New Mars Forums

Actually...  it sorta is.   
But the telescope can't aim down at a far enough angle.

Someone recently donated a 25" "Obsession" telescope to the physics department here at Michigan Technological University.  It's beautiful... hand-crafted wood box, a huge 25" mirror--I'm in love with the thing.

The problem is where to put it.

Most people seem to think it should be perminantly indoors, so students can see it.  They want to just point it out one of the windows (about a 15° wide by 45° high viewing angle) in one of the main halls, and are talking about putting a mirror outside (a sideroscope or something like that).

I think it's a terrible idea.  We have to deal with looking out through double panes of glass, possible vandalism, a terribly small viewing area, streetlights, and a host of other problems.  All so that a bunch of random people can see our pretty telescope during the day (apparently most people don't even realize it's a telescope at all).

I want to put it up the hill at the "Student Development Center" (big building with a gym, pool, hockey rink, all kinds of stuff) where it can be stored in a large loading bay and wheeled outside at night to be used, a place where we can easly have the parking lot lights turned off, and we're on top of a hill.

Some of the others say things like "we don't want to walk up the hill!"  How pathetic!  They seem to care more about convenience than actually being able to use the thing.

Right now, well, it doesn't look good.  It looks like it's just going to be another pretty thing out in the hall.  Instead of this $10,000 telescope being used for what it's supposed to be used for, it'll just be another barely useful trophy for the physics department.
:bars2:

arrrrg!

Anyone have horror stories like this?

Does the settlement location make any difference at this point?

Though I suppose we don't have enough "real data" on Mars to say where there won't be water, it would seem logical that the settlements closer to the poles will have an easier time of that...

Anyway, yeah, I'm going to play around with the templates like you did and see what I can bang up.  I've had my own ideas about the initial colonization of Mars I'd like to play around with.

Wait a moment... isn't that perfect?

Maybe slightly unwieldy, but just make 2 nearly identical vehicles.  One is the crew vehicle, and the other is the power source vehicle.  The power source vehicle is simply remotely controlled by one of the crew.  All they need to do is steer it along behind them at a safe distance and recharge every few hours.  Mobile power plant--they don't need to worry about getting stranded without power.

Even better.  I like it.

Actually, that's brilliant.

Who wouldn't buy a $5-10 ticket for a chance to get to spend a few days at a space station, or go along for a launch?

That'd be a great way of raising money.

Well I'm pretty curious about taking a look at the code, since Java is one of the languages I'm best at.

Think I'll download the source and look around tonight.

Got it working no problem on my XP machine.

Very cool little app.  I just wish there was a bit more user interaction... at the moment I'm just going to let it run overnight and see if anyone dies.

Very nice work though.  What're your plans for it in the future?  Will there be more user interaction, such as user-designed missions and such?

I don't think we've ever witnessed a GRB (gamma-ray burst) close enough to be remotely harmful.  Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

The only thing we really need to worry about is a nasty solar flare, as was mentioned above.

Ok, so according to the sources I've seen, Mars has 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, and 2% Argon (all approx)

How difficult would it be then to filter the nitrogen and argon into our theoretical colony, if we're going for a 50/50 or 60/40 oxygen/other environment (at the appropriate PSI).  Would it be easier to do higher oxygen content, like 70/30, or would that start bringing flamibility levels too high?

(I really need to get more up to speed on some of this chemistry)

I've been thinking recently about a colony on Mars and oxygen.

Obviously, since the atmosphere is mostly CO2, there isn't a huge problem getting the O2 out.  But our atmosphere here on Earth isn't just O2, there's quite a bit of N2 as well.

Of course pure O2 is just fine--we use it in medicine and such--but there is one big problem that we've learned the hard way with Apollo 1: one spark and you're up in flames.

Thus, it doesn't seem to make sense to have long-term residence in a O2-rich environment.

So, on to my question:
Would it be livable long term (and not particularly hard on the human body) to just use (roughly) a 50/50 O2/CO2 mixture on a Mars colony?  If not, what are our other options?  Bringing large amounts of N2 and 'diluting' the air like that (that we're used to here on Earth)?

Hmm...  yes, launching up a mountain like that would be perfect.  Much easier than digging a deep hole or building a really tall structure.