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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory |OT| 2,000 Pounds of Science!

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K

~Kinggi~

Banned
Damn, NASA doing everything they can to get people interested in space science. Fucking open sourcing all their smart shit now. Well i hope great things come from their martian rover findings. I finally got around to watching the touchdown video and it was very inspiring. Reminded me when i saw their other rover land on Mars in a livestream. Was posting on gaf too lulz
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Fine Ham Abounds said:
That's what's so exciting about this mission for me.

Every single high res shot I've seen so far looks like something I could have taken in my backyard (not really, but fidelity-wise, you know what I'm getting at), but it's not. It's on Mars.

That rock is not a CG rock. It's not a rock in Arizona. It's not plaster. It's not foam. That photo looks like that because it's a photo of a real place. A real place like any other place. Every other place in this solar system is another real place. Every other place in this universe is another real place. Just like your backyard.

This is really happening. It's a real other world to be explored and experienced. It's a grain of sand on the shoreline of a universe bigger than we can comprehend, but is directly accessible to us. Sometimes it takes venturing to the edges of our ability to better understand what we've always had.

The greatest gift of science is not just a bunch of new facts to be memorized or things to be categorized and filed, it's the potential every second of every day to have your perspective of everything shattered, rebuilt, and expanded beyond anything you could have possibly imagined the second before.
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Thats why i'm so psyched to see the high res version of that landing movie.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
NASA needs more vespene gas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/o...rs-budget-woes-on-earth.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Re “After Safe Landing, a Rover Sends Images From Mars” (news article, Aug. 7):

The landing of the terrific Curiosity rover on Mars has rightly thrilled the world, and the nation’s leaders are taking a bow. “If anyone has been harboring doubts about the status of U.S. leadership in space,” the president’s science adviser, John P. Holdren, said, “well, there’s a one-ton automobile-size piece of American ingenuity. And it’s sitting on the surface of Mars right now.”

But alas, the Curiosity mission is a legacy of the Bush administration, begun by one NASA administrator, Sean O’Keefe, and rammed through to completion over the objections of vocal critics by his gutsy successor, Mike Griffin, who also initiated the Maven Mars orbiter, scheduled for launching next year.

The Obama administration, however, has no plans to continue in like vein. Far from it. It has canceled NASA’s plans for joint Mars missions with the Europeans in 2016 and 2018 and is proposing to butcher the program budget.

The figures speak for themselves. This year’s NASA Mars exploration budget is $587 million. The administration is proposing to cut that to $360.8 million in fiscal year 2013, $227.7 million in 2014, and $188.7 million in 2015, a level that would effectively put the nation out of the Mars exploration business.

If America is to remain the vanguard of humanity’s reach into space, we need to reject such folly.

ROBERT ZUBRIN
Golden, Colo., Aug. 7, 2012

The writer is an astronautical engineer, president of the Mars Society and author of “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must.”
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Zubrin's recent documentary about Mars exploration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDWvsdEYSqg
 
T

ToxicAdam

Member
L

Lloyd Dobler

Member
Imagine being the first person to set foot on mars--to be on a completely different planet that is desertous and void of life as we know it--it must be an eerie feeling. Maybe doubts about travelling back safely to Earth would linger. Bizarre.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Insane Metal said:
Holy shit. Isn't there any billionaire in the world to donate some monies to NASA? Pls?
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I would. If I had a billion dollars.

Although....that probably wouldn't work anyway since you can't really donate directly to a particular government agency.

If I was president, I'd reform our tax system in such a way that (along with streamlining the process so it doesn't take me a whole fucking day and 30 sheets of paper, but that's another topic) at the end of your return would be a list of government agencies that you can send a portion of your tax money directly. Along with the option of giving them more money above your current tax obligation.

I think that would not only be a kind of direct democracy (put your money where you want it), it would also serve as a kind of census that would accurately show how much support specific government agencies have from the taxpayers.
 
Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
Rentahamster said:
I would. If I had a billion dollars.

Although....that probably wouldn't work anyway since you can't really donate directly to a particular government agency.

If I was president, I'd reform our tax system in such a way that (along with streamlining the process so it doesn't take me a whole fucking day and 30 sheets of paper, but that's another topic) at the end of your return would be a list of government agencies that you can send a portion of your tax money directly. Along with the option of giving them more money above your current tax obligation.

I think that would not only be a kind of direct democracy (put your money where you want it), it would also serve as a kind of census that would accurately show how much support specific government agencies have from the taxpayers.
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That's just sad :(

I want the JWST to be released next month :(

It's been delayed to 2018 but I'll be pretty happy if it comes out by 2020, from the looks of things. I can't believe what we're doing with space exploration.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
abuC said:
That's just sad, doesn't 1 single F-22 Raptor cost close to $200 million?
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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/f-22-real-cost/

So what’s the cost? As little as $137 million per jet and as much as $678 million, depending on how and what you count. The thing is, the best way of calculating the F-22′s cost may be the most abstract. But any way you crunch the numbers, the world’s best dogfighter has also been one of the most expensive operational warplanes ever.
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M

metalslimer

Member
Unfortunately I think many people overestimate how much regular people care about NASA anymore. They see this stuff and think who cares why are we spending billions on this stuff. I wonder how far NASA would be to a Mars mission if all the money directed at the Iraq war had gone to them instead.
 
E

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Most people (maybe not in the US) completely agree that money would be better spent on space exploration than military.
 
T

timetokill

Banned
Ether_Snake said:
Most people (maybe not in the US) completely agree that money would be better spent on space exploration than military.
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Well, it's always easy to say that when it's not your money.

That said, I would almost be afraid to see the numbers on it. Decades of government shitting all over NASA can't have helped.
 
G

.GqueB.

Banned
Ether_Snake said:
Most people (maybe not in the US) completely agree that money would be better spent on space exploration than military.
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I'm curious what more money would actually mean for NASA projects. When I look at the military, I see a lot of the money going to having a lot of the same thing. A lot of aircraft carriers, a lot of planes, a lot of bullets, a lot of guns, a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of teenagers to train etc etc. What would more money mean for NASA? How would it affect this mission for instance? Would it make this whole space discovery thing go a bit faster? I've always been curious about this.
 
T

timetokill

Banned
.GqueB. said:
I'm curious what more money would actually mean for NASA projects. When I look at the military, I see a lot of the money going to having a lot of the same thing. A lot of aircraft carriers, a lot of planes, a lot of bullets, a lot of guns, a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of teenagers to train etc etc. What would more money mean for NASA? How would it affect this mission for instance? Would it make this whole space discovery thing go a bit faster? I've always been curious about this.
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There's a lot it would affect.

One of the projects I saw at a JPL open house was a Mars rover they were hoping for a 2016-2018 launch window, that has the capability to dig a bit into the soil, pack the soil away, and actually LAUNCH CONTAINERS BACK TO EARTH so that we can study them here.

I'd imagine more funding would allow them to try things like that and secure those projects. However, ultimately more funding could mean more for long-term projects.

Right now they have to have a pretty short-term vision for things because the funding could dry up anytime, and they need to "show results" to keep the money coming in. So any long-term projects, like deep space exploration or really experimental techniques and things, have to be shelved. And that's a serious shame. There's a lot of things we could do now that would have massive scientific benefits to us 20-30 years from now, but by then the boomers will all be dead or dying so they don't give a shit. Selfish assholes.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
.GqueB. said:
I'm curious what more money would actually mean for NASA projects. When I look at the military, I see a lot of the money going to having a lot of the same thing. A lot of aircraft carriers, a lot of planes, a lot of bullets, a lot of guns, a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of teenagers to train etc etc. What would more money mean for NASA? How would it affect this mission for instance? Would it make this whole space discovery thing go a bit faster? I've always been curious about this.
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There are several promising sites to land a rover on mars. We only have one rover.

The more of Mars' surface we can examine, the faster we can find a suitable landing site for a manned Mars mission.

The more funding NASA has, the more tests it can do on experimental projects, and the faster they can be fully developed.

The faster we can gather information about Mars, develop new technologies, and engineer solutions, the faster and safer we can start a manned mission to Mars finally.

The more funding NASA has, the more they can plan for longer projects instead of shorter ones due to being afraid that the budget will get cut.
 
T

The_Inquisitor

Member
Rentahamster said:
There are several promising sites to land a rover on mars. We only have one rover.

The more of Mars' surface we can examine, the faster we can find a suitable landing site for a manned Mars mission.

The more funding NASA has, the more tests it can do on experimental projects, and the faster they can be fully developed.

The faster we can gather information about Mars, develop new technologies, and engineer solutions, the faster and safer we can start a manned mission to Mars finally.

The more funding NASA has, the more they can plan for longer projects instead of shorter ones due to being afraid that the budget will get cut.
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Basically money.
 
J

J-Rzez

Member
abuC said:
That's just sad, doesn't 1 single F-22 Raptor cost close to $200 million?
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There's a reason they limited the purchases and usage of the F-22, and heavily invested in the JSF instead, cost. The Raptor is the baddest jet in the air though, but it's cost is obscene to have originally been penned to replace the aging F-15s.
 
E

Emwitus

Member
J-Rzez said:
There's a reason they limited the purchases and usage of the F-22, and heavily invested in the JSF instead, cost. The Raptor is the baddest jet in the air though, but it's cost is obscene to have originally been penned to replace the aging F-15s.
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And in this day and age when are you ever going to need them? Who will sanely challenge US in a dog fight?
 
B

Bowdz

Member
J-Rzez said:
There's a reason they limited the purchases and usage of the F-22, and heavily invested in the JSF instead, cost. The Raptor is the baddest jet in the air though, but it's cost is obscene to have originally been penned to replace the aging F-15s.
Click to expand...

I'm somebody who generally doesn't have a problem with insanely high military spending, but I think that if we are going to spend $500-$600 billion per year, all of the money should be spent efficiently (like that happens in Washington), strategically, and not just thrown away into random projects. With that said, I was honestly in favor of the F-35 until I read this article.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/26/the_jet_that_ate_the_pentagon

This is what really irritates me however:

http://www.congress.org/news/house-may-add-defense-spending-pentagon-doesnt-want/

Congress said:
The House Armed Services Committee is expected to require the Pentagon build a new anti-missile battery on the East Coast, even though a top general says it’s unnecessary, reports CQ’s John Donnelly.

That’s just one of several expensive programs that House Republicans — with the acquiescence of some Democrats — want to impose on a Pentagon that doesn’t want them. The net effect would add nearly $4 billion to the defense budget request this year and create potentially billions more in new bills in later years, even as members — particularly Republicans — decry Washington’s profligate ways and swear to tighten their belts.

The projects are not technically earmarks. But some say the extra spending has a similar effect as similar mandates from the past.
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The devastating cuts that NASA is likely to undergo with the planetary science division are around $400 million. Meanwhile, Congress is forcing $4 billion worth of missile defense batteries that the Pentagon has explicitly said they don't want nor need (and this isn't the only item that Congress has added against the wishes of the Pentagon). Honestly, NASA doesn't make it easy for themselves when they constantly undersell the initial price of the project only to have it balloon over the years (ISS, Shuttle, MSL, JWST), but at the very least, I am positive we can find $500 million in defense waste that can be put into NASA's budget and still undergo meaningful deficit reduction talks next year.
 
T

The_Inquisitor

Member
Bowdz said:
I'm somebody who generally doesn't have a problem with insanely high military spending, but I think that if we are going to spend $500-$600 billion per year, all of the money should be spent efficiently (like that happens in Washington), strategically, and not just thrown away into random projects. With that said, I was honestly in favor of the F-35 until I read this article.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/26/the_jet_that_ate_the_pentagon

This is what really irritates me however:

http://www.congress.org/news/house-may-add-defense-spending-pentagon-doesnt-want/



The devastating cuts that NASA is likely to undergo with the planetary science division are around $400 million. Meanwhile, Congress is forcing $4 billion worth of missile defense batteries that the Pentagon has explicitly said they don't want nor need (and this isn't the only item that Congress has added against the wishes of the Pentagon). Honestly, NASA doesn't make it easy for themselves when they constantly undersell the initial price of the project only to have it balloon over the years (ISS, Shuttle, MSL, JWST), but at the very least, I am positive we can find $500 million in defense waste that can be put into NASA's budget and still undergo meaningful deficit reduction talks next year.
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Reason defense projects aren't axed is that pieces are typically made in multiple states. Senators don't want to take jobs away from their states. ????? Therefore project stays.
 
B

Bowdz

Member
The_Inquisitor said:
Reason defense projects aren't axed is that pieces are typically made in multiple states. Senators don't want to take jobs away from their states. ????? Therefore project stays.
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Oh I know why they stay around (NASA does this to to a certain degree with Orion and SLS). It is just flagrant in a year of so called austerity to try and add $4 billion worth of batteries the Pentagon doesn't want. It's also salt in the wound for JPL, especially after pulling off something far more technically demanding than much of the DoD sinkholes.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
maquiladora said:
Have you guys seen this yet?

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia16051_figure_1_raw_smaller-full.jpg

:O
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ipWNKMeLeelKC.gif
 
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