And as it so happens, that Irish betting site also offers a line on the landing of Opportunity, the twin of Spirit, the rover current scouting out the Red Planet. As it now stands, bettors think there’s a 67 percent chance that Opportunity will land safely on the Martian surface and be sending back photos within two weeks. Here are a couple of other Mars-related items I have been gathering:
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1. Polls show Americans are split about President Bush’s plans for establishing a lunar base and then sending a manned-mission to Mars. That’s about the way it was even before his announcement. An IPSOS poll taken in the runup to Bush’s speech showed that 48 percent supported the plan and 48 percent opposed it. Yet those numbers underplay just how popular space exploration is. About three quarters of Americans think America should continue to send humans into space and that the United States should be the planet’s leading spacefaring nation. But the public is concerned about costs, with 55 percent saying that research dollars would be better spent on domestic programs. If the White House was looking at the same numbers, it’s not so surprising that the Bush plan is adopting a go-slow, go-cheap approach.
2. I've also come across two interesting ideas to help make sure the Mars mission is done as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible. One concept is Mars enthusiast Robert Zubrin’s idea for a Mars Prize. Back in the mid-1990s, Zubrin, whom I interviewed last week for NextNews, devised an approach of offering a $25 billion grand prize to the private sector for a getting a crew to Mars and back, with preliminary awards for successful steps in the process. In other words, it would be kind of like the current $10 million X-Prize, which will be given to the first team that privately finances, builds, and launches a three-person spaceship to a height of 100 kilometers, or 62.5 miles, and returns safely to Earth–and then repeats the launch with the same ship within two weeks. Here’s what Zubrin said when I asked him about the prospects for a Mars Prize:
"That would great. But the primary potential advocate to Mars within the upper political circles was Newt Gingrich and he is no longer a factor . . . On the other hand, I hope there would be a competition open to all the different NASA centers and national laboratories and companies to see who could develop the most efficient Mars plan. Maybe you do this in stages, where the prize would be unfunded at first, and then when you get down to the final three you give them each $20 millon to flesh it out. We need to open the process to the full genius of the American technology community instead of just isolated groups in NASA."
The other interesting idea I heard is from former N.Y. Post and Chicago Sun-Times editor Frank Devine, who recently suggested funding the space program through private donations: "Given that NASA's Web site attracted more than a billion hits in the three days following the landing of the robotic explorer Spirit on Mars, it is possible the entire project could be funded with individual donations . . . I am good for $200 a month, payable to NASA, by direct debit from my bank account."
