New Mars Forums

My money would be on Bigelow Aerospace if I could.

Rutan of Scaled Composites is working on a 'secret project' apparently so who knows what he is working on. Maybe he is building the plane to win the Americas Space Prize. He could be building SpaceDevs Dream Chaser for all we know.

Boeing's got Sea Launch (or at least 40% of it). Sea Launch's record is flippin amazing if you ask me. Yet still an expensive flight.

I'm pretty confidant that SpaceDev will manage to make money and not actually contribute to space exploration. They seem more talk then action. A mean common, they purchased a launch for 2008 from SpaceX and they don't even plan to launch anything! Absurd!

Keep an eye out for the first company to actually produce carbon nanotubes in bulk form. Then invest in LiftPort Group.

You can't forget Orbital Technologies Corp. At least they sell Lunar and Mars soil stimulant. They also seem to get along really well with NASA. Any company willing to produce an Advanced Animal Habitat just screams MARS!

Oh yeah, any company that is currently producing genetically modified foods will be very important to a Martian colony. Also anyone currently building or testing LOX/Methane rockets. That will be the rocket fuel post the Presidents Lack Of Vision Plan.

Hope my opinion helps (I'm also on the lookout
FunkyJ

I'm new and do not possibly have the energy or time to read this entire thread so I apologize in advance for repeating what might have been said.

The US of A stands for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
Canada stands for Peace, Order and Good Government

I feel we should go to Mars for;

Survival, Humanity and Ingenuity.

Survival: To demonstrate that it is possible to not only live but thrive on another planet. To prove that humans can live off the land no matter where we hang our hats and we don't need any additional support from our "homeland".

Humanity: Living on Mars will provide humans an oppertunity to look at ourselves as human. Not as Americans, Russians, Jews, CEO's, clog dancers or visionaries. We will look at ourselves as living on a planet and we will realise that those imaginary lines in the sand we infact, created. Countries are irrelevent, religeon (in time) becomes irrelevent, economics and politics become irrelevent. Imagine a second generation Martian talking to the President on the phone. The Martian wont care who this guy is in charge of 1 little country on 1 little planet-which is little more then a twinkle in the sky. Which leads to...

Ingenuity:  No doubt a colony founded by the worlds best scientists, engineers, etc. will provide a strong consitution for such a endeavour. All of a sudden their are no rules when it comes to stem cell research, scientific testing. No Bush telling you not to build Methane/LOX engines. You are able to do what you feel is right. Martian patents within 3 generations guarenteed will surpass Earth based patents just because they will not have big companies, government or anyone else to compete with. Martians will also be on the forefront of interplanetary commerce, trade, new discoveries....all in the name of Humanity.

Being a Canadian (don't hold it against me) I am unfamiliar with how Americans settled their West but I know how we did it. First Canada laid claim to this massive chunk of land. Then we sold and gave away huge chunks of it to poor people. Then we were worried the Americans or Russians would claim the land also so we had to make good on our claim. So we gave massive tax breaks and gave away subsidies to CN Rail to build a railroad. 30 years was all it took to payback that lone through land taxes from taxing the poor.

-Send 200 people to Mars with basic survival tools and tell them to "fend for themselves". Once we do that....we are commited no matter who is elected next.

-FunkyJ