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."
Understanding (Score:5, Insightful)
it also defrays the expense of it all too... (Score:4, Insightful)
It does make sense (Score:5, Insightful)
A multinational expedition is logical (Score:2, Insightful)
share toilets this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Will each nation have to provide their own toilets?
Re:share toilets this time (Score:1, Insightful)
Unshackle Russian Engineers from Russian System (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the Russian system -- with its corruption and massive budget cuts (afte 1991) in government-funded research and development -- has hampered Russians scientists and engineers in their effort to produce breakthrough technology. NASA's collaboration with the Russian scientific community (and possible NASA funding for it) will help the Russians to achieve what they can not achieve in their own system.
If only President Dmitry Medvedev and Dictator Vladimir Putin created a Western society (with its intellectual freedom and clean government) in Russia and generously funded government research and development, then the Russians would likely dominate the winners of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences and of the Fields Medals in mathematics.
To hell with Mars, at least for now (Score:5, Insightful)
If we really want to do anything with space, we need to start doing things with economic significance. The moon trip should have been about pioneering the way towards moon habitats, moon industry. In that case it would have been money well-spent. All we really did was plant a flag and thumb our noses at the Soviets. Entertaining but of little real use. Sure, there was some spin-off technology but we threw it all away.
Planting a flag on Mars would end up being a similar waste of time, not if we weren't going to follow it up with anything else.
If we were really serious about it, we'd look into moving heavy industry offworld. Prospect our nearby apollo objects, see about mining them. Put manufacturing in Earth orbit. The only thing that comes down to Earth would be finished products in nice, simple, recyclable dropshells.
We might want to look into solar power sats while we're at it.
If nothing else, at least space exploration and living offers us an engineering challenge of figuring out how to live minimally with minimal resources. Our problem in this day and age is that resources are too cheap and there's little incentive to save. If gas were a nickel a gallon, the only selling point for fuel efficiency would be not having to stop for gas as often. Gas costs more than that, of course, but it still doesn't cost enough for us to take conservation and fuel efficiency seriously. And we don't. It's just like the buffet. If you go to one that charges by the pound, you're careful about what you take. If you go to one that doesn't charge by the pound, you take as much as you want and are casually wasteful about what you leave on the plate. Simple human nature.
Re:Understanding (Score:1, Insightful)
I hope this happens in my lifetime. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:To hell with Mars, at least for now (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect that you are underestimating the costs involved traveling through Earth's gravity well. I've heard that if a rock of solid gold were orbiting Earth, it would not be economically viable to de-orbit it. Unless we discover something out there that is fantastically valuable, "industry" will not be the motivating factor for space travel.
Having self-sufficient off-world biospheres? That's a worthwhile endeavor simply because survival of the species is important; it's just not valuable to private industry (oh and suck it, libertarians).
Robert H. Goddard (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To hell with Mars, at least for now (Score:2, Insightful)
Virtually all the ROI of the moon landings was from the technology developed for the program, not from going to the moon itself.
I suppose the lesson is to develop the technology to go to Mars, but not actually go
Or go back to the moon; closer, cheaper, quicker.
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success, but not efficient (Score:4, Insightful)
With one country, wars simply become internalized (Score:1, Insightful)
Look what happened to the soviet union.
When we are ruled by just one government, you will find that large chunks of the world's population are oppressed and heavy handed use of police powers become the norm. While there is competition between states to take the high moral ground, there is also impetus to demonstrate freedom and democracy too. As soon as there is a unified world government you will see the bonds tightened and freedoms brushed aside.
It is better to have multiple systems running in parrallel. That way there is always somwhere left to run to.
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Re:Understanding (Score:3, Insightful)
And why would we want a unified planet? I mean you can't even get to one p.o.v with all your friends, let alone a whole country, and you expect global lockstep?
There will always be differences and arguments. The point is that we will hopefully be able to solve them without ripping our heads off. But this does not mean we all have to live under the same rules. We can live happily side-by-side with differing view.
The only thing a global unity is absolutely guaranteed to bring, is the lack of any freedom of choice in politics/regime/laws/etc. Imagine the US nation under bush, or how it's in UK now... But global! Now think about this: Where would all those go, who wanted to leave the country?
Well, in the long term, they would go to jail. It's the totalitarian dream. And it will only happen over my dead body, and those of many many other people.
Re:Understanding (Score:5, Insightful)
There's lots of things that a properly implemented world government could do that would be fantastic and in the long run would benefit everyone on the planet.
There are a lot of things that Santa Claus could do that would be fantastic and in the long run would benefit everyone on the planet too... they're about as likely to happen as a 'properly implemented world government'.
You seem to be under the impression that a 'world government' would be something other than a collection of psychopaths desperate to prey on the rest of us.
The odd thing is that I find the people who most promote 'world government' are also normally big promoters of 'diversity', and don't even see the blatant inconsistency between those position.
Re:Understanding (Score:3, Insightful)
I have always admired the American response to hate speech. "It may be harmful, it may be spiteful and untrue, but you can say whatever the fuck you want to say."*
They've fucked that up in Canada, and it makes me sad.
*except on TV.
Monopolies are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
We've already seen what Globalization does when "the" economy has issues. A housing crisis in the USA doesn't cause issues in China without globalization.
The Free Trade advocates always sold the advantages, which were readily calculable; but ignored the disadvantages which are harder to measure until you actually experience them.
Only now are people beginning to realize something that should have been apparent right from the start: one single, massive economic system is inherently bad. It's like a monopoly. There's no backup.
It's even worse if you take this philosophy and duplicate it outside the financial realm. We already see this with the "war on drugs". Many countries that would like to legalize may not do so, not because of internal resistance; but because they've signed a UN convention.
Now take that, and apply it to ALL the laws. Yuck.
Most people don't like war, but if the alternative is a "one size fits all" solution, there will be times when it doesn't fit, and war becomes the only alternative. They just won't be wars between nation-states anymore. They'll all be civil wars, which are oftentimes far worse.
Also, what about refugees? Tell me, where do the boat people go when everywhere is Cuba?
Re:It does make sense (Score:3, Insightful)
You present the process of kludging together this boondoggle and spreading pork to different political centers as proof of its "success". You neglect to mention that it was so vastly over budget and behind schedule that they canceled most any of the "science" they planned to do on it. The main purpose of its remaining skeleton crew has been to try to keep it from falling out of orbit, as well as a feeble excuse to keep its sister boondoggle, the Space Shuttle, off of the scrap heap. This entire enterprise has achieved little else than to propagate its own existence at huge expense.
Re:Future Conflict? (Score:3, Insightful)
The mutual need for survival would probably cause the astronauts/cosmonauts to cooperate long enough to get back to Earth alive. Where they'd land would be an interesting question, of course.
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Re:Understanding (Score:5, Insightful)
In a speech [youtube.com] to the UN, Reagan once said:
"I couldn't help but say to him, just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held, if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet outside in the universe. We'd forget all the little local differences we've had between our countries and we'd find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together."
Re:Connect Four is bad (Score:3, Insightful)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares?"
That's nice. But what about non-intensive purposes?
DO NOT QUESTION the almighty misquoted idiom!
If The Average Idiot has decided that it is "for all intensive purposes" from now on, then THAT'S WHAT IT IS, because language evolves to fit the speaker! Those of us who do not accept this change are simply living in the past! Thus, there is no such thing as "correct" speech or writing!
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Re:Connect Four is bad (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Ah those crazy Russians! (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively one could leave out the men from the mission. Women tend to weigh less than men, so you'll have room for more cargo. As they weigh less, they also eat less, which again allows you to either carry more cargo or have the food last longer.
In an environment where you either experience micro gravity or 1/3rd gravity you don't need the "big strong" physique that people tend to think is necessary for exploration. And women are generally better at multitasking than men, which is definitely an advantage in that kind of environment.
An as for the "but ten women locked up together for years will be useless for five days a month", that could be solved fairly easily with either medication or pre-flight surgery.
And let's not forget - who would you rather watch on pay-per-view? 10 guys [spacefeelings.com] locked up together for years or 10 women [wordpress.com] locked up together for years?