You know, I am all for science, space, etc, but why bother wasting all that money on something that has an even chance of going tits up? It is just a barren planet which is too cold and hostile to sustain any form of life. There is f'ck all there.

Produce nice chocolate though

Well it ensures that billions of dollars are 'spent' on the space program.

Well, on paper anyway...

:ninja:

Well, we could just still be sitting in caves banging the rocks together and dying at the age of 30 from a curable disease if we weren't killed by a wild animal first.

The day humanity stops asking why and stops trying to 'boldy go' then we may as well just pack up and go home, because that is what makes us superior to the green slime that goes between the paving slabs.

It has landed safely - about 8 minutes ago.

Life on Mars was good.

True - though at the moment, there are probably other areas the money could be spent, i.e. working out how to sustain and not completely annihilate life on our own planet.

I'm all for colonising other planets like Mars, with the use of bio domes, what have you, but we are years from carrying out that type of thing.

A nice sentiment.

But if you are worried about the opportunity cost of a mission to Mars, it pales into insignificance with all the expenditure on equipment to blow us all up into oblivion.

At least the Mars expenditure is not going on that.

Also, did you know that the US spends more on "defence" than the rest of the world combined?

Perhaps if the same level of expenditure was devoted to world development and food technology and irrigation projects, there would not be such a need for "defence" spending.

Indeed.

To be honest, we could probably solve the worlds issues today, but alas, the US seemingly holds all the cards, and lets face it, the yanks are nutters.

Landed safely: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7411113.stm

Science is about discovery, exploration, learning things we didn't know before. The technology benefits of constantly testing the boundaries of what we know are extraordinary. How do we know there is **** all there, unless we send probes?

Why go to mars? because it's there and humanity itself is raised up by it. The benefits from the moon missions are worth far more than they cost... the science, skills and technology accelerated development in so many fields both directly and indirectly.

Suppose this probe discovers there is liquid water on the surface, suppose in future years the technology allows scientists to land a genetically modified microbial lifeform onto the planets surface which can use sunlight and chemical energy to break up Co2 and release oxygen. That Mars could be a perfect experiment to test the effectiveness of using man made biological lifeforms for climate management on earth.

Science is full of examples where people suggested scientists were wasting their time and money researching an area because there are no conceivable benefits. However you can't predict what affect or what results might come from even the smallest experiments. Did Marconi know what he was doing when he started experimenting with radio waves? When two bicycle shop owners called Orville and Wilbur started messing around with tri axial controls on gliders made of wood and cloth, started thinking about applying it to powered flight, were they wasting their time? The sheer range of technologies used in these sending 'cheap and cheerful' unmanned probes around the solar system means that the potential benefits down the line could be extraordinary.

If this kind of research seems a pointless waste of money, I suggest you look at the large Hadron Colider in Switzerland, the practical benefits of which may be generations away and even these involved have no real idea of what benefits may come form it apart from 'knowing'. However they said the same about Einstein's work and the fruits of that exist in GPS systems that are used everyday.

That's all fair and well CHB, and yes, I agree with you.

Unfortunately, we are much more likely to wipe ourselves out long before we ever get to that stage.

I don't know enough about generating conditions for life on a planetary scale, but I am assuming it would be pretty hard in those temperatures.

I've skied in worse.

And with a wind chill.

There is plenty of money available if the will is there to spend it on things on Earth. If no money was spent on space research, the money saved would not be used to help people on earth - it would probably be used to give the rich westerners a tax cut.

We can easily afford to spend more on space, spend enough to rid the world of poverty and still not feel the hurt. The problem is that we vote for the politicians with the nice look and nice marketting people, rather than the ones who would actually do something about it. Still, it's the other people who suffer so who gives a toss, eh. ;)

:goodpost:

Cool! Let's do it.

:woohoo:

Won't have to worry about heat stroke, or hosepipe bans :woohoo:

The green slime will probably still be there when humans have joined the Dodo - it'll be laughing at us then, in it's own slimey humourous way :haha:

To be fair, I've talked quite a bit of bollox (nothing new) on this thread.

Forgot that I had read "A brief History of nearly everything" and that a great percentage of heat on earth is generated from having the atmosphere we do - if they can get an atmosphere going on Mars similar to the one we have here, we could potentially colonise it.

This looks like a job for...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RFPLk5mJ1D4

F'cking hell. Saw that a while back, was hoping I'd never hear it again.

Well it helps one work, rest and play I suppose.

Good thing I didn't post this then.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

:lol: Little Green Bastards. Kill them.

Martianist <_<

China, Russia, India and even Iran have space programmes and these countries do not have many rich citizens (just a few very rich ones)

space travel is worth it, going to places like Mars helps us see new places, learn lessons for future manned space journeys (my holidays are already booked ;) ) and develop new technologies

it all seemed so simple on star trek :crying:

We need to gather intelligence in case Mars attacks!