The Astronomy Thread | Page 2 | Vital Football

The Astronomy Thread

Interesting. Look forward to you updating us then as I'm not currently watching any news at all!
 
In more basic astronomy news.

If the sky clears this evening, look at the Moon, and Jupiter is just to the left of it.

 
This could well be a bug or animal that sheds its skin, dunno but this is what they may be waiting till December the 6/7th to announce as ''one for the history books'', as Nasa put it.

I bet they are like crabs and no not them ones lol

 
After considerable buildup, NASA’s latest big announcement is dirt. To be fair, it is Martian dirt, but when a press release hits its climax with “we have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point,” we should begin to wonder just why NASA spent weeks hyping the announcement.
 
Well im not being a conspiracy nut or anything but about 5years ago i watched a dicumentry on Sky about Mars and an ex Nasa chief was on there saying that he would not be surprised if anyhting that is found on the planet would be hidden away from the public for the US governments own benefit

Also he predicted back then that he would not be surprised if the US government would make out it being impossible to travel to Mars as the technology advances and private firms could soon travel there so the government would make out that Mars was too hostile and stop anybody from traveling there on safety grounds to keep it for themselves,,,And guess what the US givernment this week said the radiation is too much to travel to Mars safely lol just as the ex NASA chief predicted hmmm

 
Clive I think the fact that the documentary was 5 years old is key here.
In the last 5 years we have had a number of landers and orbiters sent to the red planet and they are not all NASA led/US owned projects.

The science that can be done from earth has greatly improved even for amatuers, so it would be very difficult to keep anything 'covered up'

Astrophysics and cosmology is a worldwide science and the information is freely available for people to study and call bullshit on any cover up claims.
From my studied I would suggest its not impossible to go to mars due to radiation, but with current tech, it would be pretty unlikely - its a one way mission anyway, theres no coming back, butwe just have no data on what that kind of misison would do to the human body, they are trying though, Chris hadfield for example, documenting the tests he had to go through after returning from the ISS.


Having said that, I dont think they are going to find anything of huge value on mars, well except very VERY basic life forms, perhaps brought there on a comet/asteroid that has been able to survive the extreme conditions.



 
The radiation is from the actual trip Clive. Once you get into space you have nothing protecting you from the solar rays. And as a round trip to Mars would take over 2 and a half years, its a lot of radiation the Astronauts would have to endure.
Besides any manned trip to Mars would be a International mission. There is no way the states could fund it, or compete it as a solo Nation. For a start they would need to build, or think of way of re-fuelling. Which could mean the building of another large International project like the ISS.