Reminds me of Hawk making to the Moon in Space Cowboys:
Posted on 04/06/2014 3:18:26 PM PDT by Usagi_yo
Title is the subject, link is to the results. Go to slashdot.org if you want to take the poll, it changes every day, but the results should hang around alot longer than the poll.
(Excerpt) Read more at slashdot.org ...
Well, I think that sounds not too plausible, so I’ll be making my stand on earth heh.
I agree. The environment is far from known at this, that human life might eventually be sustainable is optimistic, and at what cost will it take to make it profitable.
I don’t know why NASA doesn’t pursue robotic missions until more information can be obtained. Why risk human life when machines can gather the information needed to make those decisions.
What the heck man. A thread hijacking?
OH I see. OK I will behave. Sorry if any problem.
It just seems that the entire planet could benefit from volunteering a few of the worst types for this honorable voyage to go where no man (or beast, as it may apply) has gone before.
Or something like that.
But ... I would seriously consider volunteering to help settle outer space! It sounds like a very interesting and worthwhile venture. And...There aren’t any jobs down here for me anymore anyway......
Send all the Muslims.
Hey, NASA wants to make Muslims feel good about themselves, well here’s a chance for them to put their money where their mouths are.
“Why risk human life when machines can gather the information needed to make those decisions.”.
Because humans are infinitely better than machines can ever be in noticing tiny little possibly critically important things. Humans can make decisions in the here and now. Humans will be able to adapt and build a city, and create new ideas and things that a robot or two never can.
There is no shortage of volunteers for such an endeavor, and most of them would gladly pay for the opportunity, though hopefully a rational approach to deciding who goes, by who can potentially contribute the most from their personal skill sets, ambitions, and willingness to learn and innate adaptability. Which is why it must be private and not government sponsored as they will do their accounting based on fairness and melanin content, thus will mars be colonized by muslims, and ultimately fail. But, there is an endless supply of volunteers, let them explore, humanity needs to explore, otherwise they get fat, lazy, and eventally turn into democrats
Thanks in large part to FUBO and the rest of the Luddites on the Left, about the only place NASA can “send” astronauts these days is the crapper...
Face it folks...If the retrograde SOBs currently setting policy in space exploration get their way, the human race will never get of this rock in any meaningful way...
Get used to lotus-eating and navel-gazing...
I think really taking off into space will take both private and public cooperation. NASA is supposed to be a pathfinding and prospecting agency and they need to get back to that Lewis and Clark mission.
The big problem with the public part is the politics of it. I know that there are scientists at NASA who would rather send a robotic mission to one of the martian moons before this asteroid capture mission but the politics are with capture at this point. On the other hand I think there will be lots of private money going toward the capture mission.
If we get to pick who gets sent, yeah. Thanks Usagi_yo.
Extra to APoD. Two, really:
Starstruck sez: “Just a reminder. Mars will be at its closest point to Earth on April 8th. It will be moving from the east (9pm CDT)and across the southern sky the rest of the night.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3141489/posts?page=4#4
it looks like we are going nowhere
“Because humans are infinitely better than machines can ever be in noticing tiny little possibly critically important things. Humans can make decisions in the here and now. Humans will be able to adapt and build a city, and create new ideas and things that a robot or two never can.”
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I do not disagree with you, particularly in the here and now. But if time continues, robotics will improve and technology will advance so that machines will survive in environments that humans never will. We can gain a great deal of new knowledge in this manner, if we want to. And with controllable risk and expendable resources. All I am saying is robotics is a first step. Tools for us to use to explore space if we don’t wish venture out of our earthly environment yet.
Actually, with a few nuclear reactors, you could crank out a respectable amount of perfluorocarbons. A few stats:
Mars’s atmospheric mass of 25 teratonnes (trillion tons) compares to Earth’s 5148 teratonnes. So to get a few parts per million of perfluorocarbons in their atmosphere, you would need to generate some 8.3 million tons. As you continue to generate the gas, the temperature would start to rise, freeing up a lot of CO2 from the ground and the icecaps. Possibly methane, another greenhouse gas, as well.
Once the temperature is warm enough, CO2 consuming microbes, likely Archaea, which look like bacteria, but are so totally alien to bacteria that they have their own family, and consume things bacteria won’t.
Yes. Like several others on this thread, I’d like to see our “golden oldies” (astronauts, scientists, builders, whoever would be useful) be allowed to volunteer for a one-way trip to colonize Mars. In just a few trips out, you could have a lot going on there, and a really interesting group of folks doing important work. It’d be a hell of a retirement community! :)
Reminds me of Hawk making to the Moon in Space Cowboys:
Handy coincidence that the Moon just happened to be in the right place for the plan to work. :’) Same self-sacrifice ending as “Armageddon”; on that same tangent there was “Deep Impact”, which started well, but had a nutso good finish.
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