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  Lord Sludge, 19 Mar 2004 @ 10:23am

  
  

  neural net

  Nah, just dump the contents of their brains into a neural net and send that to Mars. Or create new, more interesting worlds in a matrix-esque VR sim. Or battle it out in a Post-Apocalyptic Future (tm) with 80' mechs for control of West Virginia. Take yer pick.

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    Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2004 @ 11:37am

    
    

    Re: neural net

    This is either a very straight-faced joke, or this guy's been watching WAY too much Futurama.
    
    I think the whole idea of a mission to Mars is to overcome all those obstacles, and thereby advance society in the process. Pretty dubious, but lightyears over dumping a brain in a tank. For this guy knows, surgery clearly isn't one of them. And how few Mars probes have failed due to technological error? Now who's signing up to have their brain jammed into a spaceship, when my computer still crashes if I open the wrong two programs together?
    

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  Jose, 19 Mar 2004 @ 1:34pm

  
  

  No Subject Given

  Sounds like a Sci Fi book of the 70's Man Plus by Frederick Pohl.

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  Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2004 @ 3:51am

  
  

  No Subject Given

  It's funny. If you really think about it, the human race, and its descendants (both organic & inorganic) will at some point cease to exist. Whether it will happen on our planet, or another billions of years from now, it really doesn’t matter in the end (not to sound like a Linkin Park song). At some point the universe will collapse or become so lacking in any energy except for low level heat that it will prove impossible for any life, or any chemical processes in general to continue. Does it really matter if we go to the stars or not, beyond the human curiosity and sense of adventure? I think what many people fail to realize is that with how difficult it is to exist in space, it may be prohibitively expensive and tiring to even get to the nearest system to our own, let alone anything resembling star trek or Babylon 5. I still have serious doubts that space travel will ever become a profitable venture for humanity. It would take a serious advancement in energy production, something bordering cold fusion to make space travel worth it for the average citizen. But of course if we have THAT much energy available, humanity would have very little to worry about in general, so space travel would not look to be a potentially human-saving endeavor like it is now. People always rant and rave (a bit like this) about the vast resources which can be mined from planets and other bodies close to our own (like Mars or our moon). What they fail to mention is the tremendous amount of resources these mining operations would use up in the process. Sure we may have found that next great iron mine, but we would have used up 10 times its value in fuel. All I'm asking for a little financial discipline before we start sending brains up into space.

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  martin g, 20 Mar 2004 @ 7:12am

  
  

  no brainer

  Anyone want to club together and send Marshall's ? ( a.s.a.p.)

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