Mars

I was surprised they used the atmosphere, rather than convert the water ice.
They flew a helicopter on mars too, which is pretty cool considering how thin the atmosphere is.

 

Apparently oxygen is important for space fuel too. So there's more than one use for it.

Im guessing the machine used was small. And produced a small amount.

Now they know it works, ship a few parts up there and build a massive one.

 

While on the space theme, they have also proven there is water on the moon, which dispels original thoughts that the moon is a dry barren land, but it's not in the context that you and me would recognise it. It can be extrated from the moon surface. I think it was proven after a satellite captured on camera a meteor shower, where the impact of the debris expels it to the surface in fine droplets. Something like that anyway.

From google;

Lunar water is water that is present on the Moon. ... Gradually water vapor is decomposed by sunlight, leaving hydrogen and oxygen lost to outer space. Scientists have found water ice in the cold, permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles. Water molecules are also in the extremely thin lunar atmosphere.

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You are right, I'd forgotten about that part, where you need it for rocket fuel.

 

Could be massive this.

Im guessing if it works on the Mars atmosphere then it could work on other planets with a similar atmosphere.

 

I think it's good that it will allow us to explore our own solar system better, and for the human race to evolve in thousands/millions of years we need to take these early steps.

The biggest and most exciting challenge for me, is how we explore planets that are out there, exactly like ours in the future, that are light years away. Hopefully as the human race evolves we will find a way, but by that time I'd already have been dead myself for thousands of years.

All these minuscule steps now are part of that evolution.

 

11 humans aboard the space station...

 

tbh the moon makes more sense, it's closer and there's less gravity. And honestly, if we did manage to invent a power source that could get us into another star system we'll have used it to wipe each other out first.

 

Bit late to this thread and it might have been covered, but I think it's a **** argument to say that we shouldn't explore space and push technological advances because the money should be spent on Earth based problems instead. Both should be done.

Money isn't the issue. There's enough money in the world. There's also enough food. It's political ineptitude that's the cause.

Hunger and Poverty isn't caused or exacerbated by Space exploration. It's a lazy argument to lump them together.

 

Alright go shag an alien then.

 

I've often heard the argument that we've spent billions on space exploration when it could have been spent on poverty. In my view even if it wasn't spent on NASA it still wouldn't be spent on the things, that people argue it should have gone to. Isn't the NASA budget half of what it once was, all that happens is that saving gets lost back in the pot and dosen't get assigned to the things people would prefer, probably went towards military operations in Afghanistan! Said tongue in cheek but I'm sure you get my point. That's the thieving nature of politics.

In comparison to other life forms, humans haven't been around for very long, maybe we only evolved due to a freak of nature and only space exploration will probably ever uncover those answers. If it's a process of evolution with the universe and beyond, there will be more humans, if it was just a freak of nature, then we will be alone but that dosen't mean to say other life forms don't exist. Maybe one of the other planets like ours, millions of light years away, were not hit by a meteor and the dinosaur era still exists, that's the wonders of nature, we don't know and we will never know, unless we explore.

 

Alright I ****in will then

 

Worst fred I've ever made I reckon.

 

It's always been the way with new tech, some folk think it's a waste of time/ dangerous / pointless and we shouldn't be putting money and endeavour into it. If we did that we probably would never have invented powered flight, the combustion engine, batteries, micro chips ... you get the picture.

Money isn't the issue, there's plenty of that around. It's just concentrated in the hands of a few and that's the problem. As I've said, it's a lazy argument lump Poverty and Space exploration together, the two have nothing in common.

If there's one thing we can say about the human race, is that we are always trying to push the boundaries of our understanding and exploration. It's something we've done since we first migrated out of Africa nearly two million years ago and it's shaped our evolution ever since.

For me, it would be criminal to have the technology to go to Mars and not use it.

 

17 pages so far bro.

Decent hits for a **** fred

 

If you think in just over 100 years, we have gone from the first flight on Earth to the first robotic flight on Mars, that's quite some massive leap in a very short time frame.

 

The blink of an eye in terms of human history on this planet.

If we don't wipe ourselves out due to environmental destruction and climate change, imagine what we could achieve in the next 100 years.

 

Especially when you put it into the context that dinosaurs were 65 Million years ago, 100 years is but a mere second. I can't see humans living anything like the same existence of 175 million years.

 

I know there's a big argument from some parts of the Environmental movement against Space exploration, saying we should be addressing the problems on Earth and fixing them instead of looking to trash this planet and then colonise others.

Again for me, both issues should be addressed, they are not mutually exclusive. We should be protecting what we have here, whilst also looking to expand our horizons into space. I think the day will come where we do eventually colonise other planets.

Looking at it dispassionately, this would seem perfectly natural really. It's like the early explorers sailing off to find new continents, it's in our nature to explore. And where some said 'there be dragons' or you'll sail off the edge of the world. Those that were brave enough to go and find out, discovered a whole new world.

 

Nature will deal with us all eventually. It will only ever take another meteor strike or some other catastrophic event of that nature and we will all be gone. We are clever creatures but very weak ones, easily destroyed. Then the planet will go through it's evolution process again, without the freak of nature that created us. To not explore is a ticking clock to our certain extinction on Earth.