New Mars Forums

There's a brand new forum at the X-prize site.  They didn't want it publicised yet but you can find it here. 

There's also a new forum at spacedaily.com, the link is near the top lefthand corner of the page in green letters.  I haven't actually registered on that one yet but plan to.

Spooky alright.  They should load up the Pluto Express probe with instruments to study the phenomena (maybe slap an extra RTG on there .)

No problemo.   If there's a gravitational anomaly deviously lying in wait for unsuspecting probes flying to Mars it seems that the type of equipment used to measure variations in the gravitational field around Earth and Moon could detect it.  It's possible the Martian gravity field has already been studied but then again maybe the anomaly is camera shy.   :;):

Considering that the Livermore lab is interested in using metallic hydrogen in technology meant to deliberately kill us, I'd say it's a bad thing, but that the spinoffs could be good.  Problem is though, if they did find a way to create metallic hydrogen and it did improve bomb designs would they allow others to use that technology for civilian purposes?  Something tells me they wouldn't.

You could try http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou … lding@home if your not set on finding alien signals.  Thier program uses distributed computing to simulate the folding of protein molecules that could be put to medical and other uses.

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A lot of environmentalists fear that the advancement of science and technology is going in a direction that's seeks to dominate nature rather than preserve it.  Some examples include genetically altered plants and animals that might escape into the wild that will either outcompete or decimate the ability of their wild cousins to reproduce and military technologies which aren't exactly renown for their environmental record (see this for instance.)  Ultimately a lot of environmentalists believe that technological advancement alienates us further and further from nature.  John Zerzan covers these topics in most of his books.  As soon as I find it I'll post his definition of technology from the "Nihilist's Dictionary."

Considering the cost overruns that plague the ISS, and the political idiocy that often dictates its goals, I'm wary of how useful a moonbase would ultimately be.  Will it end up like the ISS, just some half-assed, overpriced pile of cans that fails to do serious science and only keeps a handful of people around to make sure the hinges don't squeak?  I've turned into a real cynic when it comes to government manned space programs.

Actually he's not kidding.  There are cases where mental patients will speak nothing but Klingon, so the shrinks are searching for people who can translate Klingon into English.  If you google it you can probably find articles about it.

What were some of their ideas for recycling the atmosphere?  Did it involve the use of plants or other biological processes?

Can you cite a source on that?  I've read that carbon nanotubes have a theoretical possibility of attaining a tensile strength 200x that of steel, but I've never heard of any materials that could be 900x stronger than steel, at least tensile wise.

Of all the philosophers you mention, which would you vote for president if they all rose from the dead and started campaigning?  Which one would you be least inclined to vote for?

99% of human history was spend in a state of relative anarchy.  It was only with the invention of agriculture that massive division of labor made possible the type of political hierarchy and oppression we have today.  Read anthropological studies of the few remaining hunter-gatherer groups that still exist.  They tend to be very egalitarian and non-authoritarian.  It's amazing it took so long for humankind to invent agriculture.  Why is that?  Perhaps, as happened with some Native American tribes, they found it more fulfilling to leave sedentary agriculture behind and return to the foraging way?  Foragers had a superior society in my opinion.  Nowadays we're just regimented, aliennated, and exploited by the power hungery and the ruthless.  I'd love to throwaway the clocks, the technology, the governments, the corporations, and the elitists who think us lowbrows need their every breath and mandate.  But alas, there's too many people to truly return to nature and become feral and wild human beings again.  Civilization is a curse, not a blessing.