[TheHerald]

..about the boring landscape and speaking as one of those who was watching when we landed on the moon. The reason it's so flat and boring (well, one reason) is the NEED to land where it's flat. There appears to be no spaceports or landing fields conveniantly located to take advantage of, so NASA decided that, if they don't want their multimillion dollar investment landing half on and half off a sheer cliff, they better play it safe.    

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

H3 is on the moon and is probably a very valuable substance... but I don't see anyone rushing to get it because as yet space travel is pretty much Russian roulette with your money... at best.

[sheber]

Aren't there plans for a Chinese lunar landing?

[Sadistyk]

Quote:
I've seen more exciting ashtrays.....  

Oddly enough, it looks like Arizona.

[prinz]

Quote:
Aren't there plans for a Chinese lunar landing?  

they have stated that there long term goal is a lunar base..    Near term ( 20 to 30 years) the  moon and the earth/moon/sun lagrange points will be where the action is.. Developing economical interest will be key to opening space ..   Take a nice long period comet, wrap it in mylar and park it in the trailing largrange point.. park your space station in her shadow cone to weather any nasty stuff the sun wants to throw your way.. You now have all the water ice, hydrogen and other raw materials to power said station for thousands of years.. If there is water at the lunar poles the same thing can happen there .. Mars! What does she have to offer us  Water and minerals perhaps.. A second home to man should we be so stupid to kill ourselfs off.. The Moon is alot closer and will provide the test bed for anything we would need for Mars. Near term we are developing the engines we will need  Ion, Nuclear..  Who knows what the future holds.. cheers PE  

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

I still feel that space travel will need to become economical before it becomes common but that said - if China starts getting interested in a moon base, I think that America would probably have to too. After all I hardly think the US could let commies take over the moon without losing face.

[rtpoe]

OK, you wusses....

Get out your 3D glasses, 'cause here's Mars in stereovision!

Now *THAT* is COOL!!!

And just wait until the probe starts cutting into rocks...

rtpoe

(it's the attachment....)  

[JizzTits]

you're right, it HAS to be economical.

but you know, it'd be damned funny because if/when the US finally HAS to do join in the next race, we'd be using much more "economical" Made in China equipment. there's no way it'd be economical if we made everything here...

 

[sheber]

Bush must've been eavesdropping, because he's going to announce plans for manned trips to the moon and mars soon, possibly including plans for get this, a lunar station!

[J_Panda]

i headr that they would be driving the rover around the suface but it move becuase it cannot drive over the empty gas ballons that cusioned its landing. i think they'l get all caught in the wheels so we're going to be seeing teh same old wasteland for sometime,

looks a bit like my backgarden
 

[Zorlond]

>>you're right, it HAS to be economical.

And it won't be until we start mining up there (if you think cheap parts are the answer, you're dreaming, cheap parts only means higher loss risk). Isn't it funny how that works?  

[JizzTits]

hmm.. in that case...

hey Mr. President, how about banning anorexia? and give free breast implants for all women who are under D-cups? i bet that's what Santa would like, you want to show Santa that you were good this year, right?  



not cheap parts, cheap labor and cheap costs. money doesn't necessarily mean that the parts will be top quality nor the work done on it will be top quality. things made in china will always be cheaper than they would be here, even if they were to be made with the same quality, because our standards of living here in the States are so much higher. the people over there don't spend and consume as much as we do here, so they would be earning enough for spending, it's just that with the conversion, we get the advantage of paying less.
if we're looking to do the same quality, it will always be cheaper from there.  

[D_U_S_K]

Quote:
i headr that they would be driving the rover around the suface but it move becuase it cannot drive over the empty gas ballons that cusioned its landing. i think they'l get all caught in the wheels so we're going to be seeing teh same old wasteland for sometime,

looks a bit like my backgarden
   

Doubtful.

I dont think the wheels would catch the air balloons and even then, The said air balloons are underneath the 'pod' that it sits in. I think it would be incredibly sad if they engineered this thing to go over Mars terrain but cant handle a bunch of fabric.

But this thing could smoosh them like nothing. It's a Mars Rover on Steroids. It does have all that scientific mumbo, it has more panels, it has bigger wheels, bigger suspension. It also has a nifty tuck away feature.

It's going to be interesting when people start showing up or colonies start. These pieces of land are going to be historic, not to mention what'll look like to see how ancient they seem when we show up. Like old toys when you were a kid.

Martians probably use them as playsets.

"That thing shut off? Cool. Let's go jump on it."

[MrHHH]

I just saw a show on "Nova" about all this. Really interesting stuff. Especially the parts where they did computer animation.

 

[Sleeper]

The first 360 degree high resolution panoramic image from   Mars .