New Mars Forums

I've been busy with a house renovation project, hence my delay for jumping in...hehe...

I've been a close follower of the news and current events ever since high school, and it does seem like there has been a greater division between what I call "Blue America" (Democratic-leaning urbanites) and "Red America" (Conservatives living in rural America), which became much more evident after the 2000 election.  When Clinton was still in office, he had a tendency to work with both parties, and he was a master of the "give and take" principle, which helped bridge many of the differences between conservatives and liberals, IMO.  I mean, just look what Clinton was able to do: getting rid of the deficit, reducing welfare rolls and wasteful government spending (the level of government spending in proportion to the GDP actually went *down* during Clinton's presidency), not to mention the boom-time economy he helped generate with his "common sense" economic policies (which involved the raising of taxes early in his term, along with a bi-partisan round of budget cuts, both of which had widespread public support at the time...especially when people started seeing the payoff, etc.)

Now, it seems that the conservatives (esp. Bush) just want to put down the liberals just for being "liberal", and vice-versa, as opposed to trying to work *together* to solve America's problems.  And we do have a lot of them...the ballooning deficit, the lack of national savings to carry the Baby Boomers into retirement, the mess in Iraq, the constant threat of terrorism, the "jobless" economy, the corporate scandels, tremendous budget problems of most states and local governments (many of which have raised taxes, therefore negating Bush's Federal tax cuts), and on and on.

I think the real point of a leader is be a leader, which Clinton did quite admirably (IHMO, of course...lol).  Whether you're a conservative, moderate, liberal, or whatever label you'd like to paste upon yourself (me, I hate labels...for some reason, labels don't stick to me very well...never have...lol), the important thing is be true to your role as a leader, as opposed to being true to your own personal beliefs, etc.  Like the gay marriage thing, for example.  Why is Bush is going on and on about a Constitutional admendment (a process which is supposed to expand individual rights, not limit them) which would prohibit gay marriage forever, thoughout the entire country?  He says "let the people decide."  Well, why doesn't he just leave the issue alone and let the individual states decide the issue, or when the time comes, the Supreme Court?  The government has three branches, and all of them have their role, including the courts.  Judges are people too, and yet Bush doesn't count them as part of the political process?  To me, that's not being a leader...that's just being selfish.  Why be fiddling with the issue of gay marriage when this country desperately needs jobs and increased savings and better infrastructure, etc, etc??  Hmmmmm.  Whatever happened to the word "priorities" here?

As for being a "moderate," I don't that should be viewed in the same way as you might view a liberal or conservative, as I see being a moderate someone who is willing to listen to *both* sides of the issues, and pick the best course based on common-sense principles, as well as compromise, practical issues, etc. (Which I thought Clinton was very good at...gosh, I miss that man...)  The danger of throwing 100% of your support behind a particular party, idealogy, belief, etc, is that you will almost certainly get burned at some point or another.  People have a tendency to stand for one thing and actually do another, which is a process I see over and over again. (Like the salesman who will lure you in with a "great deal" and then pull the old "bait-and-switch" tactic on you, which is what I feel Bush has done to the entire country.)

Being a moderate also means being open-minded in my opinion, and this is what I strive for in my daily life.  If I think the media is biased (which it is) I try to compensate for it in my mind, so I can still have a clear picture of things.  Also, I don't always believe the things I read or hear, either...Cindy's right...where's the "proof" of the things the talking heads are saying?

Gotta run, might chip in with more later.... 

B

Yes, I envision tires on Martian rovers to be made out of some sort of woven mesh, probably some kind of polymer fiber that's super-lightweight and able to withstand the frigid temps.  IIRC, the lunar rover tires were made of a wire mesh material; in Mars' lower temperatures, you'd have to have something that wouldn't become brittle and can hold up under abusive conditions, etc. 

Wish I had a link to show you, I'll poke around and see if I can find anything on this...

B

Well, I finally got to see the movie last night...lol   I paid very close attention to the blastoff scene (isn't it great?), and I noticed the reverse rocket exhaust effect.  To me, it didn't seem like a glitch, although it didn't seem like part of the normal launch, either.  I think the fx people put that in to jazz things up a bit, which is what they do in a lot of movies.

As for the rest of the movie (I think I had seen it in bits and pieces, but not the whole thing), I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was amazing how one thing kept happening after another, seemingly without end, and the trio on the Moon-bound rocket had to constantly figure things out on the fly just to survive, as well as all the support people in Houston struggling to get the astronants home as well.  I thought Tom Hanks performed one of his best roles ever in playing Jim Lovell...he's fantastic in that role, imo.  It was a great film...I wholeheartely give it a "two thumbs up." 

What's cool, though, is that I rent movies through Netflix, a dvd-by-mail rental service.  You rent movies on the internet, and wait for them to come in the mail, and when you're done, all you have to do is to slip it in the mailer and send it back.  Well, it so happens that "Apollo 13" was sent out from the distribution center on Friday, the 13th...and it got here on the 17th, which is four days, the same length of time the astronants had to endure after the explosion on the outbound journey before being able to make it back to Earth.  Pretty cool, huh?  :;):

B

Wow...(shakes head in wonder)...

Talk about some power, huh? 

B

Yeah, I've been checking out some Meades on the web recently; those are some mighty fine scopes aren't they?  Especially that 12" they have....lol...    It can be had for the low, low price of $4000...hehe.  Oh well, it doesn't hurt to dream, does it?

Unless I move to a less light-polluted area, though, I'm sticking with my good 'ol 4" Astroscan...no sense in paying big bucks for something that you're not able to get full use out of... ???

B

Hehehe...that'd be a sight to see on the interstate, a Saturn V strapped to the top of a tiny car...lol...it'd be like an ant carrying a tree on its back...

As for what you saw in that movie, I'd have to look at that actual clip to tell you for sure, but what you saw was probably an editing glitch (happens all the time), or it could have been a deliberate trick (like running the film backward for a sec or 2) for effect.  Hmm, now you got me curious about it now...might have to rent it and check it out for myself...lol.

B

If you look at the people who "winter-over" at the South Pole in Antarctica, there is plenty of evidence of depression induced by the lack of daylight and the usual 24-hour cycle; this is why such high priorty is placed on pyschological screening for these folks.

I'm hoping they'll (NASA, et al) quickly figure out that the Moon is nothing but a useless (not to mention costly) dead-end, and focus their resources elsewhere, like Mars...lol 

B

Well, that's a surprise to me     Guess NZ has changed a lot since I was there in '86.  Back then, I was extremely impressed with the "green" mentality the people had in regards to their country, and I saw so little of the rampant development that you see in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Kudos to you picking up the garbage, etc.....maybe some of those blokes will learn not to throw trash around all over the place...

B

I'd name mine "Mists of Mariner" 

Capturing the mysterious essense of Vallis Marinernis...

B

My idea would be to have wire mesh tires, made out of a special alloy that won't become brittle at extremely low temperatures.  But I hope they don't forget to bring a small bulldozer, as that will be essential for clearing paths free of rocks and boulders, etc, not to mention a whole host of other uses.

For local travel (less than 5 km from the base), I would think that ATV-type vehicles would be ideal...they would be small, easy to use and have the ability to go almost anywhere, and hopefully easy to repair should they break down.

B

If you stand along the rim of the caldera on Olympus at the summit, I would think you could see the curvature of the planet, at least to some extent; KSR has one passage in "Red Mars" where looking down from a certain spot near the top of Olympus was like looking at Mars from a platform in low space.  (I've heard that some of his descriptions of various features of Mars are inaccurate, however...Mad Grad is right in that you cannot see the whole mountain from any one location on the surface of Mars...Olympus is more of a sky-continent than anything.

But Michael's comment about driving to Denver to see the curvature of the Earth...that's actually happened to me...sort of.  After attending the Mars Society conference in Aug 2002, I left Boulder and drove down a highway that ran along the foothills of the Rockies just to the west of Denver, to a hotel I had reserved a room in just off I-70.  The air was super-clear, and not only did I have a spectacular view of Denver from this road (it was maybe 700-800 feet higher than downtown Denver) but I noticed something else too, which struck my mind as kinda odd.  Far, far off to the east, lying beyond the sharp-edged horizon was this line of billowing thunderheads, the bottom halves of which were distinctly below the horizon.  And they looked really far away, too.

Well, I got to the hotel a few minutes later, went up to my room, turned on the Weather Channel, and sure enough, they were displaying a line of big thunderstorms...in western Kansas, over 200 miles away(!)  I never even knew that you could see that far inside Earth's atmosphere, so that surprised me.  Even though I really couldn't actually "see" the curve of the Earth, it did feel like I was looking over the curve of a sphere...just on a very large scale..lol.

(Getting back to Mars), I think the best place to see the curvature of Mars would be from the northern rim of Coprates Valley (Marineris.)  It being nine kilometers higher than the floor of the valley in some places, I would think you could look out over to the other side of this enormous canyon, and since you would have so much vertical space in front of you (plus Mars being so much smaller than Earth), there wouldn't be much trouble in discerning the curve of the planet itself...it'd be an awesome experience for sure..lol.

It'd be nice if they would send probes and rovers to the most "exciting" places of Mars instead of the most "boring" ones...lol...I want to see what these places really look like...hehe.

B

Hehe...  Well, why I don't do this...  While writing one of my stories a while back, I came up with an idea of a passenger space plane, which was a reusable single-stage orbital craft.  To make this possible, there would be a kilometers-long super-high tensile cable laid out in a desert or some other place where there's a lot of flat, empty land.  Much like how gliders are slung up into the air with cable tows, this cable system would lift the spaceplane about 10,000 meters or so and Mach 2 or so, at which point the cable would release and the plane's engines would kick in, ferrying it up to orbit.

Could something like be feasible outside the pages of a SF novel?  To me, this system would be much simpler and cheaper to construct than a full-fledged mass driver, which would probably cost almost as much as a space elevator would.

B