NASA Launching Two Mars Rovers in June 211
shaniber writes "NASA is planning the launch of the Mars Exploration Rovers this month. The rovers are scheduled for two two separate launches, between June 5th and July 15th. These rovers will both work as robotic geologists, including a human-eye height panoramic camera and a miniature thermal emmision spectrometer amongst their scientific equipment. NASA plans on webcasting the launches, as well. A press kit, with many more details, is also available as a pdf."
Water, eh? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Water, eh? (Score:1)
Rovers on Mars (Score:1, Interesting)
I think we should bring back a huge piece of the Mars rock and put it on the moon and see if that somehow makes a chemical reaction that blows up the moon and we all are fearful of the crazy world Mars like in those 50s flicks.
Anyways this post just PROVES how ignorant the average man is to Mars and we need these rovers to prove my theories wrong, now m
Re:Rovers on Mars (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rovers on Mars (Score:3, Interesting)
A real problem with the Martian environment is that the dust on the surface is extraordinarily fine and penetrates deeply into any crevices. Worse still it is likely to be attracted by static charges that accumulate on the landers.
Since Martian dust is hard and abrasive it would quickly get to work on the joints of the machines making them much more prone to failure.
Wheels, particularly those on
Re:Rovers on Mars (Score:2)
I mean, I realize there are obviously alot of things that would need to be changed, but I see the platform itself, in that it has balance mechanisms and enough of a basic sensor array to know where itself lies relative to space (how else is it able to sit up and walk around, it has to know its feet are above the floor s
Re:Rovers on Mars (Score:2)
The current rovers have been designed to survive the forces of the launch, the baking and freezing imposed by the journey to Mars, the impact of the solar wind, the forces imposed by re-entry, deceleration and impact, the constant UV flux and the highly reactive Martian surface.
AIBO was designed to get around a flat, friendly living room, it would fail all the above tests. It doesn't lift its legs very far to walk, nor
The payload (Score:5, Informative)
Imagery (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Imagery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imagery (Score:2, Informative)
1. Because things move: wind, dust, heat distortion, light changing, etc. Even more when there is organic matter around (pollen, insects, animals, shadows, etc.). Your brain is good at tricking you into seeing stereoscopically. But all these subtle distortions would break that pipeline. It's like your internal 3D driver is optimize
Re:Imagery (Score:2)
Without actually seeing examples of these effects, I'm not convinced that they are a significant problem. Stereographs already mess up the pipeline and "don't feel right" in my experience; most obviously, your eyes only have to focus on the fixed plane of the image, instead of re-focusing as you look at different objects in the scene. It's not clear to me that the effects you mention will have any greater disruptive effect.
Re:Imagery (Score:3, Insightful)
I assume that someone has, at some point. But on earth, if you're shooting stereophotographs with any frequency at all, it's probably worth it to buy a matched pair of cameras and a rigid mount. But when you have to get that mass to Mars, it's a different story.
But if you want to use the moving-camera method on earth, this [bogenphoto.com] may come in handy.
Stereographs from Mars at the Lomaxes (Score:4, Funny)
"Hmmm... Well junior, that's because in the second photo that rock has grown little legs and moved to over there... Hey!"
Re:Imagery (Score:2)
To view in stereo, just hold the prints side-by-side and cross your eyes until the images overlap.
It works very well, although it isn't as nice as a dedicated 3D viewer.
The biggest problem with doing this on Earth is that almost everything moves at least a little in a second or two. A tree's branches shift in the wind. A car moves a little. Your friend's smile shifts
Re:Imagery (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Imagery (Score:2)
Re:Imagery (Score:2)
Anyways, there is a public version planned which includes the ability to not only make 3-D images using your graphics accellerator, but also to take two 2D images taken by the pair of pancams
Re:Imagery (Score:2)
More rovers!?! (Score:4, Funny)
I felt sorry for that one a few years back. Kind of like leaving a puppy when you move.
Re:More rovers!?! (Score:4, Informative)
Part of the intention of having 2 rovers is that they can assist each other. This should make it more difficult to get a rover irreversibly stuck by a rock (as happened last time). If this happens the other rover can now be manoeuvred to nudge the stuck one free of any obstcle.
NASA is under a lot of pressure for a successful Mars mission after the recent failures on the red planet and having 2 rovers minimises the risks.
Re:More rovers!?! (Score:2)
I think the reason behind sending two rovers is the potential for getting almost twice the science for a very modest investment since you only have to do your R&D once. A rough guess for sending one rover would be ~1B$ and adding a second would only add 200M$.
Re:More rovers!?! (Score:2)
The value of unmanned missions (Score:5, Interesting)
FYI, these probes cost about 400 million (USD) each, and promise to return more science value than
all Shuttle missions combined (IMHO).
Granted, it was said of the very valuable (scientifically speaking) Apollo missions that 90 seconds of human-on-alien-world visual observation was more valuable than weeks or months of robot observations.
Still, given their cost and advancing robotic/computer technology, I would be very disappointed if NASA continued to spend so much on manned space "exploration."
Truly a life defining moment... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truly a life defining moment... (Score:2)
Re:Truly a life defining moment... (Score:2)
That was MY generation!
(sigh)
I feel old.
Re:The value of unmanned missions (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, future of space exploration does ideally lead to human settlements on other planets; giving up manned space exploration only delays that goal.
The two go hand in hand (Score:2)
Maybe we should just scale up the programme - we're back in the unmanned phase and are going to send out swarms of probes until we find something to investigate that the probes CANNOT examine properley (ie we find life, or a big oil deposit, or a ruined city) and then and only then send people.
Re:The value of unmanned missions (Score:2, Insightful)
And while I know the situations are very different, the old cliche about what the world would be like now if the explorers of 500 years or so ago had felt the same way still holds.
Perhaps the next reality TV show should be set on the space station?
Re:The value of unmanned missions (Score:3, Informative)
Quick Facts (from PDF) (Score:4, Informative)
Spacecraft
Cruise vehicle dimensions: 2.65 meters (8.7 feet) diameter, 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) tall
Rover dimensions: 1.5 meter (4.9 feet) high by 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) wide by 1.6 meter (5.2 feet) long
Weight: 1,062 kilograms (2,341 pounds) total at launch, consisting of 174-kilogram (384-pound) rover, 365-kilogram (805-pound) lander, 198-kilogram (436-pound) backshell and parachute, 90-kilogram (198-pound) heat shield and 183-kilogram (403-pound) cruise stage, plus 52 kilograms (115 pounds) of propellant
Power: Solar panel and lithium-ion battery system providing 140 watts on Mars surface
Science instruments: Panoramic cameras, miniature thermal emission spectrometer, MÃssbauer spectrometer, alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, microscopic imager, rock abrasion tool, magnet arrays
Rover A Mission
Launch vehicle: Delta II 7925
Launch period: June 8-24, 2003
Earth-Mars distance at launch: 105 million kilometers (65 million miles)
Mars landing: Jan. 4, 2004, at about 2 p.m. local Mars time (8:11 p.m. Jan. 3 PST)
Landing site: Gusev Crater, possible former lake in giant impact crater
Earth-Mars distance on landing day: 170.2 million kilometers (105.7 million miles)
One-way speed-of-light time Mars-to-Earth on landing day: 9.46 minutes
Total distance traveled Earth to Mars (approximate): 500 million kilometers (311 million miles)
Near-surface atmospheric temperature at landing site: -100 C (-148 F) to 0 C (32 F)
Primary mission: 90 Mars days, or "sols" (equivalent to 92 Earth days)
Rover B Mission
Launch vehicle: Delta II 7925H (larger solid-fuel boosters than 7925)
Launch period: June 25-July 15, 2003
Earth-Mars distance at launch: 89 million kilometers (55 million miles)
Mars landing: Jan. 25, 2004, at about 1:15 p.m. local Mars time (8:56 p.m. Jan. 24 PST)
Landing site: Meridiani Planum, where mineral deposits suggest wet past
Landing time: Approximately 1:15 p.m. local Mars time (8:56 p.m. PST)
Earth-Mars distance on landing day: 198.7 million kilometers (123.5 million miles)
One-way speed-of-light time Mars-to-Earth on landing day: 11 minutes
Total distance traveled Earth to Mars (approximate): 491 million kilometers (305 million miles)
Near-surface atmospheric temperature at landing site: -100 C (-148 F) to 0 C (32 F)
Primary mission: 90 Mars days, or "sols" (equivalent to 92 Earth days)
Program
Cost: Approximately $800 million total, consisting approximately of $625 million spacecraft development and science instruments; $100 million launch; $75 million mission operations and science processing
Re:Quick Facts (from PDF) (Score:2)
Not only have you taken the time to post the contents of a link to
You, sir or madam, are among the best
Posting as me, with my karma bonus, so all the karma whores can get a clue.
will they land successfully? (Score:2, Funny)
Earthbound telescopes should all be trained to the heavens to catch this marvelous use of taxpayer money.
Re:will they land successfully? (Score:1)
Ask Slashdot: stowaway on board a spacecraft? (Score:2, Funny)
My question is: does anybody think it would be possible (let's assume one can get past the security, etc) to be a stowaway onboard the mars-bound spacecraft, if I don't plan to come back?
I mean, a spacesuit + a oxygen + urine/feces bag + yourself does not weight THAT much; and the acceleration won't kill you going up anyway.
So... what y'all think? haul ass to Mars, dig a shallow grave, and write in re
Re:Ask Slashdot: stowaway on board a spacecraft? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ask Slashdot: stowaway on board a spacecraft? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry about the big letters part. You could always move out into the desert and dedicate your life to digging mile-high letters in the sand, spelling "FUCK YOU" for the next shuttle crew that passes by. ;-)
Re:Ask Slashdot: stowaway on board a spacecraft? (Score:2)
After being nuked, not to mention physsicaly assaulted by God, Jesse Custer meets a very odd character in the desert.
Re:Ask Slashdot: stowaway on board a spacecraft? (Score:4, Insightful)
- Security around spacecraft security is very tight, especially on a launch site. It is hard to get to them, and they are inspected constantly (not for stowaways, but one would be detected quickly enough).
- Spacecraft tend to be rather small, and filled with equipment. Certainly Mars Express (the european spacecraft) is far too small to contain a human being. I have not seen the american spacecraft but I'd guess they are not much bigger.
- The weight of the spacecraft is known with high accuracy, and verified before launch.
- The center of gravity of the spacecraft is known. Changing it (by tagging on extra weight) will cause maneuvring to fail, sending the thing to the wrong location.
- The trip takes a significantly long time (many months). You'd be long dead by the time you arrived (from lack of oxygen, radiation, etc.).
- The launch may very well kill you: not every launcher is human-rated, and some produce vibrations strong enough to kill a human passenger.
Finally, I don't want to discourage you but as far as I know noone has ever been able to make a picture of one of the moon landing sites proving there was something there. Your grave would most likely suffer a similar fate.
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:2)
Assuming there's no life currently on Mars, and assuming he did this near a source of water ice, (or better yet, a geothermal, er, areothermal energy source, if one exists) he may have leaked biomatter over a
Two probes from NASA, one from ESA. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two probes from NASA, one from ESA. (Score:5, Informative)
The amusing thing about nozomi (meaning hope) is that it was launched in 1998 - but used too much fuel and was unable to reach mars in that window - it's been bouncing off various planets including a swing by earth again to realign it with the current mars window. So there will be a japanese martian orbiter as well - just 4 years late.
Re:Two probes from NASA, one from ESA. (Score:3, Informative)
MER 1 - NASA lander, launched soon
MER 2 - NASA lander, launched soon
Beagle 2 - ESA lander, launched recently
Mars Express - ESA orbiter, launched recently
Nozomi - ISIS orbiter, on route
Mars Odyssey - NASA orbiter, already there
Mars Gloabl Surveyor - NASA orbiter, already there
Quite an impressible armada, don't you think?
It's not the distance (Score:2)
With chemical rocket technology a huge proportion of the launch mass is propellant. The rocket equasion is pretty unforgiving - the cost of each extra m/s of delta-V is exponential.
On a close pass like this you can send a lot more mass to Mars for less money.
Which means... (Score:4, Funny)
Beagle-2 has Rover-A up against the pit! Beagle-2 is charging!!!!
Oh that's got to hurt! Rover-A is ducking out of the way and giving Beagle-2 a quick whack with the rock abraision tool!
The cocky brit recovers but the solar panel is cracked. Yes that's right folks, the beagle-2 solar panel is definitely cracked, and has lost some of its power generating capabilities.
But wait! what's that under the ground??? the mole probe from beagle-2 is ripping up Rover-A's aluminium rocker bogie wheels!
Oh the humanity! they're joined together! they're rolling into the pit!
Where's the ref bots???
Martianzilla (Score:4, Funny)
Then the Martians will come up (practical jokers that they are) and put silly putty in the robotic hand and some lady Martian's thong underwear on the robotic arm.
Why Marsbots? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Or Helping Other People (Score:2, Offtopic)
Probably because throwing money and/or food at a Third World country doesn't help raise the standard of living (except for the standard of living of the fatuous oligarchies in power in most of them). I submit Somalia as an example of how the entire world can get behind a relief effort, only to watch it fail miserably because they're trying to cure a symptom and not the disease.
Ever look at the banana republics with their {brutally oppressive right-wing juntas|criminally inept left-wing politburos} and tho
Re:Or Helping Other People (Score:2)
Other countries should do more to help also
Percentage of budget of US foreign aid: 1.0% (dead last among western nations).
Percentage of that dedicated to military aid to allies: ~50%
Percentage of total aid that comes directly back to US companies: ~70%
Percentage of people polled that think we spend too much on foreign aid: 75%
Average response to the question, "how much should we spend on foreign aid?": 8.4%
Re:Or Helping Other People (Score:2)
Re:Or Helping Other People (Score:2)
So.. poorer countries spend a larger portion of their (relatively smaller) wealth than the US on foreign aid. It hurts them even more, but they still do it.
What's your point?
Faster, Better, Cheaper, Smarter (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the past performaces of Mars expeditions, NASA is taking a big risk.
Of course, technology has improved, but is this a prudent bet for NASA?
Re:Faster, Better, Cheaper, Smarter (Score:2)
I've heard much about the politics etc that allowed this particular mission to be chosen, and it's quite an amazing story. One of the big deals about this mission is that it's a SCIENCE mission. Unlike pathfinder, whose mission was to test mars lander/rover tech, this mission is all about accomplishing as much science as possible. The mission was designed basically by looking at the pathfinder
Re:Faster, Better, Cheaper, Smarter (Score:2)
Of course, technology has improved, but is this a prudent bet for NASA?
The rovers and the mission have been in development for years. It is true that it is risky, but most of that risk has already been taken in the development of the rovers; it is a sunk cost.
Cancelling the mission at this point will not remove the risk, it will just guarantee a failure.
Tor
Competition! (Score:3, Insightful)
Now it will be very soon we'll have certainty about life on Mars: reall competition (ESA+Rusia vs. NASA)
Ps. I'm not a fundamental capitalist; in a few instances competition is bad. But this is one of the many good examples imho.
Re:Competition! (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no point in inventing the wheel 3 times. We all gain from pooling scientific data. Previous mars missions inform the current ones. The current ones inform future ones. The different missions comp
Hmm, their planning team needs work (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmm, their planning team needs work (Score:2)
I read the usenet posting first, which said that "[the] second rover mission, bound for a different site on Mars, will launch as soon as June 25". (sci.space.news, Message-id: bbll9j$1kb$1@nntp1.jpl.nasa.gov).
Should have double checked my wording before hitting submit...
They have missed their chance.. (Score:2, Funny)
Help! I'm looking for a funny picture about this (Score:2)
woohoo! (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope E.T. will check this out soon
Re:woohoo! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:woohoo! (Score:2)
He will.... and he will send you and those other 3,551,644 people a great big fine for littering!
Re:woohoo! (Score:3, Funny)
In six months time you will be getting email offering surgery-free tentacle enlargement, low-low rate Mars Express credit cards (ahem) and cheap inkjet refills.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Measurements... (Score:2)
Imagine, for a moment... (Score:2)
One of these rovers discovers an advanced, humanoid civilization on Mars that has been previously overlooked.
The aliens are advanced enough to contact us via "primitive" radio signals and learn several of our languages in a few days.
Then we decide to meet. This would be the conversation:
Earthlings: So yeah, you should come here! That would be so cool. ...right. So, how about you just come here instead?
Martians:
Earthlings: Well, uhh... could we meet on the mo
Europeans beat Yanks to Mars! (Score:3, Informative)
There is a low fuel (cheap) path to Mars in a two month window every 2.5 years. So this is why you see a flurry of launches. With a 40% success rate over the decades- 41 of 66 Mars craft didnt make it- hopefully at least one of these three will succeed. Lots of interesting craft planned for 2005 and 2008 launches.
That's show the Europeans who's boss (Score:2)
Celestia: Follow MER-A and MER-B to Mars (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ [shatters.net]
It runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X . . . Then, install one of the many spacecraft add-ons here:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackcelestia/ [eircom.net]
Images are here:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackcelestia/browseim
One add-on features a detailed model of the Mars rovers in interplanetary cruise configuration, together with two proposed trajectories for each rover. Add a high-resolution (8k x 4k) texture and bump map for Mars, and you'll have a very detailed and accurate simulation of the Mars missions. We're still trying to get trajectory data from the ESA so that we can make an add-on for the Mars Express mission.
--Chris
Where they land (Score:2)
The real question... (Score:2)
Take all the humidity, temperature, and chemical tests you want. but I want to see red mountains cool rocks and a three eyed green man walking around!
--Joey
Re:Anti-europeanism (Score:5, Funny)
You never saw americans as nationalist? You must already have been on Mars for the past few years then.
Re:Anti-europeanism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anti-europeanism (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anti-europeanism (Score:2)
Sorry, there is no private funding of Beagle 2. It has been paid for as a consortium by the Department of Trade and Industry [dti.gov.uk], ESA [esa.int], the Wellcome Trust [wellcome.ac.uk] and PPARC [pparc.ac.uk]. The involvement of Damien Hirst and Blur has been on a volunteer basis - both for their contributions and for the publicity they can give the project.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:Us vs Them (Score:2)
What I think people in europe react to (at least here in Sweden - no idea about France), is that american nationalism and patriotism is so over the top. It's "My country, right or wrong", and any kind of critizism or attempt to set facts straight, no matter how correct or
Re:Anti-europeanism (Score:2)
The implication is that America going into space is great in all respects, whereas Europe going into space is antagonistic.
Am I being racist for pointing out this nationalist implication on
Anti-American posts and other flamebait is just as obnoxious, if not mo
Re:Anti-europeanism (Score:2)
What really upsets me is when I catch myself out though...
Ah, the classics -- "Love it or leave it" (Score:2)
Maybe you and the other people making anti-American comments ought to get off Slashdot.
Maybe if you can't handle a tiny bit of back and forth on a public message board, you should steer clear of, say, Usenet groups and slashdot. Things aren't as controlled here as they are on Fox. Too bad.
The comment was that Americans are nationalist -- delivered with a wry grin. "Nationalism: a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its cultur
Re:Competition is good (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, for example such as the discovery of America :-)
Joke aside, I think that competition as well as cooperation is good. And here, I kinda see both.
But raw, unmitigated bile is bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does it really matter who makes an important discovery? Is the world scientific community somehow enriched more because Uwe in Vienna or Piet in Den Haag made the discovery before Steve in Alamogordo? Or is it more accurate to say that you hate America?
Your first sentence seems to lean toward the latter explanation, as you seem to be upset about U.S. "space dominance," despite the fact that a look at the STS mission crew bios is more multicultural than a Rainbow Coalition rally. Aboard the ill-fated Columbia mission, for the first example that comes to mind, we had the first Israeli in space; I believe his name was Ilian Ramon (although I could be wrong about his first name). Additionally, Kalpana Chawla was born in India. Granted, she was a U.S. citizen at the time of her death, but I'd still say that on the whole, the goodwill extended by NASA in offering to take up scientists of so many nations stands as an eloquent counterargument to your belief in some sort of American doctrine of "Manifest Space Destiny." Were I you, I'd worry more about my own demagoguery than the perceived dangers of American astronautical hegemony.
In my travels to Europe, South America, and the Pacific Rim, I've met hundreds of intelligent, friendly, and generally cool people. I can only hope that when they read such ill-informed and sneeringly smug commentary as yours, that they are as horrified as I am when I see an American behaving rudely towards someone from another country.
Using nationalism to futher science (Score:5, Insightful)
Just let us assume for one moment that the European Mars Express with its Beagle 2 lander does find something they claim is a sure sign of life on Mars. It would mean that the first European planetary mission ever finds something that NASA has been looking for for decades. Somebody in Congress is going to take that as a personal insult and push the space program some more -- while the Europeans will find funding their probes a lot more interesting. More space exploration for all...
But this is just chicken feed. Can you imagine the U.S. watching China build and man a moon base? Even having Chinese astronauts ("taikonauts", I believe they are called) walking on the moon will make them nervous enough to push funding.
There is nothing like space exploration for a nation's scientific prestige. This hasn't been apparent for the last few decades because the U.S. and the Soviet Union both decided not to get into that kind of arms race again, and after the fall of communism, the U.S. has had a monopoly. If that is challenged, it is a good thing -- certainly better than trying to build the largest navy, the most atom bombs, or some of the other things we've had in the past.
Discovery fuels superiority (Score:2)
Yes it would increase funding, but ultimately all competition is about power. And some believe that power shared is power lost.
Heck the ability to land a person gently on another planet means that you are already a longtime member of the club that can launch spy-eyes into space and land bombs quite hard into major cities.
I say, tone down the rampant nationali
Re:Using nationalism to futher science (Score:2, Funny)
Sweet! Ever have that astronaut ice cream they sell at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum? Blech...if the Chinese get there first we'll be able to get take out and have our space suits pressed and cleaned.
Healthy competition and not (Score:2)
a) The parties are secretive against each other and do not share their discoveries (like during the cold war)
b) When the parties build duplicate versions of the same expensive thing (Gallileo/GPS comes to mind).
Why not stake out challenging and different goals for EU, the US and China. "We challenge you that we will have a man on Mars before your moon base is operational!".
Tor
Re:But raw, unmitigated bile is bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people are still very tribalistic / nationalistic (same thing really) at genetic & memetic levels.
Us Vs. Them is just part of human nature, and until Them=Aliens it's the rare person who counts the entire human race as his "tribe".
--
Re:But raw, unmitigated bile is bad. (Score:2)
Maybe I misplaced a word. Try to replace "dominance" by "monopoly". You'll get my idea.
Do I hate the US? Hell no.
Do I hate its space policies? Fuck yes!
Look at what happened to Columbia, what happened a few years back to a probe that was the result of not using metric.
Look at what the pentagon is trying to do when Europe is planning a GPS alternative.
There are enough reasons for at least me to not like what US is doing with its space program, and calls it the "pinnacle of human
Re:But raw, unmitigated bile is bad. (Score:2)
However, I'll remain sceptical towards US space policies until I see Galileo (the EU GPS alternative) up and running without kowtowing to Pentagon pressures based on unfounded fears.
Re:But raw, unmitigated bile is bad. (Score:2)
Actually I think it is. Sad fact of space exploration is it currently needs tons of money to do. Right now governments are the prime source of this money and getting it involves a lot of politics.
Current administration in the US doesn't seem to be pushing the envelope in this area very heavily. I don't hear them really speak for or against it.
So getting a g
Re:But raw, unmitigated bile is bad. (Score:2)
As rudely as Americans are treated you mean? I, personally, have never been to Europe (not for lack of desire, but money), although I know a few friends who have. Most of them have said it was a great place, except that they were treated horribly by a small percentage of the populace, just because they were American. It's not just a U.S. problem, it is a human problem, with everyone guilty of
Re:Competition is good (Score:3, Interesting)
Another question, can the US match Europe's space business model?
Re:Competition is good (Score:2)
Space exploration is not a sports game (Score:2)
Space exploration isn't a football game (or soccer for the europeans, or ping-pong for the chinese :) )! Haven't we learned a lesson from Clarke's 2001 series with the Russians & Americans working together? Lets hope they pool their knowledge and are able to get the world's space program up to speed where it should be, instead of wasting time and money with dumb politics & wars. (Ok, this is starting to
Re:Space exploration is not a sports game (Score:2)
And it definitely should not keep us from further exploration.
And it DEFINITELY should not keep countries from working together on future space projects. Where would any science be without the cooperation of Europe and the US and China and whoever else?
People (Score:2)
Re:Competition is good (Score:2)
But it brings up an interesting thought I think. Would the space program advance further if the space-going countries worked together, or would competition drive each respective company to reach farther, faster.
If you look at the Cold War, we went from failed rocket launchers to man on the moon relatively quickly (That is, if you choose to believe the man on the moon thing really happened).
Re:My advice (Score:2, Funny)
Bad joke..
Which level of hell [4degreez.com] do you belong on.
it is a bad joke (Score:2)
See the bit about hubcaps.
Re:Why RealPlayer?? (Score:2)
The reason for RealPlayer is that there are native players available for Windows, MacOS and Linux, and that RealPlay data streams are well compressed (so that the Slashdot effect doesn't hurt too much). Many in the space industry use Unix almost exclusively, and so aren't keen to view on Windows or Mac.