New Mars Forums

To produce Solar cells on the Moon and incidentally Mars you need access to Aluminium and Silicon and the Moon has a lot available. If we make the cells in-situ then the majority that is 90% of the cell is made from local materials and this includes 99% of the weight of the cell.

NASA PDF on the making and use of solar power

These cells are easily manufactured and the airlessness and low gravity of the Moon actually helps in there manufacture. One other point unlike more efficient circuits these silicate cells are considered very hard when it comes to radiation protection. Another useful point is that they are a recyclable commodity and if a cell gets damaged and is replaced the broken cell is simply made into another new one.

As stated previously production of solar cells could be done automatically and there has been plans for many years to have robots do it.

June 2000 spacedaily article

One thing to note these cells would have as a minimum a 25% efficiency and with some propsed technigues this would go up to 35%. The ISS currently is using solar cells that are a very old design and are only 14% efficient. This is how fast the technology is improving. Max efficiency has been recorded at 68% in some ultra efficient designs but they are not rugged enough for space use at the moment.

A year or so ago there had been talk that the Chinese would launch a space shuttle type vehicle on a much upgraded long march rocket. But if you review the launch you will note that a lot of ice came of the longmarch as it took off. This could mean that the long march itself has little insulation. Could it launch a much heavier load than it currently does?

Im just trying to see what the Chinese capability is actually as there spoken aims and there actual capability cannot be taken as read. We know the Chinese are slow in launching but they make bigger steps than the the USSR and USA had done.

Will China go hell for leather and actually start designing a much heavier lifter than they currently have and for all intents have a similar launch capability as the USA plans with its new space initiave.

One thing that I do believe if there is a race to the Moon the USA will win

But China will still carry on as they are more into the long term view and a base on the Moon is on there long term plans.

Yes he may not have been handcuffed but he certainly was restrained and his arms where being held as he was being punched around the face.

From a political and local perspective this incident though is extremely bad. There is no trust in the New Orleans police which I had been told had a reputation for being one of the worst forces in the US. With the beliefs of the people from hurricane Katrina that it was the black minority that was left to the storms effects and now this it certainly does not do for inter racial harmony.

serves those smurfs right

Look at it from this way they are a completely patriachal society only one male has power and everyone does as he says and they want nothing to do with the rest of the world thinks. Im sure they are Al Qheada

BBC Mission fails

Hours after take of the ESA spacecraft Cryosat on a mission to observe the ever shrinking polar ice caps and to try to get knowledge as to why they shrink fell into the ocean. This officials believe was caused by a failure of the first two stages of the Russian rocket which used too much fuel and that the spacecraft was unable to gain enough altitude. The rocket used was a converted SS 19 ICBM now used as a satelite launcher.

Heh heh that makes a total of five that have made it.

only a 500% increase and a great boon for roboticists everywhere

There has been a major advance in the prevention of cancer in this case cervical cancer one of the most common killers of women and even when detected a major cause of surgery that leads to a much reduced quality of life. Most cervical cancer is due to a sexually transmitted virus and there is now a vaccine.

Within a year the vaccine will be available initially for young girls and then it will become more available to the general female population.

BBC article

Maybe we could sponsor the sharks

Then again the sharks are unlikely to eat them as a matter of professional courtesy  :cry:

It always comes down to whats under the bonet does it not, and cost. There have been a lot of credible designs for a SSTO but it is the engine that has been the sticking point. My own personal experience of a talk by its designer about the SABRE engines for the Hotol and there very tight mass fractions and just what sort of pressures and heats that would go into a flight makes me very sure that we will not have a SSTO for a long long time. We just dont have the cash to think about designing such a beast.

So we will have to go the way of TSTO at least until science catches up and we get Unobtanium that can make so powerful air breathing scramjets/rocket hybrids. At least with TSTO we can design the craft so that attaching the upper stage to the lower stage is a relatively easy procedure just needs some engineering work. Its not as if a TSTO will be the super speed airliner of the future as it will still be too small, though the lower stage has promise if adapted. Since this means the TSTO will be based at only certain locations then infrastucture to increase mating speed can be installed and the TSTO given guick turn around speeds. Especially the lower stage.

Next comes the need for a quickly checkable, safe and tough completely reusable heat shield for the upper stage of the TSTO. What would it take to make one of those.

Mars more geologically active than previously thought

Intersting if Mars has active geological forces this can help and hinder any mission to Mars. And the same for future colonisation

Consider the helps. The likehood of thermal spots on Mars is now increased as such there is more likely to be aquifers of liquid water and as such a power source(hydrothermal) and water easily available in large quantities. The prospects for finding life is also increased as there will be free water. Active geological zones allow research into the makeup of the planet as well as concentrate minerals and chemicals into more easily accesible ores and concentrated areas.

The hindrances are that with the possibility of Martian quakes building on Mars must take into account the possibility of buildings being damaged in such events but also there is one serious problem that occurs in quakes where there is a lot of permafrost. In a quake such permafrost can become liguified by the moving ground and buildings built above can then be sunk into the ground as if they where on quicksand. Designers of future bases and colonies will now have to ensure that there is limited perma frost under these structures. People on Mars will also have to be warned that if in a heavy vehicle and a quake occurs then they must abandon it so that there is no chance for them to be sunk with it should it occur

Probably not,

Why would ESA take on the ISS when it has not got any of its modules up in space and with the alterations that the initial planned columbus module had to do so that it would be launched by the shuttle basically means it cannot now be launched by Arianne. All that ESA really has got out of spending millions of Euros is a science module built and sitting gaining dust in a warehouse and a supply craft that may well not get a chance to be needed as it is to supply a much larger fully built station.

Without an access to the ISS that leaves ESA the rather unwilling position if NASA withdraws from the ISS of paying for an aging station that they cannot get access too except via the Russian and which as there whole science package is sitting on the ground does not do them any benefit. Added that the equipment up there is American and Russian it will mean they have no experience or knowledge of how to repair it. And NASA may well be bound by law not to give this information out so leaving an ISS waiting to have a small malfunction flare into a major problem.

So for ESA the ISS can only give them a major draw of funds, no principal science value and worst of all the probability of a political and public relations disaster.

No if the ISS is abandoned by NASA it will also likely happen as well by ESA and Russia will have it.

We are not asking them to do interpretation just standard surveys. Deploying an explosive charge uniformily is something that robots can do now very well look at the wheelbarrow class of land based anti ordinance robots or the use of UAVs which are completely unmanned and out of Human control. Especially the air force ones that are being used to bomb targets.

Recording what they pick up is impostant as well as quite a boring monotonous job.

Satelites from orbit will give us the place to check and short of sending people every time we can send a robot and it will simply photograph everything from standard reference points. These then can use Human asstes better in deciding what and how further investigation should proceed. If the Initial survey is promising then we can teleoperate the rover from the base and further research can be done.

The most boring part and one that we will not have the manpower for is to drive a robot to a site for its mission to start. We do not have the time or manpower to control each robot that is needed. If the robot can get itself there then we are saving prescious human time. This especially important for Missions to Mars but not necessarily so for the Moon