Mars Rover Landing Stream

[Occupied Deutschland]

Oh, Jesus Christ, can we just be happy? We just shot a piece of metal a nearly unfathomable distance into space and it landed on a distant world to teach us about it. Isn't that fantastic enough without it having to prove a point?

Sorry, I'm happy but these comments saying "We should dissolve NASA" piss me off, and Occupied you obviously didn't read the entire thread.

*looks back in thread*
DAMMIT! Why? *weeps*

[Nationstatelandsville]

Sorry, I'm happy but these comments saying "We should dissolve NASA" piss me off, and Occupied you obviously didn't read the entire thread.

*looks back in thread*
DAMMIT! Why? *weeps*

It's OK, Occupied, it's OK.

We can send them all with the probe next time.

[Sheariliik]

what? no threads on this? lets change that...

so I guess all of you have heard of how history was made when Mars Science Labratory successfully landed on Gales crater at 1:30 AM EDT. I was shocked at how smoothly the landing went, no delays, problems ect...
Hopefully Curiosity will send us back some fascinating information.

here are the 50x50 pictures from our friend on mars -





It even got praise for Obama:

"The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future. It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination."

- POTUS

what do you guys think of all of this? did you watch the livestream?

[Divair]

Didn't watch the livestream, but I'm a big supporter of all things space related. Hopefully this solidifies NASA's funding issues.

[Northwest Slobovia]

That's one small landing for Curiousity, and one giant leap for all those with a curious mind.

[Napkiraly]

Didn't watch the livestream, but I'm a big supporter of all things space related. Hopefully this solidifies NASA's funding issues.

Divair, you couldn't have said it any better. Although, I did get to watch the livestream.

[Farnhamia]

what? no threads on this? lets change that...

so I guess all of you have heard of how history was made when Mars Science Labratory successfully landed on Gales crater at 1:30 AM EDT. I was shocked at how smoothly the landing went, no delays, problems ect...
Hopefully Curiosity will send us back some fascinating information.

here are the 50x50 pictures from our friend on mars -


(Image)
(Image)

It even got praise for Obama:

"The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future. It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination."

- POTUS

what do you guys think of all of this? did you watch the livestream?

Dude ...

[Divair]

Didn't watch the livestream, but I'm a big supporter of all things space related. Hopefully this solidifies NASA's funding issues.

Divair, you couldn't have said it any better. Although, I did get to watch the livestream.

Lucky you

[Mad hatters in jeans]

Didn't watch the livestream, but I'm a big supporter of all things space related. Hopefully this solidifies NASA's funding issues.

of course naturally in an economic downturn the best thing to do is colonise mars, because fuck it moonlogic is so mainstream.

[Typhlochactas]

You still failed to answer my question.

The rovers would not bring in any profits at all, they are completly unprofitable. They are made purely for research and research only, even if NASA tried there wouldn't be anything to gain in terms of profits.

Good, because NASA isn't ran for profit.

[Wisconsin9]

Divair, you couldn't have said it any better. Although, I did get to watch the livestream.

Lucky you

I also saw the livestream. Discussing the rover until about half an hour before landing, followed by forty minutes of guys sitting in front of computer screens and making sure everything was go, a few minutes of a laggy computer simulation and finally everyone cheering their arses of when it didn't blow up.

Suffice to say, I was also cheering my arse off.

[FranksFreedom]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

[Divair]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

NASA's budget is tiny. Hardly something to complain about.

[Typhlochactas]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

Two billion dollars. Where do you think it would be better spent?

[Divair]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

Two billion dollars. Where do you think it would be better spent?

$2bn will surely save the planet.

[Runfin]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

Why spend 16 billion on a Military?

[Divair]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

Why spend 16 billion on a Military?

Edit: Just realized the context. Never mind.

[Northwest Slobovia]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

Oh, I agree: since the economy is bad, the government should stop wasting money on anything not immediately needed. All those futuristic airplanes the Air Force wants for wars which may never be fought? Fuck 'em. Navy's equally gold-plated future ships? Fuck 'em, too. In fact, all those guys we brought back from Iraq: fire their surplus asses. Let 'em work for a living, not lollygagging around some base on my dime. Bring the rest home from Aghanistan, too, then fire them: we killed Osama already, so we're done there.

Medical research? Eh, it won't save anybody for years, and the recession will be over by then, and then private industry can pick up the slack. Kill it. Research into climate change? Half the country won't believe it until it's 150 degrees in January, and the other half's convinced already. Ditch that too. Private industry can run the weather service too; anybody too cheap to pay for hurricane warnings deserves to die, anyway. Commerce department? Privatize that, and Agriculture too; f'ing businessmen and farmers can pay their own way.

Sell off the Treasury's gold and stop printing money, since everybody has a credit card. Likewise Transportation: people should pay for their own damn roads. If it was good enough for Washington and Lincoln, it's good enough for me! Shut the public schools too. Half the kids fail as it is, and other half can be paid for by their parents.

So, in short, I believe that the government should engage in only the most short-sighted activities, 'cause we're just too poor to plan ahead.

[Occupied Deutschland]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

1) This is actually important, both in a metaphysical 'Why are we here?'/'Are we alone in the universe?' manner as well as a more concrete 'This can inspire new methods or materials that can help us here on earth'.
2) There are bigger things to target from government expenditures than space exploration. Chiefly: Military spending, Entitlement spending, Corruption, and Subsidies. The excess and graft inherent in those 4 systems could pay for the current NASA budget four dozen times or more. Target the problems there before yelling 'space is too expensive!'

Besides ALL that, NASA did this on what is comparably a shoestring budget. I'm just as much of a free-market anti-government advocate as you are (if not more so) but if the government is getting RESULTS (which this picture pretty much proves they are) it should at the very least be the last thing put on the chopping block.

Seriously, can somebody find the gene sequence in Newt Gingrich's DNA that gives him such a hard-on for space and somehow make it into a serum that all Congressmen have to get before serving their terms? Space exploration is shit Democrats and Republicans (and Libertarians, and Communists, and Socialists, and yes, I suppose even those kooky 'Greens') should be able to agree on.

[Wisconsin9]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

1) This is actually important, both in a metaphysical 'Why are we here?'/'Are we alone in the universe?' manner as well as a more concrete 'This can inspire new methods or materials that can help us here on earth'.
2) There are bigger things to target from government expenditures than space exploration. Chiefly: Military spending, Entitlement spending, Corruption, and Subsidies. The excess and graft inherent in those 4 systems could pay for the current NASA budget four dozen times or more. Target the problems there before yelling 'space is too expensive!'

Besides ALL that, NASA did this on what is comparably a shoestring budget. I'm just as much of a free-market anti-government advocate as you are (if not more so) but if the government is getting RESULTS (which this picture pretty much proves they are) it should at the very least be the last thing put on the chopping block.

Seriously, can somebody find the gene sequence in Newt Gingrich's DNA that gives him such a hard-on for space and somehow make it into a serum that all Congressmen have to get before serving their terms? Space exploration is shit Democrats and Republicans (and Libertarians, and Communists, and Socialists, and yes, I suppose even those kooky 'Greens') should be able to agree on.

Maybe if we make a big enough fuss about the Chinese space program, we can get back into things like they were in the Cold War.

Only without the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation.

[Occupied Deutschland]

1) This is actually important, both in a metaphysical 'Why are we here?'/'Are we alone in the universe?' manner as well as a more concrete 'This can inspire new methods or materials that can help us here on earth'.
2) There are bigger things to target from government expenditures than space exploration. Chiefly: Military spending, Entitlement spending, Corruption, and Subsidies. The excess and graft inherent in those 4 systems could pay for the current NASA budget four dozen times or more. Target the problems there before yelling 'space is too expensive!'

Besides ALL that, NASA did this on what is comparably a shoestring budget. I'm just as much of a free-market anti-government advocate as you are (if not more so) but if the government is getting RESULTS (which this picture pretty much proves they are) it should at the very least be the last thing put on the chopping block.

Seriously, can somebody find the gene sequence in Newt Gingrich's DNA that gives him such a hard-on for space and somehow make it into a serum that all Congressmen have to get before serving their terms? Space exploration is shit Democrats and Republicans (and Libertarians, and Communists, and Socialists, and yes, I suppose even those kooky 'Greens') should be able to agree on.

Maybe if we make a big enough fuss about the Chinese space program, we can get back into things like they were in the Cold War.

Only without the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation.

Sadly, that's probably the only way to do it. *sigh*

At least it'll be easy convincing the Republicans.
"Hey, do you guys want the ChiComs and the Russians to be the only ones with dedicated launch systems?"
*Cue scramble by every Republican congressman to pass exorbitant funding bill for NASA*

Not sure how to get the Dems on board, perhaps just say they're unpatriotic and unamerican if they don't vote in favor of it? I mean, if it worked for Iraq then it should work now.

[Free Soviets]

You know - I don't rally care...we already went to Mars...and our economy is in the toilet...why spend so many billions on this?

why not? we need to spend more money anyways. and since the republicans refuse to let us fix our bridges until they collapse, i guess discovering the universe will have to do.

[Wisconsin9]

Maybe if we make a big enough fuss about the Chinese space program, we can get back into things like they were in the Cold War.

Only without the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation.

Sadly, that's probably the only way to do it. *sigh*

At least it'll be easy convincing the Republicans.
"Hey, do you guys want the ChiComs and the Russians to be the only ones with dedicated launch systems?"
*Cue scramble by every Republican congressman to pass exorbitant funding bill for NASA*

Not sure how to get the Dems on board, perhaps just say they're unpatriotic and unamerican if they don't vote in favor of it? I mean, if it worked for Iraq then it should work now.

Hmm... maybe we tell them that we'll... no... hmm... I got nothing.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Maybe if we make a big enough fuss about the Chinese space program, we can get back into things like they were in the Cold War.

Only without the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation.

Sadly, that's probably the only way to do it. *sigh*

Nah, we just need to remind them of the reason NASA and all these other research organizations exist. See, at the end of World War 2, the bloated, wasteful US government ran a study that's responsible for every last cent of this wasteful and completely unncessary spending.

The study was a simple one: figure out how we won WW2 and how we can best prepare in case we ever have to do it again. So, the study included figuring out how we trained and armed millions of men and good shit-blows-up nonsense like that. Two important conclusions came out of that:

1) We were able to arm millions of men with very advanced weapons because private industry had a lot of capacity available to do it with, and was able to rapidly build new capacity where and when needed. We need to preserve this.

So, buried in the federal budget are a few strange subsidies for oddball things like maintaining railroads leading to disused mines, and paying for maintaining empty factories and such like. There's not much money for that, but it doesn't take much. The fancy military term for this is "capability preservation". It's also the reason men still need to register for the draft: we may need one in the future, and the best way to round up all those warm bodies is to know where they are ahead of time.

2) We were able to build the atomic bomb and few other nifty things because, to a great extent, our enemies handed us a dream team of scientists and engineers. We're not likely to have such luck in future. We need to train our own scientists to build potential future superweapons. (These days, we call them "stealth drones". )

So, we maintain a huge cadre of academic and industrial researchers doing Strange Things. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter what they work on, so long as they have the sorts of skills we might need. Relativitity depends on some fancy math (tensor analysis), and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to express without it... so even theoretical math may be useful to blowing stuff up (modern cryptography depends on sexy math too).

So, if the need arises, those scientists and engineers are available to build whatever we'll need to fight WW3. If you view Islamist terrorism and the fighting against it as WW3, thank the government we spent a lot of money on theoretical chemistry: it's what makes what little bomb detection gear we have possible, and is the seed from which the stuff being worked on now grew.

In any case, the government knows some of those eggheads won't work on weapons unless we're fighting an another Godwinizing army. That's fine; the stuff they do in the interim may be useful to those will. And some will never work on military stuff; that's also fine for the same reason.

Ever noticed how similar space rockets and ballistic missiles are? Of course: the former grew from the later... and the later get tech developed for the former. It's part of The Plan. See the nifty, nifty tech that allows us to put a robot on Mars only a few hundred meters away from its target? Do you think the military might want that for (for example) rapid, fully-automated resupply of troops in the field? I do. Yeah, we can do a lot with low drops from C-130's and helos, but they're comparatively slow. But when you need the bullets positively, absolutely *now*, it's probably gonna be RocketSkyCrane Express, brought to you by NASA.

So, I think it may be time to remind Congress of this. Some of the wet-behind-the-ears kids these days never heard of The Plan, and they need to be brought up to speed. It won't get NASA back to the Glory Days of the Space Race, but it should prevent further erosion.

And FranksFreedom, if you're reading this now: my freedom is worth the couple of bucks of my taxes that goes to research (it's about 2% of the budget, all told). Is yours?

[Mosasauria]

I... Didn't even know this happened until now...