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NASA, European Space Agency Want To Go To Mars
coondoggie writes "NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are aiming to cooperate on all manner of robotic orbiters, landers and exploration devices for a future trip to Mars. Specifically, NASA and ESA recently agreed to consider the establishment of a new joint initiative to define and implement their scientific, programmatic, and technological goals for the exploration of Mars. The program would focus on several launch opportunities with landers and orbiters conducting astrobiological, geological, geophysical, climatological, and other high-priority investigations and aiming at returning samples from Mars in the mid-2020s."
Pfft! If they give enough money to Nasa on difficult enough project, they'll solve all of those. Well, maybe not the deficit, unless you consider the possibility of martian gold.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Perhaps investing in developing the new technologies we would need to get our asses to Mars would create all sorts of new jobs.
Anonymous Coward: "This is slashdot. Accuracy is second class citizen here, unlike King Bias."
NASA's budget is such a small fraction of the overall budget ($17.318 billion out of $2.9 trillion in 2008) that it really has very little effect on the economy. If you want to worry about the U.S. economy, fighting two different expensive wars is a much bigger problem. Less than half a penny out of every tax dollar goes to NASA. 5 cents goes to the 'global war on Terror.' [see: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ef/Fy2008spendingbycategory.png%5D
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Euro agency is nothing to do with EU, but hey don't let that stop you!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I think that being able to establish a base on the moon FIRST would be more practical and give us good practice for preparing for a base on Mars. Gotta walk before you can run....
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Aye, and any scientist/engineer with a degree from the last 20-30 years should be perfectly comfortable working with SI units. There are still hold outs, but they're just a few old fossils and managers. The people that do the actual science and engineering have no problem with SI.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
Just wait until you don't have to borrow the money to do so.
The US needs to figure out its side of the equation, what is more important, buying votes or science?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I disagree entirely with this comment but flamebait? I Think it is a valid concern, a stupid one given the NASA is a fraction of the US's Budget but not flamebait. stop modding by agree/disagree!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Sometimes serious scientific ventures are ALSO cock swinging contests.
Why not do both. if you look at somewhere like France they invest in "practical" research such as fusion reactors, blue-sky research such as CERN (15%) and the ESA (23%) which is somewhere between the two. The value of blue-sky research is hard to predict but taking a Thatcherite view and dismissing it altogether is naive and apart from slowing progress, it's not economically sound (I'm not saying spending too much on blue-sky is a good idea either). If you look at biological research I'd argue that much less progress has been done recently (compared to what could have been achieved) because too much funding is attached to direct studies like cancer research and not enough is being spread around to just see what happens (mapping the human genome style).
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
But like the American million dollar space pen/Russian pencil story, it will live on forever.
Actually, I wonder the same thing with actual gold sales where you don't physically receive the product. How do you know it isn't some dude with a phone center and a good printer?
Realistically, you could pull off such a scam by simply issuing gold notes. Lets say that the price of gold is $1000/ounce.
You collect $100000 from some guy and issue him a certificate stating that he has purchased 100 ounces from you which are his to collect within maturity of this note (or whatever language you want to include)
Now, you have $100,000 to work with. If Mr. Gold Buyer waits 10 years and wants to cash out his gold, all you have to do is outperform the gold market with that $100,000. You keep (or lose) the difference (ignoring taxes for simplicity)
There really isn't anything magical about the market... and come to think of it, why did I call that a scam? It's roughly what is going on in today's market with those notes. That's how most things are traded.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj