Well, maybe the ISS counts for something in that regard. *shrug*
Nope. The ISS is a dead end and an expensive one at that. I defy anyone to come up with a valid reason for ISS that doesn't involve training ants to soft tiny screws in space. It is not a stepping stone to the Moon, Mars or elsewhere, it is not an important technological midpoint between LEO and planetary or lunar excursions, and it has most certainly been done before. What there is go be gained by doing it again has never been clear.
Getting to the moon was an unbelievably complex and difficult thing to do. in retrospect it seems doable since we know it's been done but keep in mind that this was the first time this was all done.
Keeping a system of mechanical, electrical and information systems working together flawlessly is beyond most engineering feats today. If a single thing went wrong back then it could have meant the failure of the mission and loss of crew not to mention international shame. Some of the best minds in the world worked in this so to call them dumb is both ignorant and an insult to their effort.
the lack of a magnetosphere and a thin atmosphere would allow more solar radiation to hit the surface. That breaks the hydrogen off of those molecules. Their presense means that they must have been made more recently than the length of time it takes to break them up.
Then the original poster or you should do it. The person you replied to and I are not experts in the field so it would be a bad idea for us to make that update.
I think there is a common misconception that non computer experts are completely clueless. Now before you give me cupholder stories, peep this. A while ago I visited my mother who is in no way a computer expert. To my surprise, I saw a Mozilla icon on the desktop. I asked her if she used it and she said yes. She had downloaded it after hearing on the news how insecure IE was. She did the install (next, next, next, finish) and started using it no problem.
Now she doesn't do all the power user stuff but the point is that with a basic understanding of computer usage she was able to kick the IE habit.
Don't underestimate the ability of the average user to see the problems that IE has and to move away from it. Apathy however can be powerful and I think that's the main culprit.
However, with that all said, I think we should be vigorously working on putting a colony on the Moon.
Not to be a knowitall but it's actually going to be a lot easier to develop a colony on Mars than on the Moon.
- Mars has vast, known supplies of water on the poles and there's good evidence that it can be found in the ground too.
- The Moon has temperatures both a lot higher and a lot lower than Mars. That makes it harder for equipment to work and us to live.
- The Martian day is tailor made for Humans, just a little over 24 hours. The Moon has a day lasting weeks (pretty sure about that)
- Mars has an atmosphere from which we can extract oxygen with a little basic chemistry. You can crack oxygen from Moon rocks too but it takes a lot more energy.
- The Moon has a lot more radiation hitting the surface than Mars. Mars is still worse than earth but there are little baby magnetic poles to mitigate that.
I could go on and on but really the only drawback of a Mars colony vs a Moon one is the travel time. Given that humans can survive 0g for longer than the trip would take and we have proven life support systems that will work that long, all they should really need is a deck of cards to keep busy for a few months.
Not to knock you off your "Christian mythology" highhorse but since the Tower of Babel story is in Genesis, it's from the Torah and technically rooted in "Jewish Mythology".
Unfortunately, while it's fashionable to throw around terms like "Christian mythology", calling a Jewish story made up will probably just get you labeled as an anti-Semite. Too bad anti-Christian statements aren't treated with the same revulsion as saying Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists are all living in a fairy tale.
they must have seen your post cause I got a bunch of hits. The problem is, and this is related to other searches I've tried, you don't need 100 links to http://www.wikipedia.org/sometopic. Google is guilty of this to some extent too at least for a wikipedia search.
but peep this: I did a search for "Jim's blog" to see if it would pull up my friend's blog in the first few pages like google does. The MSN search came up with the popular "Jim's blog" links followed by dozens (hundreds?) of links to subpages on those first few links.
When I'm looking for say, "palm help", I don't want a list like:
http://palm.com http://palm.com/faq http://pal m.com/contact . . . http://palm.com/support h ttp://palm.com/whatever
Not to knock you off your high horse but the US has proven itself as a responsible country in that it didn't destroy the world during 50 years of nuclear standoff with the Soviets. Before you point to the latest Gulf War, keep in mind that the US has a very strong track record of maintaining world peace and not using military power to subjugate other countries without cause. Consider the fact that we would be speaking German, Japanese or Russian right now if the US hadn't invested in a strong military and used it when the appropriate time came.
I don't see Iran, North Korea or Syria having a history of defeating the Nazis, liberating France or making sure the Soviets didn't overrun Europe. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps certain countries deserve inspection by the UN because they haven't yet earned the world's trust?
I know it's a dirty snowball but I'm really curious about how much is water, how much is ammonia and other stuff and how much is rock. In the crazy proto-science of terraforming, comets are earmarked for use as atmosphere builders. Depending on the general makeup of the objects, it could drastically change the models for terraforming Mars, Venus and other places.
The problem with space exploration is that even if you go out to space with the most greedy intentions, the payoff is decades (asteroid mining) or centuries (terraforming) off. I'm all for it but getting capitalists to buy into it will be tough. Of course there is Microsoft with it's $40 billion nest egg.
Space exploration is really a public works project. This is a pretty interesting paper on the subject. The thing is that it ends up being a benefit to the entire human race but some the up front costs are so much, the payoff so distant and the effort so demanding, it's basically relegated to government bodies (or perhaps Bill Gates).
I was hoping for something more along the lines of a mission plan but I guess that's really up to NASA or whatever they will call themselves to do.
At least they didn't make the mistake that the first Bush's commission did by putting a crazy (and rather arbitrary) $400 billion price tag on it.
I just hope that NASA and JPL will be able to get some actual work done on getting to Mars while they move people around and change their workflow. I can see a few years wasted on that easily.
Good catch. Even a $/ton/mile price seems way too low for me. That just means a 20X increase. So a 100 ton craft to LEO would be something in the tens of thousands? I doubt it.
Sorry but that just stinks of "too good to be true". What about the cost of the blimp, gas, maintenence, workforce, insurance, and everything else.
$100/ton/mile sounds like something real but this, I don't know.
Since when did HowStuffWorks become a showcase for the corporate world? Shouldn't it be more about general concepts like hybrid cars as opposed to say, the Toyoda model specifically.
I guess you could launch from the ocean but water is available elsewhere. Just turn on the tap or get it from a local river or lake. It would be a whole lot easier to get some replacement parts or whatever if you were on land than on some oil rig in the middle of nowhere.
Mars is less harsh than moon, not other way around
on
What To Wear On Mars
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This is cool and all but the article is a bit misleading about the demands of a Moon suit as opposed to a Mars suit.
- Radiation. Mars has little to no magnetosphere but it does have some atmosphere. This provides some protection that the Moon does not. Also, the Moon is much closer to the sun so the levels of radiation from it are higher. There are also little baby north and south poles around the planet. Landing in one of those will provide a bit more protection.
- Temperature. The Moon has much higher and lower temperatures to worry about than Mars
- Sandstorms. True, the Moon doesn't have these but with the low gravity, thin atmosphere and fact that they won't be sleeping in hammocks, explorers/settlers should be able to handle them as long as they wear something thicker than a windbreaker.
In short, Mars suits have fewer extremes to deal with than Moon suits. The article exhibits some FUD about Mars.
Yeah, I did the same thing too. I went so nuts that I had filled my quote with data units and had clients running on over 60 sun ultra60 machines. It was crazy when in full swing. I would complete a packet about every 5 minutes round the clock. I had the process names changed to a.out. Sadly syadmin caught me and gave me a first and final warning to kill them all or loose my account.
If I remember correctly, China was very expansionist in the dynasty before the Ming dynasty. They had built and sailed ships that were capable of going anywhere in the world. I think they had even sailed as far as east africa. Then the Ming dynasty kicked in and they burnt the boats because they thought that anything foreign wasn't worth their time.
Had they continued on that path, they might have easily have gotten to a very backward Europe and we would all be speaking Mandrin today.
There's nothing wrong with expantion as long as you aren't hurting anyone. I'm sad to see that expantion to other worlds is being treated in the same style as it would be by the Ming folks.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, maybe the ISS counts for something in that regard. *shrug*
Nope. The ISS is a dead end and an expensive one at that. I defy anyone to come up with a valid reason for ISS that doesn't involve training ants to soft tiny screws in space. It is not a stepping stone to the Moon, Mars or elsewhere, it is not an important technological midpoint between LEO and planetary or lunar excursions, and it has most certainly been done before. What there is go be gained by doing it again has never been clear.
Man, this is such a troll but I'll bite.
Getting to the moon was an unbelievably complex and difficult thing to do. in retrospect it seems doable since we know it's been done but keep in mind that this was the first time this was all done.
Keeping a system of mechanical, electrical and information systems working together flawlessly is beyond most engineering feats today. If a single thing went wrong back then it could have meant the failure of the mission and loss of crew not to mention international shame. Some of the best minds in the world worked in this so to call them dumb is both ignorant and an insult to their effort.
ok, I'm done venting.
Written by the mission controller throughout the whole thing.
the lack of a magnetosphere and a thin atmosphere would allow more solar radiation to hit the surface. That breaks the hydrogen off of those molecules. Their presense means that they must have been made more recently than the length of time it takes to break them up.
Then the original poster or you should do it. The person you replied to and I are not experts in the field so it would be a bad idea for us to make that update.
The Mars Society
Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders
Wikipedia (sorta, soon it'll be 501(c)(3) )
Yeah, you mom told her you liked it that way. she's just a good listener.
IE but so does everyone unless you use wget or something.
It also means that non-power users will freak out when their banking websites or whatever that use valid popups stop working.
I would add to that prediction that help line call for institutions that use popups as part of their interface will skyrocket.
I think there is a common misconception that non computer experts are completely clueless. Now before you give me cupholder stories, peep this. A while ago I visited my mother who is in no way a computer expert. To my surprise, I saw a Mozilla icon on the desktop. I asked her if she used it and she said yes. She had downloaded it after hearing on the news how insecure IE was. She did the install (next, next, next, finish) and started using it no problem.
Now she doesn't do all the power user stuff but the point is that with a basic understanding of computer usage she was able to kick the IE habit.
Don't underestimate the ability of the average user to see the problems that IE has and to move away from it. Apathy however can be powerful and I think that's the main culprit.
However, with that all said, I think we should be vigorously working on putting a colony on the Moon.
Not to be a knowitall but it's actually going to be a lot easier to develop a colony on Mars than on the Moon.
- Mars has vast, known supplies of water on the poles and there's good evidence that it can be found in the ground too.
- The Moon has temperatures both a lot higher and a lot lower than Mars. That makes it harder for equipment to work and us to live.
- The Martian day is tailor made for Humans, just a little over 24 hours. The Moon has a day lasting weeks (pretty sure about that)
- Mars has an atmosphere from which we can extract oxygen with a little basic chemistry. You can crack oxygen from Moon rocks too but it takes a lot more energy.
- The Moon has a lot more radiation hitting the surface than Mars. Mars is still worse than earth but there are little baby magnetic poles to mitigate that.
I could go on and on but really the only drawback of a Mars colony vs a Moon one is the travel time. Given that humans can survive 0g for longer than the trip would take and we have proven life support systems that will work that long, all they should really need is a deck of cards to keep busy for a few months.
Not to knock you off your "Christian mythology" highhorse but since the Tower of Babel story is in Genesis, it's from the Torah and technically rooted in "Jewish Mythology".
Unfortunately, while it's fashionable to throw around terms like "Christian mythology", calling a Jewish story made up will probably just get you labeled as an anti-Semite. Too bad anti-Christian statements aren't treated with the same revulsion as saying Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists are all living in a fairy tale.
they must have seen your post cause I got a bunch of hits. The problem is, and this is related to other searches I've tried, you don't need 100 links to http://www.wikipedia.org/sometopic. Google is guilty of this to some extent too at least for a wikipedia search.
l m.com/contact
h ttp://palm.com/whatever
t p://chat.org/archives/palm/aug-2003
but peep this: I did a search for "Jim's blog" to see if it would pull up my friend's blog in the first few pages like google does. The MSN search came up with the popular "Jim's blog" links followed by dozens (hundreds?) of links to subpages on those first few links.
When I'm looking for say, "palm help", I don't want a list like:
http://palm.com
http://palm.com/faq
http://pa
.
.
.
http://palm.com/support
I expect something useful like
http://palm.com
http://palm.com/support
http://palmusers.org
ht
.
.
.
Simple conclusion: It sucks ass. at least for now.
Not to knock you off your high horse but the US has proven itself as a responsible country in that it didn't destroy the world during 50 years of nuclear standoff with the Soviets. Before you point to the latest Gulf War, keep in mind that the US has a very strong track record of maintaining world peace and not using military power to subjugate other countries without cause. Consider the fact that we would be speaking German, Japanese or Russian right now if the US hadn't invested in a strong military and used it when the appropriate time came.
I don't see Iran, North Korea or Syria having a history of defeating the Nazis, liberating France or making sure the Soviets didn't overrun Europe. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps certain countries deserve inspection by the UN because they haven't yet earned the world's trust?
I know it's a dirty snowball but I'm really curious about how much is water, how much is ammonia and other stuff and how much is rock. In the crazy proto-science of terraforming, comets are earmarked for use as atmosphere builders. Depending on the general makeup of the objects, it could drastically change the models for terraforming Mars, Venus and other places.
The problem with space exploration is that even if you go out to space with the most greedy intentions, the payoff is decades (asteroid mining) or centuries (terraforming) off. I'm all for it but getting capitalists to buy into it will be tough. Of course there is Microsoft with it's $40 billion nest egg.
Space exploration is really a public works project. This is a pretty interesting paper on the subject. The thing is that it ends up being a benefit to the entire human race but some the up front costs are so much, the payoff so distant and the effort so demanding, it's basically relegated to government bodies (or perhaps Bill Gates).
I was hoping for something more along the lines of a mission plan but I guess that's really up to NASA or whatever they will call themselves to do.
At least they didn't make the mistake that the first Bush's commission did by putting a crazy (and rather arbitrary) $400 billion price tag on it.
I just hope that NASA and JPL will be able to get some actual work done on getting to Mars while they move people around and change their workflow. I can see a few years wasted on that easily.
After reading the site they claim that not only are your privates going to be cooler but also the laptop itself.
I'm not sure if I trust this but they seem to have anticipated the cries of "but that will just cook the laptop!"
Good catch. Even a $/ton/mile price seems way too low for me. That just means a 20X increase. So a 100 ton craft to LEO would be something in the tens of thousands? I doubt it.
Sorry but that just stinks of "too good to be true". What about the cost of the blimp, gas, maintenence, workforce, insurance, and everything else.
$100/ton/mile sounds like something real but this, I don't know.
Since when did HowStuffWorks become a showcase for the corporate world? Shouldn't it be more about general concepts like hybrid cars as opposed to say, the Toyoda model specifically.
I guess you could launch from the ocean but water is available elsewhere. Just turn on the tap or get it from a local river or lake. It would be a whole lot easier to get some replacement parts or whatever if you were on land than on some oil rig in the middle of nowhere.
This is cool and all but the article is a bit misleading about the demands of a Moon suit as opposed to a Mars suit.
- Radiation. Mars has little to no magnetosphere but it does have some atmosphere. This provides some protection that the Moon does not. Also, the Moon is much closer to the sun so the levels of radiation from it are higher. There are also little baby north and south poles around the planet. Landing in one of those will provide a bit more protection.
- Temperature. The Moon has much higher and lower temperatures to worry about than Mars
- Sandstorms. True, the Moon doesn't have these but with the low gravity, thin atmosphere and fact that they won't be sleeping in hammocks, explorers/settlers should be able to handle them as long as they wear something thicker than a windbreaker.
In short, Mars suits have fewer extremes to deal with than Moon suits. The article exhibits some FUD about Mars.
Yeah, I did the same thing too. I went so nuts that I had filled my quote with data units and had clients running on over 60 sun ultra60 machines. It was crazy when in full swing. I would complete a packet about every 5 minutes round the clock. I had the process names changed to a.out. Sadly syadmin caught me and gave me a first and final warning to kill them all or loose my account.
My bad. I got my dynasties mixed up.
Still the point remains about expansion versus lotus eating.
If I remember correctly, China was very expansionist in the dynasty before the Ming dynasty. They had built and sailed ships that were capable of going anywhere in the world. I think they had even sailed as far as east africa. Then the Ming dynasty kicked in and they burnt the boats because they thought that anything foreign wasn't worth their time.
Had they continued on that path, they might have easily have gotten to a very backward Europe and we would all be speaking Mandrin today.
There's nothing wrong with expantion as long as you aren't hurting anyone. I'm sad to see that expantion to other worlds is being treated in the same style as it would be by the Ming folks.