New Mars Forums

Man, that was one of the things that I loved the most out of those books...nomads on Mars, endlessly traveling around in those wonderful rovers...talk about sweet dreams... It made me want to go to Mars sooo bad...

Yes, there's that leap of faith again, but KSR had me hooked on that one.... :;):

As far as the montioring goes, it'd be like here on Earth...you have monitoring technology and you have your counter-monitoring technology, which to me, pretty much balances each other out. (otherwise, it gets pretty difficult to write those crucial scenes..LOL.)

The sneaking around Mars, yeah, that was a bit of a stretch, same thing with the hiding of all that military equipment.  As far as the air, power, maintance of equipment, I went with the author on that one, because if we didn't have those basic kind of things down pat, we wouldn't have gone to Mars in the first place.  I do think it would have been much more realistic to put the initial start date much farther in the future...when I came across that Dec 2026 date, I was like, that's WAY too early for what they were about to do.  But I have a tendency to overlook and/or forgive things like that...perhaps I should examine some of the "assumptions" I've made in my own novel... 

B

Yes, Red Mars is my favorite by far...sometimes I wonder if he should've just stopped there...lol :;):   I also agree about Blue Mars...the part about gradually losing one's memories upon reaching extreme old age really depressed me, especially since that is one of my most treasured personal traits...if I can't remember my childhood when I'm 200, forget it.  The characters Ann and Jackie pretty much gets under everyone's skin, I think...I wouldn't be surprised if KSR felt the same way when he was writing them..lol.  But in the larger scheme of things, characters such as those two did give the books a greater human dimension than they might have otherwise.

Glad to hear these books inspired you as well...

B

In the process of writing my own "Mars" novel (still pending,) I've gone back and studied other SF books about Mars, including Kim Stanley Robinson's famous tri-color trilogy which spans a mind-blowing 1700+ pages (which took an entire decade of his life to write.)  I, for one, was highly inspired by these books...even to the point of having a desire to write my own Mars novel     

I think Robinson is a wonderful literary "landscape" artist....the endless, detailed descriptions of Mars are breaktaking to say the least, especially in "Red Mars."  He has certainly set the benchmark for writers following in his path at a very high level! (Although he does get some details wrong, like being able to see the Tharsis volcanos -and- Olympus Mons from a single location on the surface...this is impossible due to the curvature of the planet itself...nobody's perfect, I guess..lol.)

Another aspect of his books that I enjoyed was his "alternative" politics...and the characters' repeated attempts to shuck off the capitalistic shackles of Earth in the two major revolutions described in the three-part series...which I personally think is a realistic (at least semi-realistic) portrayal of human nature, both positive and negative.  However, I've come across a number of people who thought that KSR's politics took away from what they thought were excellent books otherwise. ("It smacks of communism," "KSR is way too socialist for my taste," etc.)

Since there's been a lot of relatively new faces on this board lately, I'm curious to see what you guys (those of you who've read them) think of these momentual books.  Do you think KSR was being "realistic" in the sociological aspects of his books or not?  What aspects of this series inspired you the most?  What parts caused disgust as a reader?  If KSR was just now setting out to write these books instead of back in the late '80s, how would you suggest he do things differently (besides incorporating updated scientific data?)

Any and all comments are highly desired, as this thread is a simple quest of curiosity....

B

Thank you, clark, for agreeing with my sentiments...highly concentrated wealth is bad for democracies...and it also has a tendency to cause nasty things like depressions, which I think will happen to this country if we don't put things back on track...   ???

On another note, I may have spoken a bit too soon a few days back when I stated that the U.S. really needed to work with other nations on the rebuilding of Iraq....it seems Mr. Bush is seeking to do just that.  Maybe the man has a bit of common sense after all....lol...

B

Although I can't see much of Mars with my puny Astroscan, I went to a local observatory the other night where several people had telescopes set up for public Mars viewings.  I looked through an 18 incher...and it provided a marvelous view of Mars (the abnormally clear air helped, I'm sure.)  I could pick out the darker markings of Syrtis Major, as well as the distinctive white southern polar ice cap.

Anyone on here gotten a chance to look at Mars through a bigger telescope?  If so, what could you see?

B

Here's a site that will make even a liberal blush... ...based out of the U.K.  Lots of good stuff to read, though, like the negative effects of globalization, debt, the growing inequality of the rich and poor, etc.

Jubilee site

B

There's something I don't quite understand.  How can you "maintain" a constant 1 gee acceleration in perputuity across the Universe?  I agree with the time dilation effect..it's been proved adaquately enough...but if you take a ship and accelerate it at one gee (using whatever endless source of energy you might on hand, mini-black holes, maybe?) you would "bump up" against "c" in about 11 months' time. (That's "real" time..lol) Your speed increases at the contant rate of 10 meters second squared (1 gee)...everything's fine and dandy until you reach approx 97% of "c" and then you start experiencing a huge increase of energy needed to maintain that constant accleration.  By the time you get very near "c," something like 99.9999%, it would take all the energy in the Universe to keep up the acceleration...so, you see where this is going...  :;):

Thanks, Runnerbrax, for pulling up this year-old thread... 

Yeah, martial arts would be truely awesome on Mars...just think, all those cool Matrix-style stunts would actually be possible in that low gravity...  :;):

Question:  I realize that ordinary walking will be about 60% slower on Mars, as walking depends on gravity to achieve the pendulumic effect of putting one foot ahead of the other...but what about running / sprinting?  I imagine this would involve pushing off with each of your feet in a spring-like fashion, picking up speed with each "step."  Provided you're inside a roomy hab or dome (no pressure suit to deal with), I imagine you could go pretty fast...exactly how fast, I'd like to know. (Olympic runners max out at just over 30 kph, I think.)

Another thing is bicycles....how fast do you think you could get going on a bike in the low gee?  (esp. if the air pressure is quite low inside the dome, like 350 mb.)

B

I'm not so sure about that...try telling that to the families of 9-11 victims    If you're talking about the total number of people killed by terrorists each year, yes, that figure is probably a good bit lower than deaths caused by natural causes, such as the terrible heat wave in Europe.  The important thing to consider is that the radical Islamics are seeking to bring down the Western world by using whatever tools are available to them, such as suicide bombers and the like, as they simply don't have access to the vast military machine the U.S. has...or God forbid, nukes (although if they did have one, they'd probably use it first on Tel Aviv.)

Personally, I think the biggest threat the terrorists pose to us right now is economic ... 9-11 has clearly shown how fragile the American economy really is...take down a couple buildings, cause a recession.  Next step...take out a good bit of the oil infrastructure and cause a depression.  This is why I think the next "Big One" will take place in Saudi Arabia, in their highly concentrated oil export centers...a well-documented study shows that not only is this possible with the use of ordinary "truck" bombs, the resulting destruction will take so much oil off world markets that we could be seeing $10/gallon gasoline here in the U.S.  Welcome to Great Depression II.  Now with a depression on, the U.S. would no longer be able to support its vast military, and it would very likely mean the end of the "Pax Americanna" era.  We would likely become very isolationist (with extreme trade barriers to preserve jobs and the like) and I honestly think with the oncoming tidal wave of retiring Baby Boomers putting a huge strain on the national treasury anyhow, the United States would likely be on its back for decades to come...a giant Mexico, perhaps?  Believe me, the terrorists may be crazy, but they're not stupid.  As soon as they find that one little crack to exploit - they will surely take advantage of it...and the American people would finally realize how truly lucky we have been for the past sixty years or so.

This is why I think Bush is going down the wrong road with his "go it alone" policies...we really need to pull back and start working together on this issue...because this is a worldwide problem.  If we *have* to fight a war, well, I'm ready...but I want to be doing it in the company of a great number of other nations that have also recognized the rise of radical Islamicism as a valid threat.

B

Since I seem to be on a bit of a roll on this board, I want to play a game I used to play a lot when I was a kid (didn't you?)  :;):

I'll start this off by stating some of the things I would do (or TRY to do, I should say) if I was President - not that I ever intend to run...this is just a game, remember... : 

Iraq:  It's a terrible mess that we can't exactly back out of at the moment.  But what I would do is push for greater international involvement in the rebuilding of Iraq's government and infrastructure....especially of that country's educational system, so that they're not graduating 1000's of new terrorists every year.  This is a very long-term problem that needs to be corrected at its source...which happens to be the impressionable kids in the Islamic educational system.

Economy:  Personally, I think this is where the United States is most at risk...and don't think our enemies don't know this as well. (think if they took out Saudia Arabia's oil export centers, etc.)  Yes, our economy is improving, but at a terrible cost, and the kind of economic growth we are currently experiencing is simply not sustainable over the long run.  I'll explain below:

Deficits:  The U.S. budgetary deficit is totally out of control, reaching $450 bil this year, close to $500 bil next year, with monstrous deficits stretching as far as the eye can see.  And these grim projections DO NOT account for the cost of rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, or to fight any renewed conflict in and around those nations, as well as the uber-sized prescription drug benefit that is sure to pass Congress before the Nov. 2004 election (who said Bush wasn't a big-spending liberal??)

The U.S. has already experienced a huge increase in long-term interest rates, which is in response to the tremendous level of deficit spending.  The higher the deficit goes, the higher long-term interest rates will go.  I don't care how much Viagra Greenspan is taking...he is impotent in these matters.  You simply cannot have low long-term interest rates and super-sized deficits at the same time.  So, as President, I would seek to rectify this problem as quickly as possible.  Where to get the $$ to close the gap?  One way of doing this is to simply look at past policies that actually worked for decades on end.  How do you think the U.S. was able to fight the most expensive war in history (WWII) and yet come out financially smelling like a rose?  How did the U.S. manage to fight the Vietnam war for a decade and a half, launch a huge War on Poverty, -and- the Apollo Program and yet not pile up the untenable deficits we have today?  While I'm sure there are a myriad of explanations for this, but I beleive the No. 1 reason is that we taxed the f*ck out of the rich.  Marginal income tax rates for the wealthiest 1% or 2% of Americans were far, far higher than they are today...and this tiny sliver of the population helped provide the national government to do all the things I mentioned above and more.

While I wouldn't advocate going back to the same tax structures as we had in the 50's and 60's, as it would probably disrupt the economy too much, I would suggest that anyone making over $1 mil a year pay the most taxes, with marginal rates going as high as 75% for the folks making the mega bucks (like over $5 mil a year.)

To help the working poor (which is inexcusable for a nation as wealthy as the U.S.), I would eliminate the universal payroll tax, which represents the largest share of the tax burden for 80% of all workers.  I would then implement a series of graduated tariffs with all nations that have a positive balance of trade with the U.S.  The trade deficit is yet another dragon that needs slaying, and by setting import tarrifs at a level to ensure the U.S. imports more or less what we export (isn't that a novel idea!), we would not only rebuild our ravished manufacturing base, (since it would be cheaper to make things at home instead of abroad), we would probably bring in enough revenue to pay for the Social Security program, which we all know can never, ever be cut.  We would also probably end up creating enough jobs to create an actual labor shortage, which is the true ticket to a booming economy, as wages would rise in relation to corporate profits and the like.

Granted, this would make prices rise sharply at the stores...but considering that I can now buy a pair of shorts for $7.99 and a shirt for $6.99 (made in China, of course) at the local Target, I honestly think this is one aspect of the economy that can support higher costs.  Higher prices at the stores in relation to fatter paychecks would also encourage saving as opposed to personal forms of "deficit" spending, which has basically the entire country in hock (which is why I think rising long-term interest rates is a HUGE threat to the future of our economy...the American people are way over-leveraged right now - just look at the current bankrupcy statistics for the past couple of years.)

One more thing, and I'll turn the floor over to anyone that wants to have a potshot at me   -- 

The Medicare prescription drug benefit.  I would drop that thing like a hot potato, as that would turn out to be the largest fiscal black hole ever created.  (If you think the cost of rebuilding Iraq is high....ha..think again, buddy.)  This is nothing but a sop to the drug companies, who will be able to raise prices as high as the late '90's stock market and get the gov't to pick up the tab for the millions of seniors who depend on these drugs.  What will I do instead?  The obvious.  I would follow the example of Canada and virtually every other developed country in the world and REGULATE the drug companies.  Drug manufacturers should be treated just like a public utility...with the price of every drug sold to the public fixed by a central agency, just like the way electricity prices are regulated.  If the price of drugs were lowered to 1980's levels, the problem of access to prescription drugs would vanish overnight.  As for the "problem" of high research & development costs....I say that's hogwash...they don't seem to have this problem in other countries...why should the U.S. be the world's only exception in this regard?

O.K., I'll stop now....(fingers twitching...I'm trying....)   

B

If the threat of the Islamic radicalists is as real as you have described (I'm not going to argue that it isn't,) perhaps we should treat this as we did the Axis powers in WWII.  We declared formal war on our mortal enemies (when was the last time we actually "declared" war?), and we (the U.S. and its allies) pulled together and actually *fought* the war until it was won.  It was horribly expensive...we lost a lot of lives...but the world was made safe (at least safer) in the end. (We still had the Cold War, of course, but at least it was pretty much a stalemate for 40 years.)

If U.S. leaders (and its people) really wanted to make the world "safe" (if ever a thing is possible,) it is my belief that we should fight like we did in WWII....call up the draft, nationalize all our industries and bring our might to bear on the enemy until they are destroyed.  Then, like we did with Japan and Germany, we go in and rebuild those nations from the ground up, complete with a modern infrastructure and democratic governments.  Just take a look at those countries today...

The problem I have with the War on Terror is that it's being fought in a half-assed manner just like we did in Vietnam.  We will *never* win this way.  The terrorists, the saboteurs, the guerilla hit squads will *never* give up as long as they are still alive and kicking. They just won't. The ever-impressionable Islamic kids are still being taught how to hate America and the West, and because they have no real economic future, what's to get them to change their minds that their holy jihad is the right thing to do?  Us "occupying" Iraq and other nations only adds to this mindset, as it's so easy to convey to the youth in those countries that they are indeed being "oppressed," and they will achieve a special glory in heaven by fighting these "infidels," which is really the same thing that's happening in Israel.  It is a vicious cycle which never seems to end.

In my "world" (maybe I should just stick with fiction writing..lol), nothing is done in a "half-ass" manner.  You either go all the way, or don't bother with it at all. 

Take your pick. 

B

Nothing wrong with that....in fact, I wouldn't be opposed to *limited* use of intersection cameras in locations with a history of accidents.  In my opinion, these cameras should be clearly marked (like in L.A.), and they should only be used to *enhance safety* as opposed to fattening some city's coffers.  It would be a good idea to take things like traffic fines and shunt them directly into things such as purchasing health insurance for children, scholarships, etc...this way, there's no preverse incentive to set up "trick" cameras just for collecting fines in order to supplement municipal budgets, such as the city (I forget where) that put up a traffic light camera along a street with numerous stoplights, except that this particular traffic light only had a "yellow time" of 2.5 seconds, as opposed to 4 seconds for all the other lights along that particular street.  Talk about entrapment! (Some guy sued over this and won...lol)

I'm all for safety and all of that, but ways need to be found to keep our dollars out of the greedy hands of our elected officials.

B