[extropy-chat] MARS: Because it is hard

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2004 at 10:58:16PM -0700, Spike wrote:

> Well, not really.  Propulsion has been well understood
> for many years.  The natural constraints that go along 

Chemical propulsion, yes. Nuclear propulsion, no. Ion/Plasma, no. Microwave
and photonic sails, no.

> with taking humans anywhere keep dragging us back to 
> the old fashioned tried-and-true chemical propulsion.

The system is telling you something, but you choose to ignore what it is.
It tells you that people don't fly well, far, and long. As such there are no
options left but automation.

> Once we stop designing way beyond that which we really
> need, humanity will collectively realize that the technology
> to do Mars has quietly come into being while no one
> was watching.

The technology is there already, or will be shortly. In absense of decent
automation and at sufficiently high distances to prevent teleoperation people
are good to have as local coordinators and operators (but operators don't
scale, coordinators are more loosely coupled and higher-level).

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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