New Mars Forums

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Michael, why do you think the odds are infinite to one?

Oh yeah...you once heard...  ???

Ya know, I once heard that I was God.  It went something like this...
I walked into a room, and an old friend, surprised to see me, exclaimed, "Oh God, it's Ian!"

...

No one knows how plentiful life is in the universe.  No one knows the odds of life evolving.  It is all guess work and conjecture.  We only have evidence of life on one planet.  Until we prove or disprove that life exists elswhere, this conversation is pointless.

By 'replacement' I don't just mean another hubble.  I would expect an improved telescope.  I just don't want to have a period of 15 to 20 years without any space telescope after hubble comes down.

Perfect situation:
1.  Get congress to approve funds for a new space telescope ASAP.
2.  Use hubble, without servicing it, as long as possible or until replaced.
3.  Let it die.

Bad situation:
1.  Let hubble die.
2.  Tinker around with possible replacements.
3.  Wait forever to get a new telescope in space.

I wish planners would be smart and start funding and building replacements (applicable to any space asset) before old age became an issue.

If NASA can secure funding to build a replacement - and replace it soon - then let it fall.  Without a replacement secured, they should send a shuttle to repair it.

This is the first and probably the last time I'll bother to comment on this subject.

Cindy, I gotta disagree with you on this one.  I think that once a person is married, their parents and other relatives tend to loose touch, sometimes very quickly.  This is assuming that the married couple spends more time together than with the old families, which is not always the case, of course.  But if it is true that the couple was close, then the parents probably don't know enough about their daughter anymore to make decisions about life support, cremation, burial, etc.

To take me and my wife for example, in a few short years we have diverged from both of their belief systems more than they will ever know or care to know.  She was raised Baptist and I, Mormon.  We are now agnostic.  I lean toward the atheist side and she leans toward the pagan.  We don't like to advertise this fact to our families because we know it will just upset them.  So, they are both completely out of touch.  Niether of us would want them to have any say over us if we were in Schiavo's position.

Does that make sense? 

Rob,
You use this highly elliptical orbit in your novel for embarcadero station.  Have you addressed the problem of aerobraking too shallow and not achieving orbit?  What would your back up plans be in this scenario?

I haven't worked on it much.  I've got too many school projects to work on right now.  This summer I'll hit it harder.

That is basically Zubrin's point.  We don't technically need HLLV for the Moon, but if we are looking at a Moon/Mars vision we will eventually need the HLLV.  So why should we waste our time on EELVs when we will have to build the darned HLLV anyway.  If the Moon doesn't need all that capacity it can simply have a slower launch rate.

Ok, since the thread has strayed off topic a bit, I'll deliver on the promised name of the book.

"On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality"  by Ward Churchill.

I lived in Mexico for two years, so I can confirm this personally.  Many morenos (dark skinned people) would rather be gueros (light skinned).  I was genuinly surprised at how racist some Mexicans could be.

I don't know what ended in 1900, but here is some other stuff:

1899 - 1901 -- "Major U.S. forces are committed in the Philippines to put down a generalized independence movement.  Operations conducted by Brigadier Generals J. Franklin Bell and "Hell Roaring Jake" Smith are consciously genocidal, especially with regard to tribal "Moros" in the southern islands.  Upwards of 600,000 Fillipinos are killed.  The island of Luzon then becomes the primary basing area for U.S. military operations in Far East (a distinction it retained into the early 1990s).

Sorry Grypd, no stars.

Ok,

1863 - "Troops are landed at Shimonoseki, Japan, to "redress an insult to the American flag" embodied in shots being fired across the bow of an American warship.  In Utah, a volunteer cavalry unit based near Salt Lake City takes to the field against the Shoshones, perpetrating the Bear River Massacre of about 500 Indians in southern Idaho.  To the south, in Arizona, troops under Colonel Kit Carson conduct a concerted campaign against the Navajo.  When the Indians surrender a year later, they are force-marched to the Bosque Redondo.  Interned there until 1868, about half of all Navajos die of starvation and disease.  Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln orders troops used to quell antidraft riots in New York, Newark, Boston, Toledo, and elsewhere.  About 400 people are killed in New York alone -- the greatest number of any single incident in U.S. history -- lesser numbers in other cities."

Good try clark, but no stars today.