Liquid water on Mars?
Discussion
rhinochopig said:
Simpo Two said:
And this is a very good demonstration of why men are better than robots. A man can pick it up and go 'Duh'. A robot cannot.
Yeah but the man looking down the camera held by the robot can go Duh, and doesn't require a multi-trillion Yen space programme to get his fragile bag of meat there.But what's the point of finding out these things if someone isn't going to go there eventually.
Robots are great - and are doing great things. But they are merely the advance troops for the humans who will someday follow - and the robots will always have their limits.
Eric Mc said:
rhinochopig said:
Simpo Two said:
And this is a very good demonstration of why men are better than robots. A man can pick it up and go 'Duh'. A robot cannot.
Yeah but the man looking down the camera held by the robot can go Duh, and doesn't require a multi-trillion Yen space programme to get his fragile bag of meat there.But what's the point of finding out these things if someone isn't going to go there eventually.
Robots are great - and are doing great things. But they are merely the advance troops for the humans who will someday follow - and the robots will always have their limits.
Given that Scientists and engineers are absolutely terrible at articulating cost benefits of anything remotely complex, then sadly I doubt we'll see a manned mission unless there is a very very compelling reason to do so.
On this topic, you might enjoy this article: http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/11/is-space-ex...
I agree sending humans is massively more complex, but it depends whether you want to explore properly/colonise.
How much would we know about Africa if all we had was a remote-control toy with a camera on it? Picking stuff up and turning it over and feeling it and making decisions and thinking is very different from looking at an image on a TV. Try cooking your dinner with a video link, joystick and time delay and you'll see the difference
But ultimately you're right - it isn't going to happen.
How much would we know about Africa if all we had was a remote-control toy with a camera on it? Picking stuff up and turning it over and feeling it and making decisions and thinking is very different from looking at an image on a TV. Try cooking your dinner with a video link, joystick and time delay and you'll see the difference
But ultimately you're right - it isn't going to happen.
Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 8th August 16:10
rhinochopig said:
Eric Mc said:
rhinochopig said:
Simpo Two said:
And this is a very good demonstration of why men are better than robots. A man can pick it up and go 'Duh'. A robot cannot.
Yeah but the man looking down the camera held by the robot can go Duh, and doesn't require a multi-trillion Yen space programme to get his fragile bag of meat there.But what's the point of finding out these things if someone isn't going to go there eventually.
Robots are great - and are doing great things. But they are merely the advance troops for the humans who will someday follow - and the robots will always have their limits.
Given that Scientists and engineers are absolutely terrible at articulating cost benefits of anything remotely complex, then sadly I doubt we'll see a manned mission unless there is a very very compelling reason to do so.
On this topic, you might enjoy this article: http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/11/is-space-ex...
Money can be found when needed.
As Kennedy said, "We CHOSE to go to the moon". Not "We HAVE to go to the moon" or "We FEEL WE NEED to go to the moon".
It's about exercising choice and deciding on priorities.
We spend far LESS on space research in real terms than we did 45 odd years ago - and how many of the ills of the world that people screamed were being neglected due to space expenditure have now been cured?
Where robots go first - people will follow.
Eric Mc said:
rhinochopig said:
Eric Mc said:
rhinochopig said:
Simpo Two said:
And this is a very good demonstration of why men are better than robots. A man can pick it up and go 'Duh'. A robot cannot.
Yeah but the man looking down the camera held by the robot can go Duh, and doesn't require a multi-trillion Yen space programme to get his fragile bag of meat there.But what's the point of finding out these things if someone isn't going to go there eventually.
Robots are great - and are doing great things. But they are merely the advance troops for the humans who will someday follow - and the robots will always have their limits.
Given that Scientists and engineers are absolutely terrible at articulating cost benefits of anything remotely complex, then sadly I doubt we'll see a manned mission unless there is a very very compelling reason to do so.
On this topic, you might enjoy this article: http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/11/is-space-ex...
Money can be found when needed.
As Kennedy said, "We CHOSE to go to the moon". Not "We HAVE to go to the moon" or "We FEEL WE NEED to go to the moon".
It's about exercising choice and deciding on priorities.
We spend far LESS on space research in real terms than we did 45 odd years ago - and how many of the ills of the world that people screamed were being neglected due to space expenditure have now been cured?
Where robots go first - people will follow.
Personally, I doubt I'll see Man set foot on Mars - even a taikonaut - in my lifetime. The only thing that will drive it is a mineral rights style gold rush, or an event that means we have no other option - MMGW or something
You are right though, the world seems just as poorer a place as it was 45 years ago.
PW said:
Eric Mc said:
But what's the point of finding out these things if someone isn't going to go there eventually.
So recall Juno, scrap the Vesta/Ceres probe, scrub all future Venus missions, slam the brakes on New Horizons and tell Cassini to stop looking at anything other than Titan...Would we know of this amazing discovery if all efforts since Apollo had gone into getting a man to a remote, "safe" (i.e. dull) piece of Martian desert, rather than an ever growing fleet of orbiters, landers and rovers?
Curiosity is very exciting, and Opportunity is still roaming around, 7 years and counting... Amazing stuff. Also, I never realised until a few weeks ago that Viking 1 lasted 6 years! Incredible.
The Space Shuttle was a misguided project which gobbled up dollars that should have been available for more unmanned missions AND a simpler but more reliable and safer maned sysytem - possibly based on Apollo hardware.
Now that NASA has formally relinquished its historic role in manned spaceflight (maned spaceflight was what the agency was originally set up to do), perhaps people like you have got your wish and you can now sit back and watch the dozens of additional unmanned spaceprobes that will now issue forth from NASA.
If you wonder where the money for more space projects could copme from, have a loomk at the difference between how much NASA spends each year on space and how much the US Department of Defence spends on space.
PW said:
Eric Mc said:
Now that NASA has formally relinquished its historic role in manned spaceflight (maned spaceflight was what the agency was originally set up to do)
To me NASA has always been about space exploration and science. Why were they wasting money on the Mariner programme if it was only about was manned spaceflight?Eric Mc said:
perhaps people like you have got your wish and you can now sit back and watch the dozens of additional unmanned spaceprobes that will now issue forth from NASA.
Yes, yes I will. And I'll watch the vast ammounts of new and exciting scientific data, theories and images roll back in. I'll be watching NASA do its job, IMHO.As you've established - the Shuttle was a waste of resources in many respects, there's no guarantee that any new manned programme would not end up consuming more than their fair share of time and money. "Constellation is 'over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation.'"... unfortunate but not much of a surprise to me.
Eric Mc said:
have a loomk at the difference between how much NASA spends each year on space and how much the US Department of Defence spends on space.
NASA gets us a lot more hi-res photos of liquids on the surface of Mars though...The unmanned missions came along later as other non-NASA scientific and research centres, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, were transferred into NASA management.
Why do you think I feel NASA was wasting their money on Mariner missions to Mars? Of course they weren't. I am all in favour of unmanned space exploration. But manned space exploration (not low earth orbit Shuttles) is also important and should be pursued parallel with unmanned programmes.
The money is there - if they are minded to fund it.
My hunch is that mankind as got as far as it is going to get. Every 'empire', whether British, Mongol or Greek or Human Race, spreads to a point where it becomes unsustainable, then contracts.
It is curious to note that the slowing in physical advance has conicided with the advancement of computers.
It is curious to note that the slowing in physical advance has conicided with the advancement of computers.
Simpo Two said:
My hunch is that mankind as got as far as it is going to get. Every 'empire', whether British, Mongol or Greek or Human Race, spreads to a point where it becomes unsustainable, then contracts.
It is curious to note that the slowing in physical advance has conicided with the advancement of computers.
Development and advancement moves in fits and starts. We had a very energetic burst in the first 2/3 of the 20th century - accelerated by two devastating world wars. Some of that impetous (especially in space and aviation) has slowed somewhat but there is no reason why it won't pick up the pace again at some time in the future.It is curious to note that the slowing in physical advance has conicided with the advancement of computers.
the end of the last century saw massive gains in biotechnology - even if we are only just approaching a kind of 'wright brothers' moment in that field now.
you can buy a DNA sequencer now which uses semi-conducting micro-electronics to do the sequencing rather than fluroescent tags as the most established techniques use. Think about the economies of scale that come with semi-conducting technology. (Sequencing is just the start, I know...).
you can buy a DNA sequencer now which uses semi-conducting micro-electronics to do the sequencing rather than fluroescent tags as the most established techniques use. Think about the economies of scale that come with semi-conducting technology. (Sequencing is just the start, I know...).
Simpo Two said:
My hunch is that mankind as got as far as it is going to get. Every 'empire', whether British, Mongol or Greek or Human Race, spreads to a point where it becomes unsustainable, then contracts.
It is curious to note that the slowing in physical advance has conicided with the advancement of computers.
Time then to explore inner space man It is curious to note that the slowing in physical advance has conicided with the advancement of computers.
Joking apart, I think we will go further (if don't kill ourselves first), but only when current chemical propulsion systems have been replaced by something far more cost effective.
rhinochopig said:
Time then to explore inner space man
Joking apart, I think we will go further (if don't kill ourselves first), but only when current chemical propulsion systems have been replaced by something far more cost effective.
interesting then that just this week I read that there are large quantities of antihydrogen/antiprotons trapped in the van allen belts around earth. It would not be tooo difficult to design an antimatter collecting and storage system I believe the current record for storing antimatter is around a second... so this is technically feasible. then it's a simple matter of scooting around the van allen belts collecting antimatter until you have enough to power you on your journey through annihilation reactions with 'normal' matter. Joking apart, I think we will go further (if don't kill ourselves first), but only when current chemical propulsion systems have been replaced by something far more cost effective.
Use Psychology said:
It would not be tooo difficult to design an antimatter collecting and storage system I believe the current record for storing antimatter is around a second... so this is technically feasible. then it's a simple matter of scooting around the van allen belts collecting antimatter until you have enough to power you on your journey through annihilation reactions with 'normal' matter.
But then the greenies will complain that the van Allen belts are being depleted and dangerous solar radiation will reach Earth and kill the polar bears.Mind you by the time that all happens the polar bears will have evolved into something else.
Use Psychology said:
rhinochopig said:
Time then to explore inner space man
Joking apart, I think we will go further (if don't kill ourselves first), but only when current chemical propulsion systems have been replaced by something far more cost effective.
interesting then that just this week I read that there are large quantities of antihydrogen/antiprotons trapped in the van allen belts around earth. It would not be tooo difficult to design an antimatter collecting and storage system I believe the current record for storing antimatter is around a second... so this is technically feasible. then it's a simple matter of scooting around the van allen belts collecting antimatter until you have enough to power you on your journey through annihilation reactions with 'normal' matter. Joking apart, I think we will go further (if don't kill ourselves first), but only when current chemical propulsion systems have been replaced by something far more cost effective.
We have the technology now to produce a very capable inter-planetry vehicle, but the problem lies in how you get the thing into space in the first place. Taking it in 10 tonne sections is not very practical.
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