OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
quote: I wonder what the US would do if the Chinese went up there to the Sea of Tranquility, knocked over our flag, and put their own up...
Tranquility's Stars and Stripes are already on the ground. To quote Dave Foley as Alan Bean, "They can send a man to the moon, but they can't think to put a flag fifty feet away from a rocket engine so it won't get knocked over by the blast."
But it would be quite a feat if they knocked down the other five...
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
The Chinese Gov't has decided to build their own space station.
If the Chinese land humans on the Moon, the United States would not a new space race, IMO. The people in NASA have the belief that the American people's view of returning to the Moon is, "We been there, done that. What's new?" NASA is guided by popular perception. This is not an issue for the Chinese or the Russians in their glory days.
The trip to Mars is proving more difficult than originally thought. Radiation is a very large issue. A majority of Mars, especially the highlands, are bathed in deadly cosmic radiation. This leaves a very small portion of the Northern Hemisphere safe for humans.
Scientists say there is a good site for a lunar colony, the Malapert Mts. located north of the southern pole.
Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:The Chinese Gov't has decided to build their own space station.
Source?
quote:If the Chinese land humans on the Moon, the United States would not a new space race, IMO. The people in NASA have the belief that the American people's view of returning to the Moon is, "We been there, done that. What's new?" NASA is guided by popular perception. This is not an issue for the Chinese or the Russians in their glory days.
Aside from the general shortage of verbs, there's not a whole lot of sense here. Of course the Soviets put cosmonauts in orbit because of public perception. It was an exercise in propaganda, with sizeable spin-off benefits for the nation's defence and scientific infrastructure. If the Soviets just wanted to develop ICBMs and didn't care about capturing the popular imagination, they'd have dispensed with the whole manned flight thing and been building exclusively missiles by 1960 or so. Instead they raced the Americans in the most popular-perception-guided aspect of the Cold War.
What the space program boils down to is this: If the US or China spends $100 billion and puts people on the moon, my life doesn't change, in Sol's words, one whit. If they spend that same sum of money on alleviating poverty or fighting disease, on the other hand, my life does.
Mercury/Gemini/Apollo had spin-off benefits largely because there was so much R&D involved. Sending people back to the moon (indeed, even sending people to Mars) is essentially using off-the-shelf technology. So long as you're a fan of capitalism, you've got to deal with the good ol' fashioned cost/benefit analysis.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
quote: The Chinese Gov't has decided to build their own space station.
If the Chinese land humans on the Moon, the United States would not a new space race, IMO. The people in NASA have the belief that the American people's view of returning to the Moon is, "We been there, done that. What's new?" NASA is guided by popular perception. This is not an issue for the Chinese or the Russians in their glory days.
The trip to Mars is proving more difficult than originally thought. Radiation is a very large issue. A majority of Mars, especially the highlands, are bathed in deadly cosmic radiation. This leaves a very small portion of the Northern Hemisphere safe for humans.
Scientists say there is a good site for a lunar colony, the Malapert Mts. located north of the southern pole.
Christ, TE. Please figure out logic and the application of fact in debate.
Mars is not "bathed" in "deadly" radiation. The numbers are there, though I'll refrain from them. However, I will point out that Mars offers significant more radiation protection than the moon. You know, that whole atmosphere/no atmosphere thing?
I honestly don't understand why you think humans on Mars is such a long shot. I've explained it many times, rebuked every poorly thought out point you've ever made. How is your brain still functioning? The only possible answer is that you are literally not reading what I write.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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Many people have asked this question, yet no one has an answer. Methinks it has something to do with that slightly bleachy smell one detects when entering a Target store.
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