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Simutrans. There is even a Martian map.
My main problem is your third point. Whenever I speak politics here in France, people(both left & right) refer to the pre-1973 paradise. Oil ain't cheap since 1973, & France is in permanent crisis since 1973(and is not the only one). I fear correlation is not random.
Well, there is nearly 2 years of post lost. I guess that's the part that they can't use. I know enough about databases to know it's not easy, & not enough to help.
I like the idea of painting in black. Though you need to manufacture carbon black on site for that. Once you can, it seems a very efficient thing to do, and not only for the greenhouse. Anything that needs to be heated, paint in black - like roofs. Any heat you can capture has to be captured. Mars is cold.
For transparent walls, well, I had a quick look to shielded glass, & it seems to be for a much later time(polycarbonate ain't the easiest thing to synthetize, or to process. Plus it has crappy optic properties). Plains, standard glasses, should be enough, anyways, if in thickness.
That's good, but that's also far from the budget needed to go to Mars.
+1 with GWJohnson, as often. a small link about the dangers of Ammonium nitrate. You don't want that in a spaceship, even in smaller amounts.
but where do you find nutrients for the plant?
good news, thanks.
Private messaging is a useful tool for resolving disputes. Those are fortunately scarce here, but did happen at least once since the partial recovery.
I did play long ago, but the feedback was rather poor, making the game tedious & obscure to play. Maybe new versions are better?
"dead serious", or seriously dead? Without a sugar daddy(a big one, that project is not cheap at all), they will not go anywhere. Even Musk does not have enough money(that's why he's just playing in LEO, for now, trying not to lose money).
I think that guy didn't even try to get any purchase from anyone on the forum, just to improve its linking stats for Google referencing. The idea is that the more other websites link to its own, the higher he ranks in googles searchs. This has much omre value than a few random purchases from forum members.
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BUt as Lobster says, if you have the ability to get there and build up a colony it doesn't make sense that you don't have the ability to get off the planet.
I think Josh's message(he will correct me if I'm wrong) is that this way if thinking is wishful thinking : if everything works according to the plan, then everything will work according to the plan. Engineering is not like that. First you make a plan, then you try it, and only then you know if it works. We didn't try anything yet(besides a few raids on the moon 45 years ago). Therefore, we have no clue wether all this really works. That's why sending people permanently is an engineering nonsense.
Tilapia is poor in terms of nutrients. It's far from being as healthy as other fishes. Yet, if it's doable & other fishes are not.....
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I have read that the steel used in some swords produced in the medieval period was as good and strong as anything produced in modern steel factories. I take some comfort from that. I am fairly confident that we can create high grade steel in small scale furnaces with modern methods.
This I agree. But you have to remind that it was a matter of weeks to build one single sword of that quality. The tough part will be to scale up. (my guess here is that we will send a few of bug machines ina few flights, & with them create all others needed. But we need the first few ones imported, should be cheaper than recreating them from scratch on-site)
For the 3D-part, they still don't give any example of heavily-mechanically-stressed part. Where they begin to shine of for parts where shape is more important than mechanical properties. And they will even more. Yet, I have to see a poppet valve made in 3D. I'm not sure we'll see soon.
And there will be also need for that kind of parts. In a mechanical system, machining quality may improve a lot the energetic efficiency. Surface quality, especially, can't compare. For a stirling engine, for example(I know pro-solar energy people here think about them), the better the surface of the cylinder is, the more efficient it will be. 3D printing is pixellisation of the steel. You don't make circles as good in pixels than with a compass for drafting.
Bottom line is that we will probably need both, for different usages. The ability to make very complex shapes will probably be useful for fluid management(for example). Yet, standard, older methods will still be critical where mechanical properties or surface quality will be critical.
But you have the energy efficiency of a tyre vehicle, not from a rail vehicle. That's a 1-to-10 ratio.
Rail doesn't take you to your door. A car does. So does a bike. I wonder if the survey included the energy expenditure of getting to the rail station and hanging around waiting for trains?
Nope : it's energy per pessenger per kilometer(forgot the unit, just remembers the scale). With streetcars(i.e. american-style small scale tramways), though, you can go rather near home. If we don't find adequate replacement to petrol, public transit will have its importance improved - and cities will need to be more dense, more Washington DC than Calgary. Note though that for cities with heavy slopes, tyres are still useful - that's why inhabitants of San Francisco avoid the cable car & use trollebuses instead. Only tourists use cable car.
Nuclear planes might be useful for transatlantic transport, but won't for going from home to work.
All that I said in post no. 18 being what it is, I think the sense of Robert Dyck in post no. 1 is correct. We need a cheaper way to fly, one that is more or less independent of oil prices. If that's some nuclear engine, then so be it.
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IIRC, I read a french study about the 2000-2009 decade, summarizing the energy consuption of different transport modes per pessenger. It was like :
_Rail : 0.2
_Boat : 0.4
_Tyres : 2.2
_Air : 3.2
For anything not transoceanic, rail it the obvious choice. But Transatlantys is not for tomorrow(it was an advertisment joke promising a train tunnel between France & New York City).
I'm not sure coing nuclear would significantly reduce the energy cost of an airplane(in terms of joules, not in terms of $).
@Impaler : didn't know that. Thanks for the info.
Doesn't change my point much, though : Americans & soviets were well aware of the properties of their respective landing zones.
Well, thanks, but from Paris, France, it's rather far, I fear. I first shall join the french branch of Mars society.
Actually, I've been wondering if we haven't gotten so caught up in landing decent-sized habs for long-duration missions, and multi-person human landers, that we aren't missing another "back in the box" approach. I.e. send down much smaller packages using simpler methods, and rely much more on building and putting things together on the surface. (This fits in with the idea of staying in orbit for a while and using tele-robotics to set things up, before descending.)
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Link in french : http://salotti.pagesperso-orange.fr/concept242.htm . That guy belongs to the french branch of the Mars society & did speak about its project to Zubrin. He's still in need of refining, though. But the basics is to divide the travel in empty cargos PLUS 2 vehicles of 2 people/32 tons each.
I won't translate it, it's a tough text, & I need to read it a few more times before understanding it, there are a lot of subtle design choices.
el_slapper. Wish I was better in rocket computations.
Incidentally, The reason why Europe & coastal China were ahead of time before fossil fuels did appear is strongly related : in those places, distances are short, & you can go here or there without being blocked too much by the landscape/climate. Winnipeg can only thrive through intense energy use for transport & so.
That being said, I have another problem with nukes : amount of uranium/thorium/whateverium is not unlimited. Such a solution(nuclear on plane or building energy on ground) cannot work for centuries.
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It is a very rational and admirable program.
+1
Please note that the political stability brought by their political system helps a lot. No elections, pure merit promotion. Of course, this system also has drawbacks(I will not dig them, I hope everyone knows them).
Nice quote, Louis, but the thing is we don't know yet how to land more than 2 tons on Mars. We have plans for landing more, but as long as it's just plans & noone does it, we don't really know how.
Landing on earth is not easy for us earthians, but we have a huge advantage over martians : we live here & know all the tricks. Americans did choose water landings because of their carrier fleet making recover easier & safer, USSR did choose desert landings due to lack of carriers & great number of appropriate deserts. Both of them did know & master the environment they did choose for the landings. Martians would not have that luxury. Their capsules would sink in the oceans, burn in the woods, be attacked in urban terran(by dogs or humans), sink in swamps.....
Once again, I believe we can land on Mars. Just, let's not assume it's easy. Politics means failure is not an option. and when you here this sentence, you know that your management has lost control of the situation.
GW : Best pro-Mars message I've ever read. Better than Zubrin's book.