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Europe Joins Race To Send Humans To Mars
hereisnowhy writes "CBC reports that the ESA hopes to send humans to Mars within three decades. They first hope to return a Martian soil sample by 2014. They stress the importance of determining whether Mars ever supported life before humans touch down on the surface, because "You can sterilize a robot. But you cannot do the same to an astronaut. Inevitably a human will introduce microbes to the planet ... and contaminate it."" Kame-sennin links to a Reuters article on the plans.
The planet would be fully terraformed within a week.
Cheers.
"You can sterilize a robot. But you cannot do the same to an astronaut."
With a chopping block and a knife....
Sure you can, just take the shielding out of his microwave oven.
Unknown host pong.
You can send my cats. They've been sterilized.
Oh wait, that's neutered.
"You can sterilize a robot. But you cannot do the same to an astronaut."
Garden Shears.
it actually comes out to $9.56 in US money.
...they probably won't use nuclear craft either. Nevermind that nuclear engines are the most efficient and workable solution. Nevermind that we were building nuclear ramjets in the 50's and production ready nuclear rockets in the 60's.
Oh wait. That stuff was done by the US. Has the EU ever even fired a nuclear engine? Nevermind.
*sigh*
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Well you CAN sterilize humans, but it's really not very polite.
Depends on who they are going to send.
I vote for a crew consisting of Michael Jackson, Ossama Bin Laden and Katherine Harris.
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But the pilgrims were just a bunch of pathetic dorks that everyone hated, and... oh, right. Forget I said anything.
Yes, but relying on those very, very stupid ppl will doom the colony to a history of mediocrity and poor leadership. You know, like Australia.
I mentioned this once before, but a while ago my friend and I were discussing about the feasibility of a Mars mission, and he suggested that NASA should get funding by selling the rights for a reality television series.
I don't know how well it would work, but if you put a promiscuous woman astronaut on that mission, the bidding war for the show would be insane.
"You can sterilize a robot. But you cannot do the same to an astronaut. Inevitably a human will introduce microbes to the planet ... and contaminate it."
Not quite correct. In practice it IS possible to totally disinfect an astronaut.
Of course, with the caveat that said process of sterilization will (due to the processes and procedures involved) necessarily kill the austronaut and thusly render said person useless for anything other than dead-weight (pun intended).
What he should have said was "You can sterilize an astronaut with only slightly more effort than sterilizing a robot. Of course, after all is said and done, only the robot has any chance of functioning, let alone functioning normally." or "You cannot totally sterilize an astronaut while keeping them alive. For a robot this not a problem."
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Or something particularly grisly...
DROS - Open-Source Robot Software
Australia was a dumping ground for poor people the mother country didn't want and threw away as "criminals"... and hasn't turned out badly anyway.
A while ago, I heard some Aussie comment that he was glad that Australia got all the criminals and America got all the religious people.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
...and back here at Mission Control, Bob, they're all speechless. Noone seems to even want to try to explain why Astronaut Nolan decided to write his name on the Maritian surface with his own urine. Back to you Bob ...
RFC2119
I've been to Bora Bora, and the cosmic rays did get me.
If I may run up the old flag. .
I tend to agree, and NASA being an arm of government, I think, fits more than just somewhat.
Going to Mars is not the goal. At the moment, I think the goal is to gently warm up the public to the idea of real alien life. --A microbe fossile here. Evidence of water there. A degree at a time.
The fact that there are permenant alien base-ships in orbit around the sun and planets is not unknown to upper management. Especially now, as things are getting really near the reality-shift combustion point. --Oh, we 'Just discovered' all those dozens of 'new' moons around Jupiter and Saturn. Puh-leaze.
But, even amidst it all, you can't have the economic engine burp even as upper management prepares for a quiet slip into the safe confines of Vault 13, or whatever idiot scheme they mistakenly think will save their sorry skins when the shit hits.
For my part, I hope that I survive the culling so that I can see what form of sci-fi misery is waiting on the other side. Just for the sake of curiosity. (Think, "Variable Matter and the Illusion of Time lifted." Gee, fun. Can't wait. Why did I sign up for this again. . ?)
And of course, it should go without saying that, I for one welcome our. .
-FL
Where in the constitution is the levy of taxes authorized to explore other planets?
We have much greater need for financial, technological and scientific resources right here on our own planet. Half a trillion dollars to do what? If this were proposed by private enterprise, the shareholders would fire management due to the low return on investment that will be acheived from the expenditure.
Imagine, the whole world watching on TV as the first human sets foot on Mars... and she shows us TWO "surprise guests" this time! Would NASA TV cut away as fast as CBS did?
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Europeans do want to send a man to Mars, but he is no Europen himself...
Get real, lets send some good ones up there.. Lets see, make fake invitations to Darl McBride and John Ashcroft to go meet at the headquarters of the RIAA, maybe even get Hillary Rosen to show up. Then attach rocket boosters to building and send the whole lot up.
I think that was Hitler's idea first.
In Soviet Russia... oh, shit, wait.
... there's a slightly dented unmanned probe with a small LCD screen displaying the message "Do you really want to deploy the airbags? [Yes] [No]". Theyr'e sending someone up to click one of the buttons.
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
In Soviet Russia, national pride drives you!
I'd go. Just give me a 3000 movie dvd collection and i'd be right. plus a lot of sleeping pills
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I can just imagine shipping the suits there first and then having the astronauts landing 100 yards from the crate. "Okay, lets draw sippy-straws to see who gets to run over there and get the suits!"
The planet would be fully whitewashed within a week. ...
And the BBC would have to pay for it, naturally.
You have it all wrong - Barney
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