ot... Mars Phoenix Lander

[knotkranky]

This is reason enough. Check this footage. OMG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ff_j4mDyk

[forge]

This is reason enough. Check this footage. OMG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ff_j4mDyk

I was going to say it looked like a giant cock, then I found out why

[knotkranky]

[adventurepants_]

why?

why not?

mostly because it would be fucking cool to overcome the challenges, and do some good science. why did the ancients send ships over the horizon?

cosmic radiation is a major hurdle to overcome - astronauts sent to mars would almost certainly die from it, or at least get very sick

likewise, building a moon base is fraught with danger because of the amount of space rocks thumping into it - apparently it's not so much the rocks themselves but the pieces they smash into which are like bullets

hangon - was that this thread I read this in or was it Wired?

its a problem, but not insurmountable. this is a good page on the challenges:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m ... 40120.html

[knotkranky]

I think the bigger problem is sustainability. A week up and back to the moon. sure. Over two years for mars? what the fuck are
you gonna do, or eat and how are ya not gonna kill the person right next to you. We may have to destroy a few humans just to get them there. And then back?
It's all fantasy to me. But... there was only 66 years between Kittyhawk and the moon landing

[forge]

.. there was only 66 years between Kittyhawk and the moon landing

yeah - and there is no question progress happens much quicker now than it did then

personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that there is NOT life on other planets, but if they can travel here then they will have probably needed to develop some way of stepping through space - which I'd believe could be possible - going A to B just isn't going to be possible for anyone anywhere as the nearest possible planets are at least a whole human life time away at the speed of light

maybe well get to mars when we figure out what neutrinos are up to - or whatever those things are that apparently jump through space and maybe time - my complete coffee table ignorance of physics is showing now - maybe Higgs Boson is what I'm thinking of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

[Tone Deft]

the tough part is bringing people/things BACK from Mars. right now we can just send small robots with a short life span on a one way trip.

[adventurepants_]

.. there was only 66 years between Kittyhawk and the moon landing

yeah - and there is no question progress happens much quicker now than it did then

personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that there is NOT life on other planets, but if they can travel here then they will have probably needed to develop some way of stepping through space - which I'd believe could be possible - going A to B just isn't going to be possible for anyone anywhere as the nearest possible planets are at least a whole human life time away at the speed of light

maybe well get to mars when we figure out what neutrinos are up to - or whatever those things are that apparently jump through space and maybe time - my complete coffee table ignorance of physics is showing now

i would bet the farm that there is other life in the universe. the main problem is that given the size and age of the universe, the likelyhood that any two societies would actually reach the technology required for sustained spaceflight, and be close enough to meet each other, in the same timeframe is infinitesimal.

[Homebelly]

maybe well get to mars when we figure out what neutrinos are up to - or whatever those things are that apparently jump through space and maybe time - my complete coffee table ignorance of physics is showing now

Didn't i read some place that this has only been recorded once and that even then is was only possible because the circumstances of the experiment meant that the speed of light had been slowed down as it was having to travel through a medium other than a vacuum???

[forge]

my wikipedia attempt at finding out what I was on about lead me to this:

[adventurepants_]

this is the sort of stuff that the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider may answer.

the science they are starting to do there is off the freaking scale. recreating the conditions just after the big bang by firing particles around a 27km underground ring.

[forge]

.. there was only 66 years between Kittyhawk and the moon landing

yeah - and there is no question progress happens much quicker now than it did then

personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that there is NOT life on other planets, but if they can travel here then they will have probably needed to develop some way of stepping through space - which I'd believe could be possible - going A to B just isn't going to be possible for anyone anywhere as the nearest possible planets are at least a whole human life time away at the speed of light

maybe well get to mars when we figure out what neutrinos are up to - or whatever those things are that apparently jump through space and maybe time - my complete coffee table ignorance of physics is showing now

i would bet the farm that there is other life in the universe. the main problem is that given the size and age of the universe, the likelyhood that any two societies would actually reach the technology required for sustained spaceflight, and be close enough to meet each other, in the same timeframe is infinitesimal.

see I don;t agree with this - for the simple reason that if you think about it the technological level we are at now really has happened over the space of about 350 years since the industrial revolution

before then technology made really pretty small steps and technology wasn't a great deal different to what the Romans, Greeks and Persians etc had

so it is possible to go from inventing steam power to space flight and mapping the human DNA in under 400 years

that is an unbelievably small amount of time in cosmic terms to make such a massive leap

what if one other planet didn't have giant dangerous reptiles and the bi-pedal life forms with clever brains evolved 400 million years earlier?

and if the universe really is infinite then there are probably billions of worlds like this

I think tone deft's picture probably sums it up - we're probably being observed, but any higher intelligence must surely see there are too many reasons to not interfere - first there;s the chance we'll nuke them, but second they probably want to see what we do - it must be fascinating

[landrvr1]

But... there was only 66 years between Kittyhawk and the moon landing

...and that's really what it's all about. We've completely squandered the time since the moon landing with that goofy Space Shuttle. Okay, the Space Shuttle is kinda cool, but. But.

But the Shuttle program completely lacks the basic ingredients of any cool space endeavor: mystery, imagination, adventure. Sure one of them blows up every so often, but beyond that who gives a shit? Ho hum. Another shuttle mission.

It's pretty depressing when you think of how far we've got to go in order to even scratch the surface of the kind of basic tech you see in sciFi flicks. Fuck Mars. How about devoting all our energies and resources to developing faster than light travel? We could visit Mars in the morning and be back in time for lunch. Of course, everyone knows you can't go faster than light in terms of velocity, but Einstein left a nice wide opening in his theory that basically says your golden if you can figure out how to do what the universe already does naturally to a certain degree: fold the fabric of space time.

Warp Drive (and the ever-loving-cool Warp Bubble) here we come!

[knotkranky]

yeah - and there is no question progress happens much quicker now than it did then

personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that there is NOT life on other planets, but if they can travel here then they will have probably needed to develop some way of stepping through space - which I'd believe could be possible - going A to B just isn't going to be possible for anyone anywhere as the nearest possible planets are at least a whole human life time away at the speed of light

maybe well get to mars when we figure out what neutrinos are up to - or whatever those things are that apparently jump through space and maybe time - my complete coffee table ignorance of physics is showing now

i would bet the farm that there is other life in the universe. the main problem is that given the size and age of the universe, the likelyhood that any two societies would actually reach the technology required for sustained spaceflight, and be close enough to meet each other, in the same timeframe is infinitesimal.

see I don;t agree with this - for the simple reason that if you think about it the technological level we are at now really has happened over the space of about 350 years since the industrial revolution

before then technology made really pretty small steps and technology wasn't a great deal different to what the Romans, Greeks and Persians etc had

so it is possible to go from inventing steam power to space flight and mapping the human DNA in under 400 years

that is an unbelievably small amount of time in cosmic terms to make such a massive leap

what if one other planet didn't have giant dangerous reptiles and the bi-pedal life forms with clever brains evolved 400 million years earlier?

and if the universe really is infinite then there are probably billions of worlds like this

I think tone deft's picture probably sums it up - we're probably being observed, but any higher intelligence must surely see there are too many reasons to not interfere - first there;s the chance we'll nuke them, but second they probably want to see what we do - it must be fascinating

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudBfRa0ETw < how to serve man

[adventurepants_]

yeah - and there is no question progress happens much quicker now than it did then

personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that there is NOT life on other planets, but if they can travel here then they will have probably needed to develop some way of stepping through space - which I'd believe could be possible - going A to B just isn't going to be possible for anyone anywhere as the nearest possible planets are at least a whole human life time away at the speed of light

maybe well get to mars when we figure out what neutrinos are up to - or whatever those things are that apparently jump through space and maybe time - my complete coffee table ignorance of physics is showing now

i would bet the farm that there is other life in the universe. the main problem is that given the size and age of the universe, the likelyhood that any two societies would actually reach the technology required for sustained spaceflight, and be close enough to meet each other, in the same timeframe is infinitesimal.

see I don;t agree with this - for the simple reason that if you think about it the technological level we are at now really has happened over the space of about 350 years since the industrial revolution

before then technology made really pretty small steps and technology wasn't a great deal different to what the Romans, Greeks and Persians etc had

so it is possible to go from inventing steam power to space flight and mapping the human DNA in under 400 years

that is an unbelievably small amount of time in cosmic terms to make such a massive leap

what if one other planet didn't have giant dangerous reptiles and the bi-pedal life forms with clever brains evolved 400 million years earlier?

and if the universe really is infinite then there are probably billions of worlds like this

I think tone deft's picture probably sums it up - we're probably being observed, but any higher intelligence must surely see there are too many reasons to not interfere - first there;s the chance we'll nuke them, but second they probably want to see what we do - it must be fascinating

i dont think you appreciate the scale of the universe. our nearest star is about 5 light years away. thats 5 years travel time at the speed of light. an average star is literally thousands of light years away. so even if they were sending us the encylopedia galactica encoded into the wavelength of light, it would take thousands, tens of thousands or millions of years to reach us.

plenty of time for a civilisation to grow, develop and die out from its own hand or an extinction event.