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#751 Re: Martian Politics and Economy » Propitiation to the God of War » 2005-10-19 04:43:16
*Hi.
Hi 
Look at how many people are self-destructive ... delight in their self-destruction.
There does seem to be an awful lot. Is alienation a cause or a symptom? I'm thinking of the self-destructive people I know. They are tormented and want nothing more than an end to their alienation. I think they do find a wicked joy in their anti-social acts, but I think it is the surge of power they feel (a self-assertion), rather than the resulting further alienation, that delights them. They join subcultures, but note that they are subcultures - cultures apart - aspects of the complexity that is humankind rather than representative of an undifferentiated soul-sick world.
I also think of the religious cults which (though they'd deny it) look forward to the "End Times" ... IMO, they themselves haven't or can't come to grips with life and so would rather be "taken away" from it and their "tormentors" killed (and later suffering in Hell) -- all of them. The ultimate escapism.
Another subculture justifying its struggle to be apart. They've turned alienation into a virtue: "be in the world, but not of it." I think there is a little more mystery to apocalypse worship than simple desire for revenge. Consider the recurring heralds of secular apocalypse: Y2K, global warming, bird flu, peak oil - "we shall suffer for our techno-sins." Perhaps hysteria is a response to alienation. There is a Dionysiac joy in hysteria. But does this encompass the delight that Benjamin was referring to?
There is a lot of malice out there, and masochism too.
I think much can be understood in terms of raw power struggle. No techno-alienation from ancient romantic rhythms required.
Not that there is anything wrong with ancient romantic rhythms, of course 
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#752 Re: Human missions » ISRU Fiberglass? » 2005-10-19 02:57:29
3) Mine it on an asteroid
Here is an in-depth look at asteroid mining ...
http://www.permanent.com/a-mining.htm
He makes it sound so easy It looks like solar powered on-site extraction is the way to go. One issue is that many asteroids spin, which could make it hard to keep solar power constant. You can either despin the asteroid (with tethers) or orbit at a distance and have miningbots "kick up" interesting bits of the surface towards a canopy. Zero gravity makes processing easy. Volatiles from the asteroid are used for delivery.
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#753 Re: Human missions » One man one way suicide mission... » 2005-10-19 02:03:25
You can buy a new 737-600 for $45.5 - 53.5 million. Even a new 747-400 costs $205.0 - 236.5 million. Why would a 15 tonne Mars habitat cost more? Remember Energia can throw that into TMI for $160 million. Even if you add a cargo lander for each habitat, I don't see how you get $12 billion per person. I treat this thread as a one-way mission to retire on Mars, not suicide. Doing it privately means controlling costs.
Retiring on Mars. I can see the brochures now The $12b was supposed to be for 6 people and contrast marginal costs to development costs. The Boeing planes are another good example - each model is backed by billions in R&D - if you contracted with Boeing to build you a brand new type of plane it would cost you $2b for the first one. And that is for something they have experience building. No one has experience building a Mars habitat. ISS modules come closest - may be you can get some use out of the billions that have been spent on them.
So Energia gets me to TMI. Now I'm approaching Mars. What's my plan for getting to the surface? I've got some velocity to get rid of: 3-6 km/s. Do I have fuel left for MOI? Is aerobraking/capture going to come into play? What's my cost for an aerobraking system that gives me a reasonable chance of reaching the surface alive?
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#754 Re: Human missions » ISRU Fiberglass? » 2005-10-19 00:37:40
Hopefully the dissimilar mettles will work well as an epoxy since we don’t want to have to ship to much carbon from earth.
The whole dearth of luna carbon thing is a drag. Do we have any idea what it would take to get a C-type asteroid to the luna surface in a way that would leave us carbon and hydrogen to spare? Zubrin talks somewhere about using some percentage (7%?) of the volatiles of an ammonia asteroid to put it on collision course with Mars for terraforming purposes. Could we do something like that? Would anything be left of the asteroid after collision? I guess we could use another percentage of the asteroid to slow it down. I read somewhere that there might be volatiles frozen to the walls of old lava tubes. May be we could use rovots to create a "spongy" area on the luna surface that would trap volatiles from an incoming asteroid, even if most of it were vaporized. Can we bring an asteroid into lunar orbit without endangering the Earth? I guess the C-types are safe enough - they'd just burn up.
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#755 Re: Human missions » More Chinese space tech stuff » 2005-10-18 23:36:57
The Chinese ... are doing nothing to radically improve access to space.
I think just the possibility of competition will do wonders for the attitude on Capitol Hill.
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#756 Re: Human missions » One man one way suicide mission... » 2005-10-18 23:17:08
I'm not sure whick post to call more pessimistic. The extravagant cost or the belief that any attempt to colonize Mars will result in death.
Oops, sorry idiom, RobertDyck, I forgot this was the suicide thread. I guess if people are expendable, then a lot of money can be saved. If your budget allows for communications with Earth, then later guinea pigs^W^W colonists can try to avoid whatever kills the earlier ones. Eventually life expectancy after arrival would rise to months. At least half of those leaving Earth would likely get their one sunset on Mars.
I recommend you launch in pairs though. If they both make it, having another person around can help avoid some really pathetic deaths like being pinned under something heavy or falling down an incline and breaking your ankle. Although I guess there is no guarantee they'd land anywhere near each other. How small of a landing oval can you achieve with off the shelf hardware?
Would there be any provision for travel in this bare bones scenario? Maybe a mountain bike? You'd have to ride in a suit with an oxygen tank. What would be your range? 5 miles after you got used to it? 10 miles? That brings up the pressure suit. Are we thinking refurbished Apollo suits? Replicas?
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#757 Re: Human missions » One man one way suicide mission... » 2005-10-18 17:07:47
Are these numbers off somewhere? If you could get one person one way for even two Billion, then for Nasa's hundred Billion ear marked for the VSE you could set up a permanent colony of 50 people, or more once you accounted for redundant development expenses.
I don't think it works like that.
I think it is more like ...
R&D (regardless of # of people): $40b
Manufacture & Operations (regardless): $50b
per person costs: $2b x 6 = $12b
Total: $102b
There'd be higher R&D costs for a "town" than a 6-person habitat, and for a 20-50 year stay vs. a 2 year stay. But the R&D costs would be fixed whether you sent 50, 75 or 100 people.
I also think it is a good idea to have a plan for medevacing the first few explorers. Ground truth can be pretty harsh no matter how much prep you do.
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#758 Re: Martian Politics and Economy » Propitiation to the God of War » 2005-10-18 03:22:04
[Benjamin] worried that mankind's alienation from itself was deepening 'to such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.'
This is a striking image - humankind as apotemnophiliac. But doesn't the personification of humankind seem simplistic? Humankind is so complex. Does it, can it, really experience anything as a whole? If not and humankind is necessarily a plurality then I think the dynamic Benjamin is referencing is better understood in terms of the ancient ritual of scapegoating. Part of scapegoating is alienation from the scapegoat as the group shadow is projected on to it/him/her/them. Of course there is pleasure in destruction of the scapegoat - the (illusory) promise is group healing, a return to innocence, purity, unity. Like all illusions the promise of the ritual fades without increasingly elaborate repetition.
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#759 Re: Human missions » ISRU Fiberglass? » 2005-10-18 00:16:08
The linked article is short on detail, but wouldn't fiberglass become brittle at Lunar and Martian temperatures? Maybe less brittle than steel?
#760 Re: Terraformation » How far? » 2005-10-17 23:12:25
Slingshots don't give you more speed, they just alter your direction.
Actually that is only true from the point of view of the planet doing the slingshotting. From the point of view of the solar system, you do get more speed.
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#761 Re: Not So Free Chat » Alternative Space ventures - are we on the road to cheaper access » 2005-10-17 21:09:41
The lotteries begin ...
#762 Re: Terraformation » Mars Magnetic Fields Problem » 2005-10-17 20:55:18
A new map of Mars’ magnetic field
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/sol … lates.html
#763 Re: Human missions » Lunar Space Elevator » 2005-10-17 20:33:37
Another issue is how to power the climbers.
Apparently, you can get 100 km/hr ascent just with solar. And 2000 kg can be on the cable at any one time. Here is an Oct 2004 paper ...
http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/lse … _Final.pdf
The diagram has two cables - one from the equator and one from the pole. I read somewhere that NASA gave these guys money for an in depth study.
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#764 Re: Terraformation » Steam power on mars? » 2005-10-17 20:25:41
Aluminum is not magnetic.
Apparently, you use hot (550 K) lye to dissolve the alumina.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_process
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#765 Re: Terraformation » Steam power on mars? » 2005-10-17 04:02:47
Really nice Feb 2005 overview of ISRU for Human Mars Exploration ...
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/apio/pdf/ … s_isru.pdf
Mentions in-situ manufacturing for solar cells, metallic parts, polymer parts and ceramic parts.
Mentioned concerns with low gravity (which I haven't seen elsewhere) are:
- heat pipes: thermal convection coefficient impact
- water/gas separation: if gravity-based separation system
- cyrogenic storage/distribution: increased power demand due to surface tension/flow impacts
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#766 Re: Civilization and Culture » A fully developed, mature, and sovereign Mars » 2005-10-16 20:46:53
Okay, yes your are right. The theory of reletivatey gets in the way there. But while the theory is mathmatically sound, it still doesn't change the fact that while the speed of light is in fact the fastest thing known in nature, there is no reason to say that you can't go faster. I don't want to turn this thread into a load of cow dung, so im not going to go much farther with this, but at the same time I refuse to think that ANYTHING is impossible.
May be this will be of interest to you ...
Warp Drive, When?
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/resea … /warp.html
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#767 Re: Terraformation » Steam power on mars? » 2005-10-16 20:01:45
I think you are both forgetting that we don't even plan on visiting mars for another 30 years.
Even more time for the development of personal manufacturing facilities. I'll be disappointed if I don't have a 3D printer on my desktop within 10 years.
How are you going to separate the aluminum oxide from the regolith? Same for the other elements.
Metallic compounds can be separated from non-metallic with modest electromagnets. Once they melt, the different metals can be separated into layers - additives can help. Otherwise, different acids can be used to dissolve particular metals and later precipitate them.
How many missions to deliver your ironworks factory? How many missions to transport your machining and polishing devices?
If NASA can include a 20 ton drill on the flag and footprint mission, I can have a 20 ton electric smelter and shaping facility for a permanent base. Obviously, it won't process as much as Earth-based facilities - maybe 10 tons per day instead of 10000 - ideally it would come with its own rovot to keep it supplied with raw materials.
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#768 Re: Civilization and Culture » A fully developed, mature, and sovereign Mars » 2005-10-16 19:19:50
Oh, so its magic huh?
Here we are talking about elevators that extend beyond ATMOSPHERES, and you call FTL travel MAGIC???
Comon man, as scientifically improbable as it is, it's still possible. Many respected engineers and scientists have been working ways to make it work, so i wouldn't discount it so readily.
Actually, I think you'll find that FTL travel contradicts the laws of physics as we currently understand them. For example, FTL travel means that we could time travel. Magic.
Space elevators were thought possible, but somewhat impractical (the cable needed to be the width of the solar system) until the discovery of carbon nano-tubes which seem to have a sufficiently high ratio of strength to weight.
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#769 Re: Civilization and Culture » A fully developed, mature, and sovereign Mars » 2005-10-16 18:56:06
Humans are still animals, as much as we like to say we are different and special (and indeed we are), and as an animal, Myself (and many other people) would feel a lot more "at home" on a planet rather than a man-made biosphere.
You may be right. I don't think it would bother me.
space elevators, they can carry MASSIVE amounts of freight from the bottom of a gravity well, to the top with far less energy and far more easily than a rocket can.
Space elevators are much better than rockets because they don't have to lift their own fuel, but no matter what, they still require 14 kWh/kg to overcome gravity. Eventually, that is a competitive disadvantage.
And now coming back to Bio-Spheres, why live in a biosphere if Nature has already given us plenty of planets to occupy and live on. Which are perfectly habitable and require little maintenance. Plus OFFER resources instead of TAKE resources away. Nature had things figured out, all we need to do is work WITH it instead of against it.
Artificial biospheres would be built from resources unavailable to the gravity bound, like asteroids and lunar soil. Nothing but seed machines would be lifted from Earth's surface - way too energy-expensive. Nature gave us brains and hands. We make things. That is what humans do. It's as natural to create biospheres as it is to farm crops.
faster than light
Hmmm, yes, well, if you allow magic then anything is possible, I suppose. Makes for good space opera.
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#770 Re: Terraformation » Steam power on mars? » 2005-10-16 18:17:59
We're not going to be able to manufacture anything on mars for a very, very long time.
Oh I don't know. With a 0.3 kWh/kg power budget I can get molten iron, aluminum and titanium (approx. 16%, 8% and 1% of Martian soil). From there it isn't far to sheets, bars, tubes and wires. With half decent machining and polishing I should be able to make parabolic mirrors. I'm not sure about Sterling engines and generators though. They are simple in principle but usually require hi tech to get to high efficiency. It might be worth accepting low efficiency if it means you don't have to ship stuff from Earth. The ability to manufacture and repair on site lowers risk considerably - especially for fundamental stuff like power generation. It may be that you can ship 10%-1% of hi tech stuff from Earth and do 90%-99% of manufacture on site.
Solar cell in-situ manufacture might be easier though. Solar cell "paving" robots have been proposed for the Moon.
#771 Re: Life support systems » Martian settlement with a few hundred people » 2005-10-16 17:50:30
That is a great render! It is unfortunately not one of mine though.
I meant that is what you want Mars to look like one day
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#773 Re: Civilization and Culture » A fully developed, mature, and sovereign Mars » 2005-10-16 15:59:10
In addition, as technology improves, any individual biosphere - including Earth's or Mars' - is vulnerable to destruction by smaller and smaller groups of angry people. Unless we reach a point where noone ever has reason to be angry again, multiple independent biospheres may just be flat-out safer.
I have to disagree, i would hope thatt our dependence on technology doesn't get to that point. Actually i see that in a thousand years, our species (even on the path it is now) would eventually reach a non-technological equilibrium with nature, ultimately seperating ourselves from nature for nature's benefit. With our perfecting of synthetic lubricants and renewable plastics, and with discoveries of "TRUE" renewable energy sources, i see that Nature will not depend on us in the least, and neither we on it.
Oh, I didn't mean that individual biospheres would be destroyed by greed or negligence - although these are, of course, possibilities - but that it will become possible for a small group to deliberately destroy a biosphere, and that, unless we also invent a cure for hatred, someone will eventually pull the trigger. Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic with respect to human social evolution.
Ultimately what i'm trying to get at, is, that Mars would have a fully stable Terraformed climate.
I think this is a certainty within the multi-millennial timeframe we're talking about. Unless native life is discovered - then I think you'll have a fight on your hands.
This is just a matter of personal opinion, but existence in "multiple biospheres" is kind of a bleak existance.
They'll be large - I'm talking rivers, trees and clouds - the inhabitants vote on how many days it should rain this year - the whole bit. After a dozen generations, they'll be completely natural. I think their low-cost access to energy and resources will make them wealthy.
I may be wrong. I'd love to hear counter-arguments that say why the bottom of a gravity well is the place to be. My intuition is that we'll need to live in the well until we learn how to build rock-solid biospheres (maybe 1000 years?), but after that, the action will shift to the liberation points.
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#774 Re: Human missions » X-Prize Cup Photos » 2005-10-16 05:38:58
They are trying to turn it into a 21st century Nascar - something that people plan for and go to every year - and then sell the broadcast rights to raise cash until they can start selling tickets to orbit. Good luck to them!
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#775 Re: Terraformation » Steam power on mars? » 2005-10-16 05:01:50
I wonder if you wouldn't eventually want something more like this
http://www.stirlingenergy.com/imagesdet … imageID=11
They are supposed to be twice as efficient as solar cells, and they could be larger with Mars' lower gravity. The Sterling engines may be too complicated for in-situ manufacture, but if you're already allowing electric generators, then maybe not.
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