New Mars Forums

At least I can argue my case based on the relevant literature, as opposed to stills from Star Trek!
Mars lovers in all countries — Unite!

Void -OK on your ASPAC idea (as much as I hate the TPP initiative - perhaps that's the way things are going).

But the trouble for proud Americans with this idea is that China is likely to throw the most money on it, they may well be the ones manufacturing most of the hardware and they may possibly expect to take a lead as a result.
Can you live with that? Can the US?

Can China go it alone?  They did do their own space flight.... Maybe they can go to the Moon, as a "practice run" of a manned landing first, which would take them up to the same level of experience that the US has.

I don't think Russia could justify to its citizens, the expenditure of a Russian led Mars mission. So I don't think they will do it, at least not alone and within 15 years or so. Putin delivers mostly what the population wants - that's why he's so popular. He would not rock the boat with something as risky as Mars. There are plenty of cool prestige projects that need sorting internally in Russia that have more practical meaning than Mars. Russia has a lot of things going for it, but their plans for improving the country will take a couple of decades to bear fruit, assuming they work in the first place.
Possibly, Russia would consider a joint effort with China.

China is not a democracy and would not have to answer questions to voters about why they are spending billions on a Mars mission while people live in poverty.

The ESA - forget it, no. They wouldn't even be able to decide what language to speak on the mission, and the EU would be lucky to even survive another 15 years.

So my personal conclusion is that China is our best bet for a Mars mission. Perhaps with additional sponsoring from exposure-hungry tech companies with lots of spare cash. let's say, Google, Apple and some Asian technical company.

Overall I don't feel very optimistic right now. It feels like there's always something standing in the way for Mars.
Mars One seems to be dismissed by everyone remotely serious.

Don't know if anyone's read the book? I read it earlier this year...
It's interesting from the Mars perspective, but the quality of writing is square as can be. The guy is literally devoid of feelings, and because he's alone on Mars, the only human interaction is between the people on Earth.

I don't remember anything about NASA proposing to simply leave the guy to die on Mars, in the interest of not damaging the reputation of the space program. Perhaps it was added to make the film more dramatic.

Also, I had the same view of this book as I have of American action films where the hero is unbelievably lucky, has absolutely no inhibitions and pulls crazy stunts which wouldn't work in reality. There was too much of that in the book. Also the "McGyver" stuff - the guy was a living encyclopedia of how to jerry-rig absolutely anything. He's supposed to be a botanist, but he is performing repairs and modifications on the level of a top class engineer and mechanic.

I liked the concept though - it was a cool idea. But I thought it was too much macho, superhero stunts in it, to feel realistic.

Why go to space to stay at the Mariott.....
Plus, in order for it to look like that, it woud need artificial gravity!

As for lack of motivation and passion for Mars among Americans... Yes - because I Americans dreams are more about getting rich!  People in Russia love space, there is still a big excitement about it that I think is less prevalent in the US. I think there is a good chance that Russia gets back in the game. (Whether it can achieve results is another story! )

My outlook on the future of the US is negative. I think that country is going down the drain and that it won't be able to finance or commit to a project of the magnitude of going to Mars.

My guess of who goes to Mars, is an ambitious coalition of "newer" players on the political arena who want to prove something to their own citizens and the world. I.e.

—China
—Iran  (loves to show off technical skills and has potential to get very rich due to oil)
—Australia
—EU (if it survives the current crisis)
—Possibly Russia (once it's out of the current pinch and reasonably on top of domestic problems)
—Possibly various Asian tiger countries contributers.

I think the US lacks the vision or cohesiveness to pull it off. The US is driven by large corporation and an interest in quick profits. Mars isn't amenable to that. It would initially simply be about science, human curioosity and prestige.

I don't think anything of interest for Mars will come out of the Middle East, Latin America or Africa.

Another thing that speaks against the US are the frequent leadership changes.

Ambitious projects needs more stability and ideology to complete, than the US environment offers.

China's government is stable - they could commit to something long term and see it through.
Russia too, although Lord knows what will happen when Putin retires in the 2020s. Stability probably depends on whether a new strong leader will emerge on the scene.

Possibly nothing can happen at all, as there won't be enough space capable countries that are prepared to work with each other.

Perhaps corporations will play a larger role than space in the future, and someone like Google will become to first to go to space!

Well it seems the drop in Oil price, and to some degree possibly sanctions put stop to Russia's latest space plans.

What a shame! Always something to derail things...   

I work in IT - setting up a forum is not really that difficult anymore. I did for another topic - in fact, it's a lot of fun to design and get the community started.

I am guessing that for this forum, the issue is that the owner hasn't found a good way to migrate the old posts to a more stable platform. Understandable that he/she wants to hang on to the material since there are some top class posts here. Information that it would be practically criminal to lose.

Another issue is time. Somebody who works full time and /or has a family may struggle to find the time to do maintenance and build up the community through regular participation.
Perhaps it would make sense to have an admin team, so that there are always a few backup people to fill in, as people's avaialbility go up and down.

Personally I much prefer forums of this type over Facebook, twitter etc.

1) Anything you write on Facebook is snooped on by NSA, GCHQ and others. If they wanted, they could build up a profile on you. On a forum, you can choose to access with a proxy and don't give up identifying information, thereby staying anonymous. People who may have inside information are more likely to share it. Inhibitions go away.

2) On Facebook people self censor, or try to seem smarter than they are when posting against their real life identities. 

3) Perhaps you don't want all your friends to know that you are a space-geek!

4) The format of traditional forums are more inclusive, open, efficient and easier to access than the same information on Facebook. The information can be tagged and better organised.

Traditional forums are better and I hope they will not be replaced by dumbed down social media.

There must be some desalination treatment (pills) that can be routinely administered to humans, if it should turn out that there is an unhealthy buildup of salt in the body of individuals who live in lower gravity environments..
There is probably already some illness or another that leads to an unhealthy build-up of salts in the body.
A physician would no doubt know...

Perhaps nobody has been exposed long enough to spae conditions for research to look into this.
The person who spent the longest in space was a Russian, at the ISS.
I assume he's been thoroughly studied. Would be interesting to read up on what they found.

(It's true that saunas drive out a bit of salt (and other junk) from the body, but possibly not in sufficient quantities to be useful (?) It works for minor stuff though. I once managed to clear my body of any trace of something I'd smoked the day before, by doing an extremely long run, drinking some vinegar (!!!) and then spending 2 hours in the sauna. Traditional boarding school cure.
A bit hard to imagine a sauna on Mars - couldn't exactly be a traditional one...)

In sci-fi books, it seems to be common to assume that the body takes on different characteristics, for people who grow up in lower gravity. I.e. Mars trilogy and Expanse series.
But are they guessing or basing it on scientifical data + projections?

Another thing to consider is: These people will never be exposed to sunlight on their skin. That is needed to produce Vitamin D. Without it, people get sick and depressed. It's already a problem for black people in Northern climates, like Scandinavia. Their skin is doesn't absorb the existing sunlight well enough, and they have to take extra D vitamin.

A person on Mars would either have to simulate sunlight on the skin with a sun-lamp assuming that can "trick" the body, or take quite large doses of Vitamin D.

Where can we read about this?

I get the following error when I try to post with Firefox or Chrome. I had to use the obscure browser Seamonkey to post.

Info
Bad HTTP_REFERER. You were referred to this page from an unauthorized source. If the problem persists please make sure that 'Base URL' is correctly set in Admin/Options and that you are visiting the forum by navigating to that URL. More information regarding the referrer check can be found in the FluxBB documentation.

Another strange thing that happens here is: I have to log in TWICE in a row, in order to actually be logged in!

I don't know why you think this is "like horoscopes", or that one type would fit all.
That may be true for horoscopes, but for Myers-Briggs  - that's too specific.

The full test is expensive and takes over an hour, plus hours of follow-up seminars. Most people do that through work. But you could take a free, quick test and it will almost certainly produce the same result as the original. It did for me.

Do this one http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test and then a second one to confirm the accuracy. http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Anyone who is still at school/uni - bear this in mind. If you have a strongly introverted personality you may not love it in a very people oriented job, or in the middle of a management hierarchy with people at your back from below, above and the sides. (I should know). But you might be 10x better at certain other tasks than a person who constantly craves buzz and human interaction.
There are many more similar tips.

People here writing kilometers of text on a country they do not understand, have never visited and don't speak the language of.

Based on angled news articles, dictionary entries and Wikipedia.
Some take every opportunity to try to "shine" with their "insights" about matters like WW2 or old European history.
Add to that cold war prejudice, misinformation and re-gurgitated propaganda (yes, the West does that, and much better than the USSR ever did).

The ARROGANCE, ignorance and stupidity displayed in some comments here, is shocking.

This has nothing to do with anyone in North America and the US has already done more than enough damage with its meddling.

I am SOOOO disappointed to see people that I thought were visionary, intelligent and cosmopolitan - i.e. Mars fans - to display such provincial narrow-mindedness, prejudice and susceptibility to propaganda.