New Mars Forums

http://www.sinodaily.com/2005/050517001 … tml]Taiwan "allowed" to have contact with the W. H. O

China has allowed Taiwan to have contact and dealings with the WHO. How very nice of them. It was China who instigated the Taiwanese being thrown off the board of the WHO in the first place. So much for UN impartiality.

Empire as a mindset only has as an opposite Anarchy. There have been many republics that became empires and even more democracies. As an example Rome was a republic that eventually had to change its political structure as a result of becoming an empire and being unable to deal with the growth strains. Athens the first republic and possibly the truest form (as long as you were not a woman or a slave) where everyone was in the goverment it formed a strong empire. Buts its republicanism was its actual downfall when it came into conflict with a very efficient focused state(Sparta). It shows that though democracies and republics form strong empires they can be very slow to react to events. It takes time to get consensus.

And many Empires have actually resulted in a greater enfranchisement of there populations as the Empire grows. Britain and France both being a good example.

Still all these Empires have one difference than what we are talking about here they mostly went to other countries and took them over as well as form there own colony clients. When we go to space there is no other countries there so it will be colonisationary Empires only.

As technology advances what we call Empire changes and how our society changes too. The Empires of the 19th century where driven by mass industries like ship building and in mass production goods. The Empire was a place for these goods to be sold and for resources to be garnered. What we have seen is that with technology the efficiency gains has destroyed these type of Empires and what we have now is Empires of information and commercial control and of ideas.

The USA dominates the world not because it has a massive military or even in items produced but in its control of technology and in the idea that it is the superpower.

It seems with the invention of 3D printers and closer internet ties and E commerce that it will make the world more and more a place of information flow. How that will effect the USA I dont know.

I agree with reddragon, a military operates as a team with everyone outside counted as more or less the enemy. People who slow the team weaken the team. And a duty to your country is considered normalcy. It does mean they tend to a consertivism and strong beliefs.

Then again the perfect soldier is also a Sociopath.

Wrong place to post but for Dook here it is

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news … l]National Geographic Article

This species of Man called Homo Floresiensis lived in a specialised enviroment and hunted pygmy elephants while avoiding being eaten by dragons(Komodo). They where called Hobbits by the researchers who have been finding there remains as the race would have stood about the height of a 3-4 year old child about 3 feet high fully grown. About 12000 years ago a volcanic eruption destroyed there world and the species died out.

With Dr Griffin giving interviews that state he only needs a further 18 flights to have the ISS complete to the standards his international partners would deem acceptable he plans to have the shuttle retired earlier.

He is concerned that there would result a gap of 4 to 5 years without an American manned vessel so his intention is to speed up CEV.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp … 97]Houston Chronicle article

And what happens to the shuttle launch stack. Well quoting the article

I have seen a rather strange almost futuristic way of stopping a car that is speeding and not willing to stop when told to do so.

It is basically the equivalent of a wheeled remote controlled car with a taser that fries the electronics inside the car so stopping engines etc. Im not sure what powers it but it seemed to be some form of fuel/engine rather than an electric battery power and it is quided by the police car that is behind. And since it only blows the fuses in a car it means the driver inside will loose his power steering but still be able to steer and to brake but he wont have the ability to restart an engine.

It is hoped to be used by Police patrol cars in and around the major cities as the use of stingers(spike strips) etc can be difficult and fugitive drivers are more aware of them and when they will likely be used. And there has been an increased example of people willing to run even without tyres so exposing themselves and other drivers at severe risk.

heres to the future

There are a lot of states who are looking at space as a place to expand there influence.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/2 … Washington times, Robert Zimmerman

This is an article about this view of what is likely to come. Just the natural tendency to Empire Build.

It is the natural tendency for mankind to want to expand and grow. I have said this before science's main job is to make it easier for mankind to do this.

The current position of ESA and JASA astronauts is that they are going to the ISS awaiting the modules that there respective space agencies have built and paid NASA to launch. It would be foolish to sell them time for astronauts who do nothing without the modules that are sitting in storage. So your 2006 budget should be about doing the international agreements that the USA entered into and those modules which are the ISS's chance to do worthwhile science into space.

And with there being no free flights from the Russians and these modules being specifically only able to be launched by NASA's shuttle(as per contract, Nasa's terms) this means only shuttle flights can deliver them and only one module per flight. And they also need an increase in power supply (another flight) as Nasa restricted these modules from having there own power supplies (something both ESA and JASA wanted).

Its called the pincer. If Iran uses Nuclear weapons apart from anything except self defence it will suffer from hammer blows from both the Russians and the USA. It would not survive the experience.

There is an almost unspoken agreement that no one uses Nuclear weapons except as a last resort. And for Iran nuclear weapons are a weapon of detterence. They want protection from the USA and Russia who would have no difficulty with the idea of regime change.

Lol we just have to find the right craters dont we. Heh, when we find one we will be busy extracting for years. Actually it does bring the point up that we know more about Mars than we do about our closest neighbour. Most of what we know came from the limited Luna/Apollo samples and now the most recent set of probes. And these probes have really been technology demonstrators with a science aim.

Still it will need a proper mineral resources probe one specially designed for the purpose. We already know of 3 minerals/Chemicals that the Moon has that the Earth does not. I really wonder what else can be found and what can be found on the other planets. Not that im stating we should go and build mining bases across the solar system just curious as to what could be found.

For us to start terraforming Mars we will have had to have a large space infrastructure in space. Nothing less as we are talking about the single biggest engineering project that mankind has ever done. Personel required to do this will be large and we can talk about populations of 50,000 plus to do all the work that has to be done.

To put into space the large mirror that is a soletta array and you will see that it is not feasible to be done from Earth or Mars and that only probably the use of asteroidal material will allow such a creation. And a soletta array is one of the easiest and effective means of starting to terraform Mars.

If as an engineer and you where asked to work on this great project but the minimum length of time you where going to be away was 3 years would you not want your family to go with you. It was common in the twentieth century for the big engineering projects to employ large amounts of people but for them to bring there families. On Mars it will have to be the same, we cannot expect anything except this.