If they're on the surface they already have everything they need: food, water, fuel, and shelter. Send this stuff first on an efficient, long trajectory, make sure it got down okay and is functioning, and then launch the astro/cosmo/taiko -nauts
Of course, if they're in orbit (Like Mars Express), your argument holds up. I've got no problem with orbiting space probes, but humans still have the upper hand at terrestrial exploration.
1) Cell Phones work in power outages
2) Buy a UPS for your networking equipment to give you a few hours of talk time
3) Keep your old landline with the bare minimum plan. Without phone service all jacks still dial 911 and the phone company. I'd imagine a collect call would work also.
They're companies. They're always going to try to bleed you for every possible cent. Sometimes they'll be nice and use a syringe, other times they'll use an axe and a bucket.
It's called profit seeking, and it's what most people think makes capitalism so freaking great.
My Powerbook has Bluetooth, which I can set up with the same Bluetooth headset I use for my cell phone. With Softphone or Skype, I can use that headset to make and recieve calls.
Now if only I could route my cell phone's audio through my Powerbook. Then we'd be cookin' with gas.
Launch Mars mission from the moon, where the gravity well is shallower.
With what factories? With what people? Eating what food? Grown under what nuclear powered flourescent lights?
What you're proposing is getting to Mars in 100 years, at least. If we had gotten to the East Coast of the US and stopped to build more ships we wouldn't have had the capabilities for 100 years. It took us 200 years (1600-~1800) just to mount a government funded expedition across the continent.
Go to the moon *and* go to Mars. Give people living on the moon a reason to go to Mars.
Hang on, I have to send the reply over a 20 minute time delay at 56kbps from an underclocked 386 running on solar power that's only able to move a few meters a day over completely flat terrain.
Maybe we can use the moon for something... Perhaps it could be used as a gravity assist to give a Mars-bound craft a boost. With the right trajectory we'd only need a little more fuel than we'd need to get to L1...
Once you get out of LEO, it costs about the same to get to Mars as it does to get to the Moon. By launching from the moon you make the craft have to climb out of two gravity wells.
Oh, and where are we going to get the fuel for this Mars rocket? Earth, because there's no way to do in-situ propellant production on the moon. So we launch the craft, then all the fuel to get it to the Moon, then all the fuel to get it to Mars. This doesn't include, however, the hydrogen that will have evaporated off while in transit or on the surface.
That doesn't make any sense. About the only thing that would be the similar between a Mars mission and Moon mission would be terrestrial (or arestrial or lunestrial as the case may be) vehicles.
The moon doesn't have an atmosphere, Mars does. The moon has 1/2 the gravity of Mars. (1/6g vs. 1/3g.) The moon is three days away, Mars is six months, minimum. The Moon has a 28-day sol, Mars has a 24.75 hour sol. Mars has water, the moon's water is still under question. The moon has huge temperature swings; Mars... not so much.
To me, this is like preparing for a mission to Antarctica and saying it's applicable in Canada's North Woods. Yeah, they're both cold, but one has trees, liquid water for at least part of the year, and mud. Not much the same.
The moon is considerably harder to survive on than Mars. There's no atmosphere, sketchy evidence of water, and (unless you go polar) 14 days of darkness, which I've heard plants don't like too much.
Mars, on the other hand, has an atmosphere that can block most of the bad radiation, frozen water on the surface that we can harvest, and about a 24-hour sol. Heck, the atmosphere is almost pure CO2, which plants grow very well in. And there have been successful experiments in growing plants in Martian soil in the Martian atmosphere, but at terrestrial pressures and temperatures.
Lest you forget, corporations are also lazy, corrupt, wasteful and greedy. They often end up costing people more money than if public entities had to compete for the job.
Isn't a $16.5 million severance package for a CEO wasteful?
So you favor taking the wealth of the top 10% of the population (which is 70% of the wealth in the nation) and redistributing it equally? Great! When can I expect to get my $380,000?
I mean, if more people have more money, that means more money will be moved around, which is good. Right?
Electricity is a privelege, and you have the government subsidizing low-income electric bills. They do the same with water, gas, telephone and house payments.
It might be a luxury now, but paved roads were also once a luxury, as were running water, electricity and telephone service.
And having it be in the hand of a corporation isn't protecting it from laws. In fact, you're exposing it to double regulation; first by the corp, then by the government.
I'd rather pay $100/year in taxes for free WiFi anywhere than $5/month to a corporation. At the very least I know more of my money is going to go towards maintaining the system and not lining a CEO's pockets at the expense of the workers.
I'd really like to set up WiFi like public TV. Pay for the implimentation with public money, and then operate and expand on a donations-based system. With a mesh network this is very inexpensive.
I'm going to carry what I need when I need it. If I only need my phone, I'll carry my phone. If I need other things, I'll carry them. A device that does one thing is always smaller than a device that does more than that. Remember the cell phone on a chip?
I carry my cell phone and my iPod with me everywhere in my jacket. If I need to, I have an extra pocket for my eTrex GPS reciever, which I don't always need. I bought a sleeve for my powerbook so i can carry that to and from work, and it fits inside another bag for longer trips.
Let's look at it in another way: 1 person walks at about 2 km/d. 1 robot moves at 2 m/d. That's 1/1000th of what a human is capable of. If you work that out to 1 year, and calculate the total area that can be explored, the human can do 1 million times more "science" than the rover.
So, in terms of $/unit area, the human is a better choice. A human (assuming $350 billion per human, 2 km/day, 1 year stay, 1,674,154 square km of land within range for 1 year stay) costs $208,936/sq km and a robot costs (assuming $350 million per robot, 2m/day, 1 year stay, and 1.6 sq km of land within range of 1 year of stay) $209,060,849/sq km.
But this ignores the ease with which a human can obtain the information, the experience gained from living on another planet, and the pride in having a human on another planet in our solar system.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, if they're in orbit (Like Mars Express), your argument holds up. I've got no problem with orbiting space probes, but humans still have the upper hand at terrestrial exploration.
1) Cell Phones work in power outages 2) Buy a UPS for your networking equipment to give you a few hours of talk time 3) Keep your old landline with the bare minimum plan. Without phone service all jacks still dial 911 and the phone company. I'd imagine a collect call would work also.
It's called profit seeking, and it's what most people think makes capitalism so freaking great.
Now if only I could route my cell phone's audio through my Powerbook. Then we'd be cookin' with gas.
With what factories? With what people? Eating what food? Grown under what nuclear powered flourescent lights?
What you're proposing is getting to Mars in 100 years, at least. If we had gotten to the East Coast of the US and stopped to build more ships we wouldn't have had the capabilities for 100 years. It took us 200 years (1600-~1800) just to mount a government funded expedition across the continent.
Go to the moon *and* go to Mars. Give people living on the moon a reason to go to Mars.
Hang on, I have to send the reply over a 20 minute time delay at 56kbps from an underclocked 386 running on solar power that's only able to move a few meters a day over completely flat terrain.
Hrm...
Oh, and where are we going to get the fuel for this Mars rocket? Earth, because there's no way to do in-situ propellant production on the moon. So we launch the craft, then all the fuel to get it to the Moon, then all the fuel to get it to Mars. This doesn't include, however, the hydrogen that will have evaporated off while in transit or on the surface.
If Chewbacca is a wookie, you must acquit.
The moon doesn't have an atmosphere, Mars does. The moon has 1/2 the gravity of Mars. (1/6g vs. 1/3g.) The moon is three days away, Mars is six months, minimum. The Moon has a 28-day sol, Mars has a 24.75 hour sol. Mars has water, the moon's water is still under question. The moon has huge temperature swings; Mars... not so much.
To me, this is like preparing for a mission to Antarctica and saying it's applicable in Canada's North Woods. Yeah, they're both cold, but one has trees, liquid water for at least part of the year, and mud. Not much the same.
If global warming weren't true, then this idea wouldn't work.
Mars, on the other hand, has an atmosphere that can block most of the bad radiation, frozen water on the surface that we can harvest, and about a 24-hour sol. Heck, the atmosphere is almost pure CO2, which plants grow very well in. And there have been successful experiments in growing plants in Martian soil in the Martian atmosphere, but at terrestrial pressures and temperatures.
Imagine the irony of having a Doom 3 LAN party on Mars.
Excuse me, but I pay my own electric bill, those electrons are fully owned by me.
Isn't a $16.5 million severance package for a CEO wasteful?
I mean, if more people have more money, that means more money will be moved around, which is good. Right?
Why not the Internet?
And having it be in the hand of a corporation isn't protecting it from laws. In fact, you're exposing it to double regulation; first by the corp, then by the government.
I'd really like to set up WiFi like public TV. Pay for the implimentation with public money, and then operate and expand on a donations-based system. With a mesh network this is very inexpensive.
This is America we're talking about here. ;-)
The Mac Mini uses 85W @ peak. My G4/400 uses 120W @ peak. It's a little more complicated than "slower computer better."
I carry my cell phone and my iPod with me everywhere in my jacket. If I need to, I have an extra pocket for my eTrex GPS reciever, which I don't always need. I bought a sleeve for my powerbook so i can carry that to and from work, and it fits inside another bag for longer trips.
I don't have trouble carrying anything.
So, in terms of $/unit area, the human is a better choice. A human (assuming $350 billion per human, 2 km/day, 1 year stay, 1,674,154 square km of land within range for 1 year stay) costs $208,936/sq km and a robot costs (assuming $350 million per robot, 2m/day, 1 year stay, and 1.6 sq km of land within range of 1 year of stay) $209,060,849/sq km.
But this ignores the ease with which a human can obtain the information, the experience gained from living on another planet, and the pride in having a human on another planet in our solar system.
I would rather have ten devices that do their jobs very well than one device that does ten jobs poorly.
And the only reason I'd go to Chicago is to not eat a nice, big steak.
You don't grill steaks on a printer, dummy. You grill them on the heat sink of an overclocked P4.