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Now why does this remind me of Peter Shilling's Major Tom?

BL.
 
Can you imagine a Year and a Half ride there? Thats just too much. Plus, all of the supplies to survive there "permanently" would be far to much to keep sending to Astronauts/Cosmonauts. Just seems like too much
 
Can you imagine a Year and a Half ride there? Thats just too much. Plus, all of the supplies to survive there "permanently" would be far to much to keep sending to Astronauts/Cosmonauts. Just seems like too much

Think that's too much, Think about how long it would take to get the latest iPhone firmware! ;)

Though, no-one else could say that Safari is snappier on Mars! :p

BL.
 
Can you imagine a Year and a Half ride there? Thats just too much. Plus, all of the supplies to survive there "permanently" would be far to much to keep sending to Astronauts/Cosmonauts. Just seems like too much

The article did say 'round trip' when it mentioned a year and a half.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3D: Godzilla/5.0 (AppleWebKit/525.18.1; stereoscopic glasses 3.1.1) Mothra/5F136 Safari 3D)

I can see why we wouldn't send humans on the long trip there only to have them come right back, but why couldn't crews stay for years instead of a lifetime?
 
The way I understand it is a 6 month trip. Stay 18 months, and 6 months to get back.

I think as we build up the planet with bases we will stay longer. But at first it will be shorter trips. It will take a lot to get supplies there for a few years stay.
 
And NASA doesn't even want their astronauts to be in space for longer than 3 months. Too much radiation. Then, once you're on Mars, you're going to receive a lot of radiation too.


And who gives a toss what Buzz Aldrin thinks. He was lucky enough to go to Mars, which makes him a nice figure-head since he enjoyed fame more than Neil Armstrong. He's not an authority on anything, though.
 
And who gives a toss what Buzz Aldrin thinks. He was lucky enough to go to Mars, which makes him a nice figure-head since he enjoyed fame more than Neil Armstrong. He's not an authority on anything, though.

Too bad he wasn't lucky enough to go to the moon ;)

that would've been a nice trip to take.
 
Clearly he had a good handle on the scale of the sheer resource waste of the lunar missions, and feels that if man is going to Mars it should be for a definite plan to do something quantifiable with the presence, rather than just going there, planting a flag and doing a few experiments (longer-term in the case of Mars, but still insufficient science) and coming back, and repeating it a few times like the Moon.

The lack of a magnetosphere is the biggest problem though - unlike Earth, just because you've landed on a planet doesn't mean you get any protection from the Sun. I don't believe they still have any kind of really practical, long-term answer for that one.
 
The lack of a magnetosphere is the biggest problem though - unlike Earth, just because you've landed on a planet doesn't mean you get any protection from the Sun. I don't believe they still have any kind of really practical, long-term answer for that one.
Umbrellas? SPF 30 cream? iShades?
 
At the moment we have no way to Mars and with current propulsion technology by the time they got there they wouldnt even be able to stand under their own weight let alone the radiation problems they will have. What we need to do is start terraforming it with robotic missions and use more robotic missions otherwise it will be another Apollo. Waving the flag then 40 years later d.a.'s saying we never went.

What we need is a real space machine with a tech that can cross interplanetary space in weeks not years. Its time to build something better then chemical rockets. Then we can go anywhere in the solar system.
 
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