Poll at Slashdot: cheapest way to mars (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Sjordal]

Taken from SlashDot.org
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1047&aid=-1

• Fake it back on Earth 14747 / 24%
• No return journey 9418 / 15%
• Slingshot + hold breath 3562 / 6%
• Wait for development of teleportation 1802 / 3%
• Outsource it to India 18816 / 31%
• Big tax cuts for Martian businesses 4369 / 7%
• Wait for Big Crunch, step over 3072 / 5%
• Send the B ark 3306 / 5%

 

[Francois Caron]

I don't know what's worse: the overall silliness of the poll, or that I understood just about every reference including the B Ark!

 

[Grant B]

Too bad Jackie Gleason is dead, he could get Alice to the moon for free.

 

[Chet_F]

"including the B Ark!"

OK, I relent what is that?

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Those people who bought land on Mars are feeling pretty smug right about now: "Hey! Spirit! You're trespassing!"


The B Ark? It's a reference to THGTTG.

 

[Edwin-S]

Just in case you are wondering what this is; it is short hand for the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

This suggestion in today's NY Times, to send them to Mars without returning them, isn't a new idea as shown by the poll above.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/opinion/01krauss.html?ref=opinion

The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive. There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?

 

[Andrew Pierce]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Golgafrincham