Great News for a Mars Colony!

lotr10 said:
It hasn't flown yet but this is good news:

www.space.com

The first helicopter on Mars phones home after Perseverance rover landing

The Ingenuity helicopter has reported in from the Red Planet.
www.space.com www.space.com

I can't wait to see the pictures this thing gets once it's airborne.
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An amazing success for NASA. Thank goodness Perseverance didn't end in a disaster.

Let's hope the James Webb Space Telescope will be a success... if it ever launches...I mean when it launches. I don't mind the delays, as long as they get it right. I would hate to see a $10 billion flop. What could go wrong trying to put a space telescope in orbit over 900,000 miles from Earth? There will not be any Space Shuttle missions to fix out-of-focus optic lens problems this time.
 
lotr10 said:
Great question!

phys.org

America has sent five rovers to Mars—when will humans follow?

With its impeccable landing on Thursday, NASA's Perseverance became the fifth rover to reach Mars—so when can we finally expect the long-held goal of a crewed expedition to materialize?
phys.org phys.org
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As they say, "The devil is in the details." I also liked the comment, "Mars is hard." No kidding.

I'm pessimistic in humans reaching Mars in the near future, say the next 20-30 years. Maybe in the next 50-100 years, if even then, IMO. I realize technology is advancing rapidly, but there are too many major obstacles, too much risk, and too much $$$ needed. Maybe I'll be wrong.
 
They got more money than us and a lower cost of doing things so that could be tricky now. Even then, they were much less reliant on imports than even the old Soviets, I'm not sure what "cost" is to a country like that. Plus they see people as more expendable. That really will lower costs. China ( or India ) will beat China before we will. Hard to measure the depth of their fanatism with socialism. Is it just leadership or does it go to the bones of the country. The average person has seen enough of western culture to determine if that's what they need. Leadership apparently allows enough to keep the people complacent. Heard enough from those been there or come here and they have the people convinced they're disliked, hated by the rest of the world and that coaleseces.

When I was there early 90s, about 20% lived in urban areas. They were rural and that was easy to see. Walking trains of people along country roads. They are now 60% urban. They haven't imploded by now, I don't know what else could make it happen. They are a real threat to anyone else dominating Mars or anywhere in space.
 
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The problem with centrally planned economies is they’re slow to innovate without stealing from market economies, as a result they’re less flexible and diversified. If the US put its resources back into NASA at a rate similar to the 1960s, China would without a doubt attempt to match with less efficiency and ingenuity. Their money would be flushed down the drain by failures, like what happened to the USSR. They would be more successful than the USSR in that they may eventually get people onto other worlds but they would not be able to viably keep up with the US. Consumed by their desire to dominate world, they would never stop trying.
 
Then theyve gotten by pretty good with stealing. Even cheaper.

We've had this discussion of diversified vs. success in a narrow field. I don't foresee anything new being said. Anything else will be told by future history. My only warning would be, any presumption by our political, social and technical leaders of inability on China's part in ANY field of endeaver, would presage a disaster.
 
Crusaders said:
Made in China is synonymous with cheap knockoff. Cheap attempts don’t do so well in a space race
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synonymous and reality are not always the same. The reality evidenced, they are in space in a major way. Heck, U.A.E is in space. Not the old days reserved for two technical communities. With modern tech, stolen, cheap or however, they're there and pushing limits.

and besides, isn't it a "race" we want? If we want to land people on Mars, go to the belt, do you think that will happen without a race? Do you think it will happen if our populace believes the competition can only produce "cheap" knock-offs? I'm fairly certain that's how the Soviets beat us the first time. We didn't take them seriously as competitors. I'd say we're better to not risk diminishing the competition.
 
Most of the stuff China makes economically is substandard if it’s not based on US tech company outsourcing or outright patent theft. They’ve managed to put some things on the moon. Haven’t attempted people yet and are likely a long ways off. The US putting pressure on them would simply cause them to spend into oblivion
 
What pressure are you thinking of? It's one thing to corner someone into a military confrontation using third world countries. How are you proposing we pressure China into putting more into their space effort than they are, let alone than they are capable of in a way our public would support? If we were to try and "bankrupt" them, I wouldn't think space would be an economical method for us. What's the plan?
 
We're talking about Mars; specifically, putting more resources into colonization. We can also lump the asteroid belt (mining) in as well.

The first country to colonize Mars and to mine the asteroid belt will be the first with a quadrillion dollar GDP and will likely control the fate of humanity for centuries. It is vital it is the United States and not China.

China isn't spending money just to put some rovers on the moon. They would not be able to ignore the US putting resources into Mars. Thinking they would ignore it is foolishness.

China talks a big game but they do not have the ability to match the US is all things. Like the USSR, they can put all their resources into their military and their space program, but they would bleed money in the process at an alarming rate without the economic dynamics to compete with the US. The plan is obvious: threaten their plans for world domination with a space race and force them to bleed their economy until they either concede or destroy themselves.
 
Crusaders said:
We're talking about Mars; specifically, putting more resources into colonization. We can also lump the asteroid belt (mining) in as well.

The first country to colonize Mars and to mine the asteroid belt will be the first with a quadrillion dollar GDP and will likely control the fate of humanity for centuries. It is vital it is the United States and not China.

China isn't spending money just to put some rovers on the moon. They would not be able to ignore the US putting resources into Mars. Thinking they would ignore it is foolishness.

China talks a big game but they do not have the ability to match the US is all things. Like the USSR, they can put all their resources into their military and their space program, but they would bleed money in the process at an alarming rate without the economic dynamics to compete with the US. The plan is obvious: threaten their plans for world domination with a space race and force them to bleed their economy until they either concede or destroy themselves.
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I agree. China couldn't land and operate a rover on Mars today. They are way behind us.

It is true that China's foray into authoritarian capitalism has done a much better job of raising their populations living standards and China's overall Economy compared to what the Soviet Union was able to do. It's also equally true that on the hard core military & space technology front they haven't done better then the Soviets and in many ways have not been as successful.

It says something that China's most cutting edge military hardware is Soviet in design.

And let's be clear why China has done better then the Soviets on the domestic economic front - America and the West gave them favorable access and poured trillions of dollars into boosting China's manufacturing. Had we been as similarly stupid after WW2 and poured that kind of expertise & money into the Soviet Union we would all be speaking Russian now.
 
Crusaders said:
We're talking about Mars; specifically, putting more resources into colonization. We can also lump the asteroid belt (mining) in as well.

The first country to colonize Mars and to mine the asteroid belt will be the first with a quadrillion dollar GDP and will likely control the fate of humanity for centuries. It is vital it is the United States and not China.

China isn't spending money just to put some rovers on the moon. They would not be able to ignore the US putting resources into Mars. Thinking they would ignore it is foolishness.

China talks a big game but they do not have the ability to match the US is all things. Like the USSR, they can put all their resources into their military and their space program, but they would bleed money in the process at an alarming rate without the economic dynamics to compete with the US. The plan is obvious: threaten their plans for world domination with a space race and force them to bleed their economy until they either concede or destroy themselves.
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I would say though that 25 years from now may tell a different story.

I'm concerned about the early actions of the Biden administration with respect to America's space efforts. I doubt NASA is going to get a big boost in spending while at the same time Biden has initiated executive orders that reinstate some regulatory controls over private space development that could put a damper on that front.

Obama led the way with boosting America's privatization of space exploration. Trump followed his lead and relaxed some of the more onerous regulations that hindered private space activities. This rare bit of bipartisan action resulted in 12 years of unprecedented growth in America's private space program.

The Biden administration would be wise to follow the lead of the last two Presidents.
 
lotr10 said:
They'll try and may in fact succeed. But if they do it's 100% on us. What's that old saying: "fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me".
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I'm going to go all in agreeing with Cru on this one. We're way past twice. They probably already got the keys and changed the station to WRED.
 
lotr10 said:
I would say though that 25 years from now may tell a different story.

I'm concerned about the early actions of the Biden administration with respect to America's space efforts. I doubt NASA is going to get a big boost in spending while at the same time Biden has initiated executive orders that reinstate some regulatory controls over private space development that could put a damper on that front.

Obama led the way with boosting America's privatization of space exploration. Trump followed his lead and relaxed some of the more onerous regulations that hindered private space activities. This rare bit of bipartisan action resulted in 12 years of unprecedented growth in America's private space program.

The Biden administration would be wise to follow the lead of the last two Presidents.
Click to expand...

I wish they’d follow Ike and JFK
 
Might be habitable planets everywhere:

www.eurekalert.org

The Milky Way may be swarming with planets with oceans and continents like here on Earth

According to a new study from the University of Copenhagen, Earth, Venus and Mars were created from small dust particles containing ice and carbon. The discovery opens up the possibility that the Milky Way may be filled with aquatic planets.
www.eurekalert.org

The theory, called 'pebble accretion', is that planets are formed by pebbles that are clumping together, and that the planets then grow larger and larger.

Anders Johansen explains that the water molecule H2O is found everywhere in our galaxy, and that the theory therefore opens up the possibility that other planets may have been formed in the same way as Earth, Mars and Venus.

'All planets in the Milky Way may be formed by the same building blocks, meaning that planets with the same amount of water and carbon as Earth - and thus potential places where life may be present - occur frequently around other stars in our galaxy, provided the temperature is right', he says.

If planets in our galaxy had the same building blocks and the same temperature conditions as Earth, there will also be good chances that they may have about the same amount of water and continents as our planet.
 
That "eye" has the advantage of movement. I'm not seeing in the article if that was accounted for. If not, it will see much more in an image, with more resolution than that imaged with a static camera than they are being told.
 
lol, getting science from a website that sells boxer shorts. Buddy, no one can warp space like I can when I'm free swinging in my boxers.
 
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