New Mars Forums

i like the idea of a 15" or so computer screen, with a slot, possibly a cd/dvd drive...you could record a book to a cd, put it in the drive, perhaps select the font, type size, even add music to the book.  theres no reason to think this wouldnt work.  ive built computers before...all you need is a power source, a motherboard, chip, and an i/o cable.  a normal computer is about 30 watts, and we're not talking that much power here. 

so, you could bring MANY more books for a fraction of the weight.  maybe put a word processing program on the "computer" and a keyboard for thoughts, diaries etc, and add an external hard drive.  youd be able to read more easily than a normal book, and you'd only need, say one per person, maybe two, in case of breakage.  this would weigh only a few pounds.  meanwhile, you get music, movies, etc.  these could be portable, maybe plugged into an outlet too. 

separate computers (PC's, laptops are nice, but cant compete) are necessary too.  and they should be top of the line.  games are a good feature, but there are so many important uses for computers.

imho, id like this kind of a "book" on earth too 

there is plenty to be made.  the people that build it will have it made, just like the people who go.

on the surface- books, speeches...accross the world.

after that, sell the hardware, the blueprints...if they patented their work, they might be able to swing out advertisements, selling space (how much would a lab company spend to have exclusive rights to equipment on a mars mission?)...

they could cover the cost by having NASA spending an amount per astronaut it wanted to send (say $ 10 million apiece?), to cover at least part of the launch cost (theyd still save money on paying for shuttle launches).  they could also claim some landfor themselves (perhaps a regulatory comittee could be established to set aside how much), and parcel it out for later investors...

they could send launches of people, having them play full cost plus say 10%, for their portion of the flight cost, who wanted to go (again, regulated "immigration").

im not talking about lucrative in terms of metals, or what have you...but in already existing ways of making money.

apparent restraint?  please, bush is like a dog on a leash.  they havent found anything, so theyre commanding iraq to "admit" to having banned weapons.  it was in the new york times yesterday.  the administration is trying to find any excuse to send troops in. 

alt, you are far too extreme.  we did the same thing to germany.  the only reason we didnt have to use the a-bomb on germany, besides us not having it, was because defeating germany would not have taken 2 million (estimated) lives.  we could not have sent the a-bomb in to help d-day, because we'd be bombing our allies.  by the time we got in launch range of german soil, the german army was done.  not so with the japanese.  they were ready to die to stop invasion.  so the white/asian thing doesnt hold water.

and why does america have to be every countries food supply?  i dont see why nobody else is capable of supplying the starving people of the world.

and as for liberating oppressed people.  the somalis hate us for our attempt to help feed them, to direct the food from the warlords to the people.  there was no strategic impetus for us to be there, it was purely humanitarian.  and every time we do help somebody, somebody else asks why we didnt help them.  in rwanda, people (trust me, there are many who do), claim that we helped bully around a smaller tribe, we intervened in a civil war, and the same people turn around and ask why we didnt intervene in sierra leone.  so you see, we have a lose-lose situation.  isolationism doesnt look so bad, after all.

oh please.  we are holding up a hated dictatorship in saudi arabia.  if it were not for their teaching of terror to their people, the people would have killed them by now, too.  oil is keeping us there, and terror is keeping the people somewhat sated.

caltech, there are certain situations, intervention would cause a problem far greater than the current one.  going into tibet would be one of them.  going against china would be a big mistake-even if we win a war (which we probably could, numerically, they are superior, but they couldnt get an army overseas...our navy would win out).  that would be like sending an american army into poland right after ww2 ended.  bad idea.

yes, and thats a good reason why there should be laws to keep nuclear power plants away from residential areas.  who would live right next to a nuclear plant?  im sure the same thing happens to someone living near a fossil fuel plant.  this is a lame argument, and easily rectified.

based on what, things that happened 20 years ago?  Nuclear reactor powered subs have operated for 40 years without a problem.  one reactor leak and one explosion, decades ago, is not a bad record for a source of power that is exponentially better than fossil fuels.  again, this argument is really not all that good.

i think you misunderstood, im thinkin of getting a magazine 

any other ideas?

oh, i see, i was mistaken.  thanks for the correction.

whew. 
1. lets not forget that saudi arabia and kuwait have asked for our help, as have the afghanis in the northern alliance.  theyre not pushing us out either.

2. thats a good point

3. Bah.  If the arab nations charged any more for oil, they know wed have a fire under our arses to get fuel cells or electric cars faster.  and they produce less than they can to shoot up demand and price.  they hold oil over us, not the other way around.

4 and 5.  stop blowing up innocent people.  israel defends itself, and while i dont always agree with the means, theyve never launched a pre-emptive war.  how many times have multiple arab nations teamed up against israel, and were only beaten back by the superior tactics of israeli officers?  the arabs were given soviet weapons, so you cant blame US equipment.  israel acts in self-defense, not in aggression.  after every peace agreement, terrorist activity goes up.  what does that tell you?  let alone what theyve said about pushing israel into the sea.  if america didnt back israel, the arab nations would have wiped it off the map by now.  superior tactics or not, the arabs have huge numerical superiority.  dont blame america for the arab's intolerance of other cultures.

yes, im not denying that they could travel that far, but waves that begin with a fraction of a degree difference in travel could end up billions of km apart.  so youd have to literally have to cover millions of trajectories to come even close to covering a significant portion of the sky we see.

words and actions are enough to judge a person, are they not?