Very quiet on the Western front.

I'm not entirely sold on why it matters. Maybe I'm too pragmatic. I just don't see the purpose of spending 10s of millions of dollars to fly a remote control helicopter around on another planet that we don't have any chance of getting to any time soon. I also worry about humanities insatiable desire to go to other planets. We clearly can't take care of this one. Why must we spread out and destroy other places as well.

"But science!" "But learning!"... those don't justify endless destruction.

jmgibson1981 Exploration and pushing technical boundaries and limitations has huge rewards, though for some just the gains in knowledge about the world we live in is enough. Many benefits are so nebulous they are difficult to track. For example the push to put Men on the Moon "by the end of the decade" required a level of collaboration and cooperation between huge corporations that had never existed before and by discovering that was mutually beneficial and efficient the way business at high levels is done changed forever. So much so that there are some possibly negative effects of that change but there has been a huge amount of good all the way from products that would not likely have ever been made to lower prices for all consumers.

Aside from the nebulous, difficult to follow and analyze stuff, none of us would be here sharing thoughts, information and opinions had it not been for the advances in electronic miniaturization, communication, computing, medicine and literally hundreds of things we now take for granted, and that's not even bothering to note the many materials (cloth, metal, plastic, hybrid) that most of us barely notice but are important to the longevity and saftey in our homes and in our vehicles.

Rather than go on for many paragraphs on all the benefits we enjoy from offshoots of Pure Science I'll just quote some famous person who aswered the question "Of what practical use is <insert any seeminmgly impractical scientific endeavor here>? with, "Of what practrical use is a baby?"

If you are actually interested here is a link to a kind of Top 10, but know that there are many hundreds

https://www.top10zen.com/10-nasa-spi...space-race-747

that is the reason we need to get on to other planets, i mean that we are destroying this planet, of course we need a new home(s) in the future.

Even sooner and likely more important, don't you think it would be valuable to actually understand why Mars once had seas and atmosphere and now has 1/100th the air pressure of Earth and is a barren desert? Don't you think that would expand, improve, consolidate and firm up any proposals for preventing that here?

Much larger than that could occur if we actually discover that Mars once harbored Life and exactly what form that took. Whether or not it was carbon-based and used DNA for replication and reproduction is unimaginably important and useful.

i agree with that 100%.

From my childhood I've heard this, and I've seen people endlessly teach their kids the same thing.

"Until you can learn to properly take care of your things..."

That logic makes perfect sense as a parent. Yet we seem to ignore it for ourselves. Trash it and keep going. All in the name of progress? Is it really progress? The earth was doing quite well for itself till we started our major progress 200 years ago or so. Since we started mass development and progress it's gone to hell and getting worse every day.

I'm not saying that I don't like most of man's accomplishments. But most of us, myself included don't seem to really think or care about the cost these changes come at.

Taking a deep look into the future, Earth is doomed to destruction by it's very nature...

So if "we" want any race(s) to live beyond that, we *must* learn to fly fast and far.


That would also end the insane state we currently are in, as then 48% could go that way and 52% the other way!

Saying "humans are destroying the planet" reminds me of the joke about the mosquito floating down river with an erection shouting "Raise the drawbridge". Planet Earth will be just fine for a few billion more years, it's Us and other (current) lifeforms that are in danger from our "progress". Are we shortsigted? Oh Hell yeah!... but we do seem to learn, just slowly. Having a sister planet to compare to is invaluable in that awareness. BTW if it weren't for NASA, ESA and other more pure science endeavors we would have a lot less evidence for global events like climate change. The first step is always recognizing a problem exists.

yea, you are correct in that.
i just hope for that Technology will guide us in the right direction. like saving nature and pollute less.

we need DNA vaults like that in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalba...bal_Seed_Vault but for animals. i am not sure if there is one like that already.

Wow! The Linux OpSys on Ingenuity is a huge success. Check this out for some details on error correction given a disrupting anomaly

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/hel...-sixth-flight/

Robust error correction in the operating system helped save the day, as did a very prescient design decision: "Another design decision also played a role in helping Ingenuity land safely. As I’ve written about before, we stop using navigation camera images during the final phase of the descent to landing to ensure smooth and continuous estimates of the helicopter motion during this critical phase. That design decision also paid off during Flight Six: Ingenuity ignored the camera images in the final moments of flight, stopped oscillating, leveled its attitude, and touched down at the speed as designed."

That is excellent and fascinating to read.

Sub note about that web page:
I don't like web pages like that which load videos whether you like it or not.
Even with javascript and images turned off in the browser that page loaded and played a video.
https://mars.nasa.gov/layout/helicop...r_take_off.m4v

You could get around that of course by using a browser or script with all plugins disabled.

"Imagery has come down from Mars capturing a recent flight in which the rotorcraft flew farther and faster than ever before.

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s black-and-white navigation camera has provided dramatic video of its record-breaking 25th flight, which took place on April 8. Covering a distance of 2,310 feet (704 meters) at a speed of 12 mph (5.5 meters per second), it was the Red Planet rotorcraft’s longest and fastest flight to date. (Ingenuity is currently preparing for its 29th flight.)

“For our record-breaking flight, Ingenuity’s downward-looking navigation camera provided us with a breathtaking sense of what it would feel like gliding 33 feet above the surface of Mars at 12 miles per hour,” said Ingenuity team lead Teddy Tzanetos of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California." https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nas...-record-flight

Here is the video list:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=P...e=emb_imp_woyt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thk4Rha-fTk