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Comment: Out of step with reality (Score 0) 147

by mrxak (#46490371) Attached to: Hungarian Law Says Photogs Must Ask Permission To Take Pictures

Well I guess I won't be visiting Hungary. I'd hate to go to jail for taking a picture of a landmark with a whole lot of people in the frame.

I'm sure plenty of Hungarian photographers are outraged they effectively can't take entire genres of photographs, now. These kinds of laws have social and cultural ramifications.

Comment: Re:Budget Priorities (Score 1) 184

by mrxak (#46471669) Attached to: Mars Rover Opportunity Faces New Threat: Budget Ax

Has nothing to do with the F-35. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the payouts we give to individuals in this country. It's at a record high of 70%, and those programs (unlike military spending) will never be cut, ever, because it'll be political suicide for anyone who tries. Massive expansion of social programs is what kills science spending.

Comment: Re:Untested? (Score 1) 357

by mrxak (#46262637) Attached to: Under Armour/Lockheed Suit Blamed For US Skating Performance

You're absolutely right. It's the ice, not the suits. The ice is terrible, I keep hearing it over and over. Supposedly the Russian guy who's in charge of the ice said that the North Americans make the best ice, and traveled to Canada and the US to figure out how to make good ice, but apparently he didn't learn enough while he was over here because he went back to Russia and made some pretty bad ice.

Comment: Re:Seriously? (Score 3, Interesting) 216

by mrxak (#45822879) Attached to: Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts

Ah yes, the "let's fix our problems here at home first" argument. I hate to break it to you, but we will always have problems. Humans have always had problems and we excel at finding new ones no matter how many old ones we solve. We can either choose to keep working at fixing them, for billions of years as we colonize the universe, or we can wait for the next extinction event in a much shorter time span and have a permanent solution.

I'm imagining a caveman not so long ago saying that we shouldn't cross that river until we figure out how to live off the resources in a one-hour walking radius around our cave.

You know what would really advance our ability to live here on Earth? Figuring out how to live in environments totally hostile to our way of life. Terraforming another planet will teach us how to live in balance with nature here. Learning how to conserve and recycle resources on another world, where we have no choice but to do so, will help us be sustainable on Earth. You clearly look at this as a win-lose proposition. Money spent on space exploration is money not spent here at home. But the fact is, space exploration helps us here at home. It helps our economy, it gives us new technologies that work here just as well on Earth, it does a lot.

Comment: Re:Seriously? (Score 1) 216

by mrxak (#45822749) Attached to: Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts

What exactly is the scam? It's a non-profit organization, the risks are well known, and if it all blows up nobody's a winner. Well, the only winners will be the ones who learn from what went wrong and do a better attempt next time.

And whose credibility, exactly, will be harmed if this doesn't work? Another group trying the exact same thing you'd also disapprove of for the same reasons you disapprove of Mars One? Surely, this wouldn't harm the credibility of another company with a much larger budget and longer timeline and different method of funding, or a government attempt for that matter.

Comment: Re:Seriously? (Score 5, Insightful) 216

by mrxak (#45822621) Attached to: Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts

The difference between you and I is that I don't know if it will work. You seem convinced there's no point in even trying. You're like somebody saying a ship will fall off the edge of the world if they sail off beyond the horizon. I'm saying, let's go find out.

Virgin is a for-profit company concerned very much with image. Their business model is entirely based around getting people back to Earth again safely. They're inherently risk-averse, because their passengers are paying to get home again.

NASA and other world space agencies lack the political support to do much of anything at all, and they are even more risk-averse than a company is, because what little support they do get is the result of a fickle public that's terrified of dead astronauts.

It seems to me, Mars One is a different beast entirely. It's a one way trip, and they seem very up front about the risk. I'm sure all 1058 volunteers in the second round are keenly aware they may die at any stage in this experiment, and have accepted that risk. It's a privately-funded, non-profit entity that doesn't need to worry about public approval, just public interest.

As for figuring it all out, we've known how to get to Mars for decades now. We've made great strides in landing technology, and awareness of radiation exposure with the latest Mars rover, among other missions. Their efforts to build the habitation structures on Mars will happen before they ever launch a live colonist, so if they can't do it, nobody will even be put at risk. Regardless of outcome, we'll have learned a great deal, found out where our limits are, and maybe pushed them a bit further.

Frankly I'm fed up with the complacency of this species, at everyone's willingness to just stay put on our fragile little world, and never try anything hard or dangerous. At least these guys are trying. Maybe they're naive, maybe they've under-budgeted and this will cost a lot more than they think, maybe things will go wrong, maybe some brave explorers will die. At least they'll have found where our limits are, instead of just guessing and naysaying when somebody thinks they can do better than those who came before.

Comment: Re:Seriously? (Score 4, Insightful) 216

by mrxak (#45821965) Attached to: Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts

Even in failure, Mars One will teach us things we didn't know before, and lay the groundwork for future endeavors. If this isn't a worthy goal, I don't know what is. If they succeed, all the better.

What I don't understand is the people saying they shouldn't even try. I'm just glad our ancestors didn't think that way.

Comment: Re:First astronauts to land in 2025 (Score 2) 216

by mrxak (#45821935) Attached to: Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts

At least they're keeping this in the news, in the public consciousness. I get depressed at how little interest there seems to be in trying the hard things, in sending humans farther away than they've ever gone before, in breaking speed records, in exploring new frontiers.

Will Mars One work? I hope so, with ever fiber in my being. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but either way it will advance human knowledge, and maybe push our limits just a little bit further. What I don't understand is the people saying they shouldn't even try.

Comment: Re:reality show? (Score 3, Insightful) 216

by mrxak (#45821881) Attached to: Mars One Selects Second Round Candidate Astronauts

Realty show has a bad connotation to it. It's more like a documentary program.

Anyway, I'll never understand why people are such naysayers about Mars One, especially on sites like Slashdot. At the very least, they are keeping extraterrestrial colonies in the public consciousness, something we should be celebrating. Even if this project ends up with some fatalities, name one human migration that didn't result in some deaths, or one exploration mankind has undertaken that wasn't risky. Early efforts of course are going to be dangerous, perhaps unwise, but if we were too scared to take risks we'd still all be living in African treetops.

Debug is human, de-fix divine.