New Mars Forums

yes you're right, bearing children to term might be difficult, but probably not impossible since experience in zero g with vertebrates showed that it can be done. Obviously, 0.38g is better than zero g, so I don't worry much.

It will happen however. Providing we are not running full speed towards WWIII, providing mother Earth still wants to support us for the next decades without too much complaining, providing Mars is finally reached by men and women...so here we are. Given the lenght of the trip, and difficulties to come, I think a base with at least a 2/3 years rotation crew is better than a 3 months stay. 2 or 3 years, that's long enough to create men/women relationship and unless antifecondation treatments and other "tools" are imposed, you will get that : a first pregnancy. We might all be alive when that happen.

But If Mars forbids human pregnancy, I think human will leave and forget Mars.
But that won't happen. The Human body is very adaptable, don't forget that hominids are very recent in term of evolution. The worst that could happen : oversized embryo due to some kind of accelerated growth in lower gravity, or the reverse, small sized embryo looking like a premature, while still at term, will just require a C section, while In the latter case, I would probably choose to let it go naturally, if it's longer than 9 months that's no big deal. So, in a long term martian base, surgeons and pediatricians will be required.

My very personnal opnion about religion, specifically the miracles attributed to Jesus or others, is that there is not two worlds, one with physical laws for humans and another one with diferent physical laws that allow to walk on the water or multiplying breads for example.
The most anti-physical miracle, IMO again, is ressucitation.
You realize that if you accept the theory of evolution, life on earth has appeared ONCE (well, maybe after different attemps, but say 100 millions years after the first genesis ) so ressucitation is like a second genesis. Once your dead you're dead, you are not different from a stone, making a stone alive is impossible.
So either these miracles are "symbolistics" stories of a more modest reallity (or jsut big lies), or, since their is ONE universe with physical laws followed by everybody on earth from Britney Spear to Jesus Christ, that means these physical laws are either incomplete or are still approximating the real physical laws, laws that allow miracles.
stupid ? not quite. Think about the recently discovered quantic and thermodynamic laws. There are a little bit counterintuitive, it is often said. For example, the modern interpretation of Ice is that ice is a crystal of water molecules. That means the molecules are positioned in a crytalline network and vibrate sligtly in their position, but don't "move randomly" like in liquid water or in a steam.
Now the notion of "moving randomly" is a thermodynamic statistical interpretation of a macroscopic system. In quantic dynamic, at the scale of the atome or single molecule, it is not possible to have both the exact position and the exact speed of a given atom.
If you put a pot full of water on the fire, the molecular agitation and speed of the water molecules will increase, until the water starts to boil. Until the water boils : that's what you expect. However, if one day it happens that this water actually transforms into ice, you would say it is IMPOSSIBLE, or it is a lie, unless Jesus Christ did it, in such a case you would then say it is a miracle. But actually it is not impossible, it is just UNLIKELY, as the mecules of water are randomly moving, there is still a chance, very little, but different of zero, that all the molecules of water in that pot on the fire, would move in a position like an ice crystal, and move synchroneously for a fraction of second, so that the water in the pot on the fire, instantaneously, would freeze. The more you heat the pot, the more it is unlikely that the water freezes. For practical matters, we would say it is impossible, but in theory it is not, only the odds are lower and lower.
Now the "miracle" takes another interpretation : it is just something very unlikely, but not impossible. No physical laws are broken anymore and there is no need for two worlds with different physical laws.
Maybe miracles are just that, manipulation of probability instead of forces. If you could control the entropic content of physical system without touching the temperature and volume of the system, that means you could control the probabilities associated with the description of that system. We don't know how to do that of course, but maybe Jesus Christ knew.

It's not about Hubble but the shuttle. In
[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/natio … 3SHUT.html]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/natio … 3SHUT.html
New York Times, registration required (free)

they say that the shuttle had flaw in the aerobrakes and that it flew with that default, potentially fatal, for decades.
Then I though about that:
Their is probably no "perfect" aircraft ever made. I remember the F104 starfighter with a very bad record in some countries (germany or Belgium I think, where many F104 crashed).
Any aircraft has some good and bad. That's part of the design,  why now, aircraft must be suddenly perfect to fly ?

I don't say that to save the Shuttle, it's too old anyway, but it's the concept to exploit the smallest details to conclude ultimatly that the aircraft had defaults and shouldn't be used.
Is it just me or I see politic everywhere now ?

I am amazed to see the success of this movie.
I havn't seen it myself but I wonder, Is it real coincidence ?
Could it be that all these repeatitive endless stories about muslim suicides/Sharron retaliation/Israel extension/muslim suicide/etc could reactivate the old christian mysticism ?

Just a reaction: christians feel trapped between Islamic and Jewish ideologic integrism, so they go back to their own values to avoid to be crushed.

For the Gaza band, you don't like the idea ?

and if it is true, then maybe we should reinstall the Holly Papal Inquisition and Exorcism.

Take Richard Perle, throw him in the river with a 100 kg stone around the neck. If he had trade with the devil, he must contain some evil substance that make him lighter, and he must float, and then be purified on the stake.

We must go back to basics.

Ahhh ! at least somebody to flagellate with me, ex-adorator of Cthulhu, but better that than nothing.

That's the spin american right-wings want to put on this election.
The truth is more simple, while spain has a big 'conservative' pool, the leftist pool is just bigger. Probably young spanish people make the biggest of that leftist-centrist pool. But whatever, right wingers are never happy. They don't like socialist in spain ? what about right wingers in France ? they won't like it either I bet.
This is all going out of control, by people who think they can control the world, using war as a political lever.

I would put all the Bushies neocons in the deset for 40 days, without food. Until the Snake comes and offer them the world, the power, the glory, the security, the richness, the money, the money the money the money: the Golden Calf.

Only one man had the guts to say No to that, and he doesn't work at the White House.

You cannot have everything. Long term peace is based on solid fundations and healthy policy.
MAny things in american policy don't make sense but I think that people can be teach better what is the consequence of their choice. Free choice is great, but you have to have the knowledge which come with free choice.
I cannot believe that with a choice between a clean H2 or electric car that gives healthy ecology and healthy relation in the middle east, people will continue to choose the short sighted, testosterone loaded SUV cars, just because the "bachelor" has the same SUV or teenagers like it fast and shiny.

People change of mind can be easily induced. What's gonna be difficult to influence are the OIL lobbies and dependant industries. I believe clean/oil free cars could have been made a long time ago but the OIL companies do not see that favorably. Neither do the Saoudis kingdom of course. Rather, the OIL compagnies use the excuse to say "that's the consumers who don't want slow electric cars, that's not our fault". yeah sure.
I bet that if H2 or electric cars were available right now, in the present political context, people would choose massively over oil powered cars. Maybe not everybody, but a trend would be created, irreversibly.

I was in Miami last week end, I saw a Lamborghini locked in the chaotic traffic, sweating  gas fumes and oil to advance two meters, and ridiculous babes-bait cars (with no babes aboard), like in the "happy days". All that can be changed faster than you think. That's not the problem.

Taking the iraqi's oil is the ultimate mistake, in this case, the arabs understand "stealing" instead of "taking".
The US should not do that, that' the sillyest thing to do, (so they will probably do it). The european and France should not do it either and they should make repentance and moult flagellation for all the dirty bussiness they've done with Saddam. It's not because other guys, including the US, did that dirty bussiness, that they had to do it too.

The reason is that what gives so much power to the house of saoudis and other Bush's friends is OIL and our dependance of it. That money comes from the devil since it is not associated with righteous sweat and work. Without this oil, what could be these friends of Dubbya ? camels and goat farmers at best. They would have no power and no money to send to AlQuaeda.

So the US should see OIL independance as the ultimate solution, unfortunatly long term. Reconverting the all automobile park to H2 car or electric car can probably be spread over tens of years, not less. Nevertheless years after year, the oil importation would decrease, and the saoudis would start to seriously worry about their status as the source of their power slowly evaporates.

That means that US citizens must accept nuclear energy as a substitute for the oil. It can be clean and safe you know.

Dickbill the wise.

that's what happen in He3 mines in the moon. Lonely gold miners...

But back to the spanish spinning. It still continues. Friedman in the New York times, said that the decision of the spanish voters was "crazy". He says exactly (copy/paste thanks NYT)
"Spain is planning to do something crazy: to try to appease radical evil by pulling Spain's troops out of Iraq — even though those troops are now supporting the first democracy-building project ever in the Arab world."

My advice to Mr Friedman : stop eating Paellas, pour the spannish wine in the street etc

The dispute is about weither or not spanish people'votes have been directed by the terrorists. I think the issue was settled before because, yes, a majority in spain opposed its own government policy. The attentat influenced, especially because supposedly the government tried to blame ETA instaed of the islamist, but I don't think that it was that that decided the voters.
It's not nice to say "spanish are like french wee-wee who turn their back in front of the danger" after all the benedictum and sanctitum urbi and orbi that Dubya gave them.
The spanish vote was predictible, with or without the attentat.

In France there are elections soon, But I doubt that France will vote leftist. French realize that they don't have anymore to be ashmed and culpabilized by the leftist for being patriotic and conservator since guys like Le Pen are moderate democrate leftists compared to guys like Dick Cheney. Why french should be ashmed to vote for moderate like Le Pen when a majority of US citizen support ultraconservators at the white house ? It's difficult to stay moderate in a world of extremists.

welcome to the forum.

Before you start a new topic, you can also browse a little bit in the pages of threads. Only the first page is displayed. For example, I have opened 2 or 3 topics in the MArs forum, they usually get buried after a while, but I know there are there. When I want to talk about it again (like the anthropic principle) I don't open a new identical topic, I just retrieve the old one, usually in pages 3 or 4. Have fun.