New Mars Forums

What 300 year supply, 90% of Platinum is produced in just 4 mines, 3 are in South Africa and one in Russia. Above ground it is estimated that the supply available will only last us one year before we run out and this includes recycling.

You do know on Earth it takes about 10 tonnes of material to be dug to produce just one troy ounce of platinum. What does this mean, easy the platinum mines are very very deep and are very prone to be being played out. This 300 years means only one thing the south africans believed if we could extract every last ounce from the Bushveld mines it would have lasted 300 years in 1985 consumption figures.

And since 1985 our consumption of platinum has doubled then doubled again we find it is getting difficult to produce enough so the prices of platinum has increased and increased. This is even with South africa having increased production to maximum.

{Off the record this max production of platinum especially at the depths they are now is risky with the likehood of a serious disaster one day unless H+S is kept up to date, something the mines in South Africa and Russia have in the past not been famous for. But at least this is improving rapidly in South Africa but actually going the other way in Russia}

When electricity was first replacing the gas lit street lights and moving into peoples homes there where two dsystems that where in operation. The peoples favourite Direct Current and the other Alternating Current. DC also benefited form the sponsorship it recieved from Thomas Eddison the great american inventor. But AC won as it was the most effective system and most functional. And we all use AC now.

This is capitalism at its best and most simple form it wants to use the most effective system but like nature will allways give the next system if better a chance to ursurp the previous. In this way Betamax was replaced by VHS and now VHS is by Compact Discs.

Biodiesel engines depend on the use of platinum for many reasons. Biodiesel engines rely on platinum to make the fuel in the first place. Not only from the normal hydrocarbons that are mixed in but also in the actual bio products too. In a Biodiesel engine platinum is used in an engine as sparkplugs as well as the most common use in the exhaust system to reduce emissions. It is also used extensively in the creation of sound mufflers as diesels are very noisy. But Biodiesels have one more unique use of Platinum. For a Biodiesel engine to operate it needs pltinum to actually be present in the combustion chamber. Platinum is needed as the combustion agent itself and no other material has yet been found that comes anywhere near.

A Fuel cell needs an amount of platinum equivalent of 2 troy ounces to operate but does not need spark plugs or exhaust system. It has to be noted that a Biodiesel car needs just a little bit less in the way of platinum about equivalent to 1 and 2/3rds of troy ounces.

There are other reasons that Fuel celled powered vehicles are more likely to take over people in general less willing to accept polllution both physical and in the form of noise. Fuel cells are at the moment 2 x more efficient than a normal engine it really only needs small refinements for them to take over and in Europe Hydrogen gas stations have started to open. Add in that LPG stations could be converted to Hydrogen supply with some ease and we have already a quick infrastucture. Then it comes down to cost and Hydrogen cars are already a lot more cheaper to run and operate and they last a lot longer with less faults.(less moving parts).

hope this helps.

That is due to how efficient they are in converting Photons into an energy form we can use. We can create much higher efficiencies even unto the low 40s in percentage but the problem then becomes the weakness of the actual cell and its actual cost to make.

Batteries are an example of a technology where there is very slow progress as it is very hard to actually store energy into a meaningful form. Of course if we can turn it into fuel that we can burn thats a different matter, like hydrogen.

So how far in the future give dates 5 years, 10 years, 15, when, we cant base a whole economy on quesstimates and vaque unrealised dreams. We plan now not for 2006 but 2016 and longer this is called the long term view.

Well its Election time in Great Britain.

The Exit poles have that Tony Blairs, Labour will win again but with a reduced majority of only 66 Mps. The first "seat" called has actually shown the majority might be even less. It looks like he is being punished over the War in Iraq. If it as low as that it makes his leadership of the Labour party at severe risk from a challenge inside his party like happened to Margaret Thatcher.

Still I will know when I wake at 6am which party will have won.

Dook
Nasa is driven by whatever the powers that be decide it is driven as. No sentiment here it was designed as the apparatus to catch up with the USSR and surpass them. No more USSR but it still functions as one of the main research arms of the US goverment. And the US is perfectly correct to do this as there is a link between how much of a countries GDP is spent on Research and development and on a countries productivity. And agencies operate better for oversight than direct fiscal control by the goverment.

The Moon is a logical step. We have not been out of LEO with anything except robotic probes since the early 70s. The space exploration iniative is the reasonable progressive course. Mars direct is nothing more than an apollo mission writ large. But as the spirals note they will improve capacity to actually go beyond LEO and to have the skill and willingness to try. With a Moon first agenda it means we can start to create infrastructure on what will be our factory. With the Moon close and with a limited gravity we can use Telerobotics to construct items and without the expense of human crews. This is a lot easier for us. How do you propose to Terraform Mars when you are discussing an engineering project on a tremendous scale. To get the needed people then we are talking cyclers and that needs a capacity for construction that the Earth cannot do but the Moon can.

The statement that you believe that a Moon first will stop a Mars mission indicates that you believe that NASA will through tens of billions of dollars to get to the Moon. Yes they will but the plan is not to do it at once but to Spread it out over years. This allows a development of mission infrastructure that can be used on either Mars or Moon. Would you really object to a heavy lifter designed to get more to the Moon. And strucure built on the Moon wont rust but can be serviced easily compared to the ISS and if we really need a part it can come from Earth on the next transport quickly. Still once we are on the Moon the next logical step is Mars.

Why have I upset your feelings in declaring my belief that Moon then Mars is the best way forward. In that case tough. I support Mars missions but not at the expense of the space program and logic and reason prevail in this.

got a society for you.  http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublons … y.htm]Flat Earth Society

Yours in fun

It is the abscence of the platinum and other asteroidal materials that indicate concentrated resources. The impacts have occured, but there does not appear to be any debris. This could really only have happened if the impacts where soft and the objects remained intact.

Why did apollo not find them, well it was not looking and apollo was such a cursory look at the Moon that it was the equivalent of Columbus landing in the Americas run up the beach pick a leaf and get back aboard and sail away. But even from this we have learnt a lot and we can learn a lot more, but we have to go back.

Having studied the popular mechanics "design" and with the likehood that Boeings will be of the more feasible Appollo, Gemini style of capsules I wondered why create such an obvious no goer for people who actually understand what is needed and best for a CEV.

Came to the answer its not people who understand mass and weight limits who will decide. Give you an example. Children have model aeroplanes and of course spaceships but how come they prefer the spaceshuttle to Gemini models. Simple the shuttle looks like what a spacecraft should

It is not just the lower gravity of the Moon that makes it the best place to create industrial capacity but the capability to have power generated. The Moon with peaks that are almost permanently in sunlight are a solar power paradise. It is power and especially electrical that has made our civilisation what it is and the Moon has in abundance all that is needed to easily make cheap solar panels that are very "hard" when it comes to radiation. There are Science projects that have it planned for automated Rovers to make lines of these panels solely from lunar soils. Its all that abundant SiO2.

Another advantage is that the Moon is sprinkled with Iron not much except in certain concentrated areas but this allows us to build what scientists call smart bricks. If we collect Lunar regolith and crush it into a mold then heat it. The mold will release oxygen and any other free gases. leaving us with a structural component and if passed through a powerful magnetic source the brick becomes polarised. This allows us to create a very good structural component which helps to right itself and is easily picked up by a robot arm.

Still it is when we go to find the PGMs that the Moon will either pay for itself or at the minimum to defray costs the same with the use of Helium 3.

Well the last launch of what was left of the British space program just happened successfully the Skylark sounding/small science rocket of course then again it rarely had a failure even over the 441 launches.

The Skylark 7 launched from sweden at 6pm BST and reached its apogee of 250km before coming down again.

The first Skylarks could only carry a 45kg package and only as far as 150 km but by the end of the program and construction in 1977 the skylark 12 carried a 200kg package to 576 km and once in Brazil a very light cargoed Skylark reached 1000km.

Still the reason for this post is to really ask why. Why did Britain become the only country to voluntarily give up a space program. Why when our technology was freely handed to our allies the French and the USA to there benefit and we remained stuck to the ground. Why when Britain was famous for its exploration and its science did this so obvious step not happen. And when we talk about Skylark whos manufacture ended in 1977 but continued with the so many in storage is an example of what was. In the 1950s and 60s when Skylark was dreamt up British space technology was as good as any in the world. We had rocket plane fighters and where the inventors of missile silos. We even used rockets to deliver mail.

Still the answer will be money and a bit of fraud and a lack a real lack of foresight. Still if anyone is interested here is a history of the British space programme and what could have been.

http://www.spaceuk.org/index.htm#]A Vertical Empire..Nicholas Hills incredible site

Try this site its called sandcastle

http://www.sandcastlevi.com/space/spa-p … Sandcastle V.I

Each probe is listed and at the bottom is a photo gallery

Oh, by the way welcome to new mars Visionary Explorer

and if you think your OT you should see some of the items I post.

I quess you could call me one of these people who have wanted to go to the Moon again and stay. But I have always wanted to get to Mars as well but with each year this goal has gone further and further away. With both destinations seemingly off everyones agenda except as we will do it sometime, maybe.

I honestly believe that for mankind to have the ability to go to Mars and not just like the apollo programme F&F but to stay we need to have a very large infrastructure in space. We have already seen what happens when we try to send it from Earth and the result the ISS white elephant. So this means we need to use the Moon to build what we need and to put a permanent prescence up there.

And yes I was excited by the Bush space exploration initiative. It seemed to be the first time in the last decade that movement seems to be happening. I know it will be hard and some very valuable programmes will be hurt to pay for it but it is the best chance we have to put the space infrastructure in space to keep a permanent prescence that increases each year.

Yes it is the shuttle and its rather large army that is needed that takes up a lot of NASA's funds. But to finish the ISS we need the shuttle and the russians cannot help us to put the modules up. So for a while the shuttle must stay.