"Spirit" of Mars landed and is A.O.K

[Saurdaukar]

[NUKE]

Go Home to the good life I say.

Why chose to live in the US when it is clearly such a dissapointment to you Miko?

Your attitude  make me sick sometimes.

[Airhead]

Ban em Skuzzy!!!

[Dowding]

Rude - you've evidently nothing to say, so why bother exposing that fact by posting?

I largely agree Miko.

Government funded research should not benefit the share-holders of private corporations.

[FUNKED1]

Yeah Miko how dare you point out pork for what it is.  

[Saintaw]

Originally posted by Curval
what if they find a cheap clean alternative to fossil fuels on one of the planets?
 

There are lots of those on earth no need to go to mars for this.

That being said... I'm planning to be VERY rich in 2045 (the year I get to retire) and bui myself a seat on one of those "Mars-airliners", and get a nice mansion with view on the face mountain.

[Leslie]

Well, one good thing about manned Mars missions... it would force engineers to re learn and use. the slide rule.  Saturn V moon  missions were worked out on computer, and then checked by slide rule to verify the computer's figures.  It was more art than science, the idea of striving for perfection and accomplishing the impossible.

A manned mission to Mars and back would be very close to impossible by today's understanding.  12 months in isolation would be a lot to ask.  Too dangerous...cabin fever and all.

The ship would have to be built in space, because it would have to be big.  If launched from the ground, the Mars rocket would be the size of the Empire State Building.




Les

[kbman]

Watch out for the monolith SAW, especially if you hear the strains of "Thus spake Zarathustra".

kbman

[CyranoAH]

Originally posted by Dowding
Rude - you've evidently nothing to say, so why bother exposing that fact by posting?

I largely agree Miko.

Government funded research should not benefit the share-holders of private corporations.

Allrighty then...

Gloria, my fiancée is currently working on the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), a joint ESA-NASA mission to demonstrate the existance of gravitational waves.

They need state-of-the-art instruments, a launcher, and that involves private corporations with the technology and the infraestructure to build them... just how exactly is that wrong?

How could you bring forth this kind of endeavour without these companies?

Daniel

[Saintaw]

I'm sure they will let me have a super-puter that will protect me

[Dowding]

The question isn't how to do it but more how to prevent companies taking advantage of private-public partnerships in suspect deals that generally benefit the shareholders more than the end-user. This is especially apparent in local government - I would guess that it is probably a common occurance no matter what the project. At least where science is involved there is an element of professional integrity which probably mediates the phenomenon.

[Leslie]

Exactly Dowding.  That's why NASA will not allow advertisements on their spacecraft.



Les

[Dowding]

...Yet.

I can see branded, tampon shaped boosters in the near future; carrying attractive women into space, who happen to be clad in tight, white, all-in-one lycra suits.

[Naso]

National pride...

Yes, in the first age of Space Adventure the national pride was very important (sputnik, gagarin, mercury, etc...).

But, IMHO, the national pride must have ended when a guy, printing for the first time a footprint on our COMMON satelite, decided to close his phrase with:

...Humankind

And the huge and complete "supenational" cooperation that is the basis of the actual Space Exploration, cannot be denied by the usual neocons on this board.

[Leslie]

I've had some pretty wild dreams about women, and space stations, and ground stations.  Women play a large part in these dreams, because they are usually the ones to get me out of an unpleasant situation.  They are rescuers.





Les