New Mars Forums

Perhaps you might be overthinking things a bit...a common affliction of many of us here on this board..myself included..LOL.

Let's see if I can clear things up for you...

Forget those statements you posted above...those were confusing me as well..lol.  In order to have gravitational pull, one must have mass, and all mass generates gravity..even you and me..but you need a LOT of mass to have an appreciable amount of gravity, such as on a planetary level.  This could be shortened to:  Mass = Gravity.  The greater the mass, the greater the gravity.

Of course there's more to this than that simple statement, and that is a "body" of mass can be more dense or less dense, depending on what it is made of.  For example, if there was a sphere of solid lead (a dreadful thought, I know, lol) the same size as Earth, you can bet your bottom dollar that the gravity on that giant ball of lead would be much higher than here on Earth, as lead is much more dense than the earth is, and therefore you have more mass concentrated in a smaller space, which means more gravity.  A good example is the planet Saturn.  It does have a lot of bulk, but since it is less dense than water, gravity on Saturn is not much greater than Earth's, although it's a heck of a lot bigger than Earth in size.

The idea of weight comes in when you're talking about the "effect" of gravity...gravity is the force that creates weight, and that varies depending on where you are.  But mass is what stays the same no matter where you are, and the "bulk" of an object really depends on what it is made of, which then determines the mass of that object.  One cubic meter of water will have the same mass no matter what..if that volume of water was turned into steam, that cubic meter of water will take up a great deal more space, but the mass is still the same, as we're still talking about the same number of water molecules...they're just more spread out if the water was turned into steam.

Another way of illustrating what mass is, is the idea of taking a ping-pong ball and a similar-sized ball made of steel into space...neither will have weight...but the steel ball still has a heck a lot more mass than the ping-pong ball..and if both balls were thrown at another person, the steel ball is the one that's still gonna hurt, as it will take a great deal more energy to stop the inertia of the steel ball than the hollow plastic one.

If I still haven't made myself clear...please let me know, and I'll try again....

B

I personally never got into that show, it's O.K.; it's bit "off" in my opinion..lol..but I had a friend in college that was absolutely *nuts* about "Dr. Who."  He never missed an espisode, and he would say things like if the station managers ever took that show off the air, he would go and hijack the station himself and force them to put it back on the air at gunpoint.  Go ahead and laugh if you'd like.. , but this guy was really, really crazy about Dr. Who...

B

That sounds like a good idea..I love the idea of all-silk clothing...sounds quite luxurious..lol.  But I have one question.  What do silkworms eat, and how much??  I have this vision of all these worms happily eating their way through crops and other plants intended for other uses... ???

B

I'm glad you made these points, Adrian...Clark seems to indicate that a future Martain colony is a like a bird's egg..one that has been thinned by DDT.  I really don't think that conditions will be so unsafe that everyone will have to perform at peak efficiency to ensure survival.  If this was the case...I don't see the point of having an ongoing Martain community in the first place...it'd be just too plain risky.  There will be double and triple redundancies built into place in just about everything, and computers will "oversee" the colony's infrastructure and its continued safe operation.  It would not be too difficult to implement a few basic algorithims to prevent "careless" mistakes, and things such as crazed individuals attempting to open both airlock doors at once...that's a Hollywood impression..lol.  Only ONE door will open at a time...that is just how it will be built..anything otherwise would not be too smart. 

Even if ALL use of drugs was indeed prohibited..and there's no reason to think that a future colony wouldn't resort to doing just that for reasons of safety...we would still be faced with human frailities that can effect the safety of others just as much as the use/abuse of drugs...such as being sick on the job (many people just hate to admit they're sick), not getting enough sleep, poor relations with others (which would surely be a problem in a closely confined settlement), and a whole host of other *human* factors.

If we are not able to deal with these "negative" human factors in a way that ensures the continued health and safety of the colony in a balanced, reasonable manner...why not just forget the idea of people on Mars, and just have a colony filled with semi-intelligent robots...    ??

This is my response to Clark's *first* post, as I posted just after he did...

Yes, it would bother me that the people I work with could be abusing drugs....however, I feel drug abuse is rarely something that strikes without warning, like lightning.  Drug additions usually takes time to build to a critical level, and in the close confines of the colony and especially the workplace, it really shouldn't be too difficult to spot someone who is constantly hung-over, has bloodshot eyes, a listless attitude...the list goes on and on.  If the common attitude is shifted to preventing abuse, rather than simple use, imo, I think the risk of having dangerous abusers running around amok would be extremely low, comparable to other common risks to the colony, such as fire or power failure.

You are absolutely right about this...and I have a solution, one that I would love to see implemented here in the U.S. for airline pilots.  As it has been demonstrated that a few commercial pilots have placed their charges at grave risk for not obeying the law against drinking and flying ??? , I would seek to eliminate this risk by having each pilot sit down at a computer terminal and play a "video game" to test whether the person's mental state is fit for duty.  If they are intoxicated, hung-over, or even merely tired, they would fail the test, and therefore be prohibited from duty (as well as undergoing additional tests to check for drug abuse).

This way, we could still permit people to use drugs in a responsible manner, and avoid the dreaded loss of privacy of total drug prohibition.  The real issue is balance...balancing the basic human desire to unwind and relax with the aid of various substances and the need to preserve a safe and healthy environment.  As intelligent as our future colonists will likely be..I'm confident that a way will be found to accomodate what is done in privacy and the overall needs of the community without resorting to draconion measures such as visits from security in the middle of the night to make sure one is not "tibbling" or "burning a bowl" in the face of total prohibition...

B

Here's a new topic you guys might like to feast upon..

Drugs and alcohol on Mars...

While there is little doubt that the initial manned missions to Mars will have little concern with this issue, for the simple reason that mission planners will make certain that the astronants bring little or no alcohol with them on their journey to Mars, and the list of pharmacucials will be quite limited as well, what happens when permanent human settlements are established on Mars?  Many of us feel that in order for a Martian society to survive and flourish, many of the personal freedoms that we take for granted here on Earth will be quite limited in an environment where everyone is highly dependent on each other.

So...do you think alcohol and other recreational drugs should be allowed, and if so, in what ways?  If total prohibition is indeed put into place in a Martian settlement, how would it be enforced without tearing the society apart (think:  the era of Prohibition in the US during the 1920's and early '30's)?  Should "safer" drugs, such as KSR's magical "endorf tabs" be allowed instead, perhaps on a rationing system?  Or do you think that the colony would do just fine with limited or no drug restrictions at all, with the implicit understanding that if one's drug use leads to abuse, that severe sanctions would have to implemented upon the abuser?

Just something to think about...

B

I don't have any problems going back to the Moon, except for one thing:  Money.  Going to the Moon will cost big bucks, money that could be used to go straight to Mars.  I think the life support systems could be tested well enough here on Earth and in LEO...going to the Moon will unnecessarily complicate the Mars Direct mission, and it would lengthen the total project time to get to Mars, which would give future politicans more opportunities to ax Mars Direct before it has a chance to carry out its final mission. 

We've been to the Moon before.  Let's set our sights on what we haven't done:  getting ourselves to MARS...

B

Hey Adrian,

I'm unable to view any of the poll results.  Could this be due to my Windows XP operating system?  I keep attempting to vote or view the results, and I get the same results every time...nothing...lol.

Any help on this would be appreciated...

B

In response to my previous post concerning the huge volume of concrete in Shaun's "proposal," I've found a snippet about the construction of Hoover Dam, built in the mid 1930's, and at 2,600,000 cubic meters, it has more mass than the mighty Pyramid at Giza, and yet it took less than 5 years to build...an amazing feat for that era...

--Quoted from the U.S. Department of the Interior Website--

"As the dam began to rise to fill the canyon, it grew it fits and starts. Rather than being a single block of concrete, the dam was built as a series of individual columns. Trapezoidal in shape, the columns rose in five foot lifts. The reason that the dam was built in this fashion was to allow the tremendous heat produced by the curing concrete to dissipate. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would have gotten so hot that it would have taken 125 years for the concrete to cool to ambient temperatures. The resulting stresses would have caused the dam to crack and crumble away. 
It was not enough to place small quantities of concrete in individual columns. Each form also contained cooling coils of 1" thin-walled steel pipe. When the concrete was first poured, river water was circulated through these pipes. Once the concrete had received a first initial cooling, chilled water from a refrigeration plant on the lower cofferdam was circulated through the coils to finish the cooling. As each block was cooled, the pipes of the cooling coils were cut off and pressure grouted at 300 psi by pnuematic grout guns.
To prevent the hairline fissures between the blocks from weakening the dam, the upstream and downstream faces of each block were formed with vertical interlocking grooves; the faces turned toward the canyon walls with horizontal vertical grooves. When the concrete had cooled, grout was forced into these joints, bonding the entire structure into a monolithic whole.

Hoover Dam was the first man-made structure to exceed the masonry mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The dam contains enough concrete to pave a strip 16 feet wide and 8 inches thick from San Francisco to New York City. More than 5 million barrels of Portland cement and 4.5 million cu. yds of aggregate went into the dam. If all of the materials used in the dam were loaded onto a single train, as the engine entered the switch yards in Boulder City, the caboose would just be leaving Kansas City, MO. If the heat produced by the curing concrete could have been concentrated in a baking oven, it would have been sufficient to bake 500,000 loaves of bread per day for three years."  End quote --

Hope this gives you a better idea of what is involved in massive projects involving the use of concrete...but if a project of this scale could be accomplished in the
1930's, there's no reason to doubt it couldn't be done on Mars in the future...

B

This formula only works when you have an equal number of males and females....I doubt that the first mission to Mars will be 50/50 gender-wise....the crew mix will probably consist of one married couple, and the rest of the crew male.  With this kind of crew set-up, the risk of unintended sexual relations will be near zero, irregardless of how many plants are grown, or the amount of pherenomes in air..lol.

I really don't see plants increasing the risk of sexual relationships, any more than the simple matter that these people will be packed into a tiny space together for months on end...so it would be behoove the mission planners to eliminate the main factor that precipates sexual relations to begin with:  evenly matched males and females in extremely confined conditions.  The simplist solution is often the best.   

B

Now that I'm about to reach the *all important* milestone of getting that third star next to my name... , here's my plug for the first words on Mars..for better or for worse...

"We come as one, representing the whole of the human race, across the vast ocean of space to the little red dot that moves about restlessly in the nighttime skies of Earth.  Now, as we place our feet upon this red ground of Mars, we take these first steps in the behalf of every man, woman, and child on the beautiful blue world we call home, and we give our heartfelt thanks to all those of whom who have helped to made this historic voyage possible.

To mark this wonderous culimation of one of humankind's greatest dreams, we hereby proclaim this date <insert date> to be the day of First Landing, to be remembered by the generations of future Martians that will surely follow us in our humble first steps on this fantastic new frontier of humanity."

Byron

I've had the privilage (if one could ever call it that  ???  ) of working with a local government agency, and it's absolutely no different than you've described...spend what you have, and then some, as to demonstrate a "need" for even more money.  If it's not your money, why scrimp and save?  There's always more to be had.  Especially when you have the *public* more than willing to finance your free-spending ways, even in the face of abysmal results...that's the thing I have difficulty understanding the most of all...

B