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NASA's New Horizons Shows Pluto's Moon Charon Is a Strange, New World
MarkWhittington writes: NASA's New Horizons has returned a stunning series of images of Pluto, the dwarf planet that resides on the edge of the solar system, revealing a strange new world of ice mountains and glaciers of frozen nitrogen. NASA also released images of Pluto's largest moon Charon. Scientists expected a plain ball of rock pockmarked with craters, but what they saw was anything but plain and monotonous.
We need 3 missions to Pluto, the first mission we send a man around Pluto and back home.
The second mission we send a different man to Charon as practice for the Pluto mission
Each mission will build on the legacy of the last.
Finally we'd land a man on Pluto, make him read a speech and come home. "One small step for a man".... Wait, lets make it a woman this time. "One small step for a woman"... no I have a great idea, we'll make it a transgender! Then nobody would dare say we're show-boating to justify our budget!
If we can't send a transgender somewhere useless, how will we be able to send them somewhere useful?
The real question is why wouldn't we go there? The only answer to that is because we lack vision or courage or political will. The likely benefits of going greatly outweigh the likely benefits of staying on Earth.
Just think for a second, we've solved the question of whether people can poo in space. We've even invented space toilets that are well tested. But we've never tested them on transgenders! Imagine all that we could learn from that! Then there's the spacesuit.... too unfashionable... think of the benefit to the fashion industry of having a fashion conscious transgender in Dior space suit! What perfume works best in zero G? Can you space walk in heels? So much science to learn!
If only this was the 3rd millennium and we'd invented some sort of robot rovers that could collect rocks and explore without us sending a brave transgender into the void to read speeches while wearing haut coiture!