Re: Space exploration for the rest of us
- From: Frank Glover <starr176@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 23:59:18 GMT
jacob navia wrote:
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,
Where's the human part? I don't see Steve Austin, or Seven of Nine there. Let's not warp the meaning of the word 'cyborg.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg
The probes have no organic parts. Indeed, great pains were taken to see to it that they did not.
Remote control isn't a cyborg.
> 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:
No one's knocking unmanned probes. We;ve always needed them as precursors to humans, or to go places where humans may *never* go. (surface of Venus, atmosphere of Jupiter, etc.) Or to measure things where a continued human presence is truly unnecessary...just like various environmental monitoring stations on Earth.
Cyborgs give us NOW space exploration for ALL.
Not for just a few selected people, but for all
of us.
When we can ALL (or at least the fraction that take part in exotic tourism on Earth, where only the ticket price is between me and Mars) participate, is when I'd use the phrase 'ALL of us.'
Not to denigrate the accomplishments of these machines and those (selected individuals) who remotely operate them, but if they can be said to represent me, then so could a human crew on the surface.
Perhaps more so. Even Apollo 17 likely got more public attention than, say, Surveyor 1. And who but space buffs remember Lunakhod?
More than two and half years after landing those
machines are in perfect working order, with some
obvious wear and tear,
So which one is it...?
> but still perfectly able to
fulfill their mission.
Long past their design lifetimes, yes. Says a lot for the engineering that went into them.
Of course, engineers work on manned spacecraft, too...
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.
I'd like to say this about *any* space exploration, but it isn't always true....
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Young_Adults_Largely_Disinterested_In_The_Vision_For_Space_Exploration_999.html
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/
jacob
--
Frank
You know what to remove to reply...
Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking
.
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