> I'm not saying it isn't nice to take a dump in privacy but there is no need for it.
It's something people have complained about before on spaceflights. Like good food, latrine privacy seems to be one of those perks that keep crews in tight quarters comfortable and functional. Of course it's not needed, necessarily, but is highly valued.
YMMV, my SN25P is whisper-quiet compared to my other PCs. Like I said, it gets a little noisy when rendering. If I expected total silence from my hardware, it'd be in an enclosed rack or separate room.
Don't underestimate the need for privacy while dropping the "bomb", so to speak. For ISS, this is the ramp-up to 6 crew members. It takes longer on the Shuttle toilets than regular Earth toilets (30+ min.), it's safe to assume the strap-in and strap-out time makes Mir-type toilets take longer, too. The pictured unit in the article has an actual crapper to sit on instead of the Shuttle's butt-sucker to strap into (think vacuum-diaper). It just seems more dignified. IIRC, the Mir-type toilets also serve a shower/cleaning function. With 2-3 crew it is simple to negotiate toilet time. With 6 people, they will need the second toilet.
Except for the full-size graphics card, you can get all of those features now in Shuttle systems. I had PCsForEveryone.com build a custom Shuttle SN25P a while ago for a studio PC. Dual 250gb RAID internal + DVD-R, 300gb external, AMD 3500, 2Gb - all parts were just shy of cutting-edge at design for maturity. During simple ops like text editing or browsing, the machine makes very little noise. CD access sometimes makes noise, but literally just touching the box stops it. Graphics have never been an issue but I don't play FPS on it.
Slashdotter Woodie introduced me to SFF PCs years ago, and Shuttle's XPCs have only gotten better.
Flowing currently. Not just occasional outflow events from the edges of a cliff. Louros Valles has a river at it's bottom and extremely complex, fractal patterns along it's course. I'm not saying it's got a raging class 5 river, but it looks swampy/pond-like and wet. The colors are from the HRSC camera and approximate natural color (ie. the greens and purples in the balanced image are real). Read their description below.
Prediction, per my image: When we land in Louros Valles, the greens will prove to be living "berries" like the rover found in Meridiani. The purple in the image will be... something alien. 8)
From ESA site: 'Sapping' is erosion by water that emerges from the ground as a spring or seeps from between layers of rock in a wall of a cliff, crater or other type of depression. The channel forms from water and debris running down the slope from the seepage area.
MarsRoverBlog.com is discussing it, this isn't a flat area, but on a 20-30 degree slope. It is part of Burns Cliff in Endurance Crater.There is plenty of evidence for water on Mars, just not in these images. There is evidence of something other than dust, probably water seepage from underground, at Meridiani and Gusev. Orbital images have shown water in the polar caps and probably a frozen sea in Elysium. There are what appear to be ponds and flowing rivers in some images, especially the first Mars Express image released a while ago.
>> The correct plan against a single rampaging gunman seems to be for everybody to rush him. > EXCELLENT plan: I'm right behind you...
He has the right idea. I'd be right next to you, so grab something heavy and let's go.
Who do you think the Militia is? It's all of us. You are your own last line of defense. This teacher-gunman-drill thing, however, is messed up. What made them think this was a good idea? How would this in any way be reasonable?
1, Apple has already said there will be 3d party development for iPhone, but it has to be vetted for compatibility with the cell network. You want X type of software? Get their SDK. Anyone still ignoring this old news is spreading FUD.
2, iPhone is probably going to handle Voicemail and advanced call handling better than people realize. I'm guessing here, if you've got the earpiece in, the phone set to "driving" and a call on your "A" list comes in, it beeps you. Anyone else goes straight to voicemail. I didn't see the whole demo from MacWorld, but the writeup indicated some advanced mediation features.
And Apple, you still suck for killing the Newton. Old School!
Instead of filtering out their content, they should get a cut. Big Media is terrified of YouTube, because they misunderstand it's opportunity. YouTube is the newest form of broadcasting. It brings together everything to make a new kind of "TV" or "Radio" that is all-immersive. With Google behind it, YouTube potentially brings hyper-targeted advertising to the table.
Video, especially with modern desktop tools, is highly plastic. You learn to edit by cutting other's material and your own. Rappers and hip-hop do it, too. This is a proving ground for everyone to make media with. YouTube has a certain momentum behind it, and this is a fair-use issue in many instances (fan vids, AMVs, etc). Google is testing revenue sharing now with the Diet Coke & Mentos guys. YouTube will eventually have across-the-board revenue sharing with users and Big Media should co-opt this instead of getting into a urination match with the big G.
Users will continue to upload copywritten content. The technology is almost available to make everyone happy with this. For copywrite holders, this brings your content more "face time", more exposure, more people talking about it. This is a good thing for you.
One last point for all involved: the next form of advertising will be extensive product placement in Internet video, coupled with Adwords campaigns by same sponsors. It will probably be combined with locational services. This will be a huge driver for both specialty and mass market products.
Example, from 3-4 years ahead: you watch a video that combines Bruce Lee's famous nunchaku scene with segments from a content provider's instructional video. In the Adwords sidebar you get the click-thru for that video's site and to the film collection of Bruce Lee. Also, on a time/use/flat-fee basis, the copyright holder of the Bruce Lee material gets a cut. Decentralized as this could be, it gives a simple clearing-house for stock videos as well.
We need to be dangerous, not necessarily armed. Your environment is your greatest resource. Desks can be thrown, that wrench is heavy, etc. Seek cover, count to reload, attack. Fight back. A large group of people can easily overwhelm a single armed attacker. One person's action can solve the situation. "Knowing is half the battle."
Train to act when needed, to have the peace of mind to destroy your aggressor and the medicine to help others around you. wu, ch'an, yi. War, Meditation, Medicine. Five and half years after 9/11 and Americans still line up to die? Our ancestors must be ashamed, we have become sheep.
These students today, I don't want to be harsh on the injured, but they should have been READY. Everybody should be ready for anything. If this means carrying a.357 under your arm, go for it. Carry a knife or Leatherman. Take CPR and trauma classes. Practice Kung Fu. Call your Representative. Everyone should know how to "safe" a hot gun. Do whatever it takes. Be Ready. It's your duty as Americans.
Certain higher caliber, man-portable weapons fall into a similar category of legally only targeting materiel instead of personnel..50 cal and maybe some smaller sniper weapons, the kind you see on "Future Weapons" punching through inch-thick steel plates, are supposed to be used for shooting out gunsights on tanks, disabling emplaced weapons and destroying radar/electronics hardware. For similar reasons to legal limits on the types of ammo soldiers can use (no AP, willie-pete, dum-dum, etc), these heavier rifles are not supposed to be used on other soldiers. So, what does a young sniper-scout report? "Sir, I was shooting at a government-issue canteen. The soldier just happened to be drinking out of it."
On robot weapons, I highly recommend Manuel Delanda's book "War in the Age of Intelligent Machines" It is dense and from the early 90s, but lays a good groundwork for what is happening now.
and I saw it. At the X Prize Cup. Dona Ana county is really pretty, and there's a lot of support for building Spaceport America there. It's great that they are figuring it out, D. Kent Evans (the county commish) and everyone else deserve a huge pat on the back for this. The area is mostly agricultural, the spaceport (and X Prize, rocket races, etc) promise to bring both tech and service jobs to the area. Suborbital flights are only the beginning, if rocket racing or orbital shots become feasible they can be hosted there as well.
biology is icky, sticky, nasty, beautiful. Biology is the most interesting thing in the universe. Open heart surgery or gastroentroscopy still gross me out. Rat abdomens are indeed cleaner than the human mouth. And no, you can't sterilize living tissue, which is what the article was discussing.
My concern is more for Mars, Lunar exploration will probably continue with heavy balloon suits. Even at.38G a 100lb (earth mass) suit is going to wear heavily after 6-8 hours, enough that simulated suit studies on Devon Island always point to mass reduction as priority #1.
The new suit does sound like a suite, so to speak. From the photos it doesn't incorporate an MCP undersuit, which I think is critical for Mars. MCP and constant-volume balloon suits are incompatible, both on the "skin" layer and in the life support system (they have different requirements, generally). For the article it sounds like they will be swapping backpacks and possibly torso segments per task. It still doesn't make the new suits quite right for Mars, but they should work on the moon. Still wouldn't want to drag that much dust into the return capsule, though.
For Mars suits, the goal is generally a 50lb suit because of the.38G and the need to be suited for extensive periods. Generally this assumes longer EVAs than lunar exploration. The Mark III below can be lowered to 38KG (84lb), so it's almost at the mark, but that is probably about the lower limit of balloon suits. The Mark III is the first spacesuit that a wearer was able to do somersaults in. BioSuit is closer to SCUBA gear in mass.
All of this aside,a lot of development is required before we're ready for any kind of surface EVA.
They propagated the cell-sponge matrix inside rat's abdomens. And they want that in your mouth? Ick. Biotech has a strong gross-out factor sometimes. They put dead people's bones in living people and use cow bone for reconstruction? Are we becoming vampires in a hi-tech manner?
"NASA wants to make the new spacesuit usable for launch, at the space station and on the moon and Mars."
There's one little problem with this. A suit designed for vacuum won't work properly on Mars. The Apollo suits (and STS/ISS EVA suits) use a form of insulation that will cause major user overheating in Mars' atmosphere. Also, most proposed Mars suits would use a life support system more like SCUBA tanks than current spacesuits, extremely low-power, easily re-filled and simple to maintain. It's more than just swapping out the upper parts of the suit based on task, some of what the article proposes won't work. The fundamental differences in environments will seriously hinder that plan.
Another issue is that for a single-suit strategy this means that the astronauts coming back from the Moon will be bringing their filthy suits back with them. This means several days of breathing the dust, plus the dust will saturate the Orion capsule's cabin. Not a good plan for a reusable vehicle.
Some of these issues can be resolved, others are just the different natures of the planets. Can tech developed for lunar exploration help with Mars? Sure, but it's not going to be the same spacesuits across all uses. Interfaces, communications, maybe parts of the life support pack, materials and assembly techniques will find crossover. The thing you don't want is to land on Mars only to realize that the vacuum-insulation in your suits is totally wrong and you can't do EVA without overheating. Even the difference between orbital suits and the lunar suits are huge, they are all different environments.
The right suit for Mars is based, IMHO, around Mechanical Counter-Pressure (MCP) principals instead of constant-volume balloon suits. The MIT "BioSuit" and NASA's old Space Activity Suit are excellent examples. MCP suits (and SCUBA-type air supply) are the only current approaches that can lead to sub-100lb (~40kg for you metrics) suits for Mars exploration. The only spacesuit concept that might work across environments would be a Newtsuit-type hard suit, and even then it's going to be heavy.
wake me up when it's nanodots injected into my skull. This is early 90's tech, and you've been able to buy it off-the-shelf for a couple thousand dollars for years.
"Smoke Jaguar" would be most appropriate for a new American great cat, since it's an old Maya king's name. Ancient trans-Pacific contacts aside, Borneo is a very different place.
It's not an L-point, then, but I'm not exactly sure what it's called. There is a point between Earth and Mars that Jon Goff was discussing a while back as a possible staging location. Might have been the Mars-Sun L point, I'll have to check back. Sorry.
Moon vs. Mars: which provides more reliable resources for colonization?
The Moon is like Iceland - easier to get to from Europe but there's not much there besides scenery. The Mars system (Mars, Phobos, Deimos) are New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. I guess this makes Mars-Earth L1 the Hudson River?
The resources to build an entire civilization exist on/around Mars. The moon is a fossil world.
We can learn some from Luna, and probably take the first steps to colonization there, but the real action is going to be on Mars. There is a lot of planet-specific engineering that needs to be done for either location. Lunar spacesuits won't work on Mars, there will be huge differences in sealing technology and energy generation (you can burn silane as internal combustion on Mars, for instance). We can learn as much in high orbit or at a NEO about colonizing Mars as we can on the Moon. Almost all technical development for any near-term colonization is going to be developed on Earth, though.
If I had several Billion $$ right now, I'd commision a Russian-Bigelow spacecraft for a human mission to Phobos or Deimos. This is the ideal target for early development, energetically close to Earth, resource rich and within telepresence range of Mars. We can mine water and ship it back to LEO using technology we have now, or nearly. Russian companies have decades worth of human habitat experience, Bigelow would provide the main living space, custom tools purchased from best providers. The project would mine water and provide realtime control for robots throughout cis-Mars.
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I know it's sick, but that list of critters made my belly rumble. Mmm... meat.
> I'm not saying it isn't nice to take a dump in privacy but there is no need for it.
It's something people have complained about before on spaceflights. Like good food, latrine privacy seems to be one of those perks that keep crews in tight quarters comfortable and functional. Of course it's not needed, necessarily, but is highly valued.
J
YMMV, my SN25P is whisper-quiet compared to my other PCs. Like I said, it gets a little noisy when rendering. If I expected total silence from my hardware, it'd be in an enclosed rack or separate room.
J
Don't underestimate the need for privacy while dropping the "bomb", so to speak. For ISS, this is the ramp-up to 6 crew members. It takes longer on the Shuttle toilets than regular Earth toilets (30+ min.), it's safe to assume the strap-in and strap-out time makes Mir-type toilets take longer, too. The pictured unit in the article has an actual crapper to sit on instead of the Shuttle's butt-sucker to strap into (think vacuum-diaper). It just seems more dignified. IIRC, the Mir-type toilets also serve a shower/cleaning function. With 2-3 crew it is simple to negotiate toilet time. With 6 people, they will need the second toilet.
Weirdest. Topic. Ever.
Josh
Except for the full-size graphics card, you can get all of those features now in Shuttle systems. I had PCsForEveryone.com build a custom Shuttle SN25P a while ago for a studio PC. Dual 250gb RAID internal + DVD-R, 300gb external, AMD 3500, 2Gb - all parts were just shy of cutting-edge at design for maturity. During simple ops like text editing or browsing, the machine makes very little noise. CD access sometimes makes noise, but literally just touching the box stops it. Graphics have never been an issue but I don't play FPS on it.
Slashdotter Woodie introduced me to SFF PCs years ago, and Shuttle's XPCs have only gotten better.
Josh
Flowing currently. Not just occasional outflow events from the edges of a cliff. Louros Valles has a river at it's bottom and extremely complex, fractal patterns along it's course. I'm not saying it's got a raging class 5 river, but it looks swampy/pond-like and wet. The colors are from the HRSC camera and approximate natural color (ie. the greens and purples in the balanced image are real). Read their description below.
E SD_1.html
l anced.jpg
_ big.gif
ESA released image:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM6TZ57
Contrast and brightness leveled out, bottom cropped off image:
http://www.wakeshield.net/sandbox/LourosValles_ba
Prediction, per my image: When we land in Louros Valles, the greens will prove to be living "berries" like the rover found in Meridiani. The purple in the image will be... something alien. 8)
From ESA site:
'Sapping' is erosion by water that emerges from the ground as a spring or seeps from between layers of rock in a wall of a cliff, crater or other type of depression. The channel forms from water and debris running down the slope from the seepage area.
You can also search for "Mars ponds" for links like this:
http://www.curiousnotions.com/mars/
This is claimed to be a dried out pond, but it sure looks to have residual liquid in it (unlike Burns Cliff!):
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/9806/marspond_mgs
It's a really interesting subject, very much on the edge of discovery.
Josh
MarsRoverBlog.com is discussing it, this isn't a flat area, but on a 20-30 degree slope. It is part of Burns Cliff in Endurance Crater.There is plenty of evidence for water on Mars, just not in these images. There is evidence of something other than dust, probably water seepage from underground, at Meridiani and Gusev. Orbital images have shown water in the polar caps and probably a frozen sea in Elysium. There are what appear to be ponds and flowing rivers in some images, especially the first Mars Express image released a while ago.
i nds-puddles-on-the-planets-surface.html
http://www.marsroverblog.com/discuss-mars-rover-f
This "puddle" however, doesn't stand the test.
>> The correct plan against a single rampaging gunman seems to be for everybody to rush him.
> EXCELLENT plan: I'm right behind you...
He has the right idea. I'd be right next to you, so grab something heavy and let's go.
Who do you think the Militia is? It's all of us. You are your own last line of defense. This teacher-gunman-drill thing, however, is messed up. What made them think this was a good idea? How would this in any way be reasonable?
Josh
1, Apple has already said there will be 3d party development for iPhone, but it has to be vetted for compatibility with the cell network. You want X type of software? Get their SDK. Anyone still ignoring this old news is spreading FUD.
2, iPhone is probably going to handle Voicemail and advanced call handling better than people realize. I'm guessing here, if you've got the earpiece in, the phone set to "driving" and a call on your "A" list comes in, it beeps you. Anyone else goes straight to voicemail. I didn't see the whole demo from MacWorld, but the writeup indicated some advanced mediation features.
And Apple, you still suck for killing the Newton. Old School!
Josh
Instead of filtering out their content, they should get a cut. Big Media is terrified of YouTube, because they misunderstand it's opportunity. YouTube is the newest form of broadcasting. It brings together everything to make a new kind of "TV" or "Radio" that is all-immersive. With Google behind it, YouTube potentially brings hyper-targeted advertising to the table.
Video, especially with modern desktop tools, is highly plastic. You learn to edit by cutting other's material and your own. Rappers and hip-hop do it, too. This is a proving ground for everyone to make media with. YouTube has a certain momentum behind it, and this is a fair-use issue in many instances (fan vids, AMVs, etc). Google is testing revenue sharing now with the Diet Coke & Mentos guys. YouTube will eventually have across-the-board revenue sharing with users and Big Media should co-opt this instead of getting into a urination match with the big G.
Users will continue to upload copywritten content. The technology is almost available to make everyone happy with this. For copywrite holders, this brings your content more "face time", more exposure, more people talking about it. This is a good thing for you.
One last point for all involved: the next form of advertising will be extensive product placement in Internet video, coupled with Adwords campaigns by same sponsors. It will probably be combined with locational services. This will be a huge driver for both specialty and mass market products.
Example, from 3-4 years ahead: you watch a video that combines Bruce Lee's famous nunchaku scene with segments from a content provider's instructional video. In the Adwords sidebar you get the click-thru for that video's site and to the film collection of Bruce Lee. Also, on a time/use/flat-fee basis, the copyright holder of the Bruce Lee material gets a cut. Decentralized as this could be, it gives a simple clearing-house for stock videos as well.
Josh
We need to be dangerous, not necessarily armed. Your environment is your greatest resource. Desks can be thrown, that wrench is heavy, etc. Seek cover, count to reload, attack. Fight back. A large group of people can easily overwhelm a single armed attacker. One person's action can solve the situation. "Knowing is half the battle."
Train to act when needed, to have the peace of mind to destroy your aggressor and the medicine to help others around you. wu, ch'an, yi. War, Meditation, Medicine. Five and half years after 9/11 and Americans still line up to die? Our ancestors must be ashamed, we have become sheep.
.357 under your arm, go for it. Carry a knife or Leatherman. Take CPR and trauma classes. Practice Kung Fu. Call your Representative. Everyone should know how to "safe" a hot gun. Do whatever it takes. Be Ready. It's your duty as Americans.
These students today, I don't want to be harsh on the injured, but they should have been READY. Everybody should be ready for anything. If this means carrying a
Fight back!
Josh
Certain higher caliber, man-portable weapons fall into a similar category of legally only targeting materiel instead of personnel. .50 cal and maybe some smaller sniper weapons, the kind you see on "Future Weapons" punching through inch-thick steel plates, are supposed to be used for shooting out gunsights on tanks, disabling emplaced weapons and destroying radar/electronics hardware. For similar reasons to legal limits on the types of ammo soldiers can use (no AP, willie-pete, dum-dum, etc), these heavier rifles are not supposed to be used on other soldiers. So, what does a young sniper-scout report? "Sir, I was shooting at a government-issue canteen. The soldier just happened to be drinking out of it."
On robot weapons, I highly recommend Manuel Delanda's book "War in the Age of Intelligent Machines" It is dense and from the early 90s, but lays a good groundwork for what is happening now.
and I saw it. At the X Prize Cup. Dona Ana county is really pretty, and there's a lot of support for building Spaceport America there. It's great that they are figuring it out, D. Kent Evans (the county commish) and everyone else deserve a huge pat on the back for this. The area is mostly agricultural, the spaceport (and X Prize, rocket races, etc) promise to bring both tech and service jobs to the area. Suborbital flights are only the beginning, if rocket racing or orbital shots become feasible they can be hosted there as well.
You can read my review of the X Prize Cup event, from a vendor/small biz perspective here:
http://www.postcardstospace.com/xprizecup.html
Anyway, we return you to your regularly scheduled flamewar...
Josh
slashdot, drudge, nasawatch, spacedaily, space.com, uplink.space.com (great forum), cnn, wonkette (sometimes). Also, several blogs including Jon Goff's excellent Selenian Boondocks.
Oh, and I read the actual newspaper, on dead trees.
Thanks for all the replies-
biology is icky, sticky, nasty, beautiful. Biology is the most interesting thing in the universe. Open heart surgery or gastroentroscopy still gross me out. Rat abdomens are indeed cleaner than the human mouth. And no, you can't sterilize living tissue, which is what the article was discussing.
Ghouls.
My concern is more for Mars, Lunar exploration will probably continue with heavy balloon suits. Even at .38G a 100lb (earth mass) suit is going to wear heavily after 6-8 hours, enough that simulated suit studies on Devon Island always point to mass reduction as priority #1.
The new suit does sound like a suite, so to speak. From the photos it doesn't incorporate an MCP undersuit, which I think is critical for Mars. MCP and constant-volume balloon suits are incompatible, both on the "skin" layer and in the life support system (they have different requirements, generally). For the article it sounds like they will be swapping backpacks and possibly torso segments per task. It still doesn't make the new suits quite right for Mars, but they should work on the moon. Still wouldn't want to drag that much dust into the return capsule, though.
.38G and the need to be suited for extensive periods. Generally this assumes longer EVAs than lunar exploration. The Mark III below can be lowered to 38KG (84lb), so it's almost at the mark, but that is probably about the lower limit of balloon suits. The Mark III is the first spacesuit that a wearer was able to do somersaults in. BioSuit is closer to SCUBA gear in mass.
For Mars suits, the goal is generally a 50lb suit because of the
All of this aside,a lot of development is required before we're ready for any kind of surface EVA.
Biosuit:
http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/index.html
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/spasuits.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/nasrkiii.htm
They propagated the cell-sponge matrix inside rat's abdomens. And they want that in your mouth? Ick. Biotech has a strong gross-out factor sometimes. They put dead people's bones in living people and use cow bone for reconstruction? Are we becoming vampires in a hi-tech manner?
Josh
"NASA wants to make the new spacesuit usable for launch, at the space station and on the moon and Mars."
There's one little problem with this. A suit designed for vacuum won't work properly on Mars. The Apollo suits (and STS/ISS EVA suits) use a form of insulation that will cause major user overheating in Mars' atmosphere. Also, most proposed Mars suits would use a life support system more like SCUBA tanks than current spacesuits, extremely low-power, easily re-filled and simple to maintain. It's more than just swapping out the upper parts of the suit based on task, some of what the article proposes won't work. The fundamental differences in environments will seriously hinder that plan.
Another issue is that for a single-suit strategy this means that the astronauts coming back from the Moon will be bringing their filthy suits back with them. This means several days of breathing the dust, plus the dust will saturate the Orion capsule's cabin. Not a good plan for a reusable vehicle.
Some of these issues can be resolved, others are just the different natures of the planets. Can tech developed for lunar exploration help with Mars? Sure, but it's not going to be the same spacesuits across all uses. Interfaces, communications, maybe parts of the life support pack, materials and assembly techniques will find crossover. The thing you don't want is to land on Mars only to realize that the vacuum-insulation in your suits is totally wrong and you can't do EVA without overheating. Even the difference between orbital suits and the lunar suits are huge, they are all different environments.
The right suit for Mars is based, IMHO, around Mechanical Counter-Pressure (MCP) principals instead of constant-volume balloon suits. The MIT "BioSuit" and NASA's old Space Activity Suit are excellent examples. MCP suits (and SCUBA-type air supply) are the only current approaches that can lead to sub-100lb (~40kg for you metrics) suits for Mars exploration. The only spacesuit concept that might work across environments would be a Newtsuit-type hard suit, and even then it's going to be heavy.
Josh
wake me up when it's nanodots injected into my skull. This is early 90's tech, and you've been able to buy it off-the-shelf for a couple thousand dollars for years.
http://www.ibva.com/
IBVA brain-scan images featured in Macross Plus and available to power your MIDI synthesizer now.
Josh
"Smoke Jaguar" would be most appropriate for a new American great cat, since it's an old Maya king's name. Ancient trans-Pacific contacts aside, Borneo is a very different place.
The new machines will be ready in 2 weeks?
(that's for all you old Amiga fans)
D-
It's not an L-point, then, but I'm not exactly sure what it's called. There is a point between Earth and Mars that Jon Goff was discussing a while back as a possible staging location. Might have been the Mars-Sun L point, I'll have to check back. Sorry.
Moon vs. Mars: which provides more reliable resources for colonization?
Josh
The Moon is like Iceland - easier to get to from Europe but there's not much there besides scenery. The Mars system (Mars, Phobos, Deimos) are New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. I guess this makes Mars-Earth L1 the Hudson River?
The resources to build an entire civilization exist on/around Mars. The moon is a fossil world.
We can learn some from Luna, and probably take the first steps to colonization there, but the real action is going to be on Mars. There is a lot of planet-specific engineering that needs to be done for either location. Lunar spacesuits won't work on Mars, there will be huge differences in sealing technology and energy generation (you can burn silane as internal combustion on Mars, for instance). We can learn as much in high orbit or at a NEO about colonizing Mars as we can on the Moon. Almost all technical development for any near-term colonization is going to be developed on Earth, though.
If I had several Billion $$ right now, I'd commision a Russian-Bigelow spacecraft for a human mission to Phobos or Deimos. This is the ideal target for early development, energetically close to Earth, resource rich and within telepresence range of Mars. We can mine water and ship it back to LEO using technology we have now, or nearly. Russian companies have decades worth of human habitat experience, Bigelow would provide the main living space, custom tools purchased from best providers. The project would mine water and provide realtime control for robots throughout cis-Mars.