New Mars Forums

I don't know where you people live, but here in Australia it's the same sorry tale.
   There was a snippet about the Martian water-ice during a midday TV news program but it wasn't repeated that evening as far as I know. If it had been, it would have looked something like this:-
   The evening news on TV is a half hour long. The first five minutes might show Israel/ Palestine/George W./War-on-Terror/India-Pakistan and such like. That's assuming a disgraced South African cricketer hasn't died in a light-plane crash or an Australian Rules footballer hasn't been found in bed with his best friend's wife! Then, the five minutes of world events would have to be further abbreviated while we delve breathlessly into these sportsmen's sordid private lives.
   Then comes a ten minute period dealing with Australian news: The latest political scandal, deaths on the roads, and some more about those sportsmen's private lives!
   After the commercial break, it's ten minutes of sports results, more commercials, two minutes of the weather (and how it might affect the sporting fixtures over the next 24 hours! ), and then, just as they're tidying up the papers on their desk and saying good night .... oh yes! "Scientists think they've found some water-ice on Mars, enhancing the possibility of life there." ... Smiles and chuckles as one of the newsreaders cracks a joke about a possible Martian entrant at the next Olympic figure-skating event!
   It's pathetic!! So many people dismiss anything about Mars as just scientists playing with their toys. An excuse to dig out the "little green men from Mars" jokes .... you know ... anyone who talks seriously about space is "one of those Space nuts" ... good for a laugh.
   These denigrators are completely secure in their cocoon of total ignorance about anything other than what's going on right here on Earth. And they laugh about it. The same kind of people must have laughed in Columbus's face and joked about him falling off the edge of the world. I can feel the frustration he must have felt!
   Byron is right, of course. Education is the answer. But it's going to be a slow process while space in general, and Mars in particular, are treated as subjects for derision by so many woefully blinkered people.
                                          ???

HELP!!! .... ADRIAN!!!  There's something wrong with this topic!
   I think the posts by Phobos and Byron have inexplicably vanished. Hope it wasn't something I did!!
                                 

With either fuel cells or closed-system reciprocating internal combustion engines using H2/O2, you still have to split the water first.
   Where you get the energy to split the water is what it all comes down to, I suppose. Probably in the early days, a nice reliable little nuclear reactor will be the way to go. But, when we have janitors available to sweep the dust off the solar panels each morning, go with the photo-electric idea!!
   Obviously, there will be times when power requirements are low and solar panels will be able to give us all we need. But for occasions when we need very high power outputs (especially for our vehicles), having stores of, say, H2/O2 will be essential to drive fuel cells and more conventional engines perhaps.

Phobos and Tom, I couldn't agree more.
   See you in Los Angeles at the opening of BGD's new diner .... you want fries with that?!
                                       

There doesn't seem to be any doubt on the part of the experts that Odyssey's hydrogen is part of water molecules ... lots of 'em!
   I think they would have said something about hydrated compounds as an alternative, if there were any significant likelihood of that.
   As for the CuSO4.5H2O you mentioned, I think, from memory, that stuff is bright blue. Enough of that in the topsoil and we wouldn't be talking about the RED Planet!!
   Not sure about zinc sulphate though ... I think it's white(? ).
                                     
                                       

This is interesting stuff. I didn't know there were reliable statistics showing more births during a full moon.
   It's always fascinated me that the human menstrual cycle time-period is so close to the Moon's orbital period. As Phobos, says, since no woman has ever been out of the Earth-Moon system, we don't really know what effect the lack of lunar gravity might have.
   What happens to our dreams of a new human civilisation on Mars if all our women-folk's reproductive plumbing shuts down?!
                                        ???

It's almost as hard to imagine a geological process producing tree-like objects 100 metres tall as it is to imagine 100 metre trees on Mars!
   And why would trees choose to live so close to the pole and nowhere near the equator? I know there's probably more water-ice near the pole but that's not the only factor. What about the temperature?!
   On Earth, there's far more water as permafrost in arctic tundra regions than there is in, say, outback Australia. But you still get trees in arid outback Australia while the arctic tundra is, by definition, devoid of them. Why? ... because the far northern arctic is simply too cold, even though trees have had many millions of years to adapt.
   But the Martian polar regions make our arctic look like the French Riviera! With temperatures frequently on the wrong side of -100 deg.C, and searingly cold winds adding a wind-chill-factor beyond the wildest dreams of any thermal underwear sales executive, how could the Martian polar environment possibly sustain trees?!!
                                         ???

In another forum, MarsHotel mentioned that Louis Friedman and Carl Sagan of the Planetary Society both came out against the shuttle back in the seventies. Their reasons related to concerns about the high costs taking money away from robotic missions.
   Although at the time I probably would have disagreed with them, I would now vote with them, but for different reasons!
   The Saturn V was a wonder of technology. All the more so when you consider that it was based on early 60s know-how. Dayton3's revelation (news to me) that uprated 1.8 million- pound-thrust F1 engines had been groundtested, just adds to the awe in which I hold these monsters!
   As the Apollo missions unfolded, there were plans for quite elaborate lunar expeditions, some involving small rocket-powered craft to give the astronauts enhanced individual mobility on the surface. The contractors were becoming better and better at providing cheaper but more efficient Saturn Vs, and that progress would undoubtedly have led to further economies of scale as time went by.
   It costs $400 million dollars to launch a shuttle and each shuttle costs $2 billion to build!! I believe each shuttle is designed to last a hundred launches, which means each launch actually costs $420 million by the time you factor in replacement costs. And what do you get for your money? You get 20 tons into LEO. (Ring-a-ding-ding! )
   Now let me speculate for a moment (and I invite those in the know to correct me if they have better data). I bet that by now we would have uprated Saturn Vs coming off the production line and ready-to-launch for no more than $200 million. And what would we get for our money? 200 TONS INTO LEO FOR LESS THAN HALF THE PRICE OF A SHUTTLE LAUNCH!!
   That's 10 times the payload for half the money ... which represents an improvement in efficiency of 20 TIMES! Even if I'm wrong ... even if each Saturn V launch were equal in cost to a shuttle launch, you're still getting 10 times the bang for your buck in terms of payload-to-orbit.
   I've hazarded the opinion elsewhere in Forums that it's hard to imagine NASA (or the people behind the scenes) making so many bad decisions through simple stupidity. Sometimes I just can't shake the nagging feeling that you could only make this many glaring screw-ups by deliberate design!
   And not only do they abandon the biggest, best, most reliable HLV in the world, they then proceed to scrap the tooling and pulp the blueprints!!
   Can somebody out there please help me get this conspiracy hat off my head ... it's a lovely fit and starting to feel really comfortable!
                                         :angry:

We must be doing something wrong, BGD, because I can't seem to get the poll results viewer to work either.
                                       

Hi Tom! Somebody else suggested the same thing a few months ago but I tried to talk him out of it!
   Most of the experts seem to think we'll have enough CO2 on Mars as it is. What we'll probably need more than anything else is nitrogen, to add bulk to the atmosphere without all the worrying side-effects of CO2 ... like death by poisoning!! 
   I brought up Kim Stanley Robinson's idea of automated cyclers bringing billions of tons of nitrogen from Titan to Mars, but Adrian wasn't impressed for some reason! I think the prospect of all that huge-scale tinkering with the solar system made him nervous!
   Still, we're bound to dream up some good use for Venus if we keep trying.
                                       

Adrian, your system is working well!
   Four stars and a "Veteran" title .... so that's what 200 posts get you!!
   Next step: Five stars and a "Senile" title!!

   But seriously, I had envisaged trading in your 3 stars for one diamond at 200 posts. Then maybe 2 diamonds at 500 posts ... Something like that.

   Anyway, you're doing a great job and it's very much appreciated!
                                             

I have been a member of The Planetary Society for 14 years and joined The Mars Society about 3 years ago.
   I perceived TMS to be a more dynamic, focused, not to say aggressive, humans-to-Mars organisation than TPS. I still believe this to be true and have enormous faith in the energy and vision of Bob Zubrin. He's a doer, not a dreamer, and people like him only come along every now and then in history.
   I agree with Adrian that encouragement should be given to any New Mars contributors, currently not members of TMS, to join up. It's good to have any kind of support for Mars exploration but actual financial membership is really what counts. When politicians look at space advocacy groups, they must automatically ask themselves how many people belong to each group. In other words, they want to know how many people are prepared to put their money where their mouths are and really support their group.
   Josh and Phobos .... SHAME ON YOU!!!
   I expected better things of both of you!