Exactly what we are looking for? Stargate? Alien civilization? Should not we concentrate on Mars with that $3.4B? I am confused.
er, NASA does not subscribe to any stargate/alien civ theories. NASA scientists tend to deal with hard, scientific fact.
My comment was in jest (the stargate stuff). But NASA could start work on a jumpgate technology. I still think, we should focus on Mars first.
Cassini is already up there. It would be quite expensive to have it throw a U-turn and come all the way back to Mars. Besides, we should be gathering all the information we can on what we can, moons, planets, comets, Martian microbes, etc. We have a better chance of finding something such as extraterrestrial life by fanning out. When I think of the universe, I think of a quote I saw on this very board:
I'm torn between the two arguments. Just look around and anyone can see that the planet is getting pretty crowded. So we definately need to conitue our homework on Mars. But, if there are others out there and they have plans for us (good or bad), then we need to keep ourselves extended and seen. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ From the highest I.Q. on the planet, to a bum on the street...........everybody has a story to tell.
I'm inclined to let the scientists choose their priorities -- after all who better than the experts to decide how big the payoff would be for a given investment? To my knowledge, there has not been a single mission to Saturn in the entire history of human space exploration. Yet look at how interesting Jupiter turned out to be (e.g. Europa...) Saturn is also a gas giant with more satellites than Jupiter (some of which are very intriguing, e.g. Titan), and with prominent rings to boot. I think there is so much we can learn from Saturn and its satellites, that the 3.2 billion are well justified. Cassini is a blast from the past, in the sense that it's the last remnant of NASA's old space program, which emphasized extremely powerful and versatile missions at a slow rate of launch. These days, NASA is faster and cheaper, if not necessarily better, so you won't see more Cassini-like missions any time soon. ------------------ I am; therefore I think.
