Robert Zubrin, president of the
Mars Society, had some interesting ideas in a recent
op-ed piece. Zubrin believe SpaceX's Falcon-9 heavy rocket, in combination with its Dragon crew capsule, offers the key to returning to Mars within a decade at about half the cost of a single Space Shuttle flight. A fascinating thought with the demise of the Shuttle program and hazy plans for the future. Under his plan, three Falcon-9 heavy rockets would be all we need to accomplish a Mars mission: one would place a Dragon in Mars orbit for a return trip, another would be place supplies and an ascent vehicle on the surface of Mars, and the third would carry a crew in a Dragon to the surface of Mars. Under this scenario, the United States could have humans on the surface of Mars by 2016. I hope someone in the White House is listening. We need new thinking if we want to remain a space-faring people. The possibilities are out there, so now the question is whether we will pursue them. I can picture the Chinese eyeing the Falcon-9 heavy rockets for their own space program.
