New Mars Forums

Actually, just grading it and then using the small rocks to make a rock road system would be adequate to serve the job that your talking about. You can go about 40 miles an hour or so on such a road. Every so often you could grade it or service that road or road system that you have. It makes a good hard surface to drive on without being overly labor intensive or material intensive to build or maintain. It also gives you a good foundation for the road your building.

If later on you want to pave that road, then just pour concrete over the top of that gravel road and the job done. But, this would be a much later project to do down the road some time.

Larry,

NASA sure is a jobs program, just like government financing of the roads system is a jobs program. Building city sewers and water system is also a jobs program. We also use those things after they been built, which is the best kind of jobs programs to have. So our jobs programs have two primary purposes:

1. To provide good paying jobs to the American People. NASA is a good way to use some of our surplus manufacturing in the car and use it to build the infrastructures in space that we need built, while maintaining those manufacturing jobs for Americans. That why I am against sport arenas being built by the city government for private benefit. There generating poor wages that are part time work and there being subsidized by the government to do that.

2. To build things, that we need to have built and  to maintain a modern society. Like infrastructure both down here and in space at the same time.

So you would Wal-Martize NASA? That cheaper is better and that we should out source it.  Where you drive the wages down or ship those jobs overseas, basically what there doing. These policies are bankrupting the United States and will ultimately destroy the United States. If this is what we are doing, then I am not interested in it now or ever.

Whether you like it or not, we need engineers to design those space ship or colonies on Mars. But, we also need to have a commitment to build those things and not just talk about it or have seminars about what we would like to have. We need to have a clear National Goal to do those things and not just talk about it. I have talked about building a City on Mars before and it will cost trillions of dollars to do it too. If we aren't going to create millions of jobs in the process, then why spend the money in trying to do it. Whether you like it or not, NASA has to be a jobs program and has to return some of those benefits back to the US Economy or there no reason to do it or for the Government to finance it. The NASA moon mission created 14 dollars for ever 1 dollar invested in it in business activities and technological spins off. If we are paying it, then we need to be the first ones in line for those government contracts to build that space hardware. The ones that finance it are the ones that get the first crack at those good contracts. That the way it works.

Larry,

First of all, the United States never committed it armed forces to do an all out invasion of Cuba. If the United States had launched an all out invasion of Cuba, I have no doubt that we could have succeeded in that invasion. Now there was an alliance between Cuba and USSR that would have caused a problem and almost started World War III between the United States and the USSR.

Neither of your assertions are true:

1. That Kennedy never denied the responsibility for his decisions. He only complained about getting bad advice and that he should have known better than to take that advice.

2. I never said that he was a puppet like George Bush is of Dick Cheney and those other Neo-Cons. Now George Bush is a puppet in every sense of the idea of what a puppet would be. But, that not so with John F. Kennedy and he even started shutting down some of there operation. One of those operation that Kennedy shut down was the Northwood operation. They were going to do a state sponsored terrorist operation by destroying a passenger liner with children on it and say that Castro did it. It was John F. Kennedy that shut it down and not too long after that, changed course of which way this country was going.

Go do a Google search on the Northwood and see what come up as your own independent search into things like this and don't take my word for it.

At present, I don't claim to like either party as far as there promoting the American System of Economic or the General Welfare as mentioned in the Preamble of the US Constitution. That why I qualified my statement by saying the last man that held the office of the Presidency that had a republican view of what he should do. I also did not say that he was perfect either or that he had it all together. Neither party as they currently are, are worth anything at all as far as I am concerned. They all need to be thrown out of there respective Parties and out of congress and we need to get new people that understand these Principle that the US Constitution are based on.

That where your wrong Tom!

The same faction that tried to thart the building of the American Rail Roads under a republican concept of government based General Welfare along with trying to start these wars, it the same faction that shut down what Kennedy wanted to do in space. This go to the moon was only part of what John F. Kennedy wanted to do in space and that other part of what he wanted to do was shut down by 1972 under Nixon. It was shut down, because under Nixon we went to a floating exchange rate Monetary policy and the end of the Brenton Wood Monetary policies. Money began to tighten up and those NASA future space projects and mission began to get slashed out of the budget, because now there too expensive to finance by the government of the United States.

Since they control the US Media, they started couching there question like this to get the answers they wanted to get:

Do you think that we should take care of the poor instead of wasting our money on these NASA projects like going to the Moon?

Which is a strange way to ask a question. But, that was the only way that they could get the answer that they wanted to get. At the time, most Americans were real excited about those Moon Mission and wanted to see more of those kinds of mission in the future. I was excited about it too and see more of those kinds of mission in the future. And go to Mars too? Why of course. Then they started asking those question on the US News Media to change public opinion to something more to there liking and away from that excitement of just gone to the moon and future space projects

Larry,

For an American President to be able to do some of things that we want to do in space as you would like to do. You first have to understand the power structure inside the United States and throughout the financial sector of the world and primarily in Europe with this control of the private banking. An American President would have to retake the Central Banking to bring it back under the control of the US Government again. Which would put his life on the line and might get him killed like it did for John F. Kennedy when he gave the Treasury Department the power to generate credit. It was withdrawn about two to three months after his death. But, assuming that you don't get assassinated by this power structure, then you will have control over the Central Banking under either the Treasury Department or a Third National Banking System. Under the Authority of the US Constitution, the President could then direct that credit that would be needed to rebuild the United States and could also direct some of the credit to finance a New National Space Goal as a National Policy. In that situation, you could do your own John F. Kennedy Apollo Mission that sent us to the Moon. Not only that, you could super size your National Space Goals Mission.

You would be able to set several National Space Goals.

For example:

1. You could speed up the current return to the Moon program

2. Development of a Scam Jet/rocket to Orbit configuration for maybe 20 to 30 people.

3. Develop nuclear power space of either or both fission or fusion for going into deep space between the Earth, Moon, Mars and the asteroids.

4. Permanent base on the Moon and/or Mars.

Then show how you intend to pay for it and how it will benefit the American people and make the offer to the rest of the world to also participate in this great and mighty project that we American are committing ourselves to.

Larry,

The main problem you have Commodore is that you don't know American History and nor do you know about the conflicting concepts of what government should be about and/or the conflicting concepts of who or what man is. When America has done great things for the American people and even exported those great things, then the Americans that are controlling the American Government generally have a republican concept of Government. But, when America has done terrible things that we should be ashamed of ourselves for, then we generally have had an Oligarchy or Imperial type thinker controlling the United States. The most resent of both types of thinkers inside the office of the American Presidency is John F. Kennedy and the Apollo Moon Project or the republican thinker. The other would Be George Bush or Dick Cheney and our invasion of Iraq, or the Oligarchical or imperial thinker. You can tell which one your dealing with by who is defending the Preamble of the US Constitution, will be the republican thinker and the one that rejects the Preamble of the US Constitution will be the Oligarchical or Imperial thinker. George Bush said the US Constitution is just a scrap of paper, so he is the Oligarchical or Imperial thinker. There is also a monetary policy between these two group too. Oligarchical or Imperial thinker wants a private banking system that they own and control and can squeeze the rest of humanity for there own benefit and to there hurt and even to there own destruction's. The republican thinker want a public banking system so the government can finance building public works projects to the good of mankind and promote the welfare of the public good. Sometimes this promoting the public good could be financing building hospitals and/or paying for health care. Another time, this promoting the public good could be building a new generation of rail system like upgrading the current rail system and adding a levitated rail system to the mex along with subway system. Next time it could be bring water into the desert like with NAWAPA project and nuclear power plants. Kennedy Apollo Moon Mission project was a republican concept of government too, so we turn to space and plan even bigger space projects to continue this republican concept of government

The true measure as to what appropriate is what in the general welfare and what isn't in the general welfare of the American people and the world at large.

So now you have to know the difference of what a republican concept of government is and what is an Oligarchical or Imperial concept of government.

Larry,

There are several reason for putting it in the air fifteen to twenty feet using cone system to level the rail automatically.

The Reason Are:

1. If you go with the wheeled version of the train kind of transportation, you will need grease for the bearings which you won't need for the levitated train system.
2. If you put the rails on the ground you will have to grade the Martian landscape to lay the track down on it.
3. You will have dust problems blowing across the track like a snow storm in the winter time and getting dust into the wheel bearings.
4. If we choose to go with a levitated train system on the ground, we will have to constantly level the tracks every day or so, so we can use our levitated trains to get back and forth. We go with a elevated rail system on towers sitting on self leveling cone system, we don't have that problem.
5. We go with a three railed levitated rail system, then we could design it to carry heavy loads too that we can't do with regular electric trains for the same job.
6. A levitated rail system that is over head on towers would be the easiest ones to build and to maintain with the minimum amount of labor to do it and give us the maximum amount of benefit for our effort that we could put together. If one or more of the rails do get damaged and needs to be replaced, go in there with an overhead crane and pull down the damaged rail and replace with a new rail and go on about our business.
7. Being able to go three or four hundred miles an hour is an added bonus which would be nice if we had to large human colonies 300 or 400 hundred mile apart. Travel time between those two human colonies would be one hour.

Larry,

Most of what you are being taught in school or colleges isn't really the American History that really happened, it was re-written to conform to the British interest inside the United States. Not only does it apply to the rail roads issue, but it also to the US Economic policies to line of with British interest too. But, as to who built the rail roads at the time of the transcontinental Rail road and before that time when they started building rail roads inside the United States. I have already mentioned that the transcontinental Rail Road was created by two Rail Road Companies that were created as an Act of Congress and signed into law by the then President of the United States. I have also mentioned that Lincoln when he was still in Illinois as a State Congressmen helped to build the rail road in Illinois using state bonds. Every Rail Road that was built during this time was either built by the US Government or the State Government and I mean every one was built with Federal or State Money and some of them were even run them for a time. There was another act of congress that created about 50 Rail Road before the Civil War happened to get things going. After the Civil War, the US Government was still sponsoring building rail roads, because of the economic benefit to the US Economy and the advancement of business activities to do business inside the United States. Those land grants to to the rail road by the US Government was to advance the building of those rail roads and to build towns and cities along those rail roads like what they did along the transcontinental Rail Road. That why you see so many towns and city that grew up along those rail roads before there were cars or buses.

As far as the Rail Road Man being the villain against the Farmer in your story is just a Hollywood Movie. We need to live in the real world instead of thinking of it as being in some Hollywood Movie idea of what happened in the old west. I am sure there were some fraud by those Rail Road Men, like there is fraud on almost everything else where there money, power or resources at stack, but that wasn't the normal situation. 

I got most of my information as to who built the rail roads up at the Lyndon Larouche site. I have also done some of my own investigation to check out what there saying about the rail roads to see if it true and it is. I also believe that we should re-regulate the rail roads and rebuild those rail roads as a national mission to rebuilding the physical infrastructure of the United States as a job creation process to re-vitalize the US Economy. That we should also build a national Amtrak Network System throughout the United States along with subways in every major city over 200,000 thousand people in the United States. We then bring these ideas of how we built the rail roads and re-vitalization of the current rail road system and the building of a new Amtrak Network with all the Subways Systems and we look out into space. We want to do the same kind of projecting into the future that Abraham Lincoln did when he heard about the Rail Road and what it did and started to be an advocate of the transcontinental Rail Road. It took thirty nine years to build it from when Abe Lincoln first heard about the rail road until the Utah where the Golden Spike was pounded into the last spot on the track. The space program will be a jobs programs that will create millions of new high paying jobs, besides developing new technologies and building the infrastructure. Our space program will be done the same way that Abe Lincoln built the rail roads and will actually just be a continuation of that process.

That why it important to know how the real a physical economy works and what real physical economy looks like and how to build real physical economy from scratch. Because, that exactly what we intend to do and so we need to know how to do it. Otherwise, we are just wasting our time and we will never see it happen.

Larry,

There more to it than just a name change From a Federal Reserve System to the Third National Bank or having the Treasury Department issue that credit with Treasury Notes. It who controlling the right to generate credit that I am interested in. In a Federal Reserve System, it a Quasi Private Banking System with very limited Government intervention. Actually, the Federal Reserve System is controlled by an international Private Banking System with most of it shares owned by European Private Banks. What we have is a private bank acting like a Central Bank of the United States with a Government Charter to promote the interest of other private banks.  The National Bank System or the Treasury Notes are completely and totally Federally owned Banking System or Credit Generated by the US Government. Both system or should I say all three system have to generate credit, but it who getting that credit and what there using it for that I am interested in. I the private Central Bank or the Federal Reserve System, that credit that they generated is loaned into the economy and then they charge interest for the rest of us to borrow there credit that they generated out of thin air. They basically enrich themselves at our expense by having that power to generate credit and then charge everybody else to use there credit. But, when the Federal Government has that power to generate credit, then they get first use of that newly generated credit. Of US Government past history, there were two forms or ways that the US Government generated credit. The first way was the First and Second National Bank System under Hamilton and the Treasury Notes under Lincoln, FDR and John F. Kennedy. Hamilton used that generated credit to finance the Build up of the United States. He had what he called self-extinguishing debt. It worked by giving it say a 20 year note to build some important infrastructure like say the Eire Canal or something like that, which was another government project. Instead of rolling it over like most debt is, it is aloud to disintegrate to Zero value and that the end of it. Then there is the Treasury note that Abraham Lincoln Generated which was what the Green Back Dollars was based on. It was a Treasury Note from the Treasury Department that was being used as money. When FDR needed Credit to build his projects, instead of going to those private bankers that would charge interest to loan FDR credit that they generated out of thin air, FDR generated his own credit by giving the Treasury Department the right to generate Credit. Those major projects that FDR built under his Administration were financed by Treasury Notes and Not Federal Reserve Notes, even though the Federal Reserve Act was signed in 1913 and this was after 1929 stock market crash when FDR became President of the United States.

You should learn American History!

Larry,

How do you build a physical economy?

The reason that I ask the question of how do you build a physical economy, is there are many people that misunderstand how the process takes place. I have gotten into discussion on both this board topics on this issue in other places. The problem that I run into the most, is that most people don't understand how economic process works or how to promote economic growth. The reason that it is important to us is, any space effort that we want to do in space, will have to deal with this economic issue and we can't just build it because we want to. I have read of using a lottery system or selling private or corporate bonds stocks to finance building such major projects like putting a colony on Mars. Other people say that it will be the secret hand of the market forces that will make a space colonization happen or it will be the private sector that make it happen.

Although there is buying and selling in the private sector is that the basses for setting up a space based economy or is there something missing that we have not come up with yet?

To answer these question, we are going to take a backward glance at the United States and the economic principle that created the modern country of the United States. We aren't going to go over everything that made the United States, but we will pick just a few things that happened, so you can see what economic principle that were function that caused it to happen. The US Economy is a mixture of private and government enterprises that make up the economy, but it is a government regulated economy system.

So how was the economy of the United States created?

I will dispense with talking about those colonies or the earlier days of just after the revolution days, because we will only get a futile argument and achieve absolutely nothing in our discussion. We are going to concentrate on three major projects that the US Government did to develop the United States over the course of 80 yeas or so and how that created a unified US Economy and made the United States an industrial power. Now there were private individuals, companies and bankers which were involved in this process, but it was primarily a government project that did it. Matter of fact, it was these government project that created most of the private sector such as rail road companies, the need manufacturing in the new towns they built in the area that they were developing.

The three projects that I have picked was the transcontinental Rail Road, the Aqueducts of Los Angeles and the projects of FDR four river projects of dams and rural electrification project.

The invention of the steam engine for transportation on tracks was invented in England in 1829, when Abraham Lincoln was twenty years old. In 1831 Abraham Lincoln is about twenty two or twenty three old, hear about the rail road and was told what it did and almost immediately Lincoln start yelling and campaigning for a transcontinental rail road to be built in the United States. At this point Abraham Lincoln had not seen one or ridden on one, but only heard about it and they were just starting to build rail roads in the east. Lincoln living in Illinois where he migrated of Kentucky from. Just so you know that Abraham Lincoln was one of the Champions of the transcontinental rail road before there was need to build one out west even. We were just starting to build rails in the east and still had no significant amounts of track laid at that time. So he goes to Springfield the capital of Illinois along with like minded people to start a rail road in Illinois and Lincoln also ran and won in the statehouse seat too to promote that effort. In a very shore period of time, Illinois rail road became the biggest rail road in North America and maybe even in the entire world.

Now lets fast forward thirty yeas.

It now 1861 and Abraham Lincoln is now President of the United States and he has a civil war to fight to save the Union from being resolved and the United States being destroyed. We finished the project in 1869 or eight years after it was enacted by congress into law. We still had four years of a Civil war to fight, but they were even then getting the process going to build the transcontinental rail road even then. This was one of the first acts as President of the United States that Lincoln did, was to put this resolution before the congress to take up the issue of building the transcontinental rail road as a needed resolution to save Union after the Civil War. Lincoln understood that if the United States was going to survive then we needed a nationwide transportation system to pull the United States back together again. It was Lincolns National Mission Statement of the 19th Century of building transcontinental rail road that was like the Kennedy National Mission Statement that sent us to the Moon in the 20th Century. By an act of congress, they created two quasi public or private rail roads the Union Pacific and Pacific Central rail road companies. One of those rail road is going to start at Sacramento California, which had just joined the Union. And the other Rail Road was going to start from Omaha, Nebraska which was still a territory and was still basically undeveloped territory itself on the western edge of development coming from the east side. To my knowledge, we didn't have a rail road to Omaha at that time. So there going to have to supply trains and tracks to the small town of Omaha which didn't obtain being a city until later, so they could make there drive westward to meet the other rail road coming east to meet them. The situation was even worse for the rail road coming out of Sacramento, California and going east to meet the rail road coming out of Omaha, Nebraska. The California Gold rush that brought those people into California happened in 1849 or eleven or twelve years before the act of Congress in 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War. San Francisco was the only place in California that you could actually start calling a city in California at all. Sacramento which is the Capital of California, wasn't much of anything at that time. California didn't have any industry as in manufacturing capabilities at all. So all the trains, rail cars, tracks had to be shipped around South American to California, up the Sacramento River to the town of Sacramento to make there run to the east. We have something like 1,500 to 2,000 miles between those two points with only one human habitat somewhere in the middle and that it. We have Salt Lake City, Utah which is somewhere about half way point about where those two rail roads meet. Other than that, there is absolutely nothing out there in the western two third of the western part of the United States. So they were building towns and city as they were moving both eastward and westward building the rail road to both support the building effort of the rail road and to be serviced by those same rail roads that were being built. Then they got a government loan of sixty million dollars for thirty year to maturity date loan to build that rail road. They paid about hundred and thirty million back to the US Government. The City of Denver in Colorado was one of the cities that grew up along this rail road and it currently has a population of about 600,000 population.

Without this rail road, the United State would not have been able to develop as a nation and this rail road didn't not build itself. It would not and nor could it have been built by the private sector of that time, because there were no people in the projected area of development that needed there services, transportation system wasn't needed local population, because there wasn't any there to use those services. Beside that, the rail roads that were used to build the transcontinental rail road didn't exist until there was an act of congress that create those rail roads to do that job. The US Government basically created the physical economy of most of the western states economy of the United States by the rail road they had built as an act in 1861 Transcontinental act at the beginning of the Civil War.

Enough of the rail roads, let go to the Aqueducts of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is currently the second biggest City in the United States and either the second or third larges port in regards to volume coming into or leaving the United States port. Los Angeles has neither a natural harbor nor a major river that can support a major city of that size. Matter of fact, Los Angeles was built in a desert with only a small river to supply 10,000 named the Los Angeles River a small river.

The question is, how did Los Angeles become the second largest City in America and have one of the biggest ports in America too, if it can't be supported by the resources close by?

Los Angeles the town of 10,000 sold bonds to build an aqueduct from the Owens valley river system to Los Angeles and it was built in the 1903 to 1913 period. Los Angeles also engaged in a process to dredge out a port, because the current lay of land to the sea did not allow for the ships to come into the land dock. I am not sure how much US Government help on this projects or how much the Army Corp. of Engineers played in helping them build both projects. Also the greening of Los Angeles and surrounding areas started during the Civil War too. The Governor that was a Democrat, but one loyal to the Union vs those Democrats that were succeeding from the Union at the time. So he was a one term governor, before he was replace with a Republican Governor. But, that Democratic Governor started a process of bringing plants into California from other parts of the world to start the transformation of Both California and the Los Angeles area greening process. This greening Los Angeles and the San Bernardino valley was a slow process and I have no doubt that there were other government projects of either Federal or State or City levels of government, beside the projects already mentioned.

Even during the 1920, the area around Los Angeles was still not very green as it is today because of the shortage of water, but FDR is just around the corner with his four river projects of Dams and Hydro-Electric power plants projects. We built the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and some of that water was pumped to Los Angeles in Aqueducts to supplement that lack of water they have in that area. There were other local dam projects that were either started by the Federal or State or the different city government around Los Angeles area either working together or independently of each other. One of the other rivers that was targeted was the Columbian River in Washington and Oregon area. That where many of the Aluminum manufactures located themselves, because they need lots water and power to make there Aluminum. Now they were private industries that made real products, but they located themselves around government projects of Dams and Hydro-Electric Power plants to make there Aluminum. They need lot of water and cheap power which they got around those government projects. The third river was the Tennessee river with the Tennessee Valley Authority being setup as a Federal Government Project that owned and operated by the Federal Government. Another series of Dams and Hydro-Electric power Plants and the rural electrification to the local farming area that transformed that area of the United States. Now we go to the fourth river the St. Lawrence River with there dams and Hydro-Electric power plants that supply power to these areas New York State, New York City, Pennsylvania and the New England States of the United States.

Now I am not saying that the US, State and City governments did everything and that the private sector can do nothing good or anything like that. But, they definitely played a major part in developing the US Economy in the past and are the only ones that could have played that roll to develop the United States. They also have to play a major roll in developing the United States in the future too and for the same reason that develop happened in the past, they will have to be involved in it. Other such major project to continue the greening of the American desert that the US Government should engage in would be to go back to the NAWAPA project which would be to bring down 10% of either or both the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers and then run it down the Rocky Mountain trench. It would look like a backward river going out to water the surrounding areas where it would flow. At the place where you lift the water up to flow in what would look like a backward river, you would have an amount of water that would be two to three times the average flow of the Mississippi River. So we are talking about a lot water to transform that desert. The more things change, the more they stay the same, because the United States needs a new rail system to replace that old system that we built century ago. Beside that, we need mass transit in most of our major cities and probably should build 70 mass transit in those cities too. We also need nuclear power plants and we need to develop fusion power for future energy needs, because fission power plants will be insufficient at some point in time. Most of the infrastructures in the United States is thirty year old or older, which means that it needs to be replaced, because it has reached point it has to be replaced. Our bridges will start collapsing. The water system isn’t capable to deliver clean water anymore, because the water system is compromised, it reached it useful life to deliver clean water to us.

Now what would all this cost?

Just to do minimum repair operation without building any new of aggressive programs for future development.

Oh, we would need two trillion dollars to repair the road system.
Maybe another trillion dollars to repair levees & dams system to protect city like New Orleans and other levees & dams for other cities that need them and repair of the lock system through out the American River system.
Then we have the rail road, power system, water departments, etc. maybe another trillion or two trillion dollars to rebuild or replace to bring it up to standard.
We are probably talking about five trillion dollars or so to just do the minimum that needs to be done to maintain a functional economy inside the United States. It will probably take us five to ten years to get it done.

But, if we do the kind of investment that I say needs to be done, then we are talking about, then we are looking at investing a whole lot more to get it done.

To do the NAWAPA project, it will probably cost one trillion dollars.
To build other water and dam projects or canal like making the Eire Canal deeper and wider will cost another trillion dollars or more.
To build the levitated rail system for Amtrak, will cost three trillions dollars.
To build the mass transit for those 70 Cities, will cost in the three trillion dollars range.
To develop fusion and build nuclear power plants to replace those old power plants and upgrade the US power grid will cost another three to four trillion dollars to build.
Then we need to start build City from scratch to go with that area that we built that backward river at, like they built towns and city to go along that rail road, which will cost several trillion more dollars.
Then I would like to add another one to two trillion dollars to building a City on Mars, just for good measure.

Oh, we are probably talking about twenty trillion dollars to do all this stuff in a thirty to forty year period.

So what is the private sector doing if the government is doing this?

Who do you think is building the levitated train system, and the subway system?
The private sector, that who.

Who do you think is building those nuclear power plants?
The private sector, that who.

The Army Corp of Engineers may do most of the Engineer work or surveying the what needs to get built, but they sub it out to the private sector to build it. That how it works in America when we are at our best when it comes to building something.

Questions or comments to my little piece here are welcome.

Larry,

That wouldn't work either for getting it into space or for using the shuttle tank for a space station. Trying to get that shuttle tank into orbit would take so much more fuel to do that, that you would not be able to use the cargo bay to carry anything into space. There is absolutely no way to use those External Tanks for building a space station in there current condition. You would have to cut holes in them and do other modification to them and then you would have structural problems. You would not have the radiation shielding that you would need once you had them built. Those tanks would deteriorate in space, especially the insulation that on them, which would add to the orbiting pieces of junk in space. So you would still have to overlay those tanks with other things once you had them where you wanted them, which would also be labor intensive and require other space launches to take up the material to use those tanks for that purpose. If you try to make those tanks dual purpose down here before you send them into space so you could use them for a space station, then those tanks would be twice as heavy or heavier and that would make it too heavy to get the shuttle off the ground. So we have a situation where we can't readily take up those tanks, we can't use them once there in space and we can't modify them for a dual purpose before we can get them into space.

If we were going to build a space station, we would be better off buying a few Bigelow space habitats and putting them together.

Larry,

You realize that your plan would cost 50 to 100 billion dollars to design and build. Other than that, I have no problem with your plan and it probably along the lines that we should be looking and what we should be trying to accomplish in those twenty four years too. But, if we intend to have a scamjet shuttle, we will need a much bigger space station with a quasi ship yard in the right orbit that we need to accomplish our intended goals. We would probably need 10 to 20 Saturn V or cargo shuttle launches to send up the space station and ship yard with all the equipment to make it operational. I was thinking using 10 to 14 Bigelow habitats in a circle when finished, will be able to hold between 100 to 200 people. We will need to be able to put up that many people to support both the lunar base and make our Mars launch manning the space station and running the ship yard. The deep space space ship needs to be a fission or fusion powered rocket. If it a fission powered craft, it will need to flip end over end to generate the effects of artificial gravity. If we are able to build a fusion powered craft by that time, then it will be powered space craft all the way to Mars. In either case, those space craft would have to dock with the space station to get provision to make the next trip to either the moon or Mars. Which means that we should discontinue the chemical rockets of going to the moon or Mars and use re-usable shuttle for moon too.

This is ultimately where your plan would have to go if we were to implement it. It would be a whole lot more expensive than the current moon project, but would also eventually replace the Orion Moon Mission space ship with these new space ship. Although it would cost more in the beginning build it, it would be cheaper to run it and to get more people with the resource into space after it been put into place. But, if this were to be done this, it would still be expensive to do it, but it would bring down going to Mars by 90%, because we have the infrastructure already in place to go all the way to Mars. The only thing that we would need then would the the lander, the Martian habitats, power stations, etc. to complete the job.

It would be nice, but I don't see it happening.

Larry,

Here my favorite nuclear power plant type. It the Pebble-bed Nuclear reactor. It a forth generation Nuclear power plant that can be built modally and assemble on site to cut cost and for faster manufacturing and assembly.

http://web.mit.edu/erc/spotlights/pp.html

http://web.mit.edu/pebble-bed/background.pdf

Larry,