Mars: Is the price tag really worth it?

The effort could be powered by elf farts and the Skittles that rain from the heavens.

If you want space exploration to come to a grinding halt, make it an international effort.

You want achievement? Privatization and competition.

The bottom line is always the bottom line.

 

I can't imagine the red tape that would be created by an international effort to colonize Mars.

That shit only works in the movies, and even then the movies suck.

 

Coordinating on base units is hard enough when it's purely an American effort. You just know some commie Euro engineer would try to sneak a meter or two in to the works.

 

As opposed to what, some sort of nature preserve? I know you live in the urban sprawl capital of the world, birthplace of the freeway and fast food, so I wouldn't want Mars to look like LA either.

What's so bad about varied interests in space? Is space forever to be the domain of governments? When exactly will the bureaucrats relax their grip and allow some investment and capitalism? After they get to the moon? Mars? The asteroids? If not now when?! NASA has had half a century to do more, they haven't done much with it have they?

And if those investors end up being ordinary people, what then, they don't deserve some return when the rest of America is either supporting creationism in schools or herp derping to American Idol? We need some will, and it looks to belong to him, not our demagogic politicians.

I didn't realize that he was forcing people into death traps on top of rockets and firing them into space. You sound as if you're saying that space should be a no risk game, with hand rails and handicapped ramps on every capsule.

So the people sending drones to fire on Pakistani weddings should be the ones sending people into space? Some nobility.

 

Yeah, it's not like a lot of engineers can actually work in both systems of measurement or anything...

 

All I have to say to this is: Beagle 2

 

I'd certainly like to think so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

 

Worked out great with Wall Street, the housing market and the banking industry, didn't it? We competed and privatized all the way to crippling the whole world's economy.

And you're still doing the bergman smilie?

 

Other nations should be willing to step up... but, as I said before, at the present time the U.S. needs to take the lead because they're the only nation with the expertise and, more importantly, the experience.

 

And yet I and every other engineer I know works readily in both systems of measurement - imagine that.

 

Was the price tag worth it? To Ares or bust!

Urban legend. The Arroyo Seco Parkway may be the oldest freeway on the West Coast, but it's not the oldest.

 

Gee, if only someone had thought of that half a century ago...

 

While the crony capitalists and their political enablers are arguing over the crumbs, Elon Musk will be selling air to the mutants on Mars.



Ya know, the way things are working out, you naysayers had better get used to it. NASA is being gutted, while the Musks, Camerons and Perots are throwing their chips on the table.

Better get used to it.

 

I honestly don't understand why more people don't invest in SpaceX. If I had billions, they would get a blank cheque. Course, billions don't go very far, but still.

 

I might take your wife along.

 

Oh snap.

Anyways, about Mars.

 

Great. So one day we'll tell our kids "space used to be cool and dangerous. Now it's the suburbs."

I guess we'll find out if the moon is too big to fail.

 

You've perfectly encapsulated the whole of human history in one sentence.

At the risk of derailment, I'd have chosen not to have TARP and let them fail, do you feel the same way?

 

Once we make a colony on Mars, we should nuke it and destroy the technology necessary to do it, then do it all over again.

Just so it'll always be magical and noble for your fucking entertainment.

 

Bradbury agrees!

 

Every one of those arose from overregulation.

 

No.

 

I disagree. Ignorance can be cured but stupidity is forever.

 

Sorry. I'm not going to subscribe to liberal ideas of over spending, but how did overregulation cause the sub-prime lending?

Or are you just here to post a couple of comments and then vanish?

 

In 1977 the Democratic Congress and President Carter passed the Community Reinvestment Act, which penalized banks that held borrowers to certain lending standards. This was further added to by Clinton, whose administration beefed it up to make banks approve mortgages by people who had no businesses borrowing money they couldn't pay back (subprime borrowers). The political end was to increase the percentage of home ownership to enhance his appearance of success as president.

Fannie Mae, a quasi private government entity, further made it worse by buying and bundling and securitizing these subprime mortgages, unleashing them on Wall Street.

Then the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

Banks would never have lent to the deadbeats and idiots out there if they hadn't been forced to by government regulation.

 

So if there was overreugulation from the 70s, what would the bankers be able to do without regulation?

Also, why didn't the Bush's do anything to sort this out? The sub-prime lending hapened under Bush no. 2's watch. Hell, your lot have been useless al the way when it come to this problem, including the cunt Obama.

Got no partisan loyalty mate.Just want to know why you lot let it go as far as it did.

 

The ISS has been a fairly successful intenational endeavor except for a few minor details. The idea was that the Shuttle would play a significant role in construction, ferrying crews, and resupply, but it was retired without a firm plan in place to replace it. Construction was fairly limited to "US core complete" and some planned modules were scrapped, crew transport was limited to the Russian Soyuz and the US CRV was scrapped, and resupply has been dependent on ESA's ATV, Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle, and the private sector's COTS and Dragon.

The international partners pretty much lived up to their end of the deal. We didn't.

 

They wouldn't lend to deadbeats.

He was an idiot with the same agenda as Clinton.

That's just when the bubble burst. The fuse was lit a while back. It came to a head in the early 2000s. Reagan, Bush, Carter, Clinton -- every one of them share in the blame for either actively encouraging it or doing nothing about it.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/b...mac-and-fannie-mae.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govern...ge_crisis#Policies_of_the_Bush_Administration

 

Ramen makes a great point in spite of his racial handicap.