NASA, European Space Agency Want To Go To Mars 129
coondoggie writes "NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are aiming to cooperate on all manner of robotic orbiters, landers and exploration devices for a future trip to Mars. Specifically, NASA and ESA recently agreed to consider the establishment of a new joint initiative to define and implement their scientific, programmatic, and technological goals for the exploration of Mars. The program would focus on several launch opportunities with landers and orbiters conducting astrobiological, geological, geophysical, climatological, and other high-priority investigations and aiming at returning samples from Mars in the mid-2020s."
My Two Kids Want To Go To Mars (Score:1, Offtopic)
Cooperation (Score:5, Funny)
As long as they agree on one set of units it should be fine.
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I doubt it. ESA will defenitely work with SI units. And I assume NASA wants to use their old units for their old stuff. However, if they cooperate on a component level, this should not be a big problem as long as the systems are not integrated. For example rocket from NASA and rover from ESA.
Re:Cooperation (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it. ESA will defenitely work with SI units. And I assume NASA wants to use their old units for their old stuff. However, if they cooperate on a component level, this should not be a big problem as long as the systems are not integrated. For example rocket from NASA and rover from ESA.
NASA has used Metric for a long, long time now. It was a subcontractor who used Imperial that screwed up the Mars lander.
Re:Cooperation (Score:4, Insightful)
Aye, and any scientist/engineer with a degree from the last 20-30 years should be perfectly comfortable working with SI units. There are still hold outs, but they're just a few old fossils and managers. The people that do the actual science and engineering have no problem with SI.
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But like the American million dollar space pen/Russian pencil story [snopes.com], it will live on forever.
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NASA has decided to use imperial units for Ares / Project Constellation [newscientist.com] instead of metric units earlier this year.
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(Mars lander smacks into planet at ballistic speeds)
"I don't understand. By my calculations 1000 foot-pounds was enough thrust to bring the lander to soft landing." - NASA engineer
"Foot-pounds? What the hell are they? I I built the rockets for maximum 1000 newton thrust." - ESA engineer
"Oooops."
Re:Cooperation (Score:5, Funny)
Fixed that for you.
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Rogerborg wrote:
>>>"I do not understand you, culturally impoverished imperialist dog of pig."
abruti
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Re:Cooperation (Score:4, Funny)
AFAIK Australia doesn't have a space agency!
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But the same arguments apply. If we're going to walk first, shouldn't we practice in near-earth orbit before we fiddle about with some dry gravity-cursed rock like the moon or Mars?
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Have you heard about Gagarin?
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I assume you mean Gagarin as in "Yuri" - first cosmonaut. Your point is....?
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Of course, if Heinlein is to be believed, then it is more like the first cosmonaut to get back alive. Considering all the Soviets who got killed in their space program, his story is not implausible.
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So...I take it it's even more plausible in the case of US space program, given that it actually lost much larger number of flight personnel?
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Well, you wrote your post like you were ignoring a bit that we are practicing near Earth for half a century already...
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But why walk when you can drive?
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Well, the advantage of the dry gravity-cursed rock is that there are actually things you could use to build stuff on the moon. There's not much building stuff in near-earth orbit and the closest building stuff is in this really deep gravity well.
Personally, I think the Moon is an OK trade-off. You can mine asteroids but you'll have to take the raw materials somewhere else to actually build anything. On the Moon, you have "low" gravity (no, not as low as an asteroid but much less than the Earth) lots of m
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Well, the closest building material is earth, but why couldn't you build in zero G? Space is pretty chilly. Get enough water from either earth or slowly moved in from an asteroid or wandering comet, heat slowly with mirrors, put it into forms and allow it to refreeze. Water would be a great building material if you could direct enough into near earth orbit.
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Well, you can conceivably build things in zero G. The question would be whether it's easier to build things in zero G or where there's a bit of gravity. Gravity has some advantages: Drop something and it will hit the ground, rather than floating away. While building stuff in zero G looks way cool, I'm more interested in efficiency.
The problem with getting stuff from Earth is that it's at the bottom of a really deep gravity well, which limits how much stuff we can get out of it. So shipping water and bu
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Plus - most applicable objects in the solar system are probably piles of rubble, with gravity just enough to hold them together. Which presents its own kinds of problems if you want to move them or make any contruction work with them.
As for water - yeah, comets are a good example of what would happen to exposed water ice in close solar orbits, though I imagine you can use thin external shields to limit exposure to sunlight or perhaps turning water into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete [wikipedia.org] (lunar dust could
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China/Japan/russia (Score:5, Interesting)
China seam to have more money to throw about, I hear Japan are pretty good at technology and russia seam to be the goto guys if you want something launched. If getting to Mars is a serious scientific venture and not a cock swinging contest, why not work with them as well?
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Chinese certainly have the money, but they do not have trained Astronauts
The Japanese have the 'raw' technology, but their space program is no better than Indians'.
Exactly, they need the ESA/NASA atleast as much as ESA/NASA needs them.
A NASA and ESA partnership is still the best bet,
Oh i don't disagree, i just think spreading the cost and the effort further would be better.
since the Chinese will never be included due to fear of IP theft anyway.
Yeah that does make dealing with china hard, because of the rocket, tracking, etc tech, but Japan and Russia aren't going to be going to war with us any time soon.
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Yeah that does make dealing with china hard, because of the rocket, tracking, etc tech
Not sure there's any IP left to steal, myself. Go to made-in-china.com and look up the "Long March" missile and launch system (I'm sure you'll find the little "add to basket" button as disturbing as I did). You can buy a ballistic missile off the web, apparently - or at least get in touch with people who will discuss it with you.
Buy a few dozen and strap them together with Australian kangaroo hide belts perhaps (sorry, have to put a local content plug in somewhere - it's the closest we'll get to a space
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If getting to Mars is a serious scientific venture and not a cock swinging contest, why not work with them as well?
Indeed.
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|| ...not a cock swinging contest.... ||
I guess this must be a new version of the old tried and true "cock measuring contest" (TM).
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It's not serious science, but rather a PR game. Remote-control robots are much cheaper and obviously safer for collecting materials. A few will disagree, but remote robots have potentially better vision than on-site humans and more experts to review the images before selecting.
Being slow is not a problem: the tortoise wins this one. But things may be faster than MER (current bots) if there's a
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But the problem with China is they're still at least a decade away from building a rocket big enough to carry a sizable probe to Mars. Meanwhile, the US can do it with the Atlas V rocket or Delta IV Heavy rocket, Russia can do with the latest Proton rocket, and the Europeans can do it with the Ariane V rocket.
Go to Mars (Score:3, Insightful)
Just wait until you don't have to borrow the money to do so.
The US needs to figure out its side of the equation, what is more important, buying votes or science?
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We're screwed then. Politicians look at everything in the light of "Will this help me win the next election?" The people for the most part aren't interested unless it's American Idol or some such nonsense. Us hardcore science geeks are left out in the cold, marginalised beyond belief.
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The US needs to figure out its side of the equation, what is more important, buying votes or science?
That's not the real question either, since science as an end in itself isn't much more important than buying votes. We fund science to considerable levels now because we expect it to pay off. What happens when that's not true? What's the point of gathering tremendous information about the Solar System, if nobody is going to be using it aside from a few scientists? Second, science in space costs about one to three orders of magnitude more than equivalent science on Earth. We could be doing a lot more science
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and spinoffs as noted above(Apollo is still paying dividends...watch color TV much?)
Color TV predates NASA [wikipedia.org] by a few years (1950 or so compared to 1958 being the start of NASA). My view is that spinoffs from current space programs are greatly exaggerated in a fashion similar to space science. This leads to a similar argument against funding space-related spinoffs (especially human space flight related spinoffs). Namely, that you can spend a lot less in more focused R&D to generate comparable spinoffs and science. In other words, if spinoffs and science, publicly funded, are your thing,
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Can't we just leave all the assholes? I suspect the amount of people we'd have to transport to Mars would be a lot smaller.
/Mikael
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That's just it: they won't. That's the idea because you are at fault you Beckite monkey.
I'm pretty sure they'll be able to find someone to blame. Maybe I'm beaming failwaves at them from my dark tower on Mars.
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One of the reasons to go to Mars and explore, is to be able to understand this Spaceship Earth better. We might also be able to offload a few things from Earth to Mars in the future.
And - Space is a waste you say? Not compared to the so-called War against Terror.
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I'd rather see them dump the money into developing human-like androids to send to Mars than planning and paying to send humans.
I agree they should spend their time developing sex-bots. At least I think that's what you're saying... "Send to Mars" sure sounds like a euphemism to me...
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Flamebait? Some people are so weird.
Don't let the door hit you on your way out . . . (Score:2)
NASA, European Space Agency Want To Go To Mars
Great, with NASA and ESA "gone to Mars," maybe we can get some fresh blood (competition) into space exploration? Like, from some private folks?
Hell, let them milk some millionaires for a few seconds in space to push space flight technology forwards.
If they really want to go, then.... (Score:2)
Establishing a public space venture (Score:1)
NASA's budget of about 17 billion sounds like a fair amount - more so than any private venture could hope to raise.
However, consider that the US market for cell phones and related service is expected to top about 37 billion for 2009. Ringtones alone account for about half a billion.
Sales of Subway's "5 dollar footlongs" have amounted to around 2.6 billion so far.
I really do not consider money to be the issue blocking space access. Remember, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and shuttle programs were all funded
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Re:First things first. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The price of gold isn't high enough to justify the cost of going to Mars and getting it (even if there were bars of it lying around on the surface.)
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Okay, I know there are tens of millions of tons of gold on Pluto. Please send me a check and it is yours. Heck, I'll give you a fifty percent discount.
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The word plutocracy (Modern Greek: - ploutokratia) is derived from the ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern.
What the article fails to mention is that the world 'ploutos' is derived from the name of the Greek god Pluto (or vice-versa, not sure which was the cause and which was the effect).
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What the article fails to mention is that the world 'ploutos' is derived from the name of the Greek god Pluto
"Pluto" is actually a Roman god, adapted from the Greek god Hades.
"Ploutos" was the Greek word for wealth, with connotations of "gold and jewels", i.e. from underground. The Romans took the name of the underworld god Pluto from there.
(There was a Greek Pluto, but she was a nymph, and therefore aquatic. I believe it's unrelated.)
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As my old chemistry teacher used to say, "'ey you with the gold!!"
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But how do I know you haven't already sold that to someone else?
see... see... I'm not falling to your scam.
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Actually, I wonder the same thing with actual gold sales where you don't physically receive the product. How do you know it isn't some dude with a phone center and a good printer?
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Actually, I wonder the same thing with actual gold sales where you don't physically receive the product. How do you know it isn't some dude with a phone center and a good printer?
Realistically, you could pull off such a scam by simply issuing gold notes. Lets say that the price of gold is $1000/ounce.
You collect $100000 from some guy and issue him a certificate stating that he has purchased 100 ounces from you which are his to collect within maturity of this note (or whatever language you want to include)
N
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The price of gold isn't high enough to justify the cost of going to Mars and getting it (even if there were bars of it lying around on the surface.)
There is no test ban treaty on Mars right? Looks like Project Orion might have found a home and a goal!
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Re:First things first. (Score:5, Insightful)
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>>>Perhaps investing in developing the new technologies we would need to get our asses to Mars would create all sorts of new jobs.
"Yes sir. We created all kinds of jobs. They cost a million dollars each and only pay around 0.1 million each, but hey, at least they are working." - I think I'm going to go break some windows now, so I can create work for glaziers.
Congratulations (Score:3, Informative)
Your wholly invented figures have surely disproven his claim. And your specious* reference to parable of the broken window hammers it home.
*The point of the parable is that net economic gain of an action is the sum of the gross economic gain (work for the glazier) and the economic cost (reduced spending power of the cobbler), and therefore an action with an economic cost equal or greater than its gross gain is a net loss. Outside of your invented figures, you have not demonstrated this.
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I was making a semi-humorous point, which seems to have gone over your head. If you to be anal-retentive, heree are some actual figures on how much it cost the United States to save jobs. Note how the government spends more than the damn jobs are worth (in terms of salary):
ID $130,028 per job
KS $ 99,077 per job
ME $187,220 per job.
MI $376,443 per job.
NV $97,782 per job.
NM $628,989!
SC $1,502,839 - each
continued - http://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+jobs+saved [google.com]
Re:First things first. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just Mandate that anyone taking government assistance must live on the moon or mars, this will solve ALL of our problems.
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Less than half a penny out of every tax dollar goes to NASA. 5 cents goes to the 'global war on Terror.' [see: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ef/Fy2008spendingbycategory.png [wikimedia.org]
And 5c/$ underestimates it quite a bit -- since DOD spending would also be vastly less without the GWoT, not to speak of DHS spending, big chunks of the Department of VA's costs, and the interest on the debt created by a half-trillion of GWoT-related costs in past budgets...
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Well, it was. Just imagine if we had invested that in something like alternative energy (REAL alternative energy like nukes and algae, not corn subsidies and windmills), or cheaper medicine, or something that could start a new industry. That might hurt in the short run (too big to fail doesn't mean the bank can't fail, it means too many others are so wrapped in it they can't safely fail), but in a few years, imagine what would happen to the economy if we became energy independent.
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Flamebait (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree entirely with this comment but flamebait? I Think it is a valid concern, a stupid one given the NASA is a fraction of the US's Budget but not flamebait. stop modding by agree/disagree!
Re:Euro Agency == unconstitutional? (Score:4, Insightful)
Euro agency is nothing to do with EU, but hey don't let that stop you!
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Oh good. Thanks for brightening my day.
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Well... Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to...promote the progress of science and useful arts".
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Nice try....
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Before NASA was NASA, that section was part of the US Air force.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not do both. if you look at somewhere like France they invest in "practical" research such as fusion reactors, blue-sky research such as CERN (15%) and the ESA (23%) which is somewhere between the two. The value of blue-sky research is hard to predict but taking a Thatcherite view and dismissing it altogether is naive and apart from slowing progress, it's not economically sound (I'm not saying spending too much on blue-sky is a good idea either). If you look at biological research I'd argue that much less progress has been done recently (compared to what could have been achieved) because too much funding is attached to direct studies like cancer research and not enough is being spread around to just see what happens (mapping the human genome style).
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