Obama/McCain and space exploration

[PrettyBoy]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

I missed this one. It's not just a frozen rock, PhiGam. Mars has a lot of great scenery. It actually has mountains three times as tall as Mount Everest, canyons three times as deep and five times as long as the Grand Canyon. It also has a ton of dry riverbeds. You also need to look at the fact that its unexplored surface may hold unimagined resources for future humanity, as well as answers to some of the deepest philosophical questions that thinking women and men have pondered on for eons. I honestly think Mars may someday provide a home for a dynamic new branch of human civilization. I also think with future human settlement and growth there, it will provide an engine of progress for all of humanity for generations to come. But all that Mars holds will remain beyond reach unless and until women and men land there. You would be surprised, temperatures on Mars can get pretty warm. Mars also has water frozen into its soil, as well as large quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, all in forms readily accessible to those inventive enough to use them. Also, these four elements are not only the basis of food and water, but of plastics, wood, paper, clothing, etc etc. You can also get rocket fuel out of those same elements too. That doesn't sound like a frozen rock to me.

Damn girl, you love you some planets. LOL. Damn, if it takes 9 months to get there, you would have to consider a joker needing to use the crapper. Hell, a joker's gotta eat, boo boo, drink and piss. And with no gravity?

It would be hard as hell to keep track of time on another planet, or while travelling there too.

cheers, how about you and two other jokers go to Mars and you lead the mission. $20 you jokers wouldn't come back.

[AGDee]

Hate to think about how many astronaut diapers they'd need for 9 months.

When the Cold War ended, the "space race" became a cooperative effort for the International Space Station, which doesn't get nearly enough press, I think. Read up on everything that's happening there! It's incredible what we're accomplishing TOGETHER. Two heads are better than one. Two super power resources are better than one also.

[PhiGam]

Originally Posted by PrettyBoy

It would be hard as hell to keep track of time on another planet, or while travelling there too. \ission. $20 you jokers wouldn't come back.[/COLOR][/I][/B]

A watch would do the trick

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by PhiGam

A watch would do the trick

Psssst...a little 5th grade astronomy lesson...day light hrs on other planets can be measured differently as sunrise and sunset varies...a watch is not always a viable option especially since most other planets do not have a standard 24hr period like......Earth?

Avg Mars day 24.66 hrs

Avg Lunar Day 24.56 hrs

Avg Venus Day - 243 EARTH days (see why a watch would be impractical?)

BTW....has anyone been paying attention to the Asian space race lately?

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by PhiGam

A watch would do the trick

And it's comments like this one that make you look as though you haven't a clue. There are mathematical equations that determine how to tell time on another planet. You just wouldn't use a watch.

[Senusret I]

[PhiGam]

There is no intelligent life in our solar system. The nearest star is 4.3 light years away. The fastest that we could get there with our current technology and no snags in the mission is 19,000 years. Even with nuclear pulse propulsion, a technology that is nothing more than a dream, we're talking 85 years (if the human body could even handle it). If we're not exploring space to find intelligent life, then what are we looking for? And before you start talking about iron and minerals being on other planets I'm going to say this again: it doesn't matter what kind of minerals are on another planet, it is simply not economical to mine and transport the material.

I don't know what McCain's NASA policies actually are, he claims to support the program but I feel that if he's big on cutting government waste (which his record has shown him to be) then NASA will be one of the first programs to lose money in the budget.

[AGDee]

There's a huge article in the October 27th edition of Time about what we're doing with Mars exploration and where we're going with it.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by PhiGam

There is no intelligent life in our solar system. The nearest star is 4.3 light years away. The fastest that we could get there with our current technology and no snags in the mission is 19,000 years. Even with nuclear pulse propulsion, a technology that is nothing more than a dream, we're talking 85 years (if the human body could even handle it). If we're not exploring space to find intelligent life, then what are we looking for? And before you start talking about iron and minerals being on other planets I'm going to say this again: it doesn't matter what kind of minerals are on another planet, it is simply not economical to mine and transport the material.

Who said I was talking about intelligent life, and who's saying that life on Earth is intelligent? To us, yes, but maybe to something else, somewhere else, no.

PhiGam, yes it does matter what kind of elements there are on other planets. Carbon is probably the most important element there is, but I won't get into that or why I think it is. What about water? When it comes to fostering life, water has the highly useful property of staying liquid across what most biologists regard as a fairly wide range of temperatures. The trouble is, most biologist look to Earth, where water stays liquid across 100 degrees of celcius scale. Another planet doesn't necesarily have to resemble Earth to support life. Like on some parts of Mars, atmospheric pressure is so low that water is never liquid. A cup of H2O boils and freezes at the same time. Yet in spite of Mars' current state, it's atmosphere once supported liquid water. If Mars ever harbored life on its surface, it would have been then. Where there once was life, there are fossils. And who said anything about intelligent life? Like I was saying earlier, extremophiles are everywhere. As far as I know, extremophiles were the earliest life forms here. And to declare that Earth must be the only planet with life in the universe is pretty big headed. I say this, because planets cannot be all that rare in the universe if the Sun, an ordinary star, has at least 8 of them. So there is a lot to look for.

[PhiGam]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

Who said I was talking about intelligent life, and who's saying that life on Earth is intelligent? To us, yes, but maybe to something else, somewhere else, no.

PhiGam, yes it does matter what kind of elements there are on other planets. Carbon is probably the most important element there is, but I won't get into that or why I think it is. What about water? When it comes to fostering life, water has the highly useful property of staying liquid across what most biologists regard as a fairly wide range of temperatures. The trouble is, most biologist look to Earth, where water stays liquid across 100 degrees of celcius scale. Another planet doesn't necesarily have to resemble Earth to support life. Like on some parts of Mars, atmospheric pressure is so low that water is never liquid. A cup of H2O boils and freezes at the same time. Yet in spite of Mars' current state, it's atmosphere once supported liquid water. If Mars ever harbored life on its surface, it would have been then. Where there once was life, there are fossils. And who said anything about intelligent life? Like I was saying earlier, extremophiles are everywhere. As far as I know, extremophiles were the earliest life forms here. And to declare that Earth must be the only planet with life in the universe is pretty big headed. I say this, because planets cannot be all that rare in the universe if the Sun, an ordinary star, has at least 8 of them. So there is a lot to look for.

You're saying the same stuff over and over again.
Tell me why its worth our resources to send manned missions to mars/ other planets. Prove to me that the billions of dollars that NASA receives in funding every year wouldn't be better suited for medical research or alternative energy research. Only then can I not feel that NASA is anything more than an example of government waste.

[nittanyalum]

I found your peeps, cheerful : http://www.interzonga.com/martianfed...elcome.htm#top

This is classic: Why I Want To Go

[KSig RC]

Congratulations! This is seriously the dumbest possible thread regardless of topic. Sweet, guys! Great work!

NOT SNARK: CG, seriously, you're just quoting Wikipedia at this point. Think about that.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by PhiGam

You're saying the same stuff over and over again.
Tell me why its worth our resources to send manned missions to mars/ other planets. Prove to me that the billions of dollars that NASA receives in funding every year wouldn't be better suited for medical research or alternative energy research. Only then can I not feel that NASA is anything more than an example of government waste.

I've already told you why. Medical research is good, I don't disagree with that. But I don't think NASA spending is government waste.

Originally Posted by LightBulb

This just deserved quoting.

Here's a map of Mars, courtesy of Google Maps.

-130 is cold

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Congratulations! This is seriously the dumbest possible thread regardless of topic. Sweet, guys! Great work!

NOT SNARK: CG, seriously, you're just quoting Wikipedia at this point. Think about that.

Ksig, I don't even know what Wikipedia is. I'm not familiar with the blog and other computer terminology you guys use on here. And I don't think it's a dumb thread at all. If you think it's that dumb, then why even post on here?

[preciousjeni]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

I don't even know what Wikipedia is.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by preciousjeni

I know what it is now. I looked it up.