The space elevator is a nice idea, and a very efficient method for getting off the planet, but you have to realize that in today's age of terrorism, it's a sitting duck. Offhand, I can think of two SF novels (Gregory Benford's "Across the Sea of Suns" and Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars" series) that show how easy it can be to take out a space elevator. And what a bitch it would be to repair the thing. If I were an investor, I would hedge my bets by putting money into small, scattered, independent launch facilities, such as the one Bezos proposes.
Really, why bother shlepping a nuclear plant all way to Mars? And then there's the fuel - do they plan on mining uranium there, too? If it even exists there? If not, then there's the additional, continuing cost of shipping the fuel. "Self-sufficient"? I this is an idiotic idea. I suppose the Mayflower settlers needed shipments of firewood from England, too.
What about solar? Mars has minimal cloud cover. Sure, there are the occasional planet-wide dust storms, but those only seem to occur every decade or so, and only last a few weeks. How much power could we expect to receive from sunlight on Mars? Well, the insolation here on Earth is 1370 watts per square meter. Mars is in an elliptical orbit, so its distance from the sun varies from about 1.35 to 1.70 times Earth's distance from the sun. So, at a minimum, we can expect about 475 watts per square meter on Mars. Today's hardened solar cells rated for space-based use have an efficiency of about 26%, so even today (never mind in 2030), you can get a minimum of 123 watts per square meter on Mars. I imagine that for the cost of building, shipping and assmbling a nuclear plant for Mars, you could send a square kilometer of solar cells, and generate over a hundred megawatts, FOR FREE!
YES! We absolutely should rebuild the towers. Make it single tower a mile high, as suggested earlier. Call it the New America Tower. Because this IS the best damn nation that ever was, and starting today, 275 million people will tell you so.
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The space elevator is a nice idea, and a very efficient method for getting off the planet, but you have to realize that in today's age of terrorism, it's a sitting duck. Offhand, I can think of two SF novels (Gregory Benford's "Across the Sea of Suns" and Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars" series) that show how easy it can be to take out a space elevator. And what a bitch it would be to repair the thing. If I were an investor, I would hedge my bets by putting money into small, scattered, independent launch facilities, such as the one Bezos proposes.
Really, why bother shlepping a nuclear plant all way to Mars? And then there's the fuel - do they plan on mining uranium there, too? If it even exists there? If not, then there's the additional, continuing cost of shipping the fuel. "Self-sufficient"? I this is an idiotic idea. I suppose the Mayflower settlers needed shipments of firewood from England, too.
What about solar? Mars has minimal cloud cover. Sure, there are the occasional planet-wide dust storms, but those only seem to occur every decade or so, and only last a few weeks. How much power could we expect to receive from sunlight on Mars? Well, the insolation here on Earth is 1370 watts per square meter. Mars is in an elliptical orbit, so its distance from the sun varies from about 1.35 to 1.70 times Earth's distance from the sun. So, at a minimum, we can expect about 475 watts per square meter on Mars. Today's hardened solar cells rated for space-based use have an efficiency of about 26%, so even today (never mind in 2030), you can get a minimum of 123 watts per square meter on Mars. I imagine that for the cost of building, shipping and assmbling a nuclear plant for Mars, you could send a square kilometer of solar cells, and generate over a hundred megawatts, FOR FREE!
YES! We absolutely should rebuild the towers. Make it single tower a mile high, as suggested earlier. Call it the New America Tower. Because this IS the best damn nation that ever was, and starting today, 275 million people will tell you so.