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Mars Race Heats up Further

Posted by michael on from the canadians-in-space dept.

anzha writes "It seems what was once the province of the superpowers is no longer so. ESA and the Japanese attempted their own Mars orbiters (successfully and not, respectively). The Brits fired off Beagle 2 and are talking of going for Beagle 3. Now the Canadians are talking about a probe for Mars in 2011. How long before we see the Japanese and Russians try again? Might India or China take a stab at it as well?"

5 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ugh, not a good thing by Tenfish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh, and another thing.

    Don't get too attached to this planet, or Mars either. Someday, we're going to be building gigantic structures in space. We'll be using the energy equivalent of many many stars total output. If you think that we're going to leave a planet in one piece, you're mistaken.

    The ultimate future of Earth and Mars, and all the other planets in our system, is that they will be complete dissassembled for raw materials.

    How will the world end? In fire? In ice? More like in a bunch of tiny pieces that were smelted into raw metals.

    --

    --Guns don't kill people, abortion clinics kill people.
  2. Why not by n.o.d.y.n.e · · Score: 5, Funny

    Might India or China take a stab at it as well?

    Maybe they can out-source the labour to the West!

    --
    Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. - Henry Ford
  3. Canada's Mars Mission Site by Leif_Bloomquist · · Score: 5, Informative

    Odd that the article didn't link to this.

    http://www.marsrocks.ca

  4. Canadian Space Agency == Geeks? by Jorkapp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot:
    Now the Canadians are talking about a probe for Mars in 2011.

    Website Link:
    ...the CSA is interested in receiving include an orbiter, a single lander, or a network of small landers.
    Imagine that. A Beowolf cluster of Mars Landers. I wonder if they would run on linux?

    --
    Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
  5. Re:Why Not the UNSA? by kippy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ths ISS is a scandal partly because it was built by a committee, not a group focused on one clear definable goal ("let's build a space station" doesn't count). The last thing humanity needs is to unite and therefore bind at the feet, the world's space agencies.

    Almost everything great done in space was the result of competition. We need more of that, not less. If no one feels any pressure to work toward a goal harder, you will have engineers and administrators world-wide leaning on their shovels for decades to come as they we continue to be bound in low Earth orbit.

    --
    Blaze a trail to the New World