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I call it "Geopolitical penis envy".
Many countries are very resentful of the US, because we are the superpower, and you can group almost any 5 of them together and they still wouldnt be.
They hate it worse now, because we dont have a president who apologizes for being american. The grander our plans are, the more envious they get. They crawled to the islamic countries, we waded in with our boots on, they biggyback on us (and the russians) space program, thier rover fails, so now they are mad that our rover(s) worked better and that we plan on a course of aciton they cannot hope to emulate.
What is the cure for envy? It sure isnt for the object of the envy to "help" the others along, it just makes it worse. Quite frankly, this shows some serious character defects among the envious, and the value systems /social mores that they were raised in.
A) if the bush initiative was to get more votes, then like Clinton, there would be rumours first, then polls, then the go-ahead if the polls are positive.
B) the technology to go mars-orbit / mars /mars-orbit will likely be developed from the vehicle that goes eart / moon / earth. Also, as boring tunnels is such a likely way to make the bases, they can develop equipment and expertise on the moon that will be taken to mars. This is a VERY smart way to do it. Plus, think of the outstanding astronomy from the moon!!!
The EU is having a rise in anti-semetic attacks, France is about to have full scale muslim riots, and they just gave up on the latest attempt at a constitution. France and Germany are telling jews to stop wearing yarmalukes due to anti-semetic violence, while the French govt sits on a report showing young muslims are responsible for the violence. France, Germany and Italy have deficits too high per the EU charter, but hey, they don't care. Oh yeah, their productivity is falling further behind us as their unemployment rises and their grannies die in social-utopia nursing homes when the temperature touches 90 deg.
Some counterweight.
But I'm done with this thread. There is an adage that applies:
"arguing on the internet is like the special olympics, even if you win, you are still retarded"
Law and morality are two different things. The law once said slavery was ok. Does that mean it was ok? The law in Islamic countries say if a woman claims rape and there are not 4 male muslim witnesses, it is not rape, but adultry on her part, and she should be killed. Are you willing to say that is OK, that our social contract allow such disparate points of view to exist beside standard judeo-christian based morality? Would you put such people on a ship with your family, and cave in to the argument that thier values mean as much as yours, even when it hurts you? extreme examples true, but if your arguments fail at these extremes, then when can they hold true?
Such a social contract cannot survive, and you are witnessing the results in Europe as we speak. I know you love your religion of diversity and tolorance to the exclusion of all else, thus your faith (liberalism is a faith, in practice) cannot be shaken by mere logic and fact.
I am not a religious man, but sadly too many people just cannot comprehend morality, and the need for it.
We will not be able to launch estes as private citizens either, because they will be banned witout a permit and registration and a transfer tax.
People in society need to have basic rules to get along. You cannot have some people deciding, for example, that child molestation is ok, if the child does not complain. This is the view of NAMBLA and the Am. Pediatric Assoc.
Now, our social contract says that we dont hurt kids. This is based on morality. But if we let people who agree with liberal shrinks and the NAMBLA guys define their own morality, we will have chaos. People in confined spaces need to have a mutually acceptable moral contract, and you cannot have one with people who dont understand what morality is.
PS Touch my kid and I will kill you, and I will kill anyone who defends you. I am not the only one who feels that way. So you either import nothing but child molesters, or you make darn sure you only import folks who have a solid moral basis for living. Same with other issues, if you send libertines, you better make them all such, but you will find they do nothing for anyone, and certainly not for science.
Oh yes, you did nothing to refute my argument RE slaves. The net economic benefit of having slaves was not that great compared to the ordinary workforces. And slaves in the south did not build anything in the north nor the midwest. I did some study of US economic history in college, so if you want to refute my argument please use something that sticks to the point.
I believe he is against it, typical among the Dem candidates is they would rather throw more money at social services and education. Forgetting of course that money is not going to solve education issues (nor poverty), and our schools have gotten worse and worse since the feds got involved 30 years ago.
The dems loved the kumbaya aspects of the ISS, I am sure the moon-mars issue offends them as too "unilateral" and too "cowboy".
The US was not built by slaves. As a matter of fact, US slavery was very inefficient (they had retirement and maternity "benefits").
The immigrants "slaving" away on the railroads however, now that was work!!!! And when you broke down, there was no resting on the plantation.
I stick by my statement that you dont want a bunch of libertines in such an environment. People who cannot agree to what the meaning of "is" is and think morality is relative will have a hard time getting along with thier neighbors, as they think the only social contract that matters is the one they remake for themselves everyday, based on their self-interest at the moment.
...I suggest separate lifestyles equals separate domes. You could have singles domes, family domes, straight domes, gay domes, religious domes of all types, even (heaven forbid) black or white domes...
First off, people should not be selected for PC criteria. If black and white scientists an engineers go, the racial differences will mean nothing. If you start importing affermative action types, then we just transported racial conflict. While the govt is paying the tab, we should be hauling homosexuals up either. Most are way too unstable, look at suicide rates. Also, health issues exist among male homosexuals that a new colony cannot afford. I am not just talking aids either.
To start with, I imagine first, military style, followed by kibbutz. When private industry and regular immigration starts, as building technology improves housing options will pick up.
I would imagine the smart way to do it is pick a ridge or even a partial crater on the side of a ridge, then bore a hole in and start cave networks. The walls can be shored up and sealed with plastic. This way, instead of bringing houses along or starting wholesale mfg, you can bring a boring machine and buttloads of the appropriate plastic resin, and of course doors and airlocks and the various pieces of hardware and mechanicals for ventilation and wiring/lights all that.
BTW here is a cool link for good ol earth [http://www.earthshelter.com]www.earthshelter.com
At least my idealizing is people being fairly independent, not being told what to do and how to think and what religion to have.
We are all idealist, in some way. I just want to point in a direction and go, not be babysat along the way. I could handle a military style mission and life on Mars, but NOT an attempt at Utopia. Who said something like "the worst tyranny is one that is imposed for our own good"?
You need to have a little mercy on me though, I just re-read 3 Heinleins before the Bush Mars speech (starting with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"), and about 4 more since, and I may be a touch daffy at the moment!
I was thinking launch the cargo in a direction that is tangental to the moons orbit such that the launch velocity is sufficient to escape the lunar pull (=> escape velocity), and timed such that the relative velocity in the direction of where mars will be at intercept is maximized. The escape velocity + the relative angular velocity would be quite a fast ride.
The energy of putting putting this cargo out on a "string" then cutting it at the right time is not a savings, as you must spend energy getting it up there to start with, Da? So why not just fire the darn thing at mars to start with? Sadly, if logic does not resolve this, math will have to. I'll let you start!!!!
Maybe I am being silly, but I am not a huge fan of applying forces to the moon itself that could eventually screw with it's stability. I realize we are talking about a small mass, but also a long moment arm.
these rock/thether ideas all seem to me to violate the TANSTAAFL rule, otherwise known as Newtons third law.
I would imagine we would want to launch one package from the moon for every several delivered from earth, for economy sake, as the limiting factor in earh-moon deliveries will be mass, while the moon-mars parking orbit cost would be control systems, and missing the mark!!
Thus far, our space missions have been based on barely enough fuel to get the job done. The mars project has too many opportunities for variation in plan, and we need 2-3x as much fuel as is required to be on hand, in order to feel like it is not a suicide mission.
They have figured out "ideal" launch windows for Mars shots, so if we sent a package every 2 months for one year, how long before that window would we have to start the launch so that we would KNOW that all packages are in safe orbit before the men go? Hows that for a simple question!!!
Ive thought of saving the tanks too (by leaving them, boosting them just a little bit more) in LEO, to then serve as outer hulls for space workspace/habitat. But imagine some poof with OSHA getting his panites in a twist over the leftover chemicals inside.
It's not that we need a few extra billion, we need to focus our resources. It looks like nasa will be 90% moon-mars oriented, and for now, that is a good thing.
Once the goal of spacestations and a earth-LEO reusable vehicle were met, we lost focus and started doing a shopping list of experiments. Some are and will be very important, others probably have generated some useless info. Some that now appear useless my be studied futher on paper and value will be gleaned from it, which gives the eggheads something to do while NASA focuses on the more practical engineering aspects of getting to the moon.
Then once we get there, the laundry list of experiments and PR stunts will start popping up again, but then the next goal will kick in, mars, hopefully short circuiting the politicisation of experimental time and resources.
Societies and organizations do better with clear goals. We stagnate and end up navel gazing when the goals get too esoteric.
Well, I suppose there may be two different schools of thought, some want to learn more about the universe just because there is more to know, and those who want to get the hell off this planet and try to find something better!!! I personally fall into the second category, I want to find new places to colonize, where morons don't have control, where welfare rats and wanna be social-do goders dont get to whine about thier rights, because the only people taken along have proven that they have something to contribute.
So for me, I say if the hubble needs a boost, fine, if it needs an anual boost and electronics upgrades, forget it. Lets go to the moon and put telescopes on the back side of that baby.
Those orbits degraded because they were low enough to receive drag from the van allen belts (electrons and protons flying around, too fast to be taken to earth, too slow to excape). If we used a parking orbit well out of any Martian van allen belts, the orbits shouldn't degrade. I would imagine it would be easier to remotely deliver to orbit vs a moon, but then again, maybe a martian moon base instead of a martian space station would be a better starting point for Martian exploration.
So all Astronauts are risking is staying on Mars for 4 years instead of only 2 years.
"All"? That could be enough to condemn these men to never stepping foot on earth again, or of being cripples with short lives if they do. That long on such low gravity, plus the long stretches of zero gravety (assuming the trip will not have the power to maintain constant accelleration) would weaken them badly. I would imagine that they would be crazy as loons too, unless you sent 200-300 at once. 20 people or less is not enough company for such a long time. We should have lots of goodies parked in Martian orbit first, and should first send a crew to assemble what is parked. Quite possibly they should have a healthy orbiting space station.
Is that constant thrust? What if the cargo was sent by timing the moons orbit, then launching from the moon to reach escape velovity from the moon, and allowing a big arc, with no further use of power until it is time to create the parking orbit.
Im familiar with satellite propulsion theories, Hohlman transfers and the like, but this is a bit much. Anyone here good with this stuff? I mean real good?
Good enough to figure out if you were to say, launch a 2 ton package from the moon, taking advantage of the appropriate forward momentum at certain times, how long would it take for that package to reach mars, where it could be placed in a parking orbit to await men? If a load was send every two months, even in sub-optimum conditions re earth-mars distance, how long would it take for say 6 bundles to get there? It could be a lfesaver to have emergency pods, ice chunks, fuel etc pre-positioned.
funny, how people who study "ethics" are the least ethical among us. Dr. Singer (Princeton) comes to mind, as well as the "ethicists" who support human cloning,and mixing human and animal genes. The field of ethics is a coverup for folks with no ethics, other than themselves, IMO.
Sending men to face danger is one thing, but if you break the bond of men, the willingness to sacrifice yourself for others, standing back saying "you sacrifice for me", then you deserve to be the lab rat yourself. A real man could not so that, but sadly, we seem to breed few of them these days.
The Europeans cant do it, they are way too socialist, heck, Germany is cutting its military even more, down to 250,000. Can you imagine them spending more money on space when they have a welfare state to support? They cant keep up with us, unless we drag them along and pay thier way, which I hope we dont do. Quite frankly, I hope the french in particular never get another penny from us, nor another scientific tidbit.
China cannot be allowed to get a head start, it would be demoralizing, and possibly dangerous. But they got valuable technology during the clinton admin, and they are in bed with Beoing as well as Loral .
Hubble is a white elephant. It was flawed from the start, and we keep throwing money at it. Lets get on with the big mission, and hopefully put a similarly sized telescope on the moon.
The shuttle design is 20 years old too, it needs to go. think about it, it was designed before the 8086 processor. It has less RAM than my HP calculator. We should move on.
well, I see what you say, but the idea of scotts utopia would have me volunarily walking into vacuum.
Dean must have called the mothership and got different instructions.