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Deathmatch On Mars: an Interview With Warren Ellis
pigrabbitbear writes "Iconic comic book writer (Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Red), cult novelist (Crooked Little Vein), futurist intellectual, and beloved Internet curmudgeon Warren Ellis, known for his impassioned arguments for space travel, talks to Motherboard about Newt Gingrich's presidential plans for lunar colonies and conquering Mars." Warren Ellis does not mince words.
...the easier it is to promise
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Rick Santorum: "our civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God's law." So no, technically not "handing control over the government" to the church, but....
I got nuthin
Well, I never said I wouldn't mine the asteroid belt, but the moon has the advantage of proximity. You can get to the moon in a few days, the asteroid belt is farther away than Mars. Also, the moon's gravity well is conveniently shallow enough to escape with a rail-gun (see: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress), and most of the stuff you need to build and power your rail-gun is available in the regolith.
So, first you go to the moon, and start mining the resources: oxygen for propellant and life support; iron, aluminum, magnesium, and titanium for building things. Once you can deliver these goods to lunar orbit, you start building the habitats and cargo ships you'll need in order to mine the asteroids. In the meantime, you can do a more close-up assay of the moon's resources. Given the number of asteroids that have impacted on the moon over billions of years, there's a good chance you could find some major sources of platinum, palladium, nickel, etc..
In this scenario, the main things you'll need to import to the moon will be carbon and ammonia. Carbon is essential to life, and useful for making high-grade steel; ammonia gives you nitrogen and hydrogen, both of which are scarce on the moon, but necessary for human settlement.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
He's just another fanboy pining for the glory days.
That's not how I read him. Now Zubrin, who he mentioned, is unreasonably anxious to get out there. Why should we visit Mars? To show the world it's possible? To research the place? And if the latter, why send people instead of more robots? Only reason to send people is as a prelude to the ultimate goal of colonization, which we're a long ways from being able to do. If we can't colonize Antarctica, which at least has breathable air, we sure can't colonize Mars. We have plenty of deserts we are currently unable to utilize much. At this point, we really cannot even just visit Mars, as we did the moon. It's a nice dream, but it is just a dream. And I see that he realizes all this.
I've spoken with Zubrin, and I asked him why the rush, why not wait 50 years or a century for technological improvements to make a Mars visit easier? He didn't want to wait, he felt our current capabilities were enough that we could do it now. And therefore we should. We should go "while we are young" is what he said. How romantic. But romance won't get us to Mars, and sure isn't a justification for trying.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I think Republicans would like religion to be the defining difference between the two parties. They have certainly pulled out all the stops in pandering to know-nothing theocrats, but in fact the great majority of Democrats as well as independents and Republicans profess religion and for the most part the religion they profess is some form of Christianity.
The difference on religion is mainly between Republicans who see nothing wrong with the government promoting their religion and most everybody else who think the government should be restricted from involving itself with religious belief.
To me, the more defining issue is economic. Republicans want an unregulated market and don't tax the rich. Democrats want the government to make everybody play nice and use taxes to help poor people get a leg up.
Independents apparently can't decide or worse can't distinguish between those approaches.