New Mars Forums

Yeah I guess I better hurry up and decide whether I'm going or not.  I want to go though, I've never attended anything like that before.  Is anyone else here plannning to attend the convention?

Wow, that sounds uncannily similiar to my childhood.  I don't remember exactly how I got interested in space though.  I think I was just born with it.   I think a lot of people with intense interest in any kind of science or art first developed it when they were under or around the age of 10.  Once my niece gets to be around four years old I'm gonna try to spark her imagination by doing things like taking her to tide pools, etc.  I originally wanted to be a marine biologist but my fate took me down a different path.  Before I kick the bucket I'm hoping someone discovers giant squid alive in the depths of the ocean.

Can you see the polar ice caps of Mars with your 4.5" scope?  I'm a complete idiot when it comes to telescopes, and so I dare ask, is it possible to see the moons of Mars with an amateur telescope that doesn't require its own dedicated plot of land?  I'm also interested in viewing deepsky objects like nebulas and black holes (naw just kidding ).  Which kinds of astronomical objects do you like observing the most?

Oh my god!  Somebody else out there actually likes it when it's not a 190 degrees outside?  Seems like the people where I live always complain about the weather when it dips somewhere below the 105 range.  I guess it might be nice if you can afford the air conditioning bills!  Personally, I hate it when it goes up 80 degrees, unless I'm swimming.

LOL! Yeah, it'll be hard to live on a planet without a big ocean to visit and little tide pools to gawk over strange life in.  The ocean is a magical place.  MAybe we should just take Shaun's advice and ignore the whole problem.  Maybe it'll just go away.

Man I want to go now.   It would be a nice roadtrip excursion.  *contemplates getting out checkbook*

I view Mars pretty much the same way you do.  It's just the next logical step on our further expansion into space.  I sometimes wonder if anarchism will necessarily become the "political" reality of a space-faring species.  There's so much room to roam around out there that it would be easy to run from the cops so to speak and keep setting up small colonies here and there.  Not that I'm necessarily an anarchist though. 

If we intend to make a meaningful expansion into space it seems only logical to me that we would try to make our environment as comfortable and safe as we possibly can.  Mastering terraforming would truly allow us to expand into space on a mass scale.   Plus we are in no danger of using up resources in terraforming Mars considering the very vast material wealth of the Solar System that's at our disposal, particularly in the asteroid belt.  Anyway, I don't think we are in sudden danger of becoming soft and forgetting how to colonize space if we terraform Mars.

I think it's best that we look out for ourselves and forget what impressions we might make on an alien intelligence we have yet to meet.  If the extraterrestrials are truly intelligent and reasonable we could probably explain to them that we only terraform planets that we feel certain are devoid of life.  After all, it's quite possible the aliens themselves will be terraformers.   And personally I think it's definately in our best interest to become "masters of the inanimate" as you put it.  What right does any alien society have to impose their morals on us so long as we leave them alone?  Wouldn't it be hypocrisy for them, who'd obviously have a high level of technology if they can understand the use and ramifications of our technology, from telling us we aren't allowed to develop technologies they don't like?   If we come into ideological differences with any e.t. out there we'll just have to weigh the options.

It's probably safe to assume that marine creatures would be a lot easier to introduce than land based ones simply because the water is a good source of shielding from cosmic radiation.  But then again if you got oceans your probably have a nice thick atmosphere that could block harmful radiation from land animals as well.

I think the problem with a lot of environmentalists is that they view anything that is done to the environment by people as being negative.  So naturally they think that if we go tear up a sterile, utterly dead asteroid we're committing an act on par with cutting down an ancient, unspoiled forest.  They need to be convinced that living eco-systems take precedence over dead matter on which no eco-system depends on to thrive, and thus we could save eco-systems by extracting materials from lifeless sources in space.  Also they need to realize that we could solve a lot of our energy problems (which causes most of the pollution) by developing energy in space.  It's just not good to stagnate technologically and then bitch about how bad things are getting.  They either need to realize that we must work on these new technologies for exploiting space and energy or we could be facing an environmental disaster before we know it.  I get the feeling though that a lot of the more radical environmentalists are just to irrational to even consider that technology and space could be a positive instead of a negative influence.

Do you have to be a society member to attend the convention?  If they don't they should allow non-members to attend for a fee.  And I agree, it'll be nice when we don't need NASA to get us anywhere anymore (even though they don't get us anywhere!))  If we're ever able to launch a mission soley from private funds I think we should set up base in Nigeria.  They've expressed interest in exploiting space to help their economy but don't have the budget for it.  Plus equatorial regions are good places to launch from if I remember right.

Maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I made the connection of Zubrin as a cultist leader, but there are definately scientists and engineers out there who thinks he's some kind of whacked out crackpot with unworkable ideas.  Give me some time and I'll dig up some material I've read to make my point.  Those people often strike me as being very arrogant and closed minded.  Granted, there are problems with Zubrin's plans, but to totally trash him as some delusional nut is going to far.   I think its something all visionaries have to contend with, being put through the fire by unreasonable naysayers.  And I know what you mean by educated and intelligent people acting unreasonable.   I think my favorite example is the story of the truck that got caught under a bridge because it was too large.  A bunch of engineers were trying to figure out how to get the truck out from underneath while ignoring one of the engineer's five year old who kept saying to let the air out of the tires.

That's a scary thought.  If permafrost is indeed uniformly spread over the planet just a few meters deep that might cause some problems.  The melted permafrost could definately cause the support structures of the dome to sink. 
Civil engineering practices on Earth could be applicable to this problem since the same things happen on this planet.  If you encounter ground water that's above a certain level the solution is usually to build up the pad or sometimes you can situate the structure on piers using special and expensive types of concrete.  If the underlying material has a high clay content, the supports will likely need expansion joints as clay is very expansive even after it's compacted (that's assuming the water is contained mostly in clays).  Then again if the water is mostly contained in rock, it might be a non-issue.

Hmm, what would sex be like in 0g? Might be hard because all of that thrusting, pushing, slapping, etc would send your partner floating off away from you, you'd have to keep pulling them back.  I imagine you'd have to make creative use of the walls.  Maybe the Mars Society should make a cheesy video demonstrating the possibilities of sex in space to make money.  They could suspend some porn stars by strings to emulate zero G.  The Mars Society porn division could probably make enough money to go to Mars on its own not to mention all those glamour and popular culture mags would inadvertently advertise our cause when they pick up on these new ventures by the Mars Society.  Nothing sells like sex!

Mr. Barrett I swear I'll pay up, I just need 24 more hours to get the cash!  Please don't make me sleep with the fishies at the bottom of the lake!

I guess if your a coffee addict you could just drink cappuccino.  Gonna have to spend a lot of time in the exercise room though.   Speaking of calories, will Mars astronauts just subsist on the normal 2000 calorie diet or will they need more because of heavy activity or perhaps less?