Slashdot Mirror

"I don't see it as exactly moving the "pirate" stuff."

I think that Long John Silvers's won't like it a bit.
http://www.ljsilvers.com/

More free shrimp?

http://www.ljsilvers.com/press/freeshrimp.htm

The moon suffers from three main issues. First, it has no atmosphere. Second, it has a 28 day light-dark cycle, and third, it is very resource poor, from a survival standpoint.

Not having an atmosphere is a big problem. Experiments have shown that C02 can be cheaply made into hydrogen and oxygen, with little more than hydrogen feed stock. From hydrogen and oxygen you can get air, fuel, and water; three of the four things you'll need on a colony. Mars has a lot of C02. Plants also use C02 to function. This means that a Mars base can use pressurized greenhouses to grow food. On the moon you would have to create a biosphere, which we've never succeeded at on Earth, let alone on the Moon. Also, the atmosphere on Mars provides protection from a lot of radiation. This means that a Lunar base would have to be underground in order to work, making construction that much more difficult.

The 28-day 'day' on the moon presents another problem. Plants have been growing on earth with a 24-hour light-dark cycle for billions of years. To get them to grow like heck during the 14 days of light and then to lay dormant for 14 days of darkness on a lunar greenhouse would be very difficult, not to mention the glass would also have to provide protection from radiation as well as thermal extremes of ~400 degrees. Growing them underground would require having enough light bulbs to last for a few years and a nuclear reactor or solar panels and enough batteries to run for 14 days straight, unless it was a polar station (which limits the amount of space we have to build on considerably). Martian greenhouses could use construction much like terrestrial greenhouses, and with the Arean (Ares, Mars. Get it?) day only about 30 minutes longer than that of Earth's, the plants would adjust quickly. Not to mention that the Martian colonists wouldn't be out of direct communication for half the time they are there.

Finally, there is no atmosphere and very little water on the surface of the moon. Most of the water has been evaporated away. Unless we find a lot of water, there's no economical way we could colonize the moon: I'm not going to pay to ship water to a colony on the moon. Mars has recently been shown to have lots and lots of water, as evidenced by the Free Shrimp Give-Away from Long John Silvers. This is easily processed on the surface into all the things needed for life.

Also, space is such that the total cost of going to the Moon is only slightly smaller than going to Mars, because most of the cost is from getting off of Earth and out of our gravity. And since we have to ship everything to the moon (air, food, water) the cost rises quickly compared to the needs of a self-sufficient Martian colony. Not to mention that Mars is closer to the asteroid belt, which is where all the really great stuff is, like raw materials.

So, as you can see, a Martian colony, though farther away, is a better option than a lunar colony, unless you want a nice, quiet place to set up a major astronomical station. (The far side of the moon is always radio-silent and has lots of ready-made craters for radio telescopes and no atmosphere to interfere with visual/IR/UV observation.)

U.S. Justice Department Prepares Assault on Pr0n

About damned time, too. The Long John Silvers giveaway was bad enough.

Speaking of Long John Silver's... HEY FREE SHRIMP!

Is there enough for one free shrimp from Long John Silver? Time is running out.

Damn those lazy NASA engineers. The February 29th cut off date has come and gone and they have yet make an official declaration of an ocean on Mars. What the hell have they been doing over there? Moving the rover 10 ft at a time, spending days just to get the damn thing off the landing platform, pathetic. There must be some shady deal going on between them and Long John Silver's to move really slowly to not have to tell the world that they found an ocean so they can share all of the free giant shrimp between themselves. This article just confirms it. Obviously they have enough evidence to proclaim that Mars is a big ocean, yet they don't because it would cut into their giant shrimp profits. Scandal I say!

Damn those lazy NASA engineers. The February 29th cut off date has come and gone and they have yet make an official declaration of an ocean on Mars. What the hell have they been doing over there? Moving the rover 10 ft at a time, spending days just to get the damn thing off the landing platform, pathetic. There must be some shady deal going on between them and Long John Silver's to move really slowly to not have to tell the world that they found an ocean so they can share all of the free giant shrimp between themselves. This article just confirms it. Obviously they have enough evidence to proclaim that Mars is a big ocean, yet they don't because it would cut into their giant shrimp profits. Scandal I say!

Yeah!!!! Free shrimp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(damn lameness filter)

So, does this mean, here in the US we all get free jumbo shrimp now? I mean, paragraph five specifically says, "ocean water", not an ocean.

Where's our Free Giant Shrimp?

Sweet, so when do I get my free shrimp?!?