Re: Space exploration for the rest of us
- From: "Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:15:34 -0400
"jacob navia" <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:451ae5fb$0$5078$ba4acef3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Today, the first photographs of the Opportunity
robot from Mars at the edge of the Victoria crater
arrived to
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2006-09-27/
and in the NASA sites.
At home, I have been following the slow progress of that robot
since more than a year, when it left the Endurance crater.
Through the internet, millions of people like me have been
following the exploration of Mars for the first time,
in land.
No, it is not some human, it is two cyborgs, half
humans, half machines, that walk slowly through the
sands of mars. Led by the scientist Steve Squyres,
and the wizards of JPL, this two machines in a
ridiculous budget of only 800 million have been
sending to all of mankind this news, letting us
feel the colors, the sand, the textures, sunsets and nights
of the first planet we start in earnest to explore.
Those that advocate "human" exploration miss this:
Cyborgs give us NOW space exploration for ALL.
Not for just a few selected people, but for all
of us.
I don't see any reason NASA couldn't do the same with manned missions.
Hell, I enjoy watching ISS EVA's on NASA TV over the Internet, and that's
realtime. There isn't any reason this could not be done for lunar EVA's.
More than two and half years after landing those
machines are in perfect working order, with some
obvious wear and tear, but still perfectly able to
fulfill their mission.
True, but it's a very simplistic mission compared to what you can do with
people on site. One added bonus to manned missions is that since you have
to return the people, it's reasonable to expect that you're going to return
some samples too. How many sample return missions have been flown to Mars?
How about the Moon? The only one I can recall was a Soviet lunar mission
that returned a very small sample compared to even one Apollo landing
mission, of which there were six.
Also, those manned Apollo missions left instruments on the moon that
operated for years afterwards. You might want to read about those.
They have been able to make it through the winter,
and kept clean by the winds, their solar powered
engines keep on returning scientific data. Now
with the arrival of the MRO craft, humans will be
able to study both from orbit and from the ground
a given scientifc target.
All this for the same price of an ISS/Shuttle mission.
And this is no boring stuff that nobody cares about.
It is the *real* exploration of an hitherto unknown
world, the realization of an old dream.
The sands of Mars are there.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2006-09-27/
So, are you saying that if man sets foot on Mars that it will be "boring
stuff"? I doubt this. My guess is that it will be the most watched (space)
television since Apollo 11!
Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)
.
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