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Going Back to the Moon and Mars

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting three-part interview with author Dr. Andrew Chaikin discusses whether humans or machines could best explore the moon or Mars and even whether a crew could get along with each other for three years on an extended mission. His Mars planning draws on Apollo mission transcripts, and he cites mishaps with the Apollo 15 lunar rover almost sliding catastrophically down a mountain, an astronaut argument as to who took the most famous earthrise picture and what after 14 months in space, the Russian record-holder uses to recover his land legs: 'One vodka, one sauna'."

5 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Science and exploration? by Nuclear+Elephant · · Score: 0, Troll

    Isn't anybody worried they're gonna break the @!#$!@ moon and kill us all with massive tidal waves? Or am I just being paranoid?

  2. Re:The bravery to take the first few steps... by ibullard · · Score: 1, Troll

    If traversing from the trees to the ground costed millions of dollars per person we would still be up there, governments or not.

    I've also seen a silly comment cracking that our "ancestors settled America using unmanned prairie probes" and "Neanderthals also used unmanned probes to locate food and heat sources."

    If you can't see the difference between exploration of the Earth, where in every example posted thus far you don't have to pack 100% of your water & food into a very expensive vehicle and pray your calculations are correct, and exploration of Space then I suggest you go pack your mule and explore the moon. It can't be that hard, right?

    Damn politicians just don't know anything about space.

  3. Re:Humans in space is just PR by It'sYerMam · · Score: 0, Troll
    Unfortunately, you are correct that there are massive problems with human nature, and in my opinion, these NEED correcting.
    I wonder whether Tobin Taxes would work (I'm sceptical)

    I'm slightly dubious with regard to working on all of them, but it is unrealistic to believe that we will drop all space exploration efforts in favour of something for which we have no short-term gains or pretty pictures!
    Certainly a compromise is a good idea, seeing as we're unlikely to get anything better.

    --
    im in ur .sig, writin ur memes.
  4. Re:The bravery to take the first few steps... by ibullard · · Score: 0, Troll

    Ok, I'll use your language to slowly guide you to the point I'm making.

    The tree-dwellers didn't have to team up into large groups of thousands, creating huge bark and leaf suites and twig elevators to send just ONE of them to the ground. All they needed to do was CLIMB DOWN THE DAMN TREE.

    There, no mention of currency to distract you from the delicate point I was making. Happy?

    I did't think going from 20' in the air to the ground could be compared to going from Earth to a vacuum but you proved me wrong. Congrats.

  5. Re:The bravery to take the first few steps... by ibullard · · Score: 0, Troll

    No, I'm not. You either lack the ability to understand what I'm typing or you're a troll. I think the latter is most likely. Have fun evolving to live in a vacuum.