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People on Mars in 30 Years?
lucabrasi999 writes "Yahoo is running a Reuters story in which Arthur Thompson, the head of the NASA 'rover' missions, says that people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years. If that is true, I estimate that within 50 years, Mars will need women."
Mars still needs women...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I predict we will arrive on Mars in tentacled tripod ships and fire death rays at the inhabitants until we are driven from the planet by microorganisms.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Won't the Women go to Venus?
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I need them too ;-)
One can get an exotic marsian girlfriend there.
First I wanted to be a chef. Then I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambitions have continued to grow ever since.
Arthur Thompson, mission manager for MER surface operations, told Reuters in an interview in Lima, "My best guess is 20 to 30 years, if that becomes our primary priority."
In other words, Notgonnahappen. 8(
Moo.
Getting them back will take another 20 or 30 years.
I can see the fnords!
Of course, thats assuming that no short-sighted leaders come about in the future that see space exploration as a waste of money. I for one am all for stuff like this. It brings out the best in us.
Asked how long it could be before astronauts land on Mars, Arthur Thompson, mission manager for MER surface operations, told Reuters in an interview in Lima, "My best guess is 20 to 30 years, if that becomes our primary priority."
If it is primary priority. Which I doubt it will be. And depending on who is our next president might affect how much funding NASA gets.
>If that is true, I estimate that within 50 years, >Mars will need women."
I thought Mars needs guitars?
Or is this the B ark?
...you can even /. imdb site
We better get started on that AIMEE robot then. Oh and keep Carrie Ann-Moss in the freezer for 30 years so she can be our mothership voice.
before the Wongs move in and start raising buggalo.
Gotta get me one of these!
I need women!
Because you cannot take woman into space.
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The way primary and secondary education is going these days, women will be leading the mission to Mars. Quite a role reversal from the times when that movie was made.
From the posting: Arthur Thompson, the head of the NASA 'rover' missions, says that people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years
NASA is a very slow working group. Without private industry being involved we're doomed. If we do get a solid private space industry I can see this number being as low as 10 years.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
and linux will be the leading os in about 5 years time
people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years. If that is true, I estimate that within 50 years, Mars will need women.
Maybe Mars could find some women before 50 years amongst that pool of "people".
Mars sounds like a dreamy undisclosed location to me!
Don't forget the livestock. No one wants to eat nothing by astronaut food.
*I* need women.
/.'ers.
As do most
Are there any women even READING this stuff, let alone posting?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Great, in 30 years, a company with the initials 'UAC' will exploit Mars.
As though thats not already done here by other companies.
As a teen in the early 70's, I heard that we would be on Mars by the end of the '90's. So we would be there in only 20 years into the future. During poppa Bushs term, it was within 25 years.
Now it 40 years later, and it will by in less than 30 years. Hell, by 2100, it will be only 50 years if we keep up with leaders like these.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Cause when the imps come I want to see em...
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
I think the Mars people will get very tired of all that masturbation and gay sex well before 20 years.
I wonder how much longer until someone claims parcels of land on Mars, like the Moon. The Nevada thing that happened in the past.
I'm hoping they really plan ahead. Make sure the residents have plenty of lockers full of weapons and ammunition just in case personnel become demonic flesh eating zombies, or disembodied flaming heads.
Oh, and don't forget to hide little closets all over the facility. Who knows when hidden closets large enough for a full sized human will come in handy?
Just make sure Bush Jr goes to see War of the Worlds, and watch us go on a "pre-emptive mission" to defeat the "terrorist Martians".
I wonder if there will be people on *Earth* in 30 years.
Of course, I remember growing up in the early '80s and hearing about how we would be on Mars soon after the turn of the millenium. Well, my ship never did arrive. I would rate this up there with the "fusion power is just around the corner" mantra.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
wow... looks like doom 3's life in mars story line is comin to be true.. three cheers to Union Aerospace Corporation... that jus leaves one question.. who frags the demons ?
fifteen jugglers, five believers
I'm goin' to Venus...
While a man on the moon happened for folks before us, nothing of that magnitude has happened for us, space wise. we need an ark type of craft (like in Authur C Clarke's "Rendevous with Rama") that can slowly shuttle large groups of ppl over there for exploration and settlements. If we're looking 30 years in the future, I think we'll be ready for that by then.
Just don't name any of the onboard computers HAL...
CB$#@)(*&^
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How long have we been hearing that water is on mars, blah blah blah? They just assume they're going to find it. It seems to be like a Duke Nukem Forever type of thing.
I think we should send space monkeys next.
Are there any women even READING this stuff, let alone posting?
Yes we read this stuff. You should really mind your manners if you want a woman, love.
You might try pretending to be offended by the way women are being spoken of. We're suckers for that kind of stuff.
Where he already said this. I guess this is the guy that Dubya got the time estimate from. Since they are in agreement, we can only conclude that this is just NASA getting behind their current president because they figure he's more likely to get them more funding than the alternative.
I think it's an unfair assessment to believe that once men get off this planet that we will invite women. j/k. I am of the impression that we are seriously over estimating our capabailities at this point.
It's been nearly 20 yrs and we can't even settle on an HDTV standard. This jackass believes we can make it to Mars in 30?!?! NASA must be growing some serious weed in their antigravity hydroponics labs.
Mars will need women.
Not to mention, more specifically, mars will need lesbians.
Just hope that we can get there before Marvin the Martin blows up the Earth with his Uranium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
Where's Duck Dodgers when you need him?!
to Uranus, I'm cool
At least not America, they couldn't afford the effort. Way too costly with that defecit they've got.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Will some little green Martian, post on a Martian sci/tech Blog...
I for one, welcome our new alien overlords!
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
Um, why are we assuming that the astronauts themselves won't BE women?
----- Vegans don't send SPAM.
people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years.
Sure, if we can make a "business case" for it. Otherwise people will say "what do we need that for?" and go back to their reality shows and home improvement projects.
Some people would say this is a stagnant society. The phrase "unwiped ass" is a better description of a society obsessed with suburban paradise at the expense of every last shred of dignity and wisdom.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Do women need men?
...the researchers had also got a human egg cell to start dividing on its own just like an embryo.
It sounds something like the virgin birth. Technically, it is called parthenogenesis.
Wonder how boring the 6-9 month travel would be? Though new rocket technology could make it less so and more achievable. But we'd have to take this guy so he can visit the Mars Starbucks...
Until we have some political will, or an oscenely rich private explorer (Bill here's a hint: do something cool with all that booty you've plundered from the hard-of-thinking PeeCee users over they years) to start the process, I'll remain skeptical.
Stick Men
when we will be out of energy by then unless we move to clean (at the point of energy production) sources of renewable or very long lasting, low impact sources of energy.
Wind has been looked at here in the last few days. that seems doable. then there is this. from that we can get rid of fossil fuel all together and use Hydrogen for all portable power needs, and the electric grid for all static needs.
until then, we are pretty much screwing ourselves out of any possible future that does not involve a huge population correction, and or, extinction which will be a result of our civilization falling apart.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
To overcome the Overlord we must first terraform the planet.
Why don't we send the GNAA!
"The moon belongs to America, and eagerly awaits the arrival of our astromen. Will you be among them?"
Or will we send the detritus off this planet without establishing any means of artificial life support system? The lighter payload would minimize the costs, you know, while furthering scientific research.
Being a girl should get my posts moderated up regardless of how inane they are, right? I mean... I'm a girl..
:)
If you want to get modded up you need to list a website/homepage with pics so the geeks can see you're really a girl
Of course, even if the Mods are not helping you it seems the Editors give you preferred treatment- 3 accepted submissions by someone with such a high UID number is pretty good!
and scoot over to Mars.
Mars doesn't need women.
Slashdot needs women.
Given the typical short lived duration of marriage these days they ought to start sending the divorce lawyers right around the time they start sending the women. Or better yet, just send all the lawyers. Now there's a science fiction horror story if ever there was one: "Attack of the intellectual property lawyers from Mars."
20 years from know --Man arrives on Mars 23 years from know --Man populates Mars 27 years from know --Woman migrate to Mars 27.5 years from know -- Men find some reason to start traveling to Neptune !
twenty, thirty years? How long did it take us to get to the moon? And what have we done since then? It's quite possible, if we really want it done, give NASA a decent budget for a while, etc. However, thats got about the odds of a snowball in hell. Space just isn't sexy any more, and it's unlikely any president will give any more than nominal support. I predict space progress will be slow and relatively unspectacular for at least twenty years. Its a damn shame, too.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
Three words: Nuclear Pulse Propulsion
also take some guitars?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Tech: We're picking up a transmission. It's from... Mars!
Manager: Oh. My. God. Lets see it!
.
.
.
All: URRGH! GOATSE!
If we can just figure out what the thalamus does between its lobes to host sentience, recreate it in a defensive pod. Then you can live in the center of the sun if you wish.
-I am an elective eunuch.
I'm really offended by the way women are being spoken of here, it's really sexist and primitive. Besides, what make you think that women would not be there first anyhow?
A guy...
Here we go again!
The question is: will it ever need men?
Why not? Some Slashdotters have been waiting longer than that.
Irony galore. A woman posts on slashdot about the shortage of women on slashdot, actually gives advice on getting women (to those who don't already know how), and is consequently modded down to flamebait.
Yvonne Craig [insert slavering sound here] was in Mars Needs Women in 1967. That same year, she debuted as Batgirl in Batman. She was 30 years old.
THIRTY!
Wow.
Do you suppose she was America's first faux MILF?
The mooon flight happened for ME. I was 13 then, and glued to the TV that whole day watching the coverage. Position the rapid progress of the Lunar mission against the-pop culture like "2001: ASO," and I actually thought I might, as an ordinary person, be able to make an admittedly expensive vacation into orbit during my lifetime.
YOU want it during YOUR lifetime? I'd like to see us not have dropped the ball completely, during MY lifetime, which is about half-over. Hopes for middle-class-afordable orbital access are pretty much shot. Heck, hopes for continuing existence of the middle class seem to be going down the drain, too.
As for a ark? For Mars, I favor the "Pork Chop Express," (with a wink'n'nod to Kurt Russell, in "Big Trouble In Little China") named after the so-called pork-chop plot of Earth/Mars transit orbits. Picture a habitat (or several) of some sort remaining in the Earth/Mars transition orbit.
When the right time comes around, boost from Earth and match speed with the habitat. Get in and ride to Mars. At Mars, get out and de-boost in another vehicle into Mars orbit.
The key is to boost your Earth/Mars transfer vehicle (the habitat) into that orbit *once*. Thereafter, you only boost people and supplies. That lets the habitat become more spacious and better shielded, since its recurring costs are lowered. The trip is supposed to be the worst part, after all. There's only an opportunity for Mars every two years or so, but the window is a few months wide. Eventually it would be nice to have several transfer habitats.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I if suppose you have the luxury of economic freedom to begin with, you can force someone else to prove to you that is has to be profitable first. We are all Ferengi here. Furthermore since when does capitalism display dignity and display wisdom? The forced economic classes that it creates can only be called dignifying to the rich and the quickly shrinking remnants of the middle class. It certainly is not for the poor. Where is there any wisdom displayed in an economic process that forces an entire class of people to live out their lives scraping enough money together to put food in their children's mouths?
If that is dignity and wisdom, I am all for shredding it!
Perfect! You showed that you can be sensitive yet remain manly and condecending. Go you!
2034 - Man arrives on Mars
2054 - Woman arrives on Mars
2055 - Babies on Mars. Martians!
2070 - Martians teens are fifteen years old.
2071 - Bored Martian teens reproduce widly and give birth to mutated children. Lack of protein in Mars diet and modified gravity are blamed for newborn's long teeth and odd digestive systems. Martian mothers go into hiding in Mars desert.
2073 - Eighteen-year-old Martian teenagers on Mars.
2073 - Millions of Martian teenagers, now at Legal Space Travel driving age, desperately drive babies to with long fangs and Meat-starved constitution to Earth.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
This is as bad as fusion power, which has been twenty years away since 1955 or so. Worse, actually; the fusion people are making some progress.
Yeah, but how does Halliburton make money off of us sending people to Mars?
Hey baby. I'm the only man on the planet.
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
I agree it's unlikely, but it's not absolutely impossible. Nobody here seems to be considering the P.R. aspect of manned spaceflight.
It's very useful to US foreign policy to be well-regarded by the rest of the planet. For most of the late 20th Century, its role as "leader" in the Cold War helped maintain goodwill in Western Europe and parts of Asia. You can argue about whether that goodwill was deserved, but that's really beside the point. It's gone.
The US (by which I mean its government and policies, not the general public) is now viewed with some mixture of fear, loathing and frustration by almost everyone else. Its current "War on Terror" is doing far more to inflame tensions and increase risk than to mitigate them. The other major "crisis", climate change, requires action so diametrically opposed to US corporate culture that I fully expect to to see Belgium colonize Alpha Centauri before anything constructive gets done.
Which leaves space. The Apollo Project had a huge psychological impact on the global psyche. It was, and remains, one of the great heroic achievements of the human species, and it was done by Americans. (Well, and Germans.)
I think Mars could be the same. If US foreign policy continues racking up "blowback" at its current rate, that could become very attractive to a US president.
SCORE!!
It's all in the middle way: sensitively condescending.
[voice="wheel chair guy in Family Guy"]YEAH, GO ME!!!!![/voice]
Here we go again!
I read about a plan once to send people to Mars cheaply and quickly. It's in a book... but I can't remember the name. I think it is called "The Case for Mars". The website is . This is the absolute best plan I have ever seen for manned Mars missions.
qw0ntum
We need flying cars.
There's no reason a flying car can't be built. Just because Moller has been botching it for forty years doesn't mean it can't be done. Hiller did it in the 1950s. The big problems back then were stability and the poor power/weight ratio of reciprocating engines. Both of those problems have been solved.
If Rutan built one, it would work. One good prototype flying car would turn things around.
I know this is off topic, but I cannot stand when people make such arguments as the one you just made.
The war in Iraq was not a dichotomy in which we got to war and Iraqi civilians die or we don't and Iraqi civilians live. It was a choice between going to war and risking the lives of thousands of Iraqis or not and leaving 25 million to the whims of Saddam. Even the most conservative estimates had Saddam killing tens of thousands of Iraqis every year. Amnesty International estimated 24,000 dead Iraqis every year from a combination of Saddam Hussein and crippling sanctions.
So, we could go to Mars and leave 25 million people in abject tyranny at the hands of a crazed madman with ambitions to become the next Saladin, or we could remove that dictator and give the Iraqi people a chance at freedom and save far more lives than were lost.
This sort of simplistic dichotomy on the war is exceptionally disgusting, akin to Holocaust denial. I've met Iraqis who have suffered under Saddam Hussein, and they will all tell you that as bad as Iraq is now, the horror of living under Saddam's totalitarianism was far worse.
Besides, who knows - in 30 years we could be launching Mars missions from the Baghdad Cosmodrome thanks to an Iraqi scientist who beforehand would have been working on designs for dirty bombs or chemical munitions.
Here is the trailer for Mars Nees Women.= yOGFVb3zogHOTy-11jT4AJsZbtp0B9dn&UserName=internet videoarchive
Links to stream only.
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V3
http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid
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I for one, welcome our new female overlords.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
And why? Among other reasons, one of the biggest in terms of setbacks has been relying on Russia for technology, manpower, and funding. This is not a let's-bash-Russia troll, I think this points to directly to serious project management issues at NASA, and if we can't get a sealed stable environment orbiting our planet, how do we expect to pack a crew into a ship and send it 36 million miles away and be anything other than an extraterrestrial coffin?
I love space exploration, I want people on Mars, I want habitats on the moon, I want shuttles flying weekly between the ISS and MoonPod 1, but it's never gonna happen if NASA can't get its act together enough to do something as obvious and QA process basic as asking "Gee, Yakov, I've never seen an oxygen system like this before, do we have the specs on that?"
Granted, in space just about every system is critical, but I'd put O2 scrubbers pretty damn high on my list of priorities, why wasn't it on theirs?
We need to do this thing smart, and to do that we've got to do it incrementally. Speaking as a software engineer for complex automated systems, if you skip design phases you're guaranteed to have problems down the line. So let's not skip phases, let's fix the shuttle fleet, to fix the space station and get it on track. Let's go back to the moon and run some long term sorties, build a moon base, shuttle between base and station. We need real world (moon) experience with extraterrestrial habitation before we pick 6 of our country's finest minds to asphyxiate in the cold black of interplanetary space.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
"We can be on Mars in 30 years"
There is nothing physical, technological or financial (yes, it won't break the bank if done smart) stopping us from visiting and settling Mars.
The roadblocks are politics and motivation. Shit, we could be on Mars in 15 years if we really wanted to.
Blaze a trail to the New World
You know the old saying? Nice guys get sloppy seconds. Sorry! That was crude. Am I bitter? Like coffee! Argh.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Our Mars touchdowns have a bad record. Who'd really want to risk it? You'd have to have lluevos rancheros to risk your life on the chute not deploying or on explosion on Mars lift-off. not to mention the risk of Martian air defense batteries that use our probes for target practice.
According the following DVD box covers, no.
g
f c. jpg
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www.videoteam.com/new/boxcovers/nmlinterracial6
How long before NASA fakes a Mars landing.
http://batesmotel.8m.com/
For at least the last 40 years, NASA has always been promising human colonization of space "in 30 years". The time never gets any closer, however.
Let's face it -- NASA will NEVER get humanity into space on any large scale. That will have to happen due to private efforts.
"Yahoo is running a Reuters story in which Arthur Thompson, the head of the NASA 'rover' missions, says that people could be landing on Mars in the next twenty or thirty years. If that is true, I estimate that within 50 years, Mars will need women." You can wait 20 to 30 years ?!?!?!
Why the heck would we want people on Mars?
Amen to that (unfortunately). If interested, this site: Left to chance has some interesting news/opinions on similar topics.
I really hope EVERYONE votes this year...it's a big, big deal.
CVIB*()%$$#@@@
free ipod and free gmail!
Hey, we're trying to do mankind a favor by dating all the jerks we can find. If nice guys were having regular sex and the jerks were going without, I don't even want to think about what this planet would look like!!
Don't forget Silly Putty!
You've got to be nice some of the time, and a jerk the other times. Or vice versa.
This, by the way, is called "being a normal person". Some of us can fake it fairly convincingly.
If they take away our women what will we do? Even our women need women!
I wonder if the USA will ever elect a black female president?
For bonus points, elect a black, female, athiest president.
Now, I must get back to cooking my wife's dinner.
Stick Men
I say send Dubya.
Would it be thought that after landing on Mars it would take 20 years for women to be needed. Many of us would feel that need immediatley.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Never really watched Red Dwarf. How does it relate?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Economically, flying cars are a lose/lose proposition. They'll either be 100% automated or they'll require a pilot's license to operate. In either case, not many people will be interested. Add to that the higher fuel consumption and the fact that the flying car will probably cost 6 digits (Redundant engines and systems don't come cheap) and you end up unlikely to move enough units to make it viable.
It's not that we haven't developed a flying car because we're unable to, it's because it doesn't make economic sense to do so.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
we make getting to the moon regularly a reality before we try to go to mars.. I think when we can get to the moon and back, we will have developed the things we need to go to mars, not to mention it will make building the things needed to get to mars alot easier. any attempt at mars should be launched from the moon, or very close too it. We wont need to carry the fuel to escape the earth for one. we need to: #1) Perfect a method for getting fuel, water, oxygen, building materials and food etc etc into earths orbit cheaply. a large cannon, or rockets. what ever it is should be cheap, wholely reusable and be able to be used 2-3 times a week to keep the supply of vital materials running. #2) Have a space "tug" that goes out from the ISS and retireves the cargo we "shot|rocketed" into space. The tug never actually re-enters the earths atmosphere, its just used for retrieving capsules shot or rocketed into orbit. #3) Build the things we need to get to the moon in space at the ISS. #4) colonise the moon. Lets test our colonisation process before we run off to mars, make sure our habitats/eco systems etc etc are going to work just fine. #5) when we are shootign stuff into space.. building things.. and making regular trips to the moon, THEN lets start applying some of that to getting us to mars. Lets walk before we can run.
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
Wouldnt Mars get wacked more frequently by a "big one" because it is much closer to the asteroid belt?
We'll first need our secret agencies to produce images of trucks and foreigners, so we can prove they have weapons of mass destruction.
Until now, it did not really work out.
I hope our missions to Mars have a lot more thought put into them than our movies about them are.
free online diet tracking.
It would make more sense to send people to the Moon to set up mining operations, power generation plants, heavy industry, etc..., and keep it on the back side, out of sight. Lunar orbits and L points could be staging areas. Rescue operations could be mounted from other Moon bases or from Earth if time allowed. Rescuing Mars explorers would be impossible.
This buring desire to find proof of life on Mars is motivated more on the religious idea that if life exists on other planets it proves that God does not exist, than on any putative science benefits. It's a really stupid reason to spend Billions of $$$.
It's been said once in this thread, but I'll say it again: we can do this faster -- i.e. in 10 years -- with the Mars Direct program, on a pretty reasonable budget (closer to $30B than the $50B mentioned elsewhere, actually). That's a snap, considering that NASA's annual budget is currently $15B -- we'd be talking about 1/5 of current funding levels (not to mention only 16% of pre-Columbia shuttle launch capacity, given 2 flights every 2 years).
Get out there and pester your Congresscritters on this. Mars in 1/3 of this time is acheivable if enough people press for it!
How To Get Humans To Mars
The smallest feasible Mars expedition requires 150 or so tons in Earth orbit, which takes 5 trips on the most powerful rocket flying today, the Space Shuttle. A large nuclear powered booster could put six times that mass in orbit in one flight. According to this article, an Apollo size rocket with gas core engines would be safe, economical and would even get rid of excess nuclear waste.
This is not new. NASA tested Nuke engines in the 60's. If we are serious about going to Mars, we have to start building nuke engines.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Remember how George was saying how we were going to go to Mars. Well I agree. I vote to send Bush to Mars.
Congress-critters are unlikely to fund NASA enough to support that timeline unless we get some serious competition. We need a space race! By someone who will scare the constituents into demanding Congressional action and funding! Mars Needs China!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
jerks are more attractive than whiny geeks. kthxbi
Ever seen that commericial for the power of cheese, basically it says that 40 years ago we thought that the moon was made of cheese. We spent millions on technology, tens of thousands of man hours to get there, and once we found out it wasn't made of cheese we haven't been back since.
:)
Mars in 30 years, I highly doubt it unless someone starts a rumor Mars is made of cheese, how about string cheese, MMMmmm yummy!
"i hear mars needs women
maybe you should apply"
Unless there's a fundamental change in the way NASA is operated we won't even by on the Moon in 30 years , let alone Mars.
I'm pinning my hopes on pioneers such as Burt Rutan to get us back to the moon (and beyond). Until congress stops sitting on NASA's funding we simply cannot afford a manned mission to Mars (or anywhere else outside of LEO for that matter).
Can someone tell me what are the benefits of sending humans to Mars? It seems like this venture will become unjustifiably expensive because of the life support systems and the space craft that can get the astronauts safely not only to Mars but also back to the Earth. It seems like NASA has already demonstrated that science can be done on Mars relatively cheaply using robots, so I don't see what's the purpose of sending the humans there (other than perhaps giving the NASA's ever growing burocracy a reason to exist as well as enriching the private contractors that might be involved in the project).
new?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
If the travel time isn't cut down to 2 days max, it will be just a place for rock collectors, miners and maybe a place where we send old people.
... tomorrow, I luv ya tomorrow. Your always a day away. - Orphan Annie
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
When I'm the first man on Mars, my first words will be "I'M SO GLAD I BOUGHT THAT ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 9700!!"
It is an interesting comment. I have always hoped we would travel to another planet within my life time. I remember as a little kid going to the library and reading all the books I could on Astronomy, Space flight, etc. The first thing I wanted to be was an Astronaut (then when I grew up I realized how freak'n hard it was to become one) Even then they figured we would be on Mars by 2000-2010. And that was in the late 80s early 90s.
...flame away now.....
At any rate I don't think we will get to Mars anytime soon, if at all. Our world as a whole is too caught up in all its little bickering to actually come together and do something that incredible. We could have created gigantic ships to travel in space a while ago if all our countries could actually get along, but that will never happen. IF it does and you are an avid christian believer you know we won't be around much longer after that to really go anywhere.
My point is that unless we get along ala Star Trek (ie: no money, reduced global war) it will take ages for any real sort of space travel. I mean its been close to 50 years and we haven't visited the moon again. We could have colonized the moon 10 years ago with the technology we have. It seems NASA has turned into a college science lab rather what it was meant for (space exploration) this crap of trying to solve trival questions needs to be done by other people. I refer to questions like the beginning of the universe, etc. Those are so trivial and a waste of money.
I mention the money part because that is what the largest factor is. The government decides how much NASA gets, then with whatever NASA gets they decide what gets cut and what doesn't. From what I've seen they pick a handful of projects and cut the rest. Crap like the genesis thing doesn't get cut, but Mars does...makes real sense NASA. I just don't see why all this money has to be paid out. Instead of paying out a crap load of money for materials I think it should be donated for free or given for free. And the workers get compensated with food, clothing, and a place to live, which the government would provide in order for the people to live, instead of taxes. (But that is all in an imaginary world) That just shows how bent up people are with money. Yes I use it and need it, and rely on it, but its not by choice I'm forced to in the world/civilization we live in. Maybe some of you don't understand or comprehend what I'm trying to say. I just think it would be easier/quicker if we had a plan close to that.
am I the only one that thought of the marathon map, not the movie when I read that?
:)
Great map. I think they even ported it to unreal tournament.
Heck, I had no idea there was a movie by that name until now
With a total collapse like that, we'd be unlikely to work our way back up to industrial technology again.
.. man, that would be nasty and disease-ridden, and require a LOT of effort to separate usable materials. I'm not sure it would be sustainable.
One difficulties in rebuilding is that the industrial revolution exhausted nearly all of the world's accessible (with pre-industrial technology) mineral resources.
One possibility, I suppose, might be mining garbage dumps, but
DNA just wants to be free...
Not a popular sentiment with the Slashdot crowd, I'm sure, but "because it would be cool" isn't a good reason to send people to Mars. Learning more about the universe we live in is a noble goal, but sending a small group of people to Mars as primarily a publicity stunt is a colossal waste of money.
Neither is it reasonable to suggest that a colony on Mars would be good "insurance" against a global catastrophe, as one loony did above. We are so far away from being able to build a self-supporting colony on Mars that it's laughable.
Nearly all of the money that NASA has spent on "human exploration" programs since the 1970's has been wasted. Some of the research on the effects of micro-gravity on human physiology are worthwhile, and need to be done IF long-term manned space missions are going to be considered. Unfortunately, the USSR (and later Russian) government was doing essentially the same research at the same time, for orders of magnitude less money.
The choice isn't necessarily between space research and social programs, although I'd argue that investing in affordable higher education for all qualified students would do much more to advance the state of human knowledge than a mission to Mars ever would.
The choice is between spending billions of dollars on keeping "astronauts" in space for PR reasons, rather than focussing NASA on basic research into the "hard problems" of space exploration.
NASA needs to focus more on basic research into self-contained environmental systems, better telerobotics/telepresence, more-sophisticated onboard intelligence for robotic spacecraft & rovers, automated materials processing, etc. All these things are prerequisites to getting people "out there" for a period of time where they might actually be able to accomplish something useful.
If they dropped support for the International Space Station and just de-orbited it into the sea, they could USE the money they saved on maintaining that albatross, and on re-fitting the Shuttle fleet, to increase basic research activity by several orders of magnitude.
There's nothing that would be accomplished by sending humans to Mars that couldn't be achieved more simply and vastly cheaper by a flotilla of robots.
-Mark
Didn't Doom3 teach us anything about the folly of living on Mars?
And they will be playing Dukenukem Forever.
Ever noticed how many wealthy types commute by personal helicopter?
DNA just wants to be free...
Actually we mostly feed cows reprocessed cows these days.
Hence the problems with mad cow disease.
DNA just wants to be free...
The prediction of 20+ years to go to Mars is inaccurate and misleading. We have the technology to go to Mars in place and it would only take 8-10 years of work for a total cost of under $30B. Recent European Space Agency Estimates of the cost to go to Mars using Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan ran about $27B. For more about the Mars Direct plan see the Mars Society.
http://www.xminusone.com/shows/013_MarsIsHeavenD-X .mp3
How about: ;-)
"People on the moon in 30 Years?"
Maybe Mars actually *is* the future of pimping!
--
Growing up as a kid, even watching the Challenger explode live in the 4th grade, I had great respect and awe for NASA and it's accomplishments in space exploration and history. I still watch missions in great anticipation, even with the Genesis crash and Columbia accident. However, I now look upon NASA with a different attitude.
If humans were to be on Mars within 20-30 years, it will probably not be done by NASA rather a project from the commercial sector. As an example, look at the progress of the X-Prize challenge where even though they might not have met a goal of the challenge yet they have come further than NASA in new vehicle design and deployment. Americans know from experience, the coporate sector tends to do things better than a governement equivalent. The key to this may be something above and beyond just a corporate profit venture, perhaps maybe even something along the lines of luring people to a new goverment on a Mars colony. Several bright scientists have developed lots of ways to get humans to Mars, and sustain them (In theory of course). Research in areas like the Biodome can be used to fork a new research area like adaptions to the current Mars environment and start plants as natural O2 generators. Chemical recations can also be used to create water or gasses of our choice, and using our limited understanding of our planet apply that knowledge to terraform Mars eventually. All these things will need a company to design, build, and support...more Corporate lure to do the hard task. To say we cannot put somebody on Mars just because a resource we need to live is not in standing waiting for us, is shirking off a challenge.
NASA will become a probe specialist since those missions are pure science, and I think in the future we will look to companies for space travel and NASA to find that space to travel to safely with understanding. Putting humans on Mars will be difficult and dangerous, but once learned quite possibly profitable and the start of a new era.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
If it really is just mankind being wiped out that bothers you, we can do that much better via various deep-ocean bases and deep underground bunkers.
But honestly now, admit it. You just like the idea of having people on Mars. Well, that's okay. I think it's cool too. Exploration, and all that. But let's not go kidding ourselves that it has something to do with "preserving humanity", because that's patently absurd. That it's possible to go there is good enough reason to do it.
But can we trust their choice of the first women?
It is not unreasonable to suppose a woman will be sent on the first manned Martian mission. There will likely be 3 or 5 people. Odd to break tie votes. The team will include the best engineer we can find. Certainly the best doctor. Maybe a pilot/trained technician.
Why not a woman? You might call it a political move, but that's ok. An African American too, maybe? And if a woman goes, perhaps we should send her husband also, so that jealousy/ill-will doesn't surface amount the male crewmembers. Just interesting points to think about.
Lameness filter go away, come again some other day.
DNA just wants to be free...
http://www.elektra.com/hoodoogurus/music/
In fact, it's cold as hell...
where are these vast stockpiles that Saddam had the country teeming with?
Does fertilizer count?
This's a serious question, actually. Ammunition supply depots have been found with insane amounts of fertilizer stockpiled in drums. Funny, these ammo dumps, in the middle of the desert, don't exactly have big flea infestations. So what's all the fertilizer, hmm?
Okay, so it's not the kind of smoking gun everybody expects, but frankly, do you really expect we'd find clearly-marked barrels saying "these are chemical weapons--don't let the US/UN see, please!"? The people there got really good at hiding what they were doing. So from that, what might you extrapolate? (aside from: clearly, there were no WMD as we haven't found them yet)
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
I am highly offended by the way women are being spoken of in this "news" story. ;)
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
What was ill-mannered about my wanting women? It's the truth. I know, women aren't interested in truth, but there it is. Which is why I try NOT to pretend.
You could read an old book on relationships called "Pairing" by Dr. George Bach. Came out in the 60's or 70's IIRC. Had to do with being "real" in talking to people to avoid the misunderstandings that wreck relationships or prevent them from starting in the first place. Really good book.
"Pretending to be offended" is not the way to go.
Which leads me to suspect you really aren't a girl. The other poster was right - show me a picture. Prove the picture is of you.
This reminds of a quote from Andrea Corr of the rock group The Corrs. She said when she was voted the sexiest woman in rock that she hoped that didn't mean the voters wanted to sleep with her.
Parse that statement.
I was wondering if her older brother and two sisters had explained this whole boy-girl thing to her as she was growing up.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
That's another thing!
I have NEVER been able to fake being a "normal person!"
Also, as Robert Anton Wilson says, "The average person is what nobody quite is."
I can, however, be nice some of the time and cosmic evil some other part of the time.
I just haven't decided the proper percentages yet.
But the older I get, the more I lean to the "cosmic evil" side.
Just seems to pay off more.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
But you do know, don't you, that Bill Gates gave $100 million to fight HIV and $421 million to fight Linux and Open Source when he visited India in 2002. You can read about it here too.
Philanthropist indeed.
Stick Men
I think mars should really have a permanent base.
..
Why bother with sending the martionauts back ? I think you need at about 3 times the fuel to do that. Do stay on Mars, of course you really need to establish a working base on mars first.
By this I mean a fully robotical, remote-directed, but mostly autonomous complex that can extract building materials, water and air, and harvest organic substances e.g. soil and carbon (to produce food later). Mining chemicals and energy collectors would also be nice.
However, this requires a level of sophistication and organization similar to the Borg. So it is unlikely that this will happen before big advances in nanotechnology and assemblers(whatever scale) have been made.
We already have the basics of such technologies, like 3D-printers, but it is pretty costly and just think how much it will cost when it has to live up to outer space specifications.
So either it will be very long before Mars becomes an objective, or it might happen earlier but be only a short visit done in competition with, say, China.
All of the above might also make a nice RTS
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Soviet Mars -- the Red Planet.
But right now, Mars needs cows.
Aurora
You wouldn't want to eat the parts of cows (and assorted other animals, including pets, they mix in) they feed to other cows.
If you're morbidly curious, do some research on where the products of rendering plants go sometime.
DNA just wants to be free...