inignoct wrote:
] ] President Bush beckoned the nation "forward into the
] ] universe" on Wednesday, outlining a costly new effort to
] ] return Americans to the moon as early as 2015 and use it
] ] as a waystation to Mars and beyond.
]
] i'm really interested in what people think about this...
] progressive commitment or poltical opportunism? I tend to
] take the latter view, personally, though i have trouble being
] *too* unhappy with anything that funds basic science.
]
] second question, will such a proposal even *begin* to get
] through congress? i think it's unlikely, which solidifies my
] belief that it's a political move, so W can say "I *wanted* to
] fund science... but that mean 'ol congress wouldn't let me!"
]
] a more relevant question, to me is : is the moon even a useful
] place for a permanent base? are there useful raw materials
] there? feasible means of energy generation? is using it as a
] launch venue sensible given its substantial (though admittedly
] less than earth's) gravity well?
]
] Guys like Robert Zubrin (who is, admittedly, zealous,
] sometimes to the point of unreasonable) makes good arguments
] that the moon is pretty pointless, and there's not a lot of
] reason to put people there, other than nationalism, pride, and
] other forms of self-fellatio. Could we make more progress by
] devoting those resources (or even a fraction of them) towards
] other projects, like a space elevator (and the attendant
] advances in nanoscience that would be widely beneficial)?
]
] Given how limited the budgets usually are for basic science,
] it's important to make sure we spend the money we do get on
] the most promising projects, not planetwide publicity stunts.

I think that an interesting thing that could eventually come out of all of this Mars research is the ability to study further into the universe. If we could somehow set up some sort of way of researching from Mars - like setting up powerful telescopes or whatever and getting the information to be sent back to scientists here - then maybe we can learn more about our universe and beyond. I think that would be really interesting, although I am not an astronomer, so I don't know how that would work. Lets not just learn more about Mars - lets look beyond Mars if we can. - Nano

Nanochick wrote:
] I think that an interesting thing that could eventually come
] out of all of this Mars research is the ability to study
] further into the universe. If we could somehow set up some
] sort of way of researching from Mars - like setting up
] powerful telescopes or whatever and getting the information to
] be sent back to scientists here - then maybe we can learn more
] about our universe and beyond. I think that would be really
] interesting, although I am not an astronomer, so I don't know
] how that would work. Lets not just learn more about Mars -
] lets look beyond Mars if we can. - Nano

no doubt, mars is definitely a step in the right direction. it'd be a great place to tromp around and study planetary evolution stuff, and if it's got enough water, we could totally live there. i'm all for redundant offsite storage of the human genome, if you know what i mean.

as for astronomy, there may be some benfits to a wide parallax (like, two eyes being *really* far apart), like, you could start making a fucking big ass array (a la VLA). Mars orbit is the place i'd put it, though, not the surface - dust storms are a biznatch.