SPACE

[PVB]

Took me a while to find it, but here's the link to where those pics came from:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/0 ... skies.html

Grapping the full res McMurdo panorama from here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/i ... 61025.html

[Darkflame]

So, those white tracks.
Is it now likely they too are ice ?
(even though its not at the poll)

[PVB]

So, those white tracks.
Is it now likely they too are ice ?
(even though its not at the poll)

If you check the link I provided, you'd read this:

This bright material is evidence of sulfur-rich salty minerals in the subsurface, which may provide clues about the watery past of this part of Gusev Crater.

[Stone]

Here's a thought. They want to build a Mars base, and it's likely to end up at one of the poles, cos that's where the water is. But Phoenix is only designed to last 90ish days because the Martian winter involves being buried 3m deep in frozen carbon dioxide. What are the future colonists going to do about this teensy problem?

Stone

[Dio]

There's a reason they test potential Martian kit in Northern Canada...

[Darkflame]

Here's a thought. They want to build a Mars base, and it's likely to end up at one of the poles, cos that's where the water is. But Phoenix is only designed to last 90ish days because the Martian winter involves being buried 3m deep in frozen carbon dioxide.

Probably find a way to make use of it.

[Kronos]

You know, watching the recent program on Discovery about what really happened during the Apollo mission to the Moon it's quite clear it isn't even a simple case of 'we got to the moon safely now let's get on with going to Mars'. Did you know the hull of the lunar lander was as thin as two sheets of foil, did you know the computers twice completely failed so was landed 'by eye' and finally the circuit breaker lug broke off for the engine-reignite and one of them held the end of a pen in the circuit breaker to fire up/keep the engines running to get off the damned thing. And Z-particles zipping right through the craft and through their bodies.

I had no idea just how flakey it was, but you can understand now why 40 yrs on we have just been pissing about with the shuttle on earth orbits and Mars is technologically miles away even nearly 1/2 a century after the Apollo mission to the moon! Highly recommended viewing.

[PVB]

Here's a thought. They want to build a Mars base, and it's likely to end up at one of the poles, cos that's where the water is. But Phoenix is only designed to last 90ish days because the Martian winter involves being buried 3m deep in frozen carbon dioxide. What are the future colonists going to do about this teensy problem?

Stone

Possibly similar to the South Pole Station:

http://www.southpolestation.com/

It's on 'legs' and lifts itself above the drifts as they build in size.

[Zoot]

You know, watching the recent program on Discovery about what really happened during the Apollo mission to the Moon it's quite clear it isn't even a simple case of 'we got to the moon safely now let's get on with going to Mars'. Did you know the hull of the lunar lander was as thin as two sheets of foil, did you know the computers twice completely failed so was landed 'by eye' and finally the circuit breaker lug broke off for the engine-reignite and one of them held the end of a pen in the circuit breaker to fire up/keep the engines running to get off the damned thing. And Z-particles zipping right through the craft and through their bodies.

I had no idea just how flakey it was, but you can understand now why 40 yrs on we have just been pissing about with the shuttle on earth orbits and Mars is technologically miles away even nearly 1/2 a century after the Apollo mission to the moon! Highly recommended viewing.

It was 1969 - nearly 40 years on we understand things a bit better. And yes, on teh one hand you are not entirely wrong to call it "flakey", but I would prefer to call it "gutsy" - a trait common among all teh great explorers of history. In addition, if you read any of the astronauts autobiographies, you will see that they were well aware of the risks - to be quite honest, as military aviators ortest pilots in the main, they positively thrived on teh risks at the expense of all sorts of other things - especially family life.

Good call, though.

[Dio]

did you know the computers twice completely failed so was landed 'by eye'

Source for this? AFAIK the Eagle suffered computer issues, but they were down to Aldrin leaving the rendezvous radar on in case they had to abort, so the computer had slightly too much to calculate during the descent. They simply didn't make certain queries of the computer - the lander was not set up to be flown entirely by hand during descent.

[gravy]

And Z-particles zipping right through the craft and through their bodies.

Whut?

[Dio]

Their eyeballs were picking up cosmic rays.

[gravy]

I thought Z particles were discovered later than that and aren't disruptive. But there you go

That said (and I don't know much about it) isn't radiation a massive problem for a manned mars mission?

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

I thought Z particles were discovered later than that and aren't disruptive. But there you go

That said (and I don't know much about it) isn't radiation a massive problem for a manned mars mission?

Not for THIS guy!

[PVB]

That said (and I don't know much about it) isn't radiation a massive problem for a manned mars mission?

I'd still go.

"One small step..." and all that.