Hard to believe we used to be able to travel to another world 50 years ago. We can't do it now of course because mmmbmle...
 |
| Charles Conrad Jr., Apollo 12 Commander, stands next to Surveyor 3 which landed on the Moon 2 years earlier. Lunar module can be seen in the upper right. 1969. |
6 comments:
says a lot about Navy navigational accuracy two miles CEP for 235,000 miles. not bad. not bad at all.
I feel cheated. We were promised Moon and Mars colonies!
Scott, don't feel cheated about mars. place is a death trap more so than the moon because of distance aside everything else. don't get me wrong about the moon, lunar dust and lack of available water and biologics are the breaking point for me. utterly sterile environment. finding a solution to the damage tolerance of seals and bearings caused by dust infiltration and radiation exposure has yet to be addressed for even remote/robotic systems let alone humans. things break a lot. look at industrial plants. they all have a maintenance department on hand to fix broken machines. how would you fix things on the moon? we were barely able to fix the HST in orbit and fuel it(?) but the moon is a long way to make a service call. anything that can go wrong always goes wrong. HST mirror for example. It sat in a warehouse for years and no one thought to take a second look at it. Putting humans on the moon to fix machines with all that entails would be a real waste from my view.
Humans were engineered by nature for this particular planet; we would have to take this complete environment with us if we went somewhere else. Technically we can get there. Can we survive there let alone thrive there? or would we just be visitors waiting to die. what is the economic advantage of being there? is it worth the money it would cost and who is paying for it? private industry or tax payers? helium3 could be a reason, but what is the state of fusion power research today? the research says it can happen but the engineering is a bitch, as usual.
I am with you in wanting to be there but reality trumps imagination. with the best available technology we have yet to exceed a manned speed of 35,000 mph in any environment. if getting there is half the fun, a lot time for fun would be had.
Alas, I must admit all your points are valid!
scott, I must admit that I hate knowing all those points because I truly want the future be what we hold in our hearts for it. It's now on the children's shoulders. all the best for them.
Still, one can enjoy reading The Martian.
Post a Comment