For information and discussion about Oolite.
https://bb.oolite.space/
…And several (non-governmental) projects pushing that way, most recently a reality TV concept. I can just imagine the fun when their viewership drops, they can’t renew season 5 and suddenly don’t have the budget to send more food drops.El Viejo wrote:I suspect there'd be no shortage of qualified volunteers who'd jump at that, given regular re-supply.
Feh! We could have been there by now. All down to politicians who are too afraid to make the leap.CommRLock78 wrote:'Twill be another ten or twenty years before we send people there. There are a lot of barriers to overcome before that happens, like protecting the astronauts from radiation and getting them home (our current technology just gets them there, on a one way ticket).El Viejo wrote:El Reg wrote:next we'll send the boffins!
Maybe. There are a lot of obstacles: effects of weightlessness for six months, radiation, fuel for a return trip, dust and dust storms, finding water, low local gravity, even possible psychological effects of seasons which last twice as long as on earth, never mind the tremendous price tag...Tricky wrote:Feh! We could have been there by now. All down to politicians who are too afraid to make the leap.
ESA is a mess of different nations all vying for their own piece of the action. Russia has lost interest. The USA clings to the fact it hasn't lost an American in space. Technically correct but backward looking. As for the newly formed UKSA, it's like a baby trying to quote Shakespear, entirely possible but prone to failure.
baby trying to quote Shakespeare All tested by the old USSR. As for the price tag... can the price of progress be quantified?CommRLock78 wrote:Maybe. There are a lot of obstacles: effects of weightlessness for six months, radiation, fuel for a return trip, dust and dust storms, finding water, low local gravity, even possible psychological effects of seasons which last twice as long as on earth, never mind the tremendous price tag...Tricky wrote:Feh! We could have been there by now. All down to politicians who are too afraid to make the leap.
UKSA is the UK Space Agency.CommRLock78 wrote:Tricky wrote:ESA is a mess of different nations all vying for their own piece of the action. Russia has lost interest. The USA clings to the fact it hasn't lost an American in space. Technically correct but backward looking. As for the newly formed UKSA, it's like a baby trying to quote Shakespear, entirely possible but prone to failure.
I hadn't heard of the UKSA, but it'll be nice once the recession lifts to see how the different agencies fair, and what projects will come up.
Absolutely not, but I'm a realist, and I know from first hand experience that there are those in America that would rather keep the money in their pockets (this place did, after all, manage to vote this arse into office, not just once, but twiceTricky wrote:All tested by the old USSR. As for the price tag... can the price of progress be quantified?
)Yeah, I looked it up immediatelyUKSA is the UK Space Agency.
(though I had a suspicion that's what it was 
)
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(Great pic, Ahruman, and a great point, too )Excellent find, Smivs, thanks for sharingSmivs wrote:This is nice...first HD 360 degree panorama of gale Crater
. It's amazing to think that those hills, which look so earth-like, are actually on another planet altogether; can't wait for when we send a rover to Titan .
