My sincere congratulations goes to those scientists working on the Mars lander projects at NASA/JPL. Good for you. You have successfully converted metric numbers to standard numbers.

My opinion on the entire Mars exploration front is this: We should be sending men to the moon and getting some sort of foothold established there. Mars rovers indeed provide important scientific data but seem like a pork-barreled pet project.

The United States has not had a man on Earth's moon in almost 30 years. Let's go back and use our only satellite as a staging point for LESS expensive planetary expeditions.


What do you folks think? Discuss.

The problem is people in the U.S. tend to think that money spent on the space program is a waste. However, this is not the truth. The space program is one of the few national programs that have managed to pay for themselves many times over with all the technological advancements that were made to make it possible. Many everyday medical procedures would not be possible without the advances that were made for the space program and then adapted to other purposes.

That being said I doubt that we as a nation will get off of our asses anytime soon when it comes to space exploration. It is going to end up taking another country or some private buisness/group to move forward the way we did when attempting to land on the moon. And maybe when the U.S. realizes they have been beaten to the vast resources of space we will go back to working toward some type of goal.

For a good read on the subject you may want to look up some articals written by Robert A Heinlein, one source for a couple of good ones is his book Expanded Universe. But I am sure you could find some online also.. . .

Not an expert on this by any stratch but it would seem to me that operating and maintaining a moon base to launch planetary missions would far outway any savings you would gain by not having to launch from earth. Though you might make the money up in the long run...after many planetary missions. That makes it hard to sell politically to people who want bang for the buck, i.e. results now.

Plus a lot of this stuff is about funding and simply Mars is a particularly sexy mission right now compared to anything having to do with the moon.

I think you are right, it would be a better way to do things in the long run, but a much harder sell in our system, IMO.

The way I look at this kind of thing is with a sort of "take what we can get" point of view. Its easy for an idealistic college student to look into space and see the potential there, someone bred on the romance of Star Wars and the application of Star Trek. But for a much larger slice of the population, that sees only egoistic motives and personal involvement, any sort of space travel is expensive toys.

It could not be more apparent for me - When I try to discuss astronomy with my roomates I get blank, bored looks. Then the R&B music starts up again, the thousand phonecalls and their personal 'drama'. Its a self-centered world they live in, and I think it is shared by a vast majority of the population, especially the younger generation coming up now. But thats a whole 'nother discussion I suppose.

Anyways, I sat and downloaded that 8meg picture and imagined standing on the surface of mars while wondering why they didnt bother to align the frames better, and thought to myself "is this it?" We have the means to do so much more - The technology to allow us to travel in space exists, its ironic in a way that the reason we can't is because we won't let ourselves. So, for someone that will never be involved in the space program in any way other than financially, I'll take what I can get and hope that I live long enough to happily sign up for the first cryogenically frozen batch of humans sent to colonize another planet (but I wont hold my breath.)

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

99% of the work to get into space is escaping Earth's gravity. Why do that and then land on the moon, only to have to escape it's gravity again to get where you want to go? Seems more logistically feasible, cheaper, safer .. to do it all from Earth's orbit. I've never seen much reason to build this moon base a launch pad for future exploration. Guess someone can discuss that (:

Anyway, what's astonishing to me is: We're perhaps a few weeks away from discovering life on another planet and the biggest news item was Britanny's wedding. Wtf.

It's all a big yawn factor for most people. I've heard rumors that if the next rover lands successfully, Bush is going to come out with a new goal for NASA .. such as landing a man on Mars ... and if I guess right, it will be an international attempt with Europe and Russia. Won't that be a happy happy moment.

I agree a manned moon base would be superfluous. Unless there are a lot more resources on the moon than I am aware of, any craft for further exploration of the solar system would have to be built on the earth anyway. The moon just does not appear to be rich enough in resources to be a viable stepping off point. The only benefit it would offer is in developing the expertise to build structures offworld while still being relatively close to earth for support.

If usable resources were found on the moon, then it might make sense to build a lunar rocket factory for future expansion. That is a big "if" at the moment.

Orbit is hard to work from. We are all used to having a big rock to build large things (or an atmosphere, or an ocean) against.

On the moon, you have tonnes of raw materials that just require pushing around (if that) to be useful (a pile of rock on your head, or under your building, are both useful things to have).

The gravity well of the moon is much shallower than earths.

Escape velocity of earth: 11.2 km per second
Escape velocity of the moon: 2.37 km per second

Right there, it is 5 times cheaper to get away from the moon than it is to get away from the Earth. On top of that, the moon has no atmosphere, which gets in the way when you want to leave the Earth.

The sucky parts is, apparently you gotta bring all your water with you. =/

and ever peice of material you need to build such devices, so in other words you still have to leave the earths atmosphere to build the thing up on the moon, or trasport it to the moon, why not just have it launch from one point and then not have to launch it again?

well they suspect that there are single meators that have more gold on them, than all the gold we have found so far on earth. they also have many other metals that we could use to build anything we wanted. we have to start somewhere.


in 1860 the idea of sending a man to the moon or breaking the sound bearrer was an impossible. now we have aircraft that can officaly break what mac 4-6 ? the sr71, and who knows how much unoffically.

the point is we do want to give up on technology that can mean life or death to our great grand kids, just think of the world in 100 years, all the changes that will take place, things we that think are impossible will happen, and if we dont change alot of things we are in a world of hurt.

why even bother exploring other planets/moons with the intent of 'moving' to them?
Some people in this world will end all life before we get to move to our fancy new rocks.

The whole idea of space travel is foolish in my opinion.. What do we gain from it? Aside from possibly in 400 years living on the moon.. (and since none of us will live to be 500, why do we give a shit?)

If I had my choice though, I'd want to live on the planet that was the most yellow.. If I had to choose it wouldn't have anything to do with how close or any of that crap (you still gotta fly through space regardless of distance, it's gonna take a while), it's all about which is the nicest colour.

I think we should send a probe to see whats up Xanarons ass

Space exploration should be treated as an expensive hobby and nothing more. I enjoy watching the things they do and like seeing the pictures sent back from Mars. Its all fine and dandy till you see something such as the Space shuttle doing a routine landing and blow into a million bits losing lives and virtually billions of dollars. I think they decided risk versus rewards to traveling to the moon didn't weigh out and if it had some sort of benefit other than to say hey, "We made" they would already be working on it. Do I see any other country beating the US space program? Not likely in the near future, maybe China, but then I think it would be a blessing more than a set back.

Hobby? Forget about space travel?

Jesus, think a little and look at what we're actually doing - this is huge.

Look at the pyramids in egypt, the great wall in china, colossus of rhodes, etc... hundreds and thousands of years old, some do not even exist anymore..and we are still amazed by the accomplishment.

Now think how much bigger space exploration is compared to them.

Spreading beyond the earth is a requirement for the long term survival of our species. It's as simple as that.

I just have severe doubts about the feasibility of using the moon as the stepping stone. My personal opinion is it simply lacks the materials to use in manufacturing. Sure, it has dirt and probably a few metals here and there from meteorites. But it will take a lot of metal and hydrocarbons to be able to manufacture anything, material that I just don't think the moon has in sufficient quantity.

I can see using the moon for research and learning how to survive in hostile environments. I really think that is about all we will get out of it.

I'll take what I can get and hope that I live long enough to happily sign up for the first cryogenically frozen batch of humans sent to colonize another planetderail warning: You know, I never bought into the whole 'freezing' thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the human body like, mostly water? Does water not crystallize when it freezes? Wouldn't that like irreperably fuck up your cellular structure?

it crystalizes and destroys tissues, thats why a person can't be frozen in alaska and thawed in california, they are looking for ways to make the human body react to freezing and thawing via the frog, which can be frozen and un frozen, i really have no information on it, but atm freezing isn't even concidered (i think he was joking)

With out current technology, yes freezing causes damage that we can't repair. If we can develop nanotechnology sufficiently in the coming decades, it may be possible to repair that damage at the cellular level. The key is to have sufficient sampling of DNA from a large number of cells available to make those repairs correctly.

I have no clue about the state of the science of suspended animation or even what the most likely avenue calls for, just using the first term that came in my head to represent what we would essentially have to do to the passengers of any pioneering journey to even nearby stars.

gravity > light

To hell with "faster than light" speed, let's beat gravity.

To Mars we go. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107807,00.html)

hah.

Wow. Ok George Bush just became my favorite president of ALL TIME! I will definitely be voting for him when the time comes, all others be damned!

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

Nah, the Mars expedition is great.. Mars is the most similar of the planets to Earth, never know what kind of info could be found there.

Scientists in history have just stumbed across things that change the world in such large ways, who knows if looking in space will get us our breakthrough?

Yes yes, we all know Marz is great. :b

Space exploration will eventually lead to some type of answer to all the religious nonsense, and shed light on our origin and our future. Many people are afraid of the truth that may be revealed. To me, that answer is priceless. It's worth every penny, and every life we throw at it. I only hope I will live to see it.

Exploration itself is part human nature.

Sorry to bump this thread but I had a question... and it was sorta discussed in this thread above...

With our current technology, yes freezing causes damage that we can't repair.

How do they freeze/unfreeze sperm without damaging it?

Heh. You bumped the thread to ask that question?

Can't believe I did a search for that...
Anyway, this link (http://www.spermbankdirectory.com/faq4.htm) should answer your question(s).

<a href="http://www.harmonycryocare.com/files/webbrochure100203.pdf" target="_new">http://www.harmonycryocare.com/files/webbrochure100203.pdf</a>

Look at the picture on the front page of the link. Basically a bunch of sperm *ARE* damaged in the freezing process...but a lot are not as well...just depends on if they get an ice crystal thrust through them during the freezing process. Since they are their own organism, it's not like freezing a person where you damage a large majority of the persons cells when ice crystals form and rupture them.

Eventually, they'll figure out some way to manufacture a benign antifreeze that they can put in our bloodstream much like <a href="http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/antarctica/QA/animals/Antifreeze_in_Nature" target="_new">antarctic fish</a>.

Personally, I think space travel is going to be very important in the next oh.....500 years or so.
But frankly, we're never going to get much DONE until we can deal with the whole My Country is BETTER than yours mentality. We've got way too many things to worry about on this planet first.

On the whole cryogenics tip, we just need to come up with biological "antifreeze" that protects the cellular structure while allowing the lowered temperatures to still suspend biological funtion to the point where we don't age.
Hmmm, maybe I'll fire up the ol' chemistry set and get a gurgling.

The "my countery is better than yours" is a useful tool. Sorta like "my sports team is better than yours" or "my company is better than yours".

The existance of multiple contries opens up the possiblity of variation, and that can lead to improvement. This breaks down when people start blowing stuff up. =)

Then again, blowing stuff up is somewhat useful. The Powers The Be require a technologically advanced nation in order to protect their own vested interests from other Powers That Be, and freedom makes technological advancement happen faster. So, those Powers That Be who allow the peons to be free end up beating up the Powers That Be that don't allow their peons to be free, which is good for the peons in the long run.

If it wasn't for this effect, the Powers That Be would have a huge incentive to keep their peons weak and caged and technologically poor, because relative power is an important currency (people seem to care how much richer they are than other people, almost moreso than how rich they are).

Space is needed for a number of reasons. The asteroids contain more raw metals than every ounce of ore we have ever found. The planet earth will no longer support human life, no matter how well we care for it, at some point. Because it gives room to grow. Because it is there. Because this might be a narrow window of resource excess during which one can bootstrap a solar-system wide sustainable economy.

ESL?

They've been freezing sperm for 100 years now. You can't compare it to freezing people.

Laeyakk is on acid.

why even bother exploring other planets/moons with the intent of 'moving' to them?
Some people in this world will end all life before we get to move to our fancy new rocks.

The whole idea of space travel is foolish in my opinion.. What do we gain from it? Aside from possibly in 400 years living on the moon.. (and since none of us will live to be 500, why do we give a shit?)

If I had my choice though, I'd want to live on the planet that was the most yellow.. If I had to choose it wouldn't have anything to do with how close or any of that crap (you still gotta fly through space regardless of distance, it's gonna take a while), it's all about which is the nicest colour.

"Hi, I smoke too much weed...can you tell?"

Sorry death, I misspelled "The Powers That Be" as "The Powers The Be" once. But no, english is not my second language. I apologize for using big words and complicated concepts if english is your second language.

And yes, it was tangental. Not utterly on crack tho. =p~

Two main tangents, reworded:
Tangent 2:
As a ruler of a nation, what benefit does it give you to have free subjects? Answer: if you don't have free subjects, those kings with free subjects kick your ass. Same with well fed pesants. Hence, "blowing stuff up", or war, is useful in that it encourages rulers of nations (be they kings or anything else) to run their society in a way that ends up generating prosperity and freedom.

Tangent 1
Competition between nations is useful, like competition between corperations or sports teams. Some sports teams have better training programs or are run better: if every sports team where run the same way, people wouldn't learn how to run a sports team better. Simularly, if every government where run the same way, finding a better grovernment system would be hard.

The whole idea of space travel is foolish in my opinion.. What do we gain from it? Aside from possibly in 400 years living on the moon.. (and since none of us will live to be 500, why do we give a shit?)
Imagine where we'd all be if everyone had that attitude.

What if the Wright Brothers had decided to go pick up some hookers instead of building that crappy excuse for an airplane, just because they couldn't turn it into a 747 in their lifetime?

Sanchek, there is a difference.

Space takes resources from millions of people, and a handful get to "fly". While flight took resources from a handful of people, and two people got to "fly" at the start.

Space travel does have a long payout horizon, possibly so long that reinvestment in more wealth at home might bring the payout (self-sustaining space colonies) faster than investing in space travel.

It is a possibly valid arguement. But, it is a hard one on either side.

The world is always going to have "problems" no matter how much money or resources you think is going to cure it. We're living what? 40 years longer than was expected just 90 years ago, and yet we still have problems people think deserve more attention on Earth than in technology advancements.