The Enterprise Mission and The Mars Society

Well, I think that the Enterprise Mission website is on level with the tabloids The Globe and Sun. The tabloids claim Jesus is back or Aliens captured Bush (and other such funny, although completely ridiculous claims). Whereas the Enterprise Mission just thinks that people have already been to Mars, and that there are government cover ups right and left. They claim that anything new and non-mainstream is going to be controversial, and that they are continually messaged by people thinking they are, well, not too rational. Several times, they say its time to start getting serious about what NASA is really up to, stressing serious. Overall, the site sounds, reads, and looks like a whole lot of space nerds (every third sentence refers to Star Trek) convinced of extraterrestrial ruins and government conspiracies. It is hard to take them seriously just looking at their site before even reading it, at which point it becomes even harder.

The Mars Society web site is so much better in pretty much every aspect. Even just looking at it, you would be more inclined to read what it has to say, regardless of its claims and assertions. The fact that it has their mission statement at the top of the first page, in three concise bulleted sentences, also goes a great way to understanding and accepting the site. You might not agree that getting the word out is a good thing, or that even going to Mars should happen, but you are not immediately skeptical because they never make a claim that can not be readily proven true (unlike The Enterprise, who say life has been discovered on Mars already - you'd think you would have heard about that if it was somewhat credible at all). The site also has links to other credible organizations, such as several universities.

The Mars Society, although perhaps run by people with the same zeal and fanaticism as The Enterprise Mission, has a completely different 'Mission Statement'. Where The Enterprise Mission wants to discover cover-ups and life on mars, the Mars Society wants to get there. One of these can be achieved through the scientific method, and one cannot. The Mars Society wants to "further the goal of the exploration and settlement" of Mars. They are trying to raise awareness of the possibility of getting to Mars, as well as researching and developing ways to get there and survive there. They can do this through performing experiments on earth in surprisingly Martian terrain (deserts of the Southwest) or even simulated atmosphere or terrain. In the film we watched in class, Robert Zubrin is determined to get there, and is devising ways to do so. Hoagland, of The Enterprise, does not really have any way to prove his hypotheses; and as such, it seems, has fallen to gaudy web ads and misleading fallacious arguments.


And, just in general, if you are trying to be taken serious by the general public, it probably is not a good idea to have, right next to your controversial claims, links to sites about UFO's, E.T., and the Mayan countdown to the end of civilization in 2012. Nor to have your website tied so intricately with a science fiction television show.