Congradulations U.S.A. (The Mars Landing)

[Frosty]

You seem to forget Americas debt --its so big I don't know what it is any more.

You want to pay for it go ahead and thanks

But until space travel becomes easy then there is not much point for a yet undiscovered asteroid.

What about discovered cancer. If cancer was an invading country you would have cured it by now.

[PAR]

Are you kidding? They knew what satellites meant and they also knew the implications of ballistic delivery systems. So did we and the race wasn't so much into space as to who had "imported" or a better word; confiscated, the superior Nazi scientists. Fortunately, the USA and other western societies where much more desirable, understandably so, particularly in comparison to the USSR's "acquisition" of similar scientists. In short, we had them come freely and some where softly enticed, while they (the USSR) frankly captured them, locked them up and told them their families would be safe, so long as they did what they where told. I remember the era and know it well, how about you? The USSR did very little but play catch up with our technology, mostly by stealing it from us and other friendly nations.

You see the thing is, when you have a set of leaders that stifle innovation and possably annihilate huge sections of intellectuals, literally killing off entire generations of the brightest minds, like Stalin did, you pretty much have to play catch up or steal your technological advances, as best as you can. This is why they had to play catch up, during the entire cold war. Every step they took, was met with a huge advance they now had to over come, as our response to it.

The first to cross the Atlantic didn't end the race, nor the first to circumnavigate, nor the first into space. This is just the first and they (the USSR) get some credit in this regard, but their space program is a joke and always has been. Hell, they're still using the same technology, they stole and incorporated into their 1960's era rockets. Yep, real advanced.

This isn't a debate you want to have, if you don't know the Soviet space program. Particularly in light of the Proton attempts to beat us to the moon, with some sort of mission. Their success rates, looked like our success rates of our Atlas during the late 50's. They were desperate to have a political trump (common ploy for them) and they blew up, crashed and left helpless in orbit, about a dozen attempts leading up to the July '69 landing of Apollo 11. Now they did eventually get a lander up there, but the information gathers was already known from the Apollo missions and previous unmanned soft landings in the mid 60's.

As to the benefit of space programs, most of the materials and products you use, are directly or indirectly related to research in this very industry. Plastics and other man made materials were costly to developed and often sponsored by grants, from these space related programs. They weren't developed so someone could produce a kitchen blender at half the weight, but to provide a bracket (etc.) that was light enough to be considered on some space bound device. After the material was developed, of course a marketing team devised ways to further recoup development funds and naturally corporate profits, hence the blender body.

As to American dept, maybe you should do a Google search and see what the GDP is related to their dept, for the top 20 countries of the world, then try and make that argument. You'll find countries in quite good standing, with much larger dept burdens and again, maybe you should speak what you actually know, instead of the fluff from tabloid headlines.

[gypsy28]

Cant we all just say well done to a great achievement and forget all this nationalism crap "were better than you" "no these guys did this first" "well we did that first",

Pretty sure your all way ahead of us down here in Australia

Well done everyone involved in the Mars landing, how long till man (or woman) walks on Mars?

DAVE

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by gypsy28

Cant we all just say well done to a great achievement and forget all this nationalism crap "were better than you" "no these guys did this first" "well we did that first",

Pretty sure your all way ahead of us down here in Australia

Well done everyone involved in the Mars landing, how long till man (or woman) walks on Mars?

DAVE

Well it wont be an Aussie because we are better to do this than you

[BPL]

Originally Posted by gypsy28

Well done everyone involved in the Mars landing, how long till man (or woman) walks on Mars?

DAVE

Couldn't agree more.
40 years?
We don't hear much about the international space station recently. I hope Curiosity elevates popular enthusiasm again into space exploration.

[BPL]

Originally Posted by Frosty

Ignorance of the costs and technology involved always seems to bring out these wild expectations like it was like hiring a bus to the Nevada desert.

Its not a shortage of curiosity!!! That not all thats required,--curiosity!!!!

We cant get to Mars --not without cryogenics. In other words we dont live long enough.

You might get man on Mars in 40 years if they were 16 years old when they left and leave now today. They would be dead by old age when they got back.

Still interested?

It took Curiosity 8 1/2 months to get there.

It took
Viking 1 (1976) – 335 days
Viking 2 (1976) – 360 days
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006) – 210 days
Phoenix Lander (2008) – 295 days
Curiosity Lander (2012) – 253 days
http://www.universetoday.com/14841/h...o-get-to-mars/

[Frosty]

Correct, I was thinking something else.

[hoytedow]

Originally Posted by PAR

Take a look at the expenditures on these projects folks and where they're conducted, launched and maintained. I think you'll find there are some token numbers of non-Americans involved, but the huge bulk of everything, every aspect is USA derived. And though we're very grateful for the participation of other nations and their citizens, it's pretty clear where the vast majority of the energy, money, materials, staff and expertise comes from.

As to the Russians, Oh please, they killed quite a few just trying to keep pace and yep, they got a few space "firsts", but their people suffered mightily as a result of these and other attempts at totalitarianism. At each advance we made, they suffered more, as their ruble was further divided into military adventures. Since their economy wasn't market driven, but "devised", and their currency was not internationally exchangeable; distribution of goods was controlled by other devices, such as centrally planned quotas, queuing or "deal making", which as any reasonable economics student will tell you, can't succeed in the long term. Since the government controlled prices and the exchange of currency in the former USSR, they where doomed, knew it, but hid it for decades, all the while attempting to keep a straight face, of which their people were clueless (and suffering) until the communications and data transfer explosions in the 1980's. Then suddenly they knew what was available in just one Sears catalog and at 1/10th of the price of their similar products, of course of those that weren't against the law to own (like computers, satellite dishes or cell phones). They went nuts and literally overthrew their own beloved system. So, please lets not bring up the Russians as a success story; it's no more valid than using the Nazi ideas of a society as an example, even though in most every way you measure a society, the Nazi society was the most successful, it can't be considered without the same distillation of reality, as that of the former Soviet Union examples sited above.

I don't mean to disrespect any of the governments or citizens of all the other participating countries (as I previously stated), but when you look at the simple truth of it all, the statistics, one thing becomes plainly obvious; the USA has bore the most substantial bulk of these escapades, repeatedly for the last 3/4's of a century.

Hear, hear! And let us not go down that socialist road.

[hoytedow]

Originally Posted by Frosty

Russia was first (sour grapes aside) they did not know they were in a race. They wanted space exploration and did so.

They were first in space. The race was won. If there was a race.

Its only American terminology that called it a race when they tried to catch up.

Until there is any benefit to space exploration further than we are such as another livable planet then no further is required certainly as the cost is prohibitive in these money conscious times.

They knew they were in a race.

[hoytedow]

Originally Posted by gypsy28

Cant we all just say well done to a great achievement and forget all this nationalism crap "were better than you" "no these guys did this first" "well we did that first",

Pretty sure your all way ahead of us down here in Australia

Well done everyone involved in the Mars landing, how long till man (or woman) walks on Mars?

DAVE

We could not have collected all the information we needed without the assistance of our Australian allies who provided the essential Australian tracking station sites, resources and professional personnel. Thanks to the folks down under.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muchea_Tracking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeysu...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnarvon_Tracking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooby_C...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orroral...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberr...cation_Complex

[hoytedow]

And let us not forget Spain's involvement. Thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_...cation_Complex

[PAR]

There are lots of folks and countries to be grateful for, as adventures such as these can't be done without their help.

[gypsy28]

Originally Posted by hoytedow

We could not have collected all the information we needed without the assistance of our Australian allies who provided the essential Australian tracking station sites, resources and professional personnel. Thanks to the folks down under.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muchea_Tracking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeysu...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnarvon_Tracking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooby_C...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orroral...acking_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberr...cation_Complex

So what your all saying is that Australia was the driving force behind the moon landing Who am I to argue

But in all seriousness I wasnt around for the moon landing (born in 84) but I hope I'm around for man walking on Mars, my Mum still talks about leaving school early to go and watch Armstrong strutting his stuff, and I hope my generation gets a memory like that

DAVE

[PAR]

I still remember the event like it was last week. What's really interesting and those who saw the actual live feed (from Australia BTW, as it's receivers where pointing at the moon at the time) may remember, the feed came to the USA inverted, for the first few seconds, before someone caught it and quickly flipped a switch to invert the image. Armstrong's foot appeared from the bottom of the screen and reached up to the first step, then the image got flipped. My younger brother (who never was too bright) asked if they were on the bottom of the moon, thinking this would explain quite a bit.

[whitepointer23]

the most amazing thing for me in space exploration was when apollo 13 ran into trouble and how they recovered it. i think it was 13.