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Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#11

Post by takluyver »

meaty wrote: post #4

Well it looks like I'm going to be dead by the time they send something interesting there. Back in the days of Apollo, they risked a hell of a lot in the name of exploration. It'd be nice to see the same spirit applied to Mars.

My inner devil's advocate says: is that the spirit of spending massive amounts of money on one-upmanship and buying votes* ? ;-)

In reality, I don't have a strong opinion on this. It would be amazing to see humans reach Mars in my lifetime, but I can see why governments aren't pouring money into it.

* From the Wikipedia page Moon Landing: "Mindful that the Apollo Program would economically benefit most of the key states in the next election—particularly his home state of Texas because NASA's base was in Houston—Johnson championed the Apollo program."

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#14

Post by freehunter »

tocomment wrote: post #10

By 2020 I'd kind of hope we're sending mostly-autonomous humanoid robots. Wouldn't that really inspire people's imagination? And they could start building the infrastructure for a colony.

I wouldn't want to seriously see humanoid robots as the first workers on Mars. The human body isn't terribly well-shaped to perform the kinds of tasks needed in an efficient manner. Balance, for example, is monumentally tricky and doesn't need to be with a four-wheeled style robot.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#15

Post by cryptoz »

brador wrote: post #12

Why does it take so long? I mean 8 years to send a V2? what's stopping them rolling it out in 1 year? I don't understand the reason for such an extended timescale.

Are you an American? How much effort have you expended in campaigning to raise taxes and increase the percentage that NASA gets from ~0.4% to 0.6%? If you've spent less than a few years on the issue, that's the reason why they're going to take 8 years.

Most Americans think that NASA is 10-20% of the federal annual budget. Most Americans want NASA to have less funding, do fewer things, and take longer doing them. If you want to have NASA move faster, you have to spread the knowledge that NASA is cheap. Then NASA can move faster. See efforts like penny4nasa if you want to help!

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#18

Post by htf »

arrrg wrote: post #13
brador wrote: post #12

Why does it take so long? I mean 8 years to send a V2? what's stopping them rolling it out in 1 year? I don't understand the reason for such an extended timescale.

With what money?

With its annual budget of $18.724 billion maybe? Seriously, where does that money go?

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#20

Post by danielweber »

brador wrote: post #12

Why does it take so long? I mean 8 years to send a V2? what's stopping them rolling it out in 1 year? I don't understand the reason for such an extended timescale.

Circumstances often lead to NASA building fewer bigger things instead of more smaller things.

Which I disagree with as a result, because as soon as one of those few big things fails (which is inevitable no matter how smart NASA is), there are going to be massive Congressional investigations and talk about how NASA is wasting our money and how they need to be even more careful, which just means they have to build even bigger, even fewer, even more expensive things that just attract that much more attention when a failure happens.

On the other hand, they can lose a $300 million project entirely and no one blinks an eye.

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