The current goals are developing the vehicle which is capable of making
regular missions there possible.
Which will happen shortly.
regular missions there possible.
Which will happen shortly.
That wouldn't matter to me, I'd still be thrilled to go. Maybe if I were younger the high risk might bother me.
I read somewhere that survivors of suicide attempts from jumping off bridges regretted their decision soon after the jump.
I was listening to a Brian Keane podcast where he had a Nobel laureate in biology and another highly regarded biologist on. Seems getting from the Miller-Urey 1950’s experiment where they were able to create about 15 of the known 20 amino acids required for cellular life with basic early Earth atmospheric compounds and lightning to RNA is a huge leap that 70 yrs later is still an area of deep research. The current thinking is that RNA then led to DNA, but how that happened is also a mystery.
They made the point that life on Earth and how it evolved came through so many twists, turns and near misses that it is almost impossible to predict if the same process happened elsewhere, or if it would even look like life on our planet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment
Curious perspective. In spite of all the near misses, twist and turns life succeeded here. Why couldn't it elsewhere?
the regret was during the fall
I was responding to the comment of not caring if the trip to Mars would be fatal
Because it appears that life emerging from inorganic chemistry is an exceedingly difficult thing to accomplish and for it then to progress to an advanced technological civilisation even more so. The optimistic view from credible (astro)biologists of the emergence of advanced technological civilisations is one per galaxy. So, we are probably it for the Milky Way. Basic single cellular life is probably more widespread though.
Have you ever heard of the saying 'we are where we find ourselves'? It means just because we, with all improbability, are here and are conscious of the fact, it does not mean we necessarily represent the normal progression of life or events.
With no atmosphere, meteors could become a problem, since they would not be burned up upon descent.
It appears that some amino acids came from space in asteroids.
https://www.space.com/interstellar-clouds-asteroids-amino-acids-building-blocks-life
These things are why we have to fix things here first. We need a much more advanced "toolkit" to go out there.
-Limitless , compact power sources (quantum-fusion- or yet unknown).
-With that much power .... energy shielding.
-Better metallurgy / construction tech.
Lots of things we could use those trillions of defense budget dollars for.
Research for profit , research for war ? I know war is the "boot" that kicks advancement down the road ,
but that should be swapped with survival of the planet - this is our present "war".
Edit - the last fight will be the race to keep our last crucial ecosystems healthy enough to allow survival.
OS
-Limitless , compact power sources (quantum-fusion- or yet unknown).
-With that much power .... energy shielding.
-Better metallurgy / construction tech.
Lots of things we could use those trillions of defense budget dollars for.
Research for profit , research for war ? I know war is the "boot" that kicks advancement down the road ,
but that should be swapped with survival of the planet - this is our present "war".
Edit - the last fight will be the race to keep our last crucial ecosystems healthy enough to allow survival.
OS
Humans as saviors of the Earth? Quite a contradiction. Earth would be very pleased without us.
As George Carlin once said, (paraphrasing).."humans are so arrogant, we think we will destroy the Earth with plastic, fact is, Earth gave us plastic to destroy humans"