News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on NASA: We're sending humans to Mars. Parent comment

Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by mbreese on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @02:30PM (#8689256)
Humans, as a species, have a very low bus-factor in planetary terms...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by dllthomas on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @02:37PM (#8689309)
I think we're fine if a bus hits the planet.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by bronson on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @03:26PM (#8689620)
Not if it's doing 0.999c.

obwhatif https://what-if.xkcd.com/20/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by dllthomas on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @03:55PM (#8689834)
That sphere of diamond weighs about 3000x as much as a typical bus. So presumably we'd wind up with 1/60th of Chicxulub, rather than 50x. It'd suck (a lot) - and yeah, "we're fine" wouldn't hold - but I think we'd survive.

Edited to add: I don't know if I mis-read it or if you edited it, but the above was a response to 0.99c.

[ Parent | on HN ]