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http://www.msnbc.com/news/904842.asp?0cv=KA01&cp1=1
Jeff Bezos, of Amazon.com fame, is going into the private human spaceflight industry - backed by his $1.7 billion fortune. Along with Burt Rutan and John Carmack, all three have significant sources of private funds behind them, no shareholders to account to, limitless ambitious and a great deal of skill.
I think we're in for some interesting times...
Fixed posting that had old command structure for color......
With the success of New Mars' first World Space Week event, First Words - almost 100,000 website hits, 4000 entries and international media coverage - it was among one of the most prominent WSW events last year. Consequently, it makes complete sense that we should try and beat this target this year!
Why was First Words so successful? I think it was because it was such a simple yet powerful and universal concept. Everyone knows about the first words on the Moon; it makes sense that we should think about the first words on Mars. It was also something that everyone could take part in.
We should try and emulate this with our second event. Once again, Clark has come up with an excellent idea - 'Pictures of Mars, on Earth'. In this competition, we'd ask people to send in pictures that make them think of Mars; that's all. They could be photos, paintings, drawings, computer graphics, sculpture, whatever. They wouldn't have to be of a Martian landscape - they could be astronomical, abstract, humorous, fictional, whatever. And of course, we'd be open to all age ranges and have a special 'Kids' category.
Let me stress now that this *isn't* necessarily the event we'll be doing for WSW 2003, but I did think it was a good idea. If you have other ideas, *please* let us know them.
One thing that I've changed my mind about with Picture of Mars is that we should have different types of entry categories. I don't want to divide things up artificially, by saying 'Computer graphics', 'paintings', 'photos'. Too predictable. Instead, we could try categories such as 'Future', 'Real', 'Abstract' and 'Down to Earth'.
Future - Mars as you would see it in the future.
Real - Mars as it is now
Abstract - Abstract representations of Mars
Down to Earth - Mars on Earth, and things that remind of Mars.
What do you think?
Here is the list of questions compiled by Clark that I sent on to Dr. Andrews. I thought they represented a good balance of introductory and technical questions, and also addressed a wide range of issues. Hopefully we should be hearing back soon.
1. Could you briefly explain what the Mini-Mag Orion system would do, and where it is currently in development?
2. It was recently announced (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=11185) that your company Andrews Space & Technology had successfully completed a NASA Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract. Could you please explain what it was like to bring the MMO system through Phase I, and Phase II of the SBIR contract? What are the prospects for a Phase III SBIR for the MMO?
3. When did the idea, and/or what caused you to come up with the concept of the Mini-Mag Orion system?
4. The Mini-Mag Orion system seems to be a blend of several concepts for space propulsion, could you explain how the MMO differs from other nuclear and non-nuclear space propulsion systems?
5. How does the MMO differ from the MagOrion system?
6. The MMO is a nuclear rocket to the stars, how fast could it get humans to the Moon, or Mars? How far could it really go, could it reach Pluto, or Alpha Centauri? What would a ride be like on a ship powered by a Mini-Mag Orion system from Earth to Mars?
7. If given the funds, how long would it take to build a Mini-Mag Orion system capable of taking people to Mars? Could you scale this system down, perhaps using them for space probes?
8. Sean OKeefe, the Director for NASA, has recently requested funding for Project Prometheus, a 3 billion dollar investment over the next five years to develop ways to convert nuclear fission into electrical power for space craft; could the Mini-Mag Orion system play a role in this project? Are you developing any other revolutionary systems for space?
9. Why was Curium-245 chosen as the fuel source? Would the MMO system pose a threat to Earths environment? How much fuel does it need for a trip to Mars? Would it be launched from Earth, or assembled in orbit? How safe would this be for humans?
10. Given your extensive experience within Boeing, and your current experience with AS&T, can you offer any advice to those interested in working in space related fields?
Moved to Free Chat. This topic will be locked if it doesn't get back onto some semblance of being related to Mars; it did start out okay.
Hopefully kicking off a trend for these forums, we have an interview lined up with space propulsion researcher Dr. Andrews. You can read more and post your questions in this thread. The deadline is Friday, so be quick!
In this thread, Clark mentioned a new propulsion system based partially on the old Orion system. At Clark's suggestion, I contacted the inventor, Dr. Dana Andrews, to see if he'd be willing to answer a few questions about it and his other research.
Dr. Andrews has said that he'd be happy to take part in an interview but he'll be travelling for the next eight weeks so we need to get our questions to him asap, i.e. this week.
So, if you've read up on the Mini-Mag system and Dr. Andrew's other work, post your questions here. Please make sure that they are informed and relevant, as well. Since Clark is the person who suggested the idea, I'll be looking to him to suggest some of the questions and help pick out the best.
Ideally, all questions should be in by late Thursday/early Friday, so we can send them off to Dr. Andrews before the weekend.
Please continue discussion here - hopefully this thread will not have any stability issues.
Hmm, it seems this thread is unstable for some reason. It appears that I can retrieve the lost posts by rebuilding the thread periodically, but I'm not too keen on having to do that regularly, so I've set up a new thread called 'Naming Martian Settlements 2' in this forum that people should move over to.
Should be working now. I just went and reset the thread count.
Edited By Adrian on 1048625963
Hah, no sooner do I say that then I find a link:
I assume you've seen the news about plans to build a Moon-themed hotel in Las Vegas? Not exactly what you're talking about here, but it does have a fair amount of stuff about space, and supposedly will have a full scale mockup of the ISS. Unfortunately I can't find a link right now although I do know there is info on the Internet about it.
Exactly. I am not concerned about 'who was first' - what I care about is the behaviour of people *here*.
CalTech: If you aren't interested in talking about Mars, why exactly are you here? If it's all just idle and useless speculation to you, I think you'd have a better time and find a more appreciative audience at some other forum. I wouldn't mind so much if you actually made useful discussion here, but lately it seems that you're more interested in irritating people and telling them to 'shut up'. People tend not to like that.
Consider this to be a first warning for you to improve your behaviour.
I've already stated that I don't particularly want war discussions here. I *definitely* don't want war discussions that are filled with messages in bad taste that do not reflect well on the Mars community here, or discussions that are filled with comments such as 'Shut up'. If things don't improve here, this topic will be locked, as will other topics relating to the war.
There has been a significant number of postings on politics and war that are completely unrelated to Mars in this forum lately. I fully understand that Free Chat is supposed to be about topics that are not necessarily related to Mars, but it is *not* supposed to be about politics or war exclusively. Please bear in mind that there are plenty of other weblogs, discussion sites and newsgroups on the Internet that are much more appropriate places to discuss politics and war; I'm sure that readers here can recommend some.
I am not about to ban discussion on politics and war because I do think that there can be worthwhile discussion here that has a special Mars or space related perspective. But consider the fact that most people do not come here for politics or war discussion, and that there are many better places to do that.
I've thought about this for a bit. I'm not about to ban discussion on Iraq; I think it's bound to creep into other discussions and I would rather it be confined to Free Chat. That said, I certainly don't advocate it, and as you have all said, these are Mars forums first and foremost.
So: I will discourage discussion on war and Iraq, but I will not ban it.
Looking over the previous posts in this thread, I can't see that archie has done anything particularly objectionable. He could take a bit more of a diplomatic stance though. Indeed, according to Soph, he isn't that aggressive on other sites.
I looked at the IPs of Nuclearspace and SciAuthor, and they appear to be pretty different. Sure, there are ways to do this, but I have no reason to believe that they're the same person.
For the moment, I'm going to tell the two of you (Nuclearspace and Archie) to calm down and stop arguing. If I see a flamewar emerging, then people will be warned and then banned. It is trivially easy to ban people on this forum; older New Mars members will attest to this. While I don't like banning people, I'm more than prepared to do it if thing get out of hand.
So in other words, quit it. I don't want to hear *any* ad hominems, or *any* unfounded accusations. You guys can argue to your heart's content on Project Orion, but if it starts getting personal, then people will be banned. I'll be keeping a close watch on this thread and others, and I would like other New Mars members to message me if they see anything that I should take note of.
Moved from Meta New Mars to Life Support Systems; incorrect forum.
Sounds like a nice idea. I recall that the German chapter had plans to develop a dirigible to send to Mars - a big balloon rally would be an excellent and fun way to help promote it.
Hey all, I recently wrote an article that's been posted to the front page of Kuro5hin named Synaesthesia - union of the senses that might interest some of you. Synaesthesia is basically a trait in which people have their senses interconnected in a persistent manner, e.g. seeing colours to different tones, feeling tactile sensations associated with particular tastes.
Let me just interject here - clearly at least part of this thread has gone completely off-topic. If you're going to talk about Microsoft vs. Linux/Mac or the different flavours of Linux, feel free to do so - in the Free Chat forum.
How about discussing books that you've just finished reading? Not just good books in general, but ones that are fresh in your mind and have made an impression.
I've just finished re-reading The Player of Games by Iain Banks (OK, this is cheating since I've read it before - about five years ago) and it once again struck me as one of the most well written SF novels I've read. Complex characters, a rich universe, good quandaries.
Also just read The Forge of God by Greg Bear; another good book. Quite shocking ending. Not your usual SF novel.
Here are two links on the subject: SpaceDaily and BBC News.
I've just set up the Events Calendar. By posting new topics in the Events Calendar forum, you can add an event to our list that appears at the bottom of the main forum index. The topic acts just like a normal thread so other people can discuss the event inside. You can't post events in any other forum.
If it works well, I might include the Events Calendar on the front page of New Mars.
Hi all,
Ikonboard has this thing called an event calendar, which allows users to post topics that represent events (with a date, a description and a URL) for the forums. The events would then be shown at the bottom of the main forum index, and also possibly on the New Mars front page. I'm thinking of creating a special forum (called Calendar Events) where anyone can post events.
Two points:
1) Do people think that they would find this useful? Are there enough Mars related events to make it worth having a calendar?
2) If it's being abused, I'll obviously shut it down.
Comments?