New Mars Forums

Hayabusa is still limping home.  If it makes it, that would still be something, and we don't yet know that it did not successfully collect a sample. 

I will cross my fingers and wait.   

I'm reminded of a fable:

There once was a lady who was so rich that she had never needed to learn how to do any housework.  Then one day, her enemies had all her servants jailed, and the rich lady had no one to keep her home.

Her enemies came to her as she lay crying on her polished marble steps, and asked, "What's wrong with you?  Why are you whining?"

She told them, and they replied, "You are too rich!  Soft living has made you lazy and stupid.  Give us all of your money, and hard knocks will soon teach you to take care of your family like you should have."  And they left her to bemoan her fate.

Afterward, the village washerwoman, a simpleton, happened by and saw the rich lady weeping.  "What's wrong?" the washerwoman asked.  "Why are you crying?"

The rich lady told her.  The washerwoman was dull and slow of wit, and knew nothing of servants or being rich, but she said "Come with me," and took the rich woman to her humble home.  There, she taught the rich woman how to clean a small room, how to cook a simple meal, and how to wash the clothes of an entire village. 

The rich lady then went home and took care of her family until her servants were released.  Afterward, she went into business with her new friend the washerwoman and made so much more money that now the washerwoman didn't need to do any housework either.  Then she inherited still more money.  Her enemies all died of envy and related diseases, and she lived a happy and prosperous life until the end of her days. 

And the moral is:

Even if any passing moron can solve your problem, spiteful advice will not.

I don't know why Dr. Bell's essay and the ensuing responses reminded me of that.  Perhaps it's because they elucidated the problem so clearly?

His ad hominem argument cited a thread about JP Aerospace that I once took part in.  Gee... I feel kinda bad now about that crew farts quip.   :oops: 

Still, I must concede the anecdotes he cited are very real.  If he was expecting a peer reviewed online journal, I can understand why he was disappointed, but most space advocacy forums do actually claim to have a common interest in technical matters.  I've often wondered how the contents of the New Mars and other forums measure up in terms of relevance and focus.  There are actual methods of assessing the question.  Since Dr. Bell is clearly ignorant of such matters (his essay is just a collection of anecdotes and generalizations), perhaps we should get around to using them?  More importantly than strengthening our case, that information might strengthen us.

(And for your information, I prefer "Zubrin-American", thank you.)

Tropical Storm Gamma

It's fashionably late, barely tropical storm strength, and is expected to fade back to a tropical depression in a few days.  But it should hold together just long enough to drench Cuba and the Florida Keys again.

Egad.

Tropical storm Gamma predicted by this time tomorrow.

I wish this were a movie, too.

One of the great myths of the modern age is that everyone on the government payroll is personally overpaid.

I'm not sure I'd work for someone paying half of what NASA offers for the same job.

Not sure where to put this, but this looked as good a place as any.

Mars had plate tectonics

According to this article, Mars appears to have had more Earth-like plate tectonics early in its history, and may still.  Old explanations for evidence of polar wandering that suggest its entire crust moved as one piece are probably false.  I also saw an article in Discover magazine suggesting that Valles Marineris occurs at a plate boundary - like the Marianas Trench here on Earth, although Valles Marineris appears too close to the edge of the data collection area to tell for certain using their map alone. 

If true, that would require no catastrophic flooding for the initial formation of Valles Marineris, only later shaping by water.  It would also have profound implications for the distribution of mineral deposits.

I'm discovering that I hate MER auto-mode...

Opportunity is currently experiencing a sand-storm, which got so bad a few days ago that it delayed its automatic powerup and put the rover in safe mode.  Apparently, that means no new pictures for the next few days, even though the rover is presently out of safe mode and transmitting data.  NASA's got the pictures - they're just not posting properly here on earth.

It looks like a hardware glitch on Mars is foiling NASA's web server millions of miles away.  Forget any minor inconveniences: That's just science fiction amazing.   8)

I do fear that events like this will become more and more common as the rovers begin to wear out, though.

Cindy started this topic at about this time last year. 

Compressed gas & liquified gas pneumatic motors are a good idea for vehicle power.  I'm not sure about the wisdom of holding out for exotic liquid hydrogen when you can just use the ambient air as your working fluid, though.

Given the amount of methane and the mass of the equipment needed to convert it to plastics, it would be simpler to just skip it and send tanks of two-part epoxy instead.  I'd suggest just sending rolls of prefabricated fiberglass cloth at first, too - save the smelters for later.  And as for vacuum vapor deposition, I'd skip that, too - it requires a carrier gas, which would also have to be manufactured or shipped in.  VVD and fuel-to-epoxy conversion are unnecessary.  IMHO, garden variety sintering is just fine for lunar fibrglass.

A Mars mission wouldn't have the same conditions, though, and all the raw materials needed to make epoxy (or some other resin) are already there right along with the silica and magnesium needed to make fiberglass.  There, conventional resins make more sense than VVD and sintering. 

Sending equipment for ISRU fiberglass production is a workable proposition for both Mars and the moon, as long as we don't send the same equipment to both places.

Oh, sorry - link's bad.  Robert Dyck posted a working version. (Thanks, Robert.)

This plan probably would not stop land subsidence in New Orleans, but could decrease storm surge over time by building up new land between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico as a buffer zone. 

When I posted earlier that New Orleans was expected to be a coastal city in fifty years, that was not an exaggeration.  It is, if anything, a conservative figure.  Land subsidence south of New Orleans is proceeding at such a rate that new maps are desperately needed because maps of the area surveyed earlier than 1980 are no longer remotely accurate.

What do you mean, "in a couple of years"?  It's still sinking now!      

And really, although I attend a Mardi Gras parade at least every couple of years, I've never been fool enough to go to New Orleans to do it.   :?  It's not the male-to-female ratio that dissuaded me (although Josh is right about that by all accounts).  The drunk-to-sober ratio and the tourist-to-local ratio were far more influential. 

Besides, a bunch of drunk yankees doesn't hold a candle to a passel of cajuns with horses and live chickens.  They can have their Mardi Gras parade, and the rest of Louisiana will have ours.