<story><title>Liquid water &apos;lake&apos; revealed on Mars</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44952710</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>endymi0n</author><text>Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you&amp;#x27;d get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?</text></item><item><author>russellbeattie</author><text>I think if we in the U.S. stopped killing people in senseless wars, we could use some of the &lt;i&gt;trillions&lt;/i&gt; we spend on that to both fund medical research &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; fly to Mars. But that&amp;#x27;s obviously a fantasy.</text></item><item><author>remote_phone</author><text>I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer.&lt;p&gt;It’s hard to argue with her. $400B&amp;#x2F;yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime.</text></item><item><author>ryanmercer</author><text>For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km&amp;#x2F;28 mi in 14 years.&lt;p&gt;A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date.&lt;p&gt;If we remove this year&amp;#x27;s launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years.&lt;p&gt;2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039.&lt;p&gt;If we could get the top 5 GDP nations to contribute 1% of their GDP to a proper global space program we&amp;#x27;d have 400+ billion dollars a year (NASA has has a budget of around 18 billion lately). We could probably start sending unmanned missions in 2020 with test hardware for in situ resource production, develop a decent vehicle for travelling, then land 3-4 manned missions by 2022 with overlapping areas of operation as Zubrin (and others) have proposed that way if something goes wrong with one you can travel in 1-2 days, without exiting your vehicle, to another one of the missions.&lt;p&gt;You could have extra ships there waiting just to return specimens (and to offer a backup return vehicle for each team to get back up to orbit to return on an ISS-sized ship for the travel to and from Mars, not unlike in The Martian, which you could then park in Orbit around Earth or even the Moon and use as a slightly-used international space station or use it again for another trip out). You could return literal tons of specimens to earth for study, you could have human beings processing the stuff there &amp;quot;no this looks like a waste of time, this one is interesting, that&amp;#x27;s interesting, that&amp;#x27;s a weird feature let&amp;#x27;s drill a few samples here&amp;quot; not to mention just cover more area with various instruments getting all sorts of readings.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;sigh&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If only. If we could just get 5 countries to agree to contribute 1% for 2-3 years we could establish a permanent moon base and do a hardcore Mars human-exploration mission. Obviously it would take 10-20 years to pull off but an international committee could be selected (representatives from all 5 nations as well as other nations that say want to help with supporting the missions, wouldn&amp;#x27;t need to pony up nearly as much money). Call it Starfleet 0.5 and make all of the science that results from the missions 100% public, give every country the UN recognizes a certain allotment of specimens as well for display in government-sponsored museums and to allow their own citizens to study.&lt;p&gt;Alas, I dream too much.</text></item><item><author>liberte82</author><text>Why don&amp;#x27;t we send a rover to some of these interesting places? It seems like we&amp;#x27;re constantly making fascinating finds on Mars, then send rovers to the middle of a random rocky desert.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>geezerjay</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re missing the fact that the US military is in its core a employment and social services program used extensively to create artificial jobs and artificial demand for skilled labour and high-tech products and services.&lt;p&gt;Not to mention the cultural importance that the US military as an institution has on the US, of course.</text></comment>
<story><title>Liquid water &apos;lake&apos; revealed on Mars</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44952710</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>endymi0n</author><text>Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you&amp;#x27;d get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?</text></item><item><author>russellbeattie</author><text>I think if we in the U.S. stopped killing people in senseless wars, we could use some of the &lt;i&gt;trillions&lt;/i&gt; we spend on that to both fund medical research &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; fly to Mars. But that&amp;#x27;s obviously a fantasy.</text></item><item><author>remote_phone</author><text>I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer.&lt;p&gt;It’s hard to argue with her. $400B&amp;#x2F;yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime.</text></item><item><author>ryanmercer</author><text>For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km&amp;#x2F;28 mi in 14 years.&lt;p&gt;A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date.&lt;p&gt;If we remove this year&amp;#x27;s launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years.&lt;p&gt;2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039.&lt;p&gt;If we could get the top 5 GDP nations to contribute 1% of their GDP to a proper global space program we&amp;#x27;d have 400+ billion dollars a year (NASA has has a budget of around 18 billion lately). We could probably start sending unmanned missions in 2020 with test hardware for in situ resource production, develop a decent vehicle for travelling, then land 3-4 manned missions by 2022 with overlapping areas of operation as Zubrin (and others) have proposed that way if something goes wrong with one you can travel in 1-2 days, without exiting your vehicle, to another one of the missions.&lt;p&gt;You could have extra ships there waiting just to return specimens (and to offer a backup return vehicle for each team to get back up to orbit to return on an ISS-sized ship for the travel to and from Mars, not unlike in The Martian, which you could then park in Orbit around Earth or even the Moon and use as a slightly-used international space station or use it again for another trip out). You could return literal tons of specimens to earth for study, you could have human beings processing the stuff there &amp;quot;no this looks like a waste of time, this one is interesting, that&amp;#x27;s interesting, that&amp;#x27;s a weird feature let&amp;#x27;s drill a few samples here&amp;quot; not to mention just cover more area with various instruments getting all sorts of readings.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;sigh&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If only. If we could just get 5 countries to agree to contribute 1% for 2-3 years we could establish a permanent moon base and do a hardcore Mars human-exploration mission. Obviously it would take 10-20 years to pull off but an international committee could be selected (representatives from all 5 nations as well as other nations that say want to help with supporting the missions, wouldn&amp;#x27;t need to pony up nearly as much money). Call it Starfleet 0.5 and make all of the science that results from the missions 100% public, give every country the UN recognizes a certain allotment of specimens as well for display in government-sponsored museums and to allow their own citizens to study.&lt;p&gt;Alas, I dream too much.</text></item><item><author>liberte82</author><text>Why don&amp;#x27;t we send a rover to some of these interesting places? It seems like we&amp;#x27;re constantly making fascinating finds on Mars, then send rovers to the middle of a random rocky desert.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mtgx</author><text>You wouldn&amp;#x27;t need that much for free healthcare. Remember people already pay a ton for healthcare. You&amp;#x27;d just repackage those payments into taxes for free universal healthcare and then the government would have to pay the difference.</text></comment>