New Mars Forums

As GCN guite rightly notes until access to space is a lot cheaper then there will be no large scale drive to space. I have said this before that until there is a need to go to space that increases the need for cheaper access, then no one will pay for the development of that cheaper access.

This applies to Russia and China too. Currently there benefiting from a goverment that can spare the cash out of the budget and of course they dont need to pay as much to there army of workers and with wages lower so is the cost of development and building. But this will change and we can see it now as both Russia and China are centers of inflation. Comes of being successful, they will have to pay there workers more and there is more and more essential demands on there fiscal budgets than to pay for space missions.

But I do understand it. International Space law comes down to the outer space treaty and related treaties. I ignore the Moon treaty since the majority of goverments have too. The basis of your claim is that no goverment may claim any or part of an outer space body though they are allowed to peacefully explore and can use materials to do so. But certain quack companies using legal trickery say that they can claim land as private citizens then they are able to sell it too. That was exposed by Virgiliu Pop

Lawyer claims to "own" the sun

Correct but they own any missions sent to space permanently. They are also responsible. A private citizen launching a mission is considered by the law to be authorised by that goverment certainly any problems and it is the goverment of that citizen that is responsible.

Who says. And incidentally a recent test case occuring in the PRC showed that selling land on the Moon and Mars has no legal basis. China being one of the main signatories of the 1967 act. Other countries consider it to be just a quaint novelty item and will give no validity to it. To be a martian goverment you must first of all have the ability to prove that you own that land and can defend that claim. Since there is no people on Mars it is up for grabs.

5 years 

And there is a Scottish Lawyer who used the same legal trickery to claim ownership of the sun and since you get light and heat from it you owe him one major utility bill for all those Millions of years output.

Pay up please. 

But as noted they would be grappled to the object they will be secure and they will be able to push against the surface having been attached by cables and these will be tight. You will be able to use these cables to move around the asteroid and by burning a hole you can make yourself even more secure. The drill rig will not be able to leave the surface without a deliberate release. That is why you have cables it is the only way to secure yourself to such a body.

Unless your secure right over the point and burn your way in. You can even sandblast a hole in if needed but focused superheat will be a lot better.

Are not hard to find and as we are activelly discovering 10 a day with space watch simply on a basis of self preservation. And if we want to mine them it will depend what they are made of. If a 250 metre body made of pure PGM guess what thats more than we have used ever. But any stony iron or pure iron asteroid will be worth investment. Larger NEA's which are chondrites will be of more use for Volatile extraction.

Mass driver use of slag? Got a use for it now

Did I mention cutting rock with these cables no I mentioned grappling them. All they have to do is ensure that we can put machinery close enough to the surface and locate above a spot that our machinery can put a hole that we can then drill into to provide a secure means to operate on the asteroid.

We know that the majority of asteroids are in the 10 meters to 100km range though well over half remain undiscovered. If we search for asteroids of the size between 10 to 250 metres size we should be able to deal with these and our "inefecient" rocket engines with in a reasonable time frame could stabilize there spins. There is other options like shading areas from the sun so that sunlight will slow rotation and also use burst of focused sunlight aimed to slow an asteroids rotation by causing out gasing

Also one of the most important for us is the asteroids that are Ex comets as they should have a very high supply of volatiles. These will tend to be some of the largest of asteroids and as such are unlikely to be a good option to try to slow there spin. But if we are anchored to them then we can use heat to boil out and collect the volatiles and this then can be sent to where we can use it.

So, dont try to go for those super sized pieces of rock there is plenty of other smaller sized asteroids that we can deal with. There is expected to be tens of thousands of them.

Still it is an option and then there is the possibility of mass driver tugs catching the rocks that come closer to us and then being able to stear the rocks to where we want them. Also the material we send down an elevator will help us by gaining that energy to send up a cargo.

I never said it was but as this thread started with a premise of a lunar elevator as a means to get asteroidal material to create space industry I was simply interested in how best to get over the series of problems that asteroid mining will have. I seriously suspect that access to the minerals of the Moon will easily beat any asteroid mining financially as well as in simplicity. But the Moon is lowsy with volatiles and if we can get access to them then it will make infrastructure creation on the Moon and increasing our prescence in space a lot easier.

Will it be gutted for parts unlikely as the reason the Atlantis is going first is that it is due a renovation in 2008 and to save what will be a major expense it is easier to make it the first to be "retired". So in short I suspect it will be cleaned up and delivered to a museum whole. The parts inside will be worn and the only reasonably feasible part wanted for the CEV and the heavy lifter is the engines. And a very good case can be put forward that a shuttle without engines would look a bit silly. (A bit like the whole shuttle concept )

Depends where the source for commercial off the shelf parts comes from. NASA just wont buy from abroad without permission. Using Bigelow as an example he could not find a part he needed in the USA and the cost and time to develop would have been a major delay. He found the part he needed in Germany. But he is not a goverment organisation and can do what is commercialy sensible, NASA just cant.

And then there is the problem that the part NASA needs may well not exist or have a reasonable capacity to be retasked safely. Most of the costs of a space vehicle is the constant checks to ensure that it is safe and the parts will not fail. This will not change especially if NASA is not a 100% sure of the processes that made a part.

Hardly our lack of knowledge even decent mapping data over our nearest neighbour is almost criminal. When we see maps of the Moon the center of the Moon is well mapped but the poles are + or - 100 km. This is chronic considering that it is the poles and the hydrogen sources that interest us in the Moon right now and if we also include those polar areas that are permanently in light then we need those robotic missions.

We also need to do mineralogical and resource surveys as well as the improved mapping capability. How else can we expect to get back to the Moon and do something credible. There is a lot of research we can do on the Moon from finding how our Earth was formed to mineral research to studying the formation of life. We should like in the arctic find rocks ejected by meteor strikes from both Mars and the Earth that will allow us to compare life as it begins.

I agree that advanced production techniques does not stop any form of goverment but it is a prequisite for an anarchist form of literaly anti-goverment.

But anarchistic style of goverment on Mars is I believe not going to happen. Mars is a place where Organisation is essential for survival and that reguires goverment. It does not matter if its Dictatorial or Corporate it is essential that when the worst happens there is something there to deal with it.

Anarchism relies on people doing things out of the public good when dealing with these big situations. Unfortunatly human nature is not good.

Correct it also has borders not only with Iraq but also Afghanistan and there would be a reguirement to provide sufficient forces on both sides to ensure that they would be secure.

Yes but the elections where held and though it is vocal the opposition is in a minority, And generally the elections where not up to worlds standards they do not appear to have generated much discord amongst the populace. Also though there is a generally more progressive feeling in Iran that does not count towards a more pro western feeling just a trend to Iran feeling more confident in itself. And the hardline president of Iran, mr Ahmadinejad has by confronting the west actually increased his popularity in Iran. The Iranians do not like the western world and they certainly hate the USA most of all. It is impossible to control an occupied country when the majority of the population hate you, even a troublesome minority if large enough ensures defeat. Iran if it comes down to regime change must come from within.

The USA does have overwhelming firepower it just will not be allowed to act. Russia has major assets in Iran and China recieves about 50% of Irans oil this combination pretty much ensures that the USA would have to act alone.

The problem with imposing sanctions is that China and Russia will not let it pass at the UN. This is simply a matter of self interest. Russia has billions invested in invogorating the Iranian oil industry and China's economy relies on recieving 50% of the oil that Iran produces. We impose sanctions and as in Iraq not only will we be unable to stop smuggling, we will find that Iran will do the same and close to 33% of Irans oil goes to the west. That would be cut off and since the majority of the world has reached a peak of production then that means for the west increased oil prices.

To stop Iran's nuclear facilities will be a lot more difficult than those of Iraqs for a start unlike Iraq they have been spread out and hardened. EU negociators have always been concerned that unlike other countries Iran is actually able to mine its own Uranium. This in short means sanctions will be unlikely to stop a programme and negociated means have so far failed especially with Iran stating it wishes to produce electricity by nuclear means. To be able to do this it must have refined Uranium, what the problem is that theoretically they will be able to refine it to the stage it is bomb capable purity.

Frances warning over Roque states nuclear plans

Less wriggle room intersting point you do recognise that this includes the UK which is currently in Iraq and Afghanistan and from whose bases the USA would need to attack Iran. Anyway when it comes down to it there is no way the UK which is overstretched could provide troops for an incursion into Iran and certainly Geramny which is constitutionally barred from foreign actions would not ever. In short only France could get involved but it does not have enough trust or public support for any such action especially with the french publics distrust of the USA.

Go for it RobertDyck at least you are getting involved I have to admit im doing the same too, joined a political party for the first time in my life and actually doing something more than just grouching about what happens.

Anyway good luck with the election, hope you win and if you dont go for it yourself.

Will this season just stop for all that is holy