New Mars Forums

You talkin' to me? I only ask because I'm really not sure. If so, my guess is that we probably live in the same world, just with profoundly different perspectives on it (I'm 16 actually). The good thing is that the real universe is shockingly better, more exciting, more incredible, and downright weirder than any fake universe that's been thought of so far. The real world a pretty cool place.

As for dreams, I've found that my strangest dreams tend to occur when I'm sleep-deprived and just before I'm woken up. I don't recall ever having a mythic dream, although my dreams do occasionally incorporate various characters from fiction/literature. Earlier today I finished reading Airframe, and a little while ago had a dream where I was the main character, Casey Singleton. That was an interesting dream. I've dreamed entire days before only to wake up and then have to do them myself, that's not too much fun.

For some reason when I dream I have absolutely no idea whatsoever that there is any reality outside of the dream. For the moment, the dream becomes the only real objective reality as far as I'm concerned, so it's kinda freaky when I wake up to a totally different world. Usually, though, as soon as I wake up I realize that, duh, this one is the real world and generally forget everything about what I dreamed within about 45 seconds. Isn't that funny, how any memories you gain from dreams just seem to evaporate once you wake up? Perhaps once your mind realizes that none of the dream actually happens it tries to dump the memories to make room for more important real ones.

Well, that's about all the time for idle speculation I have right now.

Not really. Granted, it is against the laws of physics to make an easy spaceship, but cost and difficulty are not necessarily so closely related. According to http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/91/honda.html]this source it has so far cost Spacex "more than 50 million dollars" to develop the Falcon I. Assuming that it would cost 20% more to develop a larger-sized launch vehicle (most of those costs would be non-recurrent start-up costs), and the cost were doubled for good measure to include the cost of the crew vehicle, integrated into the second stage to ensure complete reusability, if Spacex has set a precedent it should only cost about $130-140 million to develop a manned fully-reusable launch and orbital vehicle. That's not pocket change, but it's not several billion dollars either.

A Falcon-type vehicle would be a pretty crummy RLV, but with all the start-up costs out of the way and a bad RLV in place to provide funding, it should be possible to make a true-blue SSTO RLV for $300-400 million. That's within the realm of possibility for private industry provided an initial product to supply the development money. I really think that you're overstating the cost of the problem here. The engineers would have a heck of a time developing such a launch vehicles for sure, but funding would not be too bad of an issue.

There are a couple of things I should mention here before I reply. I didn't find this thread until about 15 minutes ago. My policy when this occurs and the thread is already four pages into discussion is to read the first few posts, skim the rest, and respond only to those first few, unless something particularly interesting or provacative was said elsewhere. I'm saying this just so you know that I'm not trying to personally attack anyone. Normally I wouldn't do that, but I've noticed that there's been some pretty bloody arguing so far.

From GCNRevenger:

Actually, GCN, you seem to completely validate an assertion that I will remind you Cindy did not make. Following up the implication that you did not act "purely out of emotion" with "I am upset with you!" bores holes in your defense you could drive a truck through. You should really try to avoid becoming so emotionally-attached to your comments and stop taking such counter-arguments as personal attacks. Now, I just know you're going to come around and accuse me of trying to pick on you or divert attention from the subject. If you must, go ahead.

From Martian Republic:

The problem is that this is not an applicable analogy. If your sister wanted a new car she could have gone out and bought one of millions of new or used cars availible on the consumer market that all would have unquestionably done the same jobs as her previous one much better. This is not the case with space telescopes, where each one is a one-of-a-kind deal with the possibility of the replacement not being as capable as the original in certain ways. JWST is NOT a Hubble replacement and never can be because it will look in the wrong part of the EM spectrum to do the same tasks as Hubble. Assuming HOP has all the same visible/UV spectrum capabilities as Hubble it would be an acceptible replacement, but the equation isn't quite that simple.

While a shuttle mission to service the Hubble would probably top out at $1 billion in cost, HOP's budget could easily go the way of many big unmanned projects and balloon out of control until it hits the $2-3 billion range. Alternatively, it could go the way of the vast majority of unmanned mission proposals and simple be axed before it leaves the powerpoint stage. At the end of the day, a complete Hubble replacement will be inherantly more risky than a Hubble repair mission for a number of reasons. What if the optics are fouled up after launch, exactly as it happened for Hubble? Assuming HOP is launched into a higher orbit that's better for astronomy purposes it has no chance of being service and will be dead in the water, too bad so sad. The politicians have already been skittish about funding a new repair mission to Hubble, but a new mission all together? I can't imagine that going over well in Washington.

Assuming no delays in its schedule, HOP could be launched by about 2010, according to the original article. That could mean three years with no space-based UV/visible telescope. Granted, this is not as hot a field of astronomy as infrared, but it is still very important, and no other part of the EM spectrum has yeilded such awe-inspiring eye candy. I'm not saying that we should have a Hubble-class telescope merely to ponder pictures of nebulas, galaxies, and infinity, but that's one of the big undeniable bonuses to having one. Ground-based astronomy is becoming more advanced all the time, but it will always have limitations compared to space-based astronomy due to a host of factors on the ground such as the atmosphere, weather, daylight, etc, that aren't problems in LEO. No matter what, not servicing the Hubble will result in a pretty hefty hole in our astrnomy capabilities for some time.

The Hubble may be old, but it's still a worthy investment for NASA and the world. Assuming everything goes according to plan in a repair mission it could last until a much later date, perhaps until 2012 or 2013. This would buy NASA enough time to build a Hubble replacement and not affect our observation capabilities. Perhaps they could even call on the private industry, through its Centennial Challenges program maybe, to build a low-cost replacement. I suppose that's the lowest risk possible. The result would be either a low-cost space-based UV/Visible telescope or not a cent charged to the taxpayers.

One of NASA's most important resources is the Hubble Space Telescope, and it absolutely deserves to be serviced at least just one more time. Simultaneously, a minimum-risk replacement such as HOP should be developed to fill the gap created when Hubble is finally replaced. NASA owes it the scientists, the public, and themselves to do so.

Just FYI. :;):

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I leave New Mars for a week (okay it was probably a lot more than that) and when I come back I find that people actually wished me a happy birthday!   I've always been more of a lurker than a regular poster so I'm always happy to see recognition. Have I told you guys that you're awesome before?

Well, I dunno. After all, I'm probably the only one here who's hijacked a thread to get dating advice before ( :;): ). It'll probably be a while before we have to start worrying about that, though.

It took me a while to get my Permit, so I won't be able to drive until May-ish. Still, it is pretty exciting, I suppose 16 is a bit like one of those threshold birthdays like 18, 21, or 40. The birthday itself was somewhat of an anti-climax, with all the work I've had lately I've barely been able to get seven hours of sleep at night, let alone have a birthday party (or come here regularly for that matter). I did get to see Aliens of the Deep, though, that was pretty cool.

Okay, I'm killing this now before I ramble too much. Now if only I could fix my danged avatar...

SWEET!

Dang, I need to come here more often. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen. I suppose there are worse bad habbits you could have than rarely visiting a forum. Like procrastination or insomnia or both, which I incidentally have.

Back to that first comment, that is so awesome!  Speeding tickets, crashes, oh boy I can't wait! Jk of course, like I need to tell everyone. Actually I drive like an 85-year-old granny, that is as sloooooooow and cautious as humanly possible, but with fewer cataracts. A few days ago I got honked at for the first time because the light turned green and I paused a second or two before ever-so-slightly accelerating into the intersection. You can never be too careful about red-light runners, I suppose. I just can't fathom why there are so many teens who get their Permits and Licenses and go around flooring the gas as hard as possible. For me it's probably the effect of becoming proficient in flying before becoming proficient in driving. Any kind of flying demands that you be  extremely cautious at all times, eventually it rubs off on you.

You could probably get some pretty good lift over a huge sprawl of parking lots and industrial areas, but the view wouldn't be quite as good as the middle of the desert. Plus, I can hardly imagine that Detroit gets many 118 degree days a year, a must for exceptional thermalling. We had something like 15 of those last year, and I can tell you that you do not want to be outside watching a pool full of happy, playful citizens of Phoenix guarding their lives soaked with sweat out in the Sun mere feet from the water on a day like that. Whoops, new topic, oh well. At least lifeguarding is good money, about $9.95 an hour.

I'm with Cindy, I am definatly never turning 40! At least not for the next 25 years!

It's (or it is?) funny the stuff that you overhear sometimes. Yesterday I was hiking at Lookout Mountain, one of the many small mountain preserves in Phoenix. Even in the middle of the city, in the mountain preserves everything becomes absolutely quiet and you can hear an ordinary conversation easily from over 2,000 feet away. While I was up there, a large group of about 20 people came through, and every once and a while I could make out a very distinct sentence amidst the din of their conversation.

Anyways, suddenly I heard out of nowhere someone say "...but even if it were possible the solar wind would just blow the atmosphere away." Kinda freaky, especially because I was just talking to my father about the life cycles of stars and the death of the universe. For some reason that stuck in my mind.

English is pretty cool. In many languages, if you want to say, for example, "we have two cats," there are about one or two ways to say that. In English there are likely many many dozen ways to say even a very simple sentence such as the above test sentence, and I for one wonder what's wrong with that? English allows far more expression than other languages can because of its wide vocabulary and the attached connotations of different word choices. IMHO, of course.

I just got my learner's permit a few weeks ago, so you may want to be careful driving around northern Phoenix right now. So far I haven't run into any brick walls/small children yet, hopefully it will stay that way. If only driving were as fun as flying...       :;):

Here's some hopefully constructive criticism that I can offer. I've poked around in several of the chapters before but have just now started to read the book front-to-back. It's definately an interesting read, but I feel as though it could use more colorful, vivid language than what I've seen so far. For example, instead of writing:

'Then the three men turned left and floated into the Ausonia. The first level down was a small room 3.2 meters across, stuffed with supplies for the trip out and back. The storage lockers narrowed the space to a mere 2.2 meters, not much wider than the standard 1.2 meter hemispherical access shaft. “Flare shelter,” observed Armando, and he was right; this was where they came if a solar flare exploded on the sun and sent deadly radiation their way. The packed provisions protected them from most of the particles.'

Perhaps you could write with more appeal to the senses, ie, here's an example:

"The trio turned left and effortlessly floated their way into the Ausonia. They were met first with a small, narrow room, barely more than three meters across and filled like a tick with supplies for the mission. The room's small size coupled with the plethora of goods it contained created a calostrophobic effect, and no one wanted to linger here much longer. "This must be the flare shelter," said Armando to finally break the silence. In the event of a monstrous solar flare or distant cosmic-ray burst, this was where the crew would huddle to protect themselves from the leathal radiation. The one-meter-thick layer of supplies should protect them from most of the less-nasty beta- and other charged particles, at least, that was the theory."

Obviously this can easily be taken a bit too far and the novel becomes practically unreadible, but I think that a little more sprinkling of metaphors, similies, and vivid verbs would really spice the story up. This technique is particularly useful for making strange, arcane topics like radiation seem very concrete and engaging. Well, that's my two cents anyway. Best of luck with the rest of the series, and keep writing!

I'm not even touching this. These are the first shots ever of a new moon that no one has ever landed on before. They might not be as high-quality as the MER pictures, but what were you really expecting? We landed on the moon, can't you be happy?

Nothing. There is no "before" the big bang, that's what started time. :laugh:

Yeah, our current model of cosmology is pretty screwed up, but it's the best we have. If it doesn't satisfy you you can always go back to believing that story about the Earth being a flat plate sitting on an infinate pile of turtles.

Orion is cool stuff and almost definately would be feasible, but I wouldn't bet on any orion system from making it higher than the original test article went in the late 1950s. What sets orion apart from all of the other proposed starship plans is that it is 100% feasible with nothing more than today's technology. However, it would be a marginal starship at best, traveling at only around .01c, and any government would be about as likely to invest in a spaceship that flies on nuclear bombs as it would be to try genocide as a method of fixing social security. There are so many better ways to do it, if the technology base can be advanced about 20 years to incorporate fusion drive.

Sam Dinkin is nuts if he believes anything that he wrote about in that article "Fire and Brime Stone" has a snowball's chance on Venus of becoming reality. We're really not that far away from achieving controlled nuclear fusion, and the environmental hazards that a power plant that explodes 27 nuclear weapons every day would make coal look green as renewable energy sources. It just wouldn't make sense to build an orion fusion reactor.

The part about daming the Mediterranien was even goofier, though. A dam across the Straits of Gibraltar is almost definately impossible for some time during the foreseeable future, and even if it were possible it would be a disaster for trade among European and north African countries. I don't know what the exact figures are, but every day vast amounts of goods go through Gibraltar, and I don't see how you could get them through there anymore under Dinkin's setup. Not to mention the environmental impact, maintainence costs, etc, the whole plan is just loony.

Project Orion was very entertaining and a story about it would make a great novel, but in reality it's not going anywhere. It's fun, but ultimately a digression from the real path to the planets and the stars.

Hey! Don't help this guy cheat! You never helped me when I tried to cheat off all you guys! :angry:

Grood luck with the essay. In what grade level are you? I would kill to have assignments like 300 page essays, wait till you need to do four page essays overnight for up to three classes at a time.

I support any very-low cost (<$500/lb) launch vehicle that works.

That said, if I were running a start-up company with a reasonable amount of capital, I'd think that an SSTO spaceplane is worth a shot at development. Jet engines do add weight, but there's little substance to the complexity argument. Thousands of jet engines are made every year, and they are ridiculously reliable and efficient if maintained properly. The engines are already produced by a seperate company, the only complexity it adds to the airframe manufacturer's job is the intergration equipment used to install the engines. Jets may be more complicated, but they are far safer than rockets.

Even assuming a mass penalty of up to 10,000 pounds by using jet engines, they could propel the vehicle up to mach 5 with far greater efficiency than rockets ever could. That would definately balance out the cons of jets if in-flight refueling is used as well. With lifting body airframes, LOX-injection gas turbine engines, and in-flight refueling, today's technology is most likely good enough to make SSTO spaceplanes a possibility.