NASA To Team Up With Russia For Future Mars Flight 318
xp65 writes "NASA has invited Russia to carry out a joint manned flight to Mars, the head of NASA's Moscow office said on Tuesday. Russia is currently planning to send its own expedition to Mars some time in the future. Marc Bowman told an international aviation and space conference in Moscow that the Mars mission should take advantage of the achievements made by the International Space Station and use a multinational crew."
Not actually. (Score:3, Informative)
Who are you referring to? Some Germans (notably von Braun) worked on american rockets after world war 2. I'm not aware of any Russians who figured prominently.
Sparse details (Score:5, Informative)
Before everybody gets all crazy and excited about this, there doesn't seem to be any details about Marc Bowman's comments anywhere (not even NASA's site) except for a 5-sentence blurb from RIA Novosti (the Russian state-owned news agency). There was a cool article in IEEE Spectrum recently about Russia's Mars dreams [ieee.org], but they were along the lines of "here's some neat ideas, we need money."
My suspicion is that Marc Bowman said something generic like "it would be nice for Russia and NASA to work together more in the future on things like Mars missions," and RIA Novosti just decided to run with it.
Re:Understanding (Score:4, Informative)
It's pretty clear that the right against self-incrimination and jury trial will be included in the 'World Constitutions', since it's there in the laws of most of developed nations.
No, nothing of the sort is "pretty clear". Not when the closest thing we currently have to a world government (the UN) lets countries like Libya and Cuba sit on human rights commissions.
Not so with guns (and speaking as a European - that's probably a plus).
So you admit that I'd lose a right that I already have? Way to sell me on the idea :) Saying it's a "plus" demonstrates that you are willing to go along with a policy of taking away the rights of another.
Hate speech laws is a tough one, agree.
No, it's not a tough one at all. Who gets to decide what's hate speech? The Government? Then they can decide that anything is hate speech and outlaw it. There are a few people on the left in the US that think the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are "hate" speech, whereas most sane people would regard their speech as political discourse. It may not be particularly intelligent political discourse but that doesn't mean it's "hate" speech.
If Government gets to decide what type of speech should be free then we don't have free speech. We have approved speech. You can spin it anyway you want but that's not free speech.
Re:Understanding (Score:4, Informative)
We'll probably have a federated republic, not a unitary state.
The US is a Federated Republic. As originally laid down it was never imagined that the Federal Government would get involved in everything from gun control to the welfare state. Why should I believe that a Federated World Government wouldn't be subject to the same mission creep and erosion of personal liberty?
Also, if you speak about guns as a right, then can you show me why it's a necessary right?
Do you believe that people have the right to defend themselves (self-defense) when confronted with someone who doesn't share our enlightened morality? If the answer is yes then why don't they have the right to have access to the tools that enable them to defend themselves effectively?
A gun is an equalizer. Nothing more, nothing less. Few of us geeks here on /. would be capable of prevailing in a fight against a hardened criminal who spent the last ten years in prison pumping iron. Put a gun in your hands and the odds change considerably. In the worst case scenario they are now equal. In the best case scenario they are tilted in your favor. I'm not a particularly religious person but I do agree with the sentiment behind this quote: God created man, but Samuel Colt made them equal.
There's also the argument that an armed population provides deterrence against external aggression. Switzerland is the best known example, though some sources indicate that the armed American population provided a deterrent to the Japanese in the early stages of WW2. I would go so far as to advocate that we emulate the Swiss/early American model. Disband most of the Army, while keeping specialist units (anti-aircraft brigades, artillery, intelligence, etc) and the Navy/Air Force around. In the event of a conflict it doesn't take that long to draft people into the service and teach them to fire a rifle. Such a system protects the country just fine while doing away with the standing army that the politicians are tempted to send on foreign adventures or use to oppress the population.
If none of those arguments hold water with you then I don't know what to say other than why do I have to prove that my rights are "necessary"? A Chinese person might argue that the right to free speech isn't "necessary". Many countries get along without it. I don't think we want to emulate them though.