OT a bit - fly to the moon or Mars?

Jose wrote:
But if the boat sinks, you probably have a life jacket, life raft,
life boat, maybe people in the area to assist, etc., in other words
you might survive without the boat or ship.

This might be true if the Queen Mary sinks today. It wasn't true when
the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria sailed. They had each other,
and that was about it.

If one, or all, of the ships had sunk, some may have survived in a long
boat, or even a hunk of mast floating, but the *point* being, they weren't
instantly, automatically doomed when the ship sunk. They still had a
chance, and giving odds of those chances are totally out the window, as
simply having any chance beats no chance.

=They= were pioneers. People on the Queen Mary are tourists.

Yeah, no argument there, how'd the QM get in this? I have NO argument
against any bona fide explorer (there have been some frauds) or pioneer who
ever lived, or ever will live - my position is that the ones operating on
terra firma (or to a lesser degree water) have an advantage over someone
operating in a vacumn @ plus/minus 2-300º (or whatever) millions of miles
from earth. That's it! It's not NASA blaspheme, or condemning space
travel, or setting back the human race. Trust me. I think the folks in the
past have done an unbelievable job - there is absolutely no doubt their
ideas of what was looming ahead was a hell of a lot scarier than what we
have, since we have a damn good idea what's there, and precisely where it's
at, we just don't know what's going to happen en route.

Actually, somebody took off before Lindburgh. They had three people
(IIRC), three motors (a tri-motor Folker), and never made it. So much
for "good chance - ok, fair chance..."). Lindburgh had a one-in-four
chance (in hindsight).

If Lindy would have stayed on course and run out of fuel, he may have at
least been over Ireland, or within sight of France - again 1:4 beats 0:0
odds if your machine quits.

I'd love to believe there was another inhabitable piece of real
estate besides earth, but so far I haven't seen a shred of evidence

There's at least as much evidence as there was to Columbus.

Sending humans 44 million miles with
a gigantic payload, after our robotic rovers and mapping satellites
have shown Mars to be another Death Valley on steriods just doesn't
make a lot of sense to me.

Then don't go. But don't try to stop others from going... even on
your... well I was going to say "dime" but really, it's "tenth of a
hundreth of a penny".


How the hell would I stop others?

But by George, now you've done it! I wouldn't go now if they begged me!
You could even throw in a book deal, and I will NOT take it. A guest
appearance on Bowling For Dollars, maybe..... d:-))

If one, or all, of the ships had sunk, some may have survived in a long
boat, or even a hunk of mast floating, but the *point* being, they weren't
instantly, automatically doomed when the ship sunk.

So there you are, floating on a hunk of mast, a thousand miles from
anywhere, in the middle of the ocean - an ocean nobody has crossed
before and most people think is close to the big waterfall at edge of
the world. You have three days before you die of thirst, a week or
three before you starve.

Oh. There are sharks.

What's your point? It's better to die slowly?

how'd the QM get in this?

The QM is how we think of ocean travel now. It was harder back in the
days when the world was flat.

my position is that the ones operating on
terra firma (or to a lesser degree water) have an advantage over someone
operating in a vacumn @ plus/minus 2-300º (or whatever) millions of miles
from earth.

But the ones operating in a vacuum have the advantage of NASA.

You pick your tools to match your challenge. That's all.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:

So there you are, floating on a hunk of mast, a thousand miles from
anywhere, in the middle of the ocean - an ocean nobody has crossed
before and most people think is close to the big waterfall at edge of
the world. You have three days before you die of thirst, a week or
three before you starve.

Oh. There are sharks.

What's your point? It's better to die slowly?

No - it's better to stage your hypothetical ship wreck closer to a beautiful
hypothetical tropical island, just over the horizon from where your
dimwitted skipper sailed by yesterday, and you're found on the beach by
these knock out gorgeous babes that think you're a god, and give you
anything you want. Geez, you need to develop some optimistic imagination
Jose.......


how'd the QM get in this?

The QM is how we think of ocean travel now. It was harder back in the
days when the world was flat.

my position is that the ones operating on
terra firma (or to a lesser degree water) have an advantage over
someone operating in a vacumn @ plus/minus 2-300º (or whatever)
millions of miles from earth.

But the ones operating in a vacuum have the advantage of NASA.

You pick your tools to match your challenge. That's all.


But their tools are millions of miles away... opps...
I agree that without some outreach to things that might be, could be, may
be, we'd be in trouble. It's just that today we have so much advance
knowledge of what it is.. What is more worrysome than go or nogo to Mars is
near space, and I have no qualms about being dominant there, no matter what;
but, I've already said that, or at least that it was my main concern.

You pick your tools to match your challenge. That's all.
But their tools are millions of miles away...

Don't be silly. Their tools are right at hand - they didn't launch for
Mars without technology, foresight, and backup. Now, like the ship in
the storm, it may not be enough. That's part of what it means to
explore. But if they do make it, the whole solar system is opened up.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.