/sci/ - Science & Math

The russians went into full-retard mode and american have nobody to compete with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc
Short answer is funding and motives. More extensive looking into of mars seems to be on the horizon though.

>>6244512
Because there is no fucking reason to go to another planet. We went to the moon for one reason and one reason only, to prove we could. We did that and did not find any other reason even after landing on the moon, and after vast space research and exploration via technology we have still found zero reason to leave Earth.

>>6244521
That gave me the chills. Wow, a half of penny...

>>6244526
I'm sure there are infinite reasons why we should go to other planets.

>>6244512
If you want, you might still be able to sign up for that one way trip to Mars they're talking about.

>>6244537
Source for this interesting information?

>private space industry racing to make launch cheaper
>interest in mars
>chinese space program
>rapidly depleting resources
Well see the beginning of humanities expansion into space in our lifetime.
The beginnings.

>>6244526

murikans only care about money its true, muh capitalism

wish there was a new soviet union

>>6244535
Well not infinite.

Hmm, unless Curiosity finds something on Mars, I just don't see why unless there's some awesome research to be done.

>>6244541
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/more-2-700-pay-chance-take-one-way-trip-mars-8C11115364
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/10/one-way-ticket-to-mars-attracts-global-attention/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/22/world/mars-one-way-ticket/

>>6244550
Oh damn you wasn't kidding.

Too expensive and too risky financially

>>6244568

>financially


good goy

>>6244512
because people are too dumb to realize having all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea.

>>6244512
Because that Chinese thing was the first man-made object to land on the moon since 1976.

uhm its expensive as shit? and why tho? the bigger part of them are toxic as hell

Currently it would take ~150 days to reach Mars, which is where we would want to land next. That is a long time considering the enormous dangers to the crew from radiation and low gravity. I would love for America to get more interest in space exploration but it is also an extremely difficult step to go from satellites and probes to humans.

>>6244526

Correction or clarification: There are no ECONOMIC reasons for why we went to the moon or why we'd go anyplace else in space.

Without economics, Humans pretty much just fuck, sleep and look for food. Economics is what really makes us Human. Sadly, within each Human there is a violent simian, and that fucker, sleeper and eater makes for a lousy risk evaluator and overall economic animal.

I think we should at least try. But what we need to do before landing a human on another planet it a flyby obviously. I think the best thing we could do is the Crocco Grand Tour, which would be a manned flyby of Mars that gets fairly close for some good observations, then uses Mars's gravity to fly to Venus, where the astronauts could also get some nice views of that planet as well. That flyby would send the ship back to Earth, with the whole mission lasting exactly 1 year.

>>6244740
I would like to think that science and the desire to understand the universe is more what makes us human.

>>6244943
they'd bake to death near Venus

>>6244953
No they wouldn't. It'd be a bit hot, but just install proper cooling systems and they'd be fine.

>>6245007
what about the acid?

Because people and politicians are dumb asses.

If we continue as if we're doing right now, we won't survive another century on Earth. Only when the ressources are all nearly depleted, famine devastating entire populations, disorder and anarchy started to reign due to poor life conditions, GH emission making global warming stronger and thus reaching over 19 degrees, will we really start to want to leave this wretched rock.

It'll be for the best anyway, we will be super desperate and start concentrating all our efforts on moving to another planet. War has shown how humans can be a hundred times more productive and efficient under life-threatening situations. Efforts to colonize Mars will start at least by 2100~, unless some asshole fixes all of the worlds' problems.

>>6244512
the range of the 1969 nazi rocket was too limited

I don't get it sorry. Did America go into any economical problems after/because the moon missions were so expensive?

>>6245037
Oh, no no, you misinterpret me. This would be merely a flyby and not an actual dip into the atmosphere.

>>6244521

This makes me sad

>>6245049

Some dude will figure out some crazy technology or some shit and pretend to be Jesus. He will lead us to space.

>>6244532
It's a bullshit way of saying half a percent or 1/200 of all tax revenues. Half a penny of every taxpayer in the US wouldn't get you anywhere.

>>6244947
For the minority of scientists that may be true. For most people it's not. Make an experiment: tell people about what things have been researched that won the Ig Nobel Prizes without letting them know that these things won those prize and act like you're telling them about some new car engine. The first question you'll get is what's it good for. So people are almost never satisfied with pure acquisition of knowledge. They don't pursue knowledge for it's own sake. Instead they want to see it's application, which in almost all cases means economic application. Because at the end of the day, our economic system is one giant resource allocation algorithm. And most people don't want to see more resources spent on making live frogs levitate magnetically other than maybe researching it. And supposedly most people don't even want to allocate resources for researching it. We are essentially utilitaristic, and rightly so.

If you do the math its a joke, compare the size of the rocket for something that reaches the moon and comes back (ie. so we get samples of dust), it is in the 99% level. That is for a short journey to a body with very low gravity. Mars has double the gravity so we would need a rocket probably 10x as big which is an engineering nightmare. This is why we only send tiny shitty robots who can't leave the planet.

>>6245465

or just use more rockets along with propellant depots

technically there is no showstopper for even a Mars mission

>>6245404
Space Jesus sounds really cool.

I'd like that title personnally.