New Mars Forums

He also said the pain could have been greatly alleviated if coordinated with Canada and Mexico. In other words, apply surgical targeted tariffs on China and overseas locations where manufacturing has located, do not attack the North America free-trade zone.

Use of ISPP is to reduce launch mass. 1 tonne of liquid hydrogen becomes 18 tonnes of liquid methane/LOX. That's from Mars Direct. If the MAV is for the purpose of the architecture that I posted, then the MAV must be modified from NASA Design Reference Mission. The MAV does not require life support, because astronauts can live in their spacesuit for the brief journey from Mars surface to the ITV waiting in Mars orbit. We could debate whether the cabin requires pressurization at all. However, NASA DRM brought return propellant for the ITV all the way from Earth. My design uses the MAV as the TEI stage, which enables ISPP for the entire return to Earth.

I find it highly unlikely that LOX/LCO has Isp as high as you posted. I'll look it up in "The Case for Mars".

I've said before, we need to send a rover with a multi-segment core drill to the frozen pack-ice of Cerberus Fossae. That's 5° north of the Mars equator, and in the dried-up ocean basin so low-altitude. Altitude is important for additional atmosphere for radiation shielding. In a vast region known as Elysium Planitia. About 20° latitude or about 1,000km south of the volcano Elysium Mons. Maybe 1,200km, but considering the pack ice is 800km x 900km, it depends where you measure from.

Back in 2005, the head of the Canadian Space Agency proposed a rover about the size of Spirit/Opportunity with such a drill. They developed a prototype drill, dry drilling using an electric motor. Each segment 1 metre long. So a rover the size of Curiosity isn't necessary. I could cite the work by the European Space Agency that has a lot of evidence to conclude it's ice, but we need "ground truth".

My PDF player displays correctly. For NASA DRM v5 Addendum, page 1 starts with the Introduction, the first page of text. Not included in page numbers are the cover page, NASA program office info, second cover page, forward, table of contents, index of figures, index of tables. The table of contents and indexes have Roman numerals. However, the PDF player simply numbers pages from the start, so document page 1 is PDF page 21.

Note one of the basic principles: Don't land your return vehicle on the planet!!! NASA tried to design Apollo to land the CSM on the surface of the Moon. That's why the main engine for the Service Module was so big. Problem was the stack was so heavy, even a Saturn V couldn't launch it. They tried splitting it into several stages, but that only works so far. They tried to design an even larger launch vehicle, and came up with a few proposals. While they were kicking around the idea of an even more giant rocket, one engineer from one American supplier recommended a "mother ship" left in lunar orbit, and a "Lunar Excursion Module" (LEM). The Command Module that North American was already developing was kept, and they shrunk the multi-stage landing and launch stack into the Service Module. The name for LEM was shortened to "Lunar Module" (LM) but still pronounced LEM.

My architecture leaves the return vehicle in Mars orbit, including the return capsule. So this is applying Apollo principles to Mars Direct.

Hmm. Starship fairing diameter is 9 metre, outside diameter. But inside is 8.00 metre. That means the hab must be reduced to 8.0 metre to fit. Starship specs say it could lift "up to" 150 metric tonnes to LEO, but that's 185km altitude. ISS orbits at 400km ±10km. What is Starship lift capacity to ISS? Would the TMI stage have to be launched separately? Again, this is assuming all Starship launches are fully reusable.

35°C (95°F) and May 12? It's nice, but normally we get this weather in July. My house doesn't have an air conditioner. Built in 1907, before air conditioners existed. Haven't installed a window air conditioner because normally it's only hot enough to justify one about 2 weeks per year. But May 12?

I would like advice by Americans on this website. This article is shocking! The "Brown Shirts" are arresting members of government.
Gothamist: 'All so opaque' — Newark Mayor Baraka released after chaotic arrest at ICE center protest

Hi Tom; thank you for responding.

I tried to explain the issues. True, money does not have to be based on gold. Gold was the first metal that humans learned to make, even before copper. Gold does not corrode, and gold is rare. Copper was the second metal, it was discovered as a byproduct of mining and processing gold.

I did say that whatever the basis for currency, it must be physical, must be rare, and must be durable. It cannot be consumed like food. An alternative to gold is silver, because silver oxide will be used on Mars as a regenerable CO2 sorbent for life support. Something required for life support will definitely be valuable on Mars. Basing the economy on a rare earth metal like neodymium would be different. Today on Earth, it's value is just under $90.80/kg (90.80¢ per gram) in US dollars. Neodymium is used to make rare earth magnets.

You said you liked the idea of digital money. I said today banks use debit cards to access bank accounts. I get paid by direct deposit, and pay utility bills by online banking. We can do that. But money must be based on something, not just a fiat currency. And any form of digital currency that isn't based on anything physical is fiat. I already explained the problems.

In the "Corporate Government" discussion thread (also Martian Politics and Economy) I recommended money be a combination of bank accounts accessible by debit cards and electronic banking, and coins made of precious metals. No paper money. The only response has been tahanson43206 claiming paper money is "more advanced" than coins, and kbd512 giving an excuse that the US uses a "mixed economy" so basing the US dollar on gold is obsolete. To be blunt, both demonstrate lack of understanding of the problem that I am trying to solve. Before I start, let's be clear, since Richard Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard, the US dollar is now a fiat currency. It's not based on a "mix" of anything, it just has value because the government claims it does.

As mentioned in the last post, fiat currency is an addictive drug for government. Highly addictive. It allows them to just print money, use that to pay bills. When government borrows money, it drives interest rates up: supply-and-demand. Government loans also take money out of the capital market, reducing capital available for business. When government prints money out of nothing, value of currency will fall until the total of all currency in circulation after adjusting for inflation is equal to what it was before printing the money. Reducing the value of money appears as inflation. It means any savings you have, whether to buy a house or retirement or any other purpose, has just been reduced by that amount. This is highly damaging to the economy. As the economy grows and the economy is producing more goods, total amount of currency in circulation must increase accordingly. It's up to the central bank (in the US it's the Federal Reserve aka "The Fed") must gauge that, and increase money in circulation accordingly. If too little money is in circulation, it dampens the economy. If too much, it causes inflation, which is really reduction in the value of currency.

Government only has 2 other options to pay the bills: taxation, or reduce spending. This means government must always operate will less money than they would like. Always. Anyone who runs a business knows they must make maximum benefit from limited resources. Anyone who owns a house knows the same.

Taxation has problems as well. Every time taxes increase, it reduces the economy. To put it bluntly, tax is theft. And most of those looking to move to Mars will look at taxation that way. So if you want to argue that high taxes are good, then you don't have the "right stuff" for Mars. Mars will be a frontier planet for a very long time. Any frontier must emphasize self-reliance. If you are reliant upon the government, whether for hand-outs or to manage your finances because you can't manage them yourself, then you don't belong in a frontier. Mars is the ultimate DIY (Do It Yourself).

Back to finances: when government borrows money, it must pay interest. Some financial instruments use fancy words for "interest", but to make things simple, US Treasury Bonds use the word "interest". The more the government owes, the more of the government's budget must go to pay interest. In Canada, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the election of October 1993, 30% of the government budget went to interest. That's money that could have been used for social programs or tax cuts. And taxation in Canada had risen so much that any further increase in tax rates would reduce the economy so much that total revenue to the government would actually reduce. When Ronald Regan was President in the US, he thought the US was also at that point, so a tax cut could actually increase revenue to the government. Well, taxation in the US was high, but not quite that high. However, in Canada it was. Ronald Regan was president January 1981 - January 1989, while Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada September 1984 - June 1993, so there was overlap but not exactly the same time.

The goal of using a physical standard for currency is if individuals lose confidence in the banking system, they can withdraw their money has hard currency. Something they can put in a wallet or purse. If government wants to simply print money, then they have to mint coins. Those coins are made of precious metal, so the mint must purchase enough precious metal to make those coins. If value of currency drops so that coins have more value in their metal than face value of the currency, then minting coins is a net loss for the government. This is a strong dis-incentive for printing so much money that it drives down the value of currency. This prevents them from minting coins until the value of currency is equal or more than the metals they are made from.

I guess I have to use the term "mint" for coins, because it isn't paper money. Paper money is printed.

As I've said before, this is a very very old problem. Ancient Rome used silver coins called denarius starting 269 or 268 BC. They had a problem with government debasing coins. That means reducing the silver content, blending with cheaper base metals. Today, US dimes have no silver at all. Babylonian coins were silver or gold. Sumerians used shell money 3500 BC - 2000 BC. The earliest metal coin dates from 2150 BC under the Akkad Empire. The Akkad ruled Mesopotamia after the Sumerians, before the Babylonians. The word shekel was used for coins in that area for a long time. The word is derives from the Akkadian šiqlu or siqlu, a unit of weight equivalent to the Sumerian gin2. An Akkad mina was divided into 60 shekels, both units of weight for gold or silver.

SpaceX uses digital to transmit telemetry. You can detect harmonics with digital, but sample frequency must be at least 4 times the signal. If you have a signal 1MHz or less, then sample at 4MHz. If signal is a perfect harmonic of the sample, you will capture amplitude of the peak, neutral, trough, neutral, repeat. Ideal is 10 times the signal. If the sample is not a perfect harmonic, then sample points will drift along the wave phase.

There's software to analyze digital signals for repeating patterns. For one, there's the software SETI uses. But I doubt anything that fancy is even necessary. A Fourier analysis should do it. There are lots of software packages to do it. There should be engineering software to look for harmonic signals in a digital sample.