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Come on Josh, the US cannot redraw 200 000 men so easily.
But I am very afraid that if there is no war, all what has already be done and said will be enough to feed a global anti-americanism stronger than ever and this for a long time.
Actually, to regain a little bit of international consideration, the US now NEED to go to war more than before, they can remove Saddam Hussein from his post and install a forced democracy, "discover" some mass destruction weapons
to be able to tell the french "see ! he had mass destruction weapons, you are ####### as usual", distribute some McDonald rations to the starving civilian population etc, everything to get some credit back.
So now the situation is inverted, if the US redraw, it's not good on the long term for them, if they go to war they can still control the situation and play the good guys.
I don't know anymore, the situation has been too far. It seems that a war is only a small addition to the ineluctable.
Maybe G. Bush has read the Book of revelation and Nostradamus and believes he is the hero of the novel.
Clark,
The main nuclear problem is China. US can't do nothing about it if they get nervous. Even in the case where there is no war in Irak, It seems to me that a crisis can be triggered by the current India/Pakistan problem.
I don't know why but everybody is nervous those days. We have never been in a worst situation since 1939:
Israel/Palestinian, the worst IMO
North Corea/US allied
India/Pakistan
China is quiet as long as the US don't bother them to much,
And the Islamic thread is expanding world wide. Another big attentat in the US and nobody can support peace anymore.
I probably forgot some. It's really time to think about terraforming Mars.
Hi all,
This is the french speaking. This is going to be right ? the war, no matter what.
50 years ago, french believed in a pacific resolution of the european crisis and they payed for it by preparing the war too late and loosing it: do the french have to be guilty to believe that peace and reason should always prevail ? anyway, as 50 years ago, I think we gonna be wrong.
At this point anyway, does it make a difference ?
George Bush, with its politic inspired by God, according to himself, has settled a long term hatred or at least incomprehension, against the US in the thirld world and many european nations. War or no War, that gonna be like that.
Now, how the US are going to deal with this situation ?
Bush considers the whole world EVIL (except UK, Spain, Portugal, Ouganda, because of course Ouganda cares a lot about Irak...this is just a big joke). And the whole world consider Bush and the US citizens EVIL. Congratulation. Now every US citizen is a target outside its country. Lets face it, the next vacation spot for the US are going to be reduced:
France, hmmmm, at best you gonna have to wait 2 hours at a cafe before you can be served, and the french babes won't smile anymore.
Germany, German are organized people, they gonna assigned the polizei to protect the tourists, so dont' worry about that guy following you, it's just a policeman for your protection.
The tropics for diving, well this is already reduced, nothing changes here.
What's left are the pubs and restaurant in England, don't go to Spain and Italy, they say they support the US, but can you trust them ?
The war gonna be 2 weeks I've heard, allright, lets watch this on CNN.
France, Russia, and China are a******s. We have provided clear evidence that Iraq has not disarmed, and yet they sit there with their vetos and oppose us still. Just because the nations still oppose our action doesn't mean Iraq hasn't really disarmed.
I have two jokes:
Why doesn't EuroDisney in Paris use fireworks during the grand finale at the end of the day?
*The French keep surrendering!
!
How do you call 100.000 french with their hands up ?
The french army !
very funny, OK, I am french and I'm going to explain the french side a little bit. I am not into politic but I think I undertstand what's happening. There is two big things.
First, this has nothing to do with the proofs of mass destruction. Everybody knows that if Sadam could, it would make mass destruction weapons and he probably has some, as stated by Powell.
Everybody knows also that he is a bad guy, namely a dictator, while not much worst than other dictators in the world. He governs probably with a bunch of bad guys like him. Everybody would like to see him and his gang leaving for Irak to become a democracy, France and Germany included. China I am less sure.
The problem is that the all Iraki's population is taken in hostage. That's your fault guys ! CNN and other american channels don't stop to show the mighty US army and it's 100 years of technological advancement and how useless it is to fight the US army. Like for the borgs, resistance is futile. Example: missiles going through 100 feet of concrete etc. So the Iraki's army commanders just watch the show and decide that the safest place to place an antiaircraft battery is on top of a kid school or of an hospital for elderly. What a surprise.
American and British say it's allright to go through the hostages with the entire US army. They call it war casualties.
The french and german say don't shot through the hostages.
Personnaly, I support the idea of commandos targeting Sadam and not the entire population. But of course, that's a bit late now. The show must go on. If you endorse the incomming massacrers of civilian, good. I don't.
The second point, why all that mess happens, is just because it is a reaction against the american imperialism, globally. An imperialist country, like the empire of star wars, try to impose its decisions to other countries by force. About Irak, Bush perfectly fits that definition. I am glad to be a rebel I tell you.
I also want to say that if the US were so sure to be in their good right, they would probably already be in bussiness. But they don't, instead, they try to get international support, like if they wanted to dilute the incoming civilian casualty responsabilty and the associated guiltyness. When you are right, you are not afraid to act of your own and you don't care if other people are wrong in their opinion.
Maybe the french are wrong after all, Maybe they are all fags wetting their pants when they see an iraky soldier. That's might be the only reason why they don't want to go to war. So, go ahead, take full responsability of your action and of the governement that you have elected and lets go !
Or maybe the french are your only good friends, because they don't want you to make the first biggest mistake of this century, while other "real only friends" push you blindly or just don't care of you and what you do.
For the Mars shuttle, have you considered deploying a large wing-shaped parachute? A parachute would probably be easier to engineer then the other options, and it should provide a lot more stability.
absolutely Euler, the hang glider, a wing like parachute. I think it would be an efficient and simple solution.
A retractable tri-plan could be another possibility maybe. Very compact, strong airframe, but I don't know if aeronautic enginneers ever considered this option. For example, what happen if the triplans from each wing don't deploy exactly at the same moment, the whole aircarft would be destabilized because of the sudden increase of lift from one side and might crash. It seems risky.
Maybe I should try render in 3d boths design to be more clear...
Hi all,
one of my hobby is to design Mars related 3d pictures, posted at
http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?B … t=dickbill
so, I have a Mars shuttle with delta wings. I want it to glide and land on a martian aifield llike any good shuttle should. The wing's surface in space, enough for aerobracking is too small for gliding, what do you suggest to increase the wing surface:
1) simple adaptative wings, but I don't see how a 22 increase in surface can be achieved by this technique. The shuttle wing span would need a huge, destabiling, increased.
2) biplan then triplan wings, included in the main wing structure, deploy when the speed allows.
3) what about a hang glider wing included in the shuttle piggybacked and deployed at low speed. With a light kevlar carbon structure, such a hang glider could be big enough to provide enough lift for the shuttle to fly.
4) I have the same kind of question for a nuclear powered jet martian aircraft (U2 like). A very light nuclear reactor would heat compressed martian air. So it's nuclear reactor propulsed. does it make sense ?
what else alternatively given that solar doesn't not provide enough power for this kind of aircraft.
thanks for your comments, I don't want to waste time to design 3d objects which don't make at least a little bit of sense.
hmmm, nuclear for lift off... well if you are sure it's safe.
I support nuclear in space but I think that to add safety to the process, the heavy nuclar reactor could be bring in space empty, without any uranium, and the uranium could be bring separatly to the reactor, in a special container designed to withstand the worst acccident.
I have to say that the prospect of nuclear in space, like the project prometheus, is amazing of possibilities. I even wonder why it has never been done before, since a NERVA reactor was already operational 30 years ago. Good luck for NASA and you guys aeronautic engineers. I hope to see a beautiful nuclear engine soon, flying over Mars. I think it's a good way to spend taxes that to develop such new technologies.
basic question probably but just to be sure: a nuclear engine is designed to be used only once in space, right ? not for lift off.
KDM the conquest of space does not worth life, at least not anymore. The time for superhero enduring 50 g at launch is over. We should not conquer space anymore, now we should explore and exploit space, and this is a job for Mr everybody (almost) and private initiatives.
Already, private compagnies can buy launchers to launch their telecom satellites. I am pretty sure that if a safe Heavy laucher like shuttle C was commercially available, the space exploitation would be much more advanced.
Rob, I understand that in 50 years the ISS might be obsolete, and your point for a new station built from scratch is pertinent. But then what to do with the ISS, send it in the pacific ocean like MIR ?
I hope that some elements can be recovered, if not the most of the station, and why not, be used for a future Mars station.
By the way, how long the ISS is supposed to stay (i mean being used) on earth orbit, 50 years, more ?
Do the metallic elements can wisthand so long ?
Can the ISS expand forverer with new elements ?
But you all agree that the ISS, in concept, with the help of a propulsion system, could be sent orbiting Mars ?
It doesn't need to be inhabited to do the trip. But once there, it could serve as a docking station for earth incomming ships as well as local Mars shuttles. It would greatly facilitate the Mars exploration.
maybe the Mars society could buy the ISS, OK, say the price is 200 billions $, with 100.000 Mars society members worldwide each giving 2000 $ every year, it will take 1000 years only to buy the ISS ! we should start now.
Hi all,
In the event that the ISS costs really to much for the returned benefits, even in the future, and could be replaced by a MIR-like automatic station, is that possible to add a propulsif nuclear reactor to the ISS and relocate the ISS to a Mars orbit ? or just to transform the ISS in a space ship ?
The ISS orbiting Mars ! that would be great. I am talking in the far future of course, like in 40/50 years. That would still be better than to burn the ISS in the atmosphere like for MIR.
I hope Shaun is right, that we can find one day dormant organisms on Mars. And in such a case, it would be interesting to integrate a little of their genome in ours, to make the incomming humans more martians, if it is proven that they are really martian, because now the frontier between earth and Mars becomes fuzzy in terms of who comes from where first.
About that theory of panspermy, the most intersting point is that the first forms of life on earth are precisely impossible to find on earth because of the tectonic subduction or crust melting, but then we should expect to find them in meteorites, either on the moon, Mars or just in space. It would be so interesting to find those early putative RNA replicators, Haldane coacervats, whatever they are, frozen in space waiting for us.
Terrible, it's now time for NASA to separate the crew-only shuttle bussiness, which should be better than 98% reliability from the payload shuttle bussiness.
That means coming back to X38 like projects quickly, and so it means a renewal of the space shuttle fleet.
In my opinion, a smaller but stronger framed shuttle can be designed, allowing crews to access low orbit safer than the current 100 tons shuttle.
Shaun, life is difficult to kill, but it's possible. It has been said that in its early times, just after the earth surface was cool enough to sustain life, life happened on earth, maybe 3.8 billions earth ago (stromatolith fossils). Earlier than that, the first living "things" on earth would have been most likely sterilized by the meteoritic bombardment.
beside that, I've also read that some forms of life on earth are so exotic that some people consider them as originally martian. Like Deinococus radiadurans which is able to whistand thousands of time more radiation than we can in resealing its broken pieces of DNA.
Because, what the point for this bacteria to resist a radiation level that doesn't exist on earth ? Biologist say that actually it's a resistance to intense dehydratation or oxydation, which break the DNA strands as well as radiations...but earth is a pretty wet planet... so Deinococus radiodurans ability to resist radiations might as well be usefull on Mars, where radiation are very intense. Against that martian origin is the fact that the genome of this bacteria is very similar to other procaryotic genome. Science fiction maybe, but it's funny to mention that story.
"i believe there is life on Mars"
well, it's gonna be like in the Kim SR trilogy, until the last rock of the last crater or volvanic vent is turned upside down and scanned, there will be always someone to claim that life is somewhere on Mars.
I have to say however, that if the nanobacteria found in meteorit AHL 84001 are really nanobacteria, then the bacterial life was pretty abundant long time ago, as we don't expect that the impactor which delivered the ALH meteorit precisely felt on the only 'bacterial" spot on Mars. In this case it should be pretty easy to find other nanobacterial traces on MArs...but who knows, maybe this impactor actually felt on the only attempt for life to arise on MArs, sterilizing the first and last Martian bacteria and sending the microfossills to Earth, as a postalcard.
Hi,
If surface area has to be 55 times bigger on Mars, then Mars gliders won't be usuable. But what about multi wing design. You remember the first world war fighters aircraft. They had 2 or sometimes 3 superimposed wing. I think the Red Baron had a three wings fighter, the smaller wing being the lowest. The very first aircraft, in the 1905 years, had even 4 wings. Maybe that design would do better than a glider with a span of 60 meters, very difficult to control during flight and with a very low manoeuvrability.
The problem with life on MArs is that you can never be sure there is no life, or fossiled life, somewhere, deep there, or if not there then somewhere else. Until you lift the last stone of the last crater or gullies, you can never be sure.
Life could have emerged for a moment in a specific hotspring 4 billions years ago and be swept out by an impactor 2 seconds after.
In 200 hundreds years there will still guys looking for those traces maybe.
So, don't try to prove the unprovable at all cost. Start terraforming to bring real life ASAP.
Anyway, as it has been said in this forum, terraforming starts as soon the first living organism lands on Mars, it might be already there, below a viking lander, waiting for some warming...
Hi all,
My wishes for 2003:
Quickly remove Sadam Hussein and his staff, son etc, from power. But for that, don't make a war with thousands of civilian casualties which will discredit US and UK and ultimately just make the arabs more and more crazy against occident.
That's a job for some hundreds of smart and fast commados and helicopters. I'm sure they feel trained for that job. 007 alone can do that, I saw the movie.
Do it quickly, why not now ?, then put Saddam in Jail, don't kill him, that would just mess even more.
Once Sadam is in jail, CNN will find other yummy topics for its perpetual show ( I saw they like the cloning stuff and make fun with the crazy french guru, they can make good money with that story too, and it's much more funny, everybody like the Rael's "captain Galactica" outfit ).
And then, at least, we can talk about WHAT REALLY MATTERS: MAAAAARRRRRRRSSSSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And by the way, dismiss Coffee MiamMiam, the UN president. He is incompetent, he discredits the UN work, he has been himself involved in the "Hutu/Tutsi massacer" scandal and did nothing. I remind you the story: the canadian general chief of the UN troops in place saw the forthcoming genocide, warn the UN president Coffee Miammiam about the imminent disaster and.... Coffee did nothing. After that, Coffee was looking for tons of excuses to explain his inaction.
The truth is that if only a couple of UN troops had just press the trigger of their guns to the sky, even with WHITE BULLETS, that would have been enough to save hundreds of thousands of life !
Coffee, please, dismiss, (after that we can check your bank account number, of course)
Other threads, very different:
Is the martian soil electrostatically charged ? If this is the case, what about using a pure electrostatic "levitation" over the charged soil.
Also, what about a magnetohydrodynamic device. First, ionise the ambiant "air" (but can it be ionized easily = subtopic) and use a strong magnetic field to "levitate" the engine.
speculations again...
Hi all,
interesting that windsurfer. Of course the wind can produce electricity, windmills and so on.
Other question: is the martian dust completely oxydized or could it burn in presence of strong oxydizers. The soil contains ice at 3 or 4 feet deep right ?. If that ice is extracted and melted, how would it react with the dust ? Can we expect some strong exothermic reaction ?
Then, the dust and the ice could be the base for a basic thermic martian engine...just speculations here.
For example, a simple search with "coriolis + artificial gravity" leads to alsmost 40 published paper, included this one that I copied the abstract below. It says that human could endure until 7 rpm. That absolutely great ! no need to tethered spaceships anymore, a 30 meters radius torus rotating at 4 rpm provides 0.5 g. (cf that site:
http://www.labcentrifuge.com/gforce5.ht … ce5.html.)
I think a torus of 30 meters radius is an acceptable structure in a spaceship, right ?
no comment ?
"J Neurosci Res 2000 Oct 15;62(2):169-76
Artificial gravity as a countermeasure in long-duration space flight.
Lackner JR, DiZio P.Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory, Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham,Massachusetts 02454, USA. Lackner@brandeis.edu
Long-duration exposure to weightlessness results in bone demineralization, muscle atrophy, cardiovascular deconditioning,altered sensory-motor control, and central nervous system reorganizations. Exercise countermeasures and body loading methods so far employed have failed to prevent these changes. A human mission to Mars might last 2 or 3 years and without effective countermeasures could result in dangerous levels of bone and muscle loss. Artificial gravity generated by rotation of an entire space vehicle or of an inner chamber could be used to prevent structural changes. Some of the physical characteristics of rotating environments are outlined along with their implications for human performance. Artificial gravity is the centripetal force generated in a rotating vehicle and is proportional to the product of the square of angular velocity and the radius of rotation. Thus, for a particular g-level, there is a tradeoff between velocity of rotation and radius. Increased radius is vastly more expensive to achieve than velocity, so it is important to know the highest rotation rates to which humans can adapt. Early studies suggested that 3 rpm might be the upper limit because movement control and orientation were disrupted at higher velocities and motion sickness and chronic fatigue were persistent problems. Recent studies, however, are showing that, if the terminal velocity is achieved over a series of gradual steps and many body movements are made at each dwell velocity, then full adaptation of head, arm, and leg movements is possible. Rotation rates as high as 7.5-10 rpm are likely feasible...."
etc
still nobody to describe the new Homo Sapiens Sapiens Marineris of his dream ? I am disapointed.
Use that web site to querry informations :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer … ?db=PubMed
It's PUBMed, the nec plus ultra database in the field of medicine/biology etc, even applied to space biology,medicine or chemistry.
Enter any key word in the search field, like "Mars" or "Coriolis + low gravity" etc, anything you like to think about.
Copy the abstract and reference in the forum and after that, start a great discussion about biology on Mars !!!
ka !
dickbill: On the contrary: Dead comets--easier to reach, energywise, than the Moon--populate space between the orbits of Venus and Earth, above and below the ecliptic plane, which are not easily observable from Earth due to the Sun's glare. "Earth-crossing" was not what I meant, but the name of the above-mention comet (and asteroid) population escapes me (Amour?). Anyway, how about discussing this further?
dicktice,
1) how could we catch a comet and put it in orbit, low earth orbit close to the ISS being the best for convenience.
2) Would a 10km icy comet core stay stable in that position without desintegrating ?
3) would it be not better to keep the comet in its position, wherever it is, and extract/hydrolyze the water IN SITU, then send the inflatable tanks filled with H2/O2 back to Earth ?
,Dec. 19 2002,15:14
Gee, I like the idea of an ice-ship of sorts, which could (1) shield you from solar flares (2) supply hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis from low-voltage thermoelectric generation (3) onboard water. No, seriously, the mind boggles at your idea. And, where to obtain the water: Why, from dead comets in Earth-crossing orbits, of course--and a good thing too, since we'd better locate and go get them...before they get us!
well, comets are not so close even when they cross our orbit. The closest source of water after earth is on the moon, frozen in the craters in the poles.
Do anybody know if there is other potential propellant in the moon, it doesn't have to be necesseraly water.