Subject: NASA's Journey to Mars Document
From: Daniel Adamo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2015 16:15:34 -0700

ATIG Members-

Attached is another of my seemingly ceaseless essays commenting on our
culture's fixation with sending humans to Mars.  It's a great dream, even if
its rationale is elusive, but some of the strategies and associated rhetoric
being used to implement it are turning the dream into a nightmare for me.
How about you?

There's one poorly supported tidbit appearing at the top of p. 6 in my essay
on which I'd particularly like feedback to confirm or refute it.  What's
become of NASA's open competition to develop "advanced" boosters with liquid
or solid propellant for the evolved SLS?  If this competition has been
indefinitely frozen, SLS may never evolve beyond capability to deliver 105 t
mass to low Earth orbit.  That shortfall could be a game-changer, even in
the cislunar "Proving Ground".  In that event, my chief consolation would be
the Saturn 5 retaining its status as "the most powerful [and capable] rocket
ever built".

-Dan