So it’s now blatantly obvious…rocket scientists—while very smart when it comes to getting those ships into space and even having people survive for long periods of time while floating around up there—none of these people have any common sense.
For awhile I have been reading stories seeing TV/videos of people planning on manned Mars missions. Lately there are as well as government cooperative efforts looking into it. Private companies are also talking about sending people out to live on Mars. In case you’ve never bothered to check…Mars is a fuck of a long ways away, with our present fossil fuel space craft!
The moon, which is in comparison with our primitive technology, just across the street. While the moon has had a few manned visits, only 12 men have been on the surface, and the longest stay was just over three days.
Now wouldn’t it make just a LITTLE BIT OF SENSE…TO MAYBE GO THERE FIRST AND SPEND A MONTH or SIX!
After all, why send people out from earth on a 10-month or longer flight to Mars and see if they can survive there, with biospheres and equipment that cannot fail, but has only ever functioned in the vacuum of space or a couple hours on the moon. But what the hell, eh, let’s just send them pretty much beyond any practical chance of rescue up to Mars! WHEN WE DIDN’T BOTHER TO FIND OUT IF THEY CAN SURVIVE on a planetary body close by and where a rescue could actually have a chance at success!
Come on someone in the field of planetary exploration, get your brain focused on actually having people survive after they arrive, and are so far away as the only thing a rescue mission could do is bring back the bodies!
Or am I completely missing the point and all they really want to do is send someone out there so they can be the first group, of people to die on another planet. I can think of cheaper ways to thin out the human gene pool! -Common Sense, Rarer Than A Higgs Bosun Particle
This article appears in Apr 10-16, 2014.
They can not come back because the technology doesn’t allowe it. Once they are there they will stay there until they die. That’s why they can’t find out if they survive or not
That would be a good trip for Mr. Chowderhead and others like him. To never return.
There’s also nothing on the moon for us, no oil, no diamonds, no money, no atmosphere and according to michael bay a bunch of transformers on the dark side of it. Fuck mars too, lets get on that asteroid belt!!!!
better than just orbiting Uranus
I like orbiting Uranuses (Urani? Uranae?)
Every American President since Reagan, has,at one time or another, pledged a rejuvenated space program, a return to the moon, a manned settlement there and eventually a trip to Mars.
Every one of them has reneged. The greatest scientific/exploratory acheivement of the last millenium was discontinued because of bad T.V. ratings (O.K. – that’s an exaggeration, but not by much)
I highly doubt the ADD generation is going to be much captivated by long term and expensive projects. Of course, if it is parsed as a reality show – “So You Want To Die In Space?” with a 24/7 broadcast so us earthbound ghouls can watch a Vogueish couple porking in zero-g or suffer the effects of catastrophic decompression….
Nahhhhh – we as a species no longer have the stugots to dare greatly, much less dream greatly. And we certainly don’t have the attention span to elect leaders with a long-term vision.
Is this you Hoist? You’re one of the few Bitchers to address big issues, and this is a good one. Wish I didn’t have such a mordant take on the subject, but I’m wrestling with the Black Dog and yearning for an extinction level event right now.
Point # 1 – Spacecraft do not run on gasoline. They’re developing plasma drives now.
#2 – Medical scientist have found that the heart loses it’s shape (becomes rounder) in zero G, as well as muscle atrophy. A new project in the works is to have someone on the ISS for a year, and then see how well they recover.
#3 – “biospheres and equipment ” As you read this, there is an experiment going on in South America, volunteers are living in a closed environment, with no direct outside contact. The landscape is “similar” to Mars, and when the go outside they have to wear an environmental suit. This is to test the people and the equipment to make sure they will all last.
#4 – Colonist, yep one way trip like IR said. “so they can be the first group, of people to die on another planet” – YES!!! There’s a fucking line up.
Wanderlust, it’s Human condition. We grow, we travel, we explore…it’s who we are. If it weren’t for people who push the limits, we’d all still be living in caves.
Personally i can’t wait for all this shit to happen. What does the future have instore?
OB, your last paragraph pretty well sums it up. To be the first and to hell with the consequences. They can’t come back because no one knows how to do it. To go and have no way to return is just plain insanity. BTW the one way trip is a privately done thing. No sane government is going to fund a one way ticket.
Good Bitch OB! I enjoyed reading it. Lots of good points. Personally, I think it would be awesome to be one of the first people to try to live on mars. It would be hard on the brain, too, though. Rocketing off of the earth, spending 7 to 8 months in space (a feat even for seasoned astronauts). Your only hope is to eventually successfully land on a planet completely devoid of any life what-so-ever to see if you could survive and for how long. If you think people have a hard time coming back to earth after 9-10 months at the space station – imagine landing on another planet; one that is smaller and has less gravity. Colonists would have to have exercise machines that could prepare them for the new world available for the transit through space, as well as food, water, air, temperature control, protection from radiation. We have tons of probes in space right now – one beyond the heliosphere, one orbiting saturn, two driving around mars – we’ve even dropped a few on Venus – the longest transmissions were only a few hours before the probe was destroyed. None of these probes, however, are required to support life; only to collect and transmit science through space. It’s such a crazy idea. Mars is the new Everest.
We still have a lot of work to do on this planet but if the idea of colonizing mars (or the moon) doesn’t make your imagination go crazy then there is no hope for you.
Yes, you are missing the point. Its actually quite simple. You claim that those involved in planetary exploration should focus on the Moon first. The moon is a natural satellite, not a planetary body……..
You also made the statement that common sense is rarer than a Higgs Boson particle. How can this be the case when scientists at CERN are just shy of offically finding said particle?
Among the dozen or so glaring discrepancies between what you wrote and actual fact, the fossil fuel comment strikes me as the silliest. Once the spacecraft exits the Earth’s gravitational field it is set into orbit drift and control. Onboard equipment as well as small course adjustments are then powered using photovoltaic energy. If the mission was sent to the moon the spacecraft would actually need MORE fuel to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and slow its descent.
I commend you on your passion OB, but unfortunately YOU don’t understand the situation at all.
PS- There really are more risks associated with a return flight than a one-way.
Bumpy ride ahead…….
Yours truly.
WHAT IS COMMON SENSE? A CONCEPTUAL INQUIRY
“So it’s blatantly obvious – rocket scientists – while very smart when it comes to getting those ships into space and even having people survive for long periods of time while floating around up there – none of these people have any common sense.” Common Sense, Rarer Than A Higgs Boson Particle
For Montrealman the poster’s principal point is irrelevant. Those being sent out from the earth are not “floating around up there” nor going “for long periods of time” only to return later but rather they are going up there for good, to settle, reproduce and establish a new permanent planetary colony. For Montrealman, then, the more interesting question is the philosophical one. What is this “common sense” of which the poster speaks? Why don’t the rocket scientists have any? What would such common sense look like? What is the thing?
A moment’s reflection reveals that the expression “common sense” does not posses a denotative referent at all. It is not a thing. It is not some sort of identifiable low-level intelligence shared by everybody but rather embodies an ethical injunction, a counsel of prudence. Use your common sense! Watch yourself! Be careful! Do
nothing rash! Do nothing to excess! Of course, as soon as we see the injunction “Do nothing to excess” we know we are talking Aristotle. More specifically, we are talking about his “Doctrine of the Mean.” But what does that mean?
In his “Nichomachean Ethics” Aristotle famously laid down the principle of right action, the mean between excess and deficiency. “By virtue,” Aristotle wrote, “I mean moral virtue since it is that which is concerned with feelings and actions, and these involve excess, deficiency and a mean. It is possible, for example, to feel fear, confidence, desire, anger pity and pleasure and pain generally, too much or too little; and both of these are wrong. But to have these feelings at the right times on the right grounds towards the right people for the right motive and in the right way is to feel them to an intermediate, that is to the best, degree. And this is the mark of virtue. For men are bad in countless ways, but good in only one.” (The Nichomachian Ethics, Book Two: “Moral Goodness.”)
The difficulty, of course, with Aristotle’s account of moral virtue is that it provides no criteria for the application of the Mean. In other words, there are no criteria to enable us to distinguish the right times, the right grounds, the right people, the right motive and the right way. In still other words, the Mean itself requires a further – but unspecified – exercise of judgement to validate its own application.
In the absence of such specification Aristotle’s “Doctrine of the Mean” descends to the level of the poster’s “common sense,” little more than an empty injunction to be virtuous, a vacuous counsel of prudence.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
All I can say is it’s a good thing I’m not going.
I’d totally go all serial killer and have my own planet in no time.
So the whole point of this bitch is to prove what? That the OP failed to comprehend the nformation they read concerning this mission which, in all the literature I’ve perused, clearly states that successful candidates would NOT be enjoying a return flight from this one way mission? Rarities, indeed.
Because you think Hydrogen is a fossil fuel used in our space craft, your argument is invalid.
Since many politicians seem to do well in a vacuum perhaps we have finally come upon a good place for various world politicians to go for their political conflabs. One way trips for them are a bonus for those of us remaining on earth. Of course there will probably be something to replace them, so we may not be any further ahead.
Well, all of a sudden somebody’s an expert on Aristotle. Do some reading over the weekend?
Back to: “Education is an ornament in prosperity…”
In what work is Aristotle’s quotation to be found?
But…if I don’t have a bunch of framed paper hanging on my wall, how will I define myself?