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.......So America can become the next energy "Saudi Arabia"!
On Sat, 30 May 2009 22:43:35 -0400, Jonathan wrote:
"Jonathan" wrote in message ... This August, the Augustine Commision will report it's review of NASA to President Obama. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1733782/ norm_augustine_to_review_the_vision.html?singlepag e=true&cat=15 What will it decide? An entirely new direction for NASA? Or will it just try to squeeze a lemon, and revamp/delay the current "Vision for Space Exploration", newly renamed Constellation. Which is to devote the next fifty years or so building a small habitat on the Moon, then another on Mars. Scuttle butt The moon base is already scrapped, and the new Hubble telescope is going to turn its new equipment on Mars, and check the isotope ratios of that methane gas. If the isotope ratios indicate a biological origin (life on Mars) rather than a geologic origin (by comparing carbon 13/carbon 12 ratios) then we're going to Mars and skipping the moon. /Scuttle butt -- Flamer & Trolls happily killfiled, as they should. No one should have to tolerate their abuse. If a flamer should get luck and ask an intelligent question and you want it answered, repeat it for them. |
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.......So America can become the next energy "Saudi Arabia"!
On May 29, 9:23*am, Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Sat, 30 May 2009 22:43:35 -0400, Jonathan wrote: "Jonathan" wrote in message m... This August, the Augustine Commision will report it's review of NASA to President Obama. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1733782/ norm_augustine_to_review_the_vision.html?singlepag e=true&cat=15 What will it decide? An entirely new direction for NASA? Or will it just try to squeeze a lemon, and revamp/delay the current "Vision for Space Exploration", newly renamed Constellation. Which is to devote the next fifty years or so building a small habitat on the Moon, then another on Mars. Scuttle butt The moon base is already scrapped, and the new Hubble telescope is going to turn its new equipment on Mars, and check the isotope ratios of that methane gas. If the isotope ratios indicate a biological origin (life on Mars) rather than a geologic origin (by comparing carbon 13/carbon 12 ratios) then we're going to Mars and skipping the moon. /Scuttle butt -- Flamer & Trolls happily killfiled, as they should. No one should have to tolerate their abuse. If a flamer should get luck and ask an intelligent question and you want it answered, repeat it for them. I'm certainly glad that you're paying for it and not me. Mars is terrific for those rad-hard robotics, that is as long as they don't hardly weigh anything. Getting 100 tonnes or even 10 tonnes safely on the deck without creating an artificial crater will have to be your next trick. Do let us know in another decade as to how that privately funded (meaning taxable) fly-by-rocket lander progress is going. btw, if Hubble puts more than 0.1% of it's valuable time on Mars, it'll be a waste. Why not instead do with Hubble what the Big Energy foiled OCO mission was supposed to accomplish? ~ BG |
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.......So America can become the next energy "Saudi Arabia"!
"Marvin the Martian" wrote in message news On Sat, 30 May 2009 22:43:35 -0400, Jonathan wrote: "Jonathan" wrote in message ... This August, the Augustine Commission will report it's review of NASA to President Obama. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1733782/ norm_augustine_to_review_the_vision.html?singlepag e=true&cat=15 What will it decide? An entirely new direction for NASA? Or will it just try to squeeze a lemon, and revamp/delay the current "Vision for Space Exploration", newly renamed Constellation. Which is to devote the next fifty years or so building a small habitat on the Moon, then another on Mars. Scuttle butt The moon base is already scrapped, That would be very welcome. Who needs a program that's very wasteful and expensive, and will only drag NASA down? and the new Hubble telescope is going to turn its new equipment on Mars, and check the isotope ratios of that methane gas. That's a hot debate, with biological sources with a slight lead last I heard. If the isotope ratios indicate a biological origin (life on Mars) rather than a geologic origin (by comparing carbon 13/carbon 12 ratios) then we're going to Mars and skipping the moon. /Scuttle butt So NOT WAIT for the MSL? Hmm...a "rush to judgment" on the question of simple life on Mars? That's a mistake, the uncertainty is what drives curiosity, once we know...well...what's the point of pursuing the question much further? I think a good case can be made by those on both sides of the aisle. If life is there, it's hidden and sparse, so geological processes still dominate. I believe that debate will remain inconclusive with no smoking gun likely to be found. So, kinda the whole missing WMD's in Iraq, if we make the claim life is there to justify a manned mission, we better be sure. That isn't likely to happen imho. The results should continue to be inconclusive. Consistently, relentlessly even intriguingly inconclusive. An elegant tie between geology and biology. Hinting that Mars may have taken a step towards life, but not quite creating it. Some 'missing link' between geology and biology that defies a complete explanation by either discipline. Missing links like maybe the banded iron formations on earth, and various mineral concretions that can be created by either geology and life. An ecosystem competing between forces for disorder such as erosion processes, or where inverse square laws govern each component. And the steadily increasing and cyclic order of life, which likes to follow power laws with global system behavior. The former is geology, the latter life. But an object which is equal parts of both, so that neither explanation wins, is the 'missing link' or source of first life.....imho of course. Maybe this missing link would have the components of geology, but the form only of life. Are anomalous concentrations of heavy metals the deposits of some bacteria? Or just an odd stroke of various chemical or erosion forces? Those spheres on Mars? They are just too pristine to be the result of processes spanning geologic time. Water certainly was involved, yet they're made up entirely of simple silicon and iron, just geology. There's just no neat and tidy explanation for them yet. I think this situation will continue and is a huge clue. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...nity_m014.html http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/136...5L7L7.jpg.html http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/012...5L5L6.jpg.html But a manned mission to Mars is a mistake, the rovers will have given the public all they care to see of Mars and then some decades before men ever get to Mars. We'll know what we want long before a manned mission could get there. Exploring is for robots. Exploiting space, building and making money in space is for humans. Doing it the other way around, sending men to the distant reaches, on pure science missions, just isn't logical. Robots are just five times faster, cheaper and almost as good. It's a simple fact of nature we must accept. Else reduce ourselves to nothing more than following only our instincts and pursue colonizing, like moths to a flame. The manned space program needs a reason for existing. A reason designed to return clearly tangible and /large/ benefits to society in the near and distant future. Pure science is the opposite of all that. Space Solar Power is a perfectly good use of humans in space. Building something meant to be central solution to climate change and fossil fuel dependence is the best reason I can possibly imagine. Jonathan -- Flamer & Trolls happily killfiled, as they should. No one should have to tolerate their abuse. If a flamer should get luck and ask an intelligent question and you want it answered, repeat it for them. |
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