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Canada Plans Mars Mission
TO-Mars writes: "Marc Garneau, first Canadian in space and current Executive Vice-President of the Agence Spatiale Canadienne, announced in Montréal that the CSA intends a major space exploration effort, including a $500 million Mars mission. For the good of Canada and the spacefarers of Earth, let us hope that the CSA does not again eat its own, and weathers any threats to this inspiring development. I wish to stand at Champ de Mars in Montréal in a few years looking upward with pride ..."
They're probably sending a bottle rocket.
They just need somewhere to send Stockwell Day
If you just refer to it in Frog, you're less likely to get sued or harassed by the Language Gestapo. I've not heard of anyone getting arrested or fined for NOT using English, but routinely read about it for not using Frog.
The parent comment is brought to you by an unintelligent Canadian, not all Canadians are as stupid as him, if we were, we could not even tell what end of the rocket to put the people in. Canada has heath care, for all citizens, so you comment on not taking care of its sick is simply uniformed, you might try reading something other then political FUD. I am surprised he did not comment on the fact that we are not educating the citizens, although his comment does show it, as he slipped through the cracks and turned out so ignorant and uniformed.
Get a clue. It was the Eurocopter EH-101/CR variant that was ordered. Eurocopter has yet to prove it's ability to actually produce past the test stage. They have yet to setup production lines, or come in under cost on R&D (For the Typhoon and the EH101).
It was cancelled because it was a bad idea in the first place. Eurocopter is a desperate bid by europeans to displace the American manufactures. Ain't gonna happen.
Churchill, Manitoba - a launch site in the making for about 40 years. Every once in awhile, someone (usually an amurikan) gets the idea that Churchill's latitude would make it excellent for launches... then a little later, they find out it's hard to get rocket scientists to live where it's freakishly cold. :)
In other news today NASA administrator Daniel "Hosehead" Goldin announced that
NASA will be the reviewing its plans for its Mars Missions. Goldin went on to
say "Heck, we just can't figure out this metric thing, so we've decided to pay
Canada 20 million (US$) to acquire space on their launch vehicle. We will
become the first nation in history to launch a space tourist rover, appropriatly the rover name will be TITO."
And you thought the metric/SAE screwup was bad.
The project aims to land a 30kg (pounds? hope not another ESA blunder) lander onto the surface of Mars.
For more informaiton see also the Mars Society site and space.com
That's just by the manned program. There are also a few firsts by the US in the unmanned arena, including the first flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. IIRC, the US was also the first to flyby Mercury, and to land on an asteroid.
I just wouldn't say the Soviets were ahead on every major score, especially after Gemini got going.
God help us.
Perhaps he meant Canada is planning a trip to the town of Mars in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania?
It's a small town northwest of Pittsburgh PA.
We can only hope.
Yeah, CA$500 million. That's enough to buy.... let's see.... a burger, fries, and Coke!
Yeah, well, when a big asteroid is headed this way, we'll just send out a shipload of oil drillers.
That'll make plenty of sense then, my friend. Bruce Willis kicks ass. *snicker
heh... yeah, too bad us wackos own everything.
Hahahahahahaha!
(*hanging my head. I'm so terribly, terribly sorry. It's a recycled Tim Allen joke and I deserve your incisive Maritime scorn).
-Tim Doran
Toronto
2.) National pride. People like to sing "I did it my way", without anyone else's help.
Personally, I agree with you, but large-scale unity won't happen for a while yet. I don't count the ISS, because it's really just a collection of modules that were made by nation's individually.
And in Russia's case, financed by the United States as a technological corporate welfare program. Yes, yes. Truly international when we're paying them to build it. We could have had Boeing or some other US company build the modules we let the Russians build for less money! Only in the interests of international politics were they even involved.
Given that Canada lies north of the 48th, I wonder what they're planning on using for a launch site. Probably they can get time with some of the many equatorial launch facilities, but a Mars program involves transporting an awfully large amount of stuff to the launch site, especially if they try to keep production mainly within Canada.
The people from the north have bigger rockets than the people from south. Na na NA Na na
But that all changes with an Aussie Space Program, they might have the the biggest rockets of em all.
Could you picture the size of the rockets from Greenland :)
Lol :)
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
>Ok, the next time the PC or NDP or whoever get
:)
>in.
Snow. Hell. 'Nuff said.
Mars is a good colour for a Canadian hockey team, too. But what would we call them?
Hmm, and maybe hire some out-of-work Russian scientists to work on the hardware? Our flag is red, after all, comrades... ;)
Especially if we name the first Mars probe "Hoser 1".
>Why do people in Ontario elect Mike Harris, the
:)
>most right-wing guy in the world, and then go and
>throw all their support for a left-wing federal
>party like the grits? What's up with that? People
>in Ontario need to get their collective head out
>of their ass. Can you tell I'm from the West?
The Liberals? They sure ain't left-wing.
But I appreciate the fact that you didn't call Ontarians "easterners". Us folks in the atlantic provinces really hate getting lumped in with those wackos in the middle.
Sadly, there is.
At least we made out better than Holland did. Poor bastards. Theirs looks like a rejected Go-Bot design.
What does that translate to -- about $40 US, right? They should just buy themselves a carton of Marlboro Reds and call it a day.
space module will have to be larger to accomodate the required size font for the French labels for everything. The upside is it will 'look' cool and have a stylish name :)
Will they be sending a member of the French Language Purity Squad (FLPS) along to ensure the proper use of grammar ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Would it help if we payed for a flight ??
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I suspect most of us Canucks would hand you the knife, too. That guy is an asshole to no end.
Care to kill the people that keep making it possible for him to make movies? Surely some SOB in Hollywood should be taken 'round back and shot for letting Tom have a movie...
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Betcha it's not Tom Green...
...it'll be Stockwell Day, and the whole project will be financed by disillusioned Alliance Party members!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
*cough* Urban Legend *cough*
Yea, I bet its no coincidence its shaped like a hockey stick....
Their unmanned probes also suffered from the Soviet's crappy electronics, IIRC, which meant that in a lot of cases they may have been first but the quality of the data was not great.
Not that I'm knocking the Soviet effort - they had a lot of chutzpah to pull of the stuff that they did, and they showed a lot of engineering ingenuity, but the way they did things would never have been possible in the west. And, of course, without the Soviet effort the US space program would still barely be off the ground :)
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
the first reason mostly apply to quebec, since the 50-50 result of 1995 referendum, there's a massive propaganda effort on canadian unity and symbolism. just look at the olympics and you'll see that there's even more canadian flags than usa ones! (hey, and we all know how much americans like to "show off") somehow quebec nationalism is bad but canadian nationalism is good. anyway.
Nonsense. Canadian patriotism has been strong in the same subdued sort of way for a long long time. It has nothing to do with Quebec, nor with any subliminal nationalism push. Personally I dislike outward Canadian nationalism because I think it'll lead to a backlash: I cringe when I'm in Europe and I see people with big Canadian flags (though damn it's a beautiful flag) on their backpack because that goes for so long before someone thinks "Who the hell do you think you are? Did you fight on the shores of Normandy? No? Then quit expecting Europeans to bow down to you dickhead." That's just me though. If I had my way I'd have a nationwide "Travelling to other countries? Leave the Canadiana behind because unless you did the shit personally quit expecting to be respected for it."
BTW: Canadian Nationalism and Quebec Nationalism are two very different things. The great pride of Quebec is the language of French (a variant of French that strangely those from France mock) and to many the straight-and-narrow French society culture (i.e. As Parizeau said the "Ethnic" vote is keeping the true white French Quebecor from having the great independant nation of French White Quebecors). Canadian nationalism is a pride in the freedoms and equality of Canada. It's a pride in the multicultural tolerance and truly in the duality of Canada between French Canada and English Canada. It's a pride that despite obstacles of geography we continue to build one of the best societies on Earth for all Canadians. There will be no particular "culture" that is the pride of Canada because to do so would be racist.
BTW2: If anyone is fighting to pretend it's different it's not English Canada (where there are huge differences across the nation anyways. Alberta is completely unlike Ontario which is totally unlike the East Coast): It's Quebec. Quebec is constantly trying to invent itself as a unique society hoping to get accolades by the rest of the world. English Canada says the sky is blue? Well damnit French Canadians will be certain it must be purple. Gotta be different however trivially.
Are you insane? Amercian quarters are worth.. what? Two or three Canadian dolars. At least.
--Zarn
What are you talking about? Canadian labour is cheap and plentiful. So that cuts down on cost, added to all of their natural resources...
:). (No, graphics cards don't count.)
On the off chance this isn't just sature:
Aerospace R&D costs about the same here as it does in the US. The same applies to most manufacturing.
This should be pretty obvious. Otherwise, we'd be exporting high-tech manufactured products like crazy to the US
I'd love to see Canadians set foot on Mars, but at $500M Cdn (around $300M US), it's going to be a probe, if anything, that's sent there. This is about the right price range.
A manned ship that could be self-sufficient for the required travel times would cost as much as a space station, because it would *be* a space station.
As for the latitude comment made by another poster, the article mentions that they're going to contract out for launch capability, which probably means using one of the commercial launch companies in the US. This is more or less standard practice for industry launches.
It'll still be nice if it happens, though.
Of course the US didn't /really/ spend $100 Billion to go to Mars. Where else do you think the money comes from to pay for stuff like Echelon? :-)
Funny, we've had a Liberal gov't since 1993. What's this "every four years" rot?
How about Cuba?
What better way to tweak the noses of those pesky Americans then to deal with Castro & Co.?
With the help of the Canadians, the Cubans could fix their economy, get into space... and eventually rule the world!
Reality has a liberal bias
There's also one in Montreal and Quebec, both (presumably) named after the one in France.
It's about time we started spending money on things not so local. Canadians in general (and maybe people in Quebec more so - Living here gives me a right to that comment IHMO) seem to have an intense focus on internal issues. It's a nice change to focus on something with a little more importance to the planet as a whole, instead of who lives next to who, and what language they happen to speak. Finally - something I'm happy to have my tax dollars pay. I think it's been a long time coming, and I only hope this is just the beginning!
FYI CDN$500M ~= US$340M
:)
I like to think of the exchange rate as a "THANK FUCKING GOD I AM NOT AMERICAN" tax. I gladly pay it.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Beating a dead horse dept:
;)
>that didn't make any sense at all, but whatever. We've come to expect such nonsense from y'all.
Uh, I mean I have no problem paying more for goods since this also means I am not American.
- Just so you know most of the world doesn't like you a whole lot.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Nobody who fails to find their own country on a globe is going to go to Mars anyway, so what difference would that make? Even if they tried, they'd get lost in space. Hey...that gives me an idea...
Seems to me that the only thing that little demonstration proves is that it's easy to find stupid people. Why does this little factoid shock ANYBODY?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
FYI, the Russian space shuttle Buran was basically a 2/3 scale copy of the American space shuttle design. From the outside, they're almost indistinguishable (apart from size and markings). It's possible that the Russians simply mimicked the US design, but I suspect that they were able to obtain some handy engineering schematics to help out with the complicated bits.
Also, the Tu-144 supersonic transport developed in the late 60's was a dead ringer for the Concorde. Russian engineers never seemed to have much of a problem with the "Not Invented Here" syndrome. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
http://www.sciam.com/2000/0300issue/0300zubrin.htm l
Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan goes you one step better. It produces breathable atmosphere (pure low-pressure oxygen, just like in most of the manned spaceflights thusfar), rocket fuel, and even some water from the Martian atmosphere. Shoot your Earth Return Vehicle ahead of the crew, land it, and have it fuel itself up, and lay in a stockpile of fuel, water, and O2 before the crew even leaves Earth. It's a brilliant, elegant plan. If you're interested, check out the marssociety.org web page, and Dr. Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars". Great reading.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
In Canada? Twenty-five cents.
-misao
Too bad an IMAX film can only holds 3 minutes of film. Then you'd have to get it back here to be developed....
*sigh* Still waiting for a high-bandwidth probe to NOT have the high-bandwidth antenna die at an inconvenient time.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Having less money available forces you to improvide chaper methods. Maybe they could pull it off.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
So now China is aiming at the Moon, Canada is aiming at Mars, and the USA is aiming at the ISS in near-Earth orbit.
I can't believe that this derogatory comment got a +2 insightful.
You forgot that this might be seen as a unification tactic. Political movements that can help unify Canada get a lot of funding if they need it (see the railroads).
You might find Quebec actually getting patriotic about something without a 'le' in front of it.
What an incredible waste of money. The idea that America can do anything meaningful on its own in space is, well, really stupid is the best thing I can say about it. Better to put our money into a bigger pot with other countries and actually accomplish more than make work for downsized DND scientists.
What do you want to bet the hq of this effort will be downtown Florida?
I'll be writing to my senator straightaway on this one.
millions? you wish, it cost BILLIONS to cancel those helicopters. It cost aproximately the same as it would have to have them built and delivered. (not kidding). And we need some to replace the few we have left. (before they all crash into the ocean)
Aside from that crazy arm?
AFAIK the russians also did the first unmanned retrieval of rocks from the moon (did NASA ever even try this?).
I just read that the Russians also nowadays land their command caspsules on earth with retro rocket braking (this is how Tito came home), not in the ocean as the US always did. A lot more cost effective than the Shuttle which costs 10x more per launch than it was originally intended to.
I'd have to ask what's the value in doing the launch vehicle ourselves? All the preexisting developed launch sites will have their 'home' vehicle, which the site will be designed to handle. You can't (easily) launch a Ariane from Vandenberg for example. Therefore you'd have to either design a lookalike, or also build all the infrastructure. Either way, it's going to be a lot cheaper to just buy a ride on the existing vehicle.
Or, possibly even better, send the resupply ships BEFORE the manned one, programmed to "stop" and await the manned flight at specified intervals. I, for one, would feel better about flying off to Mars if I knew there was food and water WAITING for me ahead, rather than hoping it will catch up. :)
Maybe they can put TIMMY!!! on Mars for 500 million. They can use his wheelchair as a start for the spacecraft.
TIMMY!
Execute? [Y/N] _
Yes, but you're forgetting something: Remember what happened last time a US rival placed large rockets in Cuba? You think I'm kidding? Just watch Canadian Bacon
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
This is just wonderful... what could be a very informative and interesting discussion being ruined by 1) a bunch of morons carrying on a "my country is better than yours" argument and 2) the bloody moderators feeding the egos of these same morons by moderating them up to 4 and 5 points.
I think perhaps it would be better if the debate stuck to the actual topic of the proposed Mars mission by Canada rather than denigrate into a row about who did what first, who's better than who, and whose bloody currency is worth more.
Bzzzzzt..."AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!" Thud.
Perhaps you mean referendi?
Certainly not! He probably means referendums, or maybe referenda.
-Bruce
Flamebait? I think not. In fact he makes several good points. :)
The right wing doesn't want to give away free medical health to people who are "too lazy to go out and find a real job". They see Canada as soft and weak for doing that.
Have you ever listened to Rush Limbaugh? He's a troll if there ever was one. The scary thing is people actually listen to the blowhard. I just find him amusing.
What I don't get about your response is that you call his post flamebait, but then turn your own reply into a rant... you just want to be read don't you
Additionally, the farther you are from the equator, the harder it is to launch into orbit.
:)
We could build our own launch vehicle, but it would have to be:
1) Not launched from Canada
or
2) Really Really Big.
Easier to piggyback for now... At least for the first mission...
Why do you think those Russian Proton rockets are so big?
Begging to differ... Champ de Mars is a historical district in old Montreal, straight off from (surprise surprise) Champ de Mars metro station, on the orange line.
(anyone wanna guess where I live?)
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
Isn't that the shuttle-clone they produced (kinda like their condorde-clone, which is now available for purchase... linked off Metafilter a week or two ago)?
IIRC, It's now sitting in downtown Moscow, in a public square, open to the public.
-- "Is this death or is this Ohio?"
"North Americans" would include citizens of Canada, Mexico, and the US. "South Americans" would include citizens of Brazil, Argentina, etc. "Americans" by use and tradition refers to citizens of the United States, whether you find that agreeable or not, mostly because of the awkwardness of trying to use any other appelation.
Perhaps you mean referendi?
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Competition!? This isn't a space race. We are not in a cold war with Canada. Nasa has already successfully reached Mars. There was a probe called the Pathfinder. It was a probe that had a remote controlled car that was controlled from earth. It was really cool. Remember we crashed the car into a rock!??!
Then there are other successful missions. The Mars Global surveyor. It is there right now taking pictures of Mars. It recently sent back pictures of the face on Mars with high-res images that detail what the mountain actually looks like and why it looks like a face with its peaks and valleys.
Currently the Mars Odessey is on its way to Mars. It launched in April and its expected to arrive in October.
Nasa has had it failures. But you can not learn without making failures. I am surprised at how much we have accomplished with so few failures. I was intrigued in what the polar lander could of told us about the polar cap on Mars. Is there water there? Maybe on another mission we will find out.
But back on topic with Canada and their plans to reach Mars. I am all for it. Space exploration is a collaborative effort. It is in the benefit of all man-kind to explore space. We as a planet should be working together to explore space. Look at the International Space Station. We as a planet are working together to build a huge science lab in space. Why should we do this you ask? Well the answer is clear. The knowledge we gain from working together and from the knowledge we gain from the experiments will be used in getting Man/women to step foot on Mars.
Let's not knock Canada's acheivments in space exploration either. The "Arm" is one of the biggest contributions to the space shuttle as well as the space station. I am still in awe of the "Arm" on the space station. The "Arm" is by far the coolest addition to the station.
The "Arm" just doesn't pivot from a base point on the station. It has two hands on either end. One to hold on to the station and the other to perform the task at hand. But because the station is so big the "Arm" can "walk" end over end to the other side by the use of it hands. And that is Canadian innovation.
I would like to see what Canadian innovation will be developed in the mission to Mars. I hope they do "wipe their faces in it" it will benefit all of us.
Dictionary.com defines exploration as:
exploration \Ex`plo*ra"tion\, n. [L. exploratio: cf. F. exploration.] The act of exploring, penetrating, or ranging over for purposes of discovery, especially of geographical discovery;
Is not the sending of these "robots" (aka probes) the act of penetrating or ranging over? Yes! So that means sending "robots" is exploration. Robots and unmanned probes can gather a lot of great information for the purposes of discovery again apart of the definition of exploration.
What do you call the results we get from telescopes such as Hubble and Chandra? Those telescopes are in earth's orbit. Do they not explore the far reaches of space? Yes. Not all of what is done in Earth's orbit is developmental.
As for the Appollo 17 comment...in your terms of exploration wouldn't the last exploration have been Appollo 11 because by Appollo 17 we have had already been to the moon.
Humor??? Don't you mean the proper english humour?
This is too bad. Canada gets teased like all the time. They last thing they need is their space program making a statement that sounds like a 5-year-old saying, "I'm going to drive a truck like daddy!" and pulling out a small plastic toy.
J
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
Nasa has already successfully reached Mars ....and other stuff.
Sending robots is not exploring. It is sending robots. It is only related to explration if it is done as preparation to actually sending people!
Robots and unmanned probes cannot explore, they can gather a lot of great information. The last exploration was done by Appollo 17 - 29 years ago!!!
Much of what is done in earth orbit now is development. If it is development that either is useful to humanity, scientifically interesting or preparation for exploration, it needs to be encouraged and removed from control of beureaucrats and politicians who take pride in their ignorance.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
You just described a lot of amateur or volunteer software projects I've looked into.
Could this be the first space program hosted on sourceforge?
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
I am Dyslexic of Borg
Resemblance is fertile
Your ass will be laminated
I am Dyslexic of Borg
Resemblance is fertile
Your ass will be laminated
In AD 2101 war was beginning? Or is it just a coincidence that you picked 2101? But to actually reply to your post, hadnt you noticed that we have a fancy shmancy NEW spiffy robot arm on the ISS?
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
And he never has the same problem twice.
i hope that the canadian government is at LEAST as reasonable as the american government when it comes to space flight; meaning that a couple of millions dollars (canadian) will get me on the mission team, and because of the lovely exchange rate, that like four bucks american...
on a serious note, i hope that they are gunna use ISS as a staging point, cause that would just be kinda cool. also, how much do you want to bet that the american government doesn't want to be betten by a bunch of moose hunting, hockey playing, canadians and steps up their mars project from 'nill' to 'a bunch'.
Who's going to stop them? The fragmenting right or the disintegrating left?
JohnnyB - johnbowman.net
Nice trolling.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
...our congress is now being run by Democrats who will block everything Bush tries to do, and Bush in turn will squash any democratic bills whatsoever.
And that's a problem how?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
What an incredible waste of money. The idea that Canada can do anything meaningful on its own in space is, well, really stupid is the best thing I can say about it. Better to put our money into a bigger pot with other countries and actually accomplish more than make work for downsized DND scientists.
What do you want to bet the hq of this effort will be downtown Shawinigan?
I'll be writing to my MP straightaway on this one.
Ok, the next time the PC or NDP or whoever get in. The helicopters happened in 1993 when we went from PC to Liberal. I don't think the liberals will make another election with majority....do you?
Seems somewhat farfetched. Sure we have people, we have technology, but we don't have the government backing. Every four years, when we change from liberal to ...whatever, programs get squashed and the money dissappears. As a fine example, take a look at our rescue helicopters. They were on order and being built. We had an election and the order was cancelled, costing us millions in cancellation fees. For no reason other than that the new government didn't want to carry on a project from the old. About a year later the new government made a new order for cheaper and less capable choppers, at almost the same price!
So if this happens to the mars mission, we'll be lucky to get to the moon.
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
Quebec, is *not* a nation.
hey Pascal, btw we have a Metro station named Champs de Mars =)
hey, we've made a new arm for the International Station, all new :) uhhh ;P
and Canadiens Rocks (well, not the last 7 years =), not Canucks.. ;)
Well, good luck to our friendly neighbors to the north! If their spiffy 20-year-old robot arm is any indication, they should have the makings of a complete spacecraft by, say, 2101. ;-)
:)
(Disclaimer: this is humor. I love hockey and Tim Horton's.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Just set up a liquor store and a Tim horton on the red planet and we'll have Canadians there in no time ;-)
Cheers!
..would be if Canada had a successful first Mars Mission.
Based on NASA's success rate (?!) with recent missions, that would really wipe their faces in it.....
It's good to see that NASA won't have a total monopoly on space exploration. Remember, in a capitalist society, competition is good!
:-)
M.
that didn't make any sense at all, but whatever. We've come to expect such nonsense from y'all.
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Whichever poster made the comment that the Canadian Mars program would be based in Shawinigan (our Prime Minister's home constituency) hit the nail on the head. The reasons we have not landed on Mars yet are primarily a) politics, and b) the small minded greed of our leaders.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Actually, they have an spaceport that you can read about here:/ tr ans_infrastructure/spaceportcanada.html
http://www.gov.mb.ca/itt/trade/invest/bus_facts
It's in Churchill, Manitoba, it's still low enough latitude to be able to launch to the ISS, it's in a remote location incase they have an "oopsie", and there is a major port and rail link to Churchill. And as a bonus, Churchill is the polar bear capital of Canada, so no pesky tourists!
Bork!
Heh. Try watching an american election or olympic coverage coverage :). Even up here it seems unavoidable.
-- Judas96
"...don't take a nerf bat to a knife fight." - Joe Rogan, said on News Radio
I mean, $500 million is pretty cheap for going to Mars. Only thing I can think of is rockets made outta igloos!
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
If Canada can pull off something like the Weapon X project, they can handle this.
the pilots are the McKenzie bros., you hoser.
A few hours grace before the madness begins again.
Great, if the Canadians get there first, the first thing we'll hear back is "Hey, Terrance, I just farted on Mars."
Or maybe I've just been watching too much South Park...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
- The preferred drink will be Labbat's Fifty
- TV will broadcast 24 hours of Red Green, old Hockey Broadcasts and Beachcomber episodes
- The mission will definitively prove that duct tape is a universal adhesive
- Hockey hair/mullets will be the hairstyle of choice
And the inhabitants will bore the tears out of Americans by staging some silly referendum every 6 years.---
Copyright © 2002 me
I'm a little curious why we Canadians think it necessary to fund any space exploration. Sure, its sexy stuff, but when our neighbour spends billions on a space program in which we can participate, why would we want to compete? It's the classic free rider problem. Although, I'm not sure I'd call it a problem, in this case. I think it makes sense for the Americans to handle most of the global investment in space exploration then other countries can benefit from that through trade with the States--after all, the Yanks have a comparative advantage in it (if not an absolute advantage)!
It's the same thing with any type of R&D--let the Americans do it, then let the new technology work it's way up North.]
Allan
Well, I must admit that I disagree with the premise of your argument. The fact is that media reports from NASA are subject to a great deal of public scrutiny as well as peer review from the physics and astronomy community--this represents a rather significant incentive for NASA to be honest with their findings. Furthermore, the credability loss that NASA could suffer from purposly decieving the public the huge!
So, if NASA's not lying, but just wrong about some things, then how much benefit do you think that Canadians get from verifying NASA's results? $500M ? hmm, I'm not so sure.
We are not just talking about "the possibility of civilized life on Mars in some distant past", we're talking about ALL of the costs and benefits of Canadian Space program.
Allan
Hmn...
considering that the rest of the article was in English why not called it the 'Canadian Space Agency' instead of using the French equivalent?
We may be officially bilingual up here, but it's virtually only in Quebec that you'll have people speaking French.
You mean Canada extends further east than Ontario?@?
- Toby
I can see The Onion headlines already:
HOLY SHIT!!! MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MARS!!!
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#nohup cat
... I hope the government uses the $15 billion surplus they've hoarded from us poor Canandians last year. Talk about over-taxation -- at first, the Liberals thought it was only a $10 billion surplus, but then just happened to find another 5 frickin' billion.
J
IIRC in Ontario, there is a city named for every capital city in Europe, except Berlin. (Berlin, Ontario, became Kitchner in 1915 due to the hatred for Germans in the First World War)
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
That must have been taken from Red Green show.
-m-
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
This was covered in our local paper (The Ottawa Citizen; sorry, couldn't find an on-line article).
Garneau had said that the only thing we couldn't do ourselves ("we" meaning Canada of course) is the launch vehicle. I don't quite see why.
(And for those who were wondering, of course this is unmanned!! A manned mission would be totally cool, but Canada? All by herself? Not for a long while yet.)
I can totally understand needing to secure a good (equatorial) launch site, but the vehicle? That's not really all that high-tech, is it?
Anyone have any ideas why Garneau said this?
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
CANADA KICKS ASS!
;)
Wow - sorry, that will be the last display of nationalist jingoism from me for a while... I will now return to my demur intellectual demenor.
WOWOWOWOWO!!!! YEAH BABY! LETS GO TO MARS!
Sorry.
Why do you insist, in an English article, on using the French name of the CSA ("Agence Spatiale Canadienne")? Just call it the Canadian Space Agency, for God's sake! These saddening stabs at an international air just make you look desperate.
In addition, you then introduce the abbreviation "CSA", as yet undefined, and expect everyone to figure out it's the same organization!
Finally, if you must be pretentious and use French names unnecessarily, at least do it correctly. Don't mix definite articles across languages (use "le" rather than "the") and only capitalize the first word: l'Agence spatiale canadienne. You'd see that if you followed your own link. :)
Peace in complexity,
Steve
--
B.Math (PM/CS), University of Waterloo
"æs ofereode, isses swa mæg." - Deor
Ever since Canada made the move of stopping production and research on the Avro Arrow , we have fallen so far behind the space program that countries with smaller available budgets and starving people are bypassing us in space research, which is supposed to be the "final" frontier. Canada could atleast put forth and try launching atleast one space probe a year and contributing more to the greater good of humans and helping out with space research.
I have no signature
Ummmm... the US landed on the moon several times. And what did it do for the US? They are now the richest nation and have the best space program (arguably) in the world? I'm Canadian, and love Canada, but landing on the moon showed what the US was capable of. BTW: This is not intended as flame bait, but I have my fire proof suit on.
I have no signature
Must be a slow newsday...
Oh well, here's the obligatory reference to SP:
BLAME CANADA! =)
But I haven't thought up a witty way to put it in the context of a Mars takeover by Canada...
Humorless sig goes here.
For $500 million, you could most likely send more than a dozen probes out - There's very little than requires actual people in space nowadays. It's a pity that countries have to burn money on such 'prestige' missions.
Perhaps they'll use the southernmost part of Québec, known to most Americans as "Florida."
(A reference to the large number of French Canadians who winter in Florida, enough to support their own Québecois-language newspapers etc.)
Nah, he'd say pretty warm up here, eh?
Wow! Guess the "SPACE TOQUE" development program is coming along nicely! ;)
This must be the absolutely last chance Quebec has at secession.
Part of the reason that we haven't invested a lot of national effort into the space program during the past couple of decades is that there is no perceived reason to do so. The vast amount of innovation that took place during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs was primarily due to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. If the USSR had never existed, there would never have been moon landings, because the "godless commies" would not have been our competition. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the circumstances that motivated the US political right to invest heavily in space exploration ceased to exist.
.. it's time to jump back into it.
But if Canada begins to aggressively pursue space, this might change. Already, you are seeing conservative publications such as WorldNetDaily and commentators such as Rush Limbaugh lash out at Canada. If you turn on AM talk radio, you don't have to scan far to hear these people lecture their followers about the high incidence of atheism, homosexuality, feminism, Islam, etc. in our Neighbor to the North. Canada's socialist policies (and in particular, its national healthcare system) are constantly under attack from the right.
So we find ourselves coming back full-circle. A nation, that is perceived by many to have Communist leanings, is starting to pursue space exploration. Couple that with the forays that the Chinese government is making into space, and you've got a political environment that might cause people to bump up NASA's budget and make its agenda more aggressive. It's unfortunate that we have to find ourselves in situations like this before we take space exploration seriously, but I am of the opinion that if that is what it takes, then so be it. We've neglected space for way too long
Please. Steve isn't expressing any of these opinions - he's commenting on the attitudes of extreme right-wingers in the States. And a system that actually protects its weaker citizens is indeed considered communist by some of these people.
But don't you need a certain amount of expertise and momentum to get out of earth orbit? ;)
Why does every mission have to be to Mars? What about Pluto, Titan, Europa, or Mercury , none of which we have explored properly yet, but should have! Why go to Mars when we know so much about it already? We have better maps of Mars than we do of the Earth!
Expertise and momentum don't pay the bills.
Murphy's Law of Copiers
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
(I am american, but we don't really have the most wonderful reputation as travellers)
----
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
You don't own all of North and South America.
While people living in the US are Americian, calling someone Americian doesn't make you a citizen of the United States. It just means you live on one of two continents.
Why does every country with some resources need a spaceprogram ? The benefits of space exploration belongs to al of the humanity, and we would be better of if we work on something together. Pride is worth nothing compared to getting the job done!
This is my sig. Other people have one too,but this is mine.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Your sig says:
Anything that can possibly happen, will eventually happen
I love irony.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Of couse, Sheila Copps did resign (after much pressure), only to be re-elected by the same people that elected her in the first place - go figure!
AC comments get piped to
.
Oh yeah! Let's double the debt!!!!
'Reports indicate the phase "All your atom are belong to us" was heard shortly before the blinding flash occured'
AC comments get piped to
It's a small step for man, but a giant leaf for Canada...
To be totally accurate there's a little park under the Eiffle tower in Paris called Champs de mars thats where it all starts.
There's also one in Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
And yes its a metro station in Montreal too.
French speaking people are consistent,hey!
but it is clear that the mission will be by default a collaborative effort between the CSA and another space organization with launch capabilities.
needless to say that Canada will most likly go to the US for the "organization with launch capabilities", but i think its about time Canada got into space. *SGDarkKnight tips his hat to Canada* good luck guys!
For all you non-Canadians in the room, you must be aware that ex-Astronauts in our country (like M. Garneau) all go to live in that Big Bureaucracy in the Sky when they retire. They get nice jobs with obscure, but nice, little gov't organizations. Their days are spend holding conferences with other nice, but obscure, little gov't organizations where they chatter on about Big Things, invent cute slogans, and issue press releases that get trotted out on slow news days. This is the Way of Things in Canada.
Canada will not go to Mars. Trust me on this. Now lets all go back to sleep and let the nice Canadian space heroes finish their speeches. Okay?
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
Like the first Superpower to bankrupt itself without a war... or how about the first country to bang a shoe one the UN table. OOOOOOOOR... how about the first Superpower in the world where you can't get heating oil in the Northern Latitudes? Yeah, I'm really concerned about national pride when I look at that sterling space monkey record. BUT I'm not a complete troll. THEY KEPT THE MIR TOGETHER WITH DUCT TAPE FOR YEARS, and that, my friend is no small feat keeping a space station afloat for years after expiration date, in an impossible economic climate. The Russians need some serious applause for that one. Whoop it up, peeps.
Geez, I didnt even know we had a space agency!
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
NASA itself has standardised on metric units. Some say because it is more precise. I have my own reservations about that but pragmatism makes it a wise decision. Everybody else around the world uses metric and if the US is going to attract any idiots willing to make crap for that boondoggle in space (the US space station), they would have to.
In case you are wondering, I am in support of a healty space program, it is just that the US space station is an ill designed platofrm to spen a trillion dollars on.
Jonathan
Seriously corrupt???
Ha Ha Ha
The Canadian Government is no more corrupt than the US government, who can't even hold a fair election for christ sakes.
if you think it is corrupt, where are your examples, and then take a look at lots of lovely examples of US Government like the S&L crisis and then talk about who is corrupt.
Jonathan
It's good to see some new blood getting out there. I've read some interesting posts up here suggesting that Canada's internal politics may interfere with anything meaningful but I hope not. We need a new country mucking around with this stuff and getting out there. The more countries we have working on stuff the more chance we all have of doing something great as a species ;-)
More power to them!
Importance of the Canadian Space Initiative for Mars exploration goes far beyond the surface level competition with the USA, Russia, or some other coutry. I don't know if you noticed but two days ago all major national and local TV stations in the US displayed a picture prepared by JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) showing so called "Face" from Cydonia on Mars, an object that is stirring up controversy since its first appearance in 1976. The latest official picture of the "Face" looks unlike any human or animal face visible on the original picture. It was released with the commentary that the problem is really solved meannig don't expect it to be artificially made or implying some ancient civilised involvement. As it turns out, the official "Face" photo was filtered out with more than one software filter so it loses its facial details and appears to be flat and not as 3D object. Since NASA/JPL have the monopoly in Mars exploration right now, there's no way that the Face can be veryfied otherwise. So, with the Canadian Mars Initiative this subject could return for veryfication bypassing NASA and other US agencies. Good luck. By the way, some good quality info about the Face is on: http://metaresearch.org/
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
The main benefit of the Canadian involvement in space exploration I see in veryfication. So far NASA/JLP monopolized Mars missions and lately they released data that contradicts some of earier findings, so some other veryfication process is needed outside of NASA's. Otherwise they'll always claim what they want. What we're talking about here is the possibility of civilized life on Mars in some distant past.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
"Cosmocanucks" or "Canadanauts"?
"Ehstronauts."
--Blair
A McPizza.
--Blair
"You think I'm kidding."
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Or look at the Abrams M1 tank. It is the lineal descendant of a program to build a main battle tank for the 1970s, to replace the M60. But the first production models weren't introduced until the late 80s.
They had alternating whims to build a tank that was truly, markedly superior than any other tank in the world -- no matter what the cost -- and to build a tank was in-line with the costs of other nation's tanks, even if it wasn't markedly superior.
Q: What would be the most invulnerable American weapon's system?
A: That would have to be the one that has a defence sub-contractor in every congressional district!
I've heard other candidates for this description. I think some Americans will claim St. Augustine. I think Newfoundlanders will claim St. John's.
But, unless you add the restriction that the city has to have been founded by Europeans, surely Mexico City, formerly capital of the Aztecs, predates the rest.
Say, maybe that is why Dubya was speaking Spanish?
This is the kind of post that gives the internet a bad name. Pure opinion, with no facts or reasoning to back it up.
First, Canada has already paid for a big share of the ISS. The recent arm, built in Canada, cost double the projected cost of this proposed Mars probe.
May I suggest that you would look less foolish if you waited until the details of what instruments the probe will be taking were specified before you criticized their usefulness?
FWIW, $500 CAD is within the same ballpark as some of NASA's recent, "simpler, cheaper, better" probes.
Rush Limbaugh?
Isn't free speech one of American's most widely espoused values?
Communist leanings! Socialist medicine! I can't believe this fool found moderators who took his accusations seriously!
You Americans are supposed to believe in Free Speech. I don't understand why this doesn't include espousing political choices different than those your nation has chosen. Practically every democratic industrialized nation has some kind of universal medical insurance, except for yours. Are you going to call us all communists?
Someone else posted this link, which points to a detailed description of the Soviet shuttle, here, just a few days ago. It did fly one unmanned mission to Mir.
It was equipped with ejection seats for the four cabin crew (none for any additional mission specialists though). The article doesn't say whether the Challenger astronauts could have been saved if the American shuttles had had a similar system.
http://www.friends-partners.org/mwade/craft/buran. htm
Now that was a silly comment wasn't it? The US put up quite a bit that space station and keep in mind they are the leader in space technology.
"Canadians in general (and maybe people in Quebec more so - Living here gives me a right to that comment IHMO) seem to have an intense focus on internal issues."
What percentage of Canadians can identify where their country is on the globe versus the percentage of Americans who can't?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
That money would be better spent on the International Space Station.
"BSD is about people pissing each other.." (Moid Vallat)
It might just be talk, but then again, people thought that Kennedy was crazy when he promised a man on the moon.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
I kinda respect Canada, everyone makes fun of em, but they just find it funny. Their government is seriously corrupt, but in its corruption, it can find just about anything it wants to and keeps assanine monopolies from going rampant...(probably just go to a different country however) If the government of Canada starts doin cool things like funding sciency projects, thats friggin awesome :)
God spoke to me
The part without the nuts !
There is nothing of substance in the article - no mission plans, no dates, no nothing - just a catchy (and bilingual) slogan: Allons-y! Let's go to Mars, followed by a wish-list planning session. There's little about this to suggest that the maple leaf will be flying on Mars anytime soon. I'll believe it when I see it.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
There is very little vapor between here and Mars. However, the sheer amount of nothing is a major obstacle. A little vapor might be just the thing to sustain astronauts in transit.
--
3) Send Tom Green there, damn I'd like to kill that guy.
...
;-)
Didn't you hear? For a measley $500K they're going to send his recently-separated nut. Manned in only the strictest sense
Sorry -- I couldn't resist.
Have *you* ever heard of ICBM's? Makes all your satellite-related examples shit, now doesn't it? So you're saying that war is less of a waste of money? Why get anything acomplished when we can just kill each other
One of the funniest things I heard about NASA wasting money is they spend hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of dollars trying to develop a pen that would work in space. The Russians on the other hand decided to use pencils.
But when we wipe out the world with all those ICBMs space exploration is our only hope in finding another place to live.
of course visionaries like me will just be ignored or modded down. ask galileo how intelligent people who don't think with the crowd are treated.
--how long till the operators are jailed for anime-induced pedophelia and
""I have another question. Why do people in Ontario elect Mike Harris, the most right-wing guy in the world, and then go and throw all their support for a left-wing federal party like the grits? What's up with that? People in Ontario need to get their collective head out of their ass. Can you tell I'm from the West?"" I used to live in Ontario, and now live in BC... I think one reason people in Ontario voted in Harris was the same reason Campbell just got in here in BC... reaction against an NDP government who f8cked things up. Also, some people, I think, like the idea of a Federal government that likes to spend, and perhaps would give more money to the provinces (I know it's not happening) and then a more conservative government that would control carefully the money it was given. The problem I see is with the conservative governments, things tend to go too much in favour of the rich and greedy (ie. big corporations). And I don't know how the hell the BC Liberals can call themselves Liberal... who do they think they're fooling? Oh wait... all of BC.
10. Figure out how to make a space suit out of a hockey goalie uniform
9. Decision: "Cosmocanucks" or "Canadanauts"?
8. Have R&D figure out how to dehydrate beer and doughnuts
7. Finally get around to renting "Mission to Mars"
6. Find out if the Expos are willing to relocate to the Martian League
5. Be the first to design a canoe-shaped space vehicle
4. Screw it, eh? Let's go skiing at Whistler.
3. Make sure the vending machines on Mars don't take American quarters
2. Put Bob and Doug McKenzie into orbit
1. Finish exploring Canada!
-----------------------
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Stay in school, kids! Peace out, Dubya
Reasons:
1) It averages 40 below on Mars, that's a Canadian temperature if nothing else.
2) The US wouldn't laugh at them so much if they beat us to a standard. I'm not so sure why we do now, but that's another issue.
3) Send Tom Green there, damn I'd like to kill that guy.
spacefem.com
Participants at the 3rd Canadian Space Exploration Workshop (CSEW) [...] were among the first to hear that Canada wants to go to Mars [...]attendees were given the program's catch phrase ("Allons-y! Let's go to Mars"), and then charged with drawing up a wish list of objectives for a Canadian Mars mission
My statement was (in opposition to the popular interpretation that they had announced that they were going to Mars):
The way I read it, they didn't announce that they are going to Mars; they said they'd like to and then they asked a bunch of people at a workshop to play "what if" and "plan" a mission to Mars.
To which you replied (as if disagreeing):
No, it was a workshop they attended. At this workshop they unveiled the desire for Canada to reach Mars.
If you are making some subtle distinction here, I am missing it. Except for the word "No" it sounds as if you are saying the same thing I did.
-- MarkusQ
If you've ever been to these sort of workshops, you know what that means. A lot of people got to talk to other, mostly interesting people, and share a their enthusiasm for space, Canada, and (let's see, not Apple Pie, so probably hockey). I'll pet people wrote key points on over-sized post-it-notes. At the end they read their notes to each other, and clapped. I doubt if anyone did any math (or, if someone did, they did it quietly in a corner, while shaking their head).
-- MarkusQ
we will build our own ...out of hockey pucks ..We will use newfie screech for fuel. Of course we will have to have room on the spacecraft for our dogsled teams..I mean how else will we get around MARS ?? :-)
we are so ...we have a border and everything ...then again maybe Al Gore invented that too!! ;-) heh heh
They'll get all bogged down with referendums about how and when each rocket stage will seperate.
It seems to me that NASA of late has gotten sort of unimpressive. The Mars probes have been - well, unspectacular - and ISS funding is always iffy. Frankly, the American people do not seem all that enthusiastic about space exploration (present company excluded, of course :-)).
Perhaps things will be different for the Canadians. The CSA is still relatively inexperienced, still experimenting. It reminds me a lot of NASA in the sixties, when even the average American citizen was saying "Man on moon! Man on moon!" If the Canadian government stays relatively consistant in space policy (a big if) and if there are no metric-english unit mistakes, I think the CSA could prove to be the upstart that revitalizes world-wide interest in space.
Good luck, people.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Mexico has land near the equator, so they could set up an equatorial launch facility easily. They also have oil, and a complete lack of environmental or labor laws that would make the manufactoring of spacecraft a lot cheaper and faster. Hmm...
I'm the stranger...posting to
Actually, Sir, space exploration is one of the most useful programs the United States has ever undertaken. It's lead to advances in computer technology, military hardware, navigation (ever use GPS? How do you think the sattelites got up there?), communication (Iridium, satellite TV, satellite Internet access) weather monitoring (satellites,) monitoring of global warming, potential space-based medicine manufacturing, potential space-based power stations - I could go on for hour about the things space exploration has done for the world. Suffice to say that only war has advanced technology faster than space exploration. And unlike war, space is not a waste of money.
I'm the stranger...posting to
...for two reasons.
1.) Space programs usually have a strong military influence. The US-Soviet space race was really just a demonstration of the two contries' ability to lob nukes around the world, and put a military base on the Moon from which to lauch additional nukes. Countries generally like to keep military things internal.
2.) National pride. People like to sing "I did it my way", without anyone else's help.
Personally, I agree with you, but large-scale unity won't happen for a while yet. I don't count the ISS, because it's really just a collection of modules that were made by nation's individually.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Uh, we have the same problem in the USA. In fact, we have it worse. Our president looks suspiciously like a chimpanzeee (take a look at www.bushorchimp.com) and our congress is now being run by Democrats who will block everything Bush tries to do, and Bush in turn will squash any democratic bills whatsoever.
You think you have it bad because you can't decide on a space program. We're lucky if we can all agree on what "space" is! You think the idea of Canada as a spacefaring nation is laughable - I say that it's the idea of the US as a serious space power that is laughable. We're just coasting, not innovating.
I'm the stranger...posting to
I just had a thought...why not send resupply flights after a manned Mars spacecraft? If the manned ship didn't have to carry all its consumables, it could be made cheaper and smaller. Could they launch unmanned supply ships after the manned vessel? Some of those could be designed to go faster than the manned ship and overtake it every few months, while others could be sent on a different orbit to meet the manned vessel at Mars. We already have the technology to send fairly large payloads such as probes to Mars - could we do this?
I'm the stranger...posting to
That's a good point. Nice sig, by the way. :-)
I'm the stranger...posting to
...it's aboot time.....
First point: Mars, the god of war, was once Mars, the god of the fields. This shift from the agrarian to the militaristic courtesy of the Roman Empire, where/when folk like you wouldn't have dared publicly question such an unimportant point beside such news.
Second point: Mars the planète and Mars the month are spelled alike in French for a reason.
Third point: Can you name a more prominent and obvious place in Montréal to celebrate what would be such a glorious moment in Canadian history? Go jump in the Saguenay.
Fourth point: If we achieve this, I'll stand in whatsoever place of public celebration I please, thou hairy, small-minded batard.
Creare est regula non scriptum.
Excellent points concerning the grammar, you are correct - it seems I was thinking in English. However, I hardly think that using French words - which are not international for a Canadian, even in southern Ontario - lends me or any other an "air of desperation". In south-western Ontario this may be called pretentious, but where languages mix freely it is simply another mode of expression.
I think this is off-topic, though.
Creare est regula non scriptum.
When calculating, should our engineers use metric units or English units? Or both? ;O)
"Earth to Climate Orbiter......." -NASA
Obviously you have never studied history...