next up (landing on mars with humans)

Ok, 1st of all we need to stop knocking the space program no matter who landed where and who got lost. As for the landing, i'm not 100% but i believe it's the 1st time anything has landed on Mars. What i'd like to know is how long did it take the space craft to get there. When did they send out the crafts?

Don't you reeber the first mars rover that landed in 98 or 99?

Edit: It was Mars "Pathfinder" in 1997.

Mars rover "Spirit" was launched June 10, 2003 and was scheduled to land on Jan 3, 2004, which it did. There is another rover exactly the same as Spirit called "Opportunity" that was launched about a month later and will arrive on Mars on Jan 24, 2004.

Landing humans on mars will take at least 30 years.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

we waste way too much money in exploring space and what have we got in return for it???

Moonlanding ? Russia beaten in the race ? Space is our future and exploration is part of human nature. Denying it would to be to deny ourselves. It is something that gives great things back. It should not be taken so lightly.

Enormous amounts of money was spent exploring the Earth. Think back 6 or 700 years. North America wasn't even discovered by Europeans yet. Would you have told them, "whats the point?" I doubt it. It is in our nature to explore. Its pretty selfish to sit on our rock and not explore the origins of life, or try to discover new life. Aren't you curious? It's our curiosity of things that has brought us to this point. We learn answers by asking questions.

[quote="Tom Tykwer":a73bc]
Mankind, probably the most mysterious species on our planet. A mystery of open questions. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? How do we know what we believe to know? Why do we believe anything at all? Innumerable questions looking for an answer, an answer which will raise the next question and the following answer will raise a following question and so on and so forth. But in the end, isn't it always the same question and always the same answer?[/quote:a73bc]

Tang and velcro...

No, I'm not curious. It's only produced dead astronauts and billions of wasted dollars.

if we didnt explore you wouldent have cell phones, satalite tvs,gps, ect...

I agree. It's a waste of money no matter how you look at it. A MASSIVE WASTE. Billons into trillions and money that could have helped boost the economy or help the people of their respective countries. I for one would have rather seen that money put to good use like rebuilding the schools in inner cities or helping get the homeless off the streets into productive lives.

Or we could just pile all the money in the middle of the street and set it on fire. Atleast it would be more productive.

Mankind has always had an urge to see what's out there, since the begining of time. evidence of this is the fact the human's can be found about any place on the globe. The urge to travel in space comes from the same place. (well, that, and to prove to the russians, and now the chinese that we're better then them)

I think they said on the news that it took 7 months for the satellite to reach mars.

That is probably the biggest drawback in terms of sending a human crew to Mars, who is going to take a 7 month one way trip to another location? 14 months away in space, that prolly takes alot of food, fuel, and physical toll on NASA and its crew. I cant wait to hear more about what the probe found.

Thats why the shuttles are innefficient as fuck. You might as well shoot a piece of shit into space and ride it to mars.

A rocket using a nuclear reactor for propulsion will be launched in 2009 or so for an unmanned mission to Pluto. This is a sign as an evolution in space travel. Hopefully soon, other means of efficient transportation in space will be made avaliable.

And as I said before, "Spirit" left earth on June 10, 2003. So just less than 7 months. "Opportunity" launched 3 weeks later and will reach Mars on the 24th of this month.

[quote="[22nd Elite] Cloud":69fbf]well.....not in the solar system..the biggest volcano that we know of..[/quote:69fbf]

hmm. yep, it is the biggest volcano in the solar system buddy. we have surveyed all the planets, and that is the biggest one. eek:

I believe this is the 5th sucessfully landed probe on mars, along with 20 something failed landing attempts, most recently Japan and the brits.