_taxpayer_dollars_for_americas_space_program_not_russias/, Accessed 7/21/11)

Russia may accelerate planned missions to the moon and Mars as it seeks to maintain its lead over China in space exploration and close the gap with the U.S. Russia may start manned flights to the moon by the end of the decade, 10 years earlier than previously planned, and establish a base there by 2030, according to Russia’s Roscosmos space agency. Russia may also send a man to Mars by 2040. “It is the first time that the government has allocated decent financing to us,” Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said in a phone interview on April 2. The agency’s $3.5 billion budget for 2011 has almost tripled since 2007, reaching the highest since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. “We can now advance on all themes a bit,” Perminov said. Unlike 50 years ago, when beating the U.S. into space marked a geopolitical victory in the Cold War, Russia is focusing on the commercial, technological and scientific aspects of space travel. President Dmitry Medvedev has named

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paiaerospace one of five industries the government plans to nurture to help diversify the economy of the world’s largest energy supplier away from resource extraction. “We are increasing the space budget as the time has come for a technological breakthrough,” Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said by phone yesterday. “We need to replace outdated infrastructure and continue to support the flagship status of the space industry.” Space Station Cooperation Russia’s Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft with three astronauts on board was launched early today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station. The launch marks the 50th anniversary on April 12 of Yuri Gagarin’s first mission to space. Alexander Samokutiaev and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos and NASA’s Ron Garan are scheduled to arrive at the station on April 7, Roscosmos said on its website. Russia is working on the ISS with the U.S. It will provide the only way for U.S. astronauts to travel to the station following a decision to end the almost 30-year-old space shuttle program this year, with the last two flights scheduled for April and June. Russia receives $752 million from the U.S. for sending crews to the ISS through 2015. The country is using the launch fee of $63 million per member on craft development, maintenance and upgrade, Perminov said. US-Russia relations are good—both governments get along and are cooperating on a variety of agreementsWeitz 11, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior editor (Richard, “Global Insights: Lavrov's Visit Reflects U.S.-Russia 'Normalization'”, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/9511/global-insights-lavrovs-visit-reflects-u-s-russia-normalization 25 July 2011)

One sign of how good relations between Russia and the United States have become is that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spent three days in high-level meetings in Washington without attracting much attention from the American news media. Bilateral ties may finally be evolving, at least for now, into a more mature, almost normal relationship between two great powers sharing common interests as well as limited areas of disagreement.

Lavrov discussed a range of important issues with his American interlocutors, including Libya, Syria, Iran, Korea, Afghanistan, South Sudan, terrorism, the Israel-Palestine peace process, the United Nations and even Alaska and the Bering Strait separating the two countries. But in contrast to past years, these dialogues -- which included sessions with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as well as several U.S. senators and business leaders -- were more along the lines of respectful exchanges of views, rather than noisy confrontations. Even the contentious issue of European ballistic missile defense seems to pose less of a problem to the broader bilateral relationship.

Lavrov seems to get along much better with Clinton than he did with her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, with the two top diplomats exchanging compliments as they signed several bilateral accords. These included a renewal of an agreement for Russian and American scientists to jointly study the effects of radiation, especially on cancer rates; an accord to make air travel between the two countries safer through enhanced information sharing; and an agreement finalizing a cooperative effort set to begin in 2018 to eliminate 34 metric tons of excess weapon-grade plutonium from both countries' defense programs.

US-Russia relations good despite minor disagreements over missile defense; the issues they do agree on outweigh Weitz 11, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior editor (Richard, “Global Insights: Lavrov's Visit Reflects U.S.-Russia 'Normalization'”, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/9511/global-insights-lavrovs-visit-reflects-u-s-russia-normalization 25 July 2011)

Lavrov was surprisingly nonchalant about the inability of NATO and Russia to reach an agreement regarding European missile defense. Earlier this month, he acknowledged that NATO was unlikely to accept President Dmitry Medvedev's proposal for a sectoral missile defense system. Referring to this dispute as well as the two countries' differences over conventional arms control in Europe, Lavrov observed at his joint news conference with Clinton that, "in comparison to previous years, we see these problems as workable, and we understand that in some spheres we do not have converging interests. But we promote the same aims, and we maintain dialogue about how to most effectively move to those aims."

Lavrov later told the Russian media that however important, missile defense cannot be seen as the sole issue that determines the quality of Russian-American relations. He added that against this "irritant," one should weigh the good personal relations between the two countries' presidents, the effectiveness of the Russian-U.S. presidential commission that he and Clinton co-chair, and last year's New START nuclear arns agreement.

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AT: Russia DA – Russia Likes Nukes Russia is currently interested in a nuclear enginePasztor 2010, (Andy, Wall Street Journal, Russia Seeks Cooperation with US in Space Effort, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575252842393481092.html Accessed 7/21/11)

A NASA spokesman said Tuesday that "building upon several decades of successful cooperation," agency officials and their Russian counterparts "are continuing discussions on potential future cooperative activities in space."Preliminary discussions have focused on ways to team up to develop more-powerful rockets capable of reaching Mars and other destinations, according to people familiar with the matter. But even with both sides eager for cooperation, major difficulties remain. Mr. Ivanov, for example, was quoted in the Russian media as saying his country wants to aggressively push ahead to develop nuclear-powered engines for rockets. But such a project would run into huge political and technical opposition in the U.S., which instead is looking to develop less-costly conventional boosters for longer space flights. Until recent changes in direction instituted during the Obama administration, NASA policies effectively barred the agency from working with Russian or European partners to develop next-generation rockets or spacecraft intended to take astronauts back to the moon and eventually, on to Mars. By contrast, Mr. Bolden for months has been giving speeches and telling Congress that international cooperation is essential if NASA hopes to revive its manned-exploration programs. In his speech, Mr. Ivanov put potential space ventures into a broader context of closer U.S.-Russian ties affecting various high-tech arenas, including nuclear energy and possible joint manufacturing and marketing of what would be the world's largest mass-produced cargo aircraft. Referring to the positive results from joint training of space-station crew members, Mr. Ivanov held out "possibilities for furthering our cooperation in high-tech sectors, such as coordinating" rival satellite-navigation systems.

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AT: Russia DA – Russia Is Incompetent Russia’s space program is at risk—they have not had a successful launch in decades, and their current missions are delayedCovault 09, editor-at-large for Spaceflight Now and former senior editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology (Craig, “Russian lunar and Mars missions face delays”, http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0904/25russia/ 23 July 2011)

The planned revival by Russia of its once mighty lunar and planetary robotic exploration program is beginning to falter due to Russian budget and spacecraft problems. The difficulties are threatening to delay Russia's first mission to the Moon in 33 years. A Russian roundtrip mission to the Martian moon Phobos is also in trouble. The former Soviet Union, which launched dozens of successful deep-space probes in the 1960s-1980s, has not flown a fully successful planetary mission of any kind since the 1984 Vega 2 Halley's Comet/Venus mission. And it has launched no successful missions to the Moon or Mars in 33 years. In an effort to revive the Russian lunar program, the unique Russian "Lunar Glob" orbiter is to fire instrumented Russian penetrators into the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites explored by U.S. astronauts nearly 40 years ago. The Russian mission, equipped with several surface penetrators and perhaps a small soft lander, is set for launch in 2012. But that plan is going to be reviewed extensively in May and June by the Russian government and its contractor Lavochkin.

Russia is in no state to perform the plan—even its recent missions are undergoing delays and problemsCovault 09, editor-at-large for Spaceflight Now and former senior editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology (Craig, “Russian lunar and Mars missions face delays”, http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0904/25russia/ 23 July 2011)

The lunar mission is not alone in its development difficulties. So is an even more complex mission that would be the first robotic roundtrip between Earth and the vicinity of Mars. Spacecraft development problems will likely delay that flight, which was to have been launched late this year to land on the Martian moon Phobos and return to Earth samples of the moon. A Russian announcement on the delay of the Phobos mission is imminent, says Zak, who first reported it on his Web site and then in an article for the magazine IEEE Spectrum. The launch delay for that flight will be from October of this year to the next Mars launch window in late 2011 or early 2012, he says. "All this is going to end up in a scandal," Roald Sagdeev told Spectrum. The Phobos mission has become "so politically loaded that people involved will probably be reluctant to admit the true state of affairs until the very last minute," he told the IEEE magazine. Sagdeev formally headed the Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow, which oversees the science program of the Phobos mission. Sagdeev earlier played a key role in championing space science cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. He is now a physics professor at the University of Maryland.

Russia is unable to play the leader in space—ever since the Cold War, they have lost their edgeDe Carbonnel 11, Reuters (Alissa, “Analysis: Stagnation fears haunt Russian space program”, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/10/us-russia-space-gagarin-idUSTRE73910C20110410 25 July 2011)As it celebrates the pioneering flight on April 12, 1961 that made Gagarin the first man in space, Russia nears another milestone: with the retirement of the U.S. shuttle program this year, it will be the only nation fit to provide rides to the International Space Station. It is a distinction for a country with a history of space firsts, beginning with the 1957 launch of the satellite Sputnik. U.S. space agency NASA pays a newly raised price of nearly $63 million each time it sends an astronaut to the orbital station aboard a Russian Soyuz craft from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan -- the launch pad for Gagarin's flight. But half a century after Gagarin's 108-minute voyage put the Soviet Union ahead in the Cold War space race, critics charge that reliance on Soviet designs as cash cows has stunted innovation, and that Russia has irretrievably lost its edge."While we bask in the glory of having the only operating spacecraft, we are only making money off old rockets," said Vladimir Gubarev, the Soviet spokesman for the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz program, which achieved the first docking of U.S. and Russian spacecraft. That Soyuz craft was modeled on the generation of ships that catapulted the first Soviet spacemen into orbit, such as Gagarin's Vostok-1. "You know why we beat America? For a really simple reason: We had the genius idea of making a sphere. Vostok was a ball and we found a man small enough to fit in it," said Gubarev, who covered some 50 of the earliest launches as a space journalist. Encumbered by a space suit, Gagarin, who was 5 feet 2 inches tall, had to hunker down in a capsule just 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) in diameter for his single orbit of Earth. The single-use Soyuz owes its reputation for dependability to the long-secret mastermind of the Soviet space programme, Sergei Korolyov, experts said. "The Soyuz runs like clockwork," Sergei Shamsutdinov, space expert at Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine. "Our Soviet engineers, from the get-go, built the craft very well, and today still it is outfitted with 70s-era equipment, which runs beautifully." In the 1960s, Gagarin's flight seemed to leap off the pages of fantasy novels, inspiring dreams of Martian colonies and imminent deep-space travel. But much of that initial rapture has now faded, leaving nostalgia among many in Russia for the days when the struggle between the two nuclear-armed superpowers fueled and financed the pursuit of new horizons in science. U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts "were never enemies in space, but when we began cooperating on the ground they cut the funding," said veteran cosmonaut Georgy Grechko, 79. "Even the Americans would call us and say 'launch something new, so they'll give us money.'" With competition eclipsed by cooperation, Russia's space agency has survived over the past two decades by hiring out the third seat aboard the Soyuz to foreigners. "Cooperation is good, but as the example of the international space station shows, it also leads to stagnation," Russian space policy analyst Yuri Karash said, according to state-run news agency RIA. Gubarev said Russia had fallen so far behind it could achieve little better than a supporting role today in the most cutting-edge projects.

Russia No Threat to US Space Leadership, Far behind in own space programZeleny ’11 (International Affairs, No. 1, Vol.0057, 2011, page(s): 231-237, “Space Research Today”, http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/24551624)

A: Un fortunately, the Russian space program has been in hibernation of sorts for the last two decades , and positive developments have begun to appear only recently . Despite the collapse of the 1990s in the Russian space program and the ongoing economic problems in the country, Russia

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Paicontinues to be a major space superpower and is gradually consolidating its position in international astronautics . For the last several years, Russia has been the leader in the number of space launches. Nevertheless, most of them are commercial projects or launches for supporting the International Space Station. Russian space science is the worst off. In the last ten years, only one research satellite has been launched. Instead of the planned three years, it fully functioned less than ten months in space. Russian scientists have taken active part (especially in recent years) in international research projects, including U.S. projects. At the same time, foreign scientists have participated in Russian projects.

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AT: China DA – Relations Low – Dalai Lama Visit US-China Relations Low – Visit with the Dalai Lama Tanked Them for the Foreseeable FutureWatt 7/24/11 (Louis, WRAL, 7/24/11, http://www.wral.com/news/political/story/9871329) Accessed 7/24/11

BEIJING — China on Sunday slammed President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama as an act that has "grossly interfered in China's internal affairs" and damaged Chinese-American relations. The strident statement from China's Foreign Ministry came hours after Obama met with the Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was in Washington for an 11-day Buddhist ritual. China had already called on the United States to stop Saturday's meeting, warning it could hurt relations between the two countries. After the 45-minute private session at the White House, China said the Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy had lodged objections with U.S. representatives in Beijing and Washington. "Such an act has grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and damaged Sino-American relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in the statement. "We demand the U.S. side seriously consider China's stance, immediately adopt measures to wipe out the baneful impact, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and cease to connive and support anti-China separatist forces that seek 'Tibetan independence,'" Ma said. China considers the Dalai Lama a separatist intent on ending Chinese rule over Tibet. The Nobel laureate says he seeks only a high level of autonomy for Tibet. The meeting came less than 10 days before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is due to visit the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and meet with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, Beijing's top foreign policy official. "It's difficult to say at the moment whether this meeting will be affected," said Jin Canrong, an international affairs expert at Renmin University. "But this meeting is quite important and whether it takes place or is canceled will give us an indication of what the follow-up impact will be." Vice President Joseph Biden is also scheduled to visit China this summer, followed by a trip to Washington by his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. China Central Television showed Xi visiting Tibet on Sunday to attend festivities marking the 60th anniversary of communist rule, which passed in May. Obama last met with the Dalai Lama in February 2010, infuriating Beijing during a tension-filled year in which China and the U.S. also feuded over online censorship and arms sales for Taiwan. Relations were considered back on track in January when President Hu Jintao visited Washington. "I think after this meeting Sino-U.S. relations will be rather cold over the next few months," said Jin. "It may lead to the suspension of high-level official exchanges and therefore impact on the strategic mutual trust and cooperation between China and the U.S. in some fields, including military ties."

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AT: China DA – China Is Incompetent Plan works faster than the counterplan - China is still working on developing their space program and will not get to Mars for quite some timeMohney 11, contributing editor for TMCnet and 20-year veteran of the ICT space (Doug, “Post-Shuttle: China Space Program Has a Long Way to Go” http://satellite.tmcnet.com/topics/satellite/articles/199177-post-shuttle-china-space-program-has-long-way.htm 24 July 2011)

It's the last camp that stretches credibility. The Chinese only launched its first astronaut in 2003 and have put a total of just six into orbit, with the last one launched in 2008. Perhaps as early as next month, the Chinese will put up the Tiangong 1 (“Heavenly Palace”) orbital lab module as the first part of an orbital space station, and have announced two planned manned flights to the module in 2012, including the country's first manned docking. After that, China has plans to put people on the Moon by 2025 and ultimately establish a base there. Longer term, the country would like to head to Mars in the 2040-2050 timeframe. With all due respect to the Chinese manned space program, it has a long way to go to demonstrate long-term flight capability in space. Meanwhile, the Russians will be paid around $300 million to conduct a loop around the moon for two tourists with a flight targeted at 2015. It is not inconceivable to think that commercial space may make it to the surface of the before the Chinese if there's a sufficiently well-heeled tourist willing to write a check.

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AT: China DA – No War – Interdependence/T Bills No US China conflict – Economic Interdependence and T Bill dumping Richburg ’09 (Keith, Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502435.html?sid=ST2009111503225 ) Accessed 7/21/11

BEIJING -- The U.S. and Chinese economies -- the world's largest and the fastest-growing major economy, respectively -- have become inextricably intertwined, locked in a kind of co-dependency that neither side thinks is particularly healthy, but which for the moment neither will move to break. As President Obama begins his three-day visit to China on Monday, he finds himself in a country that depends largely on the United States as the most important market for its cheap goods. America, with growing budget deficits and a huge national debt, depends on China as the main holder of U.S. Treasury securities, with Beijing's stockpile officially estimated to be nearly $800 billion. The arrangement has created what many have called a modern economic version of the old Cold War doctrine of mutual assured destruction: Either side could wreak havoc on the other, but would be guaranteed to scuttle its own economy in the process.

No China and US conflict- Economic Interdependency and T Bill DumpingBarboza ’11 7/18/11 (David, New York Times, “China’s Treasury Holdings Make U.S. Woes Its Own”, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/business/china-largest-holder-of-us-debt-remains-tied-to-treasuries.html?_r=3) Accessed 7/25/11

SHANGHAI — However grim Washington’s debt and deficit negotiations may seem to Americans, the impasse is nearly as disturbing for China. As the United States’ biggest foreign creditor — holding an estimated $1.5 trillion in American government debt — China has been a vocal critic of what it considers Washington’s politicized profligacy. “We hope that the U.S. government adopts responsible policies and measures to guarantee the interests of investors,” Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a news conference late last week. Beijing might prefer to respond by starting to dump some of its American debt. But in this financial version of the cold war, analysts say, both sides fear mutually assured destruction. One reason the United States would want to avoid defaulting on its debt is that such a move could alienate China, which is a steady purchaser of Treasury bonds. Beijing, meanwhile, already has too much invested in American debt to do much more but continue to buy, hold and grumble. It is the ultimate “too big to fail” global relationship, said Andy Rothman, an analyst in Shanghai for the investment bank CLSA. If Beijing even hinted that it might try to sell part of its American debt, “other countries might sell their dollar assets,” Mr. Rothman said, noting that this would drive down the value of China’s holdings. “It would be financial suicide for China.” China got into this situation, experts say, by indulging its own economic interests. To bolster what has become the world’s largest export economy, China has focused on policies that encourage domestic savings and hold down the value of its currency. The result: huge trade and current-account surpluses. China has accumulated more than $3 trillion in foreign currency reserves, far more than any other nation . Most of those reserves are held in dollars, and recycled back to the United States through investments in Treasury bonds and other dollar-denominated securities — even stocks. And while some of China’s foreign exchange reserves are plowed into European and Japanese debt, those bond markets are not big or liquid enough to absorb the bulk of China’s ever-larger foreign holdings. Beijing has tried to diversify its foreign exchange portfolio by creating a sovereign wealth fund that can invest some of the reserves overseas. The government has also encouraged Chinese companies to expand overseas and to acquire mines and natural resources to fuel China’s hungry economy. But because China has too much foreign money for any other outlet to absorb, the vast majority of its fast-growing reserves continue to be destined for the United States bond market. “China has no choice but to keep buying,” said Zhang Ming, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a Beijing research group. “After all, U.S. Treasury bonds are still the largest and most liquid investment product in the world.”

U.S. and China are interdependent on each other Richburg ’09 (Keith, Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502435.html?sid=ST2009111503225, Accessed 7/21/11)

BEIJING -- The U.S. and Chinese economies -- the world's largest and the fastest-growing major economy, respectively -- have become inextricably intertwined, locked in a kind of co-dependency that neither side thinks is particularly healthy, but which for the moment neither will move to break. As President Obama begins his three-day visit to China on Monday, he finds himself in a country that depends largely on the United States as the most important market for its cheap goods. America, with growing budget deficits and a huge national debt, depends on China as the main holder of U.S. Treasury securities, with Beijing's stockpile officially estimated to be nearly $800 billion. The arrangement has created what many have called a modern economic version of the old Cold War doctrine of mutual assured destruction: Either side could wreak havoc on the other, but would be guaranteed to scuttle its own economy in the process.

Economic Interdependency promotes the well-being of nationsGriswold ’07 (Daniel, Cato Institute http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10712 ) Accessed 7/21/11

The global trends we've witnessed in the spread of trade, democracy and peace tend to reinforce each other in a grand and virtuous cycle. As trade and development encourage more representative government, those governments provide more predictability and incremental reform, creating a better climate for trade and investment to flourish. And as the spread of trade and democracy foster peace, the decline of war creates a more hospitable environment for trade and economic growth and political stability. We can see this virtuous cycle at work in the world today. The European Union just celebrated its 50th birthday. For many of the same non-economic reasons that motivated the founders of the GATT, the original members of the European community hoped to build a more sturdy foundation for peace. Out of the ashes of World War II, the United States urged Germany, France and other Western European nations to form a common market that has become the European Union. In large part because of their intertwined economies, a general war in Europe is now unthinkable.

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AT: China DA – China Doesn’t Care China is bad actor for spaceFriedman, ’08, astronautics engineer (Louis, http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/advocacy_and_education/space_advocacy/new_paradigm.pdf, A New Paradigm for a New Vision of Space, 7/25/2011)

China has shown no interest in a space race – proceeding slowly and deliberately. For example, they wisely delayed their first launch of the Chang’E lunar orbiter, when it was not ready, rather than race to beat Japan. The U.S. should not respond to jingoistic or self-serving false alarms about China ambitions on the moon, but instead pursue a broad strategy serving its own public interests in space.

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AT: China DA – Thumper GOP refuses to cooperate with china due to political differencesThe Sydney Morning Herald 7/10/11 (Up, up and away, http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/up-up-and-away-20110709-1h7ze.html)But the Republican-dominated committee, which characterised Beijing as a ''fundamentally evil'' regime, warned that any collaboration would violate US law. ''What concerns me most about the Chinese space program is that, unlike the US, it is being led by the People's Liberation Army,'' responded Virginia Republican Frank Wolf. ''There is no reason to believe that the PLA's space program will be any more benign than the PLA's recent military posture.''

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AT: T-Its International Partners work for the US – Guarantees US will own the final product even when it works with other countries Friedman, ’08, astronautics engineer (Louis, http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/advocacy_and_education/space_advocacy/new_paradigm.pdf, A New Paradigm for a New Vision of Space, 7/25/2011)

We propose to introduce this new attitude into space policy. Instead of pro tecting and monopolizing space exploration , we propose to internationalize and share it . The first step could be this: the U.S. would help, work with, and participate in the lunar missions of other nations and the private sector by buying data, supplying scientific instruments, and providing technical assistance. The internatio nal partners would reduce U.S. costs and requirements to create its own lunar inf rastructure, and free American resources to pursue more distant objectives in technol ogy, science and exploration. The international pa rtners would be working “ for” U.S. development, just as the U.S. was working for theirs . It is often said that international cooperation does not save money – it increases costs. We agree. But the increased costs must be weighed against increased returns, on the value of accomplishing more than would otherwise be possible. This happened on the International Space Station, and on Cassini-Huygens, and on Topex -Poseidon; it can happen on the Moon as well.

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Neg – Space Debris Space Debris at tipping point – need to let nature lower the amount of space debris, more launches will break up biggest pieces of space junk making it harder to clean up and more dangerous.Grossman March,2011 (Lisa, works with Wired Magazine a top science magazine publication, 7-20-2011 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/lasering-space-junk/)

The atmosphere naturally drags a portion of this refuse down to Earth every year. But in 1978, NASA astronomer Don Kessler predicted a doomsday scenario: As collisions drive up the debris, we’ll hit a point where the amount of trash is growing faster than it can fall out of the sky. The Earth will end up with a permanent junk belt that could make space too dangerous to fly in, a situation now called “Kessler syndrome.” Low-Earth orbit has already seen some scary smashes and near-misses, including the collision of two communications satellites in 2009. Fragments from that collision nearly hit the International Space Station a few months later. Some models found that the runaway Kessler syndrome is probably already underway at certain orbit elevations. “There’s not a lot of argument that this is going to screw us if we don’t do something,” said NASA engineer Creon Levit. “Right now it’s at the tipping point … and it just keeps getting worse.” In a paper submitted to Advances in Space Research and posted to the preprint server arXiv.org, a team led by NASA space scientist James Mason suggests a novel way to cope: Instead of dragging space junk down to Earth, just make sure the collisions stop . “ If you stop that cascade, the beauty of that is that natural atmospheric drag can take its natural course and start taking things down ,” said William Marshall, a space scientist at NASA and coauthor of the new study. “ It gives the environment an opportunity to clean itself up.” Simply keeping new fragments from forming can make a big difference for orbital safety , Levit said. Because objects with more surface area feel more drag, the atmosphere pulls down the lightest, flattest fragments of space junk first. When big pieces of debris break up into smaller ones, the pieces become harder and harder to remove . Worse, the pieces left behind are often the most dangerous: small, dense things like bolts. “If one collides with a satellite or another piece of debris at the not-unreasonable relative velocity of, say 5 miles per second, it will blow it to smithereens,” Levit said.

Space debris at tipping pointGagnon, 2003, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (Bruce “Space Privatization: Road To Conflict?, http://www.space4peace.org/articles/road_to_conflict.htm, 7/25/11)

We've all probably heard about the growing problem of space junk where over 100,000 bits of debris are now tracked on the radar screens at NORAD in Colorado as they orbit the earth at 18,000 m.p.h. Several space shuttles have been nicked by bits of debris in the past resulting in cracked windshields. The International Space Station (ISS) recently was moved to a higher orbit because space junk was coming dangerously close. Some space writers have predicted that the ISS will one day be destroyed by debris.As we see a flurry of launches by private space corporations the chances of accidents, and thus more debris, becomes a serious reality to consider. Very soon we will reach the point of no return, where space pollution will be so great that an orbiting minefield will have been created that hinders all access to space. The time as certainly come for a global discussion about how we treat the sensitive environment called space before it is too late.

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Neg – Privatization CPPrivatization Counterplan solves economyHuffington Post, 7/21/11 (Three private companies building space shuttle replacements, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-reeves/3-private-companies-build_b_904760.html, 7/21/11)

Consider a seemingly arcane move in 2000, made by President Clinton, to change Global Positioning System data from "selective availability" to public record. His approval opened the floodgates to spawn an entire consumer technology industry for GPS systems we now take for granted. Savvy investors who saw the big potential in privatization made a killing as a result. Consider that from 2001 to 2007, Garmin (GRMN) stock soared from less than $10 in 2000 to more than $120 in 2007, while the market added about 25% in the same period. As the space shuttle Atlantis returns to earth this week and closes the curtains on two decades of NASA's shuttle program, privatized space flight may provide a similar opportunity for innovation - and investors.

Under the private sector, the creation of useful spinoffs would be more rapidWhittington, 7/16/11 (Mark R., author of The Last Moonwalker and a BA in History, Do Commercial Spin-offs Help Justify Projects like NASA's Space Shuttle?, http://news.yahoo.com/commercial-spin-offs-help-justify-projects-nasas-space-164200551.html)

Some space program critics suggest, with some justification, that building and launching rockets is an inefficient way to get heart pumps, sleeker trucks, and other spin-off products. On the other hand, one has difficulty imagining the US government spending the money more efficiently than at NASA. There being no space program, the money would very likely have been spent on social welfare programs or pork barrel projects of little value when one considers how government works. Any future space exploration program would likely have a direct commercial element, involving the private sector more as a partner than as a contractor in a project totally controlled by the government. Thus the creation of useful commercial products as a result of a future space effort would be more rapid . Looking to the future, therefore, in proposing any large scale space project, say a return to the Moon or a mission to Mars, it would behoove policy advocates to include in such a proposal an analysis of possible spin-offs such an effort might produce. Such an analysis would be, by necessity, inexact, since predicting future technology is often very difficult. But such an analysis would lend itself to an argument in favor of proceeding with such a project, even in this era of economic malaise and heavy federal debt.

The private sector is better for funding space exploration than the public sector.Genta & Rycroft 06 – (Giancarlo, Genta: Professor of Machine Design and Construction at the Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. Rycroft: CAESAR Consultancy. Rycroft, Michael: Cambridge Atmospheric, Environmental and Space Activities and Research CAESAR Consultancy. “Will space actually be the final frontier of humankind?” Acta Astronautica Volume 58, Issue 5, March 2006, Pages 287-295. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576506000130)

An important issue which suggests that space exploration should rely more on private than on public funding is the low reliability of continuation of the latter. This is the more so in modern times when political priorities can be changed by the result of a single election, or even by the interpretation of public opinion polls. Finney gives an example of a well planned exploration campaign abruptly interrupted for political reasons in his The Prince and the Eunuch [6]. Whilst it is true that the return on investments for space exploration, in terms of patents, know how, image, etc., is large, the ‘return time’ is generally too long for private investors. Even public investors very often lack the required long-term commitment.

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Neg – Privatization CPPrivately-funded Mars missions successfully revitalizes the industry, inspires students, creates spinoffs, and creates commercial opportunities.Choi, 2011, science journalist (Charles, Mars, Brought To You By Corporate Sponsors, http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Brought_To_You_By_Corporate_Sponsors_999.html, July 25)

NASA scientists and their colleagues are now proposing corporate financing for a human mission to Mars . This raises the prospect that a spaceship named the Microsoft Explorer or the Google Search Engine could one day go down in history as the first spaceship to bring humans to the red planet.The proposal suggests that companies could drum up $160 billion for a human mission to Mars and a colony there, rather than having governments fund such a mission with tax dollars.The plan covers "every aspect of a journey to the red planet - the design of the spacecrafts, medical health and psychological issues, the establishment of a Mars base, colonization, and a revolutionary business proposal to overcome the major budgetary obstacles which have prevented the U.S. from sending astronauts to Mars," said Joel Levine, a senior research scientist at NASA Langley Research Center.Money could get raised from the licensing of broadcast rights, clothing, toys, movies, books, games, and so forth. Perhaps even selling the mineral and land rights on Mars could generate money."The solution is marketing, merchandising, and corporate sponsorships, which is something NASA has never done before," Levine said. "It's a whole new economic plan for financing a journey to Mars and what will become the greatest adventure in the history of the human race."The plan, which the researchers detail in the book, "The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet," published last December, suggests that such a project could add 500,000 U.S. jobs over 10 years, boosting the aerospace industry and manufacturing sector."A mission to Mars would motivate millions of students to pursue careers in science and technology, thereby providing corporate America with a huge talent pool of tech-savvy young scientists," said Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , who edited the book along with Levine."Then there are the scientific and technological advances which would directly benefit the American people. Cell phones, GPS devices, and satellite TV owe their existence to the space programs of the 1960s. The technologies which might be invented in support of a human mission to Mars stagger the imagination.""There can be little doubt that a human mission to Mars will launch a technological and scientific revolution, create incredible business opportunities for corporate America, the manufacturing sector, and the aerospace industry, and inspire boys and girls across the U.S. to become scientists and engineers," Schild said."There was a movie about that very idea, called 'Capricorn One.' To quell those kinds of doubts, you want to make such a mission as transparent as possible."

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Neg – Robotics CPRobots are on balance better for explorationLester, Ph.D., July 5, 2011 University of California-Santa Cruz, (Dan, “Human spaceflight, and the reason for (almost) being there,” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1877/1, 7/25/11)

Exploration: Robots can easily go where any person can go and places where people can not. Furthermore, machines can be built to withstand harsh environments better than humans. Additionally, the long duration of some space exploration missions make robots ideal solution. Therefore, the clear winner for space exploration is robotic space probes. That’s one point for robots.Discovery: Both humans and robots are able to discover new things. It is true that robots can not increase scientific knowledge as much as a human being can, but the gap is narrowing. Currently, two rovers on the surface of Mars have discovered concrete evidence of recent water flowing on Mars . Of course if people were on the surface of Mars, they would be able to many more types of experiments, such as digging for water or traveling farther than the rovers. That’s one point for humans, yet just barely and not for long.

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Neg – spinoff dSpace Research will teach us things we cannot fathom for at least another decadePresto, 7/21 (Suzanne, VOA News Staff Reporter ,“Researchers: Experiments in Space Result in Benefits on Earth”, http://www.voanews.com/english/news/science- technology/Researchers-Experiments-in-Space-Result-in-Benefits-on-Earth-125966748.html)

With the end of the shuttle era, NASA officials emphasize the next phase of space exploration is taking place today - in the form of experiments on the International Space Station. Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini says the space station, which was built in pieces carried up on the orbiters, is the shuttle program's greatest legacy. "It's going to result in research that is going to benefit humanity and our planet. The things we're going to learn from the ISS, we just don't even know today, and in some cases, don't even fathom yet," Suffredini said. People have been living and working continuously on the space station for more than 10 years. NASA predicts at least another decade of exciting research opportunities onboard the orbiting lab.

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Neg – RollbackMission to Mars cannot make it through multiple administrations – lack of political support ensures rollback.Zubrin, 2011 , founder of the National Space Society (Robert, “Is this a good idea? A private mission to Mars?” http://blogs.discovery.com/good_idea/2011/05/is-this-a-good-idea-a-private-mission-to-mars.html, 7/25/11)

In fact, some suggest that a private Mars mission might be the only way that humans reach the Red Planet. As Mars exploration advocates C.A. Carberry, Artemis Westenberg and Blake Ortner wrote in a 2010 article in the Journal of Cosmology:

Despite the fact that Virgle was just an extremely well executed hoax, it stimulated some very intriguing questions -- most notably -- would a corporate partnership or consortium like Virgle really be able to launch a private mission to Mars? There are many people who believe that a private mission to Mars is not only possible, but perhaps the only way that the United States will be able to get there ... They feel that NASA has become too bureaucratic to develop an affordable human Mars mission; that a human mission would fall victim to a lack of long-term political will in Congress and cannot be carried through multiple administrations.

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Neg – Zubrin = NoZubrin’s views regarding mars are unrealistic and based on false dataMclean, medieval recreation, Friday, April 09, 2010,(Will, “Robert Zubrin is Wrong, Again,” http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2010/04/robert-zubrin-is-wrong-again.html, 7/25/11)

The Apollo program did not follow the Zubrin ideal of choosing a single goal and then building the technology to achieve it. Which is fortunate, because if we had the technology wouldn't have been ready when we wanted to go. He then follows up with: The potential utility of orbital propellant depots — basically gas stations in space — as a way to enable manned missions to the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, or Mars has never been established. It hasn't been established because it hasn't been attempted yet, like lunar orbit rendezvous in 1962. It's clear that it has the potential to be tremendous game changing technology, allowing manned missions beyond earth orbit to be accomplished either with existing launchers, or with much smaller new launchers than we'd need without it. Note the careful phrasing of Zubrin's complaint: orbital propellant transfer is done routinely by the Russians to reboost ISS, and has been demonstrated by the U.S. Orbital Express mission. What hasn't been demonstrated is the orbital transfer of more efficient cryogenic fuel. If it can be demonstrated effectively, it has the potential to make plans that depended on much larger launchers without propellant transfer obsolete. Zubrin's pet Mars architecture is one of those plans, which may explain his hostility to propellant depots.

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Status quo solvesSquo solves – Resource reallocation key to NASA recommitting to MarsWashington Post 7/1/11 (Ben Wolfgang, “NASA head: U.S. will still lead despite shuttle's end” The Washington Post, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/1/nasa-head-us-will-still-lead-despite-shuttles-end/)

Pushing back at the notion that next week's final space shuttle launch means the end of American dominance in space, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden said Friday that the future is bright and promised that one day humans will land on Mars. "American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we've laid the foundation for success," the nation's space chief said in a speech at the National Press Club. "When I hear people say ... that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human space flight, you all must be living on another planet. We are not ending human space flight. We are recommitting ourselves to it." But next's week swan song for the shuttle program - Atlantis takes off on the last shuttle mission July 8 - does mark the end of an era, Mr. Bolden said. After the launch, NASA's priorities will dramatically change. No longer will the space agency spend time and money carrying astronauts back and forth to the International Space Station and other destinations in lower-earth orbit. Those responsibilities are being turned over to the private sector. Within a year, Mr. Bolden said, private companies can take over the process of sending cargo shipments into orbit. By 2015, he said industry can take over astronaut transport, freeing NASA to focus on the long-term goals of reaching beyond Earth's shadow. "Do we want to keep repeating ourselves or do we want to look at the big horizon?" he asked. "My generation touched the moon ... today, NASA, and the nation, wants to touch an asteroid, and eventually send a human to Mars." In the meantime, astronauts traveling to and from the ISS will hitch rides on other nations' crafts. Other NASA missions will go on as scheduled. Later this month, the Dawn mission will begin orbiting the asteroid Vesta. Later this year, NASA will launch another Mars rover.

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No Government Solvency - Too expensiveNo government solvency because it’s too expensive Vieru, 2011, Science Editor, (Tudor, “Corporations Could Finance Mission to Mars” http://news.softpedia.com/news/Corporations-Could-Finance-Mission-to-Mars-183869.shtml, Acc 7/25/2011) NH

In other words, we have the desire, the will and the technology to embark on this groundbreaking trip, but no money to do it with. The cost of sending humans to Mars is estimated to be about $160 billion. The American space agency could never hope to muster up this huge amount of money, so it proposes that corporate partners be put in the loop. If their plan materializes, then astronauts could descend on Mars from a spacecraft called Microsoft Explorer or Google Search Engine. The exorbitant amount of money needed for exploring our neighboring planet also includes the costs associated with setting up a permanent colony there. Understandably, governments will never be able to get the type of resources they need to support such a plan, even if they decide to work together. In the $160 billion price tag, NASA scientists included the spacecraft phase, tests associated with determining the medical health and psychological issues of a future crew, the creation of a Martian outpost, as well as the colonization of the planet, explains Joel Levine. The expert holds an appointment as a senior research scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center. The facility plays a crucial role in approving the use of manned spacecraft outside Earth's atmosphere. One possible avenue for getting the mission funds could be the licensing of toys, games, books, movies, clothing lines, and broadcasting rights. Selling land and potential mineral resources on Mars could also help generate the funds. “The solution is marketing, merchandising, and corporate sponsorships, which is something NASA has never done before. It's a whole new economic plan for financing a journey to Mars and what will become the greatest adventure in the history of the human race,” Levine argues.

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Elections DA Link - GOP candidates hate the planRepublican presidential candidates hold little support for NASAHuntsville Times 6/22/11 (Mike, NASA struggling for support, http://blog.al.com/times-views/2011/06/editorial_nasa_struggling_for.html, 7/24/11)

This isn't to argue that NASA cannot be improved; no company, no organization and no agency is ever as good as it could be. But the Republican candidates' lack of support for the nation's space program is stunning to many of its supporters. This didn't become apparent until John King, the moderator of CNN's GOP primary debate the other night in New Hampshire, asked the candidates if they would raise their hand if they support continued federal funding for NASA. King's next word was two chilling syllables: Nobody. Then Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, did speak up, saying the space program shouldn't be eliminated and that "We can partner with private providers to get more economies of scale." At one point Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, called NASA "a case study in why a bureaucracy can't innovate," adding that the space program would be better off "if you decentralized it, got it out of Washington and cut out the bureaucracy." Even if NASA has too many bureaucrats, launching rockets with people on top of them is a bit more complicated than having a good time in your back yard on the Fourth of July. Dr. Jess Brown, a political science professor at Athens State University, said the best interpretation of the debate is that we will see far more reliance on the private sector and a reduction in NASA's role, generally a policy much like the view of President Obama. He has drawn lots of criticism for that in the Rocket City. Perhaps the candidates see the space program as an easy place to save a lot of money, either by cutting it outright or farming out its role to (federally subsidized) private enterprise. U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, in a statement Thursday reminded the candidates that they need to understand and "embrace the things that have made America great." He said he hopes they realize "that balancing the budget does not require abandoning our historic role as space pioneers." U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Rocket City, said he hadn't heard anything from the debate that suggests that NASA would be "worse off with any of these Republican candidates than we are with Barack Obama." Well, that isn't the point. It's a lot easier to get the space policy you want if you and the president agree on what that ought to be.

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Agenda DA Link - GOP hates the planRepublicans oppose NASA cutsRoop, ’11 (Lee, “Most Republicans in House Opposed Vote to Cut NASA Money”, http://blog.al.com/space-news/2011/02/most_republicans_in_house_oppo.html, 7/25/11)

HUNTSVILLE, AL - House Republicans in Washington opposed Wednesday's vote to move money from NASA to a community policing program, a Republican freshman from a NASA district pointed out today. U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, who represents a district that is home to Marshall Space Flight Center, also says "the House got it backwards" with Wednesday's vote. The House voted 228-203 to move $298 million from NASA's budget this year to COPS, a community policing program. The measure was introduced by Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-New York. Republicans cast 169 votes against the Weiner amendment and 70 for it. But it passed when 158 Democrats voted yes. Democrats opposing the move totaled 34. "If the White House had argued for NASA among House Democrats, we would have protected NASA from this cut," Brooks said. The amendment would change NASA funding this fiscal year, because it is attached to a continuing budget resolution the House is drafting. Such a resolution is necessary because no 2011 budget has passed Congress so far. Meanwhile, the 2012 budget battle revved up this week with President Barack Obama's proposal to level-fund NASA next year. Wednesday's House vote was one of many amending the budget resolution that could face a final House vote later today or tonight. But that isn't the end of the process. The Senate will then have its vote and any disagreements will need to be settled. Brooks said the challenge is to persuade some in Congress to fund the things that are the federal government's responsibility, such as NASA and defense, while putting the responsibility for things such as police on the state and local governments where he says they belong. "Hopefully, the Senate will fix this error," Brooks said of the House vote.

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Politics: AT Aerospace Lobby TurnNo lobby turn – Aerospace contractors focus on their contracts and issues not broader agenda itemsDrutman, 2009 (Lee, “Politics, Collective Action, and the Organization of Industry Lobbying” Paper prepared for delivery at the Annual Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association http://www.leedrutman.com/uploads/2/3/0/1/2301208/politics_collective_action_and_the_organization_of_lobbying.doc )

Bauer, Pool, and Dexter (1972) found evidence of this kind of fracturing of interests when they looked at lobbying a half century ago. They described a situation where companies follow a “rule of quasiunanimity” while participating in associations, essentially putting aside their differences. But each association “permits those of its own members who have a different viewpoint to express it through another and more appropriate association.” (339). At the time they were writing, few individual companies had their own Washington offices, so most of the activity was through associations at various degrees of aggregation. Still, the general situation seems consistent. “Partial coalition and partial conflict,” they wrote, “is the pattern throughout.” (338) Such a situation could also be in line with a model of the lobbying process described by Godwin et. al (2007), who view lobbying as a two-stage process. In the “agenda-setting” stage, companies join together in order to get an issue onto the agenda, aware that it often takes a large coalition to break the threshold of attention. But once the issue gets serious consideration by Congress, companies break off and do their own thing. Then there are the issues on which no consensus is possible. These tend to be the more purely distributive issues, generally trade associations are going to leave these issues to the particular companies. In support of this point, it is helpful note that one of the industries with the most share of lobbying being done by individual companies is the aerospace/defense industry. We would expect such companies’ political interests to revolve primarily around securing their own contracts, and while there is some common ground (e.g., a larger defense budget, a streamlined procurement process), much of the lobbying action is around particular projects and contracts.

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RU DA Uniqueness – Relations LowUS-Russia relations are rocky—they are trapped in a critical argument over European missile defenseAssociated Press 11 (The Washington Post, “Lavrov: Missile defense remains the biggest irritant in US-Russian relations” http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/lavrov-missile-defense-remains-the-biggest-irritant-in-us-russian-relations/2011/07/12/gIQAJEJlAI_story.html 25 July 2011)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that missile defense remains the biggest irritant in Russian-American relations. At an event at the Russian Embassy in Washington on Tuesday, Lavrov said that Russian military planners fear the Obama administration’s European missile defense plans could undermine Russian security. Lavrov said that missile defense will be the top issue in talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday. He also expected to discuss Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. Lavrov said that progress had been made but he expressed some frustration that the process had taken so long. He said: “We are nearing a moment of truth and it would be very unfortunate if the truth would be negative.”

US-Russia relations low—although they seem to be improving, many Russian government officials are not convincedShuster 10, reporter for TIME (Simon, “U.S.-Russia Relations: In Need of a New Reset”, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1971651,00.html 25 July 2011)

It didn't look that way in the beginning. There was hope in the first few months of Obama's presidency that the bad blood from the Cold War and the George W. Bush years could be washed away with little more than a push of a button. For example, on Obama's first visit to Moscow, last July, President Dmitri Medvedev agreed to allow U.S. weapons and personnel to pass through Russian airspace en route to Afghanistan. It was a huge relief to American troops, who had been trucking most of their supplies through the death trap of Pakistan's Khyber Pass. Since it was granted without any favors in return, the deal looked like more than the usual horse trading. It was a gesture of goodwill.

Less than three months later, there was another breakthrough. On Sept. 17, Obama scrapped the Bush Administration's plan to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe, which had been seen by Russia as a blatant military threat. Even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was impressed. He had been icy toward Obama during their July meeting — there were certainly no hugs and smiles like the ones he gave Iran's President in Tehran in 2007. But in September, Putin called Obama's decision to ax the missile shield "correct and brave," and Russia's threat to "neutralize" Bush's plan by aiming rockets at Europe was quietly put aside. The Russian public also started coming around. According to surveys by the Levada Center, an independent pollster, only 28% of Russians said they had a negative view of the U.S. in the wake of the decision, down from 55% when Obama was elected. (See pictures of Obama in Russia.)

But inside the Russian government, the trend was going in the opposite direction. Medvedev and other liberals still felt trust for Obama and seemed ready to meet him halfway. But conservatives — mainly old-school apparatchiks, security chiefs and former KGB officers like Putin — began to express their doubts about the reset in relations. "It's been frustrating," the U.S. senior official tells TIME on condition of anonymity. "We came in with an aggressive reset mentality, and it was not necessarily shared by everyone in the Russian government. The Russians are overwhelmed by all the things we want to do tomorrow, and they say, Let's take time."

Rogozin puts the matter more bluntly. "Medvedev sincerely believes that Obama can be trusted," he tells TIME. "But that doesn't mean this opinion is shared at every level, especially the levels where the implementation of their agreements is borne out." This reality — the disconnect between what Medvedev pledges and what Russia does — has eroded the spirit behind the reset strategy as well as its practical objectives.

Russia relations with US are low—Obama has failed to gain the trust of Russian government officials for many reasonsShuster 10, reporter for TIME (Simon, “U.S.-Russia Relations: In Need of a New Reset”, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1971651,00.html 25 July 2011)

Take, for example, the delays in completing the START treaty, which aims to cut the world's two biggest nuclear arsenals by a third. Last July, Obama and Medvedev signed a preliminary deal and appointed negotiators to work out the details. Obama said the deal would be finalized by the end of 2009. But that deadline has come and gone, and no new time frame has been set. Even the agreement on the military transports has gotten tangled up in its implementation. On paper, the deal allows 4,500 U.S. military flights over Russia per year, but so far this year, there have been fewer than 100.

Perhaps more disturbing is the return of Cold War rhetoric ahead of Clinton's visit. The most alarming exchanges have centered on a new missile shield being proposed by Obama to protect against threats from Iran and North Korea. The new shield would be built farther away from the Russian heartland, but it has still roused the same fury from Moscow, which last month renewed its threat to point tactical missiles at Europe. And in December, Putin suggested the possibility of a new arms race between the Cold War foes.

Sergei Markov, a conservative parliamentarian from Putin's United Russia Party, says these escalations point to the conservative camp's main problem with the U.S.: a lack of trust. "There are people at the top who see Obama as just a temporary man who will soon be replaced by another," Markov tells TIME. "There are people at the top who say this reset is all just a trick, that if we go along with it, they will begin pushing for maximum

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Mission to Mars SNFI 2011Wave 1 Sanchez/Schultz/Pailimitations on Russia's influence." Conservatives also want something in return, he says. "What Russia wants is to be recognized as a great power in the region, a power that defends all its regional interests. But Washington is so far denying Russia this status."

How Clinton will deal with the growing tensions remains to be seen. But Obama's dream of wiping the slate clean and seeking real pragmatic ties with Russia has begun to look naive. And it's becoming increasingly clear which Kremlin faction is calling the shots.

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Russia CP Solvency - Russia is advancing their space program Russia revitalizing their space program by launching advanced space telescopeFarivar 7/19/11 freelance technology journalist (Cyrus, Russia launches advanced space telescope, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15250208,00.html, July 20, 2011)

The telescope, which is also known as RadioAstron, has a 10-meter (32.8-foot) diameter, a small size when compared to many current terrestrial radio telescopes. However, given that its data will be combined with signals collected from Earth stations, and the fact that it will have a large 340,000-kilometer (around 211,000-mile) orbit, the telescope is expected to have a resolution 100,000 times better than the American-built Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990. Russian space authorities are planning on coordinating the new telescope's observations with radio telescopes in the United States, Puerto Rico and Germany. This year is significant for the Russian space program, as it surges ahead during the hiatus of manned American space missions. Earlier this year, Moscow feted the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. All international space missions ferrying humans into space will have to be launched via the Russian Soyuz capsule from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "The main point is that Russia is returning to scientific programs in space after a long break," said Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, according to ITAR-TASS.

Russian plans on a manned space mission in 2018Associated Press 8/28/10 American News Agency (Associated Press, Putin Vows Russia Will Launch Manned Space Missions in 2018, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/28/putin-vows-russia-launch-manned-space-missions/, July 20 2011)

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia will launch its manned space missions from a new center in the Far East in 2018, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday, as the country seeks greater independence for its space program. Putin made the comments as he inaugurated the start of construction for the new cosmodrome at the former missile defense base of Vostochny, outside the town of Uglegorsk, 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) east of Moscow, and a few hundred miles away from China. Russia currently uses the Soviet-built Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan for all of its manned space missions and other commercial launches as well as a smaller center in northern Russia for military satellite launches. Russia has a lease on Baikonur until 2050 and has paid around $115 million to Kazakhstan in rent since the agreement in 2004. Putin stressed the "strategic" need for Moscow to have "an independent access to the space." Although Baikonur is located in a "friendly state," it is still owned by another country, he said. Russia's prime minister said on state-run Rossiya channel that Vostochny will host all launches of Russian-manned spacecraft beginning in 2018. Launches of first unmanned spacecraft from the new center are expected in 2015. Putin described the construction as "one of the biggest and ambitious projects of modern Russia" which "gives opportunity to thousands of young professionals to use their talent." Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that the first stage of the construction will take more than 24 billion rubles ($779 million).

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China Space Race China sees space exploration as a military advancement, and could counterbalance the US military if left uncheckedRitter, Time Magazine, February 13, 2008 (Peter, The New Space Race: China Vs. US, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1712812,00.html, accessed 7/20/2011)

But there may be more at stake than national honor. Some analysts say that China's attempts to access American space technology are less about boosting its space program than upgrading its military. China is already focusing on space as a potential battlefield. A recent Pentagon estimate of China's military capabilities said that China is investing heavily in anti-satellite weaponry. In January 2007, China demonstrated that it was able to destroy orbiting satellites when it brought down one of its own weather satellites with a missile. China clearly recognizes the significance of this capability. In 2005, a Chinese military officer wrote in the book Joint Space War Campaigns, put out by the National Defense University, that a "shock and awe strike" on satellites "will shake the structure of the opponent's operations system of organization and will create huge psychological impact on the opponent's policymakers." Such a strike could hypothetically allow China to counterbalance technologically superior U.S. forces, which rely heavily on satellites for battlefield data. China is still decades away from challenging the U.S. in space. But U.S. officials worry espionage may be bringing China a little closer to doing so here on Earth.

China surpassing U.S race to MarsKaplan ‘10 (Jeremy A. Kaplan, Fox News, “The Race to the Red Planet”, http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/27/road-red-planet-mars-nasa-china/) Accessed 7/25/11

Though both Russia and China have put men in space and say they hope someday to set foot on the moon, the United States remains the only country to do so. Yet Russia and China and some other countries have also publicly articulated a vision for manned space exploration that includes a more distant target: Mars. Now reports of a new deep-space satellite suggest that China intends to launch toward Mars -- and as soon as 2013. It's too early to call it a race, says Henry Hertzfeld, research professor of space policy and international affairs in the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. But China's Martian orbiter may indicate a second destination for the country's space program. "It's natural that if they are serious about space exploration (which, it is clear, they are), Mars is a challenge beyond the Moon. Just as it is for us," Hertzfeld told FoxNews.com in an e-mail. The new project will make use of technologies developed for China's first lunar satellite, launched in 2007, according to a report from the Xinhua news agency. The plan was based on research conducted by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), said Huang Jiangchuan, an expert at a forum on China's space technology. He described the technologies likely to be used -- including ones to boost the satellite's payload capability and exploration accuracy -- as "already quite advanced," according to the report. Hertzfeld nevertheless cautioned that the differences between the 1960s and the 21st century make for a very different competitive landscape. There are more countries now with space capabilities and access to space; there is much more cooperation among nations; and the costs are astronomical.

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China DA Uniqueness – Relations HighRelations High and on the Brink – Military dialogue and shared interestsLitai ’11 (Xue, Research Associate at Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, 7/14/11 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2011-07/14/content_12898672.htm) Accessed 7/24/11

Following the visit of General Chen Bingde, chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), to the United States in May, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, paid a reciprocal visit to China from July 9 to 13. Mullen's visit came amid tensions over territorial claims in the South China Sea and a foreseeable dispute with the US over its arms sales to Taiwan. In the US' strategic calculus, the rapid buildup of the PLA air force and navy are seen as posing a challenge to Washington's leadership in the Asia-Pacific region and China's unavoidable rise is viewed as a destabilizing influence on the existing global power structure. With this in mind, the US' response to the territorial dispute in the South China Sea must answer its short-term need to maintain free navigation in international waters and its long-term contingency plan in response to China's growing power. China doesn't think free navigation can be an excuse for the US to interfere in the South China Sea disputes, and during Mullen's visit Chen reiterated the stance that the disputes should be addressed "through dialogues and diplomatic measures". However, this time the Chinese military had a more practical perception of the US military presence in the region. Chen admitted that the US presence is "already a fact" and will continue to exist. Mullen said the US won't support any side involved in the territorial disputes, but judging from the its short- and long-term needs, the US navy would probably join forces with some Southeast Asian countries if military conflicts were to occur in the South China Sea. The US and China both recognized the necessity to enhance military exchanges to reduce mutual distrust. Inadequate mutual trust has resulted in an attitude of self-defense and pushed it further into the policymaking mechanism in Washington and Beijing. The recent US-Philippines joint military drills and the upcoming US-Vietnam joint naval drill are "inappropriate", according to Chen. The possibility of misjudgment in the sensitive region still exists. Under such circumstances, Washington and Beijing both consider it necessary to quicken the pace of military exchanges at various levels to avoid or reduce any strategic misjudgments between the two militaries. Put simply, a strategic misjudgment between the two nations would result from a lack of mutual trust. In a swiftly changing world, mutual distrust can give rise to highly explosive situations in which the two nations might be involved. It is thus essential for Washington and Beijing to deepen mutual trust and narrow their differences by increasing bilateral military exchanges to maintain regional and global stability. Chinese military showed its determination to boost mutual confidence by taking Mullen on a tour of its Second Artillery Force Headquarters in Beijing, air force and army bases in Shandong province, and inviting him to watch the PLA's anti-terror drill in Zhejiang province. With this in mind, Mullen's visit could emerge as a golden opportunity for the US and China to strengthen bilateral efforts to consolidate military contacts, communications and dialogues. The United States and China already share strategic interests in coping with a series of global issues, such as terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation and missile technology control regimes, cooperation in the UN Security Council, combating piracy, humanitarian disaster relief and prevention and drug smuggling. The help offered by none of Washington's allies in Northeast Asia can match the scale and range of cooperation between China and the US in recent decades. Only global terror groups would benefit from a military confrontation between the Washington and Beijing, for they could seize the opportunity to renew their violent attacks. Hence, it's good news that the US and China will hold unprecedented joint counter-piracy exercises in the Gulf of Aden by the end of this year.

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China CP Solvency - China will advance space program China views space exploration as a mark of a superpower - investing billions into their space projectsRitter, Time Magazine, February 13, 2008 (Peter, The New Space Race: China Vs. US, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1712812,00.html, accessed 7/20/2011)

China's manned space program, codenamed Project 921, is indeed a matter of considerable national pride for a country that sees space exploration as confirmation of superpower status. China is pouring substantial resources into space research, according to Dean Cheng, an Asian affairs specialist at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analysis. With a budget estimated at up to $2 billion a year, China's space program is roughly comparable to Japan's. Later this year, China plans to launch its third manned space mission — a prelude to a possible lunar foray by 2024. With President George W. Bush vowing to return American astronauts to the moon by 2020, some competition is perhaps inevitable.

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China CP AT: PERMThe perm can’t solve – Relations are a prerequisite to cooperationNews Post India 5/7/11 (http://www.newspostindia.com/2011-05-07-united-states-china-may-jointly-undertake-mars-mission) Accessed 7/22/11

U.S. President Barack Obama views China as a potential partner for an eventual human mission to Mars that would be difficult for any single nation to undertake, a senior White House official told lawmakers. Testifying May 4 before the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice and science, White House science adviser John Holdren said near-term engagement with China in civil space will help lay the groundwork for any such future endeavor. He prefaced his remarks with the assertion that human exploration of Mars is a long-term proposition and that any discussion of cooperating with Beijing on such an effort is speculative. “(What) the president has deemed worth discussing with the Chinese and others isthat when the time comes for humans to visit Mars, it’s going to be an extremely expensive proposition and the question is whether it will really make sense — at the time that we’re ready to do that — to do it as one nation rather than to do it in concert,” Holdren said in response to a question from Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a staunch China critic who chairs the powerful subcommittee that oversees NASA spending. Holdren, who said NASA could also benefit from cooperating with China on detection and tracking of orbital debris, stressed that any U.S. collaboration with Beijing in manned spaceflight would depend on future Sino-U.S. relations.

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Privatization CP SolvencyPrivate sectors are trying to replace the government in space programs Pappalardo, Sep 2010, Popular Mechanics (Joe Papalardo, This Is the New Look of NASA, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/4320379, July 25, 2011)

The future of space could soon belong to private companies—the soon-to-be retired space shuttle is being replaced by private launchers, space tourists are snapping pictures from the International Space Station, global positioning systems are ubiquitous, and entrepreneurs are building suborbital craft destined for use by paying customers. But the mood at the Space Business Forum, an annual gathering of investors and space geeks held in New York City, was impatience to get the feds out of the way so the private sector can attract investments and grow quicker. "I'd say the role of government [in the space industry] is too high," says Heidi Wood, the senior equity analyst for aerospace for Morgan Stanley. "There are far too many hands on it." The commercial space industry is also feeling pinched because the U.S. government has become one of its largest customers, taking up payload space in launch vehicles and hogging the attention of private space companies. Space companies covet these high-dollar contracts for their income streams but hate them because they crowd out new, potentially long-term strategies with the private sector. The government can be a fickle business partner because it renews contracts at the whim of the federal budget cycle. These contracts might not be renewed, or they might be changed when a policy shifts, leaving the private firms out in the cold with dead hardware and defunct business plans.

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Privatization CP – Politics DifferentialGovernment oppositions push NASA towards private sectors Patterson, June 2011, CNN News (Thom Patterson, NASA insider: Some truth to Gingrich's barb, http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/14/nasa-insider-some-truth-to-gingrichs-barb/, July 25, 2011)

For those who missed it, Gingrich accused NASA's bureaucracy of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars that it's spent since the 1969 moon landing. Without such waste, he said, "we would probably today have a permanent station on the moon, three or four permanent stations in space, a new generation of lift vehicles." NASA is "standing in the way" of a "new cycle of opportunities" when it "ought to be getting out of the way and encouraging the private sector," said the former House speaker. Instead of a bounty of exploration riches, Gingrich said, NASA has produced "failure after failure." "Most people know that there's a lot of truth to what Newt's been saying," said a NASA executive who asked not to be identified so he might speak more frankly. "But they're doing their best to compose the nation's space agenda in the face of all the constraints of operating within a government bureaucracy." NASA has been fostering programs during the past few years aimed at using privately developed rockets and orbiting vehicles for U.S. space missions. "NASA will either undergo a paradigm shift now to figure out how to work with the private sector - or it will probably collapse."

Bipartisan opposition against Obama's budget cut for space Washington Times, Feb 2010 (Refocused NASA gets bipartisan criticism, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/26/criticism-of-refocused-nasa-bipartisan/?page=all#pagebreak, July 25, 2011)

President Obama’s decision to kill the U.S. government’s manned space flight program and quash a planned mission to the moon ran into bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Republicans and Democrats alike on the House Science and Technology Committee - many with major space-program facilities in their districts - expressed dismay with Mr. Obama’s decision, included in his proposed fiscal 2011 budget for NASA released earlier this month. Rep. David Wu, Oregon Democrat, called the decision “premature” and asked whether Mr. Obama’s cuts “doom us to a future where there are no Americans in space or at least that the dominant language in space is not English.” Added Texas Republican Rep. Michael T. McCaul, “I’m concerned about human space-flight mission being completely cut from this program. It seems to me that we’re getting away from the core mission of NASA.” Several House lawmakers Thursday disagreed with the proposed commercialization of space flights, under which NASA would contract private companies for astronaut transportation to the International Space Station. The budget includes new funds to upgrade and extend the space station’s life span until 2020 or beyond. “I was against privatization in the Bush administration, and I’m against it in the Obama administration,” Mr. Wu said. “I think that you all are running a huge risk.”

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ITAR CP – China DA DifferentialChina likes the CP and it leads to increased space cooperationDe Selding (Peter, Space News http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110414-chinese-official-space-cooperation.html ) Accessed 7/21/11

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A top Chinese government space official on April 14 appealed to the U.S. government to lift its decade-long ban on most forms of U.S.-Chinese space cooperation, saying both nations would benefit from closer government and commercial space interaction. He specifically called for cooperation on manned spaceflight, in which China has made massive investment in recent years. Lei Fanpei, vice president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), which oversees much of China’s launch vehicle and satellite manufacturing industry, said China purchased more than $1 billion in U.S.-built satellites in the 1990s before the de facto ban went into effect in 1999. Since then, the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) have made it impossible to export most satellite components, or full satellites, to China for launch on China’s now successful line of Long March rockets. The ITAR regulations that tightened the U.S. technology export regime were put into place to punish China for its missile exports, and to slow development of China’s rocket industry by reducing its customer base. Most commercial telecommunications satellites carry at least some U.S. parts, which is why ITAR has all but locked China out of the global commercial launch market. The U.S. government is reviewing the current ITAR regime, which U.S. industry says has had the unintended effect of making it difficult to sell satellites and satellite components just about anywhere in the world.

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AT: VASIMR Propulsion SolvesVASIMR propulsion doesn’t exist or solve nowZubrin, Wed, 13 July, 2011,Ph.D in nuclear astronomical engineering (Robert, The VASIMR Hoax,http://spacenews.com/commentaries/110711-vasimr-hoax.html, 7/25/11

VASIMR, or the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, is not new. Rather, it has been researched at considerable government expense by its inventor, Franklin Chang Diaz, for three decades. More importantly, it is neither revolutionary nor particularly promising. Rather, it is just another addition to the family of electric thrusters, which convert electric power to jet thrust, but are markedly inferior to the ones we already have. Existing ion thrusters routinely achieve 70 percent efficiency and have operated successfully both on the test stand and in space for thousands of hours. In contrast, after 30 years of research, the VASIMR has only obtained about 50 percent efficiency in test stand burns of a few seconds’ duration, and that is only at high specific impulse. When the specific impulse is reduced, the efficiency drops in direct proportion. This means that the VASIMR’s much chanted (but always doubtful) claim that it could offer significant mission benefit by trading specific impulse for thrust is simply false. In contrast, this capability has been demonstrated by the ion-drive that propelled Dawn spacecraft on its way to an asteroid. Finally, if it is to be used in space, VASIMR will require practical high temperature superconducting magnets, which do not exist. But wait, there’s more. To achieve his much-repeated claim that VASIMR could enable a 39-day one-way transit to Mars, Chang Diaz posits a nuclear reactor system with a power of 200,000 kilowatts and a power-to-mass ratio of 1,000 watts per kilogram. In fact, the largest space nuclear reactor ever built, the Soviet Topaz, had a power of 10 kilowatts and a power-to-mass ratio of 10 watts per kilogram. There is thus no basis whatsoever for believing in the feasibility of Chang Diaz’s fantasy power system. Space nuclear reactors with power in the range of 50 to 100 kilowatts, and power-to-mass ratios of 20 to 30 watts per kilogram, are feasible, and would be of considerable value in enabling ion-propelled high-data-rate probes to the outer solar system, as well as serving as a reliable source of surface power for a Mars base. However, rather than spend its research dollars on such an actually useful technology, the administration has chosen to fund VASIMR. No electric propulsion system — neither the inferior VASIMR nor its superior ion-drive competitors — can achieve a quick transit to Mars, because the thrust-to-weight ratio of any realistic power system (even without a payload) is much too low. If generous but potentially realistic numbers are assumed (50 watts per kilogram), Chang Diaz’s hypothetical 200,000-kilowatt nuclear electric spaceship would have a launch mass of 7,700 metric tons, including 4,000 tons of very expensive and very radioactive high-technology reactor system hardware requiring maintenance support from a virtual parallel universe of futuristic orbital infrastructure. Yet it would still get to Mars no quicker than the 6-month transit executed by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft using chemical propulsion in 2001, and which could be readily accomplished by a human crew launched directly to Mars by a heavy-lift booster no more advanced than the (140-ton-to-orbit) Saturn 5 employed to send astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s. That said, the fact that the administration is not making an effort to develop a space nuclear reactor of any kind, let alone the gigantic super-advanced one needed for the VASIMR hyper drive, demonstrates that the program is being conducted on false premises. Far from enabling a human mission to Mars, VASIMR is primarily useful as a smokescreen for those who wish to avoid embracing such a program. Yet their entire case is disingenuous, because in reality, there is no need to develop any faster propulsion system before humans venture to the red planet. As noted, the current one-way transit time is six months, exactly the same as a standard crew rotation on the space station. The six-month transit trajectory is actually the best one to use for a human crew because it provides for a free return orbit, an important safety feature which a faster trajectory would lack. Thus even if we had a truly superior and practical propulsion technology, such as nuclear thermal rockets (which the Obama administration is also not developing), we would use its capability to increase the mission payload, rather than shorten the transit. The argument that we must go much faster to avoid cosmic rays is demonstrably false, as proven not only by standard radiation risk analysis — which estimates about a 1 percent cancer risk for the 50 rem dose that astronauts would receive on a Mars round trip — but by the fact that about a dozen astronauts and cosmonauts have already received such a cumulative cosmic ray dose during repeated flights on the international space station or Mir, and, as expected, none of them have evidenced any radiological health effects. (Cosmic ray dose rates on the space station are fully half of those in interplanetary space — half because the Earth blocks out half the sky. The Earth’s magnetic field does not shield effectively against cosmic rays. As a result, over the next 10 years, space station crews will receive the same number of person-rems of cosmic radiation as would have been received by five crews of equal size flying to Mars and back over the same period.) As for avoiding zero-gravity deconditioning, the practical answer is to simply prevent it entirely by rotating the spacecraft to provide artificial gravity rather than waste decades and vast sums in a futile effort to develop warp drive. NASA has spent a lot on VASIMR, but its real cost is not the tens of millions spent on the thruster but the tens of billions that will be wasted as the human spaceflight program is kept mired in Earth orbit for the indefinite future, accomplishing nothing while waiting for the false vision to materialize. That is why, as unpleasant as it might be, this illusion needs to be exposed.

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Zubrin Indict Zubrin’s views regarding mars are unrealistic and based on false dataMclean, medieval recreation, Friday, April 09, 2010,(Will, “Robert Zubrin is Wrong, Again,” http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2010/04/robert-zubrin-is-wrong-again.html, 7/25/11)

The Apollo program did not follow the Zubrin ideal of choosing a single goal and then building the technology to achieve it. Which is fortunate, because if we had the technology wouldn't have been ready when we wanted to go. He then follows up with: The potential utility of orbital propellant depots — basically gas stations in space — as a way to enable manned missions to the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, or Mars has never been established. It hasn't been established because it hasn't been attempted yet, like lunar orbit rendezvous in 1962. It's clear that it has the potential to be tremendous game changing technology, allowing manned missions beyond earth orbit to be accomplished either with existing launchers, or with much smaller new launchers than we'd need without it. Note the careful phrasing of Zubrin's complaint: orbital propellant transfer is done routinely by the Russians to reboost ISS, and has been demonstrated by the U.S. Orbital Express mission. What hasn't been demonstrated is the orbital transfer of more efficient cryogenic fuel. If it can be demonstrated effectively, it has the potential to make plans that depended on much larger launchers without propellant transfer obsolete. Zubrin's pet Mars architecture is one of those plans, which may explain his hostility to propellant depots .

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Robots CPHuman exploration not necessary - robots can do our job better.Globus 2011, April 29, 2011, curator for NASA (Al, Space Settlement Basics, http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Basics/wwwwh.html, July 21, 2011)

If you ask NASA what the space program is about they will say science and exploration, and for the robotic spacecraft program that's probably true. But most of the money doesn't go to robots; it goes to human space flight. Unfortunately for humans in space, robots have vastly outperformed humans in space exploration and science. We like to think of ourselves as great explorers, and we are. Humans have explored every nook and cranny of Earth above the water line, and a great deal of the oceans as well. In space, humans have visited the Moon and Low-Earth Orbit. On the other hand, robots have visited Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and several comets and asteroids - at far less cost. Not only are robots much cheaper, they have produced far more scientific data. Deciding which data to gather and analyze is best done by humans, but this can be done by sending orders from Earth to robots in space. Some people will wave their hands and say that humans are smarter, more capable, and more flexible than robots. That's true, but it doesn't mean humans do a better job of gathering data. We don't need to make theoretical arguments about whether humans or robots do the best space science. We've flown human and robot space missions for over 40 years and we've got the results. If we could measure scientific output, then we would know if humans or robots are best.

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