Posted: 1/9/2004 10:44:23 AM EDT
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... all is forgiven. You've done a lot of shit that I wasn't happy with, BUT, if you want to put a man on Mars, you've got my vote!! Okay, granted, I don't have a vote - but I'm going to try to convince my fiancee to vote for Bush. Does she really think that Howard Dean is going to want to put a man on Mars? |
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Quoted: ... all is forgiven. You've done a lot of shit that I wasn't happy with, BUT, if you want to put a man on Mars, you've got my vote!! Okay, granted, I don't have a vote - but I'm going to try to convince my fiancee to vote for Bush. Does she really think that Howard Dean is going to want to put a man on Mars? Back to mexico with you, you damn dirty illeagal alien [:D] |
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If we do find some aliens it is gonna really blow their mind that we finally pulled it off. With the quality of people they usually abduct, I'm sure the little green men are convinced that there is no intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Everyone wonders why aliens haven't contacted us if they're so much more advanced. Well I think the scientist on "Mothman Prophecies" said it best: "Are you more advanced than a cockroach?... Well have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?" |
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The real benefit to this won't be finding 'little green men', but rather the technological developments that will be neccicary to get there... Enhancements in rocket propulsion & guidance, new 'wonder-materials' (what do you thing Velcro, and most of the other fancy polymer-fiber stuff we have today was invented for?), etc... And all of that ends up getting commercialized -> economic benefits for all... |
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Quoted: The real benefit to this won't be finding 'little green men', but rather the technological developments that will be neccicary to get there... Enhancements in rocket propulsion & guidance, new 'wonder-materials' (what do you thing Velcro, and most of the other fancy polymer-fiber stuff we have today was invented for?), etc... And all of that ends up getting commercialized -> economic benefits for all... There is SO MUCH we use right now that came from Gemini, Apollo it's remarkable. Remember when LCD watches come out and they were $299.95? LCD spawned LED, now we have plasma screens. We need this for our country. |
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Quoted: Quoted: The real benefit to this won't be finding 'little green men', but rather the technological developments that will be neccicary to get there... Enhancements in rocket propulsion & guidance, new 'wonder-materials' (what do you thing Velcro, and most of the other fancy polymer-fiber stuff we have today was invented for?), etc... And all of that ends up getting commercialized -> economic benefits for all... There is SO MUCH we use right now that came from Gemini, Apollo it's remarkable. Remember when LCD watches come out and they were $299.95? LCD spawned LED, now we have plasma screens. We need this for our country. I thought it was LED first then LCD.... |
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But the long lag time waiting for the trickle down is what has caused the manned space program to stagnate, and delayed commercialization of space. There needs to be something that can be built up there and sold down here that can show some short term benefit. Or people lose interest. There is a lot of steel, titanium, and aluminum to be made on the Moon. But we cannot land much of that on Earth, though it will greatly decrease the cost of buildng bigger platforms and ships when we don't have to transport the heavy hull components and fuel tanks and such off of the Earth. The Moon doesn't have a lot of carbon. So while Carbon Nanotubes and buckyballs would grow great in zero G, its debateable wether we could get them enough feedstock. But there are ceramics to be made from the silica, aluminum, and titanium and potentally abundant power both from the sun and from the freedom to use nuclear power as we wish. Ceramics, small quantities of high strength exotic metal alloys, perhaps silica computer parts. What else, anyone think of anything? |
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Quoted: But the long lag time waiting for the trickle down is what has caused the manned space program to stagnate, and delayed commercialization of space. There needs to be something that can be built up there and sold down here that can show some short term benefit. Or people lose interest. There is a lot of steel, titanium, and aluminum to be made on the Moon. But we cannot land much of that on Earth, though it will greatly decrease the cost of buildng bigger platforms and ships when we don't have to transport the heavy hull components and fuel tanks and such off of the Earth. The Moon doesn't have a lot of carbon. So while Carbon Nanotubes and buckyballs would grow great in zero G, its debateable wether we could get them enough feedstock. But there are ceramics to be made from the silica, aluminum, and titanium and potentally abundant power both from the sun and from the freedom to use nuclear power as we wish. Ceramics, small quantities of high strength exotic metal alloys, perhaps silica computer parts. What else, anyone think of anything? The "space" program (they should have called it the MOON program) stagnated because our ONLY goal was to get to the moon FIRST. There was nothing about staying there and jumping to other planets, even in our solar system. We (us, our government, and NASA) were so obsessed with getting to the moon, we didn't care about anything else. The technologies developed (launch, sustainment, return and recovery) were singularly focused on the moon. Given the imperative of beating the Russians, I can understand the focus. However, if we'd had a different, more long-range goal, our technologies would have developed along a different track. We'd have had a permanant space station in orbit for the last 20 years. We'd have had a FAR superior vehicle than the current shuttle. We would have been to Mars [i]already[/i]. |
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Quoted: Quoted: But the long lag time waiting for the trickle down is what has caused the manned space program to stagnate, and delayed commercialization of space. There needs to be something that can be built up there and sold down here that can show some short term benefit. Or people lose interest. There is a lot of steel, titanium, and aluminum to be made on the Moon. But we cannot land much of that on Earth, though it will greatly decrease the cost of buildng bigger platforms and ships when we don't have to transport the heavy hull components and fuel tanks and such off of the Earth. The Moon doesn't have a lot of carbon. So while Carbon Nanotubes and buckyballs would grow great in zero G, its debateable wether we could get them enough feedstock. But there are ceramics to be made from the silica, aluminum, and titanium and potentally abundant power both from the sun and from the freedom to use nuclear power as we wish. Ceramics, small quantities of high strength exotic metal alloys, perhaps silica computer parts. What else, anyone think of anything? The "space" program (they should have called it the MOON program) stagnated because our ONLY goal was to get to the moon FIRST. There was nothing about staying there and jumping to other planets, even in our solar system. We (us, our government, and NASA) were so obsessed with getting to the moon, we didn't care about anything else. The technologies developed (launch, sustainment, return and recovery) were singularly focused on the moon. Given the imperative of beating the Russians, I can understand the focus. However, if we'd had a different, more long-range goal, our technologies would have developed along a different track. We'd have had a permanant space station in orbit for the last 20 years. We'd have had a FAR superior vehicle than the current shuttle. We would have been to Mars [i]already[/i]. Oh yes I agree with that. I was thinking from the point of starting right now in my post, considering that Apollo sacrificed so much just to get someone there as quickly as possible. There are a lot of Mars advocates who are unhappy that we are going to take the time to develop space infrastructure instead of going strait to Mars, like Apollo did for the moon. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Perhaps you should go there in your ongoing search for a clue... For someone who is generally comprehends posts pretty well, you seem to have missed the original question of: Does she really think that Howard Dean is going to want to put a man on Mars? DOH! [BD] ...although I must admit to having interpreted your post the same way as Rik, so DOUBLE DOH! [BD][BD] |