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Zak you misinterpreted our goal...We are trying to PRIVATIZE Space Exploration and Colonization because we realize that governments will screw it up every chance they get. However, we have not ruled out Governement involvement. We hope to get governement financial support through Grants as well as technological support from various governments.
The ISA was founded 4 days ago and has since undergone a name change due to copyright issues. We are now known as the Grass Roots Space Administration. Furthermore we have grown from 5 members 4 days ago to over 115 members today. We expect to have over 1,000 members by the end of March and over 10,000 by the end of 2002.
We invite all New Mars members to come join us and help ensure that OUR DREAMS COME TRUE. You can access the GRSA website at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grassroot … nistration
I have recently been talking to people on multiple boards like this one and have discovered that there seems to be no real ORGANIZED International Space Administration. That is why I decided to develop a website where people who share my views that we desperately need an ISA can join. They can share their thoughts on an Open Topic message board. There are Live Chats among members anytime and Scheduled Chats every Friday which are moderated by me and hopefully, eventually, will have a different guest speaker every week. There are open topic polls that members can initiate, as well as Member Directory, File Area, Picture Area and much more.
My hope is that if we can build up a large enough central database of like minded people we may be able to attract the resources, technology, expertise and abilities of those people/businesses/organizations/governments so that a ture International Space Administration can begin. I belief whole heartedly that if enough people join and help promote the ISA we can see realistic Space Exploration and Colonization with in our lifetime.
So if you are interested here is the link: International Space Agency
I am not really certian how to explain a Polarized Hull, but I think it goes something like this: A polarized hull is a spance of a metalic element encasing the ship that has all the atoms ligned up from end of the ship to the other end. The effect of this is to create a giant freaking magnetic with a negative charge that would repel the natural magnetic fields surrounding any known space debris.
As far as whether the ship would leave the solar system the answer is yes. My suggestion for mining was for the ship to travel first to the nearest asteroid belt and mine as much as possible. They would then keep what they needed and send the rest back to earth. Then they would journey on towars somewhere like Alpha-Centauri (The closest star to the Earth).
Now everyone keeps telling me that we do not have the technology to build and deploy such a ship, let me refresh your history. When the Russians successfully put a man in space and subsequently announced they where going to the moon we had NO SPACE PROGRAM to speak of. We had only managed to pull off a few unmanned craft into extremely low orbit, much lower than where the space station is being built. However, in 6 years we managed to get ahead of the Russian's and put man on the moon. Now we did this with much less experience, a heck of a lot less technology than the Russians and probably less money spent on it.
My point is that if we believe we can do it, we get it done extremely quick. When the US started working on putting man on the moon, the initial Project draft called for a 25 year ETA to man on the moon, but we did it in 6 years.
So if you really believe that we can't do it, RIGHT NOW I pitty your naivity. If a meteor large enough to obliterate humanity on Earth we would build and launch such a ship in less than 2 years, and we could do it with very little technological break-throughs. There are only a few small problems that we have found possible ways to overcome but haven't tested. The only thing standing in our way is generating enough interest to enspire people, companies and governments to spend the money to do it.
You know, if it is simply a problem of money being the limiting factor in developing a GENERATION SHIP, then here is the answer.
The ship could carry cargo pods and the ability to build new pods. Then the ship could mine resources along the way and shoot the pods back towards earth. Once near earth thrusters would be used to put the pods in Geo-Syncronous orbit where a Space shuttle could pick the resources up and bring them back to Earth.
This should be a sufficient income for any bussinesses that invest in the building and deploying a GENERATION SHIP.
I for one would! I have scoured the web and can find nothing where people like myself can share their knowledge and work together to obtain such a goal. I would like to build a website like this but I need your help.
What I am thinking is building a website like MSN Communities where everyone interested in this can build and host their own website for FREE (No Banners or Ads). The site will have content like Space.com and Members Only Message boards like this one where people can share ideas on achieving this goal as well as share information on projects they are currently working on.
The site would require Membership status for most of the features like accessing the Message Boards or Members Sites and those memberships would be added to a Project Plan to submit to world governments and large businesses to help garner support for accomplishing this goal.
I believe that if we build such a website and get some media coverage (Shouldn't be too hard to do) that we can in a year or two build up enough support from Businesses and Governments to start Developing Privately the means to make this dream a reality.
So if anyone out here is with me on this please contact me at colbert_richard@hotmail.com and let me know how you can help with this project.
I have noticed a lot of discussion lately on the topic of building a completely self-sufficient ship that could be built in space and launched out to explore the universe. This ship would be completely self sufficient and would sustain life for generations. I have put a lot of thought into this and have a few ideas of what would be needed to be successful.
1.) A large enough ship to hold in comfort at least 100 people.
2.) The crew would have to be made up of people from at least the following professions: Scientist, Physicist, Biologist, Astronomer, Geologist, Botonist, Chemist, Metalurgist, Doctor, Pshyciatrist (Yeah, I know but you got to have at least one), Counselor/Negotiator, Law Enforcement (Got to keep the peace), Military, Miner, Smelter, Biochemist and many more.
3.) The ship would have to have the ability to mine minerals and metals from Asteroids and other space debris and then refine it and turn it into tools and other items needed to repair the ship and keep it in operation.
4.) The ship would have to have Polarized hull plating to repel micro-meteors and protect from space radiation.
5.) The ship would have to have an un-dying supply of power, possible a nuclear reactor and the ability to mine plutonium or uranium and make new rods every hundred years or so.
6.) The ship would have to have artificial gravity similar to that of Earth. This could be achieved by spinning the ship slowly.
7.) The ship would have to have an Ecosphere large enough to grow enough food to sustain 500 people, because by the time the ship found a suitable planet to colonize (Another Earth) they would have undoubtedly multiplied drastically. The ecosphere would also have to contain a sealed environment capable of raining (or at least misting) as well as capable of filtering the carbon dioxide exhaled by the crew and converting it back to breathable oxygen. Assuming the ecosphere was large enough to produce enough oxygen to support 500 people it would probably also produce enough hydrogen and oxygen to create an ample water supply for the crew.
8.) The ship would have to be capable of filtering and recycling all waste water including that exreted by humans.
9.) The ship would have to be large enough to breed goats or sheep or some other small milk/meat producing animal. Milk and meat occasionally would be essential for the sustained health of the crew.
10.) The ship would have to have a very extensize medical facility, one not only capable of handling births, illnesses, etc. but also capable of treating and isolating new diseases before they became epidemic.
11.) The ship would have to carry or be capable of storing enough food, medicine, extra parts, etc. to maintain the crew and ship in case of an emergency.
12.) The crew would have to be capable of extended space walks to repair the ship, make in flight modifications, etc.
13.) The ship would have to be able to communicate back to Earth via some sort of long range communication.
14.) The ship would have to have the ability to build and launch probes to travel ahead of it and report dangerous or interesting spacial anomolies or possible New Earths to colonize.
15.) The crew would have to be capable of building settlements on other worlds upon finding them. In order to do this they would have to have some sort of transport ship to carry the crew, supplies, etc. to and from the planets surface. It would have to be fueled by something they could mine either from space, asteroids or planets.
16.) The ship would also have to be equiped with short range mining ships the crew could use to travel from the Generation Ship into asteroid belts to mine and then return back to the ship.
Now that I have gone through those, I have a few things to say. Unless I am forgetting something majorly important this seems to be doable RIGHT NOW.
I mean think about it we have the means to travel into space and assemble such a ship. We have willing people from all the professions needed to make it work. We could use an Apollo Capsule like ship to mine asteroids with. We have the means to polarize metal. We have nuclear reactors and could easily design sensors to detect uranium and plutonium in asteroids that could be mined and used to make new rods for the reactors. It wouldn't be too hard to make the ship rotate a couple times a day to simulate Earth gravity. We have built and proved several of these Ecospheres right here on Earth and know how to build them and know they will work in space as well. We already have the filtration systems in use on ISS and the Space Shuttle. The russians proved that animals born in microgravity where healthy and could be kept healthy. So it wouldn't be any problem to transport embryos into space and then birth them in test tubes...I.E.- Cloning. We know how to do it with livestock and it is becoming very successful, very fast. We have the medical technology to equip the ship for sustained habitation. We have learned how to carry a lot of food (MRI's, etc.) and medicine (DRY Powdered, etc.) in extremely small spaces. The extra parts could be in the form of raw materials and easily stored. We would simply forge them into what we needed, when we needed it. Nasa is already making extended space walks and repairing/working on the ISS and the Shuttle as it is circling the Earth, so training the crew to do it wouldn't be hard, especially if they where equiped with jet packs and tether cables. The outside of the ship sould also be designed with something to grab every few feet or rings to run the tether cable through every few feet, just in case the jet pack failed or ran out of fuel. We already have proven that our communication technology is capable of reaching Earth from as far away as Pluto so increasing the range shouldn't be too hard.
So to summize, will someone please tell me why the H-E-L-L we aren't BUILDING THIS SHIP RIGHT NOW, instead of wasting our money on the ISS???
Please email comments directly to me at colbert_richard@hotmail.com.
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