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#1 Re: Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-04-16 14:29:28
The man has a PHD, founded a very innovative company and his mars direct plan formed the basis for the Mars reference missions. He is far from a hack.
Anyone who has spent the time looking at the Mars Direct plan identifies the flaws. It is a primer to "sell" Mars to people who have little or no interest in it, that's it. The "plan" would also preclude any possibility of colonization- which is why I have always had a deep problem with the plan. I drank the kool aid and said, "OK, it makes no sense, but let’s colonize Mars." Everyone here subscribes to that premise (mostly), so I find it fascinating and frustrating that so many defer to this plan, or use it as their baseline.
When given limited resources for an expensive undertaking there will always be perspectives which think the use of resources is not optimal or sufficient -- from these alternate perspective the deficiencies can be called flaws. The NASA reference missions contain similar architectural concepts as Zubrin's proposals but the total plan is more costly; which consequently allows them to be more robust then Zubrin's plan. They also have the advantage of hindsight (since Zubrins proposal created a baseline plan). Combining the value of hindsight with a greater number of authors for a greater perspective; they were able to find something with a wider appeal.
Zubrin's plan is not, Colonization Direct, it is, Mars Direct. I would prefer colonization direct but the resources might not be there yet for such a mission. The proposed constellation program previously put forth buy NASA may have been seen as providing a more robust lunch infrastructure then Zubrin's proposal since each payload sent to mars comprised of two launches and crew was separate from cargo for a higher degree of safety. Unfortunately, the operating cost of maintaining the two vehicles proposed by NASA was two high for a sustained effort. What is the saying? "An Elephant is a mouse built to government specifications".
Zubrin's plan may seem unrealistically cheap but we engineer and build with considerably more overhead now then we did in the 1960s. It was less safe then it is today, unfortunately this safety comes at a large cost.
What should I call this tactic? Bate then attack? Given we live in the present, our expectations for the future is always to some degree a fantasy but this doesn't discredit that some future will come to be our present. We can only relate the future to what we know and the West is one of the geographical frontiers that we know.
Call it what you want. But let’s dance.
The default setting for most here is to embrace a version of some libertarian re-telling of the American western frontier as substitute for a possible Martian Experience. It misses the point. It misses the lesson of history- not just the American western frontier, but all of our shared history.
Environment dictates the experience. The environment we are considering is so radically different as to make our current conceptions on human rights, personal liberty, security, privacy, property rights, and personal responsibility laughable and unrealistic.
Any conversation regarding what Mars might be like, that starts from some historical experience, and not from an examination of the constraints of living in a vacuum, shows me that someone really doesn’t know what they are talking about.Zubrin's plan equates to flag and footprints. It gets us to Mars for the saking of getting there. It makes Mars a sideshow.
I remember an argument from Ayn Rand's book, "Capitalism The Unknown Ideal" along the lines of that if government is bad at regulating primitive economies why should they be better are regulating more complex economies. Foreign policy was given as an example where; some people say some economies are not ready for capitalism yet because they are too primitive. However, if government is not good at planning the basic distribution of resources in economies devoted to the satisfaction of peoples basic needs why are they likely to excel at regulating highly technological economies with tremendous specialization of labor and expertise.
By nature of it's environment mars will be the most technologically complex economy of existence and as a consequence the nature of the martian economy will far exceed the expertise of any bureaucrat. Now, there is no system of government that escapes planning and no doubt early on Mars can be centrally planned without too much overhead and inflexibility but as the society progresses, price will provide a much better signal of the best allocation of resources then the whim of a bureaucrat. I'm not sure what the transition will look like but the lower we can reduce the start up cost of an enterprise, the easier it will be for new business to be created early on in the colorization of mars.
Now with regards to personal (rather then economic) liberties it has always been the case that governments use fear to justify their power grabs. On the economic side some argue that government standards reduce the incentive for businesses to compete on quality. On the personal side the trust in government to protect us will cause us to build structures which we might not consider safe if we have instead taken the personal responsibility to engineer our environment against structural breaches from unpredictable acts or terrorism.
Not only might excessive government police and military forces give us a false sense of security but the demons dreamt up to justify them may be greatly exaggerated.
"If we can wander, without fear, not only in the streets of Paris, which bristle with police, but especially in rustic walks where you rarely meet passers-by, is it to the police that we owe this security? or rather to the absence of people who care to rob or murder us? I am evidently not speaking of the one who carries millions about him. That one - a recent trial tells us - is soon robbed, by preference in places where there are as many policemen as lamp-posts. No, I speak of the man who fears for his life and not for his purse filled with ill-gotten sovereigns. Are his fears real?
Besides, has not experience demonstrated quite recently that Jack the Ripper performed his exploits under the eye of London police - a most active force - and that he only left off killing when the population of Whitechapel itself began to give chase to him?
....
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!"
http://www.panarchy.org/kropotkin/1896.eng.html
from Anarchism, It's Philosophy and Ideal by Piotr Kropotkin (1896)
The last point I suppose is war. Is war on Mars mutually ensured destruction. Is it the same on earth. Now for a historical fact.
The word federalism originated from Anarchist philosophy.
Some anarchist philosophers dreamt up a loose federation of states which they called federalism. We might consider this analogous to pre-civil-war America. On the surface this seems like a good concept but if Mars was such a nation how might we prevent such a civil war? I don't know. The forced integration through globalization today provides seems to provide a strong disincentive against war but at a great cost to liberty. To what degree can a loose federation of states be integrated and still be a loose federation of states.
Finally, to prevent war I have not seen much beyond the proposals of balance of power and global government. Balance of power failed to provide piece in Europe but the globalization of government seems to have changed the nature of war rather then eliminate it. We no longer fight governments but instead trans-government groups such as terrorists and drug cartels.
Anyway, the subject of war I think is probably too big a topic to approach in this thread.
#2 Re: Life support systems » Iron and Steel on Mars » 2012-04-16 12:14:14
Some magma flows are high in Iron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholeiitic_magma_series
Someone mentioned Basalt on mars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt
which is magma which cools quickly, perhaps bellow this their is magma which cools slower letting Iron participate out. Would Basalt high in Iron suggest Iron ores near by?
#3 Re: Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-04-14 23:20:28
Let me sum the state of the argument.
Wikipedia, bad.
Irrelevant. In terms of acuracy wikipedia has 5 errors for every four of encyclopedia Britannica. Moreover, encylopedias shouldn't be used as primary sources. A good starting point to find primary sources is through the refferences of an enyclopedia.
"Keen displays a similar lack of understanding of stigmergy and the adversarial approach when it
comes to Wikipedia. He's all over Wikipedia for its lack of professional editors and fact-checkers.112
What he fails to note is that the rate of error in Wikipedia is actually comparable to that of
Britannica.113 And while it takes Britannica until the next edition is painstakingly ground out, over a
period of many months and tens of thousands of committee man-hours, to correct an hour, errors in
high-profile Wikipedia articles are usually corrected in a matter of minutes. He also fails to grasp the
main purpose of an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is used either for a cursory search for the most
basic and non-controversial information, or as jumping-off point for further research; it's almost never
cited as an authority in a matter of scholarly contention."
http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010 … ssives.pdf
Zubrin's thoughts on anything, worse.
So then his PHD on astronaughtical engineering wouldn't suggest that he might have something usefull to say about rockets. The man has a PHD, founded a very innovative company and his mars direct plan formed the basis for the Mars reference missions. He is far from a hack. Is he a historian perhaps not but given that, then why spend so much energy trying to discredit his whole thesis by looking for Strawmen. Alternatively I believe that we should look at each point individually and decide what points are the most interesting and which points are the most relevant. History is far to complex and full of too many conflicting narratives to learn by either accepting or rejecting a person's viewpoint of history in full. It cannot be reduced to a single schema.
" Scientific theories that are half-valid and half-invalid can be entirely brushed aside with reductionism, whereas with a holistic paradigm such as additivism, one can add the half-valid parts to updated assumptions. A reductionist would be less likely to view currently invalid theories as valid contributions in the context in which they were observed, utilized and presented, whereas a complexity theorist would be more likely to."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductioni … ductionism
It is fallacious to reject a single premise based on a multi-premis implication.
Mars, Luna- space. They are all so vastly different from our historical experience as to make any analogy laughable.
I think that the to arguments for the benefit of the frontier are in terms of liberty and economics. The theory goes that both benefits result from the lack of government control on the individual and business. Of course with all such arguments what must be counted is allegations of a romanticized view of a golden age. Just as critics of Marx and Engels say the medieval golden era before capitalism never existed, libertarians like Ann Rand and Ron Paul would have to defend the existence of a golden age of the 19th century in America if they actually argued that. However that is not what they argue. They don't say things were better in the 19th century, what they say is that in the 19th century the living standards improved faster than any time in-history and this was due to the freedom of man to innovate and learn without the interference of government. They would argue it wasn't governments which raised our standard of living but the power of mans mind to multiply the power of his labor through innovation. The rapid rise in living standards was known as the great divergence and if you look at figure 1 on this paper America led the way in the rise of living standards:
http://www.usna.edu/Users/econ/rahman/g … l%2011.pdf
The Frontier model is an over simplification to win hearts and minds for those who have want a fantasy to fill their canvas.
What should I call this tactic? Bate then attack? Given we live in the present, our expectations for the future is always to some degree a fantasy but this doesn't discredit that some future will come to be our present. We can only relate the future to what we know and the West is one of the geographical frontiers that we know.
I really don't want to waste our collective time by showing you the fallacy of some out dated historical model and how it simply cannot apply to space exploration, or by association, colonization, but I will, if I have to.
I don't consider a discussion of history a waste of time and I think it's been about 10 years since I read one of these frontier debates on this forum so I think we are about due for another one. Bring it on, Mr Emanuel Kant, I mean Clark.
#4 Re: Planetary transportation » Bikes » 2012-03-21 18:59:48
All cool ideas, of course if the roads are good, or even better indoors, then bikes will be a win.
#5 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Cycling Spaceship » 2012-03-21 18:50:54
Cyclers are cool but their neither the cheapest or fastest way to get to mars. Perhaps though in the long term they may be cheaper. They would certainly provide more comfort for people traveling to mars.
#6 Re: Life support systems » The use of hydrostatic pressure on Mars. » 2012-03-21 12:45:25
Well, there are certainly some large challenges in the topic presented let me offer some intermediate prospects which are less challenging. The first is that you only need a 14 m column if the air lock is in one stage. Alternatively you could have 14, 1m columns and 14 stages. While this this may seem like a lot for of a person to go though it provides a very continuous transition for moving materials in a conveyer belt like fashion and would not have the same mechanical ware as a conventional air lock. There is of course nothing stopping people from using such a system (time permitting).
Multiple stages may be motivated by how the colony decides to expand and work. Hard structures may be preferred for living spaces but soft inflatable structures may enclose working spaces making it easier to build structures, reducing the requirements for the pressure suite and providing an extra level of safety for the hard structures.
If there is mining for either material or habitation reasons than a water reservoir could be used as a safety mechanism to provide containment pressure for the tunnels in the case of depressurization. For surface structures, like tunnels between domes, inflatables could be used to act like a check valve to provide some shutoff ability in the event of depressurization. They would work under the principle that when the pressure drops the gas inside the inflatables would expand which would effectively reduce or stop pressure losses. Manual or automated doors could further seal the tunnel if necessary.
#7 Re: Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-03-20 13:02:31
I actually agree with a lot of what you said; But Zubrin's singular focus on the existence of a physical frontier as the only way to "fix" our "broken" society, based heavily on Turner, is such an exaggeration of the reality of the situation that in my opinion it's closer to being wrong than right. I am not the first one to call out Zubrin for being hyperbolic.
It is interesting the choice of words you chose to quote. I will address these implicit points later. Historically (for instance see the Hegelian dialectic), it was believed that significant changes occurred by replacing the old with the new. The belief in the Mortality of states can be traced back at least as far as Plato when he talked about the transition from one form of government to another in his book, “The Republic”.
From this historical perspective significant change, occurs by replacing the old with the new, in other words it is a new start and in a new world such a new start would be easier. I think that the evolutionary perspective probably gained prominence sometime after 1900 both due to failures in various revolutionary movements and because of the prominence evolution gained in our cultural consciousness after Darwin’s The Origin of species.
Modern societies are complex self-reinforcing systems as was observed by Marx and; from the vantage point of a given system it is hard to see alternatives (see deep capture theory). Most things in the system have adapted to the system and hence have a purpose from the perspective of the system but the popular presumption that this purpose is by some form of superior design (either an all powerful creator or the supreme wisdom of the heroes of our history ) show that the idea of natural law is still a strong part of our consciousness..
Aristotle believed the rain fell to the ground so the plants would have water just as some creationist would presume that rabbits have white tails so that they are easier for men to shoot (as Russell said, “I’m not sure how the rabbit would feel about that). The belief in an inherent meaning , cause and purpose behind everything in life still is a dominate part of our psychology despite the influence of existentialism and instrumentalism.
Now with regards to the words fix and broken, these terms largely depend on our perspective and later I will discuss perspectives where our way of doing things is viewed much less positively.
I won't argue for a second that the America of the late 1800s and early 1900s was different from many other Western states, But I do argue that the reason for that is not because of the existence of a frontier hundreds or a thousand miles west of where most Americans lived. Instead, the differences were probably because America's social order (so to speak- though perhaps the most significant difference is that there is (was?) not a social order in America in the European sense) was not created in the dark ages. This was caused by the fact that America, perhaps two hundred years earlier, was a frontier, and very little to do with the fact that it had one.
This is an interesting distinction but the point is taken.
Further, by modern standards, even though the US frontier was declared "closed" in 1890, there was still a whole lot of empty land. Here is a zoomable map of the US population density in 1890. Note that there are huge areas with population densities below 2 people per square mile. To this day, the United States has a lot of empty land (To be fair, I am speaking as a New Yorker and my definition of "empty" may not align with that of other people). At the least, we have Alaska which has very few people for its size. Many African nations have pretty low population densities, yet more often than not these same nations have tremendous and unsolved issues. Australia has less than one half the population of England (And I do mean England, e.g., not including Scotland, Wales, or Ireland), in nearly sixty times the land area; Yet it would be a stretch to say that either is more than a little better off than the other.
In Zubrin’s paper he discusses the importance of autonomy for a frontier and it is for this reason he argues for instance that Antarctica or under the water would not serve the same purpose as Mars.
Further, I would argue that there is no way to be absolutely certain that a Martian frontier would lead to this kind of benefit for Earth. It is not as if it is an inevitable fact that people put in a new environment will create a better society. The new society of Apartheid formed in South Africa after Dutch colonization and later independence is hardly something we want to emulate. It only happens through hard work, idealism, and real thought on what people want their world to be. It can be derailed at any point by the rise of a charismatic dictator; by economic or political oppression; By any of a trillion unforseeable circumstances. Even in America, the establishment of a new society came with a dark smear, that being the institution of chattel slavery. As much as we like to pass over it, say it was just the south, make claims of economic necessity, it doesn't matter. We as a country brutally enslaved millions of human beings over hundreds of years, while slavery within European countries was largely nonexistent. That doesn't sound much like an improvement. Then there is the whole other issue of the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the United States, which is also terrible and also generally not spoken of. Estimates vary, but there were somewhere between 1 million and 18 million non-European people living in the territory that is now the US, and while many of these people died from then-unavoidable and then-incurable spread of disease, many were also intentionally killed or exposed.
So, I think that it is not right to say that the existence of a frontier leads to a "near certainty" of a better world.
I think this is a fair point. My question would then be (perhaps for another thread) what ideals will people take to Mars and how will this shape our society. I think that the Mars will require a unique mix of cooperation and independence and consequently will look quite different than historical examples we find on earth.
Now, at the moment I wish to ask one question. We both agree that Zubrin’s paper is an oversimplification but if you look at the politics of our day and how things are taught in school; then most things are communicated with over simplifications. Who is Zubrin’s audience? Different audiances will require different depths of arguments.
Well, today we see Zubrin’s paper as more wrong then right, this is from a cultural perspective which believes strongly in evolutionary change and the indeterminism of history. From a different cultural perspective they might find our beliefs a strange mix of existentialism with natural law. It is not that I don’t think we are more objective with our treatment of history today, it is that I believe in the importance of theories in histories as a schema to try and understand and connect events. I reject the mix of blind empiricism with blind faith in the purpose behind change and trends.
#8 Life support systems » Steel Conductors » 2012-03-18 18:59:17
- John Creighton
- Replies: 1
It appears steel is used for conductors but is not widely used:
Steel
According to "The Electronics Handbook," steel conductors are one tenth as effective as copper conductors and rust easily--due to which steel conductors are hardly used alone. Steel conductors are commonly galvanized (or coated with a layer of zinc to counteract their rusting tendency). According to "Guide to Electrical Power Distribution Systems," steel-based transmission conductors are three to five times stronger than copper conductors, and can be used for longer spans with fewer supports.
http://www.ehow.com/list_6388089_types- … lines.html
So the benefit of steel is that it is stronger and hence good for bridging longer spans, say across a chasm or something. The downside is it rusts easier and is not as conductive. There is an article in IEEE about the properties of steel for power distribution:
Abstract
In this paper are given the results of some work which was carried out with a view to obtaining definite information as to the electrical properties of steel conductors when carrying alternating currents. The most important values measured in the tests were the ¿effective a.c. resistance¿ and ¿internal inductive reactance,¿ and it is shown that it would be impossible to calculate these in the case of iron or steel conductors. Full particulars with regard to the selected range of test samples are given, including their mechanical properties, chemical analyses and magnetic qualities. The test methods are briefly described, the method of power-factor measurement employed in the ¿internal inductive reactance¿ tests being more fully referred to in the Appendix. The effect of spacing on the values of ¿effective a.c. resistance¿ and ¿internal inductive reactance¿ is then considered. The test results show that these values do not vary with the spacing until the conductors are brought very close together and, in fact, are separated only by a thickness of paper. Some observations on the test results are given, and it is shown that the most suitable of the four grades of material tested is the ¿45-ton quality, hard-drawn¿ grade.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_ … er=5314507
If conductivity is the main reason it isn't used (you'd need 10 times as much of it to get the same conductivity) than early on in a mars colony if Aluminum and copper are both 10 times as costly as steel then steel may be used for some power transmission provided it can be protected from rusting.
#9 Re: Civilization and Culture » Resource Allocation - What Can we learn from Carl Menger » 2012-03-18 11:20:50
I'm just posting this here for future reference. The significance is yet to be determined.
"Among the most recent economists who have treated the theory
of the measure of value as parts of their systems, L. v. Stein must
be mentioned in particular because of his original treatment of the
subject. Stein defines value as "das Verhältniss des Masses eines be302
Principles of Economics
13"The relationship of the measure of a given good to the run of goods in general."
14"The true measure of the value of a good is found by dividing the magnitude
of the good in question into the magnitudes of other goods. In order to be able to do this
a common denominator for the magnitudes of all goods must be found. But this common
denominator, or homogeneous element in goods can be found only in their
homogeneous nature-that is, in the fact that all true goods originate from the six
elements, matter, labor, production, need, usefulness, and true consumability,
since if one of these elements disappears, an object ceases to be a good. These elements
are contained in a given good only to a particular degree, and their magnitude
determines the measure of each true good taken separately. From this it follows
that the quantitative relationship of all the separate goods to one another, or the
general measure of their value, is given by the ratio between these component elements
of goods and their magnitude in one good relative to another. To determine
and calculate this relationship is therefore to determine the true measure of value."
It is from Menger's Principles of economics but I am not sure how useful it is as I don't know how well the "six elements of a good" as Menger called them would relate to the value of the good.
#10 Re: Life support systems » Iron and Steel on Mars » 2012-03-18 10:43:22
That answers a little bit about steel. I guess how expensive it is to make will in part depend on the quality of the ores and how close they are to the base. Iron is a pretty common element which makes steel production likely.Steel is great for structures and for tools. However, for wires typically on earth we use copper or aluminum. Perhaps steel word work fine for low powered conductors but might not work so well at higher power applications. Perhaps steel wave guides would work better for higher power applications than steel conductors.
Given that steel might be scarce and expensive early on, Martians could look for alternatives for some tools. For instance perhaps once could make a hammer head from a piece of stone. Early civilizations made blades out of stone but I am not sure such blades would be of much use in a modern society. I say steel is good for tools but I don't even ask what tools the early martians will need and how else they might be made.
#11 Re: Life support systems » The use of hydrostatic pressure on Mars. » 2012-03-18 00:22:47
In the past, I have made attempts to suggest at various websites that a good way of pressurizing a habitat is to have it at the bottom of a lake. Of course on Mars having a lake requries significant work. However the reason I am posting this is the hope that I could get feedback on why I never got what I considered a serious answer on the notion. I really don't care if it is ever done, it annoys me that I don't think that I ever got a killer reason why it shouldn't be attempted.
In the past, I did get the notion that Mars is completely Arid, and that a pool of water would simply sink into the rigolith.
Here is a link which suggests that this may not be true if you are in the northern or sourthern half lattitudes (And I susspect that if you had a supply of water that it could be done at lower lattitudes as well).
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc … artianice/
The notion as put forward originally included emulation of Dry Valley Lakes in Antarctica. But on Mars manipulation of the environment would be required.
In it's present condition, it would be needed that a supply of make up water be available at a location accessable.
-Ice must cover the lake. To protect the ice from sublimination, mechanical means are required. (See articles on this site about IceCrete). I generally expect that a vapor barrier covered by a layer including glass windows is required (Just a little pressurization might be prefered).
-Salt in the water is prefered. In that condition the bottom of the lake could well experience terrestrial temperatures. (Google for Antarctic Dry Valley Lakes).
-Generally the notion of living underwater is not practicle, on Earth. Why do it. if you can walk about on the surface. On Mars, however, this equasion of preference does not hold true.If I had an arcificial dry valley lake on Mars, I could:
1) Put on a swim suit suitable for a man (In order not to scare people), and have a breathing apparatus and go out in the bottom of the lake and touch a rock with my bare hands, and hold a handful of soil with my bare hands. I might expect the possiblity of temperatures I could endure, or even be comforatable with.
2) Build an arch type stone structure under the water on the bottom of the lake, and fill it with air, and cover it with soil so that the bubble of air within it did not explode it with boyancy. I would then have a underwater "House".
3) Dig tunnels under the lake into the rock. Create habitats there.
4) Perhaps have photosynthisis occuring in the cold layer of relatively fresh water just under the ice. With gentic engineering perhaps have crops growing there, production of food.Anyway, I am fearful of the notion of glass domes, pressurized. The slightest break, and the pressure leaks out.
Hydrostatic pressurization is not like that. A leak means that sublimation is slowly taking the ice layer away that covers the liquid water (Which would scab over with ice if exposed to Martian Pressure). This would be a thing that could be addressed before lethal conditions occured.
Anyway, I am wondering what is against this set of notions?
I think it will be difficult to live under water but it would certainly be worth trying. Not only would this give an alternate way of life on mars but it would open up new areas of earth. I suspect underwater construction is difficult.
#12 Re: Life support systems » Iron and Steel on Mars » 2012-03-18 00:17:45
I'm going to guess that on mars at first we would use either the direct reduction process or the electric furnace. I presume that blast furnaces would be too large. You mention lower gravity, this would mean that for any type of gravity separation you would probably need a taller fractionate. For these two steel process any suggestions on how small they could be made and still give reasonable ores.
If we don't have good ores I presume more energy intensive process would be needed.
#13 Re: Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-03-15 12:45:21
I'm not arguing that there's anything wrong with destabilizing or disruptive forces in society, necessarily. However, the Turner Thesis is based on the idea of social stability, e.g. the existence of a frontier enhances social stability by drawing off those who would destabilize things. Turner (And by extension Zubrin) would point to the 1848 Revolutions in Europe (Essentially every state in Europe had at least one revolution in that year, with the exception of the UK, which merely suffered from elevated social discontent, and Russia) and note that instead of having a revolution in that year, the US had a Gold Rush. I would turn things around; the US was a frontier, and because it was far enough separated from Europe it could advance its social institutions and create an example for them to use, though it's not the only cause in any sense. Note that that frontier does not need to be geographical, per se: It is a cultural frontier. I would argue that, properly conceptualized, the Internet represents just such a cultural frontier, or its progenitors; The growing (and related) gap between younger and older generations provides another such cultural frontier. Though this leaves an important position from the frontier, it is different from the Turner Thesis.
While our current systems of justice serve well in many instances, I don't think they're suited to an age where the law addresses much more than very clear matters of property. The more complex modern age also makes the relatively fixed procedures of the courts slow-moving and often ineffective for an increasingly ineffective batch of laws (Example: Intellectual property and lawsuit liability). Especially when a law exists by general consensus to further a specific social or economic aim (Government is now a significant part of western society, and definitely has a place in the economic and social life (In such benign a case as the example that free public education it doesn't make sense to treat this law as an objective fact, which is generally speaking the ultimate ideological base of our court system.
Broadly speaking, not enough people were actually able to immigrate to the frontier to really say that it provided a true alternative to the city. Also, I do believe that many of the migrants to the frontier were pretty middle-class; As is usually the case the people hurt most by the system are least able to escape from it. I agree that having empty land was a great help to America, but I don't think it's really enough to argue that it was such a significant factor in helping our development. Pre-1917 Russia had massive amounts of empty or agricultural land but it was still the least developed country in Europe. I know that in the context of Europe, it is very important to note that while the conditions in the city were bad, they were not necessarily worse than the conditions which they had left in the country.
Because the frontier was not a viable actual alternative, you end up referencing merely the idea that you could, in theory go out to the frontier to escape from the woes of civilization. But if the escape is merely notional, then there is absolutely no need for it to take the form of a physical space of unused land.
I don't doubt that a good dose of social instability ultimately strengthens a society, but I contest the idea that the Frontier is the only or even necessarily the best way of generating this instability (More important, really, is the expression and demonstration of new ideas). While it is certainly one possible way to aid the development of a society, the contentions of Zubrin and Turner IMO go too far in discussing its impact and the directness of the relation.
While I don’t agree with everything from Turner and Zubrin in this regard, I am not sure that they do go too far. I acknowledge that there are other ways to drive change; unfortunately people today feel little hope that we can make a better world. The right plays on our fears to encourage our possessive impulses while the left seeks to make us dependent upon the state to ration out the perceived scarce resources in Malthusian like manner, often completely rejecting the notion that there can be industrial progress.
If we as a society can only see one of two depressing futures, then what hope do we have of making a better world? The Martian frontier would do something very dramatic. It would show earth that life can flourish in a world which is much less abundant then our own and then from this realization they will conclude that we can certainly provide for the needs of people on earth. From this realization they will demand that society organizes in a way to achieve these ends.
As for the history. I’ll need to address much of it later. You say that not enough people left the city to make it a real option for poor city dwellers but how did the wages in the cities of the frontier compare to Europe? Was the growth of a larger middle class a stronger trend in America? Also the comparison of farming in Europe to city life in Europe probably isn’t that relevant because I don’t think farmers tended to own their own land in Europe in that time period.
I don’t know much about Russia in that time period but it would be an interesting study. The notion of, the internet as a cultural frontier, is also interesting but I think I’ll make a new thread on that one. The Internet as a bastion of freedom is rapidly changing though, as people try to control it though, intellectual property laws, wire tapping laws, terrorism laws, public disturbance laws, and countless other instruments justified on the basis of numerous boogiemen.
The notion that there may be other ways to help people see more positive ways to make a better future says nothing contrary to the fact that the frontier would be an extremely powerful way to achieve this end. We can try many things that we think might work or we can go ahead and do something that we are nearly certain that it will work.
#14 Re: Life support systems » Mars Colony Cement & Concrete » 2012-03-15 12:03:46
Not sure what a railroad might look like on Mars, given that steel will not be generally available for a long time after the first bases are established, except as an expensive import.
I’m not sure that’s true. If you have a good enough ore isn’t a hot fire enough to separate the metal? Anyway, I agree that it won’t be produced in large quantities early on and probably mostly used to make tools.
#15 Re: Life support systems » Mars Colony Cement & Concrete » 2012-03-14 21:19:20
For mechanical properties of frozen ice see the following link.
http://www.uaf.edu/esm/esmpoll/mechpro.pdf
From figure 1 it looks like the strength goes up significantly with increased sand.
As a random though flour is good as absorbing water but would not doubt be to expensive on mars to use as bulk material.
#16 Re: Meta New Mars » Wiki » 2012-03-14 20:36:23
I couldn't comment; If a sufficient number of articles are from the old wiki, I would imagine that it couldn't help but be.
Well, I did a little check. I see there was some stuff on greenhouses that looked somewhat similar but the section on greenhouse thermodynamics is gone, so I think that it is not a recovery of the old wiki (unless the philosophy has changed).
#17 Re: Not So Free Chat » Bring Back Free Chat » 2012-03-14 20:28:27
But is it the kind of energetic posting that we really want? We are a space forum, after all, and I'm not sure what place political debate has here. That said, I can bring it up with Josh next time I talk to him and ask if he wants to put the rule into abeyance as an experiment and see what happens.
I remember some good energy in past free chat discussions but at the same time I remember them at times taking up too much conversation on these boards. Anyway, if these boards pick up without free chat I'm cool with that too. It does seem to be getting more active around here.
#18 Re: Meta New Mars » Increasing use » 2012-03-14 20:26:12
The facebook site is open to everyone Louis- http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/4184149761/ It's listed as "public", and that's all it allows. Facebook is the place to be now for outreach and I must say we have had much more activity and responses there than any of our other sites or groups by far. As to the name "MarsDrive" it was meant to convey "the drive to reach Mars", a forward looking, driving force behind key steps to get humans on Mars. We do have a very specific focus now- getting that first human mission to Mars, and we have closed in on two final designs we are working with to merge together. Plans for colonies, terraforming and advanced transportation ideas are welcome there but as they are not our focus, it might seem they get ignored at times.
I joined anyway. Things seem to be picking up on this forum. I'm not much for facebook forums. I'm more of a news feed person on facebook.
#19 Re: Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-03-14 12:41:13
I tend to be of the opinion that the "Turner Thesis" as it's called is largely caused by a confusion of correlation and causation, as well as over-generalizing circumstances which are in many cases localized to his specific time and country.
Let me address your points from the last to the first. My first question is if America hadn’t shown the people that they could have a better life, then what would Europe look like today? Would it have progressed as much as it did? What is wrong with disruptive forces? Shouldn’t ideas stand and fall on their own merit rather than because of which interests they support? When it comes to the free market we believe in adaptive structures, so why shouldn’t the organizations we create to serve our common interest be adaptive and dynamic?
With regards to whether our concepts of government and justice are out of date we could agree on this but for very opposite reasons. Therefore, I will wait for you to address how you think our ideas are out of date.
Now with regards to the interplay between industrialization and the frontier, at first the very existence of the frontier would have given people a choice between city life and frontier life. This would have given the worker more bargaining power to negotiate wages and helped to make city life better. So while the city helped the frontier, the frontier would have also helped the city.
However, later developments such as the creation of the plow and railway, would have created a large surplus in agricultural production and would forced people into the cities because they would have a harder time selling their crops and obtaining new land for their kids. The Gilded age is praised of an era of economic progress but we must remember the large influx of people into the cities due to the invention of the plow created large slums. History however is not largely written by the people living in slums.
Well, surplus labor created from farming innovation may have led to large economic growth, the reduced economic status of farmers would led to the first popular movement in the Age of reform (Progressive Era), as the economic refuges felt as there was a conspiracy by corporations to end the free availability of land in the frontier.
Well, industrialization did lead to large economic benefits the rewards were not equally shared and this would lead to a growing dependence on people first from corporations and then from government for their livelihood.
Well, there were many comforts to industrialization in America one must not discount the value of being self-sufficient. The existence of the frontier both put city dwellers and farmers in a stronger barging position economically. This gave dignity, hope and an optimistic sprit which is conducive to innovation and progress.
Well, we may say that this wasn’t necessary to achieve the progress to our modern economy we must not discount the importance of disruptive forces for political and economic change.
#20 Re: Meta New Mars » Wiki » 2012-03-13 22:50:39
It is my understanding that the information on the wiki is in the same place as the posts from after 2008, meaning that there is some chance that it will come back but we're going to have to make do without, at least for the time being.
I googled it and noticed marspedia is up but it doesn't contain exactly the same stuff as the old wiki. I wonder if the phillosophy of marspedia will be the same as as the old wiki was.
#21 Re: Life support systems » Mars Colony Cement & Concrete » 2012-03-13 20:06:38
Well, there would be nothing wrong with using it as a frame for a tunnel to get from one building to another, so long as the tunnel isn't heated, which there is really no reason to do. It wouldn't really be load bearing, as piles of regolith can mostly do that on their own. It would just help retain the pressure (Perhaps not even of oxygenated air, but just CO2, so that only a face-mask is needed?).
I think this is definitely a material with a lot of potential. Just, maybe not for roads
At least, not without a layer of something else over it. I think that for a while simply clearing the roadway of rocks should be sufficient. I gather that, lacking liquid water, Mars is mostly flat.
I bet it still has a fair amount of strength at about 1/10th the compressive strength of concrete. I think the tunnels could be heated some. I think they should be kept around 0 degrees Celsius. That way one would avoid gettin too cold going from one building to another. It would also be a nice place to store vegetables. I don't think it would collapse if the tunnels were a little above zero. As long as the majority of the structural material is below zero. Perhaps some foam would help keep a better temperature differential.
Keep in mind you can build a tunnel out of wet sand, compressed dirt or simply a pile of stone rubble. Well, wet sand may not make a large enough tunnel for people, if most of the structure is held together by ice crystals then maybe the sand would be strong enough.
The structural question I suppose is the maximum radius the top of the roof could be at. If the material was layered with flat stones the friction force would be much greater and allow a much larger tunnel/vault radius. I think the biggest structural risk is thermal cycling. The melting and freezing of glaciers is enough to turn stone into dust.
#22 Re: Life support systems » Mars Colony Cement & Concrete » 2012-03-13 12:03:06
I posted an article with illustrations on "icecrete", over at http://exrocketman.blogspot.com, dated 3-11-12. There are still serious questions, but I was able to pose a list of credible experiments needing to be done. I am still very enthusiastic about such a material.
GW
I replied to this the other day. I’m not sure what happened to my post. Anyway, I think from an economic perspective the value of water is will drive how often this technique is used. I am sure it will be great for building cool structures but question if it will be as strong a material for warmer structures. I bet it would be used a lot for cool tunnels between buildings because I think it would be much faster to work with then brick and labor will not doubt be a valuable resource on mars.
#23 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Falcon 1 & Falcon 9 » 2012-03-13 11:58:54
It’s nice to hear this bit of really good news. I was worried manned space flight might be dead for a bit but that test launch date is pretty soon (granted I’m sure it will first be used for cargo). I also think that it is a great idea to integrate the escape system with the landing system. It reduces the need to develop two independent systems.
SpaceX eyes shuttle launch pad for heavy-lift rocket.
SpaceX and NASA are in advanced discussions for the private space firm to use Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A, one of the spaceport's Apollo and space shuttle launch sites, as the Florida base for its Falcon Heavy rocket, officials said.
NASA and SpaceX are studying how to assemble and launch Falcon Heavy rockets from pad 39A, including adding a facility to horizontally integrate the launcher's core stage, two strap-on boosters and upper stage, according to William Hill, assistant deputy associate administrator for NASA's exploration systems division.
With 28 liquid-fueled core, booster and upper stage engines, the Falcon Heavy rocket is a behemoth booster designed to launch human and robotic exploration missions, massive U.S. military satellites, and huge payloads for commercial clients at competitive prices. Its first demonstration launch from California is scheduled for 2013.
SpaceX plans to piece the rocket together on its side, then roll it to the launch pad and lift it vertical before liftoff. Fully fueled and assembled for launch, the Falcon Heavy will weigh 3.1 million pounds and stand 227 feet tall, according to SpaceX.
So, the Heavy could follow on a very impressive pad legacy, form Saturn V to shuttles. It also suggests to me (and thats just an informed opinion) that the beast will eventually be man-rated and put to service launching crewed Dragons all over cislunar space. Makes sense, the way I see it, and it would open up all of cislunar space the same way LEO is open to human visits. Building stations and depots will probably be left for others to fund, but they could also be launched on top of a F9h.
Rune. That is, NASA, after they have finished wasting money on SLS.
#24 Re: Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-03-09 00:12:00
I am sure each country will interpret the Mars project through their own cultural prism.
I do think the settling of another planet by humanity will have profound cultural effects, especially once people start moving their on a permanent basis.
Unfortunately, I don't have the time to debate this tonight. I once heard criticisms to Zubrin's arguments and bought them in so much as I ended up believing that the dream of the frontier is an American central dream. I look today and see the philosophy of Malthus seemingly gaining more and more hold. I work today in an engineering company and wonder what the days were like when design was driven more by our creative impulses then by standards. What did Zubrin say that was different between the new and the old world? He said that the old world is owned. Well to many Zubrin may seem like a staunch capitalist the common ownership of the means of production is far from a right wing ideology.
What does this say about Mars? Mars is not the frontier of the past where everyone is independent but it is also not the terrestrial society where the means of production are owned and the good produced are managed and doled out based on status. Mars cannot afford our bureaucracy in government or in business and will not prosper if everyone does not take a direct interest in its prosperity. Well, some may say this is only an adaptation to scarcity, I say it is a fundamental improvement in our system of economics. We on earth have lost so much control that we wonder if we can sustain our-self in an abundant world but we forget that in the dawn of our industrial civilization people were able to get buy working no more than we do today.
Have we really become that much more inefficient or is it the case that the rents we pay for the necessities of our life far exceed the costs to produce those necessities? Well, some may say the return on all investment is small; it is worth pointing out, that this is irrelevant if you are not investing with your own money. Size gives one a disproportional advantage over finance. This helps to protect the large from the innovation of the small and allows corporations to extract monopolistic rents upon the populous.
#25 Civilization and Culture » History, The Frontier and its Consequences » 2012-03-08 13:53:25
- John Creighton
- Replies: 40
I wanted to start a topic about the Martian Frontier. I know this isn’t the first such thread on these boards but I believe it is a topic that shouldn’t be forgotten. The main article of reference here is
The Significance of the Martian Frontier
by Robert Zubrin
From Ad Astra September/October 1994
http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-frontier.html
Skimming this article over on my lunch break is not going to be enough to create a significant thesis surrounding Zubrin’s conjecture but there is an immense amount of history to consider so I think it is best to start informally.
According to Zubrings paper, The Frontier was announced closed in in 1890. This is only 25 years after the end of the American civil war. A good part of Zubrins paper discusses progress in the 1900s which is after the official closing of the frontier. The 1900s were a very transformational time in America which includes the Guilded Age and half the progressive era:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
Whatever, cultural impact the Frontier may have had in this period of time would be due to lingering cultural effects. Well, the Guilded age is praised for progress it is also the Era when, The Rober Berron’s rose to power. With their rise to power America began the transition of America back to the corporate economic model which Jefferson and the founding fathers rejected.
Following the Guilded Age, the progressive era marked the beginning of the rise of what I will call the Institutional class in that various public and private intuitions gained power (such as the public service sector, universities, Non Profit Groups) from then until now to provide a counter force to corporate power.
The growth in the concentration of power from the beginning of the 1900s until now has created a power structure where size and influence is often enough to trump merit and innovation. To completely describe the events and consequences of this period of history between the founding of America until now goes well beyond anything I’ve written in my opening post. I only hope to begin the discussion as, I don’t yet have the knowledge of history to conclude it.