lol... da.. but I doubt your 6 year old gets things to escape velocity. Shuttle has the capacity to take the ET into a regularized orbit Though it would cut down on payload.... but many would argue the ET could be a very very worthwhile payload in and of itself.
I have a barebones Ice Cube and it is the same way.. only with the clear casing over all the aluminum the whole freaking box lights up too. I like it but it can be a bit much from time to time and I kind of wish they had put a switch for the CPU light on the case.
That is most likely not so much an issue of lack of preperation/dedication as it is simply something that does not work well.
Shift work is a royal PITA as anyone who has worked it knows. Shift work with constantly sliding start/stop/handover times would be a PITA^umpteenth power.
The world and human physiology just do not work well for off nominal working routines... telemarketers/relatives/friends/banks/restraunts/p arties have pretty set routines that if you don't match up with causes problems. Crossing up day/night cycles leads to circadian rythem problem which leads to sleep problems which just feeds a whole host of other problems. This is all bad enough if you are single and free to do odd stuff without affecting others around you but it can have catastrophic effects on families.
Israel is a pain in my @$$. I agree there is a problem with what is going on there.
However it is not a direct corelation to Iraq because of the two sided issue of the troubles in Israel. By that I mean Saddam had zero argument for his actions where Israel has at least the argument of self deffense. Playing a bit of devils advocate there but beyond that the trouble in Israel can also be decalared a purely internal dispute at which point the UN resolutions are moot. Saddam aquiring wmd and sponsering terrorists ( deal with the reality of those threats below ) is a bit different from how Israel handles the west bank and Hamas.
Really not saying that makes all Isralie actions excusable, however it certainly muddies the water when compared to the issue of Saddam's reign in Iraq. Do we need to pull the wild west justice of the peace routine with Israel and Palestine ( and by We I mean the world ) ? I don't know. However I would say it is not likely to happen untill everyone agrees to the same extent Israel needs to be dealt with that people agreed Saddam had to be dealt with. In other words a nation/coalition with sufficient power decides it needs doing with UN backing or not.
I am not sure the issue of Israel has an answer, it certainly dosn't have an easy answer.
I agree the reasons given for the Iraq invasion so far have prooved to be paper tigers. By this point that is likely all they ever were. However here is the key issue to me.
When Colin Powel, a life time Military dicision maker and man of impecable reputation, goes to the UN and presents the case as he belives it to exist at that time I think you are presented with a choice. That choice is A) Wait for confirmation before invading B) Pre-emptive attack. Now what are the results if the evidence was right or wrong in each case.
Information is accurate or even understated. A) confirmation is a mushroom cloud or 9/11 part 2 or both combined in addition to Saddam's usual shenanigans. B) Stop the above before it happens and stop Saddams Shennanigans.
Information is wrong, cooked, overblown. A) Confirmation says an attack was premature and it is a good thing we waited. Additionally you still have Saddams typical shennanigans. B) Over reaction to cooked intelligence. Saddam is removed from power.
Which set of options strikes you as having the best over all outcomes... ie would you rather take action and be wrong or not take action and watch 9/11 part two on the news knowing you could have stopped it ? Or be wrong and in the process still topple that universally acknowledged piece of human excrement ?
Granted it is a classic case of the ends justifing the means. Perhaps you think if the means were not justified then the end is not a good thing regardless of how it occured ? Perhaps you think I am willing to accept the ends regardless of the means.
I personally don't think it is a good thing by any means that the reasons used to invade Iraq were not born out. It sets a dangerous precedent and potentially allows pre-emptive strikes back into the category of acceptable foreign policy where it has largely been verboten since WWII or even before.
As for the issue of the US permanent Veto.... I garountee you if the rest of the UN decided to ignore US veto power the veto would mean exactly squat. The UN has the power to overide/confront the US. It is just a matter of a serious enough issue to cause the confrontation.
Personally I think such a confrontation is inevitable so long as the US attempts to maintain its ultimate soveriegn status. Sooner or later to stamp out international conflict and to bring accountability to all world leaders you have to have a unified world wide government which all accept. And that can't happen untill the UN has teeth and world wide jurisdiction that is backed by enough members willing to enforce it.
I would say Israel is a possible issue with the power to polarize the world sufficiently. If the world chooses to deal with Israel and the
I suppose the small detail that IRAQ was in almost continual breach of multiple UN resolutions for a decade dosn't have any bearing on the matter at all ?
Mayhap when this bumbling Iraq episode is over Iraq will be worse off than it was with Saddam in power... but I seriously doubt it.
Frankly I don't care if after we leave they declare a national hate america day to be yearly celebrated on sept 11th if they have a stable government that believes there is more to civil rights than who has the power to shoot/torture people.
Perhaps even one day they will admit we left them better off... but that would just be gravy.
I notice that not many people are saying Saddamm's scruffy ass being pulled out of a rat hole was a bad thing. I have yet to hear many people try to claim that in the long run the removal of the Baath party will be a bad thing.
Who gives a rats ass if Al-Queda was connected or not. Iraq was unfinished buisness and it certianly provided a far more tangible target than Al-Queda and its not like we stopped dealing with those bastids while toppling that tin pot dick head.
If the nations of the world really think the US did the wrong thing by going into Iraq then they can bring up the US leadership on war crimes charges with enough votes in the UN. Course that won't happen because most are rather happy the Baath parth has been kicked out of power and absolutely tickeled to death they get to hold to the morale high ground while the US did/does the dirty work. Course some might say its becasue the UN is a US puppet. I find that Ironic seeing we have been lamblasted so hard for choosing to work without UN support in moving on Iraq. Which is it ? Do we control it or not ? Sheesh.
Additionally.... the point of water on mars means you don't have to take seed hydrogen to begin with either.
Beyond even that seed hydrogen reacted with the martian atmosphere leads to an 18X increase in propellents. Breaking down water on the moon will be a 1-1 proposition. Granted if there is significant water ice in the crater shadows that we can get to more or less as easilly as water on mars it is a moot point.
The thing is water on the moon in practical accesible amounts is not yet prooven. Niether is it on mars ( from a accesible standpoint ). Thus the ability to react hydrogen with the atmosphere becomes a very big advantage because you only have to take less than 1/10th the weight in hydrogen to provide your return propellent. The moon has no such obviouse method for reacting a feed stock. Perhaps it exists... but again the means to produce roughly an 18X increase in prop mass via hydrogen feed stock utilizing the martian atmosphere has already been demonstrated. Just considering it at a 10x increase that makes a hell of a difference... say 10k instead of 100k or 100k instead 1000k units of fuel.
thus untill practical access to water on the moon is prooven mars holds the advnatage in that we know water is there in practical amounts and that we can probably get at it... and even if we can't the atmosphere provides us with a means for taking less prop mass with us for a martian return profile than we would need for a lunar return profile. In otherwords given our current knowledge you can land a higher percentage of payload mass on mars than you can on the moon.
That is why Zubrin describes using the moon as a staging point for a mission to mars as the moral equivalent of driving from atlanta to new york in order to to get to D.C. (driving past your destination to get to where your going).
I agree that is about the whole point of water on the moon.... but water on the moon is still very highly contested while water on mars is not. Also getting at it where the sun never shines ( the only place it could exist ) could be a real problem.
As for the gravity I grant the case is yet proven.. however there is not much to dispute the idea that the closer to earth normal the better. We know the extremes ( micro G and one G ). Thus assuming long duration moon environment and long duration mars environments will have similar effects differing in severity in realtion to the gravitational field is a pretty safe assumption. The question is the graph, 1 to 1 or exponential ascociation.. if exponential where is it steep.. IE rapidly getting worse when aproaching zero G ( thus rapidly better when gravity is present ) or rapidly improoving as you aproach earth standard ( thus quickly getting worse as gravity decreases ). In any of those scenarios mars comes out better. The only real question left is the significance of its advantage.
Yes but do not forget making rocket fuel out of martian atmosphere with seed hydrogen stocks is an elemetary task already demonstrated. Add in the fact we are comming to understand water is far more available than previously thought on mars and the return delta V is moot.
In other words total delta V for a return trip is lower for a moon shot but for now you have to carry ALL prop for going, stopping and returning where for mars you only need the prop for getting to the surface and the eqipment to make fuel.
True enough about the trip durations but mars is farther from the sun with an atmosphere which amelieorates the worst of the radiation the same way the earth's atmosphere does ( not as well but it beats the day side of the moon by a damn sight ). Higher gravity means less deterioration of calcium in bones during long duration stays. Almost 24 hour day/night cycle leads to the real possibility of green house agriculture.
There is more than one way to mislead people with information. You can go back and forth all day and night on the relative dangers and advantages of moon missions vrs mars missions. However the key to me is water. Untill we find significant amounts of easily accesible water the moon will be second to mars as a place for a manned base/colony. Lifting water mass to support a base is unfeasible, and recylcing works only to a point ( the loop cannot be perfectly closed ). So for me, right now the presence of water means Mars has the advantage. Even if you find ice in the craters on the moon you then consider gravity. Next you consider the atmosphere. After that you consider the day/night cycle.
Thus IMHO the sole disadvantage of mars missions when compared to the moon missions is distance. I think handling the distance to mars is far easier than all the other disadvantages of lunar missions when compared to martian missions.
"(although, ironically, you'd still need those fuels to power the rockets to the moon.)"
urrrmmmm... what part of Hydrogen and Oxygen consists of hydrocarbons ?
We would still need petroleum products for stuff like seals, ziplock bags etc... but rocket fuel does not need invovle petroleum products. Though going back to kerosene and lox instead of LH and LOX has merits ( more dense, less bulky fuel tanks ).
TANSTAAFL and all that. That goes for anyone providing significant aide.
Gratitude is not expected, but Credit is. It seems all I ever hear is that the US COULD provide so much more. Just as I don't think gratitude should be expected I do not think aide should be expected either, most certainly not critisisim of the amount of aide, most especially voluntary donations. It seems to me the way to get people to donate more is not to castigate them for being cheapskates but to thank them and let them know all the good that comes from the money. See cliche regarding Flies/Honey/Vinegar.
What do you mean taking everything ?
As for getting rich at 'everyone elses expense' I am somewhat puzzled just how that is so.
If you apply the current rules governing public use of cameras then this is no different.
This needs no new legislation.
This needs no new electronic control beams/ radio waves built in.
What will need changing is the amount of enforcement needed. In terms of percentage of growth it will probably be analogous to the increase in recorded time that occurs. Thus in primarily still photography days you were talking snap shots. So even someone shooting film as fast as possible still only caught a small fraction of time. Now, as with the introductino of home video cameras, you would see an increase in the amount of time recorded. If you think of invasion of privacy useage as a percentage of the time recorded by everyone with a video camera.. then that will go up accordingly as time that is recorded goes up.
Question is will the ease of recording make for more invasion of privacy ? Or will such work remain the work of a dedicated few. If the latter then the increase likely will not be all that great as the increase will largely be driven by the increase of time recorded by that small percentage... and odds are the increase for them will be less than the overall increase for the population. Think of it this way. They are already spending a fair amount of time and effot to catch those invasions of privacy already.. thus they don't have as much room to grow as the general population with a device such as this.
Ultimatly I think social control will proove to be the true governing power over recording manners unless the technology is effectively outlawed... which is doubtfull. Of course if such a technology becomes commonplace then it is very likely that social norms regarding recording will change drastically to face that reality.
Personally I don't see what the problem is... and I hate having my picture taken. There are obvious means of crossing the lines... placing a cmaera on your shoe and taking up skirt pictures crosses the line.... but lets say your on a beach filled with dental floss clad babes (or shirtless hunks depending on your prefference )... how is taking a picture any differnt from staring ? Now if you take a shot and put it on a nationwide ad campaign or use it for some other method of making money off it then there is a problem ( with lots of legal precedence protecting your rights if you are the subject )... but just taking the picture ? Perhaps Rude, but certainly not any more illegal than oogling. So long as you are talking about a public venue. Legal precedence already says that if you are in a public venue then your presence is subject to being recorded.
What has per capita to do with that ? I understands it means people give less on an individual basis but damn.. we are still the single biggest contributing nation.
Generally speaking world aide dosn't give a rats ass how much individuals give.. its all about the bottom line. By they way that per capita distribution also works to dillute per capita numbers in the exact same way it hides the concentation of wealth in the top 1%. A huge chunk of that private aide comes out of that one % and that per capita number skyrockets accordingly... exactly the way it does when you consider the amount of tax dollars paid by that top 1%.
WOuld you please back that up with specifics ? Not that I am disagreeing with you. Just that I have heard that argument many times but rarely with so much as an even imaginary statistic to back it up.
We konw trade triangles can work.. hell thats how this country first became profitable.. as a cheap source of materials for England.
At anyrate the question of whether or not outsourcesing is bad for the nation boils down to two questions. One, are more jobs going out than are being created to replace them ? Two, are the new jobs equal in value ( same/greater pay ).
Lastly the jobs leaving are only bad if there people are capable AND willing to perform them for competitive wages. ( obscene management wages aside ).
But still the point about what someone in a space suit could do in the same time is valid.
The difficulty of robotic probes is getting them to do the same things a human can do.
The difficulty in manned missions is getting the human "probe" there.
Currently there is no amount of money you could expend to get a human equivalent probe. Thus they compromise by making probes with limited capacity. If you really try to pack in the abilities both the cost and chance of failure go up. Rapidly.
This is not to say manned missions are more cost effective. But given equal time manned missions are far more capable.
Because earth will never be abandoned. Essentially impossible. The majority of Earth's population will remain on Earth even if Mars were Terreformed tommorrow. Just think of the logistics.
Terraforming Mars is really about releasing/altering mars resources and perhaps increasing the amount of solar energy hitting the planet with a reflector and introducing biological production, perhaps altering the path of some comets to impact with it. It is not about moving earth resources there. Populating mars will be a similar case. IE sooner or later an indeginous population will be fruitfull and multiply.
Even early on when immigration would be the primary means of population growth for a new planet you would have to exceed Earths population growth rate before you would reduce the population at all here. Thus for that and other reasons the Earth will thus maintain its population until it no longer is capable of supporting it.
As for this discussion about the ethics of terreforming Mars ?? I don't get it... were plants that exausted oxygen as a waste gas ethically correct in altering the atmosphere of early earth to such an extent that earth became able to support oxygen based organisims and killing off other types ?
Granted with sentience we have a choice. And given a choice I choose live and let live... but if it ever comes down to us or them ( them being microbial life, martians or simply anyone/thing with what we need to survive) It's us. No if ands or buts. Heres to it always remaining our choice because frankly I would preffer sitting around and questioning our past actions to someone/thing else sitting around questioning theirs... if they/it are even capable of thought.
Nice post... I'll pick one nit with your DARPA example... that applies to ground travel ( which is meaningfull for terrestial navigation like the mars rovers ) but automated pilots are actually far less involved system wise than human pilots. Think of the predator drone, cruise missles etc... And space is actually even easier as there is even less to run into.
" nor did he set out to prove the world was round."
Not quite.. the idea that the world was round was kind of the whole reasoning behind his new trade route.... after all there was a reason no one else had tried to get to the indies by heading west instead of east.. those that tried didn't come back and it was widely thought that they fell off the edge of the earth.
Re:Spaceflight as a religious endeavour
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NOt exactly... the greenhouse effect due to water vapor has a problem.... once it reaches cloudlike state it reflects energy as well as keeping it in. Hence cloudy winter days/nights are warmer while cloudy summer days are cooler. Water vapor provides solar insulation. If the entire planet were shrouded in clouds there would be a heck of alot less solar energy reaching the ground, a great deal of it would be reflected back out into space.
The Venus 'green house'effect is a misnomer. It is a net producer of energy.. IE it radiates more energy than it is exposed to by the sun. The heat of Venus is at least partly driven by internal heat.
Why are all mars on the cheap ( relatively speaking ) proposals lowballed ? Have you read up on the details of the Mars Direct proposal ? Over runs ( especially in space ventrues ) invovle poor management and unexplored, untested technology. A mars mission needs no new technology and management quality is an entirly controlable variable.
The 400billion plan was a aerospace industry wet dream and used numerous new technologies. Zubrin and many other mars on the cheap plans use what we already have, including some basic chemistry that dates back more than a century.
We have accomplished all of the elements of a Mars trip. We can get into orbit. We can achieve escape velocity and we can survive re-entry to earth at interseller speeds.
Going to Mars is Lindburghs flight across the atlantic to the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. Meaning use of primarily the same technology just a question refinements and of duration. The refinements already exist with the possible exception of a long term life support system. It is just about building the spirit of St. Louis now. Not Apollo. Not Ground Breaking. Not New. Just using what we have learned over the past 40 years to do somethign we have yet to do.
That said I agree with what you say about the cost not being wasted even if it is somethign insane like a trillion semolians.... but I do not think that level of expenditure is a fore gone conclusion as you seem to think.
One) The current cost for maintaining shuttle needs no adjustment, it is maintained in todays dollars.
Two) What exactly is the current yearly budget for running ISS ? I happen to know and I am wondering if you do.
Both ventures together have not totaled 1 trillion dollars over the entire span of their existence COMBINED.
We went to the moon when we didn't even know we could in less than a decade for far less than a Trillion dollars adjusted anyway you want. In fact if I am not mistaken we have yet to spend 1 Trillion dollars in NASA's history spanning 40 some odd years from Mercury to ISS to the Maritan Rovers.
Going back to the moon will be easier/cheaper not harder.
Going to Mars is no different from going to the moon with the exception of the time in transit. The simple fact Mars has an atmosphere actually makes it in some ways easier than a lunar mission.
The time in transist is no greater than maintaining a continuous presence on a space station. In fact we have more time spent in space on ISS already than it would take for a round trip to Mars using current technology.
They only remaining step is designing a life support system with enough reliability/redundancy to give a reasonable chance of performing for the entire spann of a mission without resupply. That at least is one area of knowledge which ISS experience is continually advancing.
Again. Where do you come by the certain knowledge that 1 trillion is only a starting point for these goals ?
Slashdot Mirror
lol... da.. but I doubt your 6 year old gets things to escape velocity. Shuttle has the capacity to take the ET into a regularized orbit Though it would cut down on payload.... but many would argue the ET could be a very very worthwhile payload in and of itself.
actually the ET does reach orbit.. it is just never made regular. Not so on the SRB's though... deffiantly not an SSTO
I have a barebones Ice Cube and it is the same way.. only with the clear casing over all the aluminum the whole freaking box lights up too. I like it but it can be a bit much from time to time and I kind of wish they had put a switch for the CPU light on the case.
2 a/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/handhelds/65
Just a note on the Mars time issue.
p arties have pretty set routines that if you don't match up with causes problems. Crossing up day/night cycles leads to circadian rythem problem which leads to sleep problems which just feeds a whole host of other problems. This is all bad enough if you are single and free to do odd stuff without affecting others around you but it can have catastrophic effects on families.
That is most likely not so much an issue of lack of preperation/dedication as it is simply something that does not work well.
Shift work is a royal PITA as anyone who has worked it knows. Shift work with constantly sliding start/stop/handover times would be a PITA^umpteenth power.
The world and human physiology just do not work well for off nominal working routines... telemarketers/relatives/friends/banks/restraunts/
Israel is a pain in my @$$. I agree there is a problem with what is going on there.
However it is not a direct corelation to Iraq because of the two sided issue of the troubles in Israel. By that I mean Saddam had zero argument for his actions where Israel has at least the argument of self deffense. Playing a bit of devils advocate there but beyond that the trouble in Israel can also be decalared a purely internal dispute at which point the UN resolutions are moot. Saddam aquiring wmd and sponsering terrorists ( deal with the reality of those threats below ) is a bit different from how Israel handles the west bank and Hamas.
Really not saying that makes all Isralie actions excusable, however it certainly muddies the water when compared to the issue of Saddam's reign in Iraq. Do we need to pull the wild west justice of the peace routine with Israel and Palestine ( and by We I mean the world ) ? I don't know. However I would say it is not likely to happen untill everyone agrees to the same extent Israel needs to be dealt with that people agreed Saddam had to be dealt with. In other words a nation/coalition with sufficient power decides it needs doing with UN backing or not.
I am not sure the issue of Israel has an answer, it certainly dosn't have an easy answer.
I agree the reasons given for the Iraq invasion so far have prooved to be paper tigers. By this point that is likely all they ever were. However here is the key issue to me.
When Colin Powel, a life time Military dicision maker and man of impecable reputation, goes to the UN and presents the case as he belives it to exist at that time I think you are presented with a choice. That choice is A) Wait for confirmation before invading B) Pre-emptive attack. Now what are the results if the evidence was right or wrong in each case.
Information is accurate or even understated.
A) confirmation is a mushroom cloud or 9/11 part 2 or both combined in addition to Saddam's usual shenanigans.
B) Stop the above before it happens and stop Saddams Shennanigans.
Information is wrong, cooked, overblown.
A) Confirmation says an attack was premature and it is a good thing we waited. Additionally you still have Saddams typical shennanigans.
B) Over reaction to cooked intelligence. Saddam is removed from power.
Which set of options strikes you as having the best over all outcomes... ie would you rather take action and be wrong or not take action and watch 9/11 part two on the news knowing you could have stopped it ? Or be wrong and in the process still topple that universally acknowledged piece of human excrement ?
Granted it is a classic case of the ends justifing the means. Perhaps you think if the means were not justified then the end is not a good thing regardless of how it occured ? Perhaps you think I am willing to accept the ends regardless of the means.
I personally don't think it is a good thing by any means that the reasons used to invade Iraq were not born out. It sets a dangerous precedent and potentially allows pre-emptive strikes back into the category of acceptable foreign policy where it has largely been verboten since WWII or even before.
As for the issue of the US permanent Veto.... I garountee you if the rest of the UN decided to ignore US veto power the veto would mean exactly squat. The UN has the power to overide/confront the US. It is just a matter of a serious enough issue to cause the confrontation.
Personally I think such a confrontation is inevitable so long as the US attempts to maintain its ultimate soveriegn status. Sooner or later to stamp out international conflict and to bring accountability to all world leaders you have to have a unified world wide government which all accept. And that can't happen untill the UN has teeth and world wide jurisdiction that is backed by enough members willing to enforce it.
I would say Israel is a possible issue with the power to polarize the world sufficiently. If the world chooses to deal with Israel and the
I suppose the small detail that IRAQ was in almost continual breach of multiple UN resolutions for a decade dosn't have any bearing on the matter at all ?
Mayhap when this bumbling Iraq episode is over Iraq will be worse off than it was with Saddam in power... but I seriously doubt it.
Frankly I don't care if after we leave they declare a national hate america day to be yearly celebrated on sept 11th if they have a stable government that believes there is more to civil rights than who has the power to shoot/torture people.
Perhaps even one day they will admit we left them better off... but that would just be gravy.
I notice that not many people are saying Saddamm's scruffy ass being pulled out of a rat hole was a bad thing. I have yet to hear many people try to claim that in the long run the removal of the Baath party will be a bad thing.
Who gives a rats ass if Al-Queda was connected or not. Iraq was unfinished buisness and it certianly provided a far more tangible target than Al-Queda and its not like we stopped dealing with those bastids while toppling that tin pot dick head.
If the nations of the world really think the US did the wrong thing by going into Iraq then they can bring up the US leadership on war crimes charges with enough votes in the UN. Course that won't happen because most are rather happy the Baath parth has been kicked out of power and absolutely tickeled to death they get to hold to the morale high ground while the US did/does the dirty work. Course some might say its becasue the UN is a US puppet. I find that Ironic seeing we have been lamblasted so hard for choosing to work without UN support in moving on Iraq. Which is it ? Do we control it or not ? Sheesh.
sorry for the rant.
Additionally.... the point of water on mars means you don't have to take seed hydrogen to begin with either.
Beyond even that seed hydrogen reacted with the martian atmosphere leads to an 18X increase in propellents. Breaking down water on the moon will be a 1-1 proposition. Granted if there is significant water ice in the crater shadows that we can get to more or less as easilly as water on mars it is a moot point.
The thing is water on the moon in practical accesible amounts is not yet prooven. Niether is it on mars ( from a accesible standpoint ). Thus the ability to react hydrogen with the atmosphere becomes a very big advantage because you only have to take less than 1/10th the weight in hydrogen to provide your return propellent. The moon has no such obviouse method for reacting a feed stock. Perhaps it exists... but again the means to produce roughly an 18X increase in prop mass via hydrogen feed stock utilizing the martian atmosphere has already been demonstrated. Just considering it at a 10x increase that makes a hell of a difference... say 10k instead of 100k or 100k instead 1000k units of fuel.
thus untill practical access to water on the moon is prooven mars holds the advnatage in that we know water is there in practical amounts and that we can probably get at it... and even if we can't the atmosphere provides us with a means for taking less prop mass with us for a martian return profile than we would need for a lunar return profile. In otherwords given our current knowledge you can land a higher percentage of payload mass on mars than you can on the moon.
That is why Zubrin describes using the moon as a staging point for a mission to mars as the moral equivalent of driving from atlanta to new york in order to to get to D.C. (driving past your destination to get to where your going).
I agree that is about the whole point of water on the moon.... but water on the moon is still very highly contested while water on mars is not. Also getting at it where the sun never shines ( the only place it could exist ) could be a real problem.
As for the gravity I grant the case is yet proven.. however there is not much to dispute the idea that the closer to earth normal the better. We know the extremes ( micro G and one G ). Thus assuming long duration moon environment and long duration mars environments will have similar effects differing in severity in realtion to the gravitational field is a pretty safe assumption. The question is the graph, 1 to 1 or exponential ascociation.. if exponential where is it steep.. IE rapidly getting worse when aproaching zero G ( thus rapidly better when gravity is present ) or rapidly improoving as you aproach earth standard ( thus quickly getting worse as gravity decreases ). In any of those scenarios mars comes out better. The only real question left is the significance of its advantage.
Yes but do not forget making rocket fuel out of martian atmosphere with seed hydrogen stocks is an elemetary task already demonstrated. Add in the fact we are comming to understand water is far more available than previously thought on mars and the return delta V is moot.
In other words total delta V for a return trip is lower for a moon shot but for now you have to carry ALL prop for going, stopping and returning where for mars you only need the prop for getting to the surface and the eqipment to make fuel.
True enough about the trip durations but mars is farther from the sun with an atmosphere which amelieorates the worst of the radiation the same way the earth's atmosphere does ( not as well but it beats the day side of the moon by a damn sight ). Higher gravity means less deterioration of calcium in bones during long duration stays. Almost 24 hour day/night cycle leads to the real possibility of green house agriculture.
There is more than one way to mislead people with information. You can go back and forth all day and night on the relative dangers and advantages of moon missions vrs mars missions. However the key to me is water. Untill we find significant amounts of easily accesible water the moon will be second to mars as a place for a manned base/colony. Lifting water mass to support a base is unfeasible, and recylcing works only to a point ( the loop cannot be perfectly closed ). So for me, right now the presence of water means Mars has the advantage. Even if you find ice in the craters on the moon you then consider gravity. Next you consider the atmosphere. After that you consider the day/night cycle.
Thus IMHO the sole disadvantage of mars missions when compared to the moon missions is distance. I think handling the distance to mars is far easier than all the other disadvantages of lunar missions when compared to martian missions.
"(although, ironically, you'd still need those fuels to power the rockets to the moon.)"
urrrmmmm... what part of Hydrogen and Oxygen consists of hydrocarbons ?
We would still need petroleum products for stuff like seals, ziplock bags etc... but rocket fuel does not need invovle petroleum products. Though going back to kerosene and lox instead of LH and LOX has merits ( more dense, less bulky fuel tanks ).
TANSTAAFL and all that. That goes for anyone providing significant aide.
Gratitude is not expected, but Credit is. It seems all I ever hear is that the US COULD provide so much more. Just as I don't think gratitude should be expected I do not think aide should be expected either, most certainly not critisisim of the amount of aide, most especially voluntary donations. It seems to me the way to get people to donate more is not to castigate them for being cheapskates but to thank them and let them know all the good that comes from the money. See cliche regarding Flies/Honey/Vinegar.
What do you mean taking everything ?
As for getting rich at 'everyone elses expense' I am somewhat puzzled just how that is so.
If you apply the current rules governing public use of cameras then this is no different.
This needs no new legislation.
This needs no new electronic control beams/ radio waves built in.
What will need changing is the amount of enforcement needed. In terms of percentage of growth it will probably be analogous to the increase in recorded time that occurs. Thus in primarily still photography days you were talking snap shots. So even someone shooting film as fast as possible still only caught a small fraction of time. Now, as with the introductino of home video cameras, you would see an increase in the amount of time recorded. If you think of invasion of privacy useage as a percentage of the time recorded by everyone with a video camera.. then that will go up accordingly as time that is recorded goes up.
Question is will the ease of recording make for more invasion of privacy ? Or will such work remain the work of a dedicated few. If the latter then the increase likely will not be all that great as the increase will largely be driven by the increase of time recorded by that small percentage... and odds are the increase for them will be less than the overall increase for the population. Think of it this way. They are already spending a fair amount of time and effot to catch those invasions of privacy already.. thus they don't have as much room to grow as the general population with a device such as this.
Ultimatly I think social control will proove to be the true governing power over recording manners unless the technology is effectively outlawed... which is doubtfull. Of course if such a technology becomes commonplace then it is very likely that social norms regarding recording will change drastically to face that reality.
Personally I don't see what the problem is... and I hate having my picture taken. There are obvious means of crossing the lines... placing a cmaera on your shoe and taking up skirt pictures crosses the line.... but lets say your on a beach filled with dental floss clad babes (or shirtless hunks depending on your prefference )... how is taking a picture any differnt from staring ? Now if you take a shot and put it on a nationwide ad campaign or use it for some other method of making money off it then there is a problem ( with lots of legal precedence protecting your rights if you are the subject )... but just taking the picture ? Perhaps Rude, but certainly not any more illegal than oogling. So long as you are talking about a public venue. Legal precedence already says that if you are in a public venue then your presence is subject to being recorded.
What has per capita to do with that ? I understands it means people give less on an individual basis but damn.. we are still the single biggest contributing nation.
Generally speaking world aide dosn't give a rats ass how much individuals give.. its all about the bottom line. By they way that per capita distribution also works to dillute per capita numbers in the exact same way it hides the concentation of wealth in the top 1%. A huge chunk of that private aide comes out of that one % and that per capita number skyrockets accordingly... exactly the way it does when you consider the amount of tax dollars paid by that top 1%.
WOuld you please back that up with specifics ? Not that I am disagreeing with you. Just that I have heard that argument many times but rarely with so much as an even imaginary statistic to back it up.
We konw trade triangles can work.. hell thats how this country first became profitable.. as a cheap source of materials for England.
At anyrate the question of whether or not outsourcesing is bad for the nation boils down to two questions. One, are more jobs going out than are being created to replace them ? Two, are the new jobs equal in value ( same/greater pay ).
Lastly the jobs leaving are only bad if there people are capable AND willing to perform them for competitive wages. ( obscene management wages aside ).
I dunno... 3 deminsional travel in many ways would be safer as traffic density would be far less.
I really would like to see a simulation.. say design an MMORPG setting that used flying cars with realistic crash results and see what happend.
But still the point about what someone in a space suit could do in the same time is valid.
The difficulty of robotic probes is getting them to do the same things a human can do.
The difficulty in manned missions is getting the human "probe" there.
Currently there is no amount of money you could expend to get a human equivalent probe. Thus they compromise by making probes with limited capacity. If you really try to pack in the abilities both the cost and chance of failure go up. Rapidly.
This is not to say manned missions are more cost effective. But given equal time manned missions are far more capable.
Because earth will never be abandoned. Essentially impossible. The majority of Earth's population will remain on Earth even if Mars were Terreformed tommorrow. Just think of the logistics.
Terraforming Mars is really about releasing/altering mars resources and perhaps increasing the amount of solar energy hitting the planet with a reflector and introducing biological production, perhaps altering the path of some comets to impact with it. It is not about moving earth resources there. Populating mars will be a similar case. IE sooner or later an indeginous population will be fruitfull and multiply.
Even early on when immigration would be the primary means of population growth for a new planet you would have to exceed Earths population growth rate before you would reduce the population at all here. Thus for that and other reasons the Earth will thus maintain its population until it no longer is capable of supporting it.
As for this discussion about the ethics of terreforming Mars ?? I don't get it... were plants that exausted oxygen as a waste gas ethically correct in altering the atmosphere of early earth to such an extent that earth became able to support oxygen based organisims and killing off other types ?
Granted with sentience we have a choice. And given a choice I choose live and let live... but if it ever comes down to us or them ( them being microbial life, martians or simply anyone/thing with what we need to survive) It's us. No if ands or buts. Heres to it always remaining our choice because frankly I would preffer sitting around and questioning our past actions to someone/thing else sitting around questioning theirs... if they/it are even capable of thought.
A Mazer Rachkam quote for a sig. I like that.
Any pics of the arabia ? oh wiat
http://www.geocities.com/marvintpaa/arabia.html
interesting lake
Nice post... I'll pick one nit with your DARPA example... that applies to ground travel ( which is meaningfull for terrestial navigation like the mars rovers ) but automated pilots are actually far less involved system wise than human pilots. Think of the predator drone, cruise missles etc... And space is actually even easier as there is even less to run into.
" nor did he set out to prove the world was round."
Not quite.. the idea that the world was round was kind of the whole reasoning behind his new trade route.... after all there was a reason no one else had tried to get to the indies by heading west instead of east.. those that tried didn't come back and it was widely thought that they fell off the edge of the earth.
NOt exactly... the greenhouse effect due to water vapor has a problem.... once it reaches cloudlike state it reflects energy as well as keeping it in. Hence cloudy winter days/nights are warmer while cloudy summer days are cooler. Water vapor provides solar insulation. If the entire planet were shrouded in clouds there would be a heck of alot less solar energy reaching the ground, a great deal of it would be reflected back out into space.
The Venus 'green house'effect is a misnomer. It is a net producer of energy.. IE it radiates more energy than it is exposed to by the sun. The heat of Venus is at least partly driven by internal heat.
Why are all mars on the cheap ( relatively speaking ) proposals lowballed ? Have you read up on the details of the Mars Direct proposal ? Over runs ( especially in space ventrues ) invovle poor management and unexplored, untested technology. A mars mission needs no new technology and management quality is an entirly controlable variable.
The 400billion plan was a aerospace industry wet dream and used numerous new technologies. Zubrin and many other mars on the cheap plans use what we already have, including some basic chemistry that dates back more than a century.
We have accomplished all of the elements of a Mars trip. We can get into orbit. We can achieve escape velocity and we can survive re-entry to earth at interseller speeds.
Going to Mars is Lindburghs flight across the atlantic to the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. Meaning use of primarily the same technology just a question refinements and of duration. The refinements already exist with the possible exception of a long term life support system. It is just about building the spirit of St. Louis now. Not Apollo. Not Ground Breaking. Not New. Just using what we have learned over the past 40 years to do somethign we have yet to do.
That said I agree with what you say about the cost not being wasted even if it is somethign insane like a trillion semolians.... but I do not think that level of expenditure is a fore gone conclusion as you seem to think.
ROFL
One) The current cost for maintaining shuttle needs no adjustment, it is maintained in todays dollars.
Two) What exactly is the current yearly budget for running ISS ? I happen to know and I am wondering if you do.
Both ventures together have not totaled 1 trillion dollars over the entire span of their existence COMBINED.
We went to the moon when we didn't even know we could in less than a decade for far less than a Trillion dollars adjusted anyway you want. In fact if I am not mistaken we have yet to spend 1 Trillion dollars in NASA's history spanning 40 some odd years from Mercury to ISS to the Maritan Rovers.
Going back to the moon will be easier/cheaper not harder.
Going to Mars is no different from going to the moon with the exception of the time in transit. The simple fact Mars has an atmosphere actually makes it in some ways easier than a lunar mission.
The time in transist is no greater than maintaining a continuous presence on a space station. In fact we have more time spent in space on ISS already than it would take for a round trip to Mars using current technology.
They only remaining step is designing a life support system with enough reliability/redundancy to give a reasonable chance of performing for the entire spann of a mission without resupply. That at least is one area of knowledge which ISS experience is continually advancing.
Again. Where do you come by the certain knowledge that 1 trillion is only a starting point for these goals ?