Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Liberator on January 22, 2004, 08:57:54 pm
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Examine these images (http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page344.html?theme=light) , and then tell me you don't think that NASA and other agencies are hiding potentially Earth-shaking information from us. :nervous:
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:lol: oh, man! i sure hope you're not taking something from Coast to Coast With George Noory seriously! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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dude, george noory is one of the biggest crackheads on radio. He believes just about everything anyone will say. Even when there is heaps of evidence against him.
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It does seem a little... bleak though. :shaking:
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uh, so what is this suposed to be
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its supposed to be proof of 'cased metal objects' near the rover. Looks like rocks to me.
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I don't think that NASA and other agencies are hiding potentially Earth-shaking information from us.
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:lol: damn I knew I should have packed up my tent properly... now there on to me :nervous: . There are some rocks to still chose from, I'm sure he just picked blindly... :rolleyes:
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What really makes me laugh is that this guy thinks that NASA would go to all the trouble of making fake pictures of Mars and yet would leave all sorts of metal objects lying about.
He's even more stupid than those idiots behind the faked moon landing theories.
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Martians - intellegent rocks.
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Ummm, those rocks are smaller than your head.
1: Why the hell would NASA fake pictures
2: Why the hell would Martians leave all these machines kicking about half buried?
3: Why would these "cased metal objects" be such weird shapes? If you look at any earth-made "cased metal object", they're always regular - just because it's the easiest way to case them.
Having said that, I'm sure there's something going on on Mars - all these probes and landers keep disappearing or "breaking", right? Gotta be something funny going on.
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Ah. Y'see, what happens is a little martian persicope pops up from the sand, and spots the rover. Then a big hand comes up and pulls it underground. :nod:
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:lol: I didn't say anything about Martians - possibly some funky environmental effect. I dunno, it just seems that Mars is cursed - the Americans "lost" an orbiter, the Japanese "lost" an orbiter, the Brits can't find their lander, and now the latest American rover has broken. Quite a track record.
Either that, or there's some big death ray thingy....
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If it was cursed then we wouldn't be able to get ANYTHING on the planet. I just think someone goofed on the math.
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I think it's more of the case of plain old human flaws Pyro-Maniac. But the good thing is, we just keep going until we get it right. Which is our strength ;)
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The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
NASA's stuff relies too much on long, complecated, error-prone machinery and computations, IMHO.
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
Having said that, I'm sure there's something going on on Mars - all these probes and landers keep disappearing or "breaking", right? Gotta be something funny going on.
More than 55% of probes sent to Mars have NOT FAILED.
Originally posted by Unknown Target
NASA's stuff relies too much on long, complecated, error-prone machinery and computations, IMHO.
I think you'll find if you examine the facts, you will find that NASA has the lowest failure rate for hardware sent to mars of any space agency on earth.
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UUUUULAAAAAAAAAAH!
The steamer began to move slowly away, but on the landward horizon appeared the sillouhette of a Fighting Machine. Another came, and another, striding over hills and trees, plunging far out to sea and blocking the exit of the steamer. Between them lay the silent, grey ironclad Thunder Child. Slowly it moved toward shore, then with a great roar and woosh of spray it swung about and drove directly at full speed towards the waiting Martians.
The Martians released their black smoke but the ship sped on, cutting down one of the tripod figures. Instantly, the others raised their heat rays and melted the Thunder Child's valiant heart.
When the smoke cleared the little steamer had reached the misty horizon, and Carrie was safe. But the Thunder Child had vanished forever, taking with her Man's last hope of victory. The leaden sky was lit with green flashes - cylinder following cylinder -and no-one and nothing was left now to fight them. The Earth belinged to the Martians.
ULAH!
ULAH!
ULAH!
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The rover broke already?
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Its back in working order for the moment.
We have to realize that Mars is pretty far away, its a hostile environment and our technology is still very limited in producing sophisticated and robust exploring devices for heading to other worlds.
It'll be a while before we can realistically send people....there need to be some breakthroughs in the next 20 years before we can do that. Its possible (look at the difference between 1940 and 1960 or between 1960 and 1980 - sometimes huge and sometimes small technological leaps in different areas).
I've been reading that the Jet engine may eventually be superceded (starting in about 10-15 years time) by the Pulse Detonation Engine. A very interesting piece of technology in itself...just an example of the human race always inventing new things when the conditions are right. Now maybe we need to start thinking about inventing ourselves out of the impending ecological disaster that may be our world.
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btw, the regained contact with Spirit :D
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Originally posted by mikhael
I think you'll find if you examine the facts, you will find that NASA has the lowest failure rate for hardware sent to mars of any space agency on earth.
To be fair, NASA also has the biggest budget by a country mile, so there's not really any way to make a fair comparison
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has anyone actualy checked the records, since 1960, 29 missions have been sent to mars. Out of these 29 only 9 have actualy been sucssesful.
All 9 of these were sent by NASA with no other agency having any sucsses.
Also the reletive diffculty of getting to mars undamaged is incredebly high, due to the type of equipment and design required in landers and other types of probe
The complexity of the design exponentialy increses the risc of failure as even small impacts can damage delicate components.
Edit: all imformation sourced from official record and degree l;eval text book of the University of Bath England
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Bah. Mars is easy. If you want a real challenge copy the russians and send a probe to Venus! :D
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trying to land something on venus is a waste of time and money. if NASA does send anything, it would probably be a little probe thats designed to die and have a larger probe do some tests (ala Galileo)
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology_venus.html
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I didn't say it had to land :D I was just talking about macho space exploration though were you send a probe to the harshest place you can find just to prove you can :D
Besides it's quite funny to hear the discussions the russians had when their first Venera probes failed to send back pictures (one managed 2 lines before shutting down!). They showed a TV programme about it in the UK and the conversation went something like this.
Russian Scientist 1 : Well Venera 6 was built to stand 25 times atmospheric pressure. How strong shall we build venera 7?
Russian Scientist 2 : How about 30?
Russian Scientist 1 : That might not be strong enough. Lets say 40
Russian Scientist 2 : 50
Russian Scientist 1 : 60
.... etc.
When Venera 7 was finally built it could survive 180 Atmospheres :lol:
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they should have sent a lead box.
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I found this little clippet while I was looking for the name of the Venera 7 Probe. As I said the Brits and Yanks could learn a lot from the russian style of doing things :D
As Venera 7 descended into the Venusian atmosphere, it continued transmitting temperature data down to the altitude of around 32 feet (10 meters). Then another disaster struck. At this point, the probe's parachute was lost and the spacecraft plummeted toward the surface of Venus.
The mission was seemingly over -- the Russian deep-space control station in Crimea was receiving nothing but background noise from the emptiness of space. Lavochkin engineers were even more stunned when a week later, the experts from the Moscow's Institute of Radio Electronics told them that they had been able to discern Venera 7's signal from the background radio noise recorded after the landing.
After deciphering a very weak signal, the scientists confirmed that for around 23 minutes after hitting the surface of another world, Venera 7, despite the fact it was laying on its side in darkness with its antennas pointed away from Earth, had continued transmitting temperature data.
Here's (http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/venera7_000817.html) the original.
Originally posted by PhReAk
they should have sent a lead box.
Come on. They always describe venus as being hot enough to melt lead :D We all know where that would have ended up :D
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it was an expression :D, a thick steel box would have suitable ;)
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Originally posted by PhReAk
it was an expression :D, a thick steel box would have suitable ;)
Well the sulphuric acid in Venus atmosphere would make pretty short work of that too :D
Besides how are you going to land the box? You can't just let it hit the ground at terminal velocity :D
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Does the guy who made that site not understand basic geology and chemistry? Rocks often have flat faces and the like due to molecular configuration.
This, though, is interesting: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/express_water_040123.html
First official confirmation of water ice on Mars.
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arabicnews (http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/970725/1997072510.html)
maybe the guy should interview these people. Their ancestors did live on the red planet 3,000 years ago :lol:
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I see rocks. :)
As for the water, that's good. If they're planning a base in the future, they'll need that.
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Originally posted by mikhael
More than 55% of probes sent to Mars have NOT FAILED.
That's, what, 3? 5?
I think you'll find if you examine the facts, you will find that NASA has the lowest failure rate for hardware sent to mars of any space agency on earth. [/B]
China, Japan, Britain, Germany, and China. That's not that many.
It's all relative. ;)
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Solid point really, NASA is the Microsoft of space exploration anyway, one would hope they had a decent pass rate.
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actually the russians sent a bunch during the 60s and 70s. a bunch of those failed
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology_mars.html
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OOOOO!!! Send that guy a fuzzy picture of a shivan or vasudan
see if he posts it on the site
that would be so funny im gonna do it right now!
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(http://www.scifi-3d.de/wcsaga/Lynx's stuff/Mars.jpg)
:D:D
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Originally posted by Liberator
Examine these images (http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page344.html?theme=light) , and then tell me you don't think that NASA and other agencies are hiding potentially Earth-shaking information from us. :nervous:
:shaking: I can't wait to go! Man do I love mars! Look at that first picture! Doesn't that just scream "new home" to you? Don't you want to go and colonize Mars, fight for basic survival while developing a base?
Damn. Mars is the future. Why doesn't anyone see that? :mad:
~Beowulf
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I'd like to see a permanent settlement on Luna first, then on Mars. Its easier to intervene in a catastrophe on Luna than it is with Mars, so we get to make and fix mistakes there first.
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Originally posted by mikhael
I'd like to see a permanent settlement on Luna first, then on Mars. Its easier to intervene in a catastrophe on Luna than it is with Mars, so we get to make and fix mistakes there first.
Everything we need to support life can be found on mars. This is not true for the moon.
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Everything we need to support life on the Moon can be built by refining regolith and/or a little bit of heavy lifting from Earth. The important thing is to not rush into putting people permanently on a rock that is, at various times, between 20 lightminutes and a couple of lighthours away. Its a huge distance if and when things screw up. We need more experience before we try to pull something like that off.
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Originally posted by mikhael
Everything we need to support life on the Moon can be built by refining regolith and/or a little bit of heavy lifting from Earth. The important thing is to not rush into putting people permanently on a rock that is, at various times, between 20 lightminutes and a couple of lighthours away. Its a huge distance if and when things screw up. We need more experience before we try to pull something like that off.
Light hours? When is Mars Light hours away?
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Odd.. considering the sun is something like 8 light minutes?
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Originally posted by Beowulf
:shaking: I can't wait to go! Man do I love mars! Look at that first picture! Doesn't that just scream "new home" to you? Don't you want to go and colonize Mars, fight for basic survival while developing a base?
Damn. Mars is the future. Why doesn't anyone see that? :mad:
~Beowulf
I think the point I'm trying to get across with the pictures is that Mars is also potentialy the past as well.
And as far as colonies elsewhere in space, we should establish a permanent presence on the Moon first. A large presence, on the order of thousands, not dozens or a hundred. Facilities could be build in tunnels cut from the surface. Once we develop the tech to support large-scale populations and move such populations from the Earth to the Moon, it will be a simple matter of engineering to build a vehicle capable of traversing the distance from Earth to Mars.
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There is no reason to colonize the moon first. Greenhouses cannot be easily assembled and used on the moon (they will overheat and need to be considerable do to the moon's lack of atmosphere. Mars, however, needs only a slight increase in atmospheric pressure (on the order of a few millibars) to support liquid water. Greenhouses on Mars would reach a comfortable 70-80 degrees F, whereas the moon's would need to be cooled.
As far as we know, the richest soil in the system exists on Mars. Martian soil is more fertail than the finest Earth soil.
Martian Soil contains at least 1% volume water, which is an extremely conservative estimate considering Viking findings suggest upwards of 5-7%.
And so on. Martian atmosphere can be converted into methane for propulsion and water for consumption. This can be done with gas-light era technology.
All this can be done with as little as a light truck, loader, and automated fuel plants that merely sip the atmosphere and convert it.
In terms of transportation, there is almost no correlation between a Mars mission and Lunar mission. Both would have greatly different needs.
~Beowulf.
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Originally posted by Beowulf
In terms of transportation, there is almost no correlation between a Mars mission and Lunar mission. Both would have greatly different needs.
Actually, if you think about it, the drive technology that would be devoloped to move large amounts of cargo to and from the moon would be ideal to transfer a similarly massed vehicle from one orbit to another. The scale is all that is different.
Also, the life support systems developed for long term habitation of the Moon would need little, if any, modification for the trip.
It basically comes down to the scale of the mission.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Light hours? When is Mars Light hours away?
My mistake. I misremembered something I read somewhere. I just looked it up. Assuming circular orbits, 21 light minutes at opposition. 4 light minutes when we're really close. Of course, since the orbits are slightly elliptical, the greatest projected works out closer to about 27 light minutes. The important detail is not the exact number, but the fact that the number is measured in light minutes, not light seconds.
Even at the closest point, Mars is always going to be at least several months travel from Earth. In the event of catastrophe, a team on Mars is screwed because they've got no realistic backup. With the moon, you can put a payload on the regolith within 48hrs. That makes it the better choice for a first step. Make the mistakes where you can try to fix them before you risk lives in a place where there's no possiblity of delivering a fix in a reasonable time.
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As far as a viable colony goes, Mars is clearly the best option in the Solar System. For a first-step base, the moon is the only option. They are different missions, with vastly different needs even after everything is moved. A moon base would not have to be self-sufficient, while a Mars base could much more easily achieve those requirements. A moon base would let us test things in a vacuum and has a relatively small gravity well to climb out of for missions elsewhere in the solar system, while Mars looks a lot like earth from a gravitational perspective. The list goes on... However, I think that in order to be able to send a colony to Mars, you'd have to have at least as many people on the moon first.
EDIT: And currently, Mars is something like 2 light minutes away. At it's greatest distance from Earth, it does take something like 45 minutes for transmissions to go round trip, but that's not the same as .75 light hours away. The distance is half the length of time it takes to "ping" one planet from the other, if you think about it.
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Originally posted by Beowulf
As far as we know, the richest soil in the system exists on Mars. Martian soil is more fertail than the finest Earth soil.
You forget that much of Mars isn't soil. Its rather like lunar regolith with a higher iron content and a lower nickel content. What soil there is to be found (and there is lots of it) is indeed rich, but its also saturated with caustic compounds of oxygen that would prevent using for growing anything without serious processing.
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I suggest that everyone re-read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", it presents a fairly well-rounded picture of how a moon base should work and some potential benefits.
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I hate to say it, but a lot of TMiaHM's lunar colony is based on madeup silliness. Heinlein didn't give it a lot of thought, preferring to focus on the society instead.
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Originally posted by mikhael
You forget that much of Mars isn't soil. Its rather like lunar regolith with a higher iron content and a lower nickel content. What soil there is to be found (and there is lots of it) is indeed rich, but its also saturated with caustic compounds of oxygen that would prevent using for growing anything without serious processing.
this just reminds me of ancient Cartaghe, after the Romans, they destroyed the city, leaving only rubble, and they sowed the fields with salt.
if you are realistic though, the economic plausibility of any mission is very low. what is there to be found on Mars to warrant the energy cost of a round trip?
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Originally posted by kasperl
what is there to be found on Mars to warrant the energy cost of a round trip?
That's what they're trying to find out.
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Originally posted by Unknown Target
China, Japan, Britain, Germany, and China. That's not that many.
It's all relative. ;)
Dont forget the ISRO :)
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Karajoma - that article was quite interesting. Are there any actual pictures of Venus that the later probes took?
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I did see some on the TV program. It doesn't look even as interesting as Mars though. :D
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Once you get below cloud level on venus, there isn't much to see anyway. The atmosphere is so thick that you'd just get a brown nothingness in front of any camera.
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Oh, I don't know about that, Strat. Venera managed to get a picture from the surface. (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/venus/venera14.jpg)