Symphony of Science: The Case for Mars

Every one of these Symphony of Science songs makes my heart sing. I have to admit sometimes autotune makes my ear twitch, but this series has been incredibly good in that respect. Either they’ve got their autotune shit together so it doesn’t make me flinch, or the content is simply awesome enough to divert my attention from the autotuning.

I agree that we should be reaching for Mars in ten years rather than fifty, but unfortunately, one country has a virtual monopoly on space exploration at the moment, and they’re more interested in maintaining an occupation in two countries and engaging in a third war simultaneously at the moment. Real shame, that. Not to mention the domestic social change that could be effected, think of all the science that could be done with those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on pushing the brown people into the dirt!

Update: Apparently this is from June 3, 2010, not 2011. Not fresh. Not new. It was new to me, but evidently not to hipper, more with-it bloggers like The Black Widower who has significantly more to say than I do.

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Symphony of Science: The Case for Mars
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5 thoughts on “Symphony of Science: The Case for Mars

  1. 1

    Are you serious? The USA used to be a “can do” country, but they’ve changed drastically to the point where about half of them espouse nothing more than a “we can’t do that, we’re too busy cutting taxes!”, and the other half is so afraid to have bad things said about them that they acquiesce to all the crazy half’s demands.
    For the Idiots In Charge, science is the enemy now, because it tells us uncomfortable truths about the world around us, so they’d much rather accuse scientists of being evil communists with a desire to destroy democracy!

  2. 3

    If Space Travel was open to private enterprise (like Space X), we would’ve been to Mars 10 years ago. Opportunity cost is drastic for employing our smartest individuals to work for Government/National Defense initiatives.

    Viva La Free Market!

  3. 4

    Wait, space travel isn’t open to private enterprise? You mean companies can’t just make their own ships and use them to launch satellites and the like into space?

    I’m thinking the greatest hindrance to private industry and the space race is that the ROI on most interstellar exploration isn’t so great, and the cost to get started is astronomical. There’s only a small number of people in the world who would be capable of forking over a few billion to purchase tickets to fly to Mars, and considering the danger and uncomfortable travel conditions, I doubt you could find more than a couple of eccentric billionaires willing to do so.

  4. 5

    I’m with Sinned. I don’t know of any legal justification for disallowing private enterprise in space, it’s just that private enterprise doesn’t see a profit motive in it. It was only when there was the X-Prize foundation, a non-profit org, offering a big fat paycheck that any companies decided to do any R&D.

    The reason we’re not to Mars ten years ago is because we still don’t know how to do it safely. It’s certainly NOT because space isn’t open to private enterprise.

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