Welcome: The picture above is the martian surface — its a billion pixel image viewer of images stitched together, all taken by the Curiosity Rover on Mars and gives one a feeling of being there. My view is that humans will have to be there someday — to not go there means we live within the psychological and physical limit of one fragile world subject to its whims and ours. Two worlds create a positive future. But it is also my view that someday better be soon — otherwise we will lose the space race to the robots and artificial intelligence, virtually exploring. That’s good enough for the rest of the universe beyond Mars — technology advances are huge for robots and small for human life support, but for Mars we need to physically be there. So Mars is not just our next destination — it is our only destination. I think we have started on the path. Let’s go. Discuss the future of human space exploration, and see my new book published Nov 2015 by the University of Arizona Press:
Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars 
by Louis Friedman
Available on Amazon in 2nd Printing by University of Arizona Press
The future of human space exploration will be robotic
CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Space is big: This shows the interstellar geography between our Sun and the nearest star, Alpha Centauri — 4.3 light-years distant (=250,000 AU = ~22 trillion miles). NOTE that the scale is logarithmic — on a linear scale you would see space is mostly empty
Co-Leader: Keck Institute for Space Studies Workshop: Technology Requirements to Operate At and Utilize the Solar Gravity Lens May 2018; in cooperation with The Aerospace Corp and Breakthrough Initiatives.
The solar gravity lens is nature’s telescope — the only one that may permit us to see life on another world.
Solar Gravity Lens Focus Mission development Cf. White Paper presented to the National Academies of Science Space Science Board: White Paper for SSB (pdf)
Consultant: The Aerospace Corporation on a study of a Solar Gravity Lens Focus Mission
Consultant: Science fiction movie now in development
Adivory Board – Breakthrough Initiatives announce “Starshot” – an interstellar flight objective.
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DRAFT PAPER TO BE PRESENTED AT COSPAR, JULY 2018: Humans to Mars Political History (pdf.)
Op-Ed: Back to Back to the Moon [forthcoming, March 2018] The new policy may mean the end of the U.S. human space exploration – never to go beyond the Moon.
Another book in the works? — A history of my Russian adventures pursuing “Together to Mars”Planetary Adventures -DRAFT (pdf.)
Accompanying map: Russia Adventures
