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Flowing water on Mars + we're on the way via the Moon circa 2039 (maybe)

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    #32
    maquiladora
    Registered Users Posts: 11,134 ✭✭✭✭maquiladora


    Maximus Alexander wrote: »
    Elon Musk is going to have human boots on Mars inside the next 20 years. I don't doubt him for a second.

    Just boots, no humans? :p


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    #33
    dr.fuzzenstein
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,620 ✭✭✭✭dr.fuzzenstein


    shedweller wrote: »
    Its funny you mention the cost of it. We are currently paying an ungodly amount of money globally to private shareholders to do nothing more than put zeroes on computer monitors.
    Now that is futility on a gargantuan scale.
    Space exploration is in the hapenny place by comparison.
    As you can tell, this is pissing me off no end!

    But there's so much more than having to generate trillions to make stock market gamblers slightly richer!
    There's also huge money needed to make newer and shinier gizmos so porn and celebrity gossip can be spread faster, billions has to go into developing ever newer and flashier ways to kill each other and to make sure poor countries stay poor, where would we end up if everyone had western standards of living?

    Just the amount of money spend on science fiction movies over the last 20 years (and I do enjoy them), could have sent a thousand people to the Moon and Mars. My suggestion would have been instead of making Star Wars I-III, donate the money to the space programme. We would be at least to the Moon by now. And the world would be a better place for it and Jar Jar Binks would never have existed. I don't see a downside.
    Sorry, we need to spend our money on looking good, getting gossip, killing each other and keeping the other half down where they belong, the dirty animals. Plus we need to spend billions on then having to sort out (i.e. shoot aimlessly at stuff) their wars (caused by our greed and selfishness) and taking in the refugees. And then complain loudly about it. I'm afraid there is no room for space exploration and the advancement of mankind, we're too busy watching the X Factor.

    The Moon landing was on par with the first primitive creatures crawling out of the ocean, apes coming down from the trees, Columbus landing in America and then they all said "Nah, can't be arsed with this crap, what's on telly?". And that's where we have been ever since. We've tried that space crap, it wasn't as much fun as listening to tone-deaf idiots screeching their way through classic songs to entertain morons.
    And that is why mankind is doomed.
    If there is anything other than a few token unmanned probes over the next 20 years, I will eat my hat. And my shoes, my car, my house, my wife and the entire neighbourhood.

    Going back to the unmanned exploration:
    So, leaving the ocean was a mistake then? Getting down off those trees? Leaving Africa to see what is over that next hill? Vasco Da Gama, Magellan, Columbus, Scott, Shakelton, Gagarin, Apollo 11, all a waste of time? Why would we bother our hole evolving from single celled organisms?
    And the final argument for the people who say "There's no need to leave this planet", well Asteroids are nature's way of saying "How's that space program coming along?" Plus other planets may be nicer and not so full of horrible people as this one.

    Can anyone here imagine what would happen if we decided to all pull together purely for the advancement of humankind, instead of the usual selfishness, greed, stupidity and just downright primitive violence? Sorry, don't know why I said that. Silly question. Sometimes this planet is a crab bucket.
    Sorry, I couldn't put this in R&R, because most wouldn't understand what I'm on about.
    But (if you haven't guessed), I am rather pessimistic, because I have been reading articles like this since the 1970's, e.g. "thousands will live and work in space by the mid 80's", rubbish!
    I DO hope it does happen, but I've been disappointed for many, many years and maybe many years more than most people on here...
    Meanwhile Apple will spend twice the next Moon mission budget on making their next iPhone ever so slightly shinier. No, what am I saying, they will spend that on the marketing alone. The movie Idiocracy was initially meant to be a comedy. Sadly it has turned into a documentary over the years...
    Maximus Alexander wrote: »
    Elon Musk is going to have human boots on Mars inside the next 20 years. I don't doubt him for a second.

    Quite frankly, I do. There is nothing of any corporate value in that mission, there is no immediate multi billion profit in it, no shiny gizmos to be sold to the masses, no shares that can go up and inflate a companies value to billions that only exist on some stock market gambler's monitor and mean he can buy the latest Ferrari instead of having to wait for a week.


    edit:
    BTW: I really, really, desperately want to be wrong about this.


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    #34
    Maximus Alexander
    Registered Users Posts: 13,080 ✭✭✭✭Maximus Alexander


    dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »
    Quite frankly, I do. There is nothing of any corporate value in that mission, there is no immediate multi billion profit in it, no shiny gizmos to be sold to the masses, no shares that can go up and inflate a companies value to billions that only exist on some stock market gambler's monitor and mean he can buy the latest Ferrari instead of having to wait for a week.


    edit:
    BTW: I really, really, desperately want to be wrong about this.

    That makes sense for a normal person, but his entire goal in setting up SpaceX was not to make money, but specifically to make space travel cheap enough to put a million people on Mars. He's a weirdo - my kind of weirdo.


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    #35
    dr.fuzzenstein
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,620 ✭✭✭✭dr.fuzzenstein


    Maximus Alexander wrote: »
    That makes sense for a normal person, but his entire goal in setting up SpaceX was not to make money, but specifically to make space travel cheap enough to put a million people on Mars. He's a weirdo - my kind of weirdo.

    I like him already! You know where you stand with weird. I wouldn't trust a completely normal person as far as I could throw them, they're all about the bottom line and turning a profit at any cost. There may be hope for us yet.


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    #36
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,404 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »
    BTW: I really, really, desperately want to be wrong about this.
    Asteroids are the future.

    One more reason why people might not go to Mars any time soon.
    From the movie The Andromeda Strain - 1971
    We face quite a problem. How to dis-infect the human body, one of the dirtiest things in the known universe 2/_That is, without killing the human-being at the same time

    Google et al. are working on self driving cars down here. So we should have better robot explorers coming on line.

    We have surgeons who can operate remotely. So one option would be to have humans in orbit or on one of the moons controlling stuff on the ground. Add in a couple of satellites and it's near real time.


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    #37
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭_Tombstone_


    dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »
    I like him already! You know where you stand with weird. I wouldn't trust a completely normal person as far as I could throw them, they're all about the bottom line and turning a profit at any cost. There may be hope for us yet.

    He wants to send Nukes up to Mars - lots of them one after the other - to create mini suns over both Poles and kick start climate change up there to make it more habitable. I sorta am agreeing with your earlier post now though, you come across quotes from Astronauts/scientists/clever folk buried in alot of these stories about getting to Mars by 2030 and they all say it's b*llox/not a chance/not in our lifetime.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3258168/Elon-Musk-details-plan-BOMB-Mars-constant-nuclear-pulse-explosions-create-double-suns-heat-planet.html

    dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »
    Plus other planets may be nicer and not so full of horrible people as this one.

    They'll be the first ones up in First Class once they know it works right.


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    #38
    Mountainsandh
    Registered Users Posts: 6,700 ✭✭✭Mountainsandh


    I like Elon Musk.
    He thinks outside the box, but instead of dismissing his crazy ideas, he goes for it/them.
    Nice write ups about him there (great blog Wait But Why, lots of interesting articles) : http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html

    edit : to stay on topic, I'm in my forties, I'm very hopeful that there'll be humans on Mars within my lifetime. Hope I still have my senses to watch it unravel.


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    #39
    nokia69
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,050 ✭✭✭nokia69


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

    One more reason why people might not go to Mars any time soon.
    From the movie The Andromeda Strain - 1971
    We face quite a problem. How to dis-infect the human body, one of the dirtiest things in the known universe 2/_That is, without killing the human-being at the same time

    that won't stop anyone going to Mars, the Moon or any where else


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    #40
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭_Tombstone_


    nokia69 wrote: »
    that won't stop anyone going to Mars, the Moon or any where else

    Yea, shure they couldn't even do the rover properly...they won't even bother after awhile.


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    #41
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭_Tombstone_


    So here's what the first folk to mars are gonna live in,

    A 3D printed Ice Igloo

    3-D printed ice shelter for Mars wins $25,000 Nasa award

    http://www.marsicehouse.com/


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    #42
    dr.fuzzenstein
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,620 ✭✭✭✭dr.fuzzenstein


    _Tombstone_ wrote: »
    So here's what the first folk to mars are gonna live in,

    A 3D printed Ice Igloo

    3-D printed ice shelter for Mars wins $25,000 Nasa award

    http://www.marsicehouse.com/

    I wonder if sublimation is going to be a problem. I suppose the good thing is that repairs can be carried out with a bucket of water and just brush it onto the affected area. :pac:


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    #43
    shedweller
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,029 ✭✭✭shedweller


    dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »
    I wonder if sublimation is going to be a problem. I suppose the good thing is that repairs can be carried out with a bucket of water and just brush it onto the affected area. :pac:
    Can you imagine the mutterings of the astronaut whose job it is to do that!


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    #44
    dr.fuzzenstein
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,620 ✭✭✭✭dr.fuzzenstein


    shedweller wrote: »
    Can you imagine the mutterings of the astronaut whose job it is to do that!

    It's Lister!

    red+dwarf+2.PNG


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    #45
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭_Tombstone_


    _Tombstone_ wrote: »
    Yea, shure they couldn't even do the rover properly...they won't even bother after awhile.

    Mars Is Pretty Clean. Her Job at NASA Is to Keep It That Way.


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    #46
    _Tombstone_
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,006 ✭✭✭_Tombstone_


    What's Killing Mars?
    The Red Planet once had an ocean and a magnetic field. A new mission is setting out to discover what happened to them.


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