New Mars Forums

Beautiful.   There's no question that the metric system is far superior to the imperial system especially since scales of distance are changing so rapidly in modern times.  There's no analog in the imperial system for nanometers for instance.  I guess you could always write it as .00000000000000000000000000000000523451 inches or even worse 1/10000000000000000000006346735735 or some such nonsense.  And don't get friggin technical with me about the number of zeros I put in there.

To respect Nirgal's desire to keep his other thread from being hijacked even further off topic I decided to reply over here.  But I think your right about the "One World" conspiracy theories keeping the imperial system on life support.  I've noticed it's usually Christians who get most up in arms about it, even though I've noticed in the past that if you refer to something in metric to people in general they sometimes wonder if there's something "different" about you.  I actually think there's a small stigma attached to using the metric system in certain situations.   I can just see someone telling the guy driving the grader that the grade is "21 centimeters too high".  I guarantee you'll get that "you g-ddamned communist" look.  Because from their point of view only outsiders and communists use units like that.

Chill Clark, I was just saying we should give NASA's funds to Russia in jest.  Anyway, we already do give our tax money away to multitudes of foreign organizations and we've already pulled up the slack for the Russian side of the ISS more than once.  So I hate to inform you, but your tax money finds plenty of places to go that don't directly affect American programs.   Anyhow, from a hypothetical point of view, if we did decide to finance the Russian form of a Mars trip (because it was way cheaper than anything NASA could do, etc) we could easily put in oversight mechanisms and time tables to make sure the money is going toward the project.  If they deviate in the least there would be no more funding.  But just to say again, don't take everything you read so seriously!!!  Sheesh.

Yeah, the loss of familiarity is the big hurdle.  I think some Americans though consider switching over to the metric system to be something akin to an act of godless communism.  The imperial system of units seems to be more than just a measuring system, it's a point of American pride right up there with mom and apple pie.   I don't know how many arguments I've gotten into with people over the pros of converting to the metric system and the arguments usually turn into some weird emotional thing about how the metric system is the work of the devil or something like that.  You'd be surprised!  ???

I don't disagree for a second that there would be significant technological spinoffs from a Starwars program that could be used for peaceful purposes, particularly in fields like lasers, optics, sensing, etc.  One of the reasons I mentioned funneling the money instead into ambitious projects like space elevators and moon bases was precisely because I believe in developing higher technology that would help civilization and create new economic opportunities.  I just wanted to go in a more peaceful route and potentially less expensive one as well. And of course I don't believe that just throwing money at social problems is always the best answer either even though my post made it look that way.  Often it's political rather than economic problems that are the root of social problems around the world.  Anyways I know what you mean about laser eye surgery.  There's some parts of my body that I don't want hacked on regardless of how good the technology is.

I think what bothers me most about Starwars is not so much that it could provoke other countries into attacking, but rather its very high pricetag.  I'm just not convinced the threat is high enough to justify it, but I guess it only takes one nuke to ruin your day, and like you said, if we did successfully intercept a nuclear warhead and prevented nuclear retaliation as a result (if a policy like that is adopted) then the price of the thing will have been more than justified, at least in my opinion.  But just imagine all of the other uses that money could be funneled into.  We could probably build a space elevator, put a base on the Moon, and feed everyone around the world fifty times for the cost of that thing. 

Did the word "anus" exist back in William Herschel's time or is that a more recent term?  I sometimes wonder because I just can't see someone naming, or shall I say, abusing their new discovery with such a label unless they have a twisted and dirty sense of humor (hey Mozard did so who knows .)  Anyways, I wonder how many other big planetoids are floating around out there in the Kuiper belt.  Some astronomers think there could be dozens of Pluto sized objects out there awaiting discovery.

Lol, I found it strange that NASA could mix up standard units with metric ones.  I always thought NASA worked exclusively with the metric system.  I find it funny how so many people in the USA are against the metric system. The metric system is WAY easier to use then the standard one.  I can convert instantly distances and volumes from one unit to the next because it's all based on 10 so you usually only need to move decimal points around.  The USA system is based on a bunch of abstract numbers with no commonality.  12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, etc.  Good luck trying to instantly convert yards to miles or feet to inches.

Bird of Prey?  Must be some trekkies, I mean, trekkers in charge of naming it.   That is a very unusual looking plane though with the stabilizer being on the bottom instead of the top (I think that's acting as the stabilizer) and the placement of the wings so far back on the fuselage.  I also like the way the wings angle off.  It almost looks like a bird flapping its wings.  It looks like something you'd see in a 1950's sci-fi comic book.

You'd have to make sure you didn't burn fuel at a faster rate than you could produce it obviously, but using gas generators could have major advantages in a base that tries to power itself via solar energy.  You could offset some of your need for a huge solar cell farm by augmenting your arrays with small gas powered generators.  They'd also be nice to have around just for those times when you need an extra dose of electrical energy for some reason.

lol, yeah it might be kinda hard to answer questions if you don't know what the hell they're asking.   Konnichiwa is a common way of saying hello and there's several ways of saying goodbye like sayonara and shisurei shimasu.  That last one though isn't really pronounced much the way its spelled, its more like "shi-su-lye shi-mas"

I visited the homepage for the Mars Institute and came across something called the "Mars Haughton Project" but the only info there about it was a page of sponsor links.  What exactly is that project?  Seems to have something to do with Antartica.  Is it a concerted hunt for mars meteorites?