New Mars Forums

Im not exactly sure that we can call war a civilising act or even a culture still it is something that has to be thought about.

As long as Mars is as it is and the atmosphere is almost nonexistent then Marsian soldiers will be tied to a place to resupply there air and to get out of there suits. Though with the reduced gravity a Marsian soldier can carry a lot more equipment and of course larger weapons they will need that base to function.

Armoured warfare will be important to Mars where soldiers tied to APCs where they can resupply and to having armed vehicles to defend these APCs.

With the increased capability of robots, mars may well have armies of automated soldiers certainly they have distinct advantages over humans.

Welcome to new Mars KeithConto, Failte.

I agree that it is frankly impossible to decide the goverment of Mars as it does depend on who does colonise it. Still I do hope it is a western power who does at least they will bring democracy and a reasonably fair system with them. And those multinationals just by operating in space will have to say which country there home belongs too and as such be subservient to.

They do not rely on mass waves of equipment they rely on mass waves of people and the terrain favours that approach. The KPA has 700,000 soldiers and 8000 artillery systems and 2000 tanks for rear cover threatening Seoul alone. Most of this force is based in underground bunkers. It is an indication of just how messed up North Korea is that all this effort while over a million people have starved to death in the last decade.

Korean People's Army - Introduction

North Korea runs a principle of Army first and that means the army gets to eat while the population starves but North Korea also has an elite which may not be too happy to have there country so seperated from there allies the Chinese and under such a threat. They also live a very lavish lifestyle which needs funding and that is how North Korea can be affected as this money only comes from two main ways that of selling weapons worldwide and illegal means. Hammer these and North Korea runs out of money.

Im not American but it would not surprise me if the reason the American people do not support NASA and space exploration is down to they believe it spends a lot of money for nothing more than prestige and they only see the ISS and the shuttle as white elephants. Cash goes in and nothing comes out and they are not connected to what happens. And with a lot of people looking to keep themselves clothed and fed and bills increasing they really believe the US goverment should not be wasting money like this.

So to get them back into supporting space exploration it needs for it to appear to be actually achieving something and the belief that it will lead to a better life for there children and there country.

North Korea has the small man syndrome and to add to there woes there country is falling apart. North Korea cannot feed itself and there principle of army first means that come winter time a lot of people starve to death. Economically they have nothing to sell there traditional industries have collapsed and so to get the money they need to keep North Koreas political elite in the style they expect they sell weapons and illegal items like counterfeit money, stamps and of course drugs.

The average North Korean does not see that so graft is commonplace and state control is failing. North Korean soldiers are raiding there own warehouses to sell there fuel and food to the civilians and when they have nothing to sell they commit serious crimes like sell of there weapons. China has found North Korean troops coming across the border to commit bank robberies and to steal things.

Why is North Korea so intent on stirring the pot. Easy if it does not the illustrious leader loses his hold on power. He needs money and with the FBI and other similar agencies slowly cutting back on the illegal side of his fundraiseing he has ran out of money to keep the elite sweet. He needs to be seen to be a big dog and at the moment with not only his missile test a failure but likely the nuclear one a partial failure as well he may not be too comfortable.

Still his discomfort is a problem. China does not want the regime to collapse and in some ways neither does South Korea. If it collapses a lot of people will die and there is a good chance warlordism will ensue with these new North Korean warlords armed with biological and chemical weapons at the least. North Korea would bankrupt the South if they merge and try to get things sorted up north and China truly does not want a very friendly to the US state sitting on its southern border. Sanctions could collapse North Korea if they stop the illegal trade and the legal one of selling weapons and North Korea would fall apart. But im doubtful if China will allow this as it could cause a lot of problems for them. And with the North Korean border guards treatment of returned refugees even the Chinese PLA is angry at North Korea. I would not be surprised if the dear leader has a heart attack and his son who is currently in China (after falling out with his father, usually a very fatal occurence) takes over and North Korea moves to a lot more friendlier nature. Either that or the defences at the parallel which the US soldiers there call the Speed bump get to be tried out.

Most asteroids probably don't rotate fast enough to have an outward centrifugal force at its equator. Asteroids are like giant mountains in space, I'm not sure that they wouldn't just fall apart and break up into chunks if rotated too fast. I think a solid metal asteroid with no faults and fissures could rotate quite fast. I've even heard proposals that you could make a space colony out of that, you simply focus the sun's rays on one of the poles and you melt a cavity in the center of the asteroid, and later on you add atmosphere, water and dirt, and you have a rotating asteroid colony. But I kind of doubt that most asteroids are one solid chunk of metal, I think they are in part at least held together by their own feeble gravity, the large ones anyway.[/quote]

Most asteroids will be found to be stony/Irons or C type. This means they will be easy to work on. Pure metal solid asteroids apart from there immense potential wealth are rare.

Still rotation of asteroids can be solved. If we use the engineering principle of Yo-Yo's then spin can be stopped by mass changes and long strings.

Assuming you are wanting volatiles then the asteroid of choice will be the NEA class of asteroid. These are believed to be 40% by class ex comets. They will still have substantial volatiles but with a crust to stop there distinctive tails forming.

To mine would be a case of attaching to the asteroid maybe with the use of a corkscrew device with an initial push to enter the crust and the screw to then dig in. From there it will be possible to snake out tendrils to heat the volatiles which will be collected and allow the tendrils to dig in further.

From there the miner will keep heating the surrounding area to create a cavern collecting the volatiles which can be collected. There will also be rock and metals in suspension inside the NEA and these can also be collected for processing elsewhere.

Some of these tendrils will ark back out and these can form further anchoring points and these will also provide tanker points where robotic tankers can collect the volatiles away to where they are wanted.

Another substantial class of asteroids is silicates and these will also be an option to be mined the same way though they will have less volatiles and more minerals in the form of nickel-irons.

There is two problems that come from China trying an Orion project approach.

1) China would have to invest heavily on the research needed to create such a vehicle and it would be politically and financially expensive. They would have to research the use of small nuclear devices and this would not be that popular in there goverment. Especially when this would have to come from there military build up.

2) What would it gain them to make such a vehicle they cannot access the riches of the solar system since they do not have the skills to utilise the materials nor have an economical way to return to Earth with these. They cannot claim ownership of any of the bodies they land on and they would have a lot of research to do just to survive out there. In short they are far from being able to do what you have stated.

And he is gone 

it would be spinning that way momentum would do the job any other method would rely on the tug to have to lift the whole cable and weight of cargo into space on its own. It would be only as effective as a chemical rocket.

It is this problem that has more or less meant that the only real effective method would be to create a magnetic levitation system for use on the Moon. The benefits of magnetic levitation are that there is little friction with the ground. Control of the object to be propelled is easier and that the only energy source needed is electricity which with ample sunlight is very available. The creation of such a system uses a very high majority local material so insitu works and there is also the fact that there is little or no working parts so wear and tear are kept to the minimum, which is very useful when considering the enviroment.

Problems are that the system will direct cargo's to only a very limited area and the system will need construction.

It certainly is present, we found that the mineral KReeP contains what we need and it appears to be reasonably common.

Robs I agree that after the initial flavouring of the missions to Mars and the beginning of a long term population there is likely to be a case where the population of Mars will be closer to other settlers on Mars than from there technically home countries.

Then again it depends on future considerations and rampant nationalism can lead to other changes the least could be a suspicion and distrust of the other bases.