New Mars Forums

Hi all,
My Martian Chronicles continue....check out at Renderosity :
(password and free registratio required )

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?ga … ...New=Yes

For those interested : background made in Terragen, shuttle and wing parachute modelized in Lightwave 7.5, all rendered in LW7.5 with volumetric enable.

Apocolyptic church...you just have to flagellate that's it, no big deal.

Remember, Soddam and Gomorhea were destroyed in three days because they didn't flagellate. The french, called Saddomites in some chat forum (they support Saddam), flagellate a lot, that what makes them smarter and wiser, knowing everything, like american republicans.

Dickbill, out of lurking mode: Come on Cindy, you are not going to make a big story because of a SUV. I didn't hear this story, that Kerry has/has not a SUV.
OK he is supposed to be pro-environemental but who is not these days ?

By the way, in the lastest Scientific American, beside an editorial that strongly critizises the Bush administration for the way it deals with scientific hearings or reports, there is an article about Hydrogen cars. In short, H2-cars might not be a practical solution, in the near future at least, hybrids or electric cars might be better.
So, why president Bush in the discour to the Union 2002 emphasized so much the "hydrogen cars", even explaining  in details how the exothermic reaction of hydrogen with oxygen could be used as a replacement for gas produced from oil?
Because he has been briefed to do so. Well, H2cars might be a nightmare if you read Scientific American. So, imagine Bush is reelected, and because He said that H2 cars is the solution, to stay consistent with his statement, he decides to go H2cars at all cost because "he said so", like "we stay in Irak because we said so". H2cars might just be another mistake. But, would it rather say that "yes, I wanted H2cars, that was a mistake, we'd rather go electric now" NO, republicans don't make mistakes, as you know.
And rather to admit it, you would have H2cars exploding in the streets, with an energy consumption to make that H2 far superior than what it would take with just using gas.
Well, polititicians are just briefed by their advisors. These advisors are most likely politically oriented too with ideological obsessions. Probably Bush has one advisor who Believes that H2car is THE technological miracle that will save America of the Evil non-anglosaxon-compliant world.
There is no miracle, and I prefer a guy who knows he is just that, a guy, with no ideological obsession, and who can change his minds and change his decisions when new fact appears or when things are reconsidered by INDEPENDANT panel of investigators (a concept unknown of the Bush administration). And Kerry would not be afraid to say : "well I said we have to develop H2cars, but that happens to be a mistake and we give up on that".
If Kerry is elected, all He needs to have to compensate for his (many) carrencies are INDEPENDANT panels of advisors in all possible domains.

People may have been bored after a couple of Apollo missions because the Moon was boring, not the missions.
I bet that Mars is different. Every region on Mars is different, we can expect (or fake to expect) to discover fossils, if not a piece of an alien lost spaceship, under every stones. And we can make a little bit for the show. Organizing big shows is an american specialty, that shouldn't be too difficult to make a better show than the bachelor.

Mars direct must be adapted too. I wish that a new edition of Mars direct would include more of in situ ressources utilisation description. But to say that Mars direct will have no future is unfair.
Again, the issue of WHEN the first Mars manned mission has to be done is crucial. The Bush vision has no deadline, yeah 40/50 years...people need deadline to stay focused. A 15 years deadline ala Zubrin is damn soon but not too soon and it will sharp the minds and keep focus on the goal.

By the way, the CNN scientist reporter for the Rover mission was asked by Bill Hammer what was like a place on Mars. He answered in a second : the dry valleys in Antarctica, not even mentioned the moon. The idea of a similarity with the moon didn't even touch his mind. Does Mars looks like the Moon ? hmmm not really, not at all. Does it look like Antarctica then ? hmmm, yeah a little bit, actually. SEE ?

what he said makes sense, in short, you know what the present is, but you don't know what's gonna be the future in 30/40 years. It's too far ahead. That you can plan a project for the next 10 years, I can buy it, but a project for the next 40 years depending on subprojects for the next 20 years, that's very hypothetic.
That's why I support a vision a la Zubrin where Mars is the primary target, planned for the next 15 years.

The currrent administration was unable to predict the most obvious setback in Iraq for example, and Bush policy is that there may be a global warming, maybe, and we don't know if it is caused by human activities, so do nothing about it.
I say and I am not alone that there is a global warming, caused by human activities and it's gonna cost a lot in the next 40 years, beside other ecological disasters and pandemia, all very predictible. So in 40 years all budgets worldwide might be cut to faces emergencies. Mars ? where it is ?

You might ask, well, if there must be disaster, then if we are on MArs change nothing. maybe yes maybe not. Maybe in the course to prepare a trip to Mars in the next 15 years, discoveries will be make that could have an impact on forecoming predictible disasters and on our survival. Not necesseraly technological discoveries but any situation in which the US choose funding exploration versus funding security and military forces, will have an effect.

Hi all,

the other issue with ISS is its complete inefficiency regarding to science done. The latest big news is that they send some worms, probably C-elegans, for experiment there.
This is exactly what Z said, "we don't need the ISS to breed salamander in zero g".
So, we are still breedding in zero g ? with 40 billions $ we can do the same than in a million rouble soyouz capsule !

A MIR size or even better a skylab size station is way better because it's easyer to maintain and it actually allows scientific experiment to be done because the crew has time to do something else than fixing things. The 40 billions $ ISS is all about "maintainance and completing the station" and very little about experiments.
The problem with the ISS is that it's so expensive and represent a so huge investment that it cannot be scrap for something better regarding the scientific experiments.

I think that a modern version of skylab, with maybe two or three 30/50 tons modules attached together, not more, is the best solution to make experiements in zero g. This at a price tag not exceding 1/10 the ISS price.

Certainly Jordanie and other smaller muslim states should be included in the list of muslim democratic-like states. But I am not expert here. For example, Is a democratic muslim state a state where you can go in a Club-Med resort safely ? hmm just kidding, or maybe not.
But the big players IMO, are certainly Algeria and Egypt. Marocco is important too. They are definitively modern states. And none of these muslim democracy rely as heavily on oil as Arabia saoudia for their power.

I wouldn't include Turkey as a "muslim state" in the same category since it is soon to be define an European state, with a laic conception of government, free of religious and military extremism and in compliance to European standard of human rights.

Oh I know that, I am afraid that if these fellows are so sure of themself they are right, and if "we" the democrats are so sure of ourself they are wrong, it's because we don't talk of the same thing.

In his latest speech, Dubya only talked about generalities, but globally, I was completely in agreement with what he said :
We should fight for freedom, democracy is better than dictatorship, etc. and I might add, good is better than evil and
death is bad, life is good and all kind of general statement that are right, but completely empty of sense if you don't describe in details how you can reach these goals.
And here is where democrats and republicans differ, not mostly in the goals, but in the way you can reach these goals.

I think that Kerry can repear the mess, maybe not all the mess and damage done, but a big part, if he finds the good guys to work with. I hope general Clark will be in the team for example.
I hope that republicans will be smart enough to recognize that something must be done differently in Iraq, by somebody else than the world widely discredited Bush team.

Donald Trump :"Dubya ! you cannot do that insult the UN organization, force their withdrawal, then beg for their return, supporting democracy in Iraq and extremism in other countries and spending all the money like that"
Dubya " Dick told me to do that ! but pffffffew, I thought I was fired !"
Trump : "You ARE fired ! "
Dubya : " Am I ? where is Al Gore, I need his support, he knows how to deal with postelection depression"

Hi Cindy, with my french accent and New Yorker background, the texans sure gonna be impressed.
Already, in a bar restaurant in Dallas, I have ordered a good old yankee beer, Samuel Adams, the best beer in America. And they didn't have it ! 
Once there, I also plan to buy a telescope, either a 6' refractor or a 8' maybe 10' reflector. You gonna be jealous.

The bible itself might be constant, our interpretation is changing as we evolve with new concepts and ideas. Its not much the bible than the evangelists who don't want to change.

Hi all, for those interested, I finally got a job, in Dallas, TX, not in Miami, bye bye palm trees, ocean, tropical feelings, bye bye dreaming...

About this interesting topic on religions, I talked about it in another thread but it has been mostly misinterpreted, which I take the credit for my imperfect use of the english language. Here i'll just say that probably the concept of God that we use today is not very different of the pre-historic concept of supernatural powers, God of water, fire etc, when only water, fire etc, were perceived. The old testament has just added and then associated the concept of "God of the Universe" with the  emerging concept of "Universe".
I think that the concept can still evolve to something new by the way.

In the excellent book "the Mind in the Cave : consciousness and the origins of art" of DAVID LEWIS-WILLIAMS, the world of supernatural conceived by prehistoric men, is considered as a byproduct, an artifact, of Homo Sapiens Sapiens mind  (as opposed to the Neanderthal's mind, said the author) in the states of "altered consciousness" (altered by drugs or chamanic practices for example). There, I don't agree. Even if prehistoric men imagined a naive invisible world populated by "spirits" how can he be so sure that the concept of spirit represent nothing more than an artifact ?
But that's a good book anyway, worth to read it.

OK, so, to go even more simple I will ask it like that :

You don't think that finding extra-terrestrial life will reinforce materialism over spirituality ?
If life is discovered, it's a little bit like the Copernician revolution which moved Earth out of the center of the universe, each time, the anthropocentric view of the universe that places Man at a special position is challenged, to say the least. We are not at the center, we are not even the ONE, like the Jews choosen by God to be the Choosen One, or  like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.
Because of that, I like the idea to find life on Mars.

Regarding "who" created the law of physic and "why", maybe it is also an anthropocentric question. At least finding life on Mars can help answer the "how", probably not the "who".

We've got a long way from life on Mars but here you point to a question that is crucial : the gap between science and religion.
I think the gap is smaller than it was 200 years ago, still a lot of questions are unanswered, but at least, we can foresight, maybe, some begining of answer for the far future. Think about the quantum theory, cosmology, the anthropic principle etc. None of these explain any religious "mysteries" but they are less hostile to the concept of God.
I want to come back to a point I made before. It's funny that the christian religion is based on a "fact" (provided It was a fact) the ressurection, which cumulates the most forbiddden events of all the physical laws in science. This event implies biogenesis (life created for the second time after 3.8 billions years on Earth, without an evolutionary path and natural selection and arrives, straight, to an human being), transmutation of elements (degraded molecules of a dead body transmutted into new atomes and molecules), violation of entropic considerations (the dead body content in negentropy, or information has disapeared, the DNA has been degraded, the neurones degraded,  Mr Christ after resurrection is not like a clone of himself since his DNA information has been lost, what is he then, where the information comes from  ?). This last violation is the worst. And despite all what I say, I still believe in some rationality.
Does it explain something if I say "locally, the laws of physic can fluctuate as long as globally they stay constant in average". That sounds like a bad metaphysical pseudo scientific essay, sorry.

That's an interesting topic for sure. On that respect, the Mars Gravity Experiment, with mice or rats I think, might or might not be informative. Mainly because these animals have a short gestation (21 days). The reason why human pregnacy is so long is the brain, basically the rest of the body is almost done and just wait for the brain to develop more. That's the reason why a "premature" human baby can survive, the baby is premature in respect to the brain, but the lungs are partially functional and allow the survival with assistance.
So : the mice have trouble under 0.38g to carry at term nomal babies, that's no good news for us, but even if the mice offspring is fine, we still have to be careful.
To know better, we would have to use primates gestant females. But that would require huge cages for the animals in the centrifuge, I don't think it's feasible that way.
A real centrifuged ship would be necessary, or even better send the gestant chimps on the Moon and, hypothesis, observe that normal pregnancy is impossible in the lunar gravity, infer that it is then impossible on MArs, and a) conclude by canceling the Mars program or b) conclude that the Moon is really good for Nothing as a testbed for Mars.