[extropy-chat] MARS: Because it is hard

[Robert J. Bradbury]

Astrobiology Magazine has a nice article on going
to Mars -- and how hard it is:

http://www.astrobio.net/news/article701.html

I don't care how many times I see it or read it --
I will still get choked up on the phrase "because it
is hard" (or variations thereof).

For the younger list members -- you may have had to
be there watching the Moon landings (I was 12 at the time)
to feel this.  But you can understand the fact that
you have had 2 robots wandering around on the surface of
Mars for 3 months with an extra 5 months of operation
as a possibility.

And I don't give a hoot whether the landings are based on
humans or robots -- the point is that humanity *did* these
things.

Robert

Note: I am not suggesting that Mars should be colonized.
It is simply too easy to dismantle once we have robust
nanotechnology.  But for now exploration is a reasonable
thing to be doing.