NASA exploring ways to cut travel time to Mars

[decimdekimu]

Thought this was at least a little intriguing. Not sure what will come out of it but hey, news is news

Redirect Notice

 

[Harumph]

You could completely cut the travel time to Mars by not going. D'oh!

 

[Christopher Hitchens]

You could completely cut the travel time to Mars by not going. D'oh!

You want our species to just stay on this rock forever?

 

[Harumph]

You want our species to just stay on this rock forever?

Mars isn't the answer. It's far too volatile with no atmosphere to sustain life, not to mention the extreme temperatures, dust storms and many other factors including no oxygen. In fact, ours is the only world in our solar system we can realistically use to survive upon currently. We require "goldilocks worlds" in other planetary systems that already exist. Reaching those is currently far beyond today's technology in order to settle elsewhere from here. We may as well try to live under the seas. In the meantime, let's do better here and master that existence prior to going somewhere else and ruining that too, shall we? We can't even take care of one another yet, not to mention our own world.

https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/Humans-Will-Never-Colonize-Mars.pdf

 

[Grand Mal Caesar]

Stupid article...

Synopsis: "New Rocket Engine Could Cut Travel Time to Mars from Years to Months"

Article content: "NASA says a trip to Mars with existing spacecraft would take at least 200 days each way."

 

[Dirl]

You want our species to just stay on this rock forever?

View attachment 787041

Yes, but you can go to Mars and eat rocks with your degenerate ass.

 

[AnaofTheHills]

Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here. We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, that our destiny lies above us. - Interstellar

 

[Christopher Hitchens]

Mars isn't the answer. It's far too volatile with no atmosphere to sustain life, not to mention the extreme temperatures, dust storms and many other factors including no oxygen. In fact, ours is the only world in our solar system we can realistically use to survive upon currently. We require "goldilocks worlds" in other planetary systems that already exist. Reaching those is currently far beyond today's technology in order to settle elsewhere from here. We may as well try to live under the seas. In the meantime, let's do better here and master that existence prior to going somewhere else and ruining that too, shall we? We can't even take care of one another yet, not to mention our own world.

https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/Humans-Will-Never-Colonize-Mars.pdf

I understand where you care coming from but i also think its a good goal to move towards for the future, even if its centuries. What if an asteroid comes we are fucked. Its not gonna come in our lifetimes or maybe in 50 million years. Thats ok because our species needs a backup harddrive so to speak and i think our neighbor planet thar there is no reason to believe we cant make greener.

Mars used to have running water and volcanic activity and all that and it just “died” for reason we dont really know. But if we can get some greenery growing there, their photosythesis will put oxygen in the air. BTW the reason earth has so much oxygen in the air is photosynthesis. But there are just a few things like that and will take take time, money, material, and effort.

What i think you are missing is this. In pursuit of these high goals, knowledge is accumulated and technology created that actually does improve people’s everyday life not just in this country but worldwide. This is not theoretical, it happened with the Space Race during the Cold War for example, but there a thousand examples of what you might see as useless fantasy frivolous waste of time research that discover things that change human life in the everyday for the better.

Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here. We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, that our destiny lies above us. - Interstellar

I just watched that movie recently it was awesome. Our best days are not behind us!

 

[methedup77]

Thought this was at least a little intriguing. Not sure what will come out of it but hey, news is news

Redirect Notice

If you go ludicrous speed, it greatly reduces travel time. If you go plaid be careful.

 

[Christopher Hitchens]

Yes, but you can go to Mars and eat rocks with your degenerate ass.

How am i a degenerate and you're a fucking ungentlemanly pussy for not continuing to spar and just ghosting btw.

 

[Harumph]

I understand where you care coming from but i also think its a good goal to move towards for the future, even if its centuries. What if an asteroid comes we are fucked. Its not gonna come in our lifetimes or maybe in 50 million years. Thats ok because our species needs a backup harddrive so to speak and i think our neighbor planet thar there is no reason to believe we cant make greener.

Mars used to have running water and volcanic activity and all that and it just “died” for reason we dont really know. But if we can get some greenery growing there, their photosythesis will put oxygen in the air. BTW the reason earth has so much oxygen in the air is photosynthesis. But there are just a few things like that and will take take time, money, material, and effort.

What i think you are missing is this. In pursuit of these high goals, knowledge is accumulated and technology created that actually does improve people’s everyday life not just in this country but worldwide. This is not theoretical, it happened with the Space Race during the Cold War for example, but there a thousand examples of what you might see as useless fantasy frivolous waste of time research that discover things that change human life in the everyday for the better.

View attachment 787176


I just watched that movie recently it was awesome. Our best days are not behind us!

I'm not missing anything. We are closer today as a species to the Idiocracy than we are to the Space Race. We also jumped the shark with the Shuttle Missions that we discontinued due to both incredible disasters and incredible expenses. Also, I would consider the ever-increasing tons of space junk orbiting at ridiculously disastrous hyper speeds in the upper third layers of our atmosphere if I were you. Additionally, your not only missing the article of Martian facts I posted above with some information from NASA themselves, but you also fail to consider asteroids Apophis and Bennu, hardly 50M years from potentially catastrophic impacts here. Folks with a pie in the sky mentality grossly do a disservice to technology when it comes to the basic arithmetic of planetary scales and geologic time, not to mention facts within the confines of the complex mathematics in physics, astronomy, relativity, physiology, biochemistry and terraforming. And I will happily and successfully debate you on each of those subjects with respect to space travel to Mars or anywhere else for that matter. We haven't even mastered healthcare or farming on an Earthly scale considering weather, volcanic winters, disease, pests and their impacts on crop failures adversely effecting the billions of inhabitants that have never been here before now. China is currently struggling mightily with the growing Gobi Desert similar to the Dust Bowl in the U.S. in the 1930's only on an epically larger scale because they are too isolationist to learn from recent history not even a century old with respect to human activity and basic crop rotation strategies. Chasing insane billionaires' delusional fantasies of inhabiting Mars in the present to two centuries from now is folly on a planetary scale and the grossest waste of funds this species has come up with in the last 200 years since the beginnings of the industrial revolution. The dastardly criminal robber barons were wrong then, and the insane and worthless billionaires are wrong today. <picks up mike and hands it back to Bill Nye so he can tell you this personally>

Eyes on Asteroids

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.

www.jpl.nasa.gov

 

[NoConvexity]

Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here. We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, that our destiny lies above us. - Interstellar

Interstellar lies and delusions.

 

[AnaofTheHills]

Interstellar lies and delusions.

It’s a Hollywood movie= for entertainment. Relax. It’s ok to step away from the internet and watch a movie … Now… which do you want: popcorn and Raisinets?

 

[slider75]

project orion from 1968 - nuclear pulse propulsion

 

[Christopher Hitchens]

@Harumph,

I divided up your block of text, which you should do your self, just a pro tip. Anyway i divided it up so i could respond to each point more easily and clearly:



You:

“I'm not missing anything. We are closer today as a species to the Idiocracy than we are to the Space Race. We also jumped the shark with the Shuttle Missions that we discontinued due to both incredible disasters and incredible expenses. Also, I would consider the ever-increasing tons ‹ space junk orbiting at ridiculously disastrous hyper speeds in the upper third layers of our atmosphere if I were you.”



Me: how are we closer to idiocracy then in the 60s? More people are getting PHD’s, average IQ has gone up, thats just two examples. We have issues but come on…



The shuttle missions was way over budget because of how fucked and stupidly elaborate the parts procurement system is for these things, our military suffers from the same sickness but thats not the fault of the engineers and scientists, thats the fault of congress who don’t want this process efficient because they want the excess money and jobs for their constituents. We should fix that not just shut it all down thats seems reactionary to me. As far as the disasters those happened with the Apollo program too, in fact all three members of Apollo died in an accident, should we have shut it down then? Also i know about space junk and it’s something to be concerned about sure but there is alot of room up there and the pieces are vast distances apart in most cases . Whats more to be worried about is the years of zero gravity and also all the cosmic radiation and those two things weren’t caused by us.



You:

“Additionally, your not only missing the article of Martian facts I posted above with some information from NASA themselves, but you also fail to consider asteroids Apophis and Bennu, hardly 50M years from potentially catastrophic impacts here. Folks with a pie in the sky mentality grossly do a disservice to technology when it comes to the basic arithmetic of planetary scales and geologic time, not to mention facts within the confines of the complex mathematics in physics, astronomy, relativity, physiology, biochemistry and terraforming. And I will happily and successfully debate you on each of those subjects with respect to space travel to Mars or anywhere else for that matter. We haven't even mastered healthcare or farming on an Earthly scale considering weather, volcanic winters, disease, pests and their impacts on crop failures adversely effecting the billions of inhabitants that have never been here before now.”



Me:

I didn’t even click on the article i must admit. What important point from it am i missing?

You bring up astroids about 50 million years away, which is more than enough time to terraform mars and put planetary defense systems in orbit, maybe on the moon too.

You are missing an important point though. We don’t know every astroid in the sky, there are certainly some dangerous ones out there we don’t know exist, and we have a blind spot behind the sun.



You’re right we haven’t mastered health care or farming but we have gotten much better doing both in just 100 or even 50 years. Also implied in what you say is that, if only we confiscated the assets of space x and shut down Nasa we could be mastering healthcare or farming more quickly. I dont think your assumption is correct.



Also you don’t even mention let alone refute that you don’t counter or even mention that our space missions are the mothers of alot of invention for people in their day to day in their lives.



You:

“China is currently struggling mightily with the growing Gobi Desert similar to the Dust Bowl in the U.S. in the 1930's only on an epically larger scale because they are too isolationist to learn from recent history not even a century old with respect to human activity and basic crop rotation strategies. Chasing insane billionaires' delusional fantasies of inhabiting Mars in the present to two centuries from now is folly on a planetary scale and the grossest waste of funds this species has come up with in the last 200 years since the beginnings of the industrial revolution. The dastardly criminal robber barons were wrong then, and the insane and worthless billionaires are wrong today. <picks up mike and hands it back to Bill Nye so he can tell you this personally>”



Me:

China does have major problems and not with the just the Gobi desert but guess what they have a space program, they are the only nation now with their own space station. Im glad you mentioned them because another point of mine is the reason Nasa stagnated was because they didn’t have anyone to compete with after the Soviet Union declined and fell, well now we have another nation, China, to compete with and believe you me the Chinese Communist Party are racing this race wether we realize we are are in it or not. How do you suppose we counter Chinese satellite systems and a growing chinese space force?



I think Elon musk is insane if he thinks we can get to mars now or even in a century. That’s as ridiculous and naive as thinking if we didn’t have space programs we’d be better at perfecting healthcare and farming. Elon’s claim is not my claim. It could take ten thousand years to get to mars, we should still try to do it.



PS: I’m listening to an audiobook so I’m not watching those videos but if you want to tell me the point of them both in your words i will read and respond

 

[Harumph]

@Harumph,

I divided up your block of text, which you should do your self, just a pro tip. Anyway i divided it up so i could respond to each point more easily and clearly:



You:

“I'm not missing anything. We are closer today as a species to the Idiocracy than we are to the Space Race. We also jumped the shark with the Shuttle Missions that we discontinued due to both incredible disasters and incredible expenses. Also, I would consider the ever-increasing tons ‹ space junk orbiting at ridiculously disastrous hyper speeds in the upper third layers of our atmosphere if I were you.”



Me: how are we closer to idiocracy then in the 60s? More people are getting PHD’s, average IQ has gone up, thats just two examples. We have issues but come on…



The shuttle missions was way over budget because of how fucked and stupidly elaborate the parts procurement system is for these things, our military suffers from the same sickness but thats not the fault of the engineers and scientists, thats the fault of congress who don’t want this process efficient because they want the excess money and jobs for their constituents. We should fix that not just shut it all down thats seems reactionary to me. As far as the disasters those happened with the Apollo program too, in fact all three members of Apollo died in an accident, should we have shut it down then? Also i know about space junk and it’s something to be concerned about sure but there is alot of room up there and the pieces are vast distances apart in most cases . Whats more to be worried about is the years of zero gravity and also all the cosmic radiation and those two things weren’t caused by us.



You:

“Additionally, your not only missing the article of Martian facts I posted above with some information from NASA themselves, but you also fail to consider asteroids Apophis and Bennu, hardly 50M years from potentially catastrophic impacts here. Folks with a pie in the sky mentality grossly do a disservice to technology when it comes to the basic arithmetic of planetary scales and geologic time, not to mention facts within the confines of the complex mathematics in physics, astronomy, relativity, physiology, biochemistry and terraforming. And I will happily and successfully debate you on each of those subjects with respect to space travel to Mars or anywhere else for that matter. We haven't even mastered healthcare or farming on an Earthly scale considering weather, volcanic winters, disease, pests and their impacts on crop failures adversely effecting the billions of inhabitants that have never been here before now.”



Me:

I didn’t even click on the article i must admit. What important point from it am i missing?

You bring up astroids about 50 million years away, which is more than enough time to terraform mars and put planetary defense systems in orbit, maybe on the moon too.

You are missing an important point though. We don’t know every astroid in the sky, there are certainly some dangerous ones out there we don’t know exist, and we have a blind spot behind the sun.



You’re right we haven’t mastered health care or farming but we have gotten much better doing both in just 100 or even 50 years. Also implied in what you say is that, if only we confiscated the assets of space x and shut down Nasa we could be mastering healthcare or farming more quickly. I dont think your assumption is correct.



Also you don’t even mention let alone refute that you don’t counter or even mention that our space missions are the mothers of alot of invention for people in their day to day in their lives.



You:

“China is currently struggling mightily with the growing Gobi Desert similar to the Dust Bowl in the U.S. in the 1930's only on an epically larger scale because they are too isolationist to learn from recent history not even a century old with respect to human activity and basic crop rotation strategies. Chasing insane billionaires' delusional fantasies of inhabiting Mars in the present to two centuries from now is folly on a planetary scale and the grossest waste of funds this species has come up with in the last 200 years since the beginnings of the industrial revolution. The dastardly criminal robber barons were wrong then, and the insane and worthless billionaires are wrong today. <picks up mike and hands it back to Bill Nye so he can tell you this personally>”



Me:

China does have major problems and not with the just the Gobi desert but guess what they have a space program, they are the only nation now with their own space station. Im glad you mentioned them because another point of mine is the reason Nasa stagnated was because they didn’t have anyone to compete with after the Soviet Union declined and fell, well now we have another nation, China, to compete with and believe you me the Chinese Communist Party are racing this race wether we realize we are are in it or not. How do you suppose we counter Chinese satellite systems and a growing chinese space force?



I think Elon musk is insane if he thinks we can get to mars now or even in a century. That’s as ridiculous and naive as thinking if we didn’t have space programs we’d be better at perfecting healthcare and farming. Elon’s claim is not my claim. It could take ten thousand years to get to mars, we should still try to do it.



PS: I’m listening to an audiobook so I’m not watching those videos but if you want to tell me the point of them both in your words i will read and respond

View attachment 787451

Since you clearly don't have the courtesy to watch or listen to provided videos disproving and invalidating your erroneous points, yet misuse and misrepresent a Bill Nye mike drop gif to attempt to prove your point, this back and forth is over. Enjoy your audiobook and your alternate facts. Good day.

 

[lechmich]

Cutting travel time to Mars....? Why - who would possibly want to live or work in that hell-hole? And it's going to take a couple of musk lifetimes of work to make anything half livabe and sustainable.

That article seems like it was written by a sixth grader "Thrust is the force that pushes a spacecraft through the air"???

 

[Christopher Hitchens]

Since you clearly don't have the courtesy to watch or listen to provided videos disproving and invalidating your erroneous points, yet misuse and misrepresent a Bill Nye mike drop gif to attempt to prove your point, this back and forth is over. Enjoy your audiobook and your alternate facts. Good day.

 

[hedgerow]

they can't even get the nyc buses to cut travel time going cross-town, so forget about all this silliness about mars

 

[Fry_Swatter]

...We should be putting niggers in space until earth has a great nigger ring circling the planet to rival Saturn...