Curiosity landed on Mars! — Page 2

Leonardo said:

Would you guys say there's not that much interest in space since... well, the 70's? Nowadays, if something happens in the scientific world regarding some new conquers in the matter of the colonization of outer space, it gains a little attention in the news, say a couple of weeks, people may think "huh, neat" but then it's quickly forgotten in favor of some blonde bimbo who gained her 15 minutes of fame doing something absolutely inane and vulgar on tv.

I mean, let's face it, space, sad as it is, has lost its appeal.

 

....Meet Leo, dispenser of platitudes...

Kinda funny that here, at a Star Wars site, people are bored with space and other planets ;)

Those pictures of Mars rocks are pretty cool.  I wish the news did cover this stuff more.  It really is more amazing than people are aware.  All the planets in our solar system are unique and special in their own ways.  Each shows just how earth could have ended up had things been slightly different.  Mars has seasons.  It's only about 50% further from the sun than we are.  It has a great deal of water locked up in its polar caps.  It's red color comes from its covering of iron oxide.  In other words, there is a great deal of oxygen there.  There is so much potential for this planet.  And while we currently have difficulties with fueling and other such prohibitions, the greatest problem is the lack of shielding from cosmic rays, which are extremely powerful particles that can quite damaging.  Astronauts saw periodic flashes of light while on the moon, and didn't know what it was.  Later it was determined that these were cosmic rays passing through their retinas.  Subsequent examinations of their helmets found extremely small areas of damage where these particles past through.  Other radiation such as gamma radiation also poses a problem.  A lengthy trip to Mars would be dangerous to life and limb.  But it is possible if we can find some effective shielding.  Makes me think of energy shielding, something like our radiation belts around our planet that keep us safe.  Can we create something similar artificially?  This is mostly off the top of my head, but to me it is endlessly fascinating!

^^Excellent points, Tyrphanax!  It truly is a thrilling thought!

        I want a trip to LEO. I want to do all that cool stuff I've been watching a few astronauts do for the past 40 years. I don't think we need hotels up there, just 3 or 4 hours of playing and sightseeing. Maybe an inflatable chamber or big empty fuel tank with windows built in the sides.

        I see NASA, as currently constituted, as more of a hindrence than help in achieving that goal. These government agencies all have thier own little institutional cultures. NASA's is still "Money is no object- look at this neat video- and if you ask how much it costs, you are an EVIL LUDDITE and an ENEMY OF ALL HUMAN PROGRESS!!>8-0 

       NASA spends way too much on using 90 year old liquid fuel rocket tech to get more neat little videos and pictures of more or less the same stuff we saw 30 years ago. What has the ISS done and why is it worth HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS? Is it possible that 10 billion of those dollars spent on earth would have yielded more worthwhile tech? Sure NASA has also done some neat science, but most of that doesn't mean anything to anyone but a couple thousand scientists. It's not the kind of stuff that can really motivate a 13 year old to go into engineering.

      I wonder what we would have now if we had taken a different course. Mercury and Gemini were necessary stepping stones, I think landing a man on the moon ONE TIME was worthwhile for inspiration and national prestige. A Skylab program to run for a couple of years wouldn't have been too bad since we already had the SaturnV. I remember the meeting of the US and USSR in orbit as a positive suggestion of future cooperation in space. What if we had completely ENDED our manned space program then and there in the early '70s? Would it really have been such a terrible loss? Those flyby probes up to the Voyagers provided some great pics. Viking gave us some too. What if we had ended the deep system probes in the mid-'70s? After all, we still would have had an enormous collection of video of summersaulting astronauts and pics of Saturn. We could have cut those into great inspirational films for the schoolkids.

      What if we had taken a fraction of the money we've spent on flipping astronauts and deep system photostunts and gave it to DARPA, an organization with a better track record of sponsoring effective prize contests and R&D for the money, so they could develope new propulsion tech to get us into orbit for a small fraction of the cost? Would some crazy engineers have gone into their garages and come out with a solution by now?

      I'm all for Mission To Earth sattelites to examine our planet and magnetosphere as well as some to examine the Sun and it's effect on the Earth and others to look out for approaching asteroids. We have to remember that the deep system stuff has been up there for billions of years and will all be there 30 years from now when we should have the tech to take much greater leaps of understanding in a much shorter space of time.

      Also, I'm tired of watching flipping astronauts who aren't me!  

Tyrphanax said:

Six tenths of one penny of every tax dollar ain't much to be spent on NASA.

It might not seem like we're making much progress now, but we really are. People asked why we "wasted" so much time figuring out quantum mechanics in the 20s, but if we hadn't, we probably wouldn't be talking on this forum right now.

      Now that it's up there, Curiosity is kinda fun to follow. 

      6/10ths of the entire federal budget. But the manned and deep system programs are entirely unnecessary at this time. 100% of their budgets must be counted towards the deficit and the debt. 6/10ths becomes a % of the deficit that starts to look significant. The ISS, after the interest to China is counted in, will be about half a trillion dollars.

      Even more concerning than the money is the MASSIVE diversion of scitech talent. I've read that the processors and computers on the ISS are from the '80s and early '90s. That is not breaking any new ground in microminiaturization or computing. The solar panels needed to be developed for commercial and military sattelites in any case. Most of the non-endurance experiments could probably have been carried out with good robot arms. We wonder why other countries edge us out in consumer electronics or machine tools that would increase our economy instead of draw from it. Our best R&D people are busy taking videos of another upside-down astronaut.

      Not all R&D is created equal. In the Heroic Age, we had to do things that no one had ever done. We had to beat the Soviets so we wouldn't cede the high ground and allow others to continue believing that a horrible totalitarian system would overtake us. This led to a strong push for quick advances. With no threat to push us and no great rush to get there because we are already dominant, there is a very different dynamic. DARPA still has some sense of urgency and attempts to develope useful things within a generation. Commercial concerns in this country face incredible pressure without the best people.

      If I was a Japanese or German official, I'd contribute my people's tax money to NASA's publicity-lobbying machine. I sometimes wonder whether the nickles and dimes other countries have thrown into our manned programs were acts of industrial sabotage. The Chinese are loaning us ALL of the money for this.

      As far as inspiring the younglings, I grew up in the '70s and early '80s. Star Wars and Star Trek inspired much of my interest in sci-tech. The Heroic Age and Voyager did as well. The dangerous white elephant of a space shuttle did very little for me. It would cost next to nothing to create videos and movies with Heroic Age film. Imagine how many inspiring space movies and TV series, produced by the very best industry talent, we could have had with a tiny fraction of the manned space budget.

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/12/17285137-nasas-mars-curiosity-rover-finds-signs-of-ancient-habitability-in-rock?lite

Interesting!