New Mars Forums

SMART 1 has found a zone of perpetual light

This region measuring a few kilometres across appears to recieve perpetual sunlight making it an incredibly valuable area for an initial base. Especially with areas we believe to be perpetually dark in near proximity and indications of hydrogen deposits.

If I was an Evil genius with a mind to take over the world. Creating a modern day Boys from Brazil and a bunch of Hitler clones would not be the way to go. The likehood is that these Boys would be a product of there enviroment and as such not the supremely evil, utterly insane, incest ridden, Hitler that ruled Germany.

No artificial wombs are a serious boon to mankind as many women and Children die every year because we are at the upper limit of the possibility of having children. We have almost bred ourselves out of it. As long as we ensure that these artificial wombs are used with sense and children nurtured in the right way there will not be a problem.

Still back to my evil genius plan and that would be to create Humans who mature faster and have specific traits in them to make them better. You could even bring in genes from animals to "improve" your new genetic soldiers. Add a lot of conditioning and there one army of clone troopers.

Hah hah hah and im off to skulk in my hidden secret lair hah hah hah

On this side of the pond and with the Mayors order to evacuate everybody it leaves us the question what will the USA do with a badly damaged city with a lot of buildings needing to be torn down and replaced.

Why

The reality of floods are that the water is a disgusting mixture of everything from sewer water to gasoline to all the biological and chemical contaminants that the water covers. This will now be embedded into the woodwork of any building and to be coating any spaces inside those buildings. This in effect means that people cannot stay in those buildings until they are completely decontaminated, effected woodwork and plaster replaced and the all electrical wiring and water systems done too.

New Orleans is a city where the choice is A) abandon the city and leave it fenced of or B) Flatten a large part of it and rebuild and keep the buildings that are truly important the rest take the cheapest and best option. The bulldozer and entire new piping and electrical infrastructure.

Can the USA afford to rebuild a whole city - Doubtful will almost certainly require Trillions of investment. Many of the worst hit areas ie the poor areas had no insurance. Certainly whatever happens this will be the single biggest insurance payout ever and is likely to bankrupt companies heavily involved. There is also the possibility that the energy and drive to rebuild such a city and make it safe may spur the USA economy and actually bring some good.

Is rebuilding New Orleans a good idea - New Orleans was allways at threat from the changes in climate and increased storms. Rebuild New Orleans and you may well have to do it again and again. Then again there is nothing to stop New Orleans being built a bit further inland and a lot more impressive defences be built at the same time as the city is being rebuilt.

What is to happen to the people - Many will move away from the city though a lot will wish to return. But for a long time the city that was New Orleans and its culture will not exist.

He always has been Pro space. Was he not involved in a plan to create a series of cyclers so that large missions and transportations can be done to Mars.

Then again his statement is correct my calculator now has more power than the computer that was on the LEM. Its just there is not enough will to do is there.

all I can say is great and the only other tropical storm is unlikely to head towards land either.

Still more time for storms to develop but it is likely that the very high water tempatures that exist in the gulf of Mexico will start to cool soon, more good news.

The Mars Global surveyor has had a major computer failure and has shut down to safe mode. The main computer is not functioning and the secondary has not the capacity to carry the mission on.

BBC Article

They could well be springs to absorb shocks on landing.

Another option is that they are a mechanical means to give a guick leap before the main thrust happens so evading damage from dust blasted up by the rocket. If they are such a mechanical means then they could also be for a limited short range movement basically an ability to hop to interesting features instead of having to carry a drive train and wheels.

And they could be both. But it really is a bad picture and does not give too much away pity. On a side note I did a bit of work on a plan for a robot that would hop using small explosions of hydrocarbons. Called it the flea and I worked it out that it would have a decent speed when fully going. Just couldnt really work out a way for it to stop.

Sorry publiusr but I cannot agree with you at all the "penguin" as a series of probes and the idea behind them are an excellent idea. When we go back to the Moon one of the most important things that needs to be done is to find specific minerals and there locations. Ilmenite a lunar mineral is important to us as it will provide not only building materials but also air in which to breathe and to expand our habitation.

But if we also are looking for PGMs then we need to be able to get a lot of essentially poorly mapped lunar surface ( + or - 50km) covered and quickly explored. This will give us the best places to look for what the signs of the minerals we want are located. The most impressively travelled probes ever on a planetary surface where the Lunkhod series of the USSRs they travelled about 17km and 21km respectively though they did not have the science potential that the Mars rovers now have. Penguin class of robotic rovers would give the opportunity to map, explore and locate good sites for further exploration quickly.

So is it a toy, NO is it deserving of file 13, NO. What it actually does is improve and enhance the future missions to the Moon.

Hurricane Katrina has put out of commision a total of 9 refineries. 1 will hopefully be back on line this weekend but the other 8 need the power infrastructure and damage done to be sorted first.

Even with the 500 k gallons released from the USA oil emergency supply there is likely to be little relief as this is crude oil released and there is little capacity to refine it.

But the good news is that in Europe where there is spare refinery capacity the refineries have gone to full production and over 20 tankers have been chartered to move this refined petrol to the USA. Also unlike in the USA the EU keeps an emergency reserve of already refined petrol EU leaders are likely to announce tommorrow that this reserve will be used to provide more fuel to the USA. The problem is that this fuel is unlikely to make any dent in the USA's problem until late next week.

Seen it myself and a very intresting concept. Some problems though with the prototype in that it relies on GPS for navigation and of course there is the possibility of rough landings/flights. But still a very interesting concept and I wonder what it would take to make a mineral survey version

We are actually in a strange position when it comes down to pollution and its effects.

Take for example the aerosols that are blamed for the creation of the hole that is formed at the south atlantic and increasingly the North Pole too. So we can reduce there intensity and hopefully the O3 holes will disapear.

But what those aerosols and extra carbon in the atmosphere are also doing is protecting the people of Earth. There is a thing called Global dimming and it is recognised and is being recorded as increasing each year.

Global dimming is where particulates thrown into the atmosphere and created by the transport of Aircraft reflect some of the sunlight that is hitting the Earth and sends it back into space. What this means is that though Global warming is bad this global dimming actually stops some of the worst effects of the heat increase. But like everything it has a down side too this being that plantlife are not getting as much light as they used too and so harvests are reduced. Less moisture is being evaporated so less rain falls so crops fail.

We are playing with a very big machine that is our Earth and we do not know what we are doing nor do we know how to stop. Would it be ironic that we can reduce the amount of carbon and aerosols into our atmosphere and end up getting a lot hotter world as this truly artificial protection is removed.

Right Hurricane Katrina is finished and now comes the cleanup. The problem for the USA is that there is a prediction that up to FOUR more hurricanes can hit the USA in the time left of the season. And sitting in the Atlantic right now is a depression that could follow up to Katrina. It is not the Atlantic though that is the problem it is the warm water and high pressure of the Gulf region.

Lets hope we do not get a repeat of Katrina this year but unfortunatly the likehood is quite high.