New Mars Forums

LOL! Voltaire had a wicked sense of humor.   

I think a good example of the mystical aspect of extreme environmentalism is the concept of Gaia, that the Earth is somehow one gigantic living being and that humanity is more often than not her nemesis.  It's a kind of anthropomorphism of the entire planet.  I think this mystical quality is important for a lot of people because it builds an emotional bridge to their beliefs.  Unfortunately such emotionally motivated beliefs often obliterate any sense of rationality.  The anti-technologists don't understand that we could save our rainforests and our air by developing new, cleaner technologies and resources.  But they'd rather have us get rid of all of our technology and other "unnatural" evils, which in my opinion, would only make a bigger mess of the planet.

I agree that it probably wasn't out of purely altruistic reasons that these "primitive" societies engaged in environmental preservation, but a lot of them did have high respect toward nature.  They most likely did because their livelihood depended heavily on a healthy ecology and their religious beliefs often demanded that respect be given to various entities in nature.  From a societal standpoint, I've been reading about Native American history and I've come to think we could learn a lot from them.  There was a common belief in one tribe, for instance, that every decision you make should be made with the next seven generations in mind.  We need that ethic in our society.  We've become to shortsighted and can't see beyond today.  It would probably be a lot easier to convince someone in that tribe the need to expand into space than your average modern person who thinks space travel is a waste of time because there's no immediate benefit!

I get the feeling that if we ever do meet E.T. there's a good chance E.T. will be an artificial lifeform instead of a biological one.  I think our technology will eventually advance to the point that it will be far more intelligent and robust than a mere flesh and blood human could ever be regardless of genetic manipulation.  I know it sounds kooky, but I think it's just about inevitable.  Anyways, I think Zubrin sometimes tries to go into areas where he really isn't an expert, but I still think his ideas for getting to Mars are good ones nonetheless.

By the time a true Mars colony is up and running it might be possible that robotics have evolved to the point that machines could pretty much do surgical procedures on their own.  Anyways, I didn't think about the idea of "distance learning" on Mars.  Martian students could easily receive broadcasted educational material from Earth.  Of course the amount of time it takes for a signal from Earth to reach Mars would make instantaneous interaction with a teacher impossible.  You'd probably have to just send them a question and wait until morning to receive an answer.

Mars has more useful raw materials than the moon that would thus make it easier to colonize and sustain than a moonbase.  Sure, the moon has some valuable materials like water, iron, and traces of helium-3 which might become useful someday, but it lacks just about everything else.

Events can always change for the worse or better though, and very quickly.  Just look at how the Soviet Union fell.  If you were to ask a Soviet citizen in 1987 that their country was going to completely collapse in just a few years they would probably have laughed.  It wouldn't take that much political effort to totally demolish manned spaceflight anyhow.  With all of these international, particularly U.N., treaties prohibiting the private exploitation of space, it's possible immigration of private citizens could end up outright banned.  There's   sure to be a big debate on whether immigration into space should be allowed to happen once it's feasible and the radical environmentalists and other assorted groups will likely lobby hard to keep people pinned down on this planet.  So even though it's doubtful that we need to hurry, I'd rather it happen sooner than later while laws are still somewhat friendly to allowing private citizens to go into space.

Oh yeah, I remember now.  I think I was too busy thinking about all of those opportunities that that evil Jedi had for dishing punishment to Yoda.  Anyways I didn't like it that Yoda was so easily matched by a henchman of the Emperor, even if the henchman was a talented student.  It seems the Emperor probably has a better mastery of the force than anyone else if he's able to keep this henchman who successfully challenged Yoda as a mere subordinate.

I absolutely hate Jar Jar.  And it figures that Jar Jar is the one that brought the Empire into power!!  He really deserves to be at the business end of a blaster now.  Yeah, those tall, gray aliens that were manufacturing the clones were by the far the best aliens introduced in either episode i or ii.  They felt as though they belonged in a Star Wars movie, unlike Jar Jar who belongs more in a Mickey Mouse cartoon.   

I think you hit it on the head.  The new movies do to much character exaggeration in lieu of actual character development.  I did find it odd though how Obi-Wan made that *dead serious* comment about how no politician can be trusted.  Does Obi-Wan believe in a representative democracy?  Maybe he's an anarchist.

haha, I like that line where where Obi-Wan tells Annakin that he's going to be the death of him.

I don't think we have to blast all of Corporate America because of a few bad apples.  I mean government officials aren't exactly your incorruptible best friends either.  I like the idea of a prize for the first people to get to Mars.  It's reminiscent of the X-Prize that was created to give 10 million dollars to the first private company to launch three people into suborbital space on a fully reusable vehicle.

For sure, and I think we're gonna see Boba-Fett blow away that high-ranking Jedi Master that wasted his father. 

I don't like the way some characters from the old episodes are being introduced into the news ones.  The whole thing with R2D2 and C3P0 being invented by Anakin seems  overly contrived to me.  Han Solo is just some guy that Obi-Wan and Luke met in a bar by random chance.  I don't really think there's a good reason for introducing him unless there's some scene between him and Jabba.  In any case, if he's in there I hope it's very subtle and he doesn't end up becoming a first-man or whatever it's called at Amidala's and Anakin's wedding.
In any case, I hope Jar Jar Binks takes some fatal blaster fire early on in the movie.

I believe there's already a rocket called the Hercules and the Orion is the project name for the early nuclear pulse propulsion rocket project.  Of course you could still name it those things, but it might be interesting to go into the mythologies of other cultures and pick out names to.  Since the Vikings were such renowned explorers, we could name it after a powerful god or artifact in their mythology, like after Thor's hammer or somethng.  If we're going to name it after a person in history, I'd vote for the "Newton" being that Isaac Newton discovered the laws of physics that govern rocketry.  Of course Newtons are a standard of measurement to, so that might not be a good idea.

Yeah, it wasn't very convincing the way Lucas tried to portray the aging of the characters.  If Queen Amidala used anti-aging cream made out of Jar Jar Binks the movie might have been a little more tolerable and believable.   I don't know why they just didn't use new actors for all of the roles.  They did use a new actor for Anakin so why not use new actors for the other roles?  So what do you predict will happen in the next installment?  I think that kid who saw his father lose his head is going to get revenge on that Jedi with the purple light sabre.  I'd almost bet my life that scene will be in there somewhere.

Dirigibles would also be good because they're low-tech and don't need gobs of fuel to get around.  They could maybe use electric propellers or low-thrust rockets to set them drifting.  In Zubrin's book he talks about having NIMF vehicles (Native In-place Martian Fuel Vehicles?) that coud hop around the planet and refuel themselves out of the atmosphere but those types of vehicles I think would be to heavy and complicated to be realistically considered for use on Mars.  Dirigibles on the other hand could perform the same functions a lot easier and probably a lot safer.  They'd be slower but so what.

I was already going on the unsaid assumption that the crew had already gone through psychiatric evaluations and other selection criteria.  I just think putting the crew together for a month in a hab might be a good way to forsee any little problems that might arise between the crew members, and more importantly, to acclimate them to the environment they'll have to live in for the next three years.