BS: MARS in the Headlights

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 12:22 PM

Unless we can move the planet out of the way of the sun's expansion to red giant, or prevent that expansion, no, there is no plan for the planet's survival. The plan is for humans to survive the planet.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 10:50 AM

All celestial bodies have a finite limit of their resources. It is inevitable that those resources will, one day, be used up.

Therefore it is imperative for the continuation of the human species that we look to colonise other, more distant, planets.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 10:33 AM

no, it is for both to survive.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 10:30 AM

The point is for humanity to survive our planet, not for our planet to survive...

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 08:06 AM

The Mars Pathfinder mission cost approximately $265 million including launch and operations. Development and construction of the lander cost $150 million and the rover about $25 million."

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 07:50 AM

Which president was responsible obama or trump?

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 06:19 AM

have you spoken to god, how do you know that? that reminds me of nero fiddling when rome was burning.
there are certain things we can do but if money is misspent on going to mars, there is less money to deal with more pressing priorites

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: JHW
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 05:52 AM

Nature's plan, if it has one, is to overwhelm the Earth, every critter only aimed at it's own survival even at the demise of others. Like this Virus, doesn't care, has nothing to care with yet it happily will do us in. A fungus did in the Elm trees, I liked Elm trees but the fungus won. Sure we are desecrating the Earth but if we step aside it will still do itself in.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 21 - 04:03 AM

The idea appears to be feck up planet earth , so find another planet to desecrate. Capitalist ideology, when you exploit and destroy one thing find another one to destroy

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 09:20 PM

Right now there's Navalny. He's a kind of hero. Nemtsov. Tom Brady....oops.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 09:11 PM

I did. There's Darwin, Beethoven and precious few other heroes.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 09:04 PM

Steve I really understood the levity. That was my attempt, however poor, to match it. As for the science references, I won't believe 'em for the simple reason that I don't want to. I prefer to think that the better angels of our nature, as Lincoln mentioned, will master the situation and did you know that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, and Charles Darwin was provided with texts by the great German traveling scientist Humboldt, and many counties in 'Murrica are named after him?

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 07:59 PM

I was regurgitating, levity intended, what my son WhatsApped to me earlier, robo. I think we discussed the "You" thing in another thread recently. Brits use it in the way I did and some yanks think it's intended to be personal. It isn't. I suppose I could have started the post with "The country that sends..." instead of "You," but that seems to me to be adding a layer of heaviness to proceedings.

Anyway, not you. By the way, I think the science was practised in spite of your government...

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 07:43 PM

Sandman... you realize that most of the money was spent long before anyone ever imagined COVID?

I doubt you have bothered to read what we hope to learn from this mission.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 07:26 PM

Steve:

Not in that order. But you voted for Brexit. Not YOU, but the same You you meant, only directed toward you. Not YOU, but, you know...

That was so effin' cool. It was almost like we had a government that practised SCIENCE.

See what I did, there, Steve? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 05:45 PM

That was SO COOL!

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 05:39 PM

Amazing. You send up a probe, control it to delicately land on a sixpence, collect what will be the most precious samples on earth, send up a tiny helicopter to survey the surroundings and elect Donald Trump...

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 04:11 PM

We just had a successful landing, cheering mission control workers, first photos and now questions from kids for NASA folks.

Can't wait for that helicopter to get tried out.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 03:16 PM

I couldn't agree with Raggytash more (1:52 pm) .
"...We were blind and now we see".
All we have to do is believe the results after some astronauts return the Rover samples to Earth to study 11 years or more from now regarding evidence of life on Mars.

As for robo, who am I to argue with me. ;^/

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 02:26 PM

Robomatic sounding like M in Skyfall!

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 02:23 PM

"...to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

-Tennyson

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 01:52 PM

The benefits to the human race from space exploration are huge.

Everything from weather data to personal communications across a broad spectrum that includes, for example, water purification systems, cancer detection devices, heart pumps, fire resistant materials etc etc.

Subject: RE: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 01:30 PM

bloody stupid , they should be spending this money on defeating covid

Subject: BS: MARS in the Headlights
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Feb 21 - 12:21 PM

Today 18FEB2021, in a few hours the NASA Perseverance lander is going to attempt a controlled arrival to a crater on Mars. It is scheduled just ahead of 4 PM East Coast Time, which I believe is 9 PM Greenwich (ZULU Time).

You may be a fan of space exploration. If so, visit NASA's web site for the project .

For lovers of the profit motive, there are also other promotions of the day for the calorie defiant.

Wikipedia's site is helpful in describing the history of Mars exploration.

And it's getting crowded:
There are other visitors to Mars from other countries. The UAE has recently achieved orbit over Mars.

China has an orbiting probe with a lander.

Aside from the Perseverance being the latest of several NASA efforts, it is the largest lander yet sent to a very difficult planet to land on. Aside from an almost Volkswagen sized rover, it is going to attempt a flying drone.