Obama/McCain and space exploration

[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.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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

"I made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". - Han Solo

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

Actually, the human body has become accustomed, through centuries of acclimation, to a 24-hour clock. While there are also other related issues (such as the effects of sunlight on production of serotonin, for example), there's literally no good reason to keep time in "Mars time" for a basic exploration. It's likely more useful to keep a 24-hour schedule to prevent a sort of hyper-jet lag (especially considering how much the body would wither with 9 months of zero gravity) - a watch would be very useful, much more so than calibrating time to an astronomical idea of a "Mars day."

[CrackerBarrel]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Actually, the human body has become accustomed, through centuries of acclimation, to a 24-hour clock. While there are also other related issues (such as the effects of sunlight on production of serotonin, for example), there's literally no good reason to keep time in "Mars time" for a basic exploration. It's likely more useful to keep a 24-hour schedule to prevent a sort of hyper-jet lag (especially considering how much the body would wither with 9 months of zero gravity) - a watch would be very useful, much more so than calibrating time to an astronomical idea of a "Mars day."

I was thinking the same thing, the only thing a "Mars day" would tell you is when it was daylight or darkness. You can just look around to figure that one out. Staying on 24 hour time seems much more useful to me.

And I don't disagree that it's possible to at some point go, but we can't do it now. Even if you could theoretically get to Mars, a capsule can't carry enough food for a trip of over a year (5 months there, 5 months back, however many months there to wait for the planets to get aligned correctly for the return trip. Let alone anything else you would need. Nasa's goal is to have the new capsule-based orbiter (looks like a bigger Apollo capsule) ready by 2012 or 2013, able to return to the Moon by 2020, and think the capsule would be suitable for Mars travel at some undefined point in the future after that if we can figure out other details. It isn't something we can do now though. Sure we have the technology to blast some shit to Mars, clearly, we've been doing it for a good while. We don't have the technology to keep people alive on that trip though.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by CrackerBarrel

I was thinking the same thing, the only thing a "Mars day" would tell you is when it was daylight or darkness. You can just look around to figure that one out. Staying on 24 hour time seems much more useful to me.

And I don't disagree that it's possible to at some point go, but we can't do it now. Even if you could theoretically get to Mars, a capsule can't carry enough food for a trip of over a year (5 months there, 5 months back, however many months there to wait for the planets to get aligned correctly for the return trip. Let alone anything else you would need. Nasa's goal is to have the new capsule-based orbiter (looks like a bigger Apollo capsule) ready by 2012 or 2013, able to return to the Moon by 2020, and think the capsule would be suitable for Mars travel at some undefined point in the future after that if we can figure out other details. It isn't something we can do now though. Sure we have the technology to blast some shit to Mars, clearly, we've been doing it for a good while. We don't have the technology to keep people alive on that trip though.

can't carry enough food? why not?

You forget we have a space station orbiting overhead that's doing just that...testing out how long we can last up there...remember?

You are getting a few things confused...the new Ares craft is designed for lunar travel not to Mars...when we get ready to go to Mars there are plans on using a larger type craft to do the job...now come on...you won't send a speedboat to do the job of a cruise ship now will you?

Think....

[CrackerBarrel]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

can't carry enough food? why not?

You forget we have a space station orbiting overhead that's doing just that...testing out how long we can last up there...remember?

You are getting a few things confused...the new Ares craft is designed for lunar travel not to Mars...when we get ready to go to Mars there are plans on using a larger type craft to do the job...now come on...you won't send a speedboat to do the job of a cruise ship now will you?

Think....

No... Ares isn't designed to go anywhere. It also isn't a craft. It's the rocket stage for the Constellation project. Ares I is the light lifter, Ares V is the heavy lifter. Orion is the orbiting module and Altair is the lunar lander. The plan is to modify the Orion/Altair pairing for a Mars mission later using information they get from the lunar missions. The target date to put humans on Mars is 2037 though, so it is very possible that the plan will change before then.

And you can't carry enough supplies right now. The ISS has enough power to stay in orbit, not to fly 50,000,000 miles. The Orion/Altair pairing just isn't big enough to hold everything yet and you can't power something the size of the ISS to Mars. I think the idea is to eventually boost up supply capsules that Orion can rendezvous with on the way, but that's still kind of a pie-in-the-sky idea at this point in time.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by CrackerBarrel

No... Ares isn't designed to go anywhere. It also isn't a craft. It's the rocket stage for the Constellation project. Ares I is the light lifter, Ares V is the heavy lifter. Orion is the orbiting module and Altair is the lunar lander. The plan is to modify the Orion/Altair pairing for a Mars mission later using information they get from the lunar missions. The target date to put humans on Mars is 2037 though, so it is very possible that the plan will change before then.

And you can't carry enough supplies right now. The ISS has enough power to stay in orbit, not to fly 50,000,000 miles. The Orion/Altair pairing just isn't big enough to hold everything yet and you can't power something the size of the ISS to Mars. I think the idea is to eventually boost up supply capsules that Orion can rendezvous with on the way, but that's still kind of a pie-in-the-sky idea at this point in time.

Hint: Lunar (luna) is Latin for...?

Either way, man will have to land on the moon again and establish a base there before they go to Mars...but I doubt seriously they are taking capsules..and part of that testing that you are referring to includes making something that can break from orbit and go to Mars...

So I agree and disagree with some of your points but we both can agree with all of our money going elsewhere **coff* fugging up Iraq and AIG speinding bailout money *coff* we can't afford Mars!

heh!

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

So I agree and disagree with some of your points but we both can agree with all of our money going elsewhere **coff* fugging up Iraq and AIG speinding bailout money *coff* we can't afford Mars!

heh!

omg!!!! lol lol lol the bolded made me laugh SO hard. lol.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Actually, the human body has become accustomed, through centuries of acclimation, to a 24-hour clock. While there are also other related issues (such as the effects of sunlight on production of serotonin, for example), there's literally no good reason to keep time in "Mars time" for a basic exploration. It's likely more useful to keep a 24-hour schedule to prevent a sort of hyper-jet lag (especially considering how much the body would wither with 9 months of zero gravity) - a watch would be very useful, much more so than calibrating time to an astronomical idea of a "Mars day."

Ksig RC, this makes sense, but I was thinking that since the Martian year is 669 Martian days (or 686 Earth days) wouldn't we need to be on it's time? Once they arrived on Mars, since Earth and Mars are constantly moving, they would have to stay (more than likely) at least 550 days on the Martian surface before their return launch window opens up. I was just thinking since they would be there that long, the correct Martian time would be needed.

I agree with you about the effect of zero gravity, but what about the Soviet cosmonauts, many of whom have spent a lot of time in zero gravity on their Mir space station of over 6 months and some for over 18 months, nearly three times the duration of a mission to Mars. I was just thinking that in all cases, near total recovery of the musculature and immune system occurs after reentry and reconditioning to a one gravity environment on Earth. They could probably recover in a few days.

[PhiGam]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

Thats irrelevant, we wouldn't need to tell time on another planet to have a usable frame of reference. If the mission is drawn out in earth time then the astonauts could use earth time...