New Mars Forums

I dont see why we dont just build a really big railgun up the side of one of the Rockie Mountains and launch rockets that way.

The offical height that SpaceShipOne reached in its thrid test flight was 212,000 feet! That's about 2/3 of what is required to win the X-prize.

I really think they are going to pull it off guys.....amazing.

LOL, Cobra I get asked that all the time. I don't know why they make it look like meat. I guess it has to look like something.

As a vegetarian, I can honestly say that I love the taste of meat. I love the chewy goodness and smell of meat. Quite possibly, the human brain has come to associate the taste and smell of meat with survival.

Some products have come a long way, other have not. I recently cooked up a Morningstar Griller Prime, topped with cooked onions, mushrooms and cheese, and feed it to my girlfriend. She couldn't tell it wasn't meat and didn't believe me when I told her.

Now the varieties of 'gardenburgers' are a different story. They consist of blk olives, celery, carrots, etc and most people spit them out because their brains were expecting meat and got blended vegetables.

There are many reasons for being a vegetarian. Mine is that I love animals and can't eat them when I don't have to. I eat milk and cheese, vegans do not. They are a weird bunch, don't trust them...

I mean I love animals, but Ms. Cow, I need your milk to make me cheese!!!

GNCR, I hope I didn't offend you. My post was not an attack on anyone.

Perhaps I was being a tad optimistic, but considering that a colony on Mars is going to spawn new industries we can't even think of now, not to mention reinvigorating older industries, I don't think I was that far off the mark.

As I see it, Mars Direct's entire purpose is to be a temporary shelter while a permanent shetler is created. Like it or not, the first generation of Martian colonists are going to have to be vegetarian. And yes, some of us do like that 'soy-based meat substitute', I had some fake sausage and bacon this morning 

Anyway you look at it, someone is eventually going to Mars. It is simply a matter of when and who. Whoever does it is going to do it cheaply because it hasn't been done before and is therefore a great financial risk. Mars Direct may not be perfect, but it can get us there without breaking the bank. Once people are there, things get a lot easier in a sense. Shipping cargo to Mars will always be cheaper than shipping people.

However, our colonists are going to have to make as much of their own goods as possible. It is likely going to take much longer to get cargo to Mars than we do rovers because of the weight difference. So anything essential will have to bear the 'Made On Mars' tag.

I still don't see a good arguement against Mars Direct as a starting point for colonization.

As far as a good reason to do it in the first place....money. Clark, if you stand back and look down on a mission to Mars, I admit, it is hard to see the benefit at first, but let's look closer.

Say we use Mars Direct or a cheap Russian alternative to colonizing, we are going to spend about 15-20 billion initially. Ok, so people are there now, what now? Newpapers are going to cover the stories as they break creating a real need for a scientific minded reporter or more hours for the ones they have. Advertisers are going to spend millions maybe billions with this new subject matter both comical and serious. Colleges will see a significant raise in enrollment similar to the Apollo era, but sustained for a longer time. More educated people means higher paying jobs equals more tax revenue for the government. The aerospace industry will be challenged to provide faster, cheaper access to Mars, and by default the Moon, Europa, asteroids, etc. More money.

We aren't talking about a 'touchy-feely' need to spread our wonderful race to other worlds. What we are talking about is a new and the greatest of all industries. As I'm sure Bill White can tell you, new industry (failed or successful) means economic growth. The real gains for a Mars colonizing effort aren't going to be materials we can import, but rather a new breed of men and women. With new lifestyles comes new ways of looking at old problems.

Look at our country for instance. Today we may be decadent, fat, useless consumers, but it wasn't always so. This country was created by people longing for a better way of life. They thought it so important that tommorrow be better than yesterday that they designed our government to be both tolerant and flexible. We still benefit from those old laws, and people that they didn't see needing help (women and blacks) have recieved it. Although we may be less popular these days, countries strive to be like us. So you have our founding countries changing themselves to be more democratic.

Mars will definately be a better community than what we have now, and will likewise affect Earth for the better. It is a hostile, challenging environment that will weed out the 'undesirables' by it's very nature. Recycling and efficency will be a way of life for these people not a choice. They won't know what wasteful is for several generations. We are going to send only the smartest, bravest and maybe the wealthiest of us. This is going to be the seed for the next great political entity. Even the wealthy have a place. If some of our richest people go to Mars they are going to help make Mars a force in the 'world'. They will strive to make Mars an economic force to better pursue their desires.

England was settled by people seeking a better way of life and dominated the world for about 200 years till their colony took the spotlight (and still today they benefit). The US was settled by people seeking a better way of life, now it's our turn to start a colony and therefore the next step in humanity.

Whats wrong with mass-marketing? I respectfully disagree with you Bill about Jordan. Granted his hayday is passed but when he was in his prime I couldn't look around without seeing a pair of Air Jordans, a Hanes underwear or Ballpark Franks commercial, not to mention Gatorade....geez.

As far as NASCAR goes, people only know that Tony Stewart is sponcered by Home Depot or Jeff Gordan is a Pepsi man. They don't see the other 2 dozen stickers on the cars or jumpsuits, and that's my point.

Die-hards like most of us wouldn't care if the first manned ship on Mars was the ugliest shade of baby-poo green, we'd be very happy. The common person is going to see familar logos and begin to think of Mars as a rela place they can go to.

I am a firm believer that a well thought out mission to Mars could pay for itself. Don't that seem fiscally responcible to you? If it fails, the taxpayers have nothing to bitch about, pardon my language.

"They misunderestimated me."  too, dont't feel bad.  ???

Wow, that was great stuff Ian. I've seen some of those Bushisms before, but like a fine wine they get better with age. Makes me wonder how anyone can respect that man knowing how stupid he is.

Isn't it time for capitalism 2.0? Sure capitalism was great getting us to this point, but even my rightie cousins can see problems with it, they just don't know of a better system.

I believe that there's nothing wrong with 'getting rich', hell I'm trying for that myself. However, when a company becomes so big and powerful that it can squash any upstart competition, we are left with decades old tech, in short, stagnation.

Is the solution progressive tax rates till a cap is reached? Maybe. I doubt that the wealthiest people in the world think they have enough so it's quite possible that an outside force (government) is needed to regulate wealth.

Don't think of it as punishing the rich. Rather, think of it as their civil responcibility to pay for the freedom of being wealthy and enjoying more freedom than the average person. Wealth equals greater freedoms. Shouldn't the wealthy pay for the right to be rich?

Maybe that doesn't seem fair to some, but is it more fair that someone struggling with poverty pay it? The government needs X dollars a year. That money has to come from somewhere doesn't it?

When the poor are heavily taxed it only creates more need for social programs which eat up more money thanks to pork. Taxing large buisnesses can cost people jobs, but it also drives a buisness to be more efficent or at least to drive up their price. If their product is truely useful, people will pay the higher price which is good for the economy.

Ever notice that companies that spend the most on advertising like Coke or Niki have to because their product isn't all that great? They have to sell you a celebrity or a feeling to buy their product.

Airlines regularly drop their fares to the point they are losing money when some upstart company comes along and starts stealing their buisness by offering a good deal or good service. The prices usually stay low just long enough to drive the new company out of buisness then they go back up.

This is capitalism out of control. Too often, buisnesses employ 'dirty' tactics to stay on top. So keep capitalism, but forbid the dirty tactics with legislation.

Do this and one day we will all be driving solar powered cars, flying cars, traveling to space, and many other wonderful things that we don't have now because buisness would rather maintain the status quo than be pioneering.

Answer: One that would tax those contrators into extinction.

Even if 'lefties' don't support our space program and would rather spend the money on social programs here on terra firma, the evil, money obsessed defence contractors need to get the hell out of the way.

I'd rather we not see a single manned US launch for the next twenty years it may take the private sector to catch up, then spend another 30+ years circling the Earth.

Greed is good, but domination stagnates.

Yikes! Reagan's cold war spending was respocible for the economic upturn in the 90's? Wow, that one is way out there. I could have sworn that the upturn started when Clinton tightened our belts to pay down the deficits created by Bush Sr. and Reagan. Economists saw responcible fiscal spending and therefore had hope for a brighter tommorrow. I agree that perception is very important in our economy. I think it more likely that the recession of Bush Sr.'s administration was the result of Reagan overspending.

As for there being a finite amout of money out there, it's true. The government only brings in so much from taxes. What they get is divided amongst all the government programs. A budget increase for NASA is on the chopping block because of irresponcible spending.

Ian, you are right. We should be much more selective with what wars we fight. The more wars we wage, the more enemys we make, its a rather simple concept that most don't understand. I don't think we need to lay off our soilders though. We could cut military spending in half by eliminating rather foolish and wasteful programs like missle defence.

I disagree that it makes sense to go into deficits ever. Regardless of how important or unimportant they are, it's not good buisness or responcible. I suggest that the military create a 'war fund' that it can dip into in times of need. Since we no longer get a 'peace-dividend' because we are always at war with someone now, I say that our military should be more responcible and quit wasting so much. They can then take this money and put it in the 'war fund'.

Not to get started on politics again, but I won't be voting for Bush no matter what. Had we not racked up record deficits the past three years after Clinton surpluses, PlanBush wouldn't be facing a hostile Congress right now. And I'm sorry, but two speeches doesn't constitute strong civil space support.

As nice as it would be for Congress to allocate 1 percent of our GDP to a Mars colonizing effort, it won't happen. Our GDP is much greater than our annual budget which is 2.2 trillion dollars. Out of the budget, not the GDP, NASA currently gets only .6 percent.

C M Edwards-I follow ya, but it could be cheaper. If we send automations beforehand to prepare onsite food and other resources, then we don't need to ship everything needed to sustain humans.