New Mars Forums

Frankly, I see a mission to Mars as a joint effort between humans from various countries, not just the presently superior nation of the United States.  Humans should work together on at least something, and stop being greedy and wanting the "bragging rights". 

Now why are we considering space elevators when they are not logical.  Gravitational pull, the mere process of constructing and assembling the structure, mining for the materials needing to make it, and making it secure enough so that it doesn't topple or collapse upon itself.  And if you are wanting to build a space elevator capable of "speeding up assembly process by 300%" then you would need a space elevator around 1600 square feet.  Consider the amount of time the elevator has to use in accelerating and decelerating and the amount of space available.  If you apply some simple Mathematics, you can multiply 1600 square feet by about 1,600,000 ft. or so just to get a very rugged estimate on how much materials you will need.  So, do you know where we can get 2,560,000,000 cubic feet of materials?  Let's dig a 300 mile-long trench about 40 feet wide and forty feet deep and use nanotechnology to convert the atoms into useable materials.  Oh and let me be a little more technical.  Let's consider the hollow space inside...  Let's say we only need 100 square feet of materials "section".  You still need that 300-mile long trench about 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep. 

So now if you know how space elevators are actually kind of irrelevant, I would think space planes would do the job fine for now.  Oh, but if I misunderstood you, what type of space elevator are we talking about?  A space elevator with its own propulsion system that propels about 600 miles per hour even with a, say, 10 ton payload climbing vertically?  Well I don't know what technology that is, but it would be interesting to have. 

So I am not trying to offend you here, but it is in my opinion that space elevators are quite irrelevant and were originally proposed by someone who thought they had a good idea...

If you want to use as much materials and money to make a space elevator, then why not just build four hundred space planes that continuously cycle up into space to deliver their payloads.  But how inconvenient and tedious that would be!  These things just take time and eventually you are going to hit an abrupt wall on construction rates with present technology. 

As for Mars' colonies, I think we need them just incase Earth is going to be struck by an asteroid... *ALARM* WELL, I MUST WITHDRAW THAT BECAUSE MARS IS SO CLOSE TO THE ASTEROID BELT THAT THE MARS' COLONIES WOULD PROBABLY BE OBLITERATED BEFORE EARTH DOES...  Oh, unless you know, you evade impact in your little bubble colonies. Hehe.  You better hope you have some high-powered artificial lighting, because with Mars' dust storms and ESPECIALLY all that dust an asteroid strike will kick up, your plants are gonna be wilting pretty soon.  The most logical settlements would be some moonbases.  I'd just want to tint my bubble cities with about three or four layers because man oh man is that sun bright!  But there are complexities with any off-world settlements.

By the way, I am a new member here and look forward to getting to know you all better!

, jcastro