51–60 of 103 posts
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Can we realistically send humans to Mars plus the return trip? I would maybe believe we can do a one way trip and leave those astronauts to die after snapping some pictures.
I suspect there are substantial numbers of us in our 70's+ who would volunteer. Why not go out having made an amazing contribution?
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I suspect there are substantial numbers of us in our 70's+ who would volunteer. Why not go out having made an amazing contribution?
I'd be surprised if there's a single person alive who would volunteer for a suicide mission to a miserable cold dark planet and could travel there for nine months in a tin can through a harsh radiation/muscle atrophy/psychological environment and arrive in any condition to conduct useful scientific work.
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> Curiosity [...] has traveled nearly 37 kilometers, drilled into and sampled 42 different rocks, and as of publication has snapped nearly 763,000 photos. Without in any way minimising the amazing scientific and engineering achievements of the team and the rover: we need crewed space exploration because people on Mars would be able to do the above in significantly less than thirteen years. Or, to put it another way,…
sending a human there also contaminates the planet more, allowing us to learn less.
The total cost of Curiosity to date is well under 5% of the cost of the recent trip humans took around the moon (something like $3B vs. $90B, or $20 vs. $600 per US taxpayer). Imagine the amount of science that could get done if we gave even half the budget of crewed spaceflight to rover / probe style exploration.
...and further imagine the science that could be done if we mass manufactured probes rather than using experimental engineering for each one. We could have had dozens of Voyager probes in the outer reaches of our solar system by now. I would have loved to see more Huygens probes dropped to the surface of Titan or more New Horizons zoom past Pluto. I don't think human spaceflight is to blame, rather it's what connects…
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for those who are missing basic writing standards.
JPL has been around for over 80 years now -- I'm not sure that assuming basic familiarity with it, among people who would care about the Curiosity rover, is even a controversial choice, let alone 'substandard' writing. I think especially for an organization like JPL, where the name is far from a full description of what they're currently about anyway, people tend to just think of them as 'JPL' rather than how we thin…
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A manned mission to Mars isn't even on the table yet (sorry, Elon) until we solve several huge problems, including cosmic radiation, landing heavy payloads, and a feasible alternative to chemical propulsion (most likely nuclear, but untested).
Manned mission to Mars is a fad. But it is important fad just like space mining. We as humanity have to believe we are not in zero sum game to stay decent… Unfortunately last years are showing us how ugly it is with rare earth elements, energy etc. It is also showing what you wrote is true. No one really believes that we can affordably space mine for rare earth and no one believes in Martian colonization that would b…
This could very well be why planned economies seem to struggle with innovation. People being able to devote significant resources to endeavors, that might not make sense to most, is how you get lots of failures, and the occasional revolutionary successes. Do everything by committee and all you get is a shinier version of what you had last year.
The total cost of Curiosity to date is well under 5% of the cost of the recent trip humans took around the moon (something like $3B vs. $90B, or $20 vs. $600 per US taxpayer). Imagine the amount of science that could get done if we gave even half the budget of crewed spaceflight to rover / probe style exploration.
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A manned mission to Mars isn't even on the table yet (sorry, Elon) until we solve several huge problems, including cosmic radiation, landing heavy payloads, and a feasible alternative to chemical propulsion (most likely nuclear, but untested).
Add to the list that martian dust contains a massive amount of carcinogens meaning any air/dust lock has to be an ISO-6 clean room. Sure it is a "solved" problem but all the solutions are very heavy.
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The moon is probably the only celestial body humans can actually occupy with current technology, for every other object in the solar system we need robots.
Just like Hawaii, Islands require massive support and material inputs from the mainland. The moon is like Napoleon's exile to Saint Helena island, very remote hard to get to. Mars is like the antarctic, nearly all early explorers died and it take an international effort to stay down there.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for those who are missing basic writing standards.