NASA Offers Up to $200 Million to Help Push New Technologies to Market.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa … to-market/
Lunar Economy: From Vision to Reality
https://interactive.satellitetoday.com/ … o-reality/
This seemed the best fit .... the article itself is about the Earth, but readers of this forum can probably extrapolate to Mars ...
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/must … 09116.html
Joshua Jahani
Wed, September 8, 2021, 10:11 AM
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (popularizing the modern internet). He didn’t protect the technology because he wanted it to benefit us all. Three decades later, most of the power -- and a lot of the profits -- of the internet are in the hands of a few tech billionaires, and much of the early promise of the internet remains unfulfilled.
Space travel is not just hype or the plaything of billionaires. It is the final frontier, both physically and economically.
If we want it to be a success, we should learn from our successes and failures back on Earth and apply them to space now.
That means subsidies, support, regulation and safety. These things are important on Earth, but in space they are absolutely essential.
I read this as sensible comments upon how space industry needs to be both promoted and regulated.
(th)
]]>There may eventually be a role for Phobos to play. It could certainly form part of the tourism itinerary. There might be a role for it acting as a staging post for human passenger flights, if you could produce rocket fuel there, but you can have docking in LMO in any case so it will be of marginal utility I would say.
If tether technology can work, it could certainly be part of a such a system, but we are a long, long way from that and a few decades down the line we might be able to have laser or microwave propulsion systems to get people and goods to LMO.
For Louis re topic, and specifically landing methods ...
The NASA researcher whose bio is given at the link below just wrote an email reply to my inquiry about the NASA Phobos Tether proposal.
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 21#p168221
In his email, he offered opinions about relative costs, while at the same time encouraging the members of this forum to develop ideas for a proposal that might be submitted to NASA for study.
I am enlisting you (and your interest in economics) to compare and contrast the competing proposals to see if you can seen any signs of which might be most cost effective in the long run.
By long run, I am taking into account the waste incurred by the various approaches.
For example, the proposal to use extended atmospheric deceleration requires heat shielding, and that material requires replacement or refurbishment if it is to be re-used, or it may be discarded entirely, as has been done by NASA with all previous landings.
GW Johnson is working on a very interesting (to me at least) idea for landing Void's "bubbles", if the size and mass of the "bubbles" and their trajectory are carefully managed.
I am working on a proposal that is mentioned by Hop, in a blog post reported by Terraformer, to extend a tether toward Mars from Phobos, to facilitate safe, secure, reliable and cost-effective delivery of people and cargo the surface of Mars.
The services of an economist would appear appropriate for evaluation of these competing proposals and others.
(th)
The NASA researcher whose bio is given at the link below just wrote an email reply to my inquiry about the NASA Phobos Tether proposal.
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 21#p168221
In his email, he offered opinions about relative costs, while at the same time encouraging the members of this forum to develop ideas for a proposal that might be submitted to NASA for study.
I am enlisting you (and your interest in economics) to compare and contrast the competing proposals to see if you can seen any signs of which might be most cost effective in the long run.
By long run, I am taking into account the waste incurred by the various approaches.
For example, the proposal to use extended atmospheric deceleration requires heat shielding, and that material requires replacement or refurbishment if it is to be re-used, or it may be discarded entirely, as has been done by NASA with all previous landings.
GW Johnson is working on a very interesting (to me at least) idea for landing Void's "bubbles", if the size and mass of the "bubbles" and their trajectory are carefully managed.
I am working on a proposal that is mentioned by Hop, in a blog post reported by Terraformer, to extend a tether toward Mars from Phobos, to facilitate safe, secure, reliable and cost-effective delivery of people and cargo the surface of Mars.
The services of an economist would appear appropriate for evaluation of these competing proposals and others.
(th)
]]>Thanks for the reminder of the Kindle eReader with simulated paper (white background with black pixels).
That is an impressive device, and it certainly shows the direction I am looking. However, what I have in mind is a passive display in a flexible sheet that handles much like a piece of paper. Unlike a piece of traditional paper, which accepts toner from a metal roller in a baking process (in the laser printer implementation), the paper I have in mind would accept commands to "permanently" set the reflectivity of each pixel from 100% to 0% or vice versa, and then not change until electronically instructed to change. In some respects it would be similar to memory in WORM chips of days gone by, which held their setting when power was removed. I suppose USB sticks must use a similar technology, because they hold their bit settings until a computer changes them (Flash memory).
So (in a sense) these flexible sheets would be (nearly) two dimensional arrays of optically reflective memory.
I have an elderly Kindle type eReader that holds a permanent display when the power is off. although I am not CERTAIN that a small trickle current may not be holding the pixels in their state of absorbing or reflecting ambient light.
In any case, I am not talking about a piece of hardware such as an eReader.
This subtopic of Louis main topic is about Louis prediction that paper would not be needed on Mars, and I am offering reasons why that might not be what people want, regardless of what Louis may imagine from the comfort of his (probably) paper filled home in London.
(th)
]]>I am not so sure a gym needs a "large town". We know that regular exercise is vital to maintaining muscle and bone in <1G so I expect a gym to be there from Sol 1. A small one to begin with obviously! But the gyms will get progressively bigger. Initially you will play around one hoop. But eventually proper basketball matches will be played.
A basketball court is 28.65 m long and 15.24 m wide. That sort of area can be covered even in the early settlement period.
Sports: I envision something outside. The reason hockey is popular in Canada is it's something you can do in winter. With an MCP suit, you have a lot more dexterity and safety.
The book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A Heinlein included a large air reservoir. It was used to fly with strap-on wings. That would work in 1/6 gravity, but I doubt it would in 38% gravity. However, that made me think the water storage reservoir could be used as a swimming pool. In another post I asked if water filters could remove pool chlorine; a member answered yes.
Basketball would require a gymnasium, so only when there's a large town. And jumping/throwing would be quite different in 38% gravity. Just making the ball heave isn't enough. That would reduce the velocity a ball could leave you hand, but not the arc through the air. Basically yes, the net would have to be a lot higher.
One Apollo mission an astronaut brought a golf club and ball. Incredible stroke in 1/6 G. In 38% G it wouldn't be that far, but each fareway would have to be very long. And no "rough", instead a giant (planet size) sand trap around each fareway. Would golf work in a desert?
The book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A Heinlein included a large air reservoir. It was used to fly with strap-on wings. That would work in 1/6 gravity, but I doubt it would in 38% gravity. However, that made me think the water storage reservoir could be used as a swimming pool. In another post I asked if water filters could remove pool chlorine; a member answered yes.
Basketball would require a gymnasium, so only when there's a large town. And jumping/throwing would be quite different in 38% gravity. Just making the ball heave isn't enough. That would reduce the velocity a ball could leave you hand, but not the arc through the air. Basically yes, the net would have to be a lot higher.
One Apollo mission an astronaut brought a golf club and ball. Incredible stroke in 1/6 G. In 38% G it wouldn't be that far, but each fareway would have to be very long. And no "rough", instead a giant (planet size) sand trap around each fareway. Would golf work in a desert?
]]>Thanks for the interesting feedback!
If there is an opportunity to influence inventors who run across this topic, I'd like to put in a bid for a larger version, able to display a full sized news paper two page layout. The "really far out" version would contain pixels able to display in color.
The 1920x1080 video display I am using now is satisfactory in every respect, except that it is not portable.
I'd like to see the functional equivalent of that display in the format you described in your post.
Your example did not include details about how the scroll-out display would be controlled, but as technology advances, voice control seems possible, as well as touch of "buttons" on the tube from which the scroll is drawn.
(th)
]]>https://thefutureofthings.com/3081-the- … nic-paper/
I liked this description of how it might work:
"Q: How do you see the future of e-paper?
A: I like to tell people that the holy grail of e-paper will be embodied as a cylindrical tube, about 1 centimeter in diameter and 15 to 20 centimeters long, that a person can comfortably carry in his or her pocket. The tube will contain a tightly rolled sheet of e-paper that can be spooled out of a slit in the tube as a flat sheet, for reading, and stored again at the touch of a button. Information will be downloaded—there will be simple user interface—from an overhead satellite, a cell phone network, or an internal memory chip. This document reader will be used for e-mail, the Internet, books downloaded from a global digital library that is currently under construction, technical manuals, newspapers (perhaps in larger format), magazines, and so forth, anywhere on the planet. It will cost less than $100, and nearly everyone will have one!"
That might well give us the best of both worlds - the utility of paper without its costs and use of labour.
For Louis re topic ...
Earlier in this topic we've exchanged views on paper. Recently I offered an example of a situation where paper filled a psychological need.
Today I printed a work plan for a set of activities I'm hoping to complete this afternoon.
Your point of view about paper is still on my mind, so I thought about what I had just done. I composed a work plan using a computer, and sent the work plan to an output device. The particular output device for this particular print used a laser beam to energize spots on a metal drum, which attracted toner that was subsequently pressed onto a sheet of clean paper.
The impression I'll be looking at in a few minutes cannot be erased, except by destroying the paper, bleaching the toner and carrying out whatever additional steps are needed to create a new sheet of blank paper.
However, it may not be necessary for humans to continue this ancient practice.
A quick Google search turned up a number of electronic devices that accept computer generated text and display images on a flat screen.
What I am imagining now is a sheet of simulated paper that contains pixels that can be set to black or reset to white.
To my knowledge, such a technology does not exist anywhere on Earth today, but since a market already exists for electronic devices costing $100 or more to perform the function of a sheet of paper, it seems reasonable to suppose some (probably young) entrepreneur will figure out how to create a thin sheet of flexible material that can receive instructions from a computer output device to set pixels black or white.
Should such a kind of "paper" become available, it would reduce the need for paper used for temporary information conveyance.
I just thought of a drawback from a criminal justice point of view .... like burning a piece of paper to eliminate incriminating evidence, a re-writable piece of "electronic paper" could be reset to blank, and there would be no residual memory of the previous pixel state.
Interesting !!!
(th)
Earlier in this topic we've exchanged views on paper. Recently I offered an example of a situation where paper filled a psychological need.
Today I printed a work plan for a set of activities I'm hoping to complete this afternoon.
Your point of view about paper is still on my mind, so I thought about what I had just done. I composed a work plan using a computer, and sent the work plan to an output device. The particular output device for this particular print used a laser beam to energize spots on a metal drum, which attracted toner that was subsequently pressed onto a sheet of clean paper.
The impression I'll be looking at in a few minutes cannot be erased, except by destroying the paper, bleaching the toner and carrying out whatever additional steps are needed to create a new sheet of blank paper.
However, it may not be necessary for humans to continue this ancient practice.
A quick Google search turned up a number of electronic devices that accept computer generated text and display images on a flat screen.
What I am imagining now is a sheet of simulated paper that contains pixels that can be set to black or reset to white.
To my knowledge, such a technology does not exist anywhere on Earth today, but since a market already exists for electronic devices costing $100 or more to perform the function of a sheet of paper, it seems reasonable to suppose some (probably young) entrepreneur will figure out how to create a thin sheet of flexible material that can receive instructions from a computer output device to set pixels black or white.
Should such a kind of "paper" become available, it would reduce the need for paper used for temporary information conveyance.
I just thought of a drawback from a criminal justice point of view .... like burning a piece of paper to eliminate incriminating evidence, a re-writable piece of "electronic paper" could be reset to blank, and there would be no residual memory of the previous pixel state.
Interesting !!!
(th)
]]>For outdoor activities, I imagine that motor rallies and other motor sports could be popular. Maybe we will see something like small pedal- powered (pressurised) vehicles - the cycle mechanism will be internal but might drive wheels. The low wind force and near vacuum on Mars might make pedal powered vehicles more practical that they might otherwise seem.
There would be opportunities for creating indoor lakes or water courses where canoeing and kayaking could be enjoyed for leisure or competitive sports.
louis wrote:Ok, in the light of the above, some conclusions on a feasible way forward:
Mars’s Diversified Economy
In line with the Mars Development Plan (MDP) Mars already has a very diversified economy including:
- Agriculture. 95% of food consumed is produced on Mars.
- Energy. 99% of energy used on Mars is produced on Mars.
- Mining. There are mining operations taking place at hundreds of locations, some with human involvement, some entirely dependent
on robots. Mining and atmospheric extraction supplies 95% of the colony’s needs.
- Chemicals and raw material processing.
- Manufacturing
- Construction
- Marketing, advertising and sponsorship.
- Transport
- Health
- Sports and leisure
- Retail sectorFor sports and leisure, of the four franchised sports in North American plus association football, baseball likely faced difficulties. With less dense atmosphere on Mars and about a quarter of the Earth's gravity. A hit baseball on Mars can travel farther and be faster and much more difficult for outfielder to catch it, to the point that inside the park homerun can appear as frequently as a double. I dont know but basketball, association football and ice-hockey focuses on the object on the field, the ball or the puck, so same situations as baseball. Or the ball or puck needs to be reconditioned for Mars for them and other competitive sports that focuses on the object, such as tennis, badminton, table-tennis, hockey, cricket.
North American Football could prosper but need more protective football player gears.
Team sports that focuses on the object rolling or sliding on the ground can take the lead in their team sports field.. For example, giving the low average outdoor temperature w/r/t Earth (-60oC), curling could be played on sheets of ice. With lower gravity, a hand push on Mars travels farther than the same force on Earth. Ice-hockey on the other hand needs a reconfigured puck.
Thank you for the tip about your having written about Newfoundland before ... I asked FluxBB to find all posts with Newfoundland and RobertDyck and received 25 back. These do not include those lost earlier during the great crash.
I started reading from the most recent, and soon realized there is a short course worth of material there, so I'll try to fit it into my schedule.
This series (like so may by other long term authors here) illustrates the strength and weakness of the forum environment.
You had to repeat yourself because you were often addressing new members (or so it seemed to me). On the other hand, it seemed (to me as I read) that with each telling you added interesting little details, such as the British admiral who mysteriously disappeared at sea after collecting taxes at force of arms.
To make life easier for me, I'll add a search term to quickly find this post:
SearchTerm:Newfoundland Author:RobertDyck
I would like to add that I liked the illustrations you found of oil derricks. Those are on my mind these days, as Lizard King from luf.org tries to encourage me to look into finding oil derricks for the wind-turbine-at-sea idea, instead of the far more difficult region around Antarctica.
(th)
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