New Mars Forums

I would much rather see us put up a large interferometer with as much surface area as we can conceivably launch and support. The Hubble had its day and, as someone else already pointed out, there are ground-based telescopes that are beginning to outmuscle it. We can't just keep slapping band-aids on whatever spacecraft we have up there; Mir and the Shuttle are prime examples. Besides, imagine the boost to the space movement if an interferometer captures a distant blue dot in some faraway star system. That image would be ingrained in the public psyche and cause the removal of many heads from the endorectal region--in society and politics--and highlight why we need to go outward into the cosmos.

I had been thinking of essentially the same kind of shuttle replacement vehicle that is made of composites, takes off horizontally and flies to a certain altitude using jet engines, where it then attempts to go to space. However, instead of a chemical rocket, it fires a VASIMR plasma rocket (Isp of about 300 seconds or so) to get to space. Anyone know the weight of the VASIMR engine or the small nuclear fission reactor you'd need to bring along? ???

Whichever nation or space agency has the means to go should go. As an American, I would much rather see an ESA or Russian or Japanese...heck, even a Chinese mission to Mars tomorrow than a NASA mission "eventually," as they love to say. It's much more in the interest of humanity for one group with the means to go to Mars to take the initiative and go than it is to sacrifice the progress of the whole on the altar of internationalism. Stagnation is stagnation; even if it's for a noble ideal like working together.

That having been said, I have no problem with a series of joint, but not co-dependent, missions to Mars, the Moon, or wherever else for which the participants are all technologically prepared and upon which they all agree as to their respective role in the mission. As for a plan of colonization, I would like to see ten or twenty years of successive Mars Direct-style missions with propulsion upgrades, such as nuclear rockets or the microwave-propulsion satellites that cut the one-way mission time to 39 (!) days. In that time, each space agency will likely have a fairly sizeable scientific outpost or two or...five . After that, private enterprise will take care of actual colonization efforts.

Well, initially the councilmen/gov't officials won't be running a whole planet; they'll be running a small colony. If 1000 people are split equally into 4 colonies, that's a very manageable size. I like the idea of having city councils; however, you'd better elect them, because the average Joe Blow volunteer is gonna have a LOT less legitimacy than somebody who has been given a mandate to govern. I suggest an at-large write-in ballot upon landing and setting up the bare essentials, followed by a runoff with the top 5 (or some other number)vote-getters to run for 'mayor.' The winner becomes the chief executive and nominates candidates for the city council, all of whom must be confirmed by the other 239 colonists.

How to settle disputes between colonies? The city councils each nominate two members from among themselves to serve as "senators" to some sort of regional congress, which meets biweekly. This shouldn't be too hazardous, as I'm assuming the colonies will be fairly close together (they'll probably have to be).

But anyway, I'm babbling. Time for Family Guy :laugh: .

I don't know what will actually happen, but it is my belief that any global government on Mars (or Earth for that matter) would not survive unless it existed in the form of a carefully constructed federation or confederacy. The first few colonies could get together and hold a constitutional convention to construct a federal system that retained large amounts of power to the individual colonies or settlements. The federal government's power would be very limited--collect taxes, regulate trade, and provide for planetary defense by creating a military (hey, you never know...what if Earth invades?)

The colonies must be very powerful so that the inevitably different groups of people who live in each respective colony can remain content within the new government. The last thing we need on Mars is a breakdown in order and a planetary civil war.

Don't even get me started on the UN. As far as I'm concerned, they're an absolutely worthless organization.

I agree that there ought to be a Martian government and it should be a global authority...but it shouldn't have too much authority. By that I mean it should have power to print money, raise armies, collect (reasonable amounts of) taxes, and construct internal improvements, but shouldn't have a large amount of lawmaking clout. If you start having a single global entity making laws on Mars that affect people from all over the Earth who have differing viewpoints on everything, you'll start having global civil wars and we don't want that to happen on Mars. Let the individual colonies make their own laws and elect delegates to a Martian Global Congress that settles disputes and supervises trade and so forth.

Just an idea.

Hmm...true in many ways. However, have you ever paid a visit to an aircraft carrier, submarine, or battleship? I have visited the World War II-era USS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC on numerous occasions. Go there on any given summer day and you will see the deck of the ship bustling with activity. Tourists are everywhere. I'd be willing to bet that that ship alone brings in ungodly amounts of money (several million at least) in one summer alone.

How about Fort Sumter? Appomattox, VA? The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington? I'm sure they all turn out a pretty penny as well.

If an Orion were built and designed to play on people's fascination with outer space (I mean designing it to look like something out of Star Wars...sleek-looking and futuristic as possible) I believe this would fascinate the masses enough to make a sizeable profit. Certainly it would renew the public interest in space pioneering.

Soph...I didn't say the UN was a world government. I mean that it's headed in that direction.

As for sectionalism, organizations such as NATO and the European Union were established in order to bring whole regions under the control of a central government, or at least some form of one. Theoretically, this will prepare civilians psychologically for rule by a single world entity.

I'm not totally against all forms of world government, but the UN would not be the right body to entrust with global rule, IMHO. The reasons for this are simple: for one thing, I have no desire to pay taxes or send American troops to a distant body that (if my history serves me correctly) was established without the consent of the people of the United States. This would usurp a national sovereignty that has existed for over 200 years and inflame nationalism. History has recorded many instances of what happens when nationalists become inflamed, and the UN would cause civil strife on a global scale. We've already got a bloated bureacracy in Washington, D.C. Why do we need a new one in New York City or Geneva?

I propose a look to the Swiss constitution as a model for a good world government. Each Swiss Canton retains enormous powers and is granted the power to maintain a standing army, not to exceed a certain number of soldiers. The Swiss Federal government is entrusted with foreign relations, public works projects, regulation of the mail system, and very little else. No standing army is allowed; instead, the Swiss military is comprised entirely of those soldiers comprising the Cantonal armies and is called up only in times of crisis. I believe this form of government has stood since the 13th century. So if we're looking for a good government for the whole world, I suggest we look to that model.

Also, for a Venus terraforming project, you would need to speed up the orbit to something resembling a 24-hour day (since the current day is something like 253 Earth days). Then you would have to maintain the rotation speed somehow, probably by coming up with a moon or moons to orbit Venus. This could be accomplished by using massive electromagnets in low Venus orbit to pull at the planets core. I heard somewhere that the planet's rotation would increase to Earth levels in about 50 years with this approach.

If we were technologically advanced enough to do this, then why not go ahead and tow Mercury into Venus' orbit to create an artificial moon? Then we could tow them both further back from the sun to cool the planet.

The government does know more than they tell us. I admire Israel for the way they handle things. They tend to not take crap off of anyone. If I had my way, this war on terrorism would have been going on in '93 after the first WTC bombing. If Arabs have grievances, there's a legitimate way to do things. The people of Quebec have grievances against the rest of the Canadian confederation. Do they walk into Toronto malls with bombs strapped to their chests? No, they formed a political party for the purpose of voicing their grievances and achieving independence for themselves.

I don't know where the whole "the inspectors were recalled" thing came from, but from my recollection they were thrown out. I admit that I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. And the no-fly zones were part of the cease-fire agreement at the end of the Gulf War. Furthermore, I seem to remember torture and murder being violations of UN resolutions;both of them are commonplace under Saddam's regime.

I don't doubt that Israel violates UN regulations. As I stated in my first post, there ought to be consequences for ALL countries who violate said regulations (including Israel and the US).

And thumbs up to CalTech

That last post of mine was sort of off-topic, since now we are talking about North Korea. I apologize.

But I basically feel the same way about them as I do about Iraq. They've kicked out UN inspectors and violated the demarcation line. It's time people like this had real consequences.

Look at them, their people are starving and they're trying to build nukes? They are much more disturbing and frightening than Iraq, particularly because of their relation with China. I think the international message needs to be this: violate international law and we turn you into rubble.

Allow me to clarify: i didnt mean that the ISS is totally pointless. I simply meant that, in its current state, it is more than a bit wasteful to spend resources on an updated model of something vastly similar to Mir. It should be much further from the Earth; perhaps halfway between here and the Moon.

I do believe that, whatever form the station takes, it will probably help further the development of low-cost launch vehicles and probably more benefits that i can't think of right now. All I am saying is that, if the boys at NASA are just dying for a space station, it could be better managed.