One way ticket to Mars

[cooder]

Mars is cool, but I'd rather go to Europa. Might as well make it worth the trip!

I'd suggest go to Europe rather that Europa, the food and toilets are much better there and rather than in the spacecraft you can have a shower every now and then. Return flights are possible too.

Finally found a joke I could add to this...

[Betty Wont]

Mars is cool, but I'd rather go to Europa. Might as well make it worth the trip!

I'd suggest go to Europe rather that Europa, the food and toilets are much better there and rather than in the spacecraft you can have a shower every now and then. Return flights are possible too.

Finally found a joke I could add to this...

European food and toilets/shower facilities!?     I'll take my chances with the Europans.

[cooder]

Mars is cool, but I'd rather go to Europa. Might as well make it worth the trip!

I'd suggest go to Europe rather that Europa, the food and toilets are much better there and rather than in the spacecraft you can have a shower every now and then. Return flights are possible too.

Finally found a joke I could add to this...

European food and toilets/shower facilities!?     I'll take my chances with the Europans.

Well apparently there's no shower at all during the seven month space trip and you pee into your space suit for seven month straight.
Just have a think for a minute about that before you sign the application...

[RobA]

[...]
What has humanity become to create a 'Big Brother' real life shows with full media coverage to send people one way to a dustbowl while the real problems like war and starvation, diseases are just another sideline show and don't get tackled.
[...]

Exactly! There is no chance of this going anywhere past the simulated reality TV stage and that's the only point to the whole thing in reality. The more cynical side of me looks on the thing as just another attempt at distracting people from dealing with real issues we have here. The best place we know of to live in the universe is right here, how about we spend the effort trying to keep this place livable.

The little kid wanting to be an astronaut side of me agrees with Brian. Assuming we could get there and back alive and functional, Europa would be a totally spectacular destination. Mars pretty much just looks like where I grew up -- except totally lifeless.

[midwayfair]

[Betty Wont]

Mars is cool, but I'd rather go to Europa. Might as well make it worth the trip!

I'd suggest go to Europe rather that Europa, the food and toilets are much better there and rather than in the spacecraft you can have a shower every now and then. Return flights are possible too.

Finally found a joke I could add to this...

European food and toilets/shower facilities!?     I'll take my chances with the Europans.

Well apparently there's no shower at all during the seven month space trip and you pee into your space suit for seven month straight.
Just have a think for a minute about that before you sign the application...

Poor pispots and pannekoeken. I'll wait for the Japanese mission.

[ggarms]

Jon, that's my favorite kurt (aside from galapagos). Funny, I started reading again a few days ago!

[RobA]

[...]
Jon, that's my favorite kurt (aside from galapagos). Funny, I started reading again a few days ago!
[/quote]
I loved Galapagos, but Bluebeard is my favorite.

[juansolo]

On the flipside of Jon's argument. Without science, without exploration, what are we? Just drones fulfilling the needs of the corporate machine in order to make more drones to do the same. What's the point of living without a soul?

We are becoming a parasitic lifeform hellbent on destroying our own natural environment. At some point we're going to need to leave this little blue planet and infect other worlds with our greed and wars. Obviously not in our lifetimes, but in future generations this is going to become staggeringly important if we don't do something about the way we're heading.

As a species we piss money away at an alarming rate in order to line the pockets of the increasingly wealthy elite at the expense of everyone else. 6 billion in comparison is pocket change to the amounts of money that are dealt with in banking for example/ It's been going on since the 80's. Throwing 6 billion into a space programme is feck all in the scheme of things. The whole reality angle depresses me. It should be about science. But science funded this way bothers me.

Then again, money isn't real. It's all just figures on a computer program. I like the idea of going somewhere where people actually have to have common sense and real skills. The chances of getting up there with the arseholes who actually run things down here is remote to say the least (and if one did get up there, they wouldn't last very long).

Our world is broken for all sorts of reasons. Wanting to leave it and start another one doesn't seem to be such a bad idea to me.

[madbean]

This is existentially bothersome to me. 

I feel the same way really.

What has humanity become to create a 'Big Brother' real life shows with full media coverage to send people one way to a dustbowl while the real problems like war and starvation, diseases are just another sideline show and don't get tackled.

6 billion bucks for such a mission.

$ 25 saves eyesight for cataract patients in the Pacific nations for people that otherwise go blind.
http://www.hollows.org.nz/

I know where my priorities are to spend money.

This is so sad I can't even find a joke about it.

(time to get on my high horse here)
This seems like a false dichotomy to me. I don't see it as an either or situation. We have enough resources as a civilization and on this planet to do virtually anything. It only takes the will and then a commitment to follow through. There were just as many terrible things happening to humans all over the world when the Vikings came to the Americas (or Columbus if that's your thing) and when we went to the moon. But, we did it anyway. And, I do not think anyone would argue now that those explorations were mistakes...that humanity did not benefit as a whole from a few venturing out into the unknown.

Space exploration is paramount to the success and preservation of human beings when you talk in terms of hundreds or thousands of millennia. We WILL have to mine asteroids at some point in the future. We WILL eventually have to find a new home beyond earth. These things cannot be done until we take the baby steps. And the sooner we do that the sooner we will reap the benefits as a civilization. That's why I think it is important to do these things as soon as we are capable.

[ggarms]

juansolo, I hate to say I completely agree, but unfortunately, I do. It seems in my mind that the most pressing matter facing everyone everywhere is the alarming rate at which we are destroying the only space ship we really have. And resources continue being devoted to things which further our decline rather than elevate us to our maximum potential as a species. Case in point: less bombs, more science.

I worry that the motivations behind the most recent drive for the democratization of space travel are fundamentally centered around exploiting a new revenue source rather than pushing any sort of boundary (regardless of what the forward facing message of such ventures are). I don't mean to sound completely cynical; there are definitely things I remain hopeful about. As bean said, this is at least a small and necessary step forward. The Carl Sagan pale blue dot quote comes to mind. I just hope we don't end up at the bottom of the hole we are digging before we realize we can't get out, no matter how clever we are.

[selfdestroyer]

I worry that the motivations behind the most recent drive for the democratization of space travel are fundamentally centered around exploiting a new revenue source rather than pushing any sort of boundary (regardless of what the forward facing message of such ventures are).

Very interesting.. I need to ponder on this more.

Cody

[juansolo]

Essentially everything has become about money. Everything. Which is stunting us as a species, because if it doesn't make money, it's not done.

50 years ago we landed a man on the moon. The motivations for this are well known (the other thing we like to do as a species...). BUT we decided to do it, our best and brightest were given the tools they needed and they showed us what we were capable of.

Since then we've done fuck all that's pushed any boundaries. The single most important invention since has been the internet, which should have been a way for the best and brightest to communicate more successfully. As it is corp's clamour to control and find ways to make money from it. Space travel? The first question anyone asks will be 'what's in it for us?'.

It's been happening forever. The best example being Tesla, one of humanity's most brilliant thinkers ever. He came up with a way of transmitting electricity wirelessly, but his backers found out that they couldn't tell who was using it so were unable to bill them, and pulled out. This is our nature. I dislike people because of it. You have a genuine genius there stopped dead by an arsehole in a suit who couldn't see a way of making money from it.

It's the same reason we're still relying on fossil fuels. It's massively short sighted and all about money.

[juansolo]

I think I might be a hippy... *cries*

[blearyeyes]

Money is just a trading medium.
It really comes down to where your heart is when making things happen.
Getting your investment back with some profit while pushing the boundaries of science sounds really awesome to me!
That way you have money to use on the next grand adventure! Yea sure...

I have to agree with John. Every time I drive on the freeway in Southern California and think about all the excess metal wrapped around single drivers and fossil fuel explosions excreting poisonous gasses pushing people down the road I think why are we doing this?   

But since I'm broke and just a slave of the Man I will keep my head down,
tow the line, and hope for the best. boo hoo blubber... I need a beer.. at least a beer.
Give them beer and they will fall in line.......