President Bush: I have ordered the future parents of Zefram Cochrane to keep him healthy and well so that, in 2063, he may be fit to launch man's first warp-capable vessel. As for World War III, leave that part to me!
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"I'm sure we're a little rusty after all these years, but it's not like we'd have to figure it out from scratch."
Hmm... actually, after the Apollo program ended, all equipment, tools and plans for building the Saturn V rocket were lost, junked or retired, and since even larger boosters would likely be required for a new lunar effort (depending on the mission scheme selected), NASA would sort of have to do just that.
Anyway, we'll see how this pans out. That is, IF it pans out, of course.
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I said they wouldn't have to figure it out again, not that the equipment wouldn't need to be rebuilt. I'm sure the knowledge of how to build a rocket to the moon has not been lost.
Registered: Mar 1999
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And @Cartman: my accent IS completely different from Arnie's.
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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The French are a MYTH...like Intelligent Blondes...or Jason doing a good deed.
A world where the French are a myth.... if only...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: We've only been to Mercury ONCE and only have mapped 45% of the surface.
We need to go to Pluto and Charon... is the mission still on for that?
We need Galileo/Cassini type missions to Uranus and Neptune.
MESSENGER will launch for Mercury in May, do some flybys of Venus and Mercury, and settle into orbit of Mercury in 2009. (Why so long? It has to do with changing delta-V closer into the sun, and shedding momentum.)
New Horizons , to Pluto, Charon, and Kuiper belt, is scheduled for launch in Jan '06
As for other Planetary missions... Well, that's why you need to elect ME in 2008 instead of these bozos.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
2006? Damn. And it will probably take several years for it to GET to Pluto. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to have patience before I can see our farthest planet...
posted
Mars Mission a Trojan Horse? A less ominous article than the headline suggests. Still, a nice way to prop up the ailing aerospace industry, garner some of that feel-good 20th century nostalgia, and get off scot-free when the next administration realizes the whole thing is a boondoggle and cancels it, where one interested in those ends.
And while I'm being cynical, NASA's first move in its reinvigorated, vision-infused era? Scrapping the Hubble ahead of schedule.
And now just to be snippy: What exactly do we get out of an expensive Martian photo-op again?
Space exploration is incredibly sexy, and reminds us all of the good old days when we could assume our office buildings were safe, but is that enough?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I hate the people who say "we've got too much to deal with down here first!" There will ALWAYS be too much to deal with down here. If we wait until we have everything handled on Earth, we're going to be waiting until we either kill ourselves, destroy the entire ecosphere, or the sun blows up. There will always be reasons why not. People who let the reasons why not decide for them will never accomplish a goddamn thing. The people who said the Earth was flat stayed behind in Eurasia. We have no idea who they were. But we remember the Polynesians, the Portugese, the Phoenicians, the Norsemen -- and some highly-celebrated individuals like Columbus, Eriksson, and Magellan. The people who have opposed advances in aviation right from the very concept of airplanes themselves have been utterly forgotten. But we remember the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and Chuck Yeager.
Our world would be a damn sight different if Columbus and those guys had stayed home, or if the Wrights and people like them had decided only birds should fly. How much of what we take for granted and depend on is due to people daring in the face of all the reasons why not? How much of what we have and depend on today was spawned from the Space Race of the '60s? How much more will we get out of this? I can't even begin to speculate the advances in materials and construction technology. And I have the merest inkling of what's possible out of studying the long-term effects of microgravity and the ways to combat them.
Like Heinlein said in Starship Troopers -- the race that doesn't expand and conquer will get wiped out by the race that does. Nature's a bitch that way.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
election year pandering at best, an attempt to kill NASA outright at worse. Scrap our current launch system before the next one is ready years after Bush leaves office? Hmmmm.... Somthing stinks and it ain't this slice of cheese I'm eating.
-------------------- Like A Bat Out Of Hell...
Registered: Aug 2001
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"Like Heinlein said in Starship Troopers -- the race that doesn't expand and conquer will get wiped out by the race that does. Nature's a bitch that way."
Well, humans are, anyway. And it's The Paradigm of 4X games, so he must have had some inside info. But, not to be snarky here, that doesn't mean we should blindly comform to his ideology. After all, while we may remember Columbus and Magellan, we also remember the Incans and the native Americans.
I'm not saying we should sit this one out forever, but there are other fundamental stakes that at the very least merit more than just a casual glance, IMO.
[ January 18, 2004, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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"The people who said the Earth was flat stayed behind in Eurasia."
I hope you're not referring to the inexplicably widespread belief that people thought the world was flat right up until Columbus set foot in the US (which, of course, he never did, either).
Registered: Mar 1999
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-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
Registered: May 1999
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posted
But...the American Indians would have eventually traveled across the ocean and oppressed England! We'd all have been scalped and Psyliam's "rougish hair" would be adorning the saddlebag of some Navajo chief.
Al Gore might never have invented the Internet!
Think of the children, Ziyal!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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