I went to see the launch back in November 2011.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
I didn't realize it was that large. Wonder how long before we have a small RC vehicle replica to play with on planet earth. Use your quad rotor drone to drop it into your neighbor's yard and cause lots of fun neighborhood mayhem!coastie said:...the size of a mini cooper...
NasaTV is the most up-to-date, but it is about the most boring coverage you could possibly watch - they spend most of the time re-hashing and congratulating themselves. If Nasa wants continued support of taxpayer dollars, then need to do a little more PR work and package their missions for broader appeal to the masses.20valves said:Does anyone know which (any?) channel is following this? This thing has got to be sending back data just about 24/7.
One of the head honchos was rattling on about this and that this morning and mentioned that for less than seven dollars per person... maybe in all the nations involved?... seven dollars each sent the Rover on it's way. Pretty cheap, huh. OHoundman said:This is like the varsity league of those rc robot competitions on taxpayer money. Maybe they will find evidence of huge gold deposits and dig it up and fly it home, pay off the cost of this project. ::008:: Looking for life on Mars while life on Planet Earth hangs in the balance.
I'm not sure how much fun and mayhem can be had at a cruising speed of 4cm/sec. It's not fast because it's being controlled from here, with a 14-minute lag, and there is always a risk of running it into a ditch if they are going too fast.20valves said:I didn't realize it was that large. Wonder how long before we have a small RC vehicle replica to play with on planet earth. Use your quad rotor drone to drop it into your neighbor's yard and cause lots of fun neighborhood mayhem!
I think it IS pretty cheap actually. Apart from the pure science aspect of it (things we learn may help us in the future), think of all the kids who might be inspired to study engineering or astrophysics or whatever. This generation could be the ones LANDING on Mars - if these missions go well, predictions are for a manned mission by 2030... so a kid seeing this now in elementary school could be on board that ship.markjenn said:While celebrating the landing, the guys at mission control were talking about what a bargain this mission was - how it only cost $7 per US citizen to fund the mission. I thought that was a pretty high number actually. I like science as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure most Americans, given the choice, would be willing to shell out $7 for every man, woman, and child just to support a single pure science mission on Mars.
- Mark
Hard to compare things like this. (Or worse, try and compare the cost of this entire mission with a single B1 bomber or a few F-22 fighters.)dcstrom said:True it's a lot of money - but spend the same money on earth and the things you fix are only incremental and barely noticible - fix the roads, whatever - necessary but hardly inspirational to the next generation. It's worth it...
Give me $2,500,000,000.10c and I'll have delivered to your door in 9 months. I might even get it down to 450lbs for you ::024::20valves said:This thing sets up a whole new series of comparative statements:
"If we can send a car to Mars, why can't we ______________"
1. Produce a 475 pound Super Tenere ::008::
Already sort of done...markjenn said:Instead of a $3B mission to dig up rocks and try and look for pre-cursors of life (which I absolutely guarantee will result in ambiguous results) how about building a vehicle that covers much longer distances (possibly even flies in the Martian atmosphere) that sends back live high-res pictures broadcast over TV and the internet? One that would let us get some type of virtual experience of what it is like to be on Mars?
- Mark
;DGrahamD said:Give me $2,500,000,000.10c and I'll have delivered to your door in 9 months. I might even get it down to 450lbs for you ::024::
Finding large deposits of precious substances on Mars would be the catalyst for true space exploration. The private sector would start throwing gobs of money at spaceflight and space mining. It's the underlying premise for a lot of Sci-fi movies. Alien among them.Houndman said:This is like the varsity league of those rc robot competitions on taxpayer money. Maybe they will find evidence of huge gold deposits and dig it up and fly it home, pay off the cost of this project. ::008:: Looking for life on Mars while life on Planet Earth hangs in the balance.
I can't think of anything "precious" enough at the moment that would warrant the cost of getting there, mining the stuff, then bringing it back. Cost would be truly astronomical.Venture said:Finding large deposits of precious substances on Mars would be the catalyst for true space exploration. The private sector would start throwing gobs of money at spaceflight and space mining. It's the underlying premise for a lot of Sci-fi movies. Alien among them.
I think you answered your own question. Obviously we're not going there for gold, but for something that has unique properties that are desirable and rare.dcstrom said:I can't think of anything "precious" enough at the moment that would warrant the cost of getting there, mining the stuff, then bringing it back. Cost would be truly astronomical.
Now maybe if it was the "unobtainium" from Avatar that would be a different proposition...
???Houndman said:What would be as great as the moon landing(or this latest Mars thing) would be the day that the government said that the national debt has been paid off, that all incoming flow of means will now go to infrastructure construction and redesign, for research of those projects. Fund ways to figure out what we are gonna do to lessen the impact of the day that the last drop of oil will be sucked out of the ground. Now that would be fascinating. Then whatever.. go land on Mars. ::009::