[HN Gopher] Giant Volcano Discovered on Mars
___________________________________________________________________
Giant Volcano Discovered on Mars
Author : belter
Score : 52 points
Date : 2024-03-13 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Terrific and motivational discovery/uncovery.
|
| Now would be a time for great exploratory progress, if only NASA
| and other space agencies world-wide were not having budgets cut
| to boost national defense and offense.
| leesec wrote:
| NASA has been incredibly wasteful for a long time. You give it
| more money then suddenly the timelines become longer. Private
| companies like SpaceX will save us
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Where's Helios when you need it ? ;)
| nullindividual wrote:
| Private companies will never save us. They exist only to
| extract wealth. SpaceX is no exception, surviving off of
| taxpayer funds.
| szundi wrote:
| This is pretty shortsighted.
|
| Private money is perfect to make the same cheaper. Then
| consultants bring the knowledge to other companies. 20-50
| years and everything is a commodity.
|
| After some time in kind of free markets the common people
| win.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I think with corporations becoming bigger and bigger the
| common people will win less. Markets only work with
| meaningful competition.
| swatcoder wrote:
| > After some time in kind of free markets the common
| people win
|
| Any time now!
|
| It's a very elegant idea, but maybe not the most
| empirically robust.
| JanSt wrote:
| SpaceX already is cheaper than NASA
| mmustapic wrote:
| Cheaper how? NASA doesn't fly their own rockets or
| spaceships, so there's no comparison.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| Cheaper compared to what NASA used to spend (in R&D
| and/or launch costs) to put one of their astronauts or 1
| kg of mass into orbit.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Sort of, except not always. Compare to medical insurance
| in the US. Medical care in the US is both one of the most
| expensive and most privatised in the world.
| leesec wrote:
| You have an insane view of the world and SpaceX will be
| wildly profitable
| nullindividual wrote:
| No private company has saved me yet.
|
| We've all been waiting. For more than 100 years. Private
| companies will save us... like we'll have Linux on the
| Desktop.
|
| Any year, now.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Private companies like SpaceX will save us
|
| Well, all the previous private companies that built
| spacecraft for decades didn't manage to save us. (Space
| Shuttle = Rockwell, Apollo capsule = North American, Saturn V
| = Boeing, Mercury Capsule = McDonnell Douglas.) The fact that
| a device was designed/built/operated by a company with
| shareholders doesn't make it magically more efficient. What
| matters is how the entire operation is managed, something
| more tied to the identity of the customer than that of the
| contractor.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > Well, all the previous private companies that built
| spacecraft for decades didn't manage to save us.
|
| That is more of a cost-plus contract vs fixed-price
| contract thing.
| leesec wrote:
| operational management is influenced by the pressure it
| takes to survive. Nasa doesnt need to make money to
| survive. SpaceX does. but agreed theres more too it than
| that
| itishappy wrote:
| SpaceX?!?! The company promising to take us to the moon this
| year in a rocket that has yet to experience space let alone
| refuel in orbit? The company that has claimed this same
| rocket would be doing human test flights in 2020 and carrying
| cargo to Mars in 2022?
|
| There's a lot to be impressed by from SpaceX, but accurate
| forecasting is about the last thing on my list...
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| You should look at the budget. It has changed since the 1970s.
|
| https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-
| fed....
|
| And it will continue changing as The Little slice for paying
| interest on debt becomes the largest piece
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Fact: In 1973 interest payments 6% of the federal budget and
| today they are 10%. At that rate of % growth interest would
| become the largest expenditure category in 175 years.
|
| I am not disagreeing with you. I just think its good to keep
| these things in perspective with facts, not worries.
|
| Source: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications
| /usbudg...
| alanbernstein wrote:
| I would have thought geothermal (martiothermal?) power would be
| the biggest long-term potential result of this. No mention of
| that in the article, though.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If it's been dead long enough to have eroded like that, the
| potential for geothermal power may be quite low.
| causi wrote:
| The pedantic term would be "areothermal". I hate the practice
| of replacing "geo" in every word when used with other planets,
| though.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Areo for Ares, god of war, for those wondering. Mars is the
| romanized version of Ares, IIRC
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Why is that? They're similar conceptually but very different
| environments, so the distinction seems reasonable. If there
| were companies building geothermal equipment for Mars, it
| would likely have quite different requirements versus earth,
| right?
| Karellen wrote:
| Well, we could use the prefix "astro-" for generic celestial
| objects, including planets. So you could go with
| "astrothermal".
|
| And then the study of those objects, cf. geology, would
| be.... no, wait.
|
| (Is there a generic prefix for just planetary bodies that we
| should be using? If so, what is it? If not, why not?)
| itishappy wrote:
| Lithothermal?
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| I like that. A nice generalisation.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-03-13 23:01 UTC)