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.

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