Was Magellan's Voyage Riskier Than Sending Humans to Mars? (forbes.com) 153
A Portuguese historian argues that Magellan's famous trip around the world in 1522 was much harder than sending humans to Mars:
Tens of guys died making this crossing; of 250 crew, only 18 returned, Henrique Leitao, a historian at the University of Lisbon, told me... [O]nce NASA or other space agencies or private entities actually launch humans on a six month trajectory to the Red planet, they will likely have mitigated the lion's share of risks to the crew. In contrast, Magellan's crew realized that at least a third of them would likely never survive their journey, says Leitao...
Is there a comparison between the Age of Discovery and drivers for the exploration and commercialization of space? One could argue that minerals on asteroids could be seen as the present-day equivalent of the Age of Discovery's highly-prized Asian spices. And that actually getting these 16th century spices back to Europe was arguably just as arduous and seemingly difficult as any initiative to return exotic materials from a near-Earth asteroid... Risk is inherent in any off-world human voyage. But when it comes to safety, today's technology and current knowledge of in situ conditions on Mars itself will arguably give future explorers an inherent edge over Magellan's generation.
The article also summarizes Leitao observation that one of the crew members who died on the trip was Magellan. "For 40 days Magellan walked around The Philippines; gets involved in a completely absurd fight with locals on a beach and is killed."
Is there a comparison between the Age of Discovery and drivers for the exploration and commercialization of space? One could argue that minerals on asteroids could be seen as the present-day equivalent of the Age of Discovery's highly-prized Asian spices. And that actually getting these 16th century spices back to Europe was arguably just as arduous and seemingly difficult as any initiative to return exotic materials from a near-Earth asteroid... Risk is inherent in any off-world human voyage. But when it comes to safety, today's technology and current knowledge of in situ conditions on Mars itself will arguably give future explorers an inherent edge over Magellan's generation.
The article also summarizes Leitao observation that one of the crew members who died on the trip was Magellan. "For 40 days Magellan walked around The Philippines; gets involved in a completely absurd fight with locals on a beach and is killed."
Short answer: (Score:3, Insightful)
No
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Correct. Moving on ...
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Re:Short answer: (Score:5, Interesting)
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Modern communication helps as well: if an expedition to Mars meets with an unfortunate fate, we'll most likely know what happened, and we can learn from that.
Re: Short answer: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Short answer: (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a big difference, but it doesn't make for a bigger risk. Magellan knew he COULDN'T take all the food and water he needed with him, so he had to bank on being able to find sufficient supplies along the way ... without knowing for sure whether they would be available at regular intervals. Whereas in the case of Mars we know exactly how much we need to bring along with us, AND we can carry enough to make the entire journey. In both situations there is some risk that unpredicted problems could result in the supplies running out, but I don't see that the risk is any greater for a Mars mission than it would have been for Magellan.
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Because in both cases the answer is "All of them could die." All of Magellan's men didn't die? So what? You're going to have to wait until the Mars trip is done to compare the **results** of an expedition instead of comparing an historical account with projected fantasy. All of the Mars expedition might die. Then the answer would be "Of course the Mars expedition was more dangerous."
Re: Short answer: (Score:2)
That's dumb. I smoke every day for 60 years and don't die. You eat peanuts one night for a snack, and choke to death and die. Does that mean my smoking habit was less risky than your attempt to eat some peanuts?
Don't equate isolated results with actual risk. Dozens of ships in Magellan's time were lost with all hands, on exploratory missions such as his. Many others regularly returned with 30%+ of their crews dead. If we were expecting anything like those numbers on our Mars missions we would never se
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That was rather the point. We can make educated guesses about the mechanics of how things will work out, but since our observational N=0, we can't say anything whatsoever in the form "dozens of ships were lost with all hands, many others regularly returned with 30%+ of their crews dead." Maybe that sort of spaceflight invariably turns into some Lovecraftian descent into madness and they all cannibalize each other before they even arrive. Maybe including peanuts snacks and a smoking section mitigates the can
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Also when you to Mars you have to bring all your fuel, and food. Apparently we may not even be able to plant things in Martian soil because anything grown in it will be toxic due to the abundance of perchlorate in Martian soil.
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There is one BIG difference. If something went wrong with those voyages and they lost all their water supply (as an example) they had a planet's worth of resources they could survive on. Even if they were in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight they would eventually encounter rain to replenish their supply of water.
When voyaging to Mars if they lose all their water (or even worse oxygen an item Magellan didn't need to worry about running out of) there isn't much hope of them encountering a new supp
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Because you can survive on the sea, even if things go south. It's not the same in space.
Check this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Try to do that in space...
Re: Short answer: (Score:2)
Your example shows that one guy can do it. Try doing the same thing on a boat with a crew of 200.
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Rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
Magellan's crew realized that at least a third of them would likely never survive their journey
Magellan's crew was probably made up mostly of peasants pressed into service and had no fucking idea of the danger they faced, let alone that "1/3 would not survive". Peasants are not smart nowadays. Imagine how smart they were in 1522.
They knew all right (Score:3, Insightful)
but there was no such thing as resignations back then. They'd be shot for desertion if they ever tried to leave their jobs.
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Bullets are expensive, more likely hung
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On an ocean-going ship? Tossed overboard.
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Actually, many were hanged at sea. Hanging from a yardarm was often convenient.
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Punishments in the various navies at this time were usually manual and almost never included bullets. The punished were often flogged, gagged, beaten, keelhauled, or hanged while at sea. During the 1500s punishment on Spanish ships borrowed heavily from the methods of the Inquisition such as the "toca" (not much different from waterboarding) and "strappado" (tying wrists behind the back and suspending one from the ceiling by their wrists).
Such a fun time to be pressed into service.
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You really think the crew, a group of professional sailors sponsored by the Spanish crown and had first / second half knowledge of Columbus' expedition, wouldn't have a clue of what was going on?
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Re:Rubbish (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rubbish (Score:5, Interesting)
Magellan's crew realized that at least a third of them would likely never survive their journey
Magellan's crew was probably made up mostly of peasants pressed into service and had no fucking idea of the danger they faced, let alone that "1/3 would not survive". Peasants are not smart nowadays. Imagine how smart they were in 1522.
Even back then, no experienced captain goes on a dangerous extended voyage with a mostly green crew. The larger part would have been sailors of one form or another, including a fair number of local fishermen.
Back then, life was cheap, and everyone knew it. In 1522, starvation, disease, war and other dangers were norms, not exceptions. Death was a familiar and constant companion at every level of society, but more so among the poor. Magellan's crew would have been aware they were facing the unknown, and every last one was intimately familiar with how easy death could come to anyone in the normal course of life on land. Life was cheap, and everyone knew it.
The voyage offered a very small chance for acquiring wealth, if you survived. When you have no hope, a faint hope can look pretty damn good.
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Impressment wasn't as common in the 1500s as it was in the 1800s, Magellan's expedition wasn't a regular naval force, and Spain wasn't at war with any major naval powers at the time, so it's unlikely much of Magellan's crew would be freshly pressed men. Certainly not "most." You don't just take off on a voyage of discovery with a bunch of farm hands. Most of the crew would be ordinary or able seamen, perfectly aware of the high fatality rate on routine sea voyages of the time. 1/3 losses would likely have
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Magellan's crew was probably made up mostly of peasants pressed into service and had no fucking idea of the danger they faced, let alone that "1/3 would not survive". Peasants are not smart nowadays. Imagine how smart they were in 1522.
Depends on how you define "peasant" I suppose. Magellan's fleet had five ships. Operating sailing ships of the era was a skilled job. Magellan had to hire on competent mariners to crew the ships, not just farmhands impressed into service. I doubt they departed thinking that most of them would die, but I suspect they had more than an inkling that the expedition was vastly more dangerous then going up and down the coast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan [wikipedia.org]
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Do you happen to know what beach was that? Are there any monuments there?
One could argue. (Score:4, Informative)
"One could argue that minerals on asteroids could be seen as the present-day equivalent of the Age of Discovery's highly-prized Asian spices."
And one could argue that asteroids don't contain anything that can't be found on Earth. Except maybe an amazing view.
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The value of asteroids would probably be highest for nations that don't have access to resources without obtaining them from other nations. That assumes that the nations engaging in resource extraction have strong manufacturing sectors though, and that their populations are still willing to spend for possibly higher priced goods than imported goods.
It's also possible, depending on extraction and return costs, for this to be used for some economic warfare, in terms of drastically increasing supply in order
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Re: One could argue. (Score:2)
And the price for mining on an Asteroid is literally astronomically high, so high that for each nation, it would probably much cheaper to extract the resource on their own soil.
The upfront cost is astronomically high, but given the concentration of resources within many asteroids the actual cost-per-unit could end up being far lower than on earth. Some metals which exist in great quantities and concentrations on earth (eg. iron) may be only marginally cheaper (or slightly more expensive) than what it costs to mine them here, but others (gold, silver, platinum) would be far cheaper.
And that's ignoring the fact that if your products are things like space ship hulls, stations, and l
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If you are in a position to de-orbit enough asteroid to significantly affect commodity prices why stick to merely economic warfare?
because economic warfare comes with less overt murder, less destruction of your home biosphere then dropping hyperkinetic kill missiles at the velocities involved.
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People keep forgetting how friggin' large Earth is compared to the whole of the Asteroid belt. The total mass of the Asteroid belt is less than 5% of the Moon, and that in turn is only 1% of the mass of Earth. It means that if you dump the whole Asteroid belt into Earth's oceans, it would not nearly be sufficient to even level them.
Asteroid mining probably will never turn a profit. It's comparable with collecting cut off human hair to gain the gold embedde
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But how deep can Earthly mines go, with any tech conceivable in the next thousand years? Judging from the samples already dropped down to us, asteroidal nickel-iron will be a lot cheaper to get at than all but a small part of Earth's. Now consider the availability of all the other siderophilic elements.
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Mining iron ore on asteroids does not make any sense. Just the first 1000 meters of the Earth's crust contain more iron than the whole of the Asteroid Belt.
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Re:One could argue. (Score:4, Insightful)
And one could argue that asteroids don't contain anything that can't be found on Earth.
The difference is that the materials from the asteroids are IN SPACE and not at the bottom of a deep gravity well.
It makes no sense to bring the asteroid materials down to the surface of the earth. But using the materials for construction and manufacturing IN SPACE may make sense.
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Once you're in space, it's pretty cheap to drop things down, so you might do that too. It doesn't make sense to launch rockets from the surface to go mine asteroids. You have to have space infrastructure and industry to make it worthwhile. But if you do, mining gets pretty cheap. You likely wouldn't drop raw ore because smelting is probably cheaper in space too, but you might decide to crash the flatlander commodity markets by selling them your excess metals.
Tens? (Score:5, Insightful)
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... if you're trying to sound fancy you'd just use scores.
I haven't heard anyone use scores since about 1863 or so. What planet are you on where they still use scores?
I'm guessing you probably still measure distances in furlongs.
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You must be using dog years.
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People still say scores in the UK, although I think at least half the population doesn't actually know what they are.
Several gross died, I reckon. (Score:2)
Including Magellan himself.
(He did sail around the world. The first half eastward to Malaya, the second time westward to Malay where he picked a fight with the local maharaja.)
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No. Several gross would be 288 people at least. That's more than the original 250
Re:Tens? (Score:4, Informative)
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Mutiny, I suppose, is always a possibility...
Reroute to Pitcairn asteroid?
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You've left out disease. Mostly scurvy.
In terms of equipment, of the five original ships, one was lost in a storm, one deserted, one was burned because of insufficient crew to operate it, and one was found to be unseaworthy to complete the return to Spain.
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Dozens is far more commonly used and if you're trying to sound fancy you'd just use scores.
I've never heard anyone ask for a baker's "Deka" [wikipedia.org], however dozens of thousands might sound kind of weird.
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And referring to them as "guys" sounds a little too casual
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Come to think of it, who the hell even says tens? Dozens is far more commonly used
Crazy imperial units. Why not measure people in number of seats in the library of congress?
Re: Tens? (Score:2)
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Of the original 270, 18 completed the journey. But others returned safely to Spain. The crew of the Antonio returned safely after the captain deserted Magellan just before navigating the straits.
Never mind Magellan (Score:5, Insightful)
E.g. some people waited too long to cross the Mississippi and died when they fell through the ice.
All the settlers in the first colony in Virginia died.
Everything was hard back then. And human life was cheaper too.
It's almost like comparing apples and oranges.
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My great, great grandmother walked barefoot from Kansas City to Portland, Ore. a decade or so after the civil war. But ... she and the others in their group of covered wagons had known of the success of earlier farmers who took the "Oregon Trail," so the risk was considered low enough for huge numbers of people to go to Oregon.
The largest impediments to just getting to Mars healthy may be the long time lack of gravity and human body changes that occur, illnesses on board, high energy Gamma rays and the c
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yeah, just try to beat oregon trail to know how hard that was!
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Not to mention dying of dysentery.
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I wouldn't say Cheaper, but the fact that normal life had a high mortality rate.
We see people going, When I was a kid we didn't have this safety equipment and I grew up just fine... Where the actual issue was there was a lot of kids who died from the lack of safety equipment. But because it was common it probably didn't even hit the local newspapers outside the morbitucary.
People back then died all the time, and for the most part we didn't know why, or how to stop it.
However today a flight to Mars will hav
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Is human life cheaper today then it should be? Yes. Did it use to be cheaper? Unquestionable
Let's talk Syria or North Africa or Turkic China. Let's compare them to, say, Tamrelane's sacking of Herat, where he had killed most of the population of a large city for resisting him; it remained in ruins for a century. None of today's killings can match that wholesale slaughter, and it was just one of the times he m
I have to wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only were most of those guys poor and lucky if they had enough to eat, but the average life expectancy was probably around 30 years. They were probably somewhat used to the idea that something they were doing was fairly likely to kill them.
Re:I have to wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only were most of those guys poor and lucky if they had enough to eat, but the average life expectancy was probably around 30 years....
Yeah, that's average. If you survived infancy your chances of living to 60 or 70 was pretty good. That's how averages work.
1100 years earlier it wasn't entirely uncommon to live to 100 years old. There are gravestones from Roman era Britain for people who lived to be that old.
Re:I have to wonder (Score:5, Informative)
1100 years earlier it wasn't entirely uncommon to live to 100 years old. There are gravestones from Roman era Britain for people who lived to be that old.
It was extremely uncommon and we suspect most are exaggerations, only a few percent lived to be 80 and tenths of a percent to 90 and there are tombstones claiming people were 130, 140, 150 years old. But we do have a few cases like Terentia [wikipedia.org] that appear to support their existence. That she only gave birth to two children instead of the 5-6 that was common and was a noble that could afford the best of care was probably highly contributing factors. Modern medicine has done a lot to prevent death, we haven't really found that many ways to extend life though. Roman emperors were in their 80s and that's still a good run today.
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people who made it past 50 were considered extremely lucky.
Just because everybody's grade school teacher repeated this does not actually make it true.
It was not even true in ancient Greece.
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You know, if half the kids died before 5 and half the adults died before 50... you'd need a few Methuslah to get a life expectancy of 30 years.
30 = 5/2 + 40/4 + 70/4
So yeah, reaching 70 might be lucky but it's still 10 old geezers out of 100 villagers.
Not more dangerous, just done by stupider men. (Score:2)
Like the quote said, Magellean went around doing stupid crap like getting into fights.
I know people that do the same going to grocery store and get killed. It does not mean that the grocery store trip is dangerous.
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Boats versus Ships (Score:5, Interesting)
If we're going to make a comparison like that, then our comparable technological assets is a boat that can take three to a jetty that can hold maybe 10 people (ISS) in LEO. In comparison Magellan was a more capable technological asset for the time, the psychological pressure in a craft with more people is lower. I think Magellan's biggest challenge was hostile people.
We haven't built a technologically comparable ship to take that people beyond LEO that I've heard of. Perhaps Apollo capsules qualify as a small ship but there is no way that Apollo could tolerate the loss of a third of the crew in an environment as hostile as space where you can loose all your air and kill everyone. Certainly gathering food is not going to be as simple as throwing a fishing line out of an air lock and there will be no ports along the way to gather fresh fruit and have a break from the ship. A lack of gravity would also pose a unique challenge and solar storms may cook you.
I think the only way you could make a similar comparison is if Magellan was a submarine.
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Magellan was a more capable technological asset for the time
Really? Was he? Did he have some advanced bionic capabilities? Like lazer eyes or predicting eclipses or something..
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Magellan was a more capable technological asset for the time
Really? Was he? Did he have some advanced bionic capabilities? Like lazer eyes or predicting eclipses or something..
Fair call, I was referring to the sailing ships of the day, though I think coordinating multiple sailing ships without radio would be a significant cognitive capability.
With a negative expected survival rate (Score:2)
I'll bet most of his crew were prisoners, and they expected to have to thin the herd. (Just playing a numbers game)
Heck they probably tossed a couple over the side as soon as they lost sight of land just to set the tone.
Some down and outta luck cases, and those that wanted to escape something and didn't care where they landed.
The rest were trusted hard cases that kept the prisoners in line.
And a few committed Officers to share the deck duty.
All given promise of riches when they return.
An inspiring contrast and comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a timeless question that gets right to the very heart of our humanity. What drives us to explore and migrate? Greener pastures? Economic opportunity? Pressures of population and environment? Or just plain curiosity and inspiration? Thus, going to Mars is no different than Magellan, no different than Marco Polo, the Neolithic societies that populated the south Pacific, the nomads who crossed the Bering Strait, Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and Neil Armstrong. There are fascinating parallels and differences.
For Columbus, he sailed into the unknown of basic geography and geometry - is the Earth closed and spherical, or would they fall off the edge or sail forever into oblivion? Remember, for them the answer was unknown. Magellan knew he would not fall off, but otherwise he sailed into an unknown of weather, land masses, indigenous cultures, disease, and so on. Even fresh water could not be assured if they were far out to sea. They knew little of where they were going or what they would find, but they did have a set of robust well proven technologies that would allow them to go and return, assuming no misadventures along the way. With those technologies - boats, shipwrights, armaments, and various other tradesmen - they most likely could maintain the quintessentials of life. Air was always accessible, fresh water was assured on land and could be provisioned for times at sea, and food could be caught and stored along the way. Even if they ran into trouble, they could survive Robinson Crusoe style if they maintained some equanimity and cleverness to adapt to foreign lands. Making political troubles with the natives or encountering novel infectious diseases they had no defenses against, those were their main enemies.
Similarly, Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott, heading to the South Pole, had to trek under much more hostile conditions. The land would not support them if their technologies and provisions failed. They had free air, but even water, massively abundant, was not free - it had to be melted for that, expending fuel. Food was only what they could carry. Their technologies were simple, but crucial differences made big impacts - dog sleds worked for Amundsen, man-hauled sledges almost worked for Scott, but not quite as his party died "within sight of the Promised Land". Unlike Magellan, they knew where they were going, but not so much how to get there safely and return. At least there were no natives or culture conflicts to contend with.
Of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, all 12 returned safely. We knew where we were going. Air, water, food - not present at destination - but planning and provisions solved that. Key to that success was the technology, assuring safety in the absence of life sustaining natural resources. If the technology failed, then the whole expedition might be lost (or, it could be our lifeboat, as Apollo 13 demonstrated), but if the technology, the boat, remained afloat, all would survive the adventure.
Mars is akin to Apollo and the moon. The risks are great. Directly life sustaining natural resources are not on site. But, Mars has abundant resources which, mixed with the right technology, will allow us to make air, water, and fuel, and grow food. Our communication technologies will allow us to remain in contact with those back home for ongoing engineering, logistical, and social and psychological support. If a catastrophe happens to the technology or the boat or the colony, all might be lost, but the technologies we have are so well planned, tested, and implemented that we have advantages that Magellan did not.
The Roanoke colony was lost. Amelia Earhart disappeared. The crew of Apollo 1 made the supreme sacrifice to advance the program. The Donner Party had to find its own uncomfortable solutions to catastrophe on the frontier. If you Google "lost expeditions", the links are interesting, such as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There are not very m
Not the same at all (Score:3)
No doubt that once in Asia, you'd survive. Once in the "new world", whichever one you're talking about, you'd be fine.
Yes, the voyages themselves had similar risks, on their faces. But that's go nothing to do with the challenge of getting to mars.
First off, once on mars, you're not guaranteed to live. Actually, at this point, you're guaranteed to die. That's a very big difference. It means that there's a big reason to not even try to get there. Easy argument.
Second, going to mars today comes with an entire terran population trying to help you. From research to prep to production to innovation. And that's just in-advance. During the trip, you've got the entire world sending you entertainment content, discussing problems, working out solutions. And once you're on mars, sure help is far away by today's standards, but it's ridiculously close by magellan's standards. yeah phone calls have a lag of up to an hour, but that's a shit-load of help.
Oh, and we've been to mars already, a bunch of times. We know where it is. We know everything between here and there. We're mapping every object and solar discharge between here and there. Magellan never tracked whales and waves. He had no reconnaissance.
Humans are the Earth biosphere creatures (Score:2)
Saying that traveling around the world in the most luxury and suitable environment that we could ever have is more dangerous than flying 50 million km in t
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Meh (Score:2)
Regardless of the answer to that question, the main thing to keep in mind here, is that _life_ was cheaper then it was then. (Not cost of living but the actual
'cost' of a human life. i.e. nobody gave a shit if people died or not)
Apples and Oranges (Score:2)
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That's not much of an argument. You could counter by saying that Mars astronauts would have little risk of scurvy.
Magellan's crossing of the Pacific took almost four months (he was expecting a few days). During that time they made no landfall. If you could swim, which was exceedingly rare, there was nowhere to swim to. And medieval sailing ships didn't carry lifeboats.
Yes it was less risky, per $$$ (Score:3)
Magellan's fleet consisted of five ships, carrying supplies for two years of travel. The crew consisted of about 270 men. I can't find what the cost of that venture was, but to send people to Mars has been estimated at $500B.
The creation of 5 ships, supplies, and 270 men is achievable by nearly any country. The cost to send people to Mars is not. Also, as other's have noted, the risks related to sending people are better known, but the rewards are as well. Magellan didn't know many risks, but he also must have heard rumors and stories of untold wealth. That's easier to get financed. Dumping $500B to go to Mars with nearly 0 ROI makes it hard to get investors and/or taxpayers interested. Even if the cost were 1/10 that amount (which I'm sure someone here would say is feasible), I don't see enough people putting their hard earned cash behind such a venture.
The reason we aren't going to Mars isn't because its risky to human life. We aren't going to Mars because people would rather have less risky investments with greater chances of returns, especially in the short term.
Almost. (Score:2)
Yes. Don't agree - try being a sailor back then. (Score:2)
Did y'all miss the point that less than 10% of his crew came home? No, the rest didn't desert.
Let's see how you feel about climbing barefoot (because leather-soled or rope-soled shows slip on the ice on the rigging) up 100' or more of ice-clotted rope ladders in a storm.
The death toll for sailing ships was horrific.
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Actually, there's a concept called Corporate Murder which would lead to the killing of the investors. Don't forget, Enron finished in the negative, so investors had to pay off the company's debt.
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Stop this Mars humans talk. It doesn't work. If you really leave earth's atmosphere, you need to have something protecting you from DIRECT RAYS FROM THE SUN!
Sorry, machines can solve this, but humans can't. There's no way to get a human to Mars.
or we could just put water between them and the sun, water is great radiation shielding.
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You need more than 6 months go get to Mars.
I am too lazy to dig up the few papers that actually have results on interplanetary space radiation environment, but between the solar wind protons and the galactic cosmic rays you would be getting a dose that will put you in the first 100 Chernobyl cohort, and that means non-stochastic effects, a.k.a. radiation sickness and all its nice consequences (failures of immunity, failures of cardio-vasular system, etc) plus a very serious increase in the stochastic effec
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Because you have to generate it, and you must generate it in a specific way - with a very small gradient and extending to a huge distance away from the ship, similar to that of Earth.
This will add thousands more tons to the 23000 needed for shielding.
Quite unlikely that even an armada of Milennium Falcon Super-Musk Heavy star destroyers can lift that much.
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If I may say, nonsense. Every shoreline had natives who could eat the food, breathe the food, drink the water, and breed. Every shoreline had natives with boats, with the exception of a few small islands they passed. They had maps created by previous sailors who'd done the trip in much smaller, local voyages.
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Magellan sailed with only junk Caesar ciphers with export grade truncated alphabets. If he would have had Alberti ciphers, preferably with a Alberti cipher disk, his communications to the Holy See would have been secure.
Any mission to Mars would do far better today.
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Yeah, pretty sure this is a dupe. I've definitely read about this Magellan guy before.
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"Why are we reading about results from 1522 in 2020."
They want to tell us that there are no Martians with bamboo spears to kill the astronauts, because they sent rovers to make sure there's no bamboo.
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Absolutely! History is little more than that boring junk they teach you in highschool between lunch and PE.
Mankind a totally different species now, with completely different psychology. There are no parallels whatsoever between sending people off to potentially die in a risky endeavor in the 16th century, and now.