Why hasn't there been more coverage of this mission? I know it's not as sexy as Mars, but going to Saturn is a pretty big deal IMO.

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... l">here</a>

Why hasn't there been more coverage of this mission? I know it's not as sexy as Mars, but going to Saturn is a pretty big deal IMO.</div>

[Imakeholesinu]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Cause everyone was focused on my trip to Venus.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>"To" or "into"? :-)</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>So how did you like that 460 degree C surface temp? Hope you brought your suntan lotion. : )</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>"Not all NASA scientists are impressed by these plans. Many believe there would be plenty of money to fly top-shelf ships if the space agency would drop its preoccupation with manned space travel. The International Space Station has been a scientific black hole, swallowing nearly $100 billion and delivering little of real value. President Bush's manned moon-Mars initiative will cost at least $170 billion — and that's from an agency that has never met a cost estimate it couldn't overrun. Forget the fixation with getting bodies in orbit or boots in the soil, critics say, and you could fairly blanket other planets with Cassini-quality landers and orbiters and still have billions left over. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, not surprisingly, disagrees: "Robotic missions are precursor missions." The most thorough exploration, he says, "requires the unique cognitive skills that only human beings can bring to the equation.""


Of course, I believe that our current propulsion system is dead end technology. There will be a much more environmentally and economically friendly way in the future, we just have to develop it. As for the Saturn mission itself, the article doesn't really say a whole lot, it seems scientists already know a great deal about what they are going to find, and what they discussed really didn't hold any value to the advancement of humanity. What I would be looking for are specific goals which would be beneficial to humanity. To me a space station is pointless, what purpose will it serve? What purpose will a manned Mars landing serve? Nothing of value at all. 270 billion dollars is a LOT of money, especially when the burden is coming from the American working and middle class.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>If we are going to survive on this world, we need to get half of the population off of the fucking planet!</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Historically, colonizing efforts have done little to help those from the colonizing country.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>To where? As far as we know, Earth is the only planet in existance which is suitable for sustaining human life. Even if the moon somehow could sustain life, the world does not have even close to the the amount of resources required to send even 100K people there, let alone 3-4,000,000,000</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Mars & Venus are the next logical choices</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Neither can support life.</div>

[Agent 57]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It's pretty pointless for us to try to figure out how to sustain life on other celestial bodies when we're not even sure whether or not we'll be able to sustain life on this one. It's also pretty stupid to waste time and resources on space exploration when we currently have a surplus of neither to ensure our own survival.

The space program made sense in the era of cheap oil, as we had a surplus of energy to fund such extravagant explorations. Now that the era of cheap oil is ending, we should no longer fund space exploration - to do otherwise is akin to a 60-year old man continuing to drink and smoke, even though doctors have told him that he is deliberatly taking years off the end of his life.

<i>-57</i></div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>We have not made any significant advancements in decades in the field which the space program is focussed on. The technology currently in use is dead end technology, it can not advance past a certain point, and since we are not seeing any new benefits, there is no reason as to why we should continue wasting resources on it. Any future technology which will lead to a suitable way of planetary or interstellar travel does not have any of our current technology as a pre-requisite. Assuming the technology is possible (and it could very well not be), it's development is no where in sight.

On the subject of mass exodus to other planets to prevent over-population and such (as Aent 57 has already pointed out), though we may have a problem with greenhouse gasses and other pollution on Earth, the problem is no where near those which surrround the planets of Mars and Venus. If we ever had the ability to terraform either Mars or Venus, then it is probable that we have already long ago solved the very minute, in comparison, problems which plague the Earth.

In my opinion, before we even make an attempt at any extra-terrestrial colonies of any size, we should first work on repairing the damage done to our planet, and also work on creating an energy source which is capable of sustaining human civilization without further damaging the planet. My opinion is that the beest way to rid the world of the growing amount of carbon dioxide is to use genetically engineered plants (bacteria I believe would be too hard to control) which convert Carbon Dioxide and other unwanted gasses at a much faster rate than current plants. For now, just plant trees =)

And for the record I agree with everything in Agent 57's post.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>How about science for the sake of science? So what there isn't a practical use? There is an advancement in science which will lead to a better understanding of the researched field and for the accidental discovery of practical application. Is that not good enough?

Microwaves weren't thought of and then researched. Microwaves came about because when a Dr. Spencer was working on an experiment with the "magnetron", he got hungry and reached for a candybar in his pocket. Due to the abundance of microwaves in the area, said candybar was thoroughly melted, Dr. Spencer made the connection and tested it with some popcorn seeds.

But why were they experimenting with the so called "magnetron" in the first place? For the purposes of radar. Usage of the magnetron for radar had already proved successful in WWII, and there was further research being poured into it to see what else can be done with it and radar.

Using your logic, however, once they found out that it works just fine for radar they should have simply dropped the subject and moved on to other research. After all, it works right? The waves shoot out and bounce back, making functional radar, we already got what we needed from it, why waste more money on it?

No microwaves for us it seems.

To stretch out the comparison a little further, with that kind of attitude Grecian philosophy would have been stomped out for being unpractical (with the exception of the Sophists). All we'd have gotten from Greek would then be law and rhetoric, mathematics (for example) would have been thrown into the wayside because it didn't contribute directly, obviously, nor practically into daily matters.

Take that geometric proofs.

Personally, I find it deplorable to ax research simply because it isn't practical. This field has a lot of potential for development and refinement, but many would rather not give it the chance. Indeed, NASA for years has been suffering budget cuts, which would explain the lack of breakthroughs and why they've had to rely on old rusted buckets for their trips.

Screw all the crap Bush spews about trips to Mars and colonizing the moon, those are all foolish pipe dreams. The value of investing into NASA is for the development and refinement of propulsion technology as well as for the sake of physics (and other scientific) experimentation on the space station and elsewhere (like probes. for example).

---------------------------

Links

Story of Microwaves:

<a href="http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/ ... ave.asp</a>
<a href="http://www.sysindia.com/kitchen/microwa ... ve.html</a>

Aforementioned Budget Cuts:

<a href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... 0</a></div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>...yet</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Venus has a highly toxic and corrosive atmosphere for one thing. For another it's temperatures far exceeds the range required to support any type of life form; even the most heat resistant bacteria cannot survive in temperatures anywhere near that high.

The surface of mars is far too cold to support any form of life aside from certain types of bacteria which could possibly live temporarilly close to volcanic craters. The warmest locations on the surface of Mars are comparrable to the coldest locations on the surface of Earth. Not to mention there is almost no atmosphere to speak of. Also the distance.

Also, if you choose to bring in "Well they can be terraformed" argument, consider that terraformation just like Warp drive, and transport beams are not possible outside of the Star Trek Universe.

Earth was a very lucky planet, it is the right distance from the sun, possesses the right gravitational levels, and the right elements capable of supporting life. It is the only known planet in existance known to have these attributes.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>1946 was shortly after radar was put into use, there have been no advancements since. As well, the development of satellites came shortly afterwards and was not discovered by accident, but rather developed for the purpose which they are used for.

Another factor is that radar development did not require nearly a fraction of the amount of resources which are being put forth into the space program. The space program itself was begun by Nazi scientists who had developed short range missle and ICBM technology for the Nazi's during world war 2, the Russians and the Americans took these scientists and had them develop their missle technology. This spawned the space program on both sides (Soviet and American). During the cold war the space program's value was that it was a peaceful way for Soviet and American scientists to perfect the propulsion units for their ICBMs.

The reason why there hasn't been any significant advancements in decades is mainly because it's dead end technology. There haven't been any significant advancements in technology relating to the magnetron in decades either.

Now if the Space Program cost under 500 million dollars per year and was privately funded then there wouldn't be much of a problem; but it doesn't. There's just no point in spending hundreds of billions on something that isn't of any value. It's like the tower of Babel</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Venus? Maybe if we terraform, but yes, Mars.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The surface temperature on Venus is about 864F/462C.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Hence the "yet" part</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>And imagine the solar energy that can be harnessed there</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Aside from it being hundreds of millions of kilometers away, it would still be zero, sunlight does not penetrate the atmosphere of venus.</div>

[Julius Seeker]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>If you say something about, "well we can harness that heat energy", think again, Venus is hundreds of millions of kilometers away, plus we have better sources of thermal energy on earth which are MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper to access.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>And you went to college? Did you fall asleep in Astromy class?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Economics, Psychology, and Accounting. I only casually read about the other stuff</div>