NASA's Perseverance launched this morning to Mars. This mission will be the first to have a helicopter to fly on another world, that we know of. Wonder how soon the Martians will be complaining about drones. It will also be the first time that a mission will try to return samples from Mars back to Earth. Speaking of alien DNA that didn't work so well in Species 2
We need something to combat the Roni. We send them cute little pudgy tardigrades and they bring us Roni-eating DNA-shifting parasitic conquerors. Seems fair. GO NASA!
It launched safely? All right! Fingers crossed that all goes well getting there, and the really hard part - landing and deploying the rover with it's flying gizmo. I've been following this. Can't believe I missed the launch. Good thread!
I don't understand why we don't have the type of quad copter drone crystal clear HD video footage of Mars that is ubiquitous now on Earth.
I brought this up in the D&D thread but I'm convinced that if we settle Mars they will become independent. If you lived on Mars after a few years it would be difficult if not impossible to return to the Earth because of the difference in gravity. If your children grew up on Mars they would never be able to come to the Earth. If you can't even go back to visit the Earth there doesn't seem much reason to maintain a union with Earth other than economics.
Can't they just use their earth avatars? And earthlings can use their Mars Avatars. Under the seperate, but equal avatar laws derived from James Cameron Jr's Avatar 17.
Basically every time they do some sort of big test everyone is holding their breath because it is 50/50 whether it passes or fails and sets it back years. It is too ambitious and complex -- if it is finally launched, reaches orbit, and works properly it will be a minor miracle. I would expect further lengthy delays and rethinks/ builds of critical parts -- this telescope is way too expensive to fail.
I really don't think humans are anywhere close to being able to settle Mars. It's literally a toxic world. You'd have to live underground b/c of the radiation, and the soil itself contains perchlorates everywhere, which are toxic to humans. I mean, it looks as friendly as your average acreage of Arizona, but looks are deceiving. @Commodore -- I think it's still very challenging to have a high-bandwidth signal from anything beyond earth orbit or so. Mars is a great, great distance. I think we never get closer to 30 million miles, and generic radio signals decrease in strength as distance squared.
I'm not talking about live streaming. Why can't we have a drone flying around Mars capturing footage like this? Even if it takes a month to transmit back to Earth.
