US, Europe Look to Partnership on Mars Exploration.

[elleng]

Source: nyt

For almost half a century, the United States has dominated the exploration of Mars from the first grainy black-and-white pictures of the craggy surface to the more recent discovery of ice.

Now, budget woes are pushing NASA toward a joint exploration venture with Europe. By 2016, the U.S. may unite with the European Space Agency for future Mars trips -- a move that would mark a significant shift for NASA.

Details of such a union could come by the end of this month.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/09/science/AP-SCI-Mars-Crossroad.html

[Soylent Brice]

1. that's a good idea.

1. shares the financial burden that comes with space exploration.

2. builds stronger ties with other countries, no matter how obscure a connection it may be.

can't wait to see. hell, we may get a manned mission their faster now.

[time_has_come]

2. Just what we need to be doing right now - exploring Mars. Global Warming?

What global warming? Let's burn a few million barrels of rocket fuel and billions on research so we can pee our pants when some microbe is discovered on Mars.

Perfect.

[Strong Atheist]

3. Belated Welcome to DU!

:toast:

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Rocket fuel isn't oil

And what about that enormous military budget? I'd rather have that money being used for research than for warfare.

Then there's the irony that most of our evidence of global warming is gathered by satellites.

I'll take space over war and ignorance every time.

--d!

[time_has_come]

7. "most of our evidence of global warming is gathered by satellites"

Looks like you took the ignorance too.

And I agree on the military front. That money should be clawed back as well.

Seriously though, do you really think most of our evidence of global warming is from satellites, or was that just a flippant remark?

[Rebubula]

6. Even though...

...I have my doubts about the cause and solution to the current global climate trends (flame away...) - I agree wholeheartedly that we need to focus all resources on Earth. Regardless of 'why', we need to prepare for the coming changes.

It seems silly to me to continue to spend insane amounts of money to go somewhere that humans will not be able to tread (currently the technology is not in place that would allow for a vehicle to transport humans - with food, O2, water and waste handling - for the 6-8 months it would take to get there. It is not like we can just 'move' there if the Earth's climate goes bad.

[time_has_come]

8. What doubts do you have about the cause of our current global warming?

I'm curious to know what denial community drivel may have snuck into your consciousness. Sunspots? Orbital changes? Natural cycles of the past?

[mentat7]

4. They better go metric.

Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter? The $300 million shooting star in the Martian sky courtesy of a metric/imperial mixup? Looks like we're getting ready for more of the same. NASA, which has worked in metric for a while, has recently announced that the upcoming lunar Constellation project will be exclusively designed in imperial units, hinting that the rest may go the same way. They're abandoning the world standard of measurement (used by all the other space agencies) and backtracking to the medieval units. And they want to collaborate and perhaps merge with ESA at the same time. This opens up a host of problems: conversion errors, loss of productivity--working with imperial is very inefficient, increased mission costs, and putting the lives of the astronauts at risk.

NASA needs to grow up, and fully switch to metric. Otherwise, we'll have more Mars Climate Orbiters, but this time, on international scale.

[Vidar]

9. With the Europeans on board, it might actually get done.