Slashdot Mirror
Next Mars Mission Selected For Funding
First time accepted submitter Dr Bip writes "Flush with the good news coming from Mars, NASA has announced that JPL has won funding for the next mission to Mars. It seems that the lander will be carrying a self-driving mole developed by the German space agency (DLR). Commiserations to the two other projects that were also in the selection finale (TiME and CHopper). Note the DLR mole's last attempt to get to Mars was with the Beagle 2 lander, fingers crossed for this second attempt."
I guess we'll never build base camp on the moon. It would be so much cheaper to send some 3D printers up there to melt some rocks and build and launch the next probes
That makes too much sense. The government will never go for it.
Private enterprise, OTOT...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I'm tired of the European national programs. Why don't we go together with ESA. I know that every country want to get its money back and that ESA is a administrative mess, but let's try it. (ok I may be one of the few people dreaming of a really unified Europe (or better, World) on every subject)
Probably because ESA will want to lay off some of the costs on NASA, and NASA will get defunded because of the ESA investment. It's happened before, it'll happen continually. Same thing with a UN-funded space program. Lotta people want it, nobody wants to fund it, so it'll never happen.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Personally I'm less certain that people need to go to these places. Kind of a stunt, right? Because we have such great imaging and 'bots now.
My friend works at JPL, he told me Carl Sagan once gave a talk to the staff there and basically said as much... No we don't need to send people there, but enthusiasm over manned space flight is what pays for all these robotic science missions.
Either way, we need better propulsion systems. If we're sending people, we need better toilets.