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: 10229 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 PDF: 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 15 2008, 03:41 AM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
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 I think the issue there is on the demand side much, much, much more than the supply side. 50,000 engineers without megafunding won't launch a Mars mission. And the people who ran Apollo didn't start their careers inspired by any massive project (by Lindbergh, perhaps). I'm not sure inspiration is a good return-on-investment. Two people went to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean in 1960. No one has been back since. Moreover, I have never met a human being in any field who is even aware of the details of that descent, much less bought a book about it. Essentially no one's ever heard of it. Why didn't that event inspire anyone? I'd warrant that inspiration per dollar gets a better yield from a modestly expensive accomplishment and brilliant marketing than from a colossally expensive accomplishment and just sitting back to rake in the laurels. Presumably what we're trying to inspire is accomplishment per young, prospective engineer, not federal budget fund-raising per young, prospective engineer. |
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