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We should not let the size of these projects scare us. Think about the project size of building highways across the world. Or even better, building a train track across America with 1800’s rechnology.
I think you may be understating things. Terraforming Venus or affecting the temperature/orbit/rotation period of something that large, with anything other than the "Bomb it" or "Hit it with a big rock and see what happens" aprroach; I just can't see us doing it in the next 200 years.
This is more like building the Space Shuttle in 1812.
Well, I think a bit of both will be necessary. It wouldn't bother me if it started on an industrial basis, as like it or not--Martians are going to need lots of industry just to stay alive.
Plus, having good industries might jumpstart interplanetary commerce.
However, I don't want to see Mars become a Pullman town where the company owns all the houses and infrastructure, and maintains the value of currency (Company stores anyone?) Such a thing would be bad.
Random thought about math
It's better than drugs;
It's better than sex.
What else could it be?
Dy/Dx
Whoa...That's a big ring.
Now anyone have any ideas on how to build this ring (In the next 100 years)?
Hey, I've been tinkering with this little program for quite some time.
http://www.orbitersim.com]www.orbitersim.com
Orbiter is a very fun and functional spaceflight simulator with many modifications availible. I've found that its also rather challenging.
Oh yes, there is a MarsDirect module for it.
Have fun
-Hazer
Well, for starters you could try and speed up its rotation by hitting it with big rocks (Or big bombs).
If the rotation was faster, then the planet might actually cool down as the speed at which the planet rotates outstrips the speed at which the extreme winds around the planet.
The CO2 is going to be a problem though.
Perhaps you could bombard the atmosphere with a substance that binds itself to CO2 under heat and pressure; it forms a carbonate causing the carbon dioxide to fall out of the solution of the atmosphere.
From asking on Space.com
“Winds at the surface of Venus are sluggish (a few kilometers per hour) but they rise sharply in the cloud deck to around 400 kilometers per hour. The uppermost clouds circle the planet in a period of about four days (60 times faster than the planet itself rotates), and this rapid rotation, combined with the flow of high-altitude air from the equator to the poles, produces characteristic Y and C-shaped cloud patterns and raised polar “collars.” - “The World of Science,” 1991, Volume 7 “The Solar System,” page 58.
Speeding up the rotation first seems the order of the day though. Ideally, Venus's closer proximity to the sun might be accounted for by speeding up its rotation to one faster than that of Earth.
Now...Anyone else have plausible ideas on speeding up the rotation of something that is 4.869e+24 kilograms?
Euler, I think "Conventional War" has changed it's meaning these days.
Interesting point though about non-US types viewing 9/11 as a criminal action rather than an act of war.
Regarding what you said about those four countries, I don't think we'd ever need to worry about fighting them on US soil. What we would need the manpower and firepower for, if anything, is a conventional invasion post-nuclear attack. And fighting on your home soil is a MASSIVE advantage as the most recent Iraq conflict has shown.
Anyhow with the political factioning in the USA, do you think the public would ever condone a nuclear counterstrike against a smaller nation that has hit the US with a devestating nuclear attack?
I can imagine the following line being spoken a few months later after the button is pressed, "Well, we had a missile shield, but one missile got through. It's <the people in power's> fault that Los Angeles was destroyed and millions died."
"It was launched by rogue leaders, not by the people. We should take out the leaders and leave the people alone."
Furthermore, do you think that the community of countries with nuclear weapons would approve of us launching a nuclear counterstrike?
I mean, if for instance, some faction of an Islamic state launched a nuclear attack and we retaliated in kind--the other Islamic states might see it as an opportunity for them to launch nuclear attacks. After all, they cannot tolerate such an action as the attack was clearly criminal and not an act of war.
Oh and out of Libya, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran, I really don't think any of them would be a pushover except for Libya.
From http://starryskies.com/solar_system/ven … _venus.htm
"The atmosphere of Venus is about 250 km (155 mi) thick. The atmosphere circulates in a westerly direction about every 4 days.
The windspeed in the highest cloud layer reach 355 km/hr (220 mi/hr) which is roughly equal the Earth's jet stream.
The middle cloud layer has the fastest winds. These winds can reach 724 km/hr (450 mi/hr.) That is faster than the fastest tornado on Earth!
In the lowest cloud levels, the winds blow at around 160 km/hr (100 mi./hr) Then, at the surface there is a gentle breeze of only 3.6 km/hr (2.2 mi./hr.)"
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Well atomoid, seems you were spot on about the clouds transporting heat around the planet, those are some pretty darn fast mid-level winds.
Think of the thermal energy that is required to cause a substance to vaporize at 90 atmospheres--it's a lot. Consequently, those clouds should keep the temperature pretty much constant planetwide. (Now if we could only find a way to remove carbon from it en masse...)
"Venus fits all classical descriptions of Hell, thats for sure. We should really swap the names of Mars and Venus over."
Really? I've always heard that war is hell. Sex isn't, there's really no reason to swap the names over.
If we do do some more missions to Venus, we ought to do aerial-photography from the mid levels with high-powered balloon mounted cameras that resolve down to less then a meter.
Perhaps the difference isn't so large, maybe the difference between a ME-262 and a F-14.
Needless to say, unless the current Moon-to-Mars program gets it's rear in gear, something like this may be the beginning of a series of events that gets us to Mars.
Honestly--does anyone expect the collective Space Agencies of the world to wake up one morning and decide to do something along the lines of Marsdirect?
Looks like I might have been right, months ago when I made the a-mountain-is-easier-to-climb-the-second-time analogy. Let's cross our fingers and hope that it works out all right.
Well the thing is, we don't know anything about potential extraterrestrials, so the situation is plausible.
Mars for the Martians, whoever they be.
But I hope that "Martians" will also include me.
Bah...Anything that gets us to Mars quicker. The majority of Americans are in favor of staying on this rock and not getting boots dirty in red Martian dust. I suggest that we do not let that stop space/Mars advocates. We have a valid issue to press, as do many other advocacy groups and if we do not vo cally press the issue, we can expect to be ignored. Who knows, perhaps we can generate some enthusiasm among the other voters?
If only Congress could do this...
If only Congress could do that...
If only...If only...If only...
If only people didn't call for those in power to do the governing for them. If only people would stop using, "I can't do enough, so I won't do anything" as an excuse to not take action.
You cannot get us to Mars by wishful thinking, and I doubt members of Congress frequent this message board.
I am going to register for the first time as an honest-to-gosh voter when I get home from my first year at college as an engineering student. Then I intend to start pestering my Senators and Representatives with letters.
*Steps off soapbox*
And thus NASA stays in LEO forever. All the difficulties aside, I think the opposition to the current plan has more to do with Bush then it does with NASA.
Two hundred and twenty nine billion dollars, spread over 16 years. Then adjust for inflation as time marches on and convert to current dollars. Then stretch that number over the years we ran the Apollo program.
If you do not want the plan to die, fight for it. You are the constituents!
To stroll down an empty street at night is dangerous in some parts of the world. You do not prepare to defend yourself with the expectation that you will never have to do so. You do so in the HOPE that you never have to do so and prepare such that no one would want to start a something with you. I
I'm no fan of interspecies genocide.
Neither am I, but I would rather be the alien with the god-like weapons, then be on the recieving end of a genocide.
And perhaps we can be the ambassadors for goodwill, once we're sure no one will push us out of our nice habitat.
Good point Dicktice.
Which is why my particular breed of common sense dictates that we don't step out into the cosmos unarmed. I've read some of Turtledove's works, but there's only so much time you can spend in a 50 degree(F) bookstore.
And in every war, it has always been the smarter, better equipped and more skilled entity who has won.
Well said. (Now can we move some of that military budget to developing a planetary Navy?)
I like the idea of being a decentralized species. Still, I think our assumptions may or may not apply.
Of course, I do accept that the psychology of these aliens could be vastly different than logic might dictate (ie, they're imperalistic morons who think procuring resources in intelligent systems rather than non-intelligent systems is a good idea), but I would still consider their invasion impossible to defeat unless we were at least as evolved as them; and even still, attackers will always have first strike ability, and there is absolutely no amount of engineering that can avoid that. Your defense grid, no matter how you design it, can be totally annihilated in one go. Every scenario has a counter scenario, this is why I think a warlike mentality is defunct. I am not saying that people wouldn't defend themselves, but if they actively look like they're defending themselves, they will be showing their weakness. A very decentralized society will at least have a surprise counterattack ability, and would be able to expend resources that otherwise would go into a circumventable defense grid on themselves.
Every scenario has a counter scenario, that's what makes military Sci-fi such great fun. We haven't met any "Alien races" yet, and so we have no idea of what we may expect. They might decide to land on earth and fight in a Napoleonic Wars fashion (Lots of soldiers marching in straight lines). And the funny thing is, we cannot discount that possibility.
They don't have to think like we do, talk like we do, fight like we do. That's why we consider them aliens. Earth-logic (Chuck an asteroid at them, watch the fun) might not apply.
Heck they might land, have a nasty reaction to Earth-bacteria, and die. Who knows? Perhaps they travel in massive fleets of generation ships, each generation being raised with a fanatical obsession about carving themselves a new home in the universe.
And why would a race be considered more "highly evolved" in the first place? Perhaps they are physically better adapted to survive in certain environments than we are-so are cockroaches.
Being highly-evolved might even turn out to be a disadvantage, depending on what environment they have evolved to fit.
It has nothing to do with evolving to their level, it has to do with finding an effective counterplan-or counterweapon. But really does having better technology make you a more highly-evolved individual? I think it just makes you more likely to survive.
Now, I attribute inspiration for this thread directly to the thread entitled "Clunking to Mars."
After being on the boards for a while, I've noticed that quite a few Mars/general Space exploration plans involve assembling ships in orbit.
This is problematic however. How are you going to assemble things in orbit? Metals and advanced composites don't join themselves together you know. I think you will need the on-orbit equivalent of a construction yard, complete with machine shops and robotic welders.
It doesn't have to be inhabited all the time, but you could send Soyuz modules up to carry the work crew, and then send up/bring in whatever it is you want to work on with unmanned craft.
Give it an easily replaceable habitat module, quite a few Ion thrusters, LOTS of solar panels (To power the Arc welders!) and a versatile superstructure with space for storage and expansion-. Not to mention, you would want to be able to remotely operate the entire thing.
If you put it in a relatively low orbit, say Shuttle-Orbit, I'd wager that you could autonomously scoop up the thin atmosphere and concentrate it.
Suddenly you have a place to inspect and replace ceramic tiles, assemble Mars Direct, inspect defunct satellites, and play with external tanks. Not to mention, something of this ilk could change orbits with the ion thrusters
We don't need a next generation orbiting platform for science and learning. We need a next generation orbiting platform for building and exploration.
So consider this thread a brainstorming thread. What are your requirements for an on-orbit construction platform? How long would it have to serve? Could the ISS ever meet such a requirement before its useful life ends? Would this aid the goals of the Mars Society in any substantial way?
The point I would like to make is this: You cannot make assumptions about extraterrestrial sentient beings-we have no data. But what you must assume is that if they were hostile, we would be able to do SOMETHING to hinder them.
And tell me, who are the hypothetical Africans with nothing to lose going to rise up against? We aren't exactly ruling them at this point.
Militarily, they would be crushed.
You know, the ONLY reason that the armed forces of the Western world try to kill as little people as possible is because we think it is generally wrong to kill noncombatants. That's the main reason we have trouble in urban warfare, a general unwillingness to flatten the city.
How are they going to get across oceans without being blown out of the water? The quickest route to Europe, through the straits near Spain's Southern tip, could be effectively sealed in a short time. The other route involves going through the Arab countries, who might object voraciously.
"Help me or else I kill you and destroy Europe" doesn't seem to be a very compelling reason.
AIDS is a tragedy in that the primary transmission vector involves a set of stupid personal choices.
You guys got to see the Saturn V, you got to see men walk on the moon. I'm still jealous. But maybe I'll get to work on the NEXT heavy lifter, maybe get an internship with NASA.
Well...Thanks all for the suggestions on land propulsion.
One the hovercraft idea, you might have problems with the density of the air on Mars. It wouldn't be dense enough to support the craft, unless you blasted it downward at VERY high speeds.
Tell me why. Why does the US have a compelling need to start funnelling relief for AIDS sufferers into Africa? If you look at it from a stabilising population growth perspective, AIDS is actually a good thing (I know, that's just sick.)
One of two things is going to happen 1) You find a once-off treatment that negates AIDS (Unlikely, as HIV must run it's course. This has to do with the nature of viral diseases) or
2) You spent a lifetime treating symptoms. Option 1 is the only thing that will work for people who are too poor to afford the lifelong treatments (I doubt the ENTIRE civilized world could afford to provide such treatments, much less the United States.)
3) You come up with an effective and SAFE vaccine-this option is bloody unlikey, and even if you did it would not help those already infected one whit.
The best option however requires a change in peoples' attitudes.
Perhaps one day folks will be a bit more careful about who they sleep with, instead of screwing like dumb bunny rabbits. Even with protection, bodily fluids are exchanged during sexual acts. It isn't education that matters in stopping the global AIDS crises, it is personal choice--namely yours. You want to help stop the crises? Don't bedroom hop.
To act from the top down is impossible, as we have already learned that you cannot make laws about who sleeps with who.