Slashdot Mirror
On to Mars
Russ Paielli writes "The always brilliant Charles Krauthammer has written a great article in The Weekly Standard on why we should forget the space station and head for the moon and Mars. But space funding will have to be increased. The recently lost Mars Polar Lander cost $165 million, which seems like a lot--until you realize that the movie Waterworld cost more." Update: 01/30 11:38 by E : Link became broken, now it's fixed. Enjoy.
Why can't space exploration be handled these days like Open Source, which has definitely proven to be a success. Just let all the commercial companies pick up the bill. I'm certain there is already a commercial company that's working on mars colonization or at least having vacation trips to the moon and mars, or something like that. Quite frankly, I think space exploration needs to be removed from the hands of NASA and put into the hands of the world-wide community led by a few industrious geeks. And, of course, let's be sure to make the whole thing free.
Good point, but you're totally wrong.
Do you drive a car? Do you eat at McDonald's or some other fast food place? Did you throw something to the garbage bin today? And so on.
If you think about it, space research is small beans compared to the everyday pollution and costs caused by hundreds of millions of people, worldwide. It is essential to try to find other places beside good old Earth. One day, the survival of the entire species might depend on it.
Yesterday, dinosaurs didn't have space missions. Today, they chirp in a tree outside your house.
"There's no question that a manned mission to Mars would be cool (where do I sign up?). But I think the question should be: is this really the best way to spend our tax money? "
No. Why are people so crazy about sending manned missions into space? I'm all for a space program but undertaking a manned mission to Mars would be like the entire space program for the next 20 years. The space station is the logical next step. Within 50 years our space probes will evolve past humankind anyways.
"The only way Mars is going to be economical is if private industry takes the lead role in space development, rather than the govt."
Yeah right.
"(This is already beginning to happen, of course.) "
Where? I just can't see private industry investing trillions of dollars on such a long term pure research project. Let's look at it in a historical prespective. Did private industry build the pyramids, or the great wall of China? Let's face facts entities a bit higher up the food chain attain these loftier achievements for the human race than private industry.
It was just one click away, baby!
He also seems to think that the US can afford to do all space exploration without any international involvement. In that he's wrong again. The moon base and the Mars mission should be and will be international affairs. The cost of those is simply too much for any single nation unless there's a war going on.
The Moon program was a war time project, inspired as much by fear than any elevated "human spirit". The Russkies were trying to occupy space and that had to be stopped. JFK knew that and his speaches were morale boosting rhetoric for the troops, just like generals have been doing before battle since the dawn of civilization. The achievement itself was still magnificent, but the circumstances leading to it were extraordinary, i.e. the cold war. I for one would like manned space exploration to be a peaceful affair, and that requires international effort.
When I see posts like that I'm not inclined to consider them long, because chances are that if the writer spent as much care articulating his thoughts as he spent on writing, the article is shit. "Mars Polar Lander costed $165 million"? " Waterworld costed more."? At least you're consistent if wrong. English is not even my mother tongue, and this stuff scares me.
Moderate this UP!
But most of the technologies you describe are unproven. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to risk astronaut's lives and the future of space travel so that a perceived milestone can be reached. And, you forget. Mars has a much higher gravity than the Moon. Plus, you are talking about a planet (weather patterns, etc.). A landing and staying alive on a distant planet poses even more problems.
So ignorant.
The United States national debt is over 4 trillion dollars.
We've been trying to fix all those for years. And we haven't done it yet. But one thing we haven't tried much is putting people on another planet. How about we try it?
In addition, if we found very intelligent life capable of travel, then it would probably end all of the above.
It's just you I hope.
"does NASA spend their money elsewhere"
Yeah sure they throw wild parties with lots of great drugs and whores didn't you know? Seriously I don't think you have the slightest idea what NASA's fiscal budget is like. You might know what whores and drugs cost though.
"I think we need to see how much NASA is getting and perhaps have them redirect some funding."
NASA's funding is pretty low, redirecting a little isn't going to get an ant to Mars alive. OK me being the rocket scientist that I am I did a little websearch. It took me about 2 minutes to find this page:
http://www.nasa.gov/hqpao/fy98_summary.txt
In 1998 NASA's budget was 13.5 billion I'd guess that 20 times that much would get someone to Mars, maybe. Might not get them home or even land them alive but humanity should hit the surface of Mars with that kind of cash. Now you were saying about redirecting a portion? Here's an idea go get a clue. You and all the rest of the clueless rambling to land a human on Mars. We should all be giving NASA a lot of credit for doing so much with so little!
fucking lame nerd
webcams wouldn't do SHIT
"I cant speak for space part of the aerospace industry, but all those B2's and F15's" :) heh Sorry I had to.
Dead people don't eat very much.
"people on wellfair sit on there ass all day and dont give back.."
Oh don't sell the welfare roll so short dood! They keep hip-hop artists in cash. They in turn drive the economy by buying SUVs and fancy clothes. Also small arms and jewelerys. Man this guy graduated from a school? My bright outlook of the future just dimmed a little I think.
Didn't you read the NSA crashed computer thread? What about the other crashed stuff on Mars from the NSA? They need to use this CNN Story
Article see?
CNN Entertainment
Overpopulation problem?
Have you EVER been out of the city? The fact that the majority of the population CHOOSE to live in large cities, or very close to them, does not an overpopulation problem make.
The perspective from where I live is very different. It is 50 miles between cities, everyone has 1/2 acre lots. We use MAYBE 5% of the land in our state, and you are griping about OVERPOPULATION???
To borrow an Arby's ad, "Come out west, it's better here!"
I agree completely - monkeys should go into space instead.
"So all we need is for China to announce they intend to reach Mars first, in order to solve their population density problem." /me waves
They'd make people lay down in Tienenman (sp) square and have armored exersizes on top of them. Does China even have a manned space program? Talk about a country that could to afford to lose a few lives, and a society that could rationalize it. I say let them go!
CNN Entertainment illustration
"Bertrand Russell was an idiot poofter" - Winston Churchill
dood, it took like billions of dollars to get 2 people on the moon, it's impossible to send even a fraction of a population to the moon or anywhere else in space.
"We can expect privately funded space launch services such as Rotary Rocket or Cerulean Freight Forwarding Company within the next five years." /. Lots of entertainment value. Our mission plan, to drag our best standing members out into the New Jersey Meadowlands, stuff them into 55 gallon drums, seal said drums and ignite surplus explosives under drums. The FFS is a subsidary of the sadists of North Jersey, and the Unibomber fan clubs.
Can you say scam? ROTFLMAO Now here's a discipline where I think humans are advancing at a rapid rate! The scamming of one's fellow man. Space cults. Yeah I'll get ya to the Moon for $35 a year. You and lots of other people. Here I'll start another company right now the FFS (the Freefall Fuckers Society). Send me $40 USD and you too can blow a load in freefall. Oh posts like this one are why I come back to
The Weekly Standard is one of the best magazines in America! What're you smoking?
Out of this world
CNN Review
More on that story here.
Takedown
Alas, but without Kevin Costednr, "Takedown" is a movie about another Kevin. CNN Entertainment does
And I guess you don't remember how close the government was to ending NASA. Apollo 13 was one of the main reasons we stopped going to the moon, and I don't care if someone is willing to risk their life, when the government is paying for it, people still react badly when someone dies. I know russians have died in space, but if it was televised, that would be different.
Mmmm... Beer....
Four basic food groups:
Vodka, tequila, whisky, rum
Some of the complex food groups:
Margaritas, martinis, mint julep, screwdriver, black russian
Of what use is a newborn baby?
Of what use is the net?
Of what use is electricity?
What use is space exploration?
Maybe we shouldn't have bothered looking
through lenses at silly little organisms
and concentrated on helping the sick? Whoops!
We don't know the exact utility - which is
perhaps the greatest reason of all to go look.
I'll bet $100 that the Chinese will land on the Mars first. Any takers?
NASA *does* take in money, you know... from launching all those communications satellites and other services.
:)
If they were allowed to *keep* the money they take in, as opposed to handing it up the Federal chain of command, merely to lobby Congress later for some of it trickle to back down again... they could **fund their own projects***, instead of depending on public money.
The Cold War is over. We no longer have to "Beat the Russians". A self-sufficient NASA is something that should be on our agenda. The exploration and innovation can continue under private leadership. Let "public funds" do more immediately useful things (like stay in our own pockets - where it belongs).
Besides launching satellites and creating new technologies, imagine the potential for advertising revenue alone! What company **WOULDN'T** pay dearly to have thier logo pasted on the side of a rocket carrying astronauts to Mars! It's better than the Super Bowl!
Ummmm... NASA doesn't get 20-30 Billion a year It gets about half that much. The SuperBowl alone will make enough money to be able to fund multiple space probes, or feeding a million people, or whatever, but will instead go to making better beer commercials. :-) Pick on some of the more blatantly expensive and hedonistic practices of our culture before you pick on the space program, please.
No, there isn't. There's a food distribution problem. There's currently more than enough food to sustain the entire human population - most of it is rotting in warehouses in the USA and Europe.
The global sustainable population assuming decent food distribution is approx. 12 billion
That said, if the third world countries continue at their present stupidly high rate of expansion, we will have a population problem by the middle of next century - but the third world countries will probably population crash before then, if we keep starving them.
can you say AI
Not without snickering.
The rotary rocket technology, at least, is not a scam. Working prototypes have already been built. I believe one of the successful test flights of a small-scale model has already been televised on discovery channel. We actually covered some of the maths for the vehicle as an example in a mechanical engineering tutorial class. It works. (surprisingly, when you look at the thing...)
fascist. Why don't you suggest a "Final Solution" for all those annoying brown people?
I'm the original AC who wrote the original costed line. Well, as a lame excuse I might say that English is not my native tongue. And now that I think about it, aside from being wrong, "costed" also looks stupid. I am embarrassed.
Luckily I don't study English anymore. My English teacher would probably have spanked the shit out of me (verbally of course) for making such a mistake...
Why?
Because in poor countries, having many children is your way of ensuring your survival when you get old (and don't get any pension).
And if food is scarce, or there's wars going on, you better make sure you get more kids so that there's a decent likelyhood that not all of them die.
The best way of population control is to ensure a proper pension and welfare system, combined with family planning campaigns. Once people feel their pension is secure, they can start thinking about their current life, and getting kids is changed to a luxury instead of a neccesity.
Why bother leaving? Just send a lifetime supply of food and water with the astronauts. It's cheaper and lighter than sending the return fuel.
I doubt he gives much at all, but has a ponytail and birkenstocks. That's pretty close, isn't it?
Sure, you need more. But the current estimates from Artemis indicate that something like 90% of a typical spaceship could be easily mined on the moon.
Yeah, we wouldn't want anyone missing out on the added content 'costed' provided. It's pretty insidious in my opinion, and Slashdot should be ashamed.
There is enough food on this planet to feed everyone and their dog. Okay, so where is it?
It's out there on the fields of the western world. The only reason why surplus agricultural production isn't sent to the people who need it is because they haven't got the money to pay for it. Big companies in control of the food want money for it.
Space exploration has nothing to do with this "spend the money on food instead"-cliche. Cut the weapons budget, or channel money from advertisement budgets, or from the money people spend to buy useless crap and the latest fashion clothes, or whatever. The list is long.
Which is one of the reasons the Mars Society is actively working on technology research on Earth, and has spent so much resources in lobbying to keep funding for NASA projects vital for testing those kinds of technologies...
They have announced their intention to launch their first manned missions "soon". No details.
Did I miss that lecture? Was the guy at Carleton?
There is a difference between the amount of food people have and their quality of life. I don't think that simply throwing food at people is going to solve the problem. These issues are far more complex.
Yes, north america is going to have a death rate exceeding that of its birth rate within the very near future. This is due mostly to the baby boom generation, that big bubble in population pyramid charts.
I don't see why we can't do both, reduce (read: eliminate = impossible) poverty; and venture out into the stars. I don't think they are contradictory ideas, perhaps they can be used to benefit each other.
[STRETCH] Teflon came out of the space program, providing an excellent non-stick cooking surface; thus reducing the time it takes to cook food and clean the cookware; thus increasing the amount of food that can be produced in a given amount of time. [/STRETCH]
See! They are cooperative concepts!
You are a person who seems very politically motivated, so let me ask you: Are you protesting for more money in education on Feb. 2? Maybe you should be protesting that money be used to feed the impoverished. Anything less would be hypocritical. (spelling?)
That is not a cost issue. There's more than enough food on the earth to feed may more than the current population. More money wouldn't help - the reason people are starving is distribution. Millions of tons of food are rotting in silos in the US and Europe.
Typical post from a slashdotter kiddie. I particularly liked the "nowindows" email address.
No one can be this stupid, even a Democrat.
"If exponential population growth cannot be avoided, then we will fill up all available space no matter how many planets we colonize"
The fastest possible population growth is actually not exponential. Think of a mass of bodies expanding in all directions at the speed of light -- the expansion will be cubic.
Actually, when you look at the figures the shuttle is a more expensive proposition due to its reuseability. The problem is that the design was predicated on having a certain minimum number of flights/year that would enable the cost of developing the shuttle to be spread over many payloads. Unfortunately, this did not occur, and thus the cost per flight is much higher than originally planned.
Additionally, The technology development cost far more than was originally projected, and congressional budget cutting led to a less than fully reuseable spacecraft (eg the disposed external tank).
Several other factors have contributed to the shuttle being the most expensive large launch vehicle in the current US inventory, whether based on cost per launch ($540 million) or dollars per pound to orbit ($8,352/lb).
For comparison an expendable launch vehicle such as the Titan IV has the following figures: launch costs around $230 million, payload launch efficiency $5,128/lb.
While it is true that a fully reuseable launch vehicle has the potential to be much cheaper than an expendable, it is not guaranteed to be so, and is certainly not the case for the shuttle.
For an excellent summary of why current launch costs are so high, and how to bring them down, check out "LEO on the Cheap" by Col. John London (available from Air University Press).
A
Um, the gas isn't just toxic, its corrosive! That's why the russian probes to the planet stopped sending signals just a couple of minutes after touchdown. They were eaten.
You are incorrect. We have enough trouble building structures to withstand terrestrial conditions, nevermind those on Venus. Mars and even the moon (funny it doesn't have a real name) are much more suitable for colonization and research than Venus. That is why we send all of these missions there. If Venus were more suitable for missions, why wouldn't we focus there? Oh yeah, its less suitable.
I even think it is closer than Mars, and yes, it is more equivalent in size, but deadly! Deadly, deadly, deadly!
I'm trying very hard not to cut you down here. Your comment, whilst good for its unique perspective, was rather shortsighted and narrow in scope. Please consider why we have been doing what we have thus far next time, thank you.
Space navigation is by no means the easily tractable problem you appear to think it is. In the traditional /. fashion I now say "Shut up and show us the code". If you think you can do better than current efforts, then do it. Don't backseat drive.
A
But to me, this all says "Don't launch nuclear powered vessels, mistakes happen!" in big red letters.
Medical science spinnoffs are perhaps the biggest contribution NASA has made to the human race.
However winey but scientist still all sing the same toon. Robots can explore space better!
Maybe (despite ton's of money spent by the US and USSR on failed robot martian missions).
However, you don't learn a lot that is useful to the human race by monitoring the martian WX from a voyager style probe.
Send a person there to do the same job and the potential spinoffs to health sciences are enormous....
It's all about focus: Advancing the race or advancing your career, you decide.
The moon-shot generation was the greatest to ever live. They had balls and they were MEN
Our generation is bunch of PUSSYS who would rather solve problems with gizmo robots and computers and never have failures then do anything MESSY like take real risks with real people. American space exploration failure is a reflection of its own internal WIMPS. It will get worst as the greatest generation leaves us.
John Glen and the rest god save us.
Very nice. How much did you give today?
Two points:
even the moon (funny it doesn't have a real name)
From latin:
Moon - Luna
Earth - Tellus
I think Luna is a beautiful word. It's like listening to The Doors while drunk at a beach under summer night & "a cool jeweled moon" and multitudes of stars!
I would like to know if the shuttle can escape low earth orbit. I think there would be great public interest in a shuttle-round-the-moon mission.
I think that we could learn a lot from such a mission. There would be plenty of experiments which could benefit from such a mission. And the public would grow excited again about the space program in general.
Such a mission would demonstrate the viability of a shuttle based lunar program. (No, not using the shuttle, using a payload-bay vehicle.)
The best part is that it would use existing technologies, so that there would be little (maybe a couple hundred million) cost over a regular shuttle mission. You know, the ones that go up, do some experiments, return. Why not do those around the moon?
Don't flame me for the stupidity of such an idea, I know it's probably infeasable. Probably, the shuttle simply can't do it. But it doesn't make the idea any less cool or exciting.
How much could it cost to duct tape some extra liquid fuelled engines on the shuttle? Or put them in the payload bay?
All hail the beginning of the 'shuttle-round-the-moon' lobby!!!
Good, more independant human nations in the world is a good thing (tm).
Science is less important than earth-independant human colonies.
Until we're off this dirtball we're vulnerable to every stray astriod or two bit dictator with a neuclear weapon - which could just straight out make us extinct.
When we have independent colonies, the educated scientists who get sent there (and "worlds best driller/miners etc hehe) will improve their colony to make it a nice place to live. Then, over time all the sci-fi fans will volunteer to lives as indentured servants for the rich lunar land owners. Rich people will then come and presto another 13 colonies! A century or two later the colonies will revolt from the opressive laws and taxes of Terra. A big ole solar powered laser will ensure missle free living from the light side, and we lucky ones who get there get to see a beautiful (occaisonally mushroom clouded) Earth up in the sky, all day long. Remember, Seth the peasant boy crushed by a nobles cart in 1492 is not in the history books. We don't care about him, just that Italian guy who got lost sailing West. We cant all be lost Italian sailors, but we can serve on their crews! >[======o=]> To the Moon baby to the Moon! PS. The "international" space station accounts for about 85% of NASA's budget. NASA didn't pick that percentage, it was forced on them. NASA would rather send out many cheap and useful probes, or even rail guns than build a pie in the sky. Someone else will doubtless mention why they cant make the rail gun for low orbit launches (its political/weaponary fears).
Do you have books? Rubber boots? Anything plastic? Old batteries somewhere? ...
Maybe I'll just shut up now. Good night!
-The Mars Lander vanished into the ocean of space -The Water World set vanished into the ocean -We havn't heard anything from the ML since it crash landed -We havn't heard anything from Kevin Costner since Water World crashed at the box office -The whole Mars Lander thing has really sucked -Water World really sucked. -The purpose of the Mars Lander was to learn more about the Little Red Planet and our own. -The purpose of Water World was...uh...???
Sorry about the formatting on the last one...
-The Mars Lander vanished into the ocean of space
-The Water World set vanished into the ocean
-We havn't heard anything from the ML since it crash landed
-We havn't heard anything from Kevin Costner since Water World crashed at the box office
-The whole Mars Lander thing has really sucked
-Water World really sucked.
-The purpose of the Mars Lander was to learn more about the Little Red Planet and our own.
-The purpose of Water World was...uh...???
I don't know if you ever saw James Burke's excellent 'Connections' series, but in one episode he mentions that during the Apollo program, American women spent more money on cosmetics than NASA spent getting to the moon.
Now what about those enormous resources?
I think a big vessel that's both a space station and space craft is probably the way to go.
For manouvering you use a light sail.
However, that makes it so slow that it needs to be self sustaining.
Once it achieves that, there's no real need to go to the moon or mars, in fact you probably want to build it well away from all major gravity wells, and keep away. With little gravity, the main strength it needs is to keep in air (15 PSI is a big deal).
It probably has to be big, because to be self sufficient it has to be a fully functioning community with schools etc aboard. Or maybe there are thousands of them and each provides a different skills set to the community.
Keeping in the air is problem one, making the smelting of meteors work at low pressure is number two, and also difficult.
People in space is the way to go, and once we're up, I don't see why we'll ever need a planet again.
1. do we really care ? would it make a difference if the species died ? I mean..do i really care if the species survive ? no.
2. True. why should we fund the space program though ? just for someones pleasure at challenging themselves ? As if any of the general population will be given tickets to mars or the moon...why should we pay for it if we dont get anything from it ?
OK sunshine lets figure it out distance wise. The Moon on a good day is a quarter of a million miles away. I'm pretty sure Mars never gets closer than 63 million miles away. That makes Mars at least 25 times further from the Earth than the Moon is. OK Bright eyes you say it took us 8 years to reach the Moon well by your logic it should take us 200 years to get to Mars. I think we still have a few years left to meet your deadline. :) So settle down there little gipper. BTW once we get there it's gonna be nothing but red dust so what's the rush?
Who says only blacks like hip-hop?
Ooof!
My but your ethnic and political prejudices and stereotypes are showing, aren't they?
I suggest you read up on _modern_ physical anthropology before making such ignorant statements. The "only" difference is melanin, indeed! And all those paleoanthropologists must be off their rocker too, eh?
Unbelievable ignorance. Politically motivated ignorance.
humanity has not done ok for the last 50000 years. in fact, all the tech progress has only been made significant in the past 100-200 years, i think so. you mock at us young and impatient ? how would you like us to be, young and lazy ? if there is no one to imagine, to hope and dream, to be stuborn and rigid sometimes, flexibile othertimes about their ideeas, who will build the future ? and you might as well expect it, space exploration is the future. maybe not the very near future, or the near future, but there will be. what did you want to say when you said you saw the first man walk on the moon live ? that you are there, at the first of space exploration and that we are as begginers, loosers ? or ?
"a lack priorities that leaves millions of kids hungry. The wheat (barley) it takes to make the beer the world drinks for one month"
Hey I'm in that statistic! If they wanna eat they can go get a job sewing Nike sneakers together or soccer balls or something. Then we'll see what they do with their hard earned money. Go buy beer! Yeah!
"We would just rather drink and forget"
Ah lots of times when me and friends get together to drink we reminisce a lot. You know, the good ole days kinda crap.
"Granted WaterWorld cost more TO MAKE"
You should have stopped right there. You're already up to your eyeballs with the beer cracks. Maybe the Mars lander could have found a tablet that would have unlocked the secrets of the Universe? Unlikely, but no less likely than Waterworld breaking even. Till you try though you never know exactly what's going to happen. That's why we all wake up in the morning.
" polar lander cost signifigantly more!"
Hmm maybe the money would be better spent on basic education? This guy's math and english both blow.
165M 225M
Main Entry: significantly
Pronunciation: sig-'ni-fi-k&nt-lE
Function: adverb
Date: 1577
1 : in a significant manner : to a significant degree
2 : it is significant
And no when NASA's missions are successes they don't charge you admission. Lots are more entertained or enlightened than by any movie.
> The same thing happend with the USA - England taxed em, they revolted, they took loads of immegrants...
And look what happened there! The lawyers are out of control and everyone is looking to make a fast buck off someone else. You do something that may be perfectly honest and moral, but someone (or a corporation) doesn't like it, and you'll wind up paying big time so that the other guy gets rich quick. "Home of the free" - yeah, right!
"Visit their page"
Where?
There is a word 'costed', I hear it used by business people all the time (this on the east side of the pond).
What it seems to mean is 'calculated the costs of'.
Could be it's a businessism like 'in re my previous...' which is definitely bad according to at least some academics.
Re: private funding for a Mars Mission.
There is an organization. Its called the Mars Society. www.marssociety.org. And there is a group of enterprising MIT (?) grad students who are writing a business plan for funding a manned mission by 2015. I used to have the link, couldnt find it sorry. They are quite promising.
The problem with NASA is that it has lost its ambition and its vigour. Until only very recently NASA's vision for a manned Mars mission looked more like a fools errand than anything, a so-called Battlestar Galactica mission with an impossibly large vessel.
It is entirely possibly to send 4-5 humans to Mars, with current technology, and keep them there for a year. We have the technology, we have the money. The mission would cost a little more than the particle accelerator that was scrapped in Texas because Congress cut funding. A mission that would cost little more than a B2 bomber. In real dollars, Ferdinand and Isabella spent 10 times as much to send Columbus to what he thought was Asia...
Derek delong@ev1.net
Until I see you giving away the majority of your income to feeding the malnourished of the world you have alot of nerve talking about cutting funding to programs that pay my income. Cutting that kind of money would put hundreds of thousands out of a job world wide. Employees who buy houses, cars, eat out, pay taxes, etc. The aerospace industry is an integral part of the economy (not just he US, but the world). Without a strong economy you have no chance of doing away with poverty. As was mentioned in an earlier post, money spent by NASA is not abducted by space aliens, or burned to fuel the furnaces at johnson space center.
But what I have to say is this:
We can go to mars. We can go anywhere (within the solar system, don't be too literal). We should all stop with these lousy technical objections, because the only thing in our way is ourself. Thats right. Ourselves. Many of us lack the confidence and the daring necessary to make a new frontier, and even more lack the courage to support those who do.
We should go to mars. Why? Because our future depends on it! (and it'll happen anyway, eventually, I hope) Space is filled with dangers. So is Earth, if you haven't noticed...remember the cold war? It wont solve the overpopulation, but the colonization of a new area (provided it is suffcently far from its parent, relatively speaking) accelarates technology, accelerates morals. America did to the rest of the world, so will mars, if we give it time.
So the point is: Cut the crap. We can do it, we just need people to control their fear.
Sorry, can you repeat this in some sort of sensible language and *not* inane gibbering please?
Thank you,
Ask the Sikhs if they prefered the rule of the British or of Indira Gandhi.
Ask the untouchables if they liked the castes.
Ask the women if they liked suttee.
Ask if they think India was less screwed up when it was divided into twenty warring kingdoms.
Ask if they think India was less screwed up without roads or rails.
Ask if they think India was less screwed up when regularly ravaged by smallpox.
Ask if the British were any worse than the Mughals.
Good afternoon,
It brings me great joy to tell you that after extensive research of World Hunger and deliberation with my colleagues, I have discovered the solution to world hunger. I am pleased to tell you that the solution is both within our reach and highly cost-effective and will lead to less Stop World Hunger (tm) Internet spam, and less Hungry People! In the interest of supporting Recycling, I propose that we halt the destruction of the USAs weapons of biological warfare. These biological weapons can be used to end World Hunger. These weapons would be put to good use in the systematic destruction of the offensive parasites, a.k.a. Hungry People. There need not be much pain or suffering as some of these poisonous gasses and biological weapons are quite fast acting and effective! After all of the parasites have been destroyed, their bodies can be disinfected and ground into a fine mulch which can be used to make fertilizer, soap or even food for domesticated animals. In this way they would be allowed to repay our act of kindness by doing society a service. Yes friends, the end of world hunger is just over the horizon! Not only will there be less hungry people, but there will also be less overpopulation! Write your congressman today.
The difference:
Cost of Waterworld: $180M
Returns on Waterworld: $150M
Net Loss: $30M
Cost of Polar Lander: $165M
Returns on Polar Lander: $0
Net Loss: $165M
Many people who support space exploration point to "vast" resources on other planets. Some say that we'll be shit out of luck when we run out of "resources" here on earth, therefore we need to find more resources on other planets.
What would be so horrible with trying to adapt to conditions here on earth first? Humans survived a looong time without any oil. Have we become so dependant on these "much needed resources" that we've forgotten how to live without them?
There have been animal species who have survived much longer than humans by adapting to the environment around them. The modern human adapts the environment to suit them, it would seem.
cosmic rays are not plants/humans friends, last time I checked
Possible engineering solutions are available. For example, building in the deep laner craters and using mirror arrays to reflect sunlight to where it is needed. Artificial lighting is not required for these designs.
And don't say you can mine the propellant on the moon,
Propellant requirements are much less than you assume that they are. As you have observed, the moon doesn't have an atmosphere. To boost payload into orbit, you can use a linear track that accelerates the payload to orbital velocity. No atmosphere can be an advantage in some cases.
HE3 is the only type of propellant we could get from the moon, and the only thing that is good for is fusion, not quite there yet.
If there is ice in the deep polar lunar craters, then you also have deuterium.
For the record, I'm opposed to using lunar volatiles for the manufacture of chemical fuel. The energy content of the volatiles in terms of it's deuterium content is several orders of magnitude greater than that which is available from chemical reaction rockets.
Fusion still has a way to go, but my response on this point is simply that we should be trying to push fusion research forward. In one fell swoop, we would solve several problems here on Earth *and* have the energy needed for serious human crewed space missions.
on the moon you have to bring all of the oxygen you want to breathe with you,
There is plenty of oxygen on the moon. It's just combined with other elements. Heat lunar soil in a solar furnace to 600 C and you have all the oxygen that you need.
The main problem is the availability of hydrogen - this is why there is so much interest in the lunar polar craters. If there is a sufficient quantity of water frozen there, then everything that we need is there ( and much closer to us than Mars ).
Some other considerations.
1). Getting out of the moons gravity well requires a lot less energy than mars, so even though it's a dirt-ball, it would be a better "ship-yard" for space craft construction.
2). Communication lag-times. The moon is only 1/3 of a second away at light speed. Mars is several light minutes away. This makes the moon preferable to Mars in situations where someone requires expert advice ( such as in a medical emergency ).
3). Mars has several problems of it's own. A detailed study of the data from the viking landers and later probes will show that there is a very real possibility that it's surface contains signifigant quantities of acidic peroxides. These are hazardous ( they react with water, including the water in human lungs ). What you gain in radiation shielding from the atmosphere, you loose from having to deal with other hazards.
are just completely ignorant of everything space related (not neccesarily you).
A piece of advice - don't let people wind you up. Just because someone is replying to one of your postings doesn't mean you have to take them seriously ( and that includes me ).
This service announcement was brought to you by "Evil Genius's for a better tomorrow", a non-prophet organisation dedicated to serving the global community.
For a start, mining heavy elements from asteroids alleviates the problem of where it comes from, but it does nothing about the problem of disposal ( including heavy metal contamination of soil/water ).
Likwise in terms of energy usage. In accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, all energy eventually degrades into waste heat. If we were to assume that orbital solar power-stations were to beam down several hundred mega-watts of power per human being to the surface of the Earth, then this would translate into a massive problem with thermal polution and quite possibly initiate the breakdown of the hydro-sphere.
Skymining - the only practical way to maintain an industrial society!
No. The only way to maintain a mass production, mass consumption, mass throw away consumerist society. This is not the only type of industrial society that can exist. There is a difference.
The utilisation of space resources offers us many oportunities. What must be understood is that those oportunities will be wasted if we lack wisdom.
This service announcement was brought to you by "Evil Genius's for a better tomorrow", a non-prophet organization dedicated to serving the global community.
Come on man....you don't know what you're saying. Who cares about pictures for your desktop. It would mark a significant milestone when we humans put man on Mars. Maybe such a feat will help the space program accelerate and finally get the attention it needs. Maybe such a feat will unite humanity (well...mabe at least a bit). Maybe I'm impatient. But our future is definitely not bound to Earth only. This is not to say that we currently have problems on our own planet that need to be solved, I agree on this. I'm 26 and I'm really hoping to see man on Mars before my time is up and I think a lot of people think the same.
As a point in case, one of the photos from the voyager flyby of Uranus that you will see around from time to time shows a very large cloud formation which is composed largely of alcohol ice.
The logical conclusion of these observations in obvious. We should send all the beer drinkers to where they belong, namely, Uranus.
I am not sure what you are referring to, but it is certainly not modern physical anthropology. There are quite a few palaeoanthropological schools in existence and none of them suggests any genetical diversity impacting modern political views of any kind. Except, possibly, stupidity. And that seems to be a fairly random factor.
Just to say I loved that comment!! Readers of the Mars Trilogy, unite! Maybe we could make this discussion a bit more - err, realistic?
NASA deliberately spread lies to would-be investors in Rotary Rocket in order to shut them down. NASA didn't want to look bad, and get a Congressional investigation or cut funds - why they might have to lay off some career bureaucrats!
RGB
The real question here is manned vs. unmanned.
Success has been EXTREMELY POOR for Mars missions in the last two decades (farther back, if you want to count the numerous Soviet failures) A lot of this is directly attributable to the nature of unmanned missions.
What we need to do is QUICKLY establish a lunar base. We have the means to make this a trivial affair, in terms of raw budget and technology. As someone stated above, the He3 alone is worth the effort. New technologies like Foaming Aluminum would allow us to create low-mass interplanetary vehicles, and between the Shuttle and the Delta Clipper, mankind should have no problems dealing with "the gravity well" of Earth.
It is imperative that we take the concept of "living in space" to the next level, beyond token orbital platforms supported 100% from Earth-based supplies. Once Lunar settlement is established (much like the settlement of Antarctica) we can tackle the thorny problem of true interplanetary travel.
"In order to survive, we must go to space,"
/. about manned missions into space has given me a prespective on the average readership of this site. Young and impatient. The two always go hand in hand. I don't think space exploration is going to be moving at Internet speed anytime too soon there kids. You'll all grow up first. :) Sure we probably do have the tech to get the job done today. But you have to have your priorities straight, and people on Mars isn't very high on many's list right now. Personally I'd rather see the money spent on those interesting creation of the Universe projects. And Hubble pictures make lots better backgrounds for my window manager than Martian landscapes do. Posted by someone that saw the first man walk on the Moon live!
Humanity has done OK here for the past 50000 years I think the Earth has a few more good years in her.
"or else we'll end up like the dinosaurs."
We should be so lucky as to last for as long as the dinosaurs did. Plus humans are pretty adaptable. We're probably a tad smarter than the dinosaurs were. Although intelligence hasn't yet been proven to be a survival trait.
Reading all the posts on
I can't believe anyone here can have a name like yours and not be embarassed
By the way, you spelled embarassed wrong.
Don't correct people's mistakes if you yourself are not flawless. Furthermore, don't insult people for looking stupid if you look even more stupid.
I am in support of space travel, and I think the moon is a logical first step.
But for the record, the earth has PLENTY of food for everyone. It is not a lack of resources, but a lack priorities that leaves millions of kids hungry. The wheat (barley) it takes to make the beer the world drinks for one month, would literally feed the worlds hungry for the same month. We would just rather drink and forget them, than help them. And that is a fact.
Now, as for the space travel, I think it should be a priority as well, but not at the expense of life on earth. Granted WaterWorld cost more TO MAKE, but the bulk of that was returned in ticket sales. Unless they are going to sell tickets to mars, then the polar lander cost signifigantly more!
Yes, but. Now there is one space station orbiting the Earth and another one being built. Launching is much cheaper now etc.
I'm not saying we should take 15000 people and blast them into orbit right now, but instead start doing something about a moonbase. Organize things. Start planning. Start thinking, making ideas, internationally. Getting everyone together and splitting the costs.
Moon is so close, and it offers quite good possibilities to practise things to come in the field of space colonization. Mars is sexy, yes, but so is Moon and it's much closer.
Um...no!
Mars is significantly less massive than the Earth (roughly a tenth of the mass). Lunar surface gravity is approximately 1/6 that of Earth. Martian surface gravity is on the order of 1/3 that of Earth.
A
Seems like after 40 years a satellite could be built using off the shelf technology. Can we get blueprints and notes from NASA into the public domain? Why is it so damn difficult to build these things, it should be like pre-fab houses by now, modular parts. Any rich-guy in the world can order one up with the camera module, the internet module, and the life-detect module and send it off to mars as a publicity and ego stunt. Half the reason companies advertise on the SuperBowl is for the CEOs ego.
Charles Krauthammer always brilliant? Sorry, I have to say that I have found many of his articles racist and invariably ethnocentric. IMO.
Waterworld costed more
Amen to that. Maybe those people who scream "We should feed everyone here! But it's not my job!" can put the things into perspective. In order to survive, we must go to space, or else we'll end up like the dinosaurs. The huge chunk of rock is out there.
Thus the logical places to go would be: first a manned station on Earth orbit, then a self-supporting station on the Moon and then finally a base on Mars.
I find it disheartening that the general public seems more interested in seeing people in space than good science. Sure, maybe it makes funding more palatable, but does it really advance the human condition?
I think we could do (and have done) a lot of good science with interplanetary probes. They are relatively cost effective, plus there is no risk of losing lives.
Supporting humans is expensive. Reusable craft (not the shuttle) may reduce this cost, but I still think that unmanned flights are an economical way to study the universe and collect useful scientific data.
-K
This sounds nice, but this is a real dumb idea (sorry to say). Only someone who doesn't understand space technology would have suggested this. To start with, we currently do not have any vehicle capable of breaking Low Earth Orbit. It would be at least 10 years before we could return to the moon. The only other alternative for going to the moon is using a Saturn V rocket. And I doubt NASA would use 20+ year old technology to send a group of astronauts to the Moon. As for Mars, this is just dumb. We still know nothing about this planet. Hell, more than half of our probes have failed (I know about the faster, cheaper idea...). But without a few more major successes in the probe category and certainly a method of escape for astronauts venturing to Mars, it would be little more than suicide for anyone to think about going up there now. However, one of the more feasible plans would be designing Space Stations for the Moon and Mars. Originally, the Apollo missions were for man to go to Mars, not the Moon. However, due to the race to the Moon, something got lost, and Mars and all 3 space stations (Earth, Moon, and Mars) got canned. The Saturn V was designed to be a Space Station as well as a "Space Ship". When we made it to the moon and the Russians had already spent all of their cash getting there. It didn't hold the same place for the politicians as it did when we were "beating the communists". Budget cuts and a perceived failure with Apollo 13 caused NASA to kill all outer space (as opposed to inner space...low orbit) missions. BTW, it's not costed, it's cost.
Station:
Microgravity/Freefall. This is useful, makes interesting things such as growing crystals and studying the possible effects of a prolonged space voyage possible.
Moonbase:
Gravity. Its easier to work with some gravity.
Raw Materials. Hopefully there'll be sufficent amounts of raw material to make building craft on the moon viable. This could reduce launch costs greatly.
The trouble is, I dont think that the shuttle is capable of landing on the moon. In AC Clark's stories he mentioned shuttle-type rockets to get into orbit, then simple, non-atmosphereic shielded ships to go from an orbital station to the moon.
IMO we need both.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
On a planetary scale, there is an overpopulation problem. Sorry to burst your bubble.
You should be arguing against military spending in that case, not the puny sums it costs to get into space.
Gregory Benford has a new book out called "The Martian Race" in which man reaches Mars when the nations of the world pledge a $30 billion bounty to the first expedition to do it. While I'm not sure this is the way to go with a Mars mission, I think it could work for a number of space exploration type things.
Not very many, for not very long. And, when the money is gone, you still have hungry people. At least with the space probes, you have investments in knowledge (including the knowledge of how to engineer the probe) which you can re-use later.
How many schools can be build with this money?
33? (Assuming $5 million per school). And, while you would have more schools, there doesn't seem to be the politcal will to repair the ones we have, or pay the teachers more (which is arguably more important anyway). So, I think this qualifies as a strawman.
Would the Polar Lander have had any affect of the daily problems on earth hadn't it get lost?
It's impossible to know for certain, but more knowledge is never bad. Because of the Venus probes, we know more about atmospheric dynamics than we did, which gives us better weather prediction. And the program to put a man on the moon kickstarted developments in technology that we're still seeing today, including the Internet and the computer you're reading this message on.
All from money that, at the time, you'd say was 'wasted'.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Space exploration. No contest.
What does that say about your priorities and your humanitarianism?
It says that, unlike lesser animals, I as a human can concern myself with issues other than food and other survival issues. This is a luxury humans have that other species do not. It's what intelligence is all about.
I can't help it that some people aren't able/willing to survive in today's world. That's not my fault. I can manage to feed, clothe, and house myself; why can't they? And for the rest of the 90+% of us who aren't complete losers, there's more than enough left over after survival considerations to do something that proves, yes proves, our humanity. Something fun! Something broadening! Something exciting!
If you believe the human experience should be about ensuring the survival of all humans and nothing else, you are badly mistaken. Even other animals only work to ensure their own/their children's survival. Altruism is unheard-of, and for good reason - altruistic species are "selected against" as the euphemism goes. Some people are losers and will die, just as some flatworms are losers and will die. It's natural and normal, not an excuse to stop being human. Onward and upward, folks, and all are welcome to come along; but I will not carry others.
Yes, but these are not the people who concern themselves with decisions regarding space exploration, are they? You also need to be careful how you define poverty - as one might expect, the definition varies from place to place. US$3000 might not sound like much, but for someone in a middle-income nation with such an income, it is plenty for survival and possibly a good deal more. Yes, most people in the world are far too poor to live in New York City or London. But then, most Europeans and Americans would fall into that category as well. Your view demonstrates exactly the narrowness you accuse me of.
Actually it is precisely your fault because the high-consumption lifestyle you boast that you enjoy would be impossible were it not for the fact that Europe and America have been screwing the developing countries for centuries, specifically by artificially depressing the price of third world exports (mainly raw materials).
They are welcome to industrialize. Of course, industrialization works best under a stable government, something most of the world has never seen fit to provide for itself. And before you try to argue that this is impossible, think back 200-250 years to industrialization in Europe. Where did the foreign aid come from? What industrial nation's universities trained the Europeans? Hmmm...nobody!!! They did it on their own. Not because they are better human beings but because they decided to stop the bullshit and do something useful. Yes, the foundations came from the Greeks, Arabs, and Chinese (among others). But everyone started on equal footing - after all, somewhere, sometime there had to be a first set of humans, all others descended from them. So anyone anywhere can make the same decision. But they'd rather fight each other over a few square kilometers of worthless desert somewhere (no specific reference intended).
Then don't expect us to carry you when it becomes your turn to suffer.
s/when/if/
And don't worry - I don't. In fact, I would hate you just as much for trying to help me as I do for insisting that I help others. It's not my fscking problem what happens to other people. Everyone needs to look out for number one. And no matter what you may think, I believe this is not only possible but practical, and would mean an end to warfare and crime. Once you realize that what I can obtain for myself is mine and only mine, and I the same for you, suddenly theft and killing just don't seem to have any place in the picture. So don't accuse me of being a Nazi. No warmonger I. ( Cue appropriate Usenet law)
Of course the Europeans plundered. But I'd hate to think that you believe that practice was unique to them.
At the time of the agrarian and industrial revolutions, there were no practical subjects being taught in universities. In fact there was very little formal science involved in the development of the key technologies. It was trial-and-error engineering performed by enthusiasts, funded by rich aristocratic sponsors.
Thanks for agreeing with me. That was the point. IOW, something that could just as easily happen anywhere. Don't forget that while most people in the areas in question are very poor, there are a few with great wealth - the kings and warlords of the day. Unfortunately, they seem to be even more short-sighted than their European counterparts of yesteryear.
What did we do after we'd secured our head start, then? Did we share?
Of course not. Nobody does, nor should they.
We colonized those countries and governed them ourselves. Any blame for their lack of progress up to the middle of the 20th century therefore lies squarely with the colonial powers. The countries of the third world were denied even the opportunity to take control of their own destiny until they began demanding their freedom after the second world war.
Yes. This is probably the first intelligent analysis I've heard from you. And had I been a voting citizen of a colonial power in 1950 I would feel great shame for denying someone the right to self-determination. Though, despite the atrocities committed under colonial rule, there were a few benefits, specifically the development of infrastructure you referred to not having.
Of course, at the same time there's a great counterexample. Until the mid-19th century, Japan was an extremely primitive nation. Ancient, brutal government, no industry whatsoever, the works. A few decades later, it's a major world power. An industrial power. But Japan has almost no natural resources. Only a very small portion of Japan is arable. Timber is in very short supply. No petroleum supplies. In fact, Japan's only real resource is fish. Trade routes were generally local to the region, not worldwide as we saw with the Europeans beginning in the 13th-14th centuries. And yet Japan not only industrialized and modernized in a few decades, they fought a very competitive war with the world's greatest powers. So 40 or 50 years (say, since the end of colonialism in the 50s and 60s) is a long time for a people like the Japanese who have some commitment and motivation, but forever for those without.
while you are forced to pay 75% of what you can make to your white landlord?
Oh, so let's make this about racism now. I don't seem to recall that such was an issue here. But then, it does help you make me look bad by screaming "RACISM!!!!" What a sod you are. It's clear to me that you are obsessed with ancestral guilt over things you couldn't control and that you'd probably like to force me and everyone else to give up our lives on the altar of atonement. I suspect maybe your mother never told you that Life Is Not Fair and that if you get screwed, screw back, try again, and don't bitch. So Europeans were Imperialist bastards. The world's a tough place, moreso for some than others. Deal with it. So I wonder only why you are posting in the rich man's forum when you could be giving your computer to a starving Indonesian child (what he'll do with it I don't know), or feeding an African girl. Because it's easier to force others to do it?
But Mars does have an atmosphere, however thin. It has wind, dust storms, and maybe even water on or beneath its surface. Its surface environment seems very livable, with the right precautions. Venus, on the other hand, has intense surface pressure, active volcanoes, and a vile atmosphere (carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid). I'll take Mars.
--
Perhaps not as many people would be starving in the Thrid World if they didn't breed like rabbits.
Bangladesh - Smaller than Wisconson in the US. 127,000,000 people living on a flood plain. Fertility rate 2.85 children
India - 1/3 the size of the US. 1 billion people. Fertility rate 3.18 children
Thats just two examples of wild population expansion without any responsability.
It's not America or Europes fault that alot of the starving peoples in the Third World have dangerous ideas about family size due to religion.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_5_19_00 /krauthammer_cov_5_18_00.html
Privatize Mars Exploration Now!
Definitely. Dr. Zubrin is big on self-promotion and ego, from reading his books, but he also seems to have developed an honest-to-god viable and sensible approach to Mars, and his approach has been chosen by NASA for their planning.
If humans walk on Mars within the next 20 years, it will be in very considerable part because of Bob Zubrin's work.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Anyone interested in reading about Bob Zubrin's plans for Mars, and about all of the plans that people are building around them, so forth and so on, should visit www.marssociety.org, you'll find lots of links to good books on Mars, interviews, video, news, and more.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Mars is the prime candidate for space colonization because it's easy to build greenhouses there. For colonization to succeed, a self-sustaining food supply is key.
To grow food to support colonists on a space habitat or the Moon is going to take hydroponics. It requires complicated equipment, a great deal of water, and energy-expensive high-power lamps. Or, you build expensive vacuum proof greenhouses to take advantage of sunlight for energy, but that imposes difficulty due to the either continuous light (for a habitat) or fortnight-long day (for the Moon).
By contrast, a greenhouse on Mars is a pressurized plastic tent. The Martian day is very close in length to that of Earth, so the plants are already adapted to it. With some biological work, the Martian regolith can be turned into dirt for growing crops in the ground.
In addition to being able to easily support agriculture, Mars has all of the other materials needed for civilization - volatiles, metals, and so forth. For founding a second branch of human civilization, Mars is clearly the best choice.
We still have so much to learn in terms of science and experience on that 'useless chunk of rock', all of which will be directly applicable to a future Mars mission.
**>>BELCH
That's why we need a moonbase. We could engineer something akin to a surface-mounted rotating donut which would let folks spend at least their sleeping and recreation hours in an earth-like (or even slightly stronger) gravity.
**>>BELCH
The only way, I'd say, to mobilize public support needed for 'going outer space' the old-fashioned, exploring way, is when there's another war or semi-war were 'we' need to get 'there' before 'they' do (whoever and where-ever). That, not the spinning off romance, was the reason for the Apollo Project in the first place.
That's also why, contrary to what the article says, it isn't at all surprising that people lost interest, once having beaten the Sovjets to the moon. It has indeed cost huge amounts of money and not all people are fascinated by science fiction.
I went to my fav B&M bookshop a few months back to buy the next book after reading Red. I spent ages trying to figure out which book was next in the trilogy, I'm still not sure and haven't purchased either yet. Simply numbering them 1-2-3 probably would have helped sell thousands of additional books :) .. ok so maybe I'm a bit slow, but hey I'm just a dopey consumer.
It seems like most commenters so far think that without the "race" effect, with the communists on the other side, the US government will simply not agree to finance the project.
So all we need is for China to announce they intend to reach Mars first, in order to solve their population density problem.
- Tal Cohen
The point of this article seems to be that the (american) populas needs to start thinking space is cool again.. I agree.. Perhaps it's time to get more communication/media types(weasles) involved.. Given all the other crap people can be whipped into a frenzy over, you'd think space would be an easy sell..
Personally, if I was running NASAs media, I'd take steps to humanize the whole process alot more.. More heros, less robots.. Sell the danger, emphisis every little technical struggle.. It's a war, Us vs. Space..
NASA should look into hiring the agency that handled the gulf war for the military..
And you think overpopulation has no impact on said starving people? The sooner we colonize unused planets, the sooner this population can be diverted elsewhere.
If you haven't noticed, we're vastly overpopulated as it is. Lowering the growth rate via starvation and/or birth control does much more for our long-term viability than does feeding the hungry while they continue to screw like rabbits.
Colonization of otherwise unused planets makes more sense to me - keep up with peoples' breeding habits, and yet maintain a halfway decent standard of living. What's the point of not starving to death if it means eating bean curry in a 6'x 3'x 3' 'cube'?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I know this will sound harsh, but please take the time to read it.
If these starving people would quit having fucking kids, this problem would more or less go away within 100 years or so. If you can't afford to feed yourself, you have no business having children so that they can starve as well.
If we keep 'feeding the world', the world will continue overpopulating itself into extinction. How about the alternative? Instead of focusing on the numbers, focus on the quality of life. Throwing money at third world countries is just covering up the problem, it just trains people to accept handouts.
Instead, why don't we improve our technologies in such a way that they are shared with the world? Promote things like birth control (telling the catholic church to piss off, if you must), show better ways to make use of land, etc. People are responsible for their own station in life, and simply giving them everything doesn't do a damn thing to teach them that.
A good space program could, eventually, bring great technological advancements to the world. Even in the limited 15 or so years we were serious about space, many things came about. Look at the computer on your desk - do you realize that its ancestors played a large part in the space program (and were often developed for that very purpose)? How about 'space age' materials, which can be used in creating cheaper shelter for the homeless? How about improvements in military tech (perhaps keeping you out of shackles)?
And what about Tang?
In the end, we could colonize and terraform other planets, providing room for the world to expand - which it's going to do whether we like it or not given enough time. Do you want everyone to have a decent quality of life, or would you rather everyone be forced to live happily sleeping in cubes, reading labels from cans of bean curd (struggling with a flashlight, no doubt due to the amount of smog in the atmosphere blocking out the sun)?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I'll look around.
On the other hand, I think your premise is flawed some what. Obviously space exploration isn't the only thing we should be working on (birth control in particular makes sense to me), but it doesn't need to be the only thing.
Also, if we can get a significant portion of the population up, their children will be born in space - not on earth - to begin with.
I'm looking at this from the point of view that it may take 1000 years to truly accomplish, but I don't think 'never' is a very good answer. It could very well begin with a little tourism, resource hunting, etc (and really, overpopulation is an issue of resources, not so much filling up space).
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Maybe he meant "Kostnered".
::blinks, sighs:: Someone please moderate me down.
I assume by your comparison that you are from North America. You should considering that North America is the biggest COMSUMER (waster) of the worlds resources. Look at yourselfs before you blame others for your woes.
Might we dream of a world where everyone in the Asian continent has 1.5 cars, and they use their nuclear capacity to keep fuel prices down too 4c a gallon.
What country or race you are from, there is nothing productive in blaming other people. What we as a species must recognize is that we all live in this sandpile, and we all need to take responsibility for it.
The problem that is acknowledged in this article is a problem that is much more
fundamental than whether we should spin circles around the earth, or move on
to other planets. Especially over here, in The Netherlands, technology has slowly
become a "bad word". Everything seems to be possible to the majority of the
people, so why make all the fuss about it? I can take a small plastic device from
my pocket, punch in a number of buttons and talk to someone who is on the other
side of the world. I can disclose information by switching on my computer and
click a few times with a mouse. How hard can going to space be? Naturally, not
expensive enough to worry about.....
It is exactly this attittude that is rather dangerous in my opinion. Every new step
takes more effort, and if we are not willing to put the effort in that, we will lag behind
in our progress. The main reason behind this lack of interest, and as a result of that, lack
of investments, is the fact that people are loosing interest in technological developments.
Still, there are a ways to get people interested in technology. I am not old enough to know
the feeling that I might have gotten when we heard the first mysterious
beep-beep-beep from the Russian Spoetnik satellite. Still, a few years ago, a similar
satellite was launched into orbit by amateur radio operators. It made the exact same
beep-beep-beep sound as the original, and I could almost imagine how people must
have felt.
The space shuttle SAREX experiment is an experiment in which the space shuttle crew
tries to communicate with schools by using amateur radio (sarex = shuttle amateur radio
experiment). MIR has had a wireless transceiver on board that can be used to communicate
with terrestial HAMs since almost the beginning. Within the HAM community, the thrill of
experimenting with technology is very much alive. Unfortunately, at least in Europe, amateur
radio seems to be loosing ground.
So, what does this mean? Start young. Get people involved with technological experiments
that are somewhat spectacular. In my physics classes, the most exiting this that we got to
do was boil a glass of water, or put some lenses in parallel. If that is the level you teach to
young people, it is not strange that they do not care. Invest more in good and enjoyable education,
and the results will pay off!
Was there meant to be a link to the article and not just the mag? No missing this time either. Anyway.../ mag_5_19_00/krauthammer_cov_5_18_00.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
Which is more important to you? What does that say about your priorities and your humanitarianism?
This is not a flame, by the way.
I'd be more than willing to invest in private space exploration. Look at what NASA's bumbling efforts have produced as far as new technologies and processes. Imagine what a private company could make, driven solely by profit.
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Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
I remeber reading some time ago an article that said actually going to Mars would hold little value other than a politcal stunt. The author seemed to believe that all the tests that humans could do would be more expensive then sending up satellites to do the same thing. I dont really know, but the idea of NOT sending someone to Mars seems to bug me.
this is life -- the offense is towards those who treat women like property, and who perpetrate other horrific acts, such as "female circumcism" (sp), which has no analogy whatsoever to the male version...
Lea
unfortunately for girls in many third-world countries, dowries are PAID to the husband's family, not the other way around. yes, in certain societies one negotiates a "bride price" with the patriarch, but mostly daughters are regarded as a drain on precious resources, which is (as far as I can tell) a pretty good explanation why so many of them end up sold into slavery (yes! it still exists!) and/or prostitution.
Lea
and even if we managed to MAKE spool-length carbon nanotubules, I can think of several fairly severe problems with having a VERY long, fairly flexable "elevator" reaching into space. even if you marked several square miles off-limits to airplanes, Mother Earth has some interesting things to throw at it...
Lea
By the way, this doesn't mean I don't support space exploration, including manned exploration. I'm just trying to clarify which arguments are valid ones.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
A thoroughly inspirational read.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Really, you just taking advantage of your computer is much more environmentally damaging than any number of these missions. Think about it, what are the costs of the fuel to create the electricity to power your PC, the toxins involved in creating the semiconductors in the chips, the refining of oil and other limited resources to make the case to contain it all? Spare us all the psuedo-environmentalism.
The point of space exploration is to go and learn new things. To see things that no one has seen before. To test ourselves against the unknown. Humanity has a need to grow and we do that by challenging nature.
Um, have you ever noticed how often the Russians
have been visiting NASA's space station?
Right.
I worked as a contractor to NASA for a year, and I supported the Planetfest convention in Pasadena last year as a corporate sponsor (we brought the network). I've been in contact with most aspects of NASA -- from infrastructure to mission scientists. My overall impression of the current space program is that they could screw up a wet dream. The NASA that got us the moon no longer exists, and it would take a great deal of work and money to rebuild it.
To what end?
Get a couple of big companies interested in the moon and you'll get a moon base pretty quickly.
We already have significant private investment in LEO and GEO (low and geosync earth orbit). In a way, the earth orbit sector is already heavily commercialized. Find a reason to get onto the moon, and you'll get a bunch of stuff there as well.
Mars is the problem.
The problem with Mars is that there is no there there. The compelling reason of getting mankind off of this rock could also be met with a few Terra-Solar Lagrange space habitats, and it might not cost us as much to build these habitats on the moon as it would take to build a major moon base.
What is it that we need on Mars, besides a rock to sit on and maybe some atmosphere to process?
The most impressive part is when, in less than two minute, you see whe whole of Italy going by, on the screen, starting from the Piemonte and finishing in the Puglia.
--
" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
The problem is that it won't fly with the bourgeois mentality who need a steady flock of easily gullible people either to work for them or simply to buy the junk they sell...
--
" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
You are absolutely right.
I remember hearing that my religious org. sent millions of dollars worth of food, clothing, supplies, etc to starving people in Africa ( I don't remember where ) but the government redistributed it to themselves, their friends and families and the rest of it ended up rotting in warehouses and on docks. The people that were intended to get the help never got it.
Many governments in such countries cry for money
to "help us feed the poor!" And more often than not it gets pocketted by those same officials.
********************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
... but you are full of it.
When Someone says that it will cost $10 trillion dollars to get to Mars in 10 years (not that that's the real number, but hypothetically...) what that means is that it will take 1/8 of the nation's resources to accomplish the task (GDP is ~$8 trillion.) "1 trillion dollars" translated directly into "1/8 of the US's resources for a year."
It really annoys me when people make the "yes it's expensive, but it's only money!" argument. Money is simply the medium with which various conflicting demands on resources are mediated. When the government decides to impose X dollars in taxes to fund a new program, that translates directly into resources that are not available to the private sector.
It the government spends 10% of GDP on a space program, that will reduce the average income of the nation by 10%. I don't know about you, but that's not an "abstract" thing. That has very real and very specific consequences.
What's the point of not starving to death if it means eating bean curry in a 6'x 3'x 3' 'cube'?
And what precisely do you suppose you'll be doing on Mars then? I rather suspect you'll be eating something rather worse than bean curry (recycled turds) in a 6' x 3' x 3' cubicle inside a habitat dome.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Somebody moderate this up. More people need to see it I reckon.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
You clearly know NOTHING about ANYTHING.
I'm all for space exploration, and I don't advocate spending all our surplus on food shipments. But you've no reason to criticize them for having children. Poor people need to ensure they will have surviving children to take care of them when they are old. It's a basic matter of survival, they have no other option.
And it's not their fault they're poor. They've been shafted up the ass for centuries by selfish ignorant assfuckers like YOU.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
We already see the end of the oil reserves on earth - but there is by far not enough research in alternatives (we will definitively not found anything like oil on mars or the moon)
;o)
But there are fantastic quantities of raw hydrocarbons on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Also, nearer to home, quite a lot in the asteroid belt. But these should be used for plastics and for food. I think we've burnt quite enough crap in the Earth's atmosphere already.
You didn't really make it clear what you think is the prerequisite before we should exploit the resources of the solar system. Maybe you think we should just use up what we have here first - so that by the time we look up from what we are doing, we no longer even have the resources to get into space any more. Geez. Why not just bury your head in the sand. If we listened to people like you we'd still be stuck with stone knives and bearskins (figure that reference out if you're old enough
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
"Tripple"? Do you mean "triple"? Or maybe it's a Freudian slip and you are thinking of Jean Tripplehorn, who took all her clothes off in the movie you referred to? (dribble, drool)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
This is pissing me off real bad because I'm full-on pro-government-funded-space exploration - but it seems like half of the people here demanding funds for space are total wankers and I want nothing to do with them.
You, for example, proudly display a total ignorance of the world beyond your own back yard:
I can't help it that some people aren't able/willing to survive in today's world. That's not my fault. I can manage to feed, clothe, and house myself; why can't they?
Actually it is precisely your fault because the high-consumption lifestyle you boast that you enjoy would be impossible were it not for the fact that Europe and America have been screwing the developing countries for centuries, specifically by artificially depressing the price of third world exports (mainly raw materials). Because of this selfish exploitation, the third world countries have been continually denied the right to participate in the benefits of a booming world economy. Their populations starve because we have seen to it that they do so. They are poor so that we can have enough stuff to throw half of it away.
And for the rest of the 90+% of us who aren't complete losers,
Actually the vast majority of the world's population lives in conditions of extreme poverty. You talk like as if it's a tiny minority. Do you ever bother to think before you speak?
Even other animals only work to ensure their own/their children's survival. Altruism is unheard-of, and for good reason
Absolute bullshit. This isn't biology, it's ideology. It's National Socialism in fact. Where do you get off spouting crap like that? Examples of seemingly altruistic behaviour in the animal kingdom are commonplace, where the beneficiaries are not direct descendants of the individual making the sacrifice. These are well-documented, go and read Richard Dawkins. If you can't read books, here's a very simple and common example: in many species (including chimps), members will give off a loud warning cry (called an alarm call) if a potential threat or predator comes into the territory - thereby putting themselves at increased risk of detection by the predator.
altruistic species are "selected against" as the euphemism goes.
You made this up. The statement doesn't even make sense. What altruistic species? What is an altruistic species anyway? How could a whole species be altruistic? At the water hole: "After you" "No, after you" "No, I insist".
Give me a break. Examples of altruistic behaviour are present in many species. But no species is exclusively altrustic. Duh!
unlike lesser animals, I as a human can concern myself with issues other than food and other survival issues. This is a luxury humans have that other species do not.
It's a luxury that you have because of an accident of birth. Lucky you, born in one of the richest nations in the world. You can concern yourself with issues other than bare survival because you never had to struggle for your own survival. But most of the world's 5 billion humans do face that struggle every day.
It's what intelligence is all about.
There are other traits that mark us as human. Traits like compassion, generosity etc. Well, some of us anyway. You obviously don't qualify.
Onward and upward, folks, and all are welcome to come along; but I will not carry others.
Fine. Then don't expect us to carry you when it becomes your turn to suffer. Oh, how I long for that day.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Pshaw. I'd happily get on a rocket to Mars expecting a round trip of three years, even with only a 50% estimated probability of making it up. But NOT if it looked like I'd fry before I even got there. You're expecting people to fly a technology that not only doesn't even have a working model, it hasn't even been tested in a computer simulation yet. I'd want to see more than a couple of test flights before I'd even think about it. Give me good old fashioned chemical propulsion and gravity-assist any day.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
That's what I was trying so hard not mention for fear of giving offense to any ladies present.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Yes, but these are not the people who concern themselves with decisions regarding space exploration, are they? You also need to be careful how you define poverty - as one might expect, the definition varies from place to place. US$3000 might not sound like much, but for someone in a middle-income nation with such an income, it is plenty for survival and possibly a good deal more. Yes, most people in the world are far too poor to live in New York City or London. But then, most Europeans and Americans would fall into that category as well. Your view demonstrates exactly the narrowness you accuse me of.
You are trying to shift the argument towards the better off. Considering the subject matter and the plight of the victims this is nothing less than a crime against humanity.
When I said poverty I was talking about real poverty. Not about relative poverty, and not about relative purchasing power. I was most certainly not talking about "most Europeans and Americans". I was not talking about people with US$3000. Most people in the developing countries don't have anywhere near that amount of money.
For example, according to 1995 statistics (the most recent I have to hand)...65% - near as dammit two-thirds - of the worlds population lives in countries where the average annual income is less than US$1000. Lets focus this a little more sharply, shall we? 54% of the world's population - more than half - live in countries where the average annual income is less than US$500. This comprises 36 countries with a combined population of almost 3 billion souls. And the average annual income of this three billion is just US$380. That's just over a dollar a day.
You are clearly talking out of your ass. You can't manage more than a hand-to-mouth existence on that sum, in any country. And remember that the poorest of these are considerably worse off even than that.
They are welcome to industrialize. Of course, industrialization works best under a stable government, something most of the world has never seen fit to provide for itself.
This puts me in mind of Marie Antionette's famous social remedy: "Let them eat cake". "Let them industrialize" you say. With what? It takes money to fund the building of factories, an adequate transportation and communications infrastructure etc. Those that were able to industrialize with the available outside help have already done so. (The others can't attract sufficient aid because they don't have anything the West wants that the West isn't already taking).
But for those who have industrialized, guess where the bulk of the profits goes? Let me give you a clue. It doesn't go to the country hosting the industry.
And before you try to argue that this is impossible, think back 200-250 years to industrialization in Europe. Where did the foreign aid come from?
It's obvious that you don't know the answer to this question or you wouldn't have mentioned it. European industrialization was funded by the surplus already present in the booming European economies. Now where did that surplus come from? It came from overseas "trade" which was in fact almost universally, the centuries-long robbing of raw materials from less developed countries in Africa, India, the Far East, and latterly the Americas and Australasia. Not to mention kidnapped slave labour from the West coast of Africa. The biggest employer in Great Britain for two hundred years was the East India Company, whose sole purpose was the transfer of wealth from the Asian subcontinent to England.
This has been basic high-school geography in most civilised countries for decades now. Did you even go to school?
What industrial nation's universities trained the Europeans? Hmmm...nobody!!! They did it on their own. Not because they are better human beings but because they decided to stop the bullshit and do something useful.
You talk as if the Europeans were doing the rest of the world a favour by robbing them, enslaving them etc. The remark about universities is a red herring. At the time of the agrarian and industrial revolutions, there were no practical subjects being taught in universities. In fact there was very little formal science involved in the development of the key technologies. It was trial-and-error engineering performed by enthusiasts, funded by rich aristocratic sponsors.
I'd also remind you that the industrial revolution could only take place in countries which already had adequate transportation infrastructure (roads, an overseas shipping network), abundant cheap access to a wide range of raw materials and established overseas markets. But most of these things came from the exploitation of less developed countries.
Without funding there can be no progress. How can you develop an industry if you have no access to transportation, lack most of the raw materials, the world's markets are protected by colonial powers with large armies and navies to enforce their dominance, and you are too busy anyway trying to scrape a living off the land you tenant, while you are forced to pay 75% of what you can make to your white landlord?
What did we do after we'd secured our head start, then? Did we share? Did we hand back what we'd taken? Did we hell. We colonized those countries and governed them ourselves. Any blame for their lack of progress up to the middle of the 20th century therefore lies squarely with the colonial powers. The countries of the third world were denied even the opportunity to take control of their own destiny until they began demanding their freedom after the second world war.
Yes, the foundations came from the Greeks, Arabs, and Chinese (among others). But everyone started on equal footing - after all, somewhere, sometime there had to be a first set of humans, all others descended from them. So anyone anywhere can make the same decision.
Maybe we did all start on an equal footing but that soon changed when Europeans decided to take what they wanted from other less greedy countries by force.
But they'd rather fight each other over a few square kilometers of worthless desert somewhere (no specific reference intended).
When resources are limited, societies fight amongst themselves for dominion over what little there is. This is not a feature of skin colour or climate. It is a feature of being poor.
You completely astound me. Not only with the profundity of your ignorance, but with the amazing stupidity it must take to make such sweeping and critical statements without any knowledge of the subject whatever. I only hope this exchange will serve as a lesson to those of similar education who have so far prudently remained silent.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
A. Did you notice the Van allen belt comment above? Try to get to mars cheaply with gravity assist while not recieving huge doses of radiation from the belts.
The Van Allen belts aren't even the problem. The spacefarers will receive much more during the journey during and after the trans-orbit injection and during an extended stay on Mars, since the planet has no appreciable magnetic field to protect them. The greatest risk of all comes from solar flares. Any female voyagers will need to have their ovaries removed and frozen before leaving if they expect to bear children afterwards.
B. Why do you think a nuclear powered craft would be any less tested then a chemical one? Noone said anything about expecting people to fly on unproved technology.
C. Do you know that nuclear rocket engines have already been tested? In the mid 60s several nuclear thermal rocket engines were tested in Nevada. One of them had a thrust of around 250,000 lbs, even.
I presumed we were discussing an accelerated program. In that context the introduction of a new design of man-rated nuclear gas plasma rocket is lunacy.
You should know that my worry isn't about being near something nuclear. They'll most likely need to have some fission generators with them anyway, to provide electrical power to the craft's systems and during their stay on the Martian surface. My fears are to do with the vulnerability of the radiation shielding around the engines, and the risk of an explosion. Spacecraft engines are high energy devices. Even a small explosion could damage the shielding enough to fry the crew. With chemical engines, a small explosion that didn't destroy the craft outright needn't be fatal (the Apollo 13 crew survived). Retrieving the crew from a disabled craft is an entirely separate problem.
Now, assuming we're all talking about nuclear fission:
I think one of the most helpful things we could all do for mankind is to start on an extensive nuclear technology public education project. We need to teach people that nuclear energy is really the key to our future.
We'd only need to teach that to people if it were true. Which it isn't.
It can be done safely, and is already far cleaner than any other alternatives.
The evidence says otherwise, regardless of all the grandstanding by the nuclear companies. It's only clean if you can make the waste vanish. Sticking it in underground containers isn't good enough, some of our underground waste dumps are breaking up already. And what about decommissioning? How many nuclear reactors out of all those built in the last half century do you know that have been safely decommissioned without serious environmental impact?
Some of these waste products remain highly dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no place to deposit them on Earth that is known to be a safe and stable environment for that length of time. And you can't rely upon continual maintenance of waste dump facilitites because during a quarter of a million years there will very likely be periods when we dont have the money - or even the technology - to do that work.
Our future is nuclear, and it's about time we started pounding it into the public's collective mind.
Says you. I and millions of others happen to disagree. Not in my back yard, mate - and I won't allow you to pawn my children's future. The ideas you are espousing are dangerous idiocy IMHO.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
And yet Japan not only industrialized and modernized in a few decades, they fought a very competitive war with the world's greatest powers. So 40 or 50 years (say, since the end of colonialism in the 50s and 60s) is a long time for a people like the Japanese who have some commitment and motivation, but forever for those without.
I'll grant you that the Japanese have a very dynamic society, but the picture you paint of their rise to fortune is not entirely accurate.
Japan was always well prepared for war; they had a long history of it and had built up and honed their war machine for a long time. Their militarism meant that despite lacking their own raw materials this was never really a problem. They just took what they wanted from their neighbours, eg, the Chinese (who are still wary of them). In World War II they took advantage of Germany's strength to leverage their own relatively small contribution. And after WWII, Japan's rise to economic superpower status would never have happened had they not received an enormous influx of cash from the West. So it's not really a good example of a poor country making their own way. They weren't poor to start with and they didn't make their own way, they had substantial help from outside.
Oh, so let's make this about racism now
I can't help the facts. White Europeans dominated and exploited non-white Africans and Asians for centuries. They are still doing it even though it's no longer necessary for whites to settle in those countries now that we have international banking and sufficient local influence to be able to fight wars and start revolutions by proxy, and topple governments by remote control.
I suspect maybe your mother never told you that Life Is Not Fair and that if you get screwed, screw back, try again, and don't bitch.
Actually my mother never told me that but I did learn it for myself. It seems more than likely that this is the fundamental difference between us. You were raised to accept the world as a bad place, while I wasn't. As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be and it doesn't have to be. It's only people like you that keep it that way. The point of civilization is precisely to make things fair, not to make it easier to shit on people just to satisfy your own greed.
Europeans were Imperialist bastards. The world's a tough place, moreso for some than others. Deal with it.
The knowledge that our ancestors wronged the less fortunate is not a moral justification for continuing the tradition!
You deliberately ignored the facts about poverty and the historical reasons for it because they don't justify or support your attitude. But when cornered about it you abandon your refutation of the facts and resort to maliciously snarling: "The world's evil! Deal with it!"
Aha - Got you!
Perhaps I was too hasty when I called you uneducated; it's not necessary to explain your attitude so as long as your motives are rotten enough. Now *I* don't believe in Satan, but your attitude is so convincingly extreme in its inhumanity that I can't help picturing you with horns, a pointed tail and glowing red eyes. If Hammer still made horror films you'd have a fine movie career ahead of you. Get thee behind me.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I do admit you have a point. I found normalised figures for Gross Domestic Product (PPP-GDP) but it was really incomes I was after and I could only find these expressed in absolute dollar values.
I only introduced it in order to refute someone else's implication that the poorest have incomes of about US$3000 in absolute US dollar value terms. So the figures from that study I summarized did at least serve their purpose.
Even so, it's not too much of a stretch to realize that the sort of money we're talking about is only going to cover expenses for very basic food clothing and shelter, for people on those average incomes or above. The poorest of the poor in those countries (and almost everybody in the countries at the bottom of the table) will lead truly wretched lives, and millions of them each year suffer a horrible death of starvation and disease. I can live with the knowledge that this is happening, God forgive me. But even I won't stand by while someone is spreading the obvious falsehoods that it just isn't happening at all, or that these people somehow deserve this awful fate.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I have never in my life heard such pitiful ignorance combined with such overweening arrogance. You clearly understand nothing about poverty so I'd advise that until this changes you either show a little tolerance and humility or else keep your mouth shut.
People for whom bare survival is a continual struggle cannot afford the luxury of treating children as little princes and princesses. In those communities, children are a precious resource. They are more hands to work on the rich man's land, or to go begging on the streets of the city. Sons will grow up to provide for the family when you are too sick or too old to go on. Daughters will grow up to be a source of dowry payments. I don't want to say how else they might be used to contribute. But that is how it is when you have no money, no food, no hope and no future.
Because children are so vital to this way of living it is mandatory to produce enough babies so that some will survive to adulthood. When the risk of infant mortality is so high this necessitates a high birth rate.
As the original poster had it, so it is. If one wants to end overpopulation one must end poverty.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
No, there is no economic reason to go to Mars.
You seem rather confident of that.
If you wanted cheap O2 and H2 in LEO, mine Phobos, use a comet or release the volatiles at the Lunar poles with a solar mirror. The gravity well of Mars is far too strong to bother visiting when you have the Moon and tons 'o other chunks of matter floating about which require far less energy to reach.
Those ideas all seem pretty far-fetched. For one thing, comets don't stay put. And what's this about a solar mirror? There hasn't even been any water proven on the moon and really, it looks pretty darn dry. Whereas Mars isn't at all. Mining phobos is practically the same as mining Mars - you'd have a permanent colony on Mars anyway.
No, I really don't think you've made your point.
Wouldn't you rather see your space-tax bucks spent on something more useful than a one-shot trip to Mars that will require a decade (or more) to prepare for?
You were reading with your eyes closed. We're talking about colonizing Mars. And this would make me a whole lot happier than a lot of other things my tax bucks are spent on.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Mars has a much shallower gravity well than Earth - it takes a lot less gas to get from Mars to Earth orbit than it takes to get from Earth to Earth orbit. These days, there's a market for supplies delivered to orbit - gas (or hydrazine or whatever) is needed to stabilize satellites, etc. It takes less energy to ship gas from Mars to earth than it does to ship it from Earth. Plus, there isn't the pollution issue. Actually, Mars could use a little more pollution in its atmosphere, to keep the heat in.
:-) All you care about is whether you earn enough currency to import the stuff you need from Earth and can't make for yourself.
What I'm saying is - you could actually make money being a Martian, shipping fuel, and oxigen, say, to Earth orbit. Too expensive to produce such stuff on Mars? No - how to explain this - you've got a whole planet worth of resources at your disposal, you only have to worry about costs of production and transportation, the resources are bascially free until your population increases. And, as a Martian, you don't worry if those costs are high - everything costs more on Mars
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
The sooner we colonize unused planets, the sooner this population can be diverted elsewhere.
I'm afraid that this will never be practical. Even with the best possible ships, it takes a vast amount of energy to climb out of a gravity well (like Earth's), or to move from one radius to another within one (e.g. the Sun's). If there is an overpopulation problem to begin with (birth rate staying above death rate), then people will breed faster than you can move them off of the planet.
Further, there is only so much real estate in the solar system to move _to_. If exponential population growth cannot be avoided, then we will fill up all available space no matter how many planets we colonize. Build O'Neal colonies or Ringworlds? Same problem. Wait a bit longer.
Empyrical evidence suggests that as quality of life goes up, birth rate goes down, which in turn suggests that a stable population can exist without draconian social engineering, but I don't have the background to argue for or against this. See other posts in this thread for citations. A stable population is the only real way to avoid overpopulation in the long term.
...they both produced multimillion dollar flops :)
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
> I dunno, color me silly... but it would seem
> to me that if the chance of my child dying
> were greated, I'd be LESS inclined to want
> to suffer through that.
Not if your life depended on having a few
children survive. If the odds are against you,
spread your chances around. Maybe just one
of the ten children will survive.
> As far as If you don't want over population, end
> poverty! statement goes. Bullshit.
Why don't you do some research instead of just
assuming that your views muct be right.
Look at the history of any first world country you
like. See how as the level of poverty was reduced
the level of population growth declined.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone in India.
There is no welfare available for you. You have
no pension. You have no savings. You spend
everything you earn on necessities, or maybe
you are a subsistance farmer.
One day you will be unable to work, when that
happens you will have no income, and no food. You
will starve to death.
The only way to make sure this doesn't happen is
to have a child who will support you when you
are unable to support yourself.
However, the infant mortality rate is high,
and disease is common. If your children all die
you will starve to death. The solution is to
have lots of children, one of them may survive.
Most species have this response to high death
rates. It makes sense.
You in your wisdom no that having less children
will actually be better. There will be less
mouths to feed, there will be less resource
use, etc, etc.
However, on an individual level it is not true.
As an individual I am better off having as many
children as possible. Blame evolution for this
desire to live and pass on my genes.
It's the same problem as a common field, or
gold mine, or fishing lake.
Say there is a lake that can support the
fishing of 1000 fish per [time period]. Say you
can make $10 per fish. Say you can catch 100 fish
perl [time period]. Say there are 100 other people
just like you around this same lake.
What do you do?
Do you catch 10 fish. That way you are taking
your 'quota'. However, everyone else isn't so
nice, they catch 100 fish. The fish population
is destroyed.
You made $100. The other people made $1000.
The fish population is destroyed. There shall
be no more fish.
Or you could catch as many as you can. That way
you contribute to the destruction of the
resource.
However, you now make thousands.
If everyone agreed to only catch 10 fish they
would all be better off in the long run. When you
are struggling to survive, the 'long run' doesn't
matter so much. What matters is survival.
Now what if one day one, you caught ten fish,
and noticed that everyopne else caught 100.
What do you do on day two?
Catching more fish, or having more children
increases your chance of survival.
Hiostorically, as income increases, reproduction
rates decrease.
Look at the various groups in America, The
reproduction rate in poor areas is higher than
that of wealthy areas.
He3 should be easier to use for fusion, yes.
We still can't do it. Until we actually can fuse He3 for energy, it's not going to solve anybody's energy needs any time soon.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Have YOU ever watched a person die of hunger?
If you have, why the hell didn't you give him some food?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
How many of these needy kids are there? Because, depending on the numbers, it may not be enough. I'll take a guess at 100,000, though I really don't know. Maybe somebody can inform me.
So we get $16.5 million each year. Divide that among 180 school days and we get $91,667 each day, which amounts to ninety cents per child per day, assuming 100,000 needy children. I just don't think that would be enough.
Don't they have free lunch programs for needy children already, anyway? Even if they don't, we could (gasp) spend $165 million on the children AND spend $165 million on Mars, this country can certainly afford it.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
We also need practical experience. We didn't get this massive growth in computing technology by sitting around and theorizing and writing research papers about it. We got these amazing advances by actually building computers and software and such things. We can't get better space technology just by sitting on the ground and researching, though that does play a large role. We must also get out into space and use the things, experiment, and find out all those things that we overlooked or just couldn't see in the labs.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
"which seems like a lot--until you realize that the movie Waterworld costed more." "Costed"? Cost is used both as a present and a past tense verb in that spelling. "Costed" isn't a real word ;)
We ARE bored with space exploration because, so far, it is a relaitve failure. He compared our space endeavours to earlier centuries' age of exploration. The age of exploration suceeded because we were able to sail great ships across the dessert of the ocean and find inhabitable and colonizable worlds. If the explorers, navigators, and conquistadors only ever found barren, lifeless, uninhabitable islands of rock floating in the middle of the ocean, the age of exlporation would have probably come to a quick end as well.
I believe that space exploration requires the same sucess as earth exploration did. We must find inhabitable and/or life bearing worlds. Science fiction shows often have an uncanny ability to portend the future. Often technological gadgets that appeared in old sci-fi shows appear in modern day life. I believe sci-fi shows tap the social unconcious and portray our natural desires or fears for the future. Take then a look at some of the most popular space oriented sci-fi shows: Star Trek, Star Trek TNG, Lost in Space, Babylon 5, etc. They all have atleast one thing in common, they all explore life bearing and human inhabitable planets from time to time.
I believe that we are in a phase now where we need to concentrate on the next great technological breakthroughs of space travel. We need to find how to get farther faster for cheaper. The moon, mars they are boring, uninhabitable (at least by man unassisted) planets. We need to reach farther into our solar system if not into other solar systems to find more life sustaining planets like our own.
Believe me, once we have a good class M planet (planet like Earth for non Trekkies) that we can send tens or hundreds or thousands of people to colonize, the public will get very much interested in space excploration again. We're just tired of landing on and seeing pictures of gigantic barren rocks whirling around the sun.
Just my $0.02
One of the problems of the Orion and the GCNR is you're getting all of your thrust at one time. Humans can only withstand so many Gs of acceleration before they pop. Polluting space with nuclear waste in pretty much a non-issue, take a relaxing flight through the Van Allen belts if you're worried about polluting space with radiation.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I liked the part in Red where they were building windmills to power electric heaters to warm the planet up. Also, IIRC, he had them taking printers and paper to Mars.
A space station could probably be built so that it could be easly transformed into a space vehicle.
That way we could allways have a space station in orbit around the planet that we where to explore.
The problem is that this probably means a lot of more mass, and as such a lot of more fuel would be neaded.
I don't believe that a society without higher dreams than food is possible.
And why don't have the free lunch programs privately funded? After all the industry do pay taxes don't they?
And if the $165,000,000 of the space exploration devices how much jobs would be lost? And as such how many more people on the streats?
Yeah, and just think.. we could be feeding them! So they will live longer, fuck more, procreate more, and have MORE mouths to starve to death.
Feeding the poor = (essentially) supporting INCREASED human suffering. The more poor you feed, the more poor will come into being, and the more will suffer when you are no longer able to feed them.
Motherfucking little bitches, I'd like to beat the shit out of you all.
I would NEVER characterize Charles Krauthammer as "brilliant". Just go back and read his "brilliant" pieces from Time in the early 90s (especially his columns about the Gulf War).
Duh.
Ped_Xing
The only reason they continue to "screw like rabbits," as you put it, is because the rate of death is so much higher for them. As soon as a country reaches a certain level of advancement, birth rates tend to drop off.
People seem to forget that Canada and the US used to have similar birth rates, back before we stablized. It wasn't until people stopped living/working to survive, and started living to entertain themselves that birthrates dropped. As soon as you get people with disposable income, they'll find something else to do for entertainment. (It's the people who are dissatisfied or have no money that have lots of kids.)
If you'll look at the population of Canada and the US, you'll notice that it's dropping right now. We're actually going backwards in some areas.
Incidentally, this is a very cold way of looking at it; these people in other countries are no different than you and me. The only difference is that they were born into bondage, while we were born with the silver spoon in our mouths. To compare them so easily to rabbits is reminiscient of our past mistakes when dealing with other cultures and "population control."
See, the English have done a lot of damage in this area; look at Africa, where segregation was instituted that only recently people are starting to fix. Look at Canada and the US, where we're only now starting to help the natives of these lands reclaim some of their birthrights. And then there's India, Kuwait, etc., where we REALLY screwed up.
True, you and I might not be English. I'm personally half Irish, half Polish. I COME from an oppressed background. However, I have been educated to have an English mind, and I have to learn from those who taught me's mistakes. My background makes no difference; my education does.
Besides, you think that offloading part of the world's population will help..!? Come on! Okay, so we get rid of a certain bit now.. but a few years down the road, we'll have to do it again.. and again.. and again...
Now what happens if those people we offloaded decide that they're going to have lots of kids too? A hundred years from now, we're back at square one as the moon is completely colonized. So we start spreading out further, and further..
The cycle doesn't end; we have to nip this problem in the bud.
James
--
http://chat.carleton.ca/~jhelfert
Yeah, but suppose your hydroponics fail and you have food for only three months? Lots of things can go wrong in space and explosive decompression is only one. Apollo 13 wouldn't have made it back from a Mars mission.
The logical progression is still Earth Orbit Station -> Moon Base -> Mars Base -> ?
John Fred.
/usr/games/fortune > ~/.signature
- Fund a trip to the Moon out of pocket. (He who pays gets a window seat).
- Invite six twenty-somethings of diverse lifestyles, races, and sexual orientations to join the crew.
- Film and web-cam everything.
- Earn even more gazillions marketing this thing.
- Use the profits to fund "Out of the Real World II" -- the trip to Mars.
billg are you listening? This would do wonders for your PR.Some of the plans exist, some don't.
The bigger problem is indeed that Saturn V used early 60s parts. Some of these parts were hard to come by even during the late 60s.
One also has to remember that much of the Saturn V design was never written down. Each booster was slightly different, as the design was altered a bit after each flight. Much of the practical knowledge was stored in engineer's heads...which generally are no longer functioning.
Oh yes, this is what we need, more ill-reasoned kneejerk anti-nuclear responses.
A. Did you notice the Van allen belt comment above? Try to get to mars cheaply with gravity assist while not recieving huge doses of radiation from the belts.
B. Why do you think a nuclear powered craft would be any less tested then a chemical one? Noone said anything about expecting people to fly on unproved technology.
C. Do you know that nuclear rocket engines have already been tested? In the mid 60s several nuclear thermal rocket engines were tested in Nevada. One of them had a thrust of around 250,000 lbs, even.
I think one of the most helpful things we could all do for mankind is to start on an extensive nuclear technology public education project. We need to teach people that nuclear energy is really the key to our future. It can be done safely, and is already far cleaner than any other alternatives. Our future is nuclear, and it's about time we started pounding it into the public's collective mind.
I like the idea of a Zubrin-style "live off the land" approach, and maybe we should try that now since that's what we know we can do this minute.
The mars direct plan really is a snazzy one. It not only gets us to mars using current technology ( and boosters), but it would demonstrate that we can actually manufacture stuff there. It could really show people that mars could be useful in a financial sense.
The one problem with the plan is that it requires nuclear power. So you have to convince washington to let you launch nuclear reactors... And before that you have to convince washington to fund the development of said reactors. Don't get me wrong, there are no techical problems, their are just large political ones.
The problem is none of this research gets turned into usable products. ie:
Ion engines: these have been tested on the ground since the 50s...yet the first large ion engine was just launched a year ago. The technology has been around in basically it's final form for decades.
Areospike / Plugnozzle rocket engines: These have been around since the 60s. Rocketdyne tested 250,000 lbs models on test stands hundreds of times. Yet none have ever even been tested on aircraft, let alone on a booster. Their first use will hopefully be on the X-33...although as we all know with it's tank problems it's looking more and more improbable. This is a technology that should have been used on the space shuttle, as it fits the performance profile of the SSMEs extreamly well (operation from sealevel all the way to vacuum), yet NASA decided to crap out and design yet another bell engine.
Nuclear rocket engines: another technology that has been around since the 60s. One again tested extensively on the ground, but no one ever bothered to stick one in orbit.
And the list goes on and on...
The only way to spur useful space technology development is to go out there and try to do things using current space technology, then we will have a drive to develope better replacements.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how Beal turns out. I've heard somewhere recently that they've been having tank problems. Which is not at all surprising when you're dealing with the kind of pressures they're going to need.
They did fire their upper stage engine a while back, though. Now they just have to fire the first stage engine...the F1 class one.........
I put Beal in the midrange in terms of good approaches to cheap access to space. On the one hand they're trying really hard to come up with a super simple booster design. But on the other hand to do it they have to do something that no one has ever even attempted before: build a large scale pressure fed rocket.
I find it even more strange because of the fact that they want to recover their lower stage (with airbags...I think)...but if thats the case, why not just use turbopumps? Very strange.
What we really need is a hybrid space-plane, or a craft that can fly in 'air mode' while it's in the air, then switch on the rockets when it gets high enough.
The problem with this approach is that you don't really gain much. A normal booster is only within the lower atmosphere (where there is enough oxygen to possibly help with combustion) for maybe it's first minute of flight. After that there isn't enough atmosphere to make any real difference. But you still have to carry along either extra airbreathing engines, or air intakes and a dual mode engine (which usually makes a crappy rocket).
The second problem, of course, is that dual mode engines generally perform badly... Jet engines and rocket engines can be optimized for decent efficiency. A dual mode (any of the various types) generally makes a crappy jet/rocket combination.
The real problem with corrent booster technology is that it is still simply based on ICBMs... Cost isn't a concern with ICBMs. So when you take one and turn it into a launch vehicle you end up with a non-optimized design.
Look at the Titans: they all run on UDMH and Hydrazine, great for an ICBM because it's storable, horrible for a booster because they're both terribly toxic. Add excessive tank stretching and restructuring to handle solid boosters and you end up with one of the most expensive boosters in history: the Titan IV. Add to that a company trying to save money at every turn (ie LockMart) and you end up with the last few Titan IV "lanuches"....
Now look at the Atlas... It burns RP-1 and LOX, far more benign propellants, and far cheaper then UDMH and Hydrazine to boot. The problem here is that Atlas was the US's very first ICBM. This thing started development in the 50s. It is truly the oldest US booster flying. It really is an elegant design, with the balloon tanks and booster/sustainer engines. Yet the modern varients haven't incorporated hardly any new technology. All Atlas IIs are bascally 1950s ICBMs. The real bummer is that, instead of building on 40 years of experience, Boeing has decided, with the Atlas III and IV, to throw everything away and start over. Atlas III and IV will not use balloon tanks, nor will they use the 1.5 stage design.
Cheap access to space does not require revolutionary launch systems. You don't need SSTO, nor do you really need RLVs... All you need is someone to sit down and design a new booster, from scratch, with economy as it's main point. And you have to do with by looking at other older boosters. One of the reasons the shuttle is so horrible is that the people designing it didn't look around at the problems of existing designs. They just assumed they could build a better system from a purely theoretical basis.
As always in this stupid industry it all comes down to political will and money. Find a way to fund commerical development of a new booster and we'll be well on our way to cheap access to space...
Cool Hand Luke
Blar.
$165,000,000 = one lost space exploration device.
$165,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for a decade. These kids will not eat lunch otherwise.
Well if we're going to throw out numbers...
$1,300,000,000 = one Stealth Bomber that we never use or probably even really need (or just the one that crashed).
$1,300,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for over 75 years.
Which is more important to YOU? Really now, if people are going to start bitching about Government spending, I hardly think NASA is the place to start.
I used to be the biggest proponent of the manned exploration of space. I really wanted to be able to go there before I died. Now, though, with the exception of the nuke ourselves / asteroid impact total destruction of our species argument, it seems to me that we would be better off funnelling any spending into basic science.
I know from a political standpoint that is unlikely (noone seems to want to fund basic science), but its kind of like moore's law all over again.
As that recent slashdot posting that argued that any computationally intensive project that takes more than 2.5 years to complete should be put off for 2.5 years, because it will actually be finished sooner if started with the much higher performance computers available then (for equivalent $$), the same goes for space exploration.
Why risk people and tremendous capital on missions of questionable utility other than for PR and warm fuzzy feelings, when funnelling that money into research on fancy new interplanetary drives, automated probes, infrastructure (like that solar system internet thingie), etc. etc. might get us there as quickly, but much more safely and efficiently?
we need to do better than what we did with the moon. Sure, we muscled our way there, using crude technology and brute force. And, we haven't been back in decades. And, going back now would be extremely difficult. We need technology and infrastructure and a plan that will get us out into space permanently.
Can anyone tell me what could be the reason to go to mars, spending billions of dollars? What is it good for? Ah yes, please don't use the hollow arguments like "to survive" or "we just have to go" - just tell me intelligent, substantiated reasons like "when we have reached the mars, we will find a way to feed all people on earth because there grows some grain that make it possible"
Don't misunderstand me, I think space travel is great, but we definitely have billions of problems that needs our attention first. When they are all solved, we can spend money for future technology - but not a second earlier.
An example: How many people can you feed for how long with 165 million US$? How many schools can be build with this money? Would the Polar Lander have had any affect of the daily problems on earth hadn't it get lost?
Just something to think about.
Sven
This is because the space shuttle does not have a "safe abort" in the early part of it's envelope: there is a significantly large part in the early flight where, if the engines fail, you die.
The vertical takeoff, vertical landing SSTO (single stage to orbit) craft that have been proposed by many people do have this option. (Go read G. Harry Stine's "Halfway to anywhere" for the history of this).
NASA prefers to "inspect in" the quality, which is expensive and supports a vast number of technical people. This is called "the missile mentality", and it stems from the early days of "get to the moon at any cost" and other political reasons.
So, it's important to support people like Rotary rocket, because, basicaly, NASA is the Microsoft of space travel.
Duct tape + WD40 => DevOps
What I personally would love to see is a checkbox on your Tax Return in the U.S. deciding wether or not to donate $1 to NASA.
I'm getting sick and tired of the one they have now asking if you would like to give money to support politicians getting elected, I'd rather have a choice I can stomache.
Colleen:Its a black-hole.
Hunter:Is that a good thing?
C:It is if you want to be compressed into oblivion.
H:Oh.. coooool.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
The reason is poverty. When you are poor, the risk of your children dying is high, so you have many because most likely some of them will not make it. And children are theese people's pension fund! They need their children because no one else will take care of them when they grow old and weak.
Look at countries whith high standards or living and low infant fatality, the population is stable!(And in some cases, would be decreasing were it not for immigration.)
If you don't want over population, end poverty!
I think we need to see how much NASA is getting and perhaps have them redirect some funding.
:-)
:-)
To where? finacing for Kevin Costner movies?
At least with NASA projects, there's a chance they will be of benefit to humankind. The Postman? Forget it, email is the next generation
Both of your problems are relatively non-starters for stopping a trip to say Mars. You should take a look at Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars. Basically the amount of radiation that you take on a trip to Mars are larger than normal but can be well within what say a nuclear power worker is allowed to be exposed to in a year. By shielding yourself during the larger solar flares and such, say behind your the water you're carying for the worst few hours of the solar storm it can be done.
The microgravity issue can also be solver, inertia to the rescue. Say you have a staged rocket. You leave earth on your way to Mars and use up the fuel in your last stage. Instead of just letting it go you but a teather on it let it go. You can then spin, your habitat on one side of the teather and this stage on the other. Presto, gravity!
It is possible to go to Mars with current technology, we just need the desire, see the above book. Any president who took a Kennedy like approach to this would be immortalized forever as the persone who got us to the moon. Taxes will go up and down and those presidents will be forgotten but they'll never be able to take away a landing on Mars. If I was Bill Gates my money would be getting us to Mars for sure.
Fine spend billions and billions making a Mars base, but as soon as you start taxing there astroid dust and alien artifacts they'll just rebel and the international space navy is not quite up to standard to kick them back into line.
It's turtles all the way down.
According to the IMDB, Waterworld cost $175 million to make, grossed $255.2 million worldwide, and netted $42.358 million in rental fees. By my math, Waterworld made a profit of $122.558 million. While that is a poor return on a fifth of a billion dollars, it's hardly a true loss in the sense that The Stupids and Baby's Day Out were.
And in any event, it's a nonsequitur since Waterworld was a privately funded for-profit venture whereas the trip to Mars would likely be a publicly funded for-science venture.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I can't believe anyone here can use the word costed and not be embarrassed.
I think you are referring to nanotubes, and I'm afraid there are much more serious problems than money. A nanotube is at most a few hundred microns long, and they're terribly slippery buggers. Using them to make a strong macroscopic material is an open problem. And until that is solved, we won't be having any elevators to space.
I always think we're going about SSTO the wrong way. What we really need is a hybrid space-plane, or a craft that can fly in 'air mode' while it's in the air, then switch on the rockets when it gets high enough.
Note that such a vehicle need not carry it's entire fuel load on takeoff. It could refuel at 10km or so altitude...
For example, according to 1995 statistics (the most recent I have to hand)...65% - near as dammit two-thirds - of the worlds population lives in countries where the average annual income is less than US$1000. Lets focus this a little more sharply, shall we? 54% of the world's population - more than half - live in countries where the average annual income is less than US$500.
Unfortunatly these figures don't actually mean as much as people tend to think they mean.
Also they are not meaningful comparisons, to get that you'd need to work out what the average worker can afford to buy (locally) with their money. Most people do not earn USD, nor do they spend their money in the USA.
Microgravity/Freefall. This is useful, makes interesting things such as growing crystals and studying the possible effects of a prolonged space voyage possible.
Long term effects of weightlessness on humans are fine, but for anything requiring real microgravity space stations are close to useless. People moving around constantly ruins it: it's so bad that one major speculation of why the Russians are so reluctant to give out data on Mir is that the US will find out how bad the microgravity on board is. (We had to fly a special isolation mount for Mir to even make it barely acceptable.)
If you really need microgravity to grow crystals, use an unmanned platform.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
PBS (I believe) recently aired an excellent documentary on the *real* history of the "space race." That history explains why the "66 years from Kitty Hawk to lunar landing" is totally irrelevant -- and highly misleading.
I tell you three times: the lunar landing was a military act in the third phase of the 20th Century War. After the second phase (fighting National Socialism) both the US and USSR were aware of the potential of using missiles to lob the new nuclear weapons, but the captured V-2 missiles weren't close to being able to lob nukes across intercontinental distances. Both countries dragged their feet, but one Soviet scientist did manage to get enough resources to launch Sputnik. The Soviet leadership didn't think much of it... until it saw the shockwave it sent through the free and third worlds. The *next* day the stunning superiority of Soviet science was the lead story on Pravda.
N.B., a lot of revisionist history says that everyone was shocked at the idea of a man-made moon, just like everyone was shocked when Columbus "proved" the world was round. Both are lies. People were deeply disturbed because if you can launch something into orbit, you have the ability to put the missile down anywhere below that orbit. The only questions were the weight of the payload and the accuracy of the targeting.
Over the next few years the Soviets had a long run of public triumphs. First dog in man in space _and_ orbit. First woman in space. The first man-made object to land on the moon was designed to shatter and spread little hammer-and-sickles across the surface. (The Soviets also had failures, but they were quietly airbrushed out of the picture.) The Americans had a series of widely seen failures. The Soviets were relentless in using this clear evidence of the superiority of the Soviet system to bring neutral countries into their fold. The US had to do something, but the rules of the "cold war" limited the options.
*That* is why JFK announced a manned lunar program. It was arrogance writ large, and a tremendous gamble, but if successful it would eliminate the growing perception that the west couldn't handle modern science. Nobody in power cared about science - but they *did* care about ICBMs and the newly developed thermonuclear weapons. If the Soviets have Q-bombs (whatever follows "H-") and ICBMs, and the US doesn't, the 20th Century War would be over.
So JFK got an incredible level of funding for the Apollo missions (a trick Reagan later repeated with an overt military buildup, but by then the world had already soiled its pants over Cuban missiles), why the Soviets had their own manned lunar program -- and buried it once it was clear the US would beat them -- and why the US lost official interest so soon afterwards.
Unfortunately, this means that many arguments for going to Mars make a fatal assumption - in many important ways we haven't been to the moon yet! The grand total of time spent on the lunar surface is still measured in days, as is the total time spent by humans outside of LEO. To use this as "proof" that Mars is the next goal is ludicrous.
Before we even begin to think about heading to Mars, we need to have lunar experience, not just LEO experience, that lasts at least as long as the first Mars missions. Preferably several times as long. We need to have experience with people having major medical emergencies in space. (Even healthy young adults have a significant risk of a major medical event during a two-year mission.) Then, and only then, can we make an informed decision about what we need for a Mars mission.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I should know. I missed the last mission by 5 days. I was born after the Space Race era. We have the know how to go to the Moon and Mars. Lets do it.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
I dunno, but without interstellar travel, it all seems so hopelessly, well, short distant.
We need to cross the stellar oceans. But that lightspeed thingie eh, bah.
Hugz SlashDread
Six days, six months, what's the difference? If the bubble pops you'll die either way.
Ryan
I read somewhere that the most popular IMAX movies generally gross a lot more than the hollywood films do, and that many of them (the Antartic one, I think) do better than even blockbusters like Titanic did.
So why not privately fund a mission (manned or unmanned) into deep space and make an Imax movie about it. I mean, imagine the visuals of a space probe who's purpose it is to bring back visually stunning footage, who would not want to see it?
I realize that such a mission would probably not get as much done scientifically as the NASA missions do, but at least it is something. But, if you ask me, it seems like a much more viable way to commericially fund space travel than space tourism.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
environmental cost is a fiction. the cost for those items was paid ("calculated" by looking at the invoices for the materials) when they were purchased including the sellers best guess for any required cleanup.
fuel cost is the purchase cost(this is not rocket science either)
future cost of something floating around Mars? none
future cost of stuff floating around earth? commercial projects purchase insurance for that and governments usually flu insurance free (essentially self insured) so the people that might run into the junk have accounted for that possibility beforehand in their craft
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
This post went up saying "costed" in both occurances, and now it says "cost" in both places, but no correction/retraction or anything else to indicate that the origional was different from the current version.
Perhaps by the time that I submit, all of the other, threaded, refrences to the goof will be removed from evidence too?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Ok, lets go do it. Who's with me?
No, really. We have two choices: we can eithor sit on our asses and wait for someone else do do it, or we can just go and do it.
We'd have to get a group of dedicated people together, and we'd have to spend a lot of time and effort on the project, but there's absolutely nothing stopping a small group of Slashdotters from going to Mars.
The only thing is that we'd have to be willing to put in the time and effort to do the thing.
Anyone who's actually interested, say so. We can set up an initial meeting as soon as we have four or five people interested.
Warning: If you're not willing to quit your job, sell your house, and teach yourself advanced physics, don't even bother replying.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Ok, while we are at it lets not do any science research because we need to feed the poor. NOT this is one of the most moronic arguments I have ever heard. Space Exploration and science in general helps us become more then what we are now. These are the most importent stuff we can do period. Now, I admit it's not good that people starve, but the 20 billion for a mars trip (or even one trilion) will not help.. people starve becuase of politics. How would you spend that 20 billion? a) paying all the dictators to be nice to there people. b) paying american soldiers to go kill the dictators?
The truth is science is the best investment a government can make. Ultimatly, it is more importent then the poor, the military, and the various corperate / individual subsidies which eat 70% of our budget. Why? It changes who we are.
Technology is also the solution to the thirdworlds problems because it forces the governments to support skilled labor (computers, etc.) which creates a middle class who are sympathetic to the poor. It also forces the countries well-to-do to send their children to the US for education where they become sympathetic to the poor.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Pardon me if this comes off as kind of flamy, but what do you mean?
How could it possibly aid wireless communications? Satellites in orbit currently can cover the whole earth. A Moon-base receiver, or a Mars-based one, could only cover %50 at a time.
Finally, would you really want to add a 7 second lag to all your conversations by bouncing a signal off the Moon? Bouncing off of Mars would make that lag minutes.
I can only hope you jest, and no one has moderated your humor down for innacuracy yet. I sincerely hope you aren't serious, though I acknowledge that maybe you're thinking of something totally escaping me, but given that exceeding the speed of light is impossible I highly doubt that.
Absimiliard
I don't write good sigs, I just envy them.
I appreciate your social consciousness and humanity, but this is a false choice. We are the richest society the world has ever seen. We spend billions annually on pet food, cosmetics, junk food, video games, (hey, wait, games are essential to life...), professional sports, and other useless junk.
If we cut the space program to $0, you would not see one dime of it in Spanish Harlem. If you guilted-out the entertainment industry, you might get some results.
---
>Waterworld costed more
>Amen to that. Maybe those people who scream "We should feed everyone here! But it's not my job!"
The cost of Waterworld, and whether or not it's the responsibility of the Federal Government to feed the poor of this country, have nothing to do with the issue of Federal support of Space Exploration.
The poor people of this country live next door to, or down the street from you and I. You and I, as private citizens on an individual basis, or in small, local citizens groups (Churches,Temples, Elks, VFW, etc) can feed the poor more effectively and more efficiently than the Feds will ever be able to.
The Federal government was created for the sole purpose of doing ONLY those things that we, as individuals, or the local forms of government that represent us, are ill equipped to do: provide for the national defense, regulate national/international commerce, to coin money, to establish a postal service, etc, etc. (Constitution, Article 1, Section 8)
So, should the Federal Government support space exploration? I believe so, depending upon the circumstances.
The tradition of Federally funded exploration goes back at least as far as President Jefferson's support of the Lewis and Clarke expedition. Thomas Jefferson understood the Constitution as well as anyone could and, therefore, an impeccable precedent was set early in our Nation's history.
Furthermore, space exploration is not something that local governments, let alone individuals, can accomplish effectively. The resources of the Federal government are neccesary for the success of any large-scale effort to explore and populate space.
Therefore, if the goals are worthwhile, then yes, I believe that the Federal government should be allowed to support the exploration of space.
It could work, in the netherlands we had a television show called 'big brother' it was about a couple of people 'locked' into a house for 100 days. The public loved it !
Why not send a spacecraft to mars , put a lot of cam's aboard the thing, and broadcast it ?
So, obviously you want to not just webcast it but also make it a show on national television (24/7 coverage)
After a few days the public will love it (just as the big brother show in NL), and after the mars mission is over, they would demand a sequel!
also, the NASA could get most of the costs for the mission back through advertising, maybe even make it profitable!
---
So you don't give a rats arse about the poor and starving but when your cushy white collar life comes into question you whinge and cry like the "unwashed masses" that you are condeming.
So I take it the prospect of you starving does not appeal to you either.
I wonder what your fascination would be if you, your wife and children had nowhere to live and nothing to eat!!
I am sure contributing to Science is all you would think about............
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
The US government exists to protect the people of the US - there must be more Americans on this planet than any other race.
Thank god you they where there in Serbia when all the US citizen's where dying like flies.
In Iraq - when you where being massacred by Saddam
In Vietnam, Korea
How are your army bases and fleet presences around the world protecting US Citizens who are all residents of one area of the Earth
Do not be so naive. I suggest a refresher course in politics...............
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Nobody has yet mentioned the Artemis Society International's project for establishing a privately-funded colony on the moon. The Artemis Project was mentioned in an article by rocket scientist Gregory Bennett in the January 1995 issue of the Analog SF magazine. It has since grown into a fairly sizeable undertaking which looks like it might have a real chance to reach the moon within their proposed schedule. Check out their web site, join their mailing list, even send them money. It's worth a look.
Ahh, my fellow comrades. The dreamers, the doers, the opinionated. We who love SCI Fi, we who dream of a free and unified world. We that look to the stars...
Of course, not all of us have our head fully screwed in properly. Do it, damned the cost ( since money is of little value to us right? ) Even in a moneyless "Star Trek" society, there is a cost in everything: The human man hours of skilled and talented workers ( opportunity cost ), the physical resources, loss of life or general working conditions ( quality of life ). Communist society, for example, would have us all living more humbly for the "greater good" ( which of course is in the eye of the statesmen ).
In reaction to colonization of the moon, mars ( or even space stations ) as a supposed solution to the failing of NASA, I say, Action with no incentive is foolhardy indeed.
One reader pointed out that we can not hail NASA's ( and hence man's ) conquest of the moon, since it's incentive was, in fact, a life threatening cold war. Something greater, and more profound than man's perseverance and ingenuity, is _life's_ fight for survival. We did not conquer the moon because we could, but because we had to; when backed into the corner, this cat lashed out with all it's might ( and resources ). This devotion of resources is something that finds no such motivation today. And I would challenge anyone that craves the back-firing black magic that brings back such motivation.
What we are left with are millions of dreamers pointing fingers saying, "but you did it before". And a government agency doing what I assume is their best to efficiently convert their scare resources into visible science.
As for a moon base. I'd like to point out that we have YET to successfully produce a bio-dome HERE ON EARTH! We do not yet fully understand the delicate balance of nature, less how to command it. Colonization, could therefore not be fully sustained by these currently lifeless worlds. The cost would be unimaginable. And of course we are talking about residences, which of course would have to be regulated. I'm sure the ACLU and other rights organizations would have a field day with many of the near-death experiences. If you think the set backs in the simple non-permanent space station are appalling...
As was also pointed out, we have little human critical experience with the extra-terrestrial. How do you mend broken bones and other ailments? Do we send groups of people within the next decade to their doom? Do we risk the life of our most talent and promising astronaughts?
I believe it to be naive to say that we're wasting money on these conservative, yet expensive projects, so we should go the full gambit and colonize! There are several orders of magnitude of complexity, risk and COST!
I would call this the brute force solution ( much like the lunar landing ). I have always idealized the intelligent, dynamic solution; one that isn't fully apparent at the outset. Do what is best at the moment ( hopefully as adaptable as possible ), and recheck yourself regularly to see if changes can be made to either get you further ahead, or ( as is often necessary ), to reinvent yourself.
I believe the "commercialization" of space is a good thing. The private sector ( and our potential entrepreneurial pioneers ) are welcome to build upon off-the-shelf rocket science and find some personal goal ( which just happens to further mankind ). Zero gravity Space products, and possibly lunar / mars mining are interesting incentives. The main thing that I like about them is that their motivation would be "economics", ( which doesn't mean money, btw ). You do what is most efficient at the moment. When things look bad, you kill it with little after-thought ( don't throw good money at bad ). When someone seems to be succeeding, other venture capitalists will jump on the band-wagon, thus expanding our knowledge and experience base. When dead-ends are reached, people will look elsewhere.
Since there doesn't seem to be enough vested interest, this will take time. The entry barrier is still too high for this model. But the incentives and the means are becoming ever more apparent. This is my personal hope for the future of space-technology.
My big issue is that government agencies do not follow the model of [economic] efficiency, but instead follow task oriented mandates. "Go to the moon", "stop crime", "Make hubble work". Unfortunately, their support ends with the completion of a given task. There is no competition, no reward system, no punishment ( other than general monetary prioritization and national pride ). Either a private sector NASA needs to come into existence ( possibly as with the post office ), or we'll have to continue to live with this task-mastering until it becomes economically feasible to surmount this "great space barrier".
In the short run, I support a congressional review of NASA. It may bring to light the negative effects of cutting costs by reducing redundancy. It may shed light on administrative weaknesses. It may very well bring about a more efficient and productive NASA. Sadly, it will most likely involve cuts in funding. But as such, I do not personally find value in mars exploration ( gasp, blasphemy! ). If there is life, it will still be there in a hundred years. Even if not, it would only be one of the billions of interesting facts that we've lost.
The Matrix: You humans seem to define your reality by your misery.
Me: That misery becomes our newfound motivation. Without it, we become complacent and wasteful.
-Michael
-Michael
We're not on Mars because of NASA. I'm not joking in the least when I say that an agency that wakes up its crew with Oldies music is sad. The music is a perfect metaphore for what they've become. THE WAKE-UP SONG SHOULD BE THE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Nope, they'd sooner find a U.N. song to play. Why don't they play something INSPIRING? Would it be Politically Incorrect not to play pansy music?
Mark my words: JAPAN IS GOING TO BEAT US TO MARS.
If a mission fails, only tech people and engineers should ever say "I told you so".
i really hate that magazine, but I think this is something that the geek community (especially the rich geek community) might want to invest some time....
The question is how do we make this profitable? Well america is a country of capitalists, that can't be that hard? I wonder how much coca cola would pay to do some landscaping work on the moon so when you look at it from earth you see the coke symbol. kill two birds with one stone, with a space station and lots of moola!
Pepsi sucks =)
I would put in a little money to this venture and so would a lot of other people but the way they talk about investment in their website makes it clear. The little guy need not apply.
DB
The hunger that is in the world is due to government action, not lack of resources. But nobody starves their own people out of incompetence anymore, economics has progressed too much for this to be true. The bastards who use hired thugs to take food away from the starving (example: Sudan) are evil, pure and simple. Saying it's a lack of priorities just makes it look a little less unbearable.
DB
Waterworld was underwritten by a movie studio that expected to make money. The tickets were bought by people who expected to be entertained. What this makes clear is that the possibility of privately funded space exploration really exists. We don't have to just sit and wait for it to happen. And it might not be a bad thing for NASA. They have a lot of expertise and equipment already. If some aspects of the project were contracted out to NASA on private missions, they are in the loop, and have another source of revenue.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Which is beside the point, because the Scuttle cannot get anywhere near the Moon. It has enough OMS (Orbital Maneuvering System) fuel to get up to about 400 miles altitude with a minimal payload. This requires, IIRC, about 200 m/sec of delta-V. Going from LEO to lunar transfer orbit requires about a 2 mile/second kick; that's 3200 meters/sec, or about sixteen times the punch of the OMS packs. Forget braking to lunar orbit, landing, or taking off again; you're never going to get more than a few hundred miles from home in one of those things.
Scuttle is also about a billion bucks per launch, so it's a mighty expensive way to get anything to anywhere. Mostly it's a self-perpetuating program, going on the momentum of the political pull of the vendors. In other words, pork. To get anywhere, we need another vehicle with radically different characteristics. Since that vehicle would replace Scuttle and leave its well-connected vendors out in the cold, we're stuck.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
If these guys were serious, they would have pictures showing details like sample panels being tested under the heat loads expected during re-entry. All they have is some moderately well-drawn art and a few equations. I'd not cite them again in support of the assertion that private parties will go to space; you're just giving people cause to dismiss the entire idea, Rotary Rocket included.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The more important issue at the moment for any kind of big mission to Mars is launchers, the tonnes of mass that you need to get into orbit.
The shuttle is too expensive for doing lots of heavy lift work (and it's too unreliable partly due to the requirements for human crew safety). Every time you use most rockets these days you throw away stages to get to orbit, be they boosters or whatever. This costs big time, both in terms of all that stuff you chuck out and in terms of the cost of developing the stages. It costs about 10 billion to develop a space vehicle and that means each stage. You do a 3 stage rocket (eg Saturn V) you got about 30 billion in costs.
Then there's running costs and turnaround. The shuttle takes months to turn around after a mission, it's complex and can't carry that much to orbit (and that only to low earth orbit). What you need is a system that is really re-usable like and aircraft, preferably unmanned and easy to turn around after a mission.
The solutions?
SSTO (single stage to orbit) it's the only way that we'll get the launchers that are needed for any kind of heavy launches to orbit (in terms of total tonnage over time) required for a proper manned mission to Mars.
NASA has one of these in the pipeline, the Venturestar. It's not doing too well. Call me a cynic (and a Brit one at that) but I do not have a huge amount of confidence in NASA to deliver this system. Their technology demonstrator is over weight budget by a _lot_, partly because they belived the engine maufacturer (who quoted cheapest it should be said) when they said the engines would e lighter than conventional engines... they're heavier (a lot heavier). This has resulted in them having to bolt depleted uranium to a bulkhead in the nose (high tech huh?). Its structure has had to be radically redesigned because the aerodynamic trim is wrong (you have to get this right, you haven't got any spare mass to play with) and the fancy new materials that they're using aren't working the way that they were supposed to. NASA don't seem to have learned that new stuff isn't a good idea in space, that's why satellites use 286 processors and why even in aerospace the cutting edge civil fly by wire of the bug Airbus aircraft is based on 386 chips. New things aren't predictable, and engineering analysis isn't precise enough to tell you everything that you'll need to know.
What else is there? Well not a lot. SSTO is _very_ hard. The Earth is about 10% too big for it to work easily. Still you might want to look at the (rather bad) webpages devoted to the Skylon Project [http://www.gbnet.net/orgs/skylon/skycont.htm]. It's basically all the things that were learned from the British HOTOL project in the 80's. I've seen the figures and it will work. It's clever, airbreathing rockets that use the air as oxidiser instead of having to carry all of their liquid oxygen (until the atmosphere gets too thin). It lets you get up cheaper than the shuttle or any of the rocket solutions available now.
This is the kind of vehicle that's needed and it's not even that expensive to develop, but trying to go to Mars without it will cost even more even if you assemble the Mars ship in orbit. you still have to get the parts there.
The only way, I'd say, to mobilize public support needed for 'going outer space' the old-fashioned, exploring way, is when there's another war or semi-war were 'we' need to get 'there' before 'they' do (whoever and where-ever).
That's the politicians' view of Americans and it is biased. Americans are pioneers, not politicians.
Side note: If you look back in the Congressional Record, you'll find a lot more support for NASA funding from the Congress than was coming from the Executive during the post Apollo 11 era. This is something that rarely gets mentioned, but it does say something about what "the people" wanted vs what "the government" wanted.
That, not the spinning off romance, was the reason for the Apollo Project in the first place
You're right that government, as pointed out in my congressional testimony, pursued the Apollo project for those reasons.
However, you're dead wrong that pursuing frontiers is merely "spinning off romance". For many Americans, perhaps even most of the first generation immigrants, coming to the American frontier was a matter of life and death.
Seastead this.
It's always better to get at the root of, to solve, the problem. Space exploration could be a way to let us continue to decline and reproduce without ill effects, but will we be any better off? We should solve the problems we have here before we spread them through the universe.
Any catastophe we bring upon ourselves is more likely to teach us a lesson than to kill us off completely.
Where is my mind?
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
$165,000,000 = one lost space exploration device.
$165,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for a decade. These kids will not eat lunch otherwise.
Which is more important to you? What does that say about your priorities and your humanitarianism?
This is not a flame, by the way.
I don't care if space research is done. I just believe it should be 100% privately funded. If people are that passionate about space exploration, let them foot the bill directly.
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
The article mentions a figure of around 20 billion. Not cheap, but over a few years not that much out of a 1.7 trillion dollar/year budget.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Usually in the countryside, the more kids you have the better off you are... You can plow more fields, work more efficiently, and your family creates a web of influence... In these cases, people are having children in the hopes of taking them _out_ of poverty, or at least giving them some form of retirement...
The problem is when everybody does it...
/
there is no thing
what else could you want?
For some further reading, I'd recommend "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. Perhaps some of you have read it already. In it, Zubrin explains his plan on how to get directly to mars, now. All using technologies we currently have, skipping the space station, skipping the moon. Seems like a pretty solid plan to me, although I'm just a dumb art student...so I could be wrong =-) Check it out though, he talks a little about history, what other peoples plans are (the battleship galactia approach) and why his is better, then goes into great detail about what he wants to do and what he's been working on to prove it'll work. Very intersting stuff.
I know it's not as sexy... but why do we seem to want to throw all our marbles into one basket (Mars). Wh not go to the moon and setup a base there first? While common sense says to take things one step at a time (especially when lives are at stake) everything I have ever read or seen about the mission to mars completely ignores any possibility of first setting up on teh Moon. Is there a reason (besides PR) for this?
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
The MPL gave us no telemetry upon entering the Mars atmosphere, and the reasons for it's lack of comunication (what we have here, is a failure to comunicate. name that movie?) is still not known at this time.
The good news is, we can still gain the education and learn what happened to the lander by sending another to see what there is to see. As mentioned in the article, " The cost of the Mars Polar Lander was $165 million. In an $8 trillion economy, that is a laughable sum."
Futurists speek of nanotech making it possible to send hundreds of tiny "nano-bots" out to explore other planets. Because they are so affordable, half can fail, and the rest will finish the mission. This prediction is dead on, but what if we could do that today?
What if the economic conditions changed enough to make this approach feasable? Instead of making the bots smaller, the economy grew enough to make the full size bot more affordable. $8 trillion is a lot of money for this country, and we could spend it on learning more about what went wrong.
_________________________
Face it: When we are talking about that much money, it's just talk. Nothing more, nothing less. (Just like the US is Billions (or is it Trillions now?) in the hole. Who cares? It's not like it actually changes anything.)
This is about resources. The way you should think about a trip to the moon.mars (expense-wise anyways) is in Resources.
Example:
I know it's kind of a crude way of looking at things, but you have to understand that Money is a very abstract idea, and ultimately, one that is not applicable to this situation.
And yes, I do understand that Money is a system set up to distribute resources fairly. I don't think that it works very well on a very large scale. No proof (other than governments, but I really don't want to go into that), just my opinion.
---
rJames.org - illustration
does NASA spend their money elsewhere. I'm not the greatest of all smart people, but I think we need to see how much NASA is getting and perhaps have them redirect some funding. Just an idea from a clueless guy... -Ian
$165,000,000 = free lunch programs for all of the needy kids in the NYC region for a decade. These kids will not eat lunch otherwise.
Which is more important to you? What does that say about your priorities and your humanitarianism?
Since when do we not have the resources to do both? It's not like this is an either-or proposition. "but what about the needy children?" We can feed them _and_ go to mars!
--
Well there is a private project underway to do something similar to that called The Artemis Project.
Artemis (if I recall correctly) wants to PRE-SELL the rights to the photographs and IMAX film they'll shoot once they get to the moon.
They're hoping the profits they raise from pre-selling those things, combined with other fundraising efforts will be enough to fund their trip.
I believe their trip involves some custom hardware and renting space in the Shuttle Bay to get their stuff into orbit. Once there they power themselves to the moon.
They're at asi.org
Ignore Alien Orders
One really good reason to put a station on Mars or the Moon is the leaps in wireless communications it would produce. This is a development everyone could use.
-lou
Until mankind renounces monetary systems (ala Star Trek's Federation) will we get around the problem of funding space exploration. What we need to do is find a way of funding a UN space agency or private companies. Looking at the graft and corruption that goes on at the UN, I think private companies are the way to go. Lets auction off the mining rights to parts of the moon or mars. The early railroads were built by the private companies that were lured by land grants etc. Another way of funding would be to put a tax of .00001% on all monetary transfers between countries. Considering trillions of dollars are traded daily, it would not take long to fund a space program. I guess we have to decide which is more important. World peace, ending hunger, desease, poverty or puting a handful of people on another planet.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
...is in-orbit construction. You save a whole lot of fuel if you don't have to bust out of earth's atmosphere and gravity. With the ISS, we can bring modular parts of a Marsship from Earth's surface with surface-to-orbit craft(hereafter referred to as SOC), then construct it in orbit, and send it on its merry way, like in Clarke's writing. :)
Then, upon arrival at Mars, we can construct another, simple station for fueling and suchlike. We bring on the Marsship a couple of SOCs, and with these we land on Mars.
The only problem, of course, is that if the SOCs are lost, the {cosmo|astro}nauts are lost. So maybe the interplanetary ship should be able to land and takeoff just once, for emergency rescue.
Or, we could just build an orbital elevator....
===
-Ravagin
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Joking aside. If you want something to happen, there are two things you can do:
help make it happen.
hope someone else does it.
You seem to be a member of the second group. As you can tell... I want to be part of the first.
And yes if I had the $ I'd be donating cash to NASA or buying stock in a company trying to get into the space business.
Just because your buck rogers fantasy didn't come true, you seem to believe that a revolution in space travel won't be happening anytime soon. But it's comming. Why? Private industry. I doubt Uncle Sam will get us anywhere any time soon, but I think private industry will. Companies are going after the x prize (for the first commerically produced re-usable lauch vehicle) worth $10 Million. The rotary rocket is now in test flight.
Things are happening. And momentum will grow.
But of course, being young and impatient, I of course wish it would happen faster!
I ate my sig.
Yes, please, and all his (so-called) movies too. Let's make the world a better place.
How many juntas have you seen where the common person revolted? Not lately. It's the military or other wealthy people.
Question for you: Do you feed the "starving multitudes?" How often in one week do you volunteer? or how much money do you give?
Just curious.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This signature contains text from the worlds funniest signature.
Until we take the full external costs of "leaving home" in to account, there's no point in polluting our only planet trying to get somewhere less hospitable.
Why not get Cnn or something to sponsor the crafts. Ill bet theyd pay 100million$ to have exclusive viewing rights and live coverage and probably could make little mars lunar toys or something like that.
Lest I seem too pessimistic, let me say this: I think going to, say, Mars is a worthy goal. I haven't thought that much about establishing an outpost there (which has all sorts of other issues associated with it), but that would be pretty neat too. :-) BUT you are shooting yourself in the foot by telling people it's an easy problem -- eventually, they might believe you. I think all the issues I mentioned above will be solved. (There is promising research in short-duration centrifuges, and some less-promising but still cool work in tether-based large centrifuges. But all of these have a lot of testing to go through before they'll be ready to rock.) But it'll be a while, and people should know that.
It took me a bit of unintuitive navigation to find the article. The actual story is right here .
They should definately place webcams aboard of all manned spaceflights, I would for sure watch it live on the internet and many other people as well. I think this would improve the general thought about spacemissions, when people can actually "participate" by watching the crew live. Maybe nasa could ask a subscriptionfee for this and raise more money this way.. the cams are already there, only they're not linked to the internet yet.. Place cams in the earth control section as well so people can witness everything, and they might get a better image about where their taxmoney goes instead of watching an 100million movie about appollo 13..
Regards,
Besides there are manufacturing processes (IE steel) that could benefit from the Moon's exposure to the vacuum of space. From the moon we could build spacecraft to other places that would be to complex to assemble in orbit, and too big to launch from Earth.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I remember looking in the encyclopedias and finding the layouts to a space craft that can fly to mars. It looked like a lawn dart. And was supposed to launch in '80.
A few years later, I remember reading about a sister craft to the shuttle that will allow landing on different planets and large supply transfers. The plans were canceled when the 5 other shuttles were canceled.
Back in '85 I remember reading about a new craft that was the size of a VW bug. It was to fit in the shuttle and transfer supplies and people to the moon. Looking at the X-37, I can see that this might have been feesible.
Currently we are planning for a Space Station. Which has been redesigned and reviewed about every 6 months since 1985. Problems with this plan spring anew like water through a sock.
As the article states, we need a goal. And require the government to back that goal without grandstanding.
I belive that a country that can set priorities, like Australia or Japan, will create a colony on the moon. And the US culimination will be a few token flags painted on the side of their spacecraft.
My hope is that the X-Prize will pull commercial interest onto the moon.
There is no technical reason that we could not establish permanent bases on the moon, Mars, or on an asteroid. The fact that we could send manned missions to the moon with less than 10 years lead time (from the idea being first proposed) suggests that we can develop the technology.
It is unlikely that NASA would be able to execute such a mission. Unfortunately, the space agency is no longer the can do group it was in the 1960's. Instead, it has grown into another Bureaucratic monster, more concerned with maintaining its funding that searching out new, expansive goals.
We can expect privately funded space launch services such as Rotary Rocket or Cerulean Freight Forwarding Company within the next five years. With these and other companies providing access to low earth orbit, there will be a ten fold decrease in the cost off access to space. This will allow more activity in space, which in turn will encourage more launchers to provide access. It is quite likely that Space Vacations will be available for the affluent inside the next ten years, with costs as low as $100,000 per person for a two week stay in a space.
There are groups who want to move permanently into space. Eventually, we will be going to the moon, Mars, the Asteroids, and elsewhere. If you are interested in promoting space, I recommend that you join one or more of these organizations.
Actually, the Saturn V blueprints are kept at the Marshall Space Flight Center on microfilm. The problem with making a Saturn V is trying to find hardware vendors that sell hardware from the mid 1960's.
Spending money to solve world hunger is NOT one of the reasons why space projects are underfunded. Hence, this was an irrelevent point.
Of course the planet has weather patterns but the martian atmospheric pressure is minute compared to earth's so dust storms aren't as big of a problem as you might think, and its not like it is going to rain.
Another thing, people bitch about not wanting to risk astronauts lives to do this, well my friends, they aren't your lifes and you don't have the right to tell somebody that "there's some risk and so we don't want you to go". Goddamn, nothing ever gets done unless somebody is willing to put everything on the line, pussy-footing around didn't get us to the moon, or build the pyramids, or learn to fly, or anything else. Sometimes people have to die to see how something works. You say the future of space travel is at risk, I guess you don't remember challenger, or Apollo I then. I am pretty sure we still are going up into space, even after those. So if you are going to say something have some goddamn information to back it up, and read A Case for Mars. A Bugg
People claim to want to go to the moon and use it as a stepping stone to get to mars, one problem, you have to get everything from the earth to the moon in the first place, and then get it from the moon to Mars, so in the end you end up wasting tons of energy, you could have saved on a direct trip to mars. And don't say you can mine the propellant on the moon, because HE3 is the only type of propellant we could get from the moon, and the only thing that is good for is fusion, not quite there yet.
Your comment about the assembling craft on the moon could, one day, come into play, because it would be much easier to build there than outer space, and much easier to launch than from earth. But you could do the same thing from mars to, and it has more of the types of minerals that would be neccesary from constuction of interplanetary ships than the moon, such as silicon for the comps, alluminum, and iron(for steel). There is titanium, but not as much as there in on earth.
Also on the moon you have to bring all of the oxygen you want to breathe with you, and all of the water you need to drink, on mars you don't just take both out of the CO2, although you will need to take some hydrogen (as in not a whole lot) to mars. And as the guy said after you, six days or six months, you decompress, in either situation your SOL. Even though you didn't talk about all of this stuff I felt the need to tell everyone on slashdot because there are some people on here how are just completely ignorant of everything space related (not neccesarily you).
A Bugg
What's really going to bake your noodle later on is would you have still broken it if I hadn't said anything? -(Oracle) The Matrix
A Bugg
Some very smart guys at Los Alamos are working on a Gas Core Nuclear Rocket.
This rocket engine will use a fissioning uranium gas plasma to create ungodly amounts of thrust--something on the order of 10,000 SpI. According to the scientist I talked with who has been working on the design, a GCNR-powered ship could be very lightweight, carry hundreds of crew members and thousands of tons of payload, and still travel to Mars within thirty days or so.
This thrust is on the same order as the Freeman Dyson/Stanislaw Ulam "Orion" rocket, basically a bunch of well-timed nuclear explosions transferring kinetic energy to a graphite-coated pressure plate that provides the thrust.
Of course, the antinuclear zealots will try to stop this engine from being built, saying things like "Oh, it'll pollute space with nuclear waste products" or some such tripe. But this technology is too good to pass up.
The biggest obstacle to date in building a GCNR is the computational power needed to model the extraordinarily complex interactions of the reaction, basically the same as modelling a nuclear explosion. Obviously we are getting closer to being about to pull off the analysis, given that we are nearing (or at) the point where we can model explosions and wean ourselves off of underground testing.
I like the idea of a Zubrin-style "live off the land" approach, and maybe we should try that now since that's what we know we can do this minute. But the U.S. should also throw a lot of money at the GCNR, build a ship with enough supplies and crew, and colonize Mars without dicking around.
Here's a link explaining more about the GCNR.
.......... kris
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
Sure it will be out of water etc., if we persist in such stupid, wasteful behavior as sending people into space.
Problems with this argument -
1. It is not the US government's responsibility to feed the starving people of other countries. The US government exists to protect the people of the US, which may or may not include feeding its own citizens. Responibility for the starving people of other countries lies with their governments or the people themselves.
2. We spend plenty trying to feed the poor in our own country, and frankly, if you starve in the US, you are an idiot. The money would be better spent on housing or education, if that.
3. Many scientific advances stem from the space program. The money spent will pay for itself in advanced technology if nothing else. Some of this advanced technology may be of use feeding the poor.
4. NASA's budget would be a drop in a bucket. 30 billion couldn't feed 1 billion people... not for any length of time. 30 billion dollars equals 3 per person... not counting distrobution costs (which would be massive) that's one good meal for everyone.
Often the ignorant argue that space exploration takes resources away from Earth-bound priorities, or even less logical, that "we'd just pollute other planets."
One - while it makes sense to protect space resources of surpassing beauty, such as the rings of Saturn, mining asteroids for minerals isn't perturbing a biosystem, nor destroying anything of beauty. There is no defensible argument against it.
Two - the exploitation of space resources is the best environmental policy we could pursue. Would you rather crush an asteroid or strip-mine an old growth forest? Every activity on the planet has an impact on the biosphere - it must be treated as a closed system.
By using space resources we open the system - we bring energy and resources in from outside. The analogy I like to use is this - trying to help the environment without using space resources is like trying to lift a chair you are standing on. It would be possibly only if you have a skyhook to lift you up.
Skymining - the only practical way to maintain an industrial society!
We need a way let computers navigate the ships to mars and take all the damn human error out. A few ping's Mars should help things.
Do you really have any idea how much a pain that would be for me???
You Linux nutzoids are WAAAAY to eager to spend my money on frivolous junk. Who wants to go to Mars? ME??? No way... I'm happy owning one planet thank you very much. I'll leave Mars to Linus, or whoever, let them Open Source THAT! Maybe then they'll leave me alone... Sheesh
While I'm certainly a proponent of space exploration, and there's nothing I would like better that to kick back with a nice glass of Romulan brandy, it's clear to me that we do indeed have our priorities in quite the odd order. In Phoenix alone, over the last several days they have pulled the torso (just the torso) of a man out of a dumpster, discovered the skeletal remians of an infant in the desert, sentenced a woman to a bazillion years in prison for beating up a rather tiny set of quadruplets, as well as various other atrocities. While we're losing expensive toys in the bowels of space and making box office abortions like "Waterworld", our society is declining to a point that will soon rival the decline of the Roman empire. I wonder where our priorities really lie, as I watch them close down shelters, treatment centers, and youth hostels due to lack of funding. Oh, and did I mention that we lost our little car in space...?
For this we thank thee, amen.
Yes, but if we self-destruct, what's the point?
Ok, so the polar lander cost $165, which I admit is cheap. But how much is a manned mission to Mars going to cost? A few hundred billion dollars? A few trillion dollars? More? Manned space flight has proven to be extremely expensive.
There's no question that a manned mission to Mars would be cool (where do I sign up?). But I think the question should be: is this really the best way to spend our tax money?
The only way Mars is going to be economical is if private industry takes the lead role in space development, rather than the govt. (This is already beginning to happen, of course.) Space entrepreneurs will find a way for us to travel cheaply to Mars, if the government can't....
NASATV covers launches from beginning to end already FOR FREE on the web, and they've been doing so for quite some time. So obviously even having such content available isn't going to be enough to interest the average Joe Citizen. http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/breaking.html Maybe Jimmy Lovell and Buzz Aldrin need to have a big weenie roast and invite the neighborhood folks. They could pass out pamphlets and watch "The Right Stuff". P.S. Apollo 13 was worth every penny.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
NASATV covers launches from beginning to end already FOR FREE on the web, and they've been doing so for quite some time. So obviously even having such content available isn't going to be enough to interest the average Joe Citizen.
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/breaking.html
Maybe Jimmy Lovell and Buzz Aldrin need to have a big weenie roast and invite the neighborhood folks. They could pass out pamphlets and watch "The Right Stuff". P.S. Apollo 13 was worth every penny.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
My understanding is that the idea of humans exploring space came to a screeching halt when we realized that humans just can't take weightlessness for long periods of time without severe bone/muscle loss and so forth. Take a look at the research specialists going up on the shuttle these days; they're all MD's Know why? They're studying the effects of weightlessness on humans. Know why John Glenn went back up in the first place? As a guinea pig. He was an extremely fit septo (octo?) generian with an extensively documented medical history. Basically, his job was to demonstrate the effects of weightlessness on older physiologies. And, in the serendipitous spirit of NASA, this information is turned to any number of other usefull things, like general ageing research and so on, but, in summary... We are not colonizing the moon or landing on mars becuse human bodies just won't take it. And until we figure out how to accomodate ourselves to different gravities, we're pretty much stuck here.
It's a little ironic that you compared the Mars Lander to Waterworld, that highly aclaimed and not at all peice of tripe (Ha Ha). Waterworld in all fairness wasn't that bad a movie, but it did crash and burn. We can only assume that the mars lander crashed and burned as well. Maybe next time NASA will hire Costner to direct the launch. Ok the cost would tripple and it would be at least 2 hours longer than expected, but it would go out in style.
The Well Known Fat Bloke
If you haven't alredy, i think you all shoud head over to this site and sign the mars petition. http://thinkmars.net/petition.html
I say we make Bill Gates pay for part of the trip. :-)
even though the surface is extremely hot, the upper atmosphere is earth temperatures, earth gravity, and earth air-pressure, and lots of light. (of course it's toxic gas, and winds get up to 300mph, but it's a lot easier to make an artifical livable environment in a self contained bubble baloon station than in a vacume, of no temperature, and minute gravity)
Just a thought.
If you haven't already read Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent sci-fi trilogy on the subject....
The starving multitudes are not just mouths to be fed. There is a *reason* why they don't have enough food to eat, and it's not because we're not giving them enough money, it's because of the way their country's governments are organised.
Please do not try to use emotional blackmail on me, or twist my words by saying that I'd like to see people have their photos taken on other planets.
If we went your way, we'd drop everything we are doing now - particle physics, astronomy, nanotech, medical research - *everything* - to go and feed the poor. Would you rather know the fundamentals of physics than feed a starving person?
Let me take it further. Why don't you sell your car, or your computer, to go and feed the starving? It's easy to preach morals, but harder to enact them.
Of course I feel for the starving and the homeless. But if we concentrated on solving all the problems we have now, we would get nowhere at all. We will always have problems.
Do you realise the political impossibility of 'giving' billions of dollars of aid to third-world countries? You can't just hand it to a million starving people, it has to go through the government. You can't just give the starving people food, because that money is going to run out.
You can't just give them money to start farms or buy fertiliser, because, by and large, they already *have* enough food, they're just not getting it. The problems of the starving and the homeless cannot be solved solely through money.
Really? With 20 or 30 billion, you could feed the world? Are you aware that we can already feed the world quite comfortably right now, if we just distributed the food around a little better?
We spend 20 or 30 billion, if not more, on aid to third-world countries every year. Do you see conditions improving? No.
People say that we should spend money on getting rid of the homeless, curing cancer, building more hospitals, and all the rest. I've always replied that any amount of money will not make these problems go away, and certainly not the relatively small amounts used to explore and colonise Mars. Yes, we shouldn't ignore the problems we have now, but it's just not practical and it's not possible for us to make sure that conditions are perfect at home before venturing outside.
The problems of the third world, the disease, wars, famine, global warming and terrorism are not caused by lack of money. They are caused by human 'nature'. I certainly don't want to say that we shouldn't do anything about them because, at heart, we are all scumbags (which we aren't. At least, most of us aren't). But we can only find the answer to these problems within ourselves, not within our wallets.
And your implication that a mission to Mars would be merely 'Flag and footprints', like the Apollo missions, is woefully uninformed and out of date.
Space exploration is a must. Try to think a few centuries ahead hmm? This chunk of rock will most likely be out of water, grossly overpopulated, and a good place to leave. The goal is to colonize other planets. Domes? Underground? Who knows.....but it must be done.
Whoops! Looks like I should check on my own 'Basic Geology' before I go shooting my mouth off: The Moon is 40% Oxygen by mass, not 60%. You can check the figures (and learn more about the goodies which the other 60% contains) by reading:
T. Iwata, "Technical Strategies for Lunar Manufacturing", Acta Astronautica, 26, pp.29-36 (1992).
Folks, if you really care about this subject, posting your response here isn't going to help. For the most part, you're 'preaching to the converted' and the people who need to read your words aren't reading this.
NASA's, ESA's, CSA's, NASDA's, etc. budget has been slashed to ribbons over the past decade and albatrosses like Space Station are just going to keep making the situation worse. If you Really Care(tm) about seeing space technology move forward (ie: if you're sick of the 1970s Space Shuttle dog-and-pony show and "Faster, Better, Cheaper - Work Smarter Not Harder" stuff) and would prefer to see something more useful than a foreign aid package parceled up as a "science project" be the result of decades of brilliant engineers' work, then write your government representative and let THEM know.
Writing isn't the only thing you can do (and by writing, I mean a physical piece of paper with ink or toner, placed into one of those foolish envelope things and given to the postal service of your choice -- a disk full of 2k e-mails doesn't quite have the same impact when furiously waved about in Congress). You can also:
Visit schools and give a classroom presentation on technology (it can be exclusively about space technology, if you'd like -- you probably know more about it than the teachers). Why not call the principal of your local high / public / middle school and ask for a half-hour of lecture time? I was surprised, when I first asked, at how happy they were to have an outside visitor stop by to tell the kids a bit about the 'real world', and not have it involve drugs or 'anger management'. I was also shocked when bright 17 year olds were asking me if there were already human bases on Mars! Keep in mind: in just a few years, these are the people who will vote in your next rep.
Ask to visit your local member of parliament, congressman, senator, etc. in person. It sounds like a long-shot, but they're often open to the idea of taking a half-hour to speak with 'regular folk' when they have the time, and if you're not ranting about saving the spotted Albanian tree-toad or asking for cash, they're surprisingly open to hearing about your world-view. Why not take an afternoon to have a pleasant chat with a politician about the practical applications of space technology and the means by which it will help the nation and (in some cases) their district? Try to tone down the 'human destiny in space' schtick though - most people will just think you're a loon.
Suggest that others do the same! Suggest to them that instead of watching another episode of Star Trek, they can spend the hour crafting a letter to their government representative and make a step towards seeing the fiction become real. If we each do that (maybe even once every few months), a few billion bucks might find themselves tossed into a useful program.
Remember folks: More and more of us weren't even born when N. Armstrong set foot on the Moon. Let's do something to ensure we're not all dead before it happens again.
The Mars polar lander has not yet been lost. Dutch television showed at friday that the Westerbork Array is (in cooperation with NASA) still trying to contact the Mars polar lander. The Westbork array was said to be used because it is the most advanced (Dutch: gevoelig) array at the high frequencies. I watched the show while I was half-asleep, so I can't give you anymore details. Check out more infot abou the Westerbork Array, the Netherlands at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~vdmeulen/deeper/Art icles/Westerbork.html
I propose that, instead or sending five or six people across empty space to stand on Mars and pose for pictures - I propose that instead of this, we spend the 20 or 30 billion each year of NASA's budget on basic necessities of the poor! With that much money you could feed the world, and even those four or five spacemen would have to be happy about that.
Oh really? If I'm so uninformed, please tell me what use the trip would be? Would such a use compare to the joy of feeding starving multitudes? Have you ever watched a person die of hunger? Have you? And you'd rather stand on Mars than save them?
If you think it's pointless to feed starving people around the world, would you sugges that all such programs be stopped immediately, and the money saved be put towards sending people to other planets to have their photographs taken? Please don't take offense but that is sort of heartless.
I propose an OpenSpace project. We use current technolgies to get simple probes into space and those probes relay their findings back for distributed research.
These probes can be launched in modern rockets untill the OpenSpace project can work to build its own vehicals. Just look at the Russian space program, they have usefull rockets that can be used to put OpenSpace probes into the skies on a regular basis with limited complications.
We can launch multiple probes that act as a satellite network around Mars and the Moon to get us important information necesary to take the next step in maned missions. We then launch simple bouyes between here and those distant planets to improve the quality of our transmitions. These bouyes will be fully equiped to accept equipment being connected to them incase of emergencies on future maned missions.
An effective moon base would be nothing more then a box that is able to sustain life. To expand the base we simply send another box. During the early years through the lease of these facilities for private industry research we finance a construction facility to send to the moon along with launch facilities. Once the premeir launch and construction facility is on the moon we can concentrate on reusable human transport ships. Leasing the use of these construction and launch facilities to private industry pays for the next step, a maned mission to mars.
To get this off the ground it would take the investment of a few of the worlds rich and work with private industry. By including distributed research into this project via the probes it would spark the intrest of nerds abroad. The research can be beautified and brought to the general public.
$500 million would be all thats needed to start such an effort. Then through the sale of the rights to certain findings, future probes could be launched. All it would take is one probe to get this started.
As of right now I put out a request to the rich people of the world. Funding this will make you a lot more successfull then an extra $10 million.
50 people giving $10 million would fund the whole operation.
I'll put a website up soon for it.
It seems to me, after reading far too many of these postings, that everybody is waiting for NASA or the government to make our science fiction dreams come true. What really should (and can) be done is to reignite the public's interest in the possiblities of space travel and the romance surrounding it. Those interested as I am should bring together information on a web-page, hype it, and provide content targeted at the layman. Then you can provide them with a magazine that fathers and mothers can read to their children and follow on a weekly or monthly basis. Use the cash to bring together intellectuals in various fields to discuss possiblities of space travel and how to do it. Make it exciting reporting the possibilities to the "Subscribers" and hype it some more. The hype could pick up if you offer the subscribership as a way for individuals to participate in the next technological/evolutionary leap for mankind. Offer chats and forums, web-talks with people on the "cutting edge" of space travel and engineering theory, and start to pull these guys together to get something done. Sell it to the news mags, etc. and get more interested people involved. As more people get involved, the more the Congress will see this as an important topic for voters and more funding will come. Keep reporting all the advances and interest will increase to a critical mass where things will REALLY HAPPEN. That all sounds like televangelism, I know. But I have the sneaking suspicion that this could really work. If you want to get things done, gotta' do it yourself.
It is best to make one way trips, due to the cost. And at this time we can't stay on mars. Remember Bio Sphere, experiment on earth failed. We do not understand the microbes that sustain life on the earth, let alon being able to package that up, and maintain it on a faraway land.