NASA found water ice on Mars.
And on the moon. (Can't remember if it was Clementine or the Lunar Prospector, that deteced it, but it was before SMART1, IIRC. Of course, it's not entire caps-worth, but could be worth a landing nearby as/when[1] we go there.)
[1] A couple of decades ago I was discussing this with a group of like-minded individuals, playing "higher/lower" with estimates of when various space landmarks would occur. After a couple of rounds I decided to plump for making a "neither" argument, when the return to moon target had been adjusted to 2019. My reasoning: if they hadn't
already gone back (and there was scepticism about that, at the time of the exercise) and it wasn't totally impossible (e.g. end of world, or at least the collapse of the US economy and Russia not being bothered any more [sic, and I don't think we appreciated China's future involvement in manned space flight]), then the 50th anniversary would be a deliberate target to aim for.
Right now, I think it's too much up in the air (or vacuum, as the case may be) whether or not the next ten years will see the required fulfillment of advances/political willpower. We can't even take Obama's attitude as an indicator, given it'll be at least one President after him who will be 'in charge' at that point, who might say "stuffit, let's not".[/1]
Author
Topic: Falling 42 stories to your death (Read 5494 times)