New Mars Forums

- At which time the United States is putting the screws on public higher education:
http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=402

I believe you need to change the government (and by that I don't mean individual presidents but the regime), maybe even your political system. Sorry I said that, but I'm on the outside looking in and I think I should try to be honest.
The great futuristic enthusiasm of the 20's-70's was not least linked to a socio-economical reality of a certain kind. A more or less worldwide consensus was reached that the state had an important task in driving economical progress through a semi-socialist system fit for an integrated mature capitalism. This in turn influenced that sense of "we can do it!", 'everything is possible' and 'we do this together'.
Since the early 70's however, the guiding philosophy has reverted to a neo-classicist ideal of free trade dogmatism and anti-state sentiment in regard to industrial society, which in its pure form probably have never existed anywhere but in Britain during the mid 19th century.
Why? Because without the peculiar historical circumstances of early British industrialism, it doesn't make sense. Even Adam Smith knew that. America? There neither. The Cumberland road connecting the Atlantic coast and the Ohio valley was built with federal funds. Basically, the government printed up money. Why did it not cause inflation? Because the liquid capital got frozen in a solid form of great infrastructural significance, which economical progress could benefit from further. In itself, massive projects like the Cumberland road, the railroads or the Eire canal, caused an increased demand for labour, resulting in increasing wages. Wages that in turn stimulated demand throughout the economy. The latter point is in full accord with the philosophy of Adam Smith. The United States has from its inception also enjoyed a practical autarchy that has made it possible for indigenous market forces to benefit from national demand and it has maintained that system by the very protectionist measures that are such an anathema to free trade believers.
A space program is really nothing but a Cumberland road, driving demand, initiative and technology, provided it can be directed at a productive outcome.
Problem is that the people now running the White House and thus the world, electing the presidents, don't believe in this. They are, apart from their special common backgrounds and interests, formed by the globalist free trade thinking personified by Milton Friedman: the great but logical metamorphosis of their own leftist-rousseauist counterculture generation.
Instinctively in regard to majority society, they scorn things like the collective, nation, state, people - a community of shared values in any form - and have only regard for the "individual" and something called "human rights". For some reason one never hear references to 'civil rights'; there is nothing these people detest as much as the plastic flamingos of a worker done good.
Hence collective progress is not a concern. John Doe is not asked for in this society and he knows it. As his share of demand and contribution of productive labour dwindles, we are slowing down. I believe this a major aspect of the problem. Thus, the world economy lapses into a state of speculation rather than industrial investment, contraction instead of expansion. A certain sense of dystopia settles in, lingering like a low dim mist over everything.
Since the early 70's, when the great turn around in world affairs reached decisive point, we have gone nowhere in space. All that, from the experimental rockets of von Braun to Apollo, took place during that quasi-socialist period of the state interfering with the economy. A worldwide phenomenon of which the United States was not alone.
I believe that one should at least think about that historical coincidence.

Superluminal was a bit over the top, but 40% lightspeed should be a possibility.

What you need is a Beam Core Antimatter Drive:
"The Beamed core drive would have an exhaust velocity of near light-speed. Allowing (with sufficient amounts of antimatter) acceleration up to almost any arbitrary percentage of the speed of light."
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/213.web....re.html

- Why not, it's fun.

Besides, you're right about Tau Ceti being rather metal poor, but as far as I can tell, the Sun seems actually to be located in the upper end when it comes to heavy element abundance for nearby stars of its class. It's no ordinary star. I didn't take the time to check with my sources, just threw out a couple of potential destinations from the back of my head. Question is what percentage of heavy elements is necessary for rocky planet formation and/or potential biospheres. Will 50% of the Sun do? I have a hunch that it will, although it might be a close call.

Tau Ceti:
http://www.solstation.com/stars/tau-ceti.htm

Cheers!

- Big difference between Antarctica and Mars is that we have the means to alter Mars' environment. This can be achieved to a substatial degree in maybe less than a century after we initiate a serious terraforming effort.
The air won't be breathable, but the thick CO2 atmosphere created from greenhoose gassing will create both enough pressure and temperature increase for a comfortable shirt sleeve environment outside the domes. Much better than Antarctica which has a level of inhosptability set once and for all.
In about a thousand years or less, Mars will also acquire an oxygene atmosphere, making it practically just as habitable as Earth.

- Sure we will, but the energy levels required for interstellar travel probably entails that we first spread out in this solar system and make use of its resources, which by the way will mean settlements on Mars by default. Simply because Mars is the best place around.

- Got good news for you Mad Grad. We don't have to sqaunder generations on thousand-year voyages. Antimatter propulsion can reach velocities approaching light speed or more, which means that say 500 years from now, any solar system within 20 light-years or so should be reachable with trip times of a few decades. I.e in considerably less than a human lifetime.
Hopefully by then, as someone just happens to cross the universal speed limit, we might see that Einstein was simply wrong all along, making superluminal space travel a physical reality, thus enabling ways to go even faster.
:;):

Besides, Vega probably isn't a very good destination at all. This A type main sequence star at 25 ly, is only 350 million years old, meaning simply that its planetary system is still forming and that emerging rocky planets are constantly bombarded much in the same way as early Earth. Quite infernal environs.

http://www.solstation.com/stars/vega.htm

We should stick to good star systems that are much like our own. The nearest candidates on my list would be Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti and 61 Cygni. Maybe also Epsilon Indi.
Farther off, systems like Omicron Eridani, Eta Cassiopeiae and Delta Pavonis seem very inviting and promising to me. Did you know for instance that Delta Pavonis is actually identical to "Caladan", home of house Atreides in Frank Herbert's Dune?
:;):

- Hm, why is that, exactly? I don't see any relevance to the question of stellar age from that perspective. Think about it. If we manage to spread out through a good part of the stellar neighbourhood within a few thousand years or so, a billion years more or less of stable environments in comfortable star systems won't mean heck. By the time the sun makes life on the Terran surface unbearable for example, descendants of humanity will long since have reached the other end of the galaxy. After all, it's only 91,000 light-years in diameter.

For Cobra Commander, exclusively.

"Weltraumschiff 1 startet!"

Enjoy!

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/theorers.htm

Hey, I was planning to write a post exactly along those lines.
Not only is the metaphor of how the west was won usually misplaced, because it wasn't made for the adventure but for material gain, but also, nothing will ever be achieved as long as we live in a one world society where the prevailing ideology forbids the state to drive economical progress.

- Think I know exactly what you mean.

- Yeah, it's a little funny. 15 months or whatever when the normal trip would take three days or something.
Think the reason was that ESA wanted to try out the ion engine used.

Cindy:

Rxke:

And I like to disagree a third turn around and side with Cindy, if I may. :;):

The Moon is still virtually useless as a testbed for a Mars mission, nothing has changed there, and I don't really believe in the politics of 'leading on the politicians'. They probably still entertain some dim ideas about a "stepping stone", but what if they find out the truth? That none of the techniques we try out on the Moon have any more relevance for Mars than those we could do in Antarctica? That the Moon is one big money hole in this regard? Does a more financially conservative way really not exist for the United States to regain its "guts"?

Not that I don't understand what you are saying Rxke, which is to politically exploit the window of opportunity. If the recent talk in the US congress is really an opportunity of course and not forgotten in four months...

In principle, I think that the Moon and Mars should be kept entirely apart. Like Cindy says, the Moon will never be a means in itself like Mars will. On its own though, I find the Moon interesting for mainly three possible reasons and if I may, I'd like to digress a little and present my current position:

1) For the Moon to be used as traffic switch and fuel station if there is extractable water on the poles. This presupposes the development of a "magical" high thrust SSTO, which I still believe is possible. There's a whole lot more to NTR's than NERVA.
If however, we see the realization of this new space elevator we've heard so much about, which could be readily used to build a proper space station, partly after paying for itself by 'satellite business on orbit', and/or asteroid mining is just too tough to bring about, the Moon falls in this regard.

2) Industrial exploitation of Lunar resources. Yeah, now you must think I've gone totally nuts, but what if the fixation with lack of volatiles on the Moon actually tend to obscure other uses of its resources? Maybe space advocates oftentimes like to think a little too much in terms of propulsion and similar, that is in the means and not the ends? Yes, it's mining rare metals time again!

Haven't got so much meat on it yet, but let me just point out three things:

a) The Moon was created from a planetesimal impact event on the early Earth. So basically, the Moon should have about the same mineral composition as our planet.

b) The Moon has been bombarded with high grade space debris for a very long time and especially so during a violent era 3.9 billion years ago, before the final stabilization of the crust. So has Earth but there are no plate tectonics on the Moon which means this material ought to have stayed mostly in the crust and even remain thrown about on the surface.

c) Okay, but what about those extremely low parts per million for everything valuable on the Moon, aka the interplanetary scrap yard? That's beside the point. Did you know for instance that the ppm for copper on Earth is about 40? It's all a matter of ore formation, that is concentrations worthy of extraction.

Zubrin says somewhere that the Moon is worthless to mine, because the formation of ores are dependant on complex hydrothermal and eruptive geological processes. It's probably safe to say that the Moon has never had any hydrothermal processes worth mentioning, but there's been a lot of eruptive magma flows and stuff going on, which also brings about "mineral differentiation" on its own, or so I've heard. Something which concentrates several platinum group metals for example and of course all of this has been left untouched and in a frozen state since the days of creation.

So perhaps the Moon could really be mined with some success after all, in a way that at least partly can pay for a limited human presence once we locate those ores? What do you think? And I assume that at least everyone here is urgently aware about the Moon's need for a paying job. But then again, this prospect hinges on the development of a cheap Terra-Luna direct transport system, polar propellant production, not least for hopping about on the Moon, refueling station, blah, blah, blah...

3) Failing all else, the Moon will at least remain an optimal location for the Lunar Observatory, located on the far side. A small scale base should be built there in any case for a considerable amount of cash. Housing a select few in an appendix of the solar system while everyone else are going to Mars.

As seen, the conventional view draws a sharp line between the Moon and Mars for at least the foreseeable future. Including my own little speculative extravaganzas, I concur with that view.

Gennaro,
Resource Industrialist

It does. Damn it, Mother Nature, why can't you just work with us here for a change!
:angry:

On the other hand, the impression I got from the article wasn't that clear-cut. They concluded that radar signals bouncing of rocky (sides?) of one crater positively clear of H2O gave off a similiar radar signal as the original Clementine probe. Okay, so it could be rocks that Clementine had been sensing all along. The rest of their 20% sample readings were negative, but point of fact is that Clementine's wasn't.
A matter of interpretation?
Remember that two missions that actually went to Lunar orbit and studied the poles centrestage, one using radar and the other a neutron spectrometer gave off signals indicative of water and hydrogen respectively. If there's no polar ice where did the relatively large amounts of hydrogen come from? Not from pointed rocks, surely. Secondly, if there's only diluted water (0.5% spread out, worthless) as the article suggests could still be there, the Clementine radar probably would not have been able to detect it anyway.
Hopefully the ESA SMART-1 probe is properly equipped to spell it out for us in 2005. Till then we should perhaps sit tight and not jump to conclusions.

- Me neither, Cindy. It's more of a hope that somehow might turn out to be right.

- Of course you're right about that. As for the possibilty of ice/permafrost, albeit in small but purposeful concentrations, it's been on the agenda only since the mid 90's.
What wouldn't I give for an ice cap!

Addendum:
Earlier in the thread I wrote about water having to be transported to the Moon if there isn't any. This gave the wrong impression. As far as I know what you would have to ship to the Moon would really be hydrogen. By reacting it with the mineral ilmenite for example, which makes up as much as 10% of certain Lunar ores, water would be produced according to this scheme:

FeTiO3 + H2 = Fe + TiO2 + H2O

Part of the water could be further electrolyzed into H2 and O, serving propulsion and life support needs. Considering that Lunar dirt is almost entirely made up of various oxides, there are probably a number of similar mechanisms at hand.

- Sending back to exile on Earth? I thought that crimes should deserve a sentence and not a reward. Have you no empathy for the victims and their relatives?
Besides, why do you think that Earth people would want to deal with this bugger?

The dominant theory right now seems to be however that the asteroid belt is not a result of planetary collisions but simply left overs from the formation of the solar system.

http://www.solstation.com/stars/asteroid.htm

Yes, this is what it comes down to. I know the situation is confusing for you over there to understand the way things are around here and vice versa, but a common trait is that these people are all filled with a sense of self-righteousness to the extent that because they are _the_ "good" by definition, it doesn't matter if they turn to violence since the enemy is "the evil" in itself. And indeed, they are always there to attack "racism", "defend democracy", "freedom", "animal rights" or English foxes or whatever. Actually, it's not the issues that matter. Perhaps I'm not pro corporate globalism either.
Essentially, it's the same thing that you madame, mean to imply that you now have in the white house.

In fact, you in the US must hold on to your citizen's right of free speech no matter what. We in Europe have long lost ours during the last couple of decades. In some other thread a person was shocked by having his post deleted in some other forum because of its contents. Ha! Try to criticize the senseless immigration policy in some major Swedish newspaper for example. They'll edit you out faster than you can say waldorf salad.

Well, maybe I went too far here. Just took for granted that English was the correct norm on this forum. On about every board I've been to there have been guidelines of this sort. That individuals should not chat away in their native tounge etc, but perhaps that have never applied here.
My mistake in such a case.

After all there's a practical significance to it. Pretty sure no one would understand me if I tried to use Swedish, for example.