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We have conquered Mars, that which was named after the god of war. We have conquered war itself. We have shown that we do not do things purely for survival. We do not carry on solely so that we may live.
We live, in that we may carry on.
Carry on advancing in science.
Carry on exploring that which is distant and unknown.
Carry on doing things not out of neccessity,
but out of Curiosity.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-n … cky,29069/
here are three gaps...
1. Wright Brothers to the Spitfire propeller fighter plane
2. Spitfire to Viking
3. Viking to MSL CuriosityAll three gaps are 35 years each. When stated like this, it's sobering that progress has ground to a halt.
And what did we have 35 years before the Wright Flyer? Carriages. And before that? Still carriages, going back 2000 years.
There's a reason why the Industrial Revolution was called a revolution. In 150 years, we went from steam engines to rocket engines, abacuses to ENIAC, and pendulum clocks to digital wristwatches. We're never going to match that again.
/digital watch: still a pretty neat idea
We have conquered Mars, that which was named after the god of war. We have conquered war itself.
Good thing we didn't send a probe to Venus.
And what did we have 35 years before the Wright Flyer? Carriages. And before that? Still carriages, going back 2000 years.
Actually transport technology progressed steadily for 500 years. From square rigged sails to lateen sails that allow sailing into the wind, improvements in navigation (e.g. longitude) that prevented getting lost or shipwrecked, mapping of currents & winds to optimize travelling times, steam engines from the 1820s which were continually made more efficient, and railways got steadily faster throughout the 19th century, etc.
Chemical rockets are the best part of 100 years old now, and the engineers assure us they've extracted all the efficiency that is possible out of them. There are other propulsion systems once you get into space (e.g. ion) but as yet there's no replacement for rockets to provide the thrust to launch off Earth's gravity well.
In other words, our generation is the first for 500 years where transport technology has stagnated, so that A to B times remain the same from the day we were born to the day we die.
Horse - Steam - Internal Combustion Engine - Jet - Rocket. We've still no clue what the successor is. A space elevator using carbon nanotubes? After >10 years of working on carbon nanotubes, they can't make them longer than an inch or so.
So when seen in this light, MSL is not some radical step on a ladder of progress that'll see us walking on Mars next decade. It's a modest improvement over Viking, after 35 years, which is a greater interval than when we went from WWII plane to walking on the Moon.
I'm just trying to zoom out and place MSL into the big-picture context, which is an antidote to some of the recent hyperbole. I've nothing against MSL. In fact, I'm full of admiration for the engineering marvel that it is. I wish there could be MSL rovers all over the solar system bring us HQ data from worlds we haven't explored yet e.g. Triton, Titan, Europa, Enceladus, Mercury, etc.
As most of you space nerds probably know, Emily Lakdawalla's blog on the Planetary Society site (http://planetary.org/blogs/) is one of the best sites for new MSL pictures, videos, information, etc. She has inside access to JPL's scientists and knows a lot of freelance hard-core space nerds out there that spend their time taking raw NASA data and compositing new bigger jpgs, making 3D images, compiling unofficial videos, etc.
Last edited by avatar (2012-08-08 10:16:58)
In other words, our generation is the first for 500 years where transport technology has stagnated, so that A to B times remain the same from the day we were born to the day we die.
Well, it couldn't last forever.
In other words, our generation is the first for 500 years where transport technology has stagnated, so that A to B times remain the same from the day we were born to the day we die.
I'd like to dispute this, but I died of dysentary while trying to travel to California.
avatar wrote:In other words, our generation is the first for 500 years where transport technology has stagnated, so that A to B times remain the same from the day we were born to the day we die.
I'd like to dispute this, but I died of dysentary while trying to travel to California.
Medical health / longevity is a separate issue to the decline in transit times.
Even today, we continue to gain two years of life every decade. That is, if you have a child in a decade, he'll live 2 years longer (statistically) than if you have the child now. That's been the case for several decades and we still don't fully understand why... probably a combination of improving hygiene, nutrition, effective medicine, etc.
Something to ponder next time you're stuck in traffic running your 1890s internal-combustion engine.... 
Well, kind of. People, once they're adults, aren't really living longer. That is, once you get to 30, you'll probably live about as long as someone a hundred years ago would have, maybe a year or three longer. The real change is more babies are living to adulthood. (and, probably, the last few years of life not being as horrible as they used to be)
avatar wrote:In other words, our generation is the first for 500 years where transport technology has stagnated, so that A to B times remain the same from the day we were born to the day we die.
I'd like to dispute this, but I died of dysentary while trying to travel to California.
Note, he said THIS Generation.
I'll point out we've been using the exact same jets for air travel since 20 years before I was born (The first 747 flew in 1969.), and the tech hasn't really changed much since that. Not to mention we've mostly been using the exact same physical planes planes since then too.
Zarban wrote:avatar wrote:In other words, our generation is the first for 500 years where transport technology has stagnated, so that A to B times remain the same from the day we were born to the day we die.
I'd like to dispute this, but I died of dysentary while trying to travel to California.
Note, he said THIS Generation.
I'll point out we've been using the exact same jets for air travel since 20 years before I was born (The first 747 flew in 1969.), and the tech hasn't really changed much since that. Not to mention we've mostly been using the exact same physical planes planes since then too.
The upside is that A to B speeds are cheaper than they were in 1969. So that the hours spent earning the money to pay for the flight have decreased. The downside is that the decline in fares has seemed to bottom out now and that fuel prices and government taxes are starting a long-term trend back up again. Also, the extra security checks laid on after 9-11 means that overall door-to-door transit times have actually increased a little. Those using the Concorde in the 1980s with low security and lower traffic jams would have had the best ever London to New York transit times in history. Today, I don't think a single private or public supersonic passenger charter jet exists anywhere in the world, for any price. So a case can be made that we haven't just stagnated, we've actually REGRESSED.
Anyway, does anyone know if MSL Curiosity's rolling speed is much faster than MER Opportunity's? I think Opportunity did about 120 metres in a day one day in perfect conditions, we'll see if MSL can beat that record.
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