New Mars Forums

And to think that all that is just the Federal government. You've also got State, county, and in many places city taxes. And a host of overlapping and redundant bureaucracies. And often times the counties and cities have to fund underfunded mandates by the state and federal governments.

I wouldn't worry about Ron Paul.

I'm afraid you won't get a big funding increase under the current formula in Washington. They are simply to motivated by bribing various potential voters, and their arn't enough of us to catch their attention.

It's going to take a major upheaval to reorient the purpose of the government. Then, you have a real chance to argue for a much more robust space program.

You could. But if I were you I'd expect whomever your attacking to strike back at your stuff on earth.

This is why nations can't claim territory on other planets. Wars in space would spread to Earth. And considering who is likely to have the capability, that would not be good.

If anyone ever questions what will happen if Communists get there first, this should put those questions to bed.

China Mulls Communist Branch for Space

I might take democrats seriously if they actually tried to do anything about fossil fuel use. But you can't name a viable alternetive they they don't try to block.

What they do instead is limit the supply of the derivative fuels by denying use the ability to produce, and then try to pass windfall profit taxes when the price goes up. And then try to force the car companies to make plastic cars.

Their energy policy might as well be "Save gas, fart in a jar".

Terraforming is an extremely long term project that will require far more than economic considerations, but political and social ones as well. By the time you get the workforce required, they're apt to decide that they are more than capable of living on the planet as is, and would rather not do something that floods everything they and their families depend on thank you very much. And oh by the way, their native born kids think Mars is fine just the way it is. In fact they think you should Marsiforming Earth to prevent all the damage done by the moisture in the atmosphere. Why on Mars would you want to introduce another destructive agent of erosion on their planet?

You got to realize that the very technology that makes terraforming possible also makes it obsolete. Once we manage to dome over a hundred or so square miles at once, we can effectively reproduce any environment we want, except for the gravity on larger bodies. Unless the environment is completely hostile to human technology (think Venus) to the point you have to alter the planet just to land on it, there will always be a long drawn out political process carried out by the locals to decide just what their rock will be.

It will never be a corporation making such a decision, because the greatest investment will be make in the sacrifice and upheaval endured by the inhabitants.

Again, the very nature of the the beast dictates the commercial interest is balanced against the needs of the human body. Oxygen will be the first thing that is mined, and growth of the colony will be dictated by amount of oxygen that can be added to the overall environmental system. Same with hydrogen. Mineral resources are almost a side effect.

The "mother countries" are making their investments as we speak. NASA is percolating private industry to develop the technologies required to make this happen. Once NASA, and other space agencies (governments) pour enough money into it and prove the concepts with bases, the aerospace companies will partner with governments to reduce the cost the space program by building things off world.

The smaller the asteroid, its less of a colony, and more like a space station attached to a rock. There has to be a line somewhere. Extensive mining on something that small is dangerous, so you either have to use all of it, or not poke it too hard. Even the larger ones are unpredictable. It only takes once for thousands to die because a mined asteroid tore itself apart. Hows that for loosing your real estate venture?

We're not talking about a hunk metal and a place in the history books here. We're talking about preserving the fundamental rights of mankind, possibly for generations, and millions, if not billions of lives.

If dictators are allowed to reap the bounties of space while we twiddle our thumbs over hurting said dictators feelings, it's our kids who will pay the price.

Well, space is kind of big, isn't it? In every sense of the word.

Hopefully we would not make the same compromises again. Primarily that of combining manned with heavy cargo hauling into one system.

Instead, we would have separate and manned and cargo launchers like what we are working on now. Only different.

The HLLV, would be quite similar to the Ares V. I would use liquid fly back boosters in a paired configuration instead of SRBs. 0, 2, 4, 6, or maybe even 8 boosters would be added depending on the load. If possible, I'd make the main stack reusable, but at the very least recoverable. 200 tons to GEO should be the goal.

As for the manned launcher, we should be able to do a two stage to orbit space plane. With a hypersonic sub-orbital carrier, and a 12-15 seat/light cargo/resupply orbiter, what we really need to work to is the "scramble" capability. In other words, we should be able to identify a need (say, a damaged satellite, or a broken component on a space station), and be able to launch the new piece and the crew to repair in in very short order.  The orbit should also be capable of moving between a wide range of orbits.

Yeah, I like most Americans don't have a whole lot of confidence in those who redistribute our money.

I'm not saying that good can not come out of Constellation. I'm saying that when the very man who's charged with implementing it says that we're not taking it seriously enough to maintain technological supremacy, and that the Chinese are going to beat us to the Moon, you have to question the motives for those who claim to be supporting it.

Constellation can work. But at the present rate it will still fail at the most important goal, inspire.

The thing about those ideas is that those who sacrifice to preserve them generally don't get to enjoy them. All they have is a flag to plant on the Mt Suribachi's of the world. The more people took time to think about that the better we'd be.

Yeah, that should tell you exactly who he is pandering to.

So long as man has to maintain freedom for not only himself, but for his inflated ego, he is bound to fight with others.

With that settled, we may as well create a new thread on how each major party in the US misuses the power of the government. 

IF we can Constitutionally limit the role of government to set of clearly defined roles based around the pillars of modern civilization, and leave everything else alone, we might have a chance.