10 July 2014

What A Buzz Kill

Buzz Aldrin got reported in Daily Tech from Reddit. I don't do Reddit (a major character flaw, I know), so I'll content myself with the DT quotes. That's all I need, anyway.
OUR resources should be directed to outward, beyond-the-moon, to establishing habitation and laboratories on the surface of Mars that can be built, assembled, from the close-by moons of Mars. With very little time delay - a second or less. Much better than controlling things on the Moon from the Earth. So when NASA funding comes up for review, please call your lawmakers to support it.

Buzz, according to the Wiki is a West Point grad in mechanical engineering. May be that's why he doesn't get it.

The reason NASA, and everybody else, has lost interest in space "exploration" after getting to the moon is simple physics and chemistry: the moon is as far as one can move humans in tin cans using chemical rockets. Fueling humans to Mars simply isn't possible with known chemistry. We know how much throw weight we can move past the moon, and it ain't much more than a Beetle. And the Area 51 aliens haven't yet divulged the secrets of Warp Drive. Even if we could get to Mars, there's no there, there. Once Again, Gertrude nails it. We'd have to ferry all life support from... somewhere? The Area 51 aliens haven't shown us how to make that Replicator, either.

We know where "earth like" planets are, and they ain't accessible with chemical rockets. And what, exactly, was the benefit of going to the moon? We just beat the Russians. BFD.

Buzz, how about we clean up our act here? Recognize that we really live in one of these, and make the best of it. We all live "Under the Dome".

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