Can Mars stay terraformed?

EarthWolf · 2004-08-02 18:08:29

Hello,

I remember seeing a documentary on the possibilities of terraforming Mars. The problem as the program stated was that Mars' gravity is too weak to retain any atmosphere that humans could engineer. That in a sense, Mars would be a leaky bag, seeping air and heat into space. Is that possible?

Cordially,

EarthWolf

Martian Republic · 2004-08-02 20:40:58

Hello,
I remember seeing a documentary on the possibilities of terraforming Mars. The problem as the program stated was that Mars' gravity is too weak to retain any atmosphere that humans could engineer. That in a sense, Mars would be a leaky bag, seeping air and heat into space. Is that possible?
Cordially,
EarthWolf

Well it true that Mars has only 38% of the gravity that the Earth has. This is definitely a contributing factor to Mars only having 1% of the air mass that the earth has. In Mars present state, there probably right and if the current situation stay the same, they will probably continue to be right. Matter of fact, Mars will never be a free standing ecological system like the Earth and will never be able to stand on it own as an Earth type ecological system.

But, I believe that by human intervention that Mars can be made more earth like and can support an ecological system more like the earth and even be able to grow tree and other vegetation out side and maybe even fish in the lakes. I don't think this will happen all at once, be will be done in small incremental stages as new technologies are developed and as the population of Mars increases to a certain population density. That why I support a semi-autonomous Mars that has a certain amount of control over there own banking system with a General Welfare bend to it in a Republican form of Government. But, that Central Government of Mars, need to setup a terraformation agency to take on the task to transform Mars into a planet more like the earth. Even my ambitious plan of building a city on Mars in forty or fifty year, any serious terraformation of Mars probably won't start for maybe hundred years or so. But the first serious move to start the process of terraformation of Mars will probably be to generate of planetary Magnetosphere to protect the planet from harmful radiation. That Magnetosphere would also help to keep the solar winds from blowing away the Martian atmosphere. But with a sufficiently power Magnetosphere, the Martian atmosphere may be able to get denser to maybe 5% or possibly to 10% of the Earth atmosphere. But, it would take a lot of power to generate that Magnetosphere and fission may not generate enough power and even fusion may not generate enough power and we may have to develop matter anti-matter to get the job done. But, if we could get the Mars Atmosphere up to the 10% or even 15% level, we could start growing tree outside in the Martian dirt.

Like I said, it going to be an inch by inch battle to get Mars to be more Earth like and only the Martian Government could and would take on that task. So any serious idea of terraforming Mars is ultimately going to revolve around the Martian Government or lack of a Martian Government.

Basically what I’m saying is, that man has the right to change Mars and can make Mars yield to our hands, but it going to be a slow process, but we should and could master the planet Mars.

Larry,

Dook · 2004-08-02 21:54:22

Mars most likely lost it's atmosphere over time because of the solar wind and a lack of enough gravity to hold onto it but it took a long time, probably thousands of years or more. We can probably terraform mars and create an atmosphere again and if we maintain it correctly we should be able to easily replace atmosphere lost to the solar wind.

I have a different opinion than some of the members of exactly how mars terraformation will come about. I think that only astronauts and scientists will go to mars until it has an atmosphere while others think that civilians will joyfully take the trip to mars just to live out their lives stuck inside domes.

MarsDog · 2004-08-03 12:13:02

I think that only astronauts and scientists will go to mars until it has an atmosphere while others think that civilians will joyfully take the trip to mars just to live out their lives stuck inside domes.

The domes will have to be shielded against radiation.
In addition to domes, there will be caves and lava tubes.
For excitement, large robots, like Mech Warrior, to take a trip.
-
Military and Earth security will be the first concern.
Afterwards, settlers will be allowed.

Dook · 2004-08-03 12:38:28

Civilians living in domes, caves, and lava tubes. What joy! I still do not see it. The only people who would do such a thing are those who are trying to get away from something and those people are probably not the type you would want to take to mars. If they can't handle things here how can they handle a long space trip and permanent cabin fever of living inside something (dome, cave, pressure suit) for the rest of their lives?

How does the military or earth security concerns even enter into your reasoning about any mission to mars? Is mars going to retaliate? Are the mutants going to protest? I think you've seen 'Total Recall' too many times.

Grypd · 2004-08-03 14:44:45

The citizens of Mars will be living in Domes and bases yes, there is a little that can be done to make it easier for them.

The domes will be large open spaces with a lot of Earth type plants and maybe clear sides to the dome tents so the martian views can be seen. Other psychological effects will be done different coloured bricks, Mosaics, High towers with stunning views and of course tours and outside trips. It may be a law for people to have a time they must work in the farms!

Of course the best thing will be to terraform Mars or even partial terraform so that large spacesuits will not be needed.

And for the Total recall crowd think of all the mines and research stations it will be impossible to "keep" people under a 100% control actually it will hurt the development of mars we want colonists and adventurers NOT slave labour

Dook · 2004-08-03 15:01:57

How do you plan to feed and supply fresh water to all these people? Grow all of your food in domes? On earth it takes 1/6th of an acre to feed one person on a purely vegetarian diet. On mars you should expect less and what does that person do when the plants are not in season? It takes 3 acres to feed a single non-vegetarian.

And what are these people doing there anyway? Mining what? Mining mars cannot come close to supplementing the cost of transporting the miners there.

It's all an inefficient and wastefull nightmare. There will be no significant numbers of people other than scientists on mars until it has a breathable atmosphere.

Self sustaining machines will make the martian atmosphere. A relatively small number of scientists will be there to monitor and repair the machines as well as conduct experiments on the martian regolith. And no guns needed.

MarsDog · 2004-08-03 16:25:44

Mars development will have similarities to Northern latitudes on Earth.

Military, scientific bases and subsidized settlements.
The Eskimo, who would not want to live in a tropical paradise.

On Earth, people have domesticated themselves, moved into city based caves, preferring crowded conditions; abandoning the open spaces of the hunter or farmer. Same will happen on Mars, people close together, leaving the large spaces of the greenhouse to the plants.

Dook · 2004-08-03 17:18:15

Only certain food crops grow in northern latitudes and not year round. So again, how are you going to feed and get fresh water for all these people?

Military? What for?

So you are going to send eskimo's to mars?

On earth we still have winter storms, rain, snow, big trees, short trees, grass, dirt, lakes, rivers, oceans, and a wide variety of entertainment. On mars everything would be stale after a month.

And you still have not given the most important reason of all- Why in the world do you need all these people there?

Martian Republic · 2004-08-03 18:28:53

Only certain food crops grow in northern latitudes and not year round. So again, how are you going to feed and get fresh water for all these people?
Military? What for?
So you are going to send eskimo's to mars?
On earth we still have winter storms, rain, snow, big trees, short trees, grass, dirt, lakes, rivers, oceans, and a wide variety of entertainment. On mars everything would be stale after a month.
And you still have not given the most important reason of all- Why in the world do you need all these people there?

I will take up some of those question, but not all of them.

As to the question of resources like water, electric power and mining along with farming.

We would have to develop technologies and assemble the future infrastructure for Mars in either Earth orbit or Lunar orbit or both.

Which would be the first reason for going to Mars, which is, the Mars colonization project would be a science driver like the Moon mission was a science driver. For every one dollar invested in the Moon Mission, we got fourteen dollars back in spin off technologies and business activities. That one reason I support building a city on Mars, you will get a ten fold plus return on investment in spin off new technologies and fire up the U.S. economy with a government project to build a city on Mars. Other example of government investment are the FDR Dams and electrification projects or Abraham Lincoln transcontinental rail road project. They generally take about 20 years to have maximum impact on the physical economy.

Mars does have water, but we would have to get it and/or desalt it, because Mars is a salty planet. So to solve several of the problems that you mention, we will take most of them in one block and deal with the whole group all at one time.

The Mars Colonies or city will need resources and lots of power to run that city and take care of it inhabitancies.

So we are going to need:

1. Fusion power plants, because they generate more power than fission power plants and they generate virtually no nuclear waste. We will probably need three or four of these Fusion power plants to generate the power for our city and run that factories, arms, mining colonies, etc.

2. We stick a nuclear powered desalting plant with those units so we can desalt the water we need for the city and for the farming community.

3. We go up there with Plasma steel plants so we can refine the metals that we find on Mars and it is more labor efficient, but uses more power, but that why we went there with fusion plants to supply the power we need.

4. The farming problem can be dealt with one of two way, but there would be some lead time before we could send large numbers of people to Mars. We can go with the type of system that you suggest of 1/6 an acreage for vegetarians and 3 acreage for meat eaters. We could also go with a system of hydroponics gardens too, which is a whole lot more efficient than even the 1/6 of an acreage.

But, you right it would probably cover dozen square miles if we are going to build a city of a far size.

Larry,

Dook · 2004-08-03 23:11:45

I see you put a lot of faith in the theory that necessity is the mother of invention. The thing is we've needed fusion power for a very long time and we still haven't gotten it figured out. It may very well come along in 50-100 years but the exploration of mars will have nothing at all to do with it. Do you think quantum physicists are going to go to mars to sit in domes and try to figure it out there rather than do it on the earth where we have the test facilities already in place?

It seems to me that your whole reason for spending many billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars to build and populate a city on mars is to help the economy and not for the purpose of exploration science. While it is true that government spending helps boost the economy that amount is way more than needed even in a much worse recession than we have now and the national debt is out of control and at some point we are going to have to face facts and deal with it. Also your idea that a city on mars will provide ten times the income is definately not an acceptable business risk. Could you be more specific on how the U.S. government received in return ten times the amount it spent on the Apollo missions?

What are the mars people going to do with all that steel they produce?

chat · 2004-08-04 03:50:59

IMHO i don't think Mars can be teraformed, and even marsaforming it will be a daunting task.

Even with a engineered atmosphere of 15% of earths we still have a very cold planet.
Also the radiation problems at Mars would require 2 very large electro magnets at each pole, and two very big reactors to run them.

Impactors at mars might solve both problems on the short term, but the low gravity will require some impactors in intervals to keep it that way.

I believe the easiest way to teraform Mars is not to try.
Don't build domes on the surface, but do build underground cities and underground crops.

1 mid sized reactor will power a small city for all its lighting and heating needs if its underground.
If we plan for a place like the west Edmonton mall underground, then the cabin fever shouldn't be an issue.

Mushrooms can become a large part of the Martian diet further reducing the crop needs.

Dook · 2004-08-04 09:42:22

Very cold planet? Not really, even now mars gets to 70 degrees F at the equator in the daytime. Once ozone and an atmosphere are created they would absorb radiation.

chat · 2004-08-04 12:59:52

Dook,

70f was probably a freak occurance on mars.
This link gives a true breakdown of temperatures on mars over 3 months.

http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mgs/i … temp-f.gif

Dook · 2004-08-04 13:55:28

70 degrees F is not a freak occurence, it happens quite often at the equator, even 81 degrees F is not unheard of. Your graph does not specify the location sampled on mars but it is likely a night time temperature.

A few web sites for future reference:
http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12 … ...ew.html

http://mars.sgi.com/ops/asimet.html]htt … simet.html

http://tes.asu.edu/]http://tes.asu.edu/

Grypd · 2004-08-04 15:18:04

We will farm on Mars and probably more than the people on the planet need for one decent reason

The food so grown will be sent to the Asteroids to the miners there who are sending there minerals and volatiles to Earth orbit, Who is sending settlers and advanced equipment to Mars.

This is called circular trade like all really good trade routes

And mars at one time was very volcanic (see the shield type volcanoes) it would be possible to find thermal vents these would have power and water sources for us

Dook · 2004-08-04 16:30:52

Mining asteroids? Why? Mining asteriods cannot cover the cost of the missions to get there not to mention building a base and then trying to provide a constant supply of water and food to workers. Too much risk for little to no benefit. We already have enough rocks on the earth, mars doesn't need anymore either.

I'm all for probes visiting asteriods, even human's landing on them for science but mining is just not necessary.

Using thermal spots for energy may be possible.

chat · 2004-08-04 17:52:07

Dook,

A soil temperature of 71f and an air temperature are very different things.

All the charts i have read indicate the air temperature even on the equator drops below -100c at night.
And rarely above 10c in the day.

A little colder than -100c is the temperature liquid nitrogen is kept on earth.

Steel freezes and shatters at -100c, plastic, glass etc.

However you look at mars, i classify it as cold

Martian Republic · 2004-08-04 18:32:52

I see you put a lot of faith in the theory that necessity is the mother of invention. The thing is we've needed fusion power for a very long time and we still haven't gotten it figured out. It may very well come along in 50-100 years but the exploration of mars will have nothing at all to do with it. Do you think quantum physicists are going to go to mars to sit in domes and try to figure it out there rather than do it on the earth where we have the test facilities already in place?
It seems to me that your whole reason for spending many billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars to build and populate a city on mars is to help the economy and not for the purpose of exploration science. While it is true that government spending helps boost the economy that amount is way more than needed even in a much worse recession than we have now and the national debt is out of control and at some point we are going to have to face facts and deal with it. Also your idea that a city on mars will provide ten times the income is definately not an acceptable business risk. Could you be more specific on how the U.S. government received in return ten times the amount it spent on the Apollo missions?
What are the mars people going to do with all that steel they produce?

Not really, the reason for building that city on Mars of a hundred thousand people is because we neither have the technology nor do we have the infrastructure in place to do it. Also we want to put in a time frame in which we want to get job done in. We want to pick something aggressive that force us to have to develop new technologies so we can accomplish our goals, but not too aggressive that it will take too long to accomplish our stated goal. To accomplish this stated goal of a forty to fifty year time frame to build a city on Mars, we are going to have to put developing electric fusion power and fusion engines on a crash development program. Matter of fact, we either develop fusion or we won't be able to build our city, but that not the only technology that we would have to develop so we can build our city either. We will probably have to develop laser welders, second, third generation of shuttle, lunar shuttle, Mars shuttle, space stations, three or four types of deep space space ships, etc. So beside developing the technology, we have to also build some infrastructure and that why I gave it about two generation to do it of forty to fifty year. It take time to do something like this. The first twenty years or so, your going to be developing technology and building the infrastructure just to be in a position to launch your city building project on Mars. Now we may or may not go to Mars in that time, but we are not going to have the ability to build a city on Mars prior to a twenty year or so mobilization program like going back moon, building big space, replacement shuttle, develop ion, fission, fusion drive, etc.

Actually I have a dual purpose for building a city on Mars or possibly muti-purposes for that city on Mars. Without having to get too far off topic, but I will have to, to answer your question.

My purposes are:

1. Yes, you are right, I intend to use that building a city on Mars to revitalize the U.S. Economy and create jobs and it would probably create about one million jobs.

2. But, I also intend to use it for exploration too.

3. I also intend to use that city on Mars National Mission as a reason to develop new technology and build infrastructure.

4. I also want to nationalize the Federal Reserve System and go back to a U.S. Government controlled credit system as laid down in the U.S. Constitution. To build that city on Mars it would be in the trillion dollar range and you could not generate enough money through taxation to be able to pay for something like that. What I'm suggesting that we do is, go back to an FDR approach to building dams and rural electrification projects. The credit that FDR used to rebuild America was generated through the Treasury Department and that how FDR could use it for his special project like Dam building and rural electrification, etc. John F. Kennedy tried to do, before he was assinated before he got too far. Either have the U.S. Treasury Department or we setup a Third National Bank under government control the credit and with the power to generate credit. Instead of having private banks generating credit through the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Government will now have that power. Now this is no small issue, because we talking about have the authority to generate one trillion dollars credit or more per year. Allen Greenspan is currently generating between 4 to 6 trillion per year. My intent, is for the U.S. Government to use that entire amount to develop new technologies, finance building infrastructure, used as tax credit to finance the business actives in the productive sector like farmer, mining operation, manufacturing.

Most of that infrastructure that I intend to build will be down here of course like Subways, super trains, nuclear power plants and when fusion come on line fusion power plants, go back to a FDR water projects like dams and NAWAPA with other improvements, etc.

Tax credit for business to improve there productivity’s for farmers, mining and manufacturing as in new machines which improve the efficiency of the work force so they can produce more.

But, to develop this new technology, we need a science driver and where NASA comes in. We are going to give them a project to do, that there going to have to develop new technology to be able to accomplish that National Goal or there not going to be able to accomplish that Goal. Now we want to make a reasonably obtainable Goal that we think we can achieve, but we don't want to make it too easy or where there no challenge to do it. I was thinking along the lines of extending a line of credit to NASA of one hundred billion dollar per year for forty to fifty years or NASA would have at there financial disposal to accomplish there mission would be about four to five trillion of Government credit that they can in building up the infrastructure and to develop the technology to accomplish there mission. That about 1/10 of that trillion dollars that the U.S. needs to generate and that other 9/10 is going to be invested down here. But, the public sector will create about six million new jobs and as a result, there will be about another six million jobs being created in private sector. So between NASA and other government investments which will include the private sector, we intend to create twelve million or more jobs for the American people.

>>>Could you be more specific on how the U.S. government received in return ten times the amount it spent on the Apollo missions?<<<

For example: the miniaturization of microcircuit that lead to the home computer was exhilarated so that Apollo would have a computer on board. A whole series of micro-switches had to be developed. New machining technologies had to be developed. New type of metal allows were developed. New medical procedures were developed. The list go on and on, but hopefully you get the idea. Now that building that city on Mars would be a bigger and more massive project and the technology that get spun off will also be bigger and more massive. Now the Moon Mission spun off about fourteen dollars for every one dollar invested by the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government did not actually start going into deficit until that stop investing in things like the moon project, building dams, subway, train system, power plants.

Now if the United States chooses to reverse that process, we can afford all these projects, because your building up the physical infrastructure of the United States instead of looting it like we are doing right now.

>>>What are the mars people going to do with all that steel they produce?<<<

I thought that was obvious, the Martian government is going to be expanding there current city and there going to be building other towns and communities further from the central city and there going to be building super train system to those communities and at some point the Martian Government will also be helping with space program outside of Mars.

I have a different view of what wealth is and how we should attack a problem. Most people think money is wealth as in buy low and sell high. So they serve those assumption of borrowing money and being able to pay back that money with interest and if they can make a little extra, then it was a good investment. So most people will kind of hedge there bets and say if this happens or if the business climate favors this venture we will do this.

I attack that problem in almost reverse order than just about everybody else attacks this problem. I look at the space problem and say: OK, what do we want to do in space? I would like to go back to the Moon and build a small city there and then go Mars and build a city of hundred thousand people. OK, what kind of technology are we going to have to develop and what kind of infrastructure are we going to have to build to make it happen along with a reasonable time to accomplish it? Now we have to rearrange the tax code, right off system and other financial arrangement with a low interest to finance technology development and building the infrastructure. I intend to create the business climate and not follow the business climate.

Larry,

Dook · 2004-08-04 23:12:58

To do this your not talking just a trillion dollars, you're way into the trillions of dollars. Just where are we going to get all this money? 14% of all taxes the federal government receives goes toward paying just the INTEREST on the national debt. We can't even begin to pay off the principal.

Create a million jobs? All of your intended projects will need scientists, engineers, and skilled craftsmen. Where are we going to get 1 million of these? Mexico? China?

FDR created jobs and projects to improve the country and help it come out of a terrible depression. Just where do you think that money came from? He borrowed it and you are still paying for it. It's called the national debt. What FDR did was necessary, spending $5-10 trillion to build a city on mars is not.

Give business tax credits? More money. Where are you going to get it from?

A $100 billion credit to NASA for 40-50 years???? Of course they would use it. Or, perhaps they would see that it is bankrupting the country and not spend it. After all, they are supposed to be 'really smart'.

What's this 'government credit' you keep talking about? Where do you think all this money comes from? Do you think we can just print it ourselves? It sounds like 'national debt' to me and either they (NASA) can use it or they can't. If they do, then we pay interest on it and hope that some day our children will sacrifice and begin paying off the principal.

You are saying that microchips owe their invention to the Apollo missions? I think we certainly would have developed new medical procedures without ever having gone to the moon.

You still did not explain how the U.S. government collected $14 for every dollar spent on Apollo. Are you saying that inventions like the microwave provided the government money? The government doesn't make microwaves and never has. Also U.S. deficits go way back, in 1950 the deficit was $50,696 million. The deficit is the amount of borrowing the government does to meet it's needs each year, the national debt is the total amount owed and it has been getting larger and larger ever since the civil war.

So you are going to build cities on mars made of steel?

Economically it's impossible but my main disagreement with it all is-why? There's just no reason for it. Without it inventions are still going to happen. The economy will improve, speed up too much and inevitably there will be another recession simply because that is the cycle of things. Progress will still come and the country will not be bankrupt.

Martian Republic · 2004-08-05 10:57:54

To do this your not talking just a trillion dollars, you're way into the trillions of dollars. Just where are we going to get all this money? 14% of all taxes the federal government receives goes toward paying just the INTEREST on the national debt. We can't even begin to pay off the principal.
>>> I have already answered your question in the last post, but I will try and state it another way. We are dealing with two different banking system with slightly different rules and the way they operate.
The first banking system you know about. It a private banking system that generates all the new credit. The Federal Reserve System of part of that private banking system and it membered banks. It is under this system that the U.S. Government sell Savings Bonds and borrows money along with paying interest which generate debt called the National Debt. If we are talking about this banking system, then I would be in agreement with you.
Now there a Hamilton Banking system who setup the First National Bank of the United State. This banking system is government owned and operated by the U.S. Government. Since the government is the one generating the credit, they will be the ones lending the (money) credit and not the ones borrowing the (money) credit. They have first use of the credit and will be able to decide what it will be used for. Since the U.S. Government holds the credit note instead of some private bank, they can do several things with that note. As they say, the one with the gold makes the rules. The U.S. Government can set interest to 0% if they choose to, because it there credit note. They can defer it, right it off, have a tax right off system for private business. They can put a no roll over time limit on that credit not and it go's to 0 value whether anything been payed on it or not. Or they could just tear the credit note up if they choose to, because it there credit note and they make the rules. But, Alexander Hamilton had what he called self-extenguansing debt. That is, he would create credit with a time limit on it where it would go to 0 value in say ten years and with no roll over on it. It purpose was to build roads, cannals, promote business activities and other internal developement of the United States. Now this was the purpose for generating the credit to promote internal developement of the United States along with generating business activies, but not to make money for banker or Wall Street.<<<
Create a million jobs? All of your intended projects will need scientists, engineers, and skilled craftsmen. Where are we going to get 1 million of these? Mexico? China?
>>>We are going to put together a government sponsered on the job training program both inside the Federal, State, County and City along with private companies that need scientist, engineers, and skilled craftsmen. Admitedly the job might be a little sloppy for three or four years until the trainning is done or a sufficient number of American can be educated for those new jobs. But, Americans that are trainning for those skill, will know that there will be a job waiting for them when they finish there education.<<<
FDR created jobs and projects to improve the country and help it come out of a terrible depression. Just where do you think that money came from? He borrowed it and you are still paying for it. It's called the national debt. What FDR did was necessary, spending $5-10 trillion to build a city on mars is not.
>>>I told you once! The FDR credit were T-Bill or Treasury Notes that FDR authorized the Treasury Department to generate. In other words, it was government generated credit that FDR could control and was going back to Abraham Lincoln giving the Treasury the right to generate credit. It was on this basses that the Green back dollar was bassed, they were Treasury Notes.
Now do not confuse that with Federal Reserve Notes which are private bank notes. They are entirally different animals than a T-Bill or Treasury note.<<<
Give business tax credits? More money. Where are you going to get it from?
A $100 billion credit to NASA for 40-50 years???? Of course they would use it. Or, perhaps they would see that it is bankrupting the country and not spend it. After all, they are supposed to be 'really smart'.
>>> To make the U.S. Economy function, there has to be about one trillion dollars of credit generated each year or the U.S. Economy will implode and collapse. But, if you generate too much credit, you will get run a way inflation, because you have too much money chasing to few good and services. But, now Alan Greenspan is generating maybe six trillion dollars or more, so what does that do to inflation. Inflation is running wild with no end in sight. Basically Alan Greenspan has two problem. If he doesn't generate that credit, the past generated worthless credit of credit chasing credit and paper chasing paper will be an economic collapse. If he does create the credit, the banking system will hyper inflate and the dollar will become worthless and the economic system colapses. The third choice is to put the Federal Reserve, world Banking system through a bankrupsy reoganization. But, want to reoganize the Federal Reserve system as either a Third National Bank or give the power to generate credit back to the Treasury Department. Now to restart the U.S. Economy, your going to generate some credit in the order of one trillion dollars and plung it back into the physical economy down here and into new NASA projects.
What's this 'government credit' you keep talking about? Where do you think all this money comes from? Do you think we can just print it ourselves? It sounds like 'national debt' to me and either they (NASA) can use it or they can't. If they do, then we pay interest on it and hope that some day our children will sacrifice and begin paying off the principal.
>>> I can see that we are going to have to go back to the basics.
First, what is money?
Money is a medium of exchange and never should be anything other than a medium of exchange. That way you don't have to trade a horse for potatoes or something like that. But, who set the value of money, private bankers or the U.S. Government. Under the U.S. Constitution, the Federal Government is to set the value of money. Because they knew if the bankers were to set the value of money, that they would extract money out of the physical economy through usery and ground rent. They knew this process would suck the life out of the U.S. Economy.
Second, what is credit?
We need to distinguesh which kind of credit we are talking about.
The private bank where you save your money it a streight up and down answer. You put your money in a saving account and you expect 4% to 5% on your money in a calindar year.
But, the other credit that is signed into existance at the stroke of a pen should be looked at as a means to create future wealth and to build need infrastructure to make that society function.
In other words, it need to be government credit with that purpose in mind. But, if it private credit or bankers credit it will be for private gain at the expense of the physical or building the needed infrastructure to survive or maintain a healthy economy. The U.S. Constitution give the U.S. Government the power to generate credit and that the reason why. This is also the reason that I support a Martian Constitution that state that the Central Government of Mars also has the right to generate it own credit once they have the population base and Agro-manufacturing-mining industry in place. That they can generate there own credit and use it internally to build up Mars as a vialble self-ficient economy. These same prencipal was how the United States was developed as a nation too.<<<
You are saying that microchips owe their invention to the Apollo missions? I think we certainly would have developed new medical procedures without ever having gone to the moon.
You still did not explain how the U.S. government collected $14 for every dollar spent on Apollo. Are you saying that inventions like the microwave provided the government money? The government doesn't make microwaves and never has. Also U.S. deficits go way back, in 1950 the deficit was $50,696 million. The deficit is the amount of borrowing the government does to meet it's needs each year, the national debt is the total amount owed and it has been getting larger and larger ever since the civil war.
>>>Let start with John F. Kennedy "I believe that we should comit ourselves to sending a man to the moon and bring him home alive in this decade"! Now that was in 1963 and apollo 11 mission was in 1969. That almost 7 years, but what happened in those seven year to accomplish that goal. You call in private coporation and say here our goal and these are the new technologies that we have to develop to achieve our goals. So we are going to pay you to develope these new technologies that you can't afford to pay for so we will have the technology and infrastructure in place so we can meet our goal of landing a man on the moon in 1969. You also my turn around and use that new technology that you developed for and use that in your own business. So NASA is authorizing technology spin off to the private industries of technology that they would not have access to if NASA would not have gone to the moon. This handing over new technology to private industry had a fourteen to one turn over the last twenty to thirty years.<<<
So you are going to build cities on mars made of steel?
>>> That only one substance that the Martians will be producing. They will be making plastic, polimars, etc. also. <<<
Economically it's impossible but my main disagreement with it all is-why? There's just no reason for it. Without it inventions are still going to happen. The economy will improve, speed up too much and inevitably there will be another recession simply because that is the cycle of things. Progress will still come and the country will not be bankrupt.
>>> The reason for doing it, is I want to build up nations and improve the living standard of not only American, but of the whole world tool.

I hope that answered your questions.

Larry,

Dook · 2004-08-05 13:21:32

I am not familiar with the Hamilton Banking System but you are saying the government simply prints money and then uses it to fund programs? A government cannot simply print money and use it. This would cause the worth of our dollar to spiral downward. It would soon cost $100 for an apple. This actually happened in Germany after world war one. It took $1 billion marks to purchase a loaf of bread. Hitler and the nazi's fixed the problem by creating a new bank note called the Reichmark to replace the mark.

A reference to what this type of banking does to a country:
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/print … ...teacher

The government already funds on the job training programs. Many of them.

T-bill's, Treasury Notes different? Sure but that's like saying coins and dollar bills are different. FDR's credit or any other President's credit is still being paid for whether it's T-bill's, Treasury Notes, or any other name you wish to use it all goes toward the national debt which we have not paid off a single dollar of principal. Take a look at Argentina's money problems.

The inflation rate is 3.27%. Inflation is NOT running wild and there is no need to further 'restart' the U.S. economy. We are slowly and correctly coming out of the recession.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/]htt … inflation/

You are saying the U.S. government would contact companies and ask them to build technology that we need to support a city on mars and then pay that company to build this whatever it is. Then, somehow, magically after we have paid all that money to the company we get $14 back for every dollar invested? You are talking about a loan made by the government to a private company with an insane interest rate. It will never happen and is probably very illegal. Or you are talking about the government investing in a company's shares, then giving the company business, and then selling off the shares. Also very ILLEGAL!!! The government may pay companies to build whatever it needs but you cannot then extort money out of those companies for doing so.

Nothing you've stated so far would have much of an effect on other countries unless you are going to give them money for research or to build certain things. In this case you would be doubling the U.S. national debt in one or two years (It took us 200 years to reach $1 trillion in debt) and using some of that money to fund programs in other countries???? You are going to bankrupt the U.S. for that? Think of your children having their taxes doubled just to pay interest on the national debt. Think of the unending depression this would cause. U.S. aid to foreign countries would go to zero and stay that way for a very long time. What you are saying is sacrifice the complete economy of the U.S. today for a tomorrow where the U.S. economy is not even in the top twenty.

Also, please don't quote entire posts.

Martian Republic · 2004-08-05 15:51:30

I am not familiar with the Hamilton Banking System but you are saying the government simply prints money and then uses it to fund programs? A government cannot simply print money and use it. This would cause the worth of our dollar to spiral downward. It would soon cost $100 for an apple. This actually happened in Germany after world war one. It took $1 billion marks to purchase a loaf of bread. Hitler and the nazi's fixed the problem by creating a new bank note called the Reichmark to replace the mark.
A reference to what this type of banking does to a country:
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/print … ...teacher

The government already funds on the job training programs. Many of them.
T-bill's, Treasury Notes different? Sure but that's like saying coins and dollar bills are different. FDR's credit or any other President's credit is still being paid for whether it's T-bill's, Treasury Notes, or any other name you wish to use it all goes toward the national debt which we have not paid off a single dollar of principal. Take a look at Argentina's money problems.

The inflation rate is 3.27%. Inflation is NOT running wild and there is no need to further 'restart' the U.S. economy. We are slowly and correctly coming out of the recession.
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/]htt … inflation/
You are saying the U.S. government would contact companies and ask them to build technology that we need to support a city on mars and then pay that company to build this whatever it is. Then, somehow, magically after we have paid all that money to the company we get $14 back for every dollar invested? You are talking about a loan made by the government to a private company with an insane interest rate. It will never happen and is probably very illegal. Or you are talking about the government investing in a company's shares, then giving the company business, and then selling off the shares. Also very ILLEGAL!!! The government may pay companies to build whatever it needs but you cannot then extort money out of those companies for doing so.
Nothing you've stated so far would have much of an effect on other countries unless you are going to give them money for research or to build certain things. In this case you would be doubling the U.S. national debt in one or two years (It took us 200 years to reach $1 trillion in debt) and using some of that money to fund programs in other countries???? You are going to bankrupt the U.S. for that? Think of your children having their taxes doubled just to pay interest on the national debt. Think of the unending depression this would cause. U.S. aid to foreign countries would go to zero and stay that way for a very long time. What you are saying is sacrifice the complete economy of the U.S. today for a tomorrow where the U.S. economy is not even in the top twenty.
Also, please don't quote entire posts.

I tried to explain it to you twice already and I can't make it any simpler. So I guess I will have to give up trying to explain to you.

But, we are not actually creating money but credit which we are borrowing against, but it can be used like money though.

In either extreme of too much credit being generated, you get inflation or if enough credit is not being generated, you have economic collapse.

T-Bills or Treasury notes is government generated credit and Federal Reserve notes are private banking generated credit.

The only question is, who generating the credit and for what purpose it being generated.

With that, I have no more to say on the issue.

But, I give your three web sites to look at.

The first link does not go into too much detail about Hamilton, but hopefully you can get something useful out of it.

http://money.zezenetwork.com/articles/h … milton.htm

The other one go into John F. Kennedy fight to retrieve the banking system from the private banker and the right for the Federal Government to generate credit instead of the private bankers having that right.

http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/thefedera … eserve.htm

This link explains why it going to take a government to develop Mars and it can't be done any other way.

http://www.transhumanist.com/volume4/sp … /space.htm

And if you still don't get it, then I leave you in your ignorance and may the two of you be happy with each other. I got into a similar argument with some at work and I did not prevail against him either. But, seeing that the argument was a waist of time and we were going to get nowhere with each other I said. I bid you good night and I leave you in your ignorance. But, the Creation of the Federal Reserve and private generated credit has a fundamental difference than before the Federal Reserve system was created and it was not just a name change either. That tick him off and he started checking and found out that I was right.

So go do some research as to what I have said, you obviously are not going to understand what I said.

Larry,

Dook · 2004-08-05 16:58:24

I was wondering when insults were going to enter the argument. That's fine, my type of argument anyway. It's obvious to me that you have never taken a course in macro-economics and that you are simply repeating what you've heard around the mobile home park.

Now, no matter what you wish to call it "The Hamilton Banking System" or "FDR's Newest Deal" or "JFK Prints New Money" the government can get any amount of money rather easily, they just print it, but in order to keep our entire economy from collapsing (read my first link) it must be backed by something other than the government's say so. It must have a co-signer, just like when your mom had to co-sign for you to get your scooter because your lawn mowing job doesn't pay enough or the government can have a purchaser as in T-bills, bonds... Now, when the government needs to fund more than it has in it's coffers it usually sells bonds or some other type and at maturity pays back the principal with interest. It has been doing this for a very long time. I can see how some of this is confusing for you so I've tried to keep the words as short as possible. Now you can run around calling this system by fancy names but it is really rather simple. The government borrows to meet a need then it pays interest on that loan. It's the same no matter what name you use for it.

smurf975 · 2004-08-06 13:18:01

Civilians living in domes, caves, and lava tubes. What joy! I still do not see it. The only people who would do such a thing are those who are trying to get away from something and those people are probably not the type you would want to take to mars. If they can't handle things here how can they handle a long space trip and permanent cabin fever of living inside something (dome, cave, pressure suit) for the rest of their lives?
How does the military or earth security concerns even enter into your reasoning about any mission to mars? Is mars going to retaliate? Are the mutants going to protest? I think you've seen 'Total Recall' too many times.

I consider living in domes like living in Earths big cities such as NY, LA, Mexico City, London, Paris and Cairo. A lot city dwellers from those cities never leave their cities (domes) in their life time.

Myself I never leave populated zones, I like nature but prefer it on TV

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