| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:57 - Feb 18 with 899 views | Steve_M |
It’s down:
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:58 - Feb 18 with 892 views | J2BLUE |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:57 - Feb 18 by Steve_M |
It’s down:
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Boom! |  |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:02 - Feb 18 with 886 views | SpruceMoose |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:58 - Feb 18 by J2BLUE |
Boom! |
It didn't blow up J2. |  |
| Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country." | | Poll: | Selectamod |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:03 - Feb 18 with 878 views | J2BLUE |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:02 - Feb 18 by SpruceMoose |
It didn't blow up J2. |
Knew someone would post that... | |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:03 - Feb 18 with 872 views | Ryorry |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:11 - Feb 18 with 857 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:57 - Feb 18 by Steve_M |
It’s down:
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That was a tense and exciting watch! |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:28 - Feb 18 with 845 views | Swansea_Blue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:03 - Feb 18 by Ryorry |
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Rubbish picture. You'd think they'd have more than a Nokia 7650 onboard! 
Amazing that you can see that in pretty much real time, and I can't wait to see the proper pics from the scientific cameras when they come through.
The landing even managed to hold the attention of my proto-teenager, which is probably the most impressive thing about the whole mission. |  |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 18:25 - Feb 19 with 771 views | Steve_M |
Some more photos released now:
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 18:29 - Feb 19 with 763 views | StokieBlue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 18:25 - Feb 19 by Steve_M |
Some more photos released now:
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Excellent.
Phil Plait has a podcast I believe, I've heard him on other podcasts.
SB [Post edited 19 Feb 2021 18:29]
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:13 - Feb 19 with 746 views | Darth_Koont |
This is great stuff – exploring Mars and finding out more about our own planet’s beginnings and advantages for life is a great boost to mankind.
On the other hand I think the exploration that is about preparing getting people to Mars seems to be missing the point. Do it as an intellectual exercise which we could probably do with robots and AI to the same degree anyway, but intellectually/emotionally/morally that seems to be entirely the wrong message.
We already know that terraforming Mars would be practically impossible for centuries, perhaps longer.. But we have our own planet that needs re-forming and at a fraction of the effort. Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture which is our own planet is our only home plus that space exploration is really about understanding a universe way beyond our own solar system.
I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species. Because they will accept there’s just no point. Because the distances are just too vast but we also have the technology to learn and explore that is way beyond our own mental and physical capabilities. |  |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:18 - Feb 19 with 737 views | NthQldITFC |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 18:25 - Feb 19 by Steve_M |
Some more photos released now:
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x=0.45:y=0.25 looks suspiciously like a stubbed out dog end. Careless NASA, again! |  |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:24 - Feb 19 with 734 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
I find this pretty remarkable to consider both scales of the Universe (the truly massive and the truly tiny). We just cannot properly compute the size of things at either extreme:
https://www.htwins.net/scale2/ |  |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:24 - Feb 19 with 732 views | Darth_Koont |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:18 - Feb 19 by NthQldITFC |
x=0.45:y=0.25 looks suspiciously like a stubbed out dog end. Careless NASA, again! |
To be honest, that picture could have been taken on any number of holidays to North Berwick. Just chuck in a bucket, spade and a windshelter.
I bet Mars is warmer though. | |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:26 - Feb 19 with 729 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:28 - Feb 18 by Swansea_Blue |
Rubbish picture. You'd think they'd have more than a Nokia 7650 onboard!
Amazing that you can see that in pretty much real time, and I can't wait to see the proper pics from the scientific cameras when they come through.
The landing even managed to hold the attention of my proto-teenager, which is probably the most impressive thing about the whole mission. |
Imagine being the chap on board and realising you left the decent camera at home!
I trust you realise the high definition stuff is going to take longer to send but we should get it about a week later. | |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:12 - Feb 19 with 704 views | Steve_M |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:26 - Feb 19 by Nthsuffolkblue |
Imagine being the chap on board and realising you left the decent camera at home!
I trust you realise the high definition stuff is going to take longer to send but we should get it about a week later. |
This picture might end up like those of the Saturn V taking off or Earthrise, it’s truly stunning:
[Post edited 19 Feb 2021 20:34]
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:27 - Feb 19 with 702 views | stonojnr |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:13 - Feb 19 by Darth_Koont |
This is great stuff – exploring Mars and finding out more about our own planet’s beginnings and advantages for life is a great boost to mankind.
On the other hand I think the exploration that is about preparing getting people to Mars seems to be missing the point. Do it as an intellectual exercise which we could probably do with robots and AI to the same degree anyway, but intellectually/emotionally/morally that seems to be entirely the wrong message.
We already know that terraforming Mars would be practically impossible for centuries, perhaps longer.. But we have our own planet that needs re-forming and at a fraction of the effort. Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture which is our own planet is our only home plus that space exploration is really about understanding a universe way beyond our own solar system.
I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species. Because they will accept there’s just no point. Because the distances are just too vast but we also have the technology to learn and explore that is way beyond our own mental and physical capabilities. |
humans will have to leave the Earth, the sun will eventually become a red giant and consume it, sure that wont be for billions of years,though Stephen Hawking predicted we needed to leave Earth within 100-600 years to avoid planetary catastrophe, but humans will have to become interplanetary travellers to survive, it is inevitable.
and for all the huge cost stuff, NASA gets a budget of around 22billion dollars a year, in America alone they spend more than that on dog food per year, its estimated often they actually spend more on dog treats , that is food dogs dont actually need, than NASA gets to spend on these types of missions, plus this stuff inspires the next generation of future scientists and technologists who ultimately maybe the ones who come up with or discover the next advance in tech or science, that solves alot of the problems on Earth, these missions arent about terraforming other worlds, its about learning science that helps us understand our world. |  | | |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:35 - Feb 19 with 696 views | StokieBlue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:13 - Feb 19 by Darth_Koont |
This is great stuff – exploring Mars and finding out more about our own planet’s beginnings and advantages for life is a great boost to mankind.
On the other hand I think the exploration that is about preparing getting people to Mars seems to be missing the point. Do it as an intellectual exercise which we could probably do with robots and AI to the same degree anyway, but intellectually/emotionally/morally that seems to be entirely the wrong message.
We already know that terraforming Mars would be practically impossible for centuries, perhaps longer.. But we have our own planet that needs re-forming and at a fraction of the effort. Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture which is our own planet is our only home plus that space exploration is really about understanding a universe way beyond our own solar system.
I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species. Because they will accept there’s just no point. Because the distances are just too vast but we also have the technology to learn and explore that is way beyond our own mental and physical capabilities. |
"I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species"
I honestly hope this isn't the case.
Many leading scientists have said it's a must that humans leave the Earth and the events of the last year surely highlight why that is the case?
We are one bad pandemic, asteroid strike or supervolcano eruption from extinction because we have all our eggs in one basket. Humans will colonies other planetary bodies in the solar system and beyond because not to would be foolish not to. As a thinking species capable of observing and understanding the universe around us it would be awful for us to not to do everything possible to ensure the continuation of the species.
At the moment the task is daunting but over time technology will make it possible. Even journeys to other stars should be possible, just time consuming an difficult.
SB [Post edited 19 Feb 2021 20:39]
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:38 - Feb 19 with 670 views | Darth_Koont |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:27 - Feb 19 by stonojnr |
humans will have to leave the Earth, the sun will eventually become a red giant and consume it, sure that wont be for billions of years,though Stephen Hawking predicted we needed to leave Earth within 100-600 years to avoid planetary catastrophe, but humans will have to become interplanetary travellers to survive, it is inevitable.
and for all the huge cost stuff, NASA gets a budget of around 22billion dollars a year, in America alone they spend more than that on dog food per year, its estimated often they actually spend more on dog treats , that is food dogs dont actually need, than NASA gets to spend on these types of missions, plus this stuff inspires the next generation of future scientists and technologists who ultimately maybe the ones who come up with or discover the next advance in tech or science, that solves alot of the problems on Earth, these missions arent about terraforming other worlds, its about learning science that helps us understand our world. |
Don’t get me wrong. I have absolutely no problem with spending a tiny percentage of the world’s money on space exploration and astronomy/astrophysics. In fact, I’d say spend a lot more to understand our own planet and the universe.
My point is where humans fit into this in terms of space travel and colonisation. That’s not an option that we should entertain for several reasons.
A) We can send machines to places much more easily and quicker than humans. B) The distances for space travel are ridiculous and it would take many thousands of years to get to even the closest star. And C) It shifts our focus a little too much from the earth and what we need to do here. As Stokie says “We shouldn’t have all our eggs in one basket” but the problem is that this is our only basket for hundreds maybe thousands of years. We should be thinking like that. | |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:48 - Feb 19 with 662 views | Darth_Koont |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:35 - Feb 19 by StokieBlue |
"I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species"
I honestly hope this isn't the case.
Many leading scientists have said it's a must that humans leave the Earth and the events of the last year surely highlight why that is the case?
We are one bad pandemic, asteroid strike or supervolcano eruption from extinction because we have all our eggs in one basket. Humans will colonies other planetary bodies in the solar system and beyond because not to would be foolish not to. As a thinking species capable of observing and understanding the universe around us it would be awful for us to not to do everything possible to ensure the continuation of the species.
At the moment the task is daunting but over time technology will make it possible. Even journeys to other stars should be possible, just time consuming an difficult.
SB [Post edited 19 Feb 2021 20:39]
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See above.
I agree that we are in a precarious situation, and certainly an extinction-level threat potentially given everything that could happen. But there really is no greater threat to mankind (and killing more people rather than just limiting potential human life) than screwing up the planet in 2021.
Mentally, we need to see that. Rather than pretending there’s a brighter future over the horizon and in another world. Wasn’t it George W that said something similar about colonising Mars as a way of deflecting from the need to combat climate change?
Let’s put our best minds, science and resources towards protecting people and the planet today – and for the sake of children who have already been born | |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 22:40 - Feb 19 with 632 views | StokieBlue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 21:48 - Feb 19 by Darth_Koont |
See above.
I agree that we are in a precarious situation, and certainly an extinction-level threat potentially given everything that could happen. But there really is no greater threat to mankind (and killing more people rather than just limiting potential human life) than screwing up the planet in 2021.
Mentally, we need to see that. Rather than pretending there’s a brighter future over the horizon and in another world. Wasn’t it George W that said something similar about colonising Mars as a way of deflecting from the need to combat climate change?
Let’s put our best minds, science and resources towards protecting people and the planet today – and for the sake of children who have already been born |
I agree we need to focus on the Earth at the moment whilst spending money on space exploration (it's small change really) however it is not what you said in your original post. You said you thought humanity would never leave the Earth because they would accept there is no point, that is what I was disagreeing with because there clearly is a point which is the distribution of our civilisation away from a single point of failure.
Nobody is saying it should be done now but saying it will never happen isn't something I agree with.
SB | | | |
| Bang on on 22:46 - Feb 19 with 632 views | unstableblue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 19:13 - Feb 19 by Darth_Koont |
This is great stuff – exploring Mars and finding out more about our own planet’s beginnings and advantages for life is a great boost to mankind.
On the other hand I think the exploration that is about preparing getting people to Mars seems to be missing the point. Do it as an intellectual exercise which we could probably do with robots and AI to the same degree anyway, but intellectually/emotionally/morally that seems to be entirely the wrong message.
We already know that terraforming Mars would be practically impossible for centuries, perhaps longer.. But we have our own planet that needs re-forming and at a fraction of the effort. Let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture which is our own planet is our only home plus that space exploration is really about understanding a universe way beyond our own solar system.
I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species. Because they will accept there’s just no point. Because the distances are just too vast but we also have the technology to learn and explore that is way beyond our own mental and physical capabilities. |
Whilst the technical and human endeavour challenge of Mars exploration on a small scale has some merit.
Sending humans there, to a planet that is basically inhabitable in any real scale or for any period, is just a complete waste of energy and resources.
Our ecosystem - the trillion to 1 chance environment we have been gifted - is under great threat from our own race. All our efforts as a race should be on protecting it. |  |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 22:56 - Feb 19 with 625 views | Darth_Koont |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 22:40 - Feb 19 by StokieBlue |
I agree we need to focus on the Earth at the moment whilst spending money on space exploration (it's small change really) however it is not what you said in your original post. You said you thought humanity would never leave the Earth because they would accept there is no point, that is what I was disagreeing with because there clearly is a point which is the distribution of our civilisation away from a single point of failure.
Nobody is saying it should be done now but saying it will never happen isn't something I agree with.
SB |
Yeah, I get that. But given how difficult/impossible it is to distribute ourselves in our own solar system, let alone even the next solar system that is 4 point something light years away (I.e. thousands of years away), then it’s an academic discussion.
Put it this way, there’s much more chance that we continue our existence and colonise other planets in digital form. And that’s not a bad thing either, just evolution ramped up. | |
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| Bang on on 23:04 - Feb 19 with 609 views | Darth_Koont |
| Bang on on 22:46 - Feb 19 by unstableblue |
Whilst the technical and human endeavour challenge of Mars exploration on a small scale has some merit.
Sending humans there, to a planet that is basically inhabitable in any real scale or for any period, is just a complete waste of energy and resources.
Our ecosystem - the trillion to 1 chance environment we have been gifted - is under great threat from our own race. All our efforts as a race should be on protecting it. |
Agreed. We could explore Mars quicker using automation and AI and learn even more.
Elon Musk is Lyle Lanley on a global scale. Monorail to the stars!!! | |
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 23:34 - Feb 19 with 593 views | StokieBlue |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 22:56 - Feb 19 by Darth_Koont |
Yeah, I get that. But given how difficult/impossible it is to distribute ourselves in our own solar system, let alone even the next solar system that is 4 point something light years away (I.e. thousands of years away), then it’s an academic discussion.
Put it this way, there’s much more chance that we continue our existence and colonise other planets in digital form. And that’s not a bad thing either, just evolution ramped up. |
It's an academic discussion at the moment but that doesn't mean that it will always be an academic discussion.
I am aware of what a light year is but your statement is only correct for existing chemical rockets. The time it takes to get their is entirely dependent on the fraction of C that you can achieve and that is determined by the amount of continuous thrust you can impart on an object. Already there are plans (perhaps a bit fanciful) to accelerate a small probe using lasers to about 25% C which could get to Proxima Centauri in about 20 to 25 years. This is obviously of very little use to us for colonisation but whilst difficult, the challenges are not impossible given enough time. Of course there might not be anything there to colonise.
I think your final paragraph is actually fairly likely, there is a good chance that immortal digitised versions of humanity will actually be the ones to complete the colonisation but I wouldn't fully rule out biological based colonisation attempts. Not everyone will want to become a digitised existence, at least not at the start.
Certainly it's an excellent discussion to ponder the possibilities.
SB [Post edited 19 Feb 2021 23:34]
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| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 08:26 - Feb 20 with 564 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 20:35 - Feb 19 by StokieBlue |
"I doubt humans will leave Earth and colonise any other planet or solar system in their existence as a species"
I honestly hope this isn't the case.
Many leading scientists have said it's a must that humans leave the Earth and the events of the last year surely highlight why that is the case?
We are one bad pandemic, asteroid strike or supervolcano eruption from extinction because we have all our eggs in one basket. Humans will colonies other planetary bodies in the solar system and beyond because not to would be foolish not to. As a thinking species capable of observing and understanding the universe around us it would be awful for us to not to do everything possible to ensure the continuation of the species.
At the moment the task is daunting but over time technology will make it possible. Even journeys to other stars should be possible, just time consuming an difficult.
SB [Post edited 19 Feb 2021 20:39]
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It won't be time consuming or difficult once we learn how to jump to hyperspace. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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