Google Lunar X Prize |
Google Lunar X Prize |
Mar 28 2008, 08:53 PM
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#1
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10166 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Am I completely out of it, or is there no GLXP thread on here? I couldn't find one. Anyway, things are moving on it, so I thought we ought to have one.
For the record, I just turned down my second invitation to join a team. I'm staying as an interested observer on this - for now, anyway. There is a forum at the GLXP site as well as team info. There are a lot of people with half-baked ideas of how to go about it. The real professionals are not doing much on the forum, just working behind the scenes. At LPSC two weeks ago, Bob Richards of Odyssey Moon invited people to propose instruments to carry on their rover - targeted to a pyroclastic deposit, probably Rima Bode or Sulpicius Gallus. And I see they have now signed an agreement to carry Celestis's lunar burials to the Moon. Richards will be here next week, and I'll be spending some time with him. This whole thing is going to be interesting. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Apr 12 2008, 03:36 PM
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#2
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 21-December 05 Member No.: 614 |
1969 Is not that long ago (heh and I'm only 21), I can understand if the next generations find this place interesting to revisit but this is hardly history. We have pictures and movies of the first steps on the moon, what’s a robot going to show us that those existing movies and pictures don't show already?! The place still looks exactly the same as it did 50 years ago, and you'll get exactly the same pictures as we did 50 years ago, the only difference is that they are taken by a robot instead of a human.
I agree that’s its a very important 'historic' place and I’m sure people would want to revisit it in the future, but what’s the point of revisiting it so early? It’s the only historic place that will stay the same for ages; I want to see something new now that we finally return! We've been waiting more than 50 year for the next moon landing and we are aiming for the exact same spot to see the exact same things? How crazy is that? Tbh I would be a lot more excited to see some never before seen landscapes; mountains, gigantic craters, strange rock formations, ice(?!),... QUOTE That's why we have museums like the Smithsonian and Natural History Museum Exactly my point; if I want to see some human history I go to a museum or just look around me. If we go to the moon with a million dollar robotic mission I want to see something new, something 'non-human'. We go to an unexplored alien world to look for 'human remains', oh the irony... |
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Apr 12 2008, 08:32 PM
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#3
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
1969 Is not that long ago (heh and I'm only 21), I can understand if the next generations find this place interesting to revisit but this is hardly history. Trust me, to an 8 year old kid, Apollo is ANCIENT history! And they're the guys we've got to inspire and excite and find a way to consider entering technology and engineering as careers if we're to leave footprints on any other body in the solar system before the next ice age, or send sample return missions to Mars, balloons to Titan and drills to Europa... -------------------- |
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Apr 12 2008, 10:47 PM
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#4
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 21-December 05 Member No.: 614 |
If pictures and movies from 1969 don't inspire them I'm not sure how new pictures of the same thing are going to inspire them instead. Hell, I don't think 8 year olds will be very excited about a robotic mission to the moon, knowing that humans did it 50 years ago.(that's actually depressing )
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Apr 13 2008, 07:28 AM
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#5
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
If pictures and movies from 1969 don't inspire them I'm not sure how new pictures of the same thing are going to inspire them instead. Hell, I don't think 8 year olds will be very excited about a robotic mission to the moon, knowing that humans did it 50 years ago.(that's actually depressing ) You'd be surprised. The difference is it's something we ARE doing now, not something that happened before they were born, when the world was a funny place with funny-looking cars, all the men wore white shirts and ties and the women wore horn-rimmed glasses and kids rolled hoops down the road with sticks and raced twigs down rivers... Seriously tho, I have been discussing future lunar exploration plans with kids in schools and they - some of them at least, I'm not claiming all - are fascinated by the idea of people going back to the Moon and exploring Mars one day, but they're also interested in rovers, on the Moon or Mars, because basically they're gadgets, and gadgets are cool. The kids have their own robots at home and school, and are familiar with the concepts of remote control and navigation in a way we weren't when we were at school. They know all about webcams, and satellites, and know that putting all those things together could allow us to "roam" the Moon remotely as if we were there, but without having to go there in person... and THAT'S the depressing thing, because kids today don't seem to have that adventurous streak. They're growing up in a cotton-wool wrapped, politically-correct, risk-avoiding environment where Health and Safety rules everything and it's not allowed to climb trees, stride across rivers or even, believe it or not, play Conkers or throw snowballs at breaktime. They have no modern explorer heroes to look up to or follow in the footsteps of. Modern astronauts come across to an 8 year old as glorified truck drivers or construction engineers. They don't GO anywhere. So, my tack on this is to tell them that while the eventual aim is to send people back to the Moon, and on to Mars, that wil, and can, only happen, once we've studied their potential homes robotically, and made sure that those environments are reasonably safe to reach and live in. They accept that, I've found. But the unpalatable truth is we are ANOTHER generation away from sending people to Mars, and a good decade away from sending people back to the Moon, so today's kids are in a kind of limbo between two epic programs. But at least they will get to see the things shown on the fancy NASA CGI animations actually happen, unlike many of us here I fear... but that's a discussion for another place and time, I know. -------------------- |
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