New Mars Forums

Volume.

Employ them not by using absurd numbers for a handful of launches, but by prepping and assembling many launches.

I would have hoped that after 40 years of living under the threat of mutually assured destruction, the world would go to great lengths to avoid sliding back into that situation.

The challenge of colonizing an asteroid is the same as mining one. If you can properly anchor yourself to the surface enough to manipulate it, you can either poke at it and collect the pieces that fall off, or build maglev hab that spins around fast enough to provide gravity.

Phobos and Deimos are perfect places to test this, because anything they lack is a short trip from Mars.

The ultimate goal is landing a horizontally configured Ares V class cargo.

If the goal is to construct large permanent manned structures, then it makes sense to design it to mitigate these sort of threats because over their lifetime its almost sure to be an issue.

Whats the best way to make use of regolith to shrug off an impact? Whats the best combination of materials to to allow penetration but prevent a concussion?

Thats because we have a basic understanding of economics. Do you know what happens when you tax a corporation? They pass the cost on to the consumers until the consumers refuse to buy it and they go into the red, the stock price plummets, and they go out of business, or alternatively, they eat the cost, go into the red, the stock price plummets and they go out of business.

What exactly entitles you to tell others what to do with their money?

No, you see we are just bitter because we believe in the right of self defense and a power greater than ourselves.

To stop doing things that weakens the country and the individual and makes it harder to live here would be a nice start.

As opposed to the Marxist loving Barrack Obama, or the Hillary Clinton loving Hillary Clinton?

As for the lefts blatant and failed effort to infect McCain with QPS (Questionable Pastor Syndrome) that your referencing, it's just furthur proof that McCain is hands down more qualified than Obama, because McCain has the stones rid himself of people who spend all their time swallowing their own feet.

It could be very useful for any in depth excavation and construction. Particularly for dust control, but I would imagine you could whittle away at other life support requirements, like temperature, pressure and air.

Anything we can do to reduce the need for bulkier and heavier space suits is worth it. Quickly creating a large, redeployable outdoor shelter that reduces or eliminates any or all of the radiation or atmospheric needs of the astronauts while working out doors allows them to use much cheaper, flexible even expendable suits, and allows them to be much more effective. 

Of course just how much depends on how well you can temporarily seal it to the surface.

Oddly enough, the housing and credit bubble may have a lot to do with it. I wish I remembered were I saw it, but I saw a graph showing a direct link between the falling value of the dollar, and the rising price of oil. The fall of the dollar is adversely effected every time the fed releases large sums of cash to keep liquidity in the banks when they make bad loans.

It may very well be simple inflation. Those buying and selling oil simply need more dollars to get the same value. Of course, $4/gal is still better than letting the banks destroy themselves, dragging everyone else down with them.

It also doesn't excuse the governments criminal restrictions on the oil industry and over taxation.

Oh crap.

It would be one thing if he was consistent. He's not.

He was the one who made a big stink about how he thought that people used it to compensate for something.

Now that he realizes that the "Fly Over States" actually do get a vote, hes doing a sudden about face.

You want to store compressed gasses underground?

Doesn't anyone remember Pompii?