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Mars Odyssey Completes Aerobraking
Cally writes: "Space.com reports that
Mars Odyssey has
completed aerobraking and is ready to begin its
main science mission. As the spacecraft has already produced exciting results before the start of the science mission proper, interesting data on the quantities of water in the Martian crust may be expected soon - not to mention that Odyssey provides another datapoint in the study of Gamma Ray bursts."
problems with contaminating other planets with bacteria and Earth-based life.
Hello: we already douse all probes in Dial antibacterial soap first, to make sure we don't give any other planets weird fungi that we later claim were the first life found on other planets! (Sorry I don't have a non-cached link, the page seems to be down.)
That said, as for your: I'd rather send people there than have it sit in pristine condition
Why? What's so good about having people there? I say go after the Earth-based problems, and don't do things like spend three percent of our government's money on a trillion-dollar program just to get humans in a place they aren't very suited for being in the first place. When we've got the luxury of having solved most Earth-based problems, then you go after the extraneous stuff like that. Until then, I'm happy if we just do information-gathering type things: for that, you DON'T need people anywhere but in their office-chairs, except for whoever actually has to slingshot the probes into space. (Or have things changed since then? I might be dating myself here....[in a strictly platonic way, of course.])
Look, spending the resources we currently expend on space travel isn't going to contribute substantially to work peace (nor hunger, nor overpopulation, nor keeping people from being laid off).
On the other hand, the greatest points of human progress have historically taken place in two times -- exploration and war. Both of them create necessity, which is (of course) the mother of invention. I assume you'd rather avoid war, as would I, so exploration seems like a good investment.
Besides, its our nature to do this sort of thing. That's why people weaved reed boats, why they sailed before they could figure their position with any certainty, why we, as a race, have always struggled to see what's over the next hill.
The small-minded idea that you could solve disease, hunger and war by supressing the instinct to explore and becoming universal xenophobes is both juvenile and foolish -- at no time in history has anything like this proven true. Indeed, the worst times tend to be those where we stopped being curious -- dark ages, anyone?
I don't mean to be too brutal, but your half-thought-out assertion in this area offends me.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Let me try to answer my own question:
Mars is a place with resources; there's an atmosphere and useful raw materials are present. You could make livable buildings, air, even grow food -- all you need is enough energy and you can do a lot of things based simply on what we already know is there.
The moon, on the other hand, is relatively barren. Living there would be a lot harder, especially in terms of the no atmosphere thing. You have to bring just about everything you need to the moon, but could live reasonably on Mars just by moving power there and investing a lot of elbow grease, building infrastructure and etc. Potentially, you could make the surface of Mars the second-safest place in the solar system, able to survive even thtough years of zero contact with earth.
Just a thought, though, that it you want *practice*, the moon's probably a better place to start.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.