New Mars Forums

Carbon and Iron are both plentiful in the asteroids. However, they are also both plentiful on Mars so there's little reason to go to the asteroids for them. The main reason to mine the asteroids is for rarer metals, especially PGMs. Antimatter you almost certainly won't find in the asteroids or anywhere else in the solar system. (Well technically virtual anti-particles are created all the time around us, but they're instantly destroyed again and are of little use at the moment.) If there was any anti-matter in the solar system (highly unlikely to begin with) it would have been destroyed long ago by collision with matter. Consider that most asteroids are themselves cratered; they hit each other from time to time. Even a matter micrometeorite colliding with an antimatter one would produce enough force to blow the whole thing apart.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought centripetal acceleration was omega^2/r. Or v^2/r as my book says where v is velocity of the object in question (just a different variable, same thing I think).

Buying all of Mars would be like buying all of Earth, or at least all the public property. Theoretically possible, as long as people are willing to sell, but ridiculously impossible. No one can buy any land on Mars until there are governments set up to control it. Someone could plant a flag and say my gov controls Mars and I own it all. But for that gov to be legitimate it must actually exert control over all of Mars, govern the people there, be accepted by them, and address local problems all over the planet. Otherwise people will just settle. Realistically you'll have to deal with multiple governments, and with each individual property owner in each settlement, who may or may not want to sell.

Or think of it this way. If you buy all of Mars, you have to send people there to keep out tresspassers. And they need land to live on.

I think a claim system should be established for Mars limiting how much land an individual or a settlement can control. Each settlement increases the amount of the land that is controlled by regular private property laws. All the rest is noone's until someone starts living there.

Cobra Commander, you're comparing true Conservatism with actual Liberalism. You should compare either both in their "true" forms or both in their actual forms. True conservatism, I would say, is about keeping things as they are, especially where they work fine, and being skeptical of hasty change. True liberalism is about advancing and beleiving that we can always make things better than they are now. Both have good points, and either philosophy taken alone fails utterly. You need a balance of each, although in my view a bit more of liberalism. This way you move forward, but you're careful not to really screw things up in the process. Groups in modern politics that call themselves "liberal" or "conservatives" both make some good points and have some good people but are represented by disproportionate numbers of nutcases. I'm sure most of the individuals are more or less normal, decent people, the crazy ones make the biggest stories and they're always the ones that the other side points to. Also it should be noted that while political philosophies can have liberal and conservative elements, basic Liberalism or Conservatism are not political philosophies like Nazism, Communism, Fascism, or for that matter Democrat or Republican.

So there is little evidence for Bush's lying and good evidence for a French Oil for Food scandal. I would be inclined to argue the opposite, although in truth I haven't really followed the Oil for Food story so am not really qualified to judge its validity. I simply can't say I've seen any proof, mostly just right-wing anti-France propaganda. Maybe there's some truth to the story, though, I don't really know. But on Bush's lying I believe there is very strong evidence. The British memo is just the latest document to point to a policy of adjusting the facts to justify invasion and trying to silence dissenting voices. If you say that the French connection to the Oil for Food scandal should be investigated, I certainly agree. So should other connections including any to American companies. However, I think there is enough evidence that the Bush administration lied about Iraq that we should take this accusation very seriously and investigate it thoroughly. And stop just saying "You did, did not, did too, etc."

Each side points to the scandals of its opponents and minimizes its own. This is a poor recipe for improvement.

Although some tax increases are probably inevitable, the most important thing in dealing with the national debt is to cut spending to within our means. The problem is that politicians are unlikely to cut spending even if they promise in their campaigns to do so. Once someone has access to the power and money of the government, they don't want to just let it sit there. They want, often from altruistic purposes, to use that money for programs that they beleive are necessary. I think that if most people had the ability, they would like to institute programs to make the country a better place. I know I would. Thus each politician has his or her goals, which to him or her are absolutely necessary and worthy of spending government money on. Other things are of course less important, and we can make the cuts there. But there are other politicians and citizen groups who want the cuts anywhere but there. Thus it's a hard fight to cut something, and it always brings enemies. Adding new programs is easier and more rewarding. What politician wants his/her term marked by fighting various programs that are beneficial to someone or by trying to do less. Everyone wants to be able to point to some accomplishments in which he/she has given something beneficial to the people of the nation. There is essentially a natural law of politics which states that spending will increase. This is something that is very hard to reverse.

Why do you need a first stage for launching? You could just make the  space plane a one-stage vehicle with both the scramjet engine and the equipment to use the railgun/magnetic catapult launcher. It would probably add a little weight, but the gear for attaching to and separating from a second stage adds weight and, more importantly, complexity. A single stage vehicle would be fully reusable, able to be quickly prepared for relaunching, and would eliminate the problem of landing and recovering an unmanned stage.

You don't need to go orbital speed at ground level, hence the scramjet. You just need to get up to high supersonic speeds at which the scramjet will work well. A difficult and expensive, but theoretically possible way to deal with air friction would be to accelerate along a completely enclosed track kept under very low, near vacuum pressure.

A maglev/railgun type system might work well combined with a carbon-nanotube cable space elevator and could be used to move cars up the cable all the way to geosynchronous earth orbit. It would be much faster than a climber that gripped the cable and would also have no friction with the cable. Of course building this long a cable and putting super-conductors or coils all along its length might be much more harder, expensive, and generally futuristic than the magnetic catapult with scramjet approach. I would consider both worthy projects with much more payoff likely than anything from the vehicles they're designing now (CEV, klipper, etc.).

I thought you made a very good case for the catapult. What advantage would a runway have? Your statements about the need to get a scramjet up to speed seem to imply that the catapult would be the best option.

A track this long would not actually have to be built in order to accelerate the payload to the appropriate velocity. Rather a circular track could be used with the payload running around it many times before being sent off on a steeply upward slanting side track to launch it. This would be a kind of macro-scale version of what is done in particle accelerators to accelerate particles, although the velocities achievable would of course be much less.

"a noble lie"

Should we fake a moon landing?

I'm not sure what the standard of evidence for proving that a crime was motivated by hate against a specific group is. A reasonable solution might be to require a demonstrated history of action against said group particularly in the form of previous crimes. However, on the whole issue of whether motive should matter n sentencing, I am still somewhat divided.

I tend to agree with this, although I'm not sure if I'm thinking of it the same way you are. Are you suggesting more harsh, one might say "barbaric", punishments such as death, beating, torture, etc.; more rehabilitation programs especially for drug offenders; or programs that give something back to society or the government to help make up for what the criminal took such as fines, community service, forced labor, or having to repay plus some the value of stolen or destroyed property. I like the last two options but not the first.