New Mars Forums

mmm... Here's the link, well kinda, it's a negative reaction on the idea. Because it involves nuclear reactors...
Link
There's no talk about puriication in the article, but that was one of the ideas the russian/chinese had. Of course you could use it for other things.

Ok, this is getting wildly off-topic, so i'll stop here. And try to get a bit more on topic...

Space acces would be a good thing for the 'black nations' (bad phrasing, but you know what i mean) it's a great goal to live towards, to get inspired, to prove your know-how, make-do capabilities. So i'm all for it.
India is 'getting the point' Other nations should, too. The best way out of poverty and 'negative image' is through education. Space is a great way to inspire the youth into science/engineering.  The West, trying to act benevolent, drilling water holes for the poor... it's a dead end road. They'd better give scolarships, IT-gear, etc. Starvation is not the cause of poor education, it's a result.
But let's face it: the average Westerner's view of an African nation is that of a mass of hungry people in rags. What we forget is that among those very people, there are profesors, students, engineers,... just like you and me, they just 'happened' to get into some major political/enironmental upheaval.
But we *think* we see a bunch of uneducated people. That's not always the case. It could happen to us, too. Look at the East-European countries, and their refuge camps, during the wars there. Things go downward, very fast, once things start collapsing. Race is not a determinant factor. It can happen everywhere, given enough bad luck.

Access to education is as important as acces to food and shelter. Otherwise you get nowhere. The internet could prove to be a formidable weapon against ignorance, given a chance. Already farmers in 'third world' countries get detailed meteoforecasts for their regio in a low-cost way: small radio-stations downloading weather reports and broadcasting it for everyone. No big deal? Not for Westerners, no, but a lot of places lack decent forcasts, thanks to the 'net that's changing quickly.
Just think for a moment what a feeling of pride it would give, knowing your country built the very meteo-sat that's now giving you the info that you depend upon for a living. These 'small' things are important.

(wow, incoherent rant again)

Ys, you have to bribe Adrian.... Pay him in Mars-bars...

Errr... no, you have to post at least 50 msgs, then you become member, an so on... with your average of 1.63 posts per day, you'll get there in 20-21 days :;):

Some pics of SSO's first powered flight and spectacular landing (click to enlarge)
mojavebooks.com

Good point. Sean is soooooo non-bold-planning it's sickening.

But the guys at the hearing with zubrin seemed to like his "if we don't go to Mars, then at least make the moon hardware dual-pupose"

Of course, nobody knows who'll get the last word. Let's hope its *at least* the moon, they'll go for. And then start questioning the non-dual purpose submissions from competing manufacturers.

Back burner... Never, please.

For instance, the development of a spae-tug with universal docking capacity would be a great asset for moon-mars-asteroidmining missions, so 'vote' yes!

OTOH, a lander for the moon, and only for the moon (ie. very weak hard-wired engines into a static design) should be voted down, because arguably a upgradeable 'common' lander with 'exchangeable' engine-block would be more interesting in the long term, etc....

"Can you define this proposed "unified" agenda in a succinct fashion?"

Two words: leave LEO... 

the rest are minor differences   

I want to highlight one of the nice articles on RVT from the Hobbyspace list... (Takes a while to start loading...)

The little spacecraft that could

They nick-named the machine 100-yen-onigiri! Refreshing to see a bit of modesty.

The article is interesting, really. The author says current space-programs are 'thinking wwrong,' he used to do so, too. And the initial lack of interest in the project is slowly changing to more and more people becoming convinced they're on the right track. Let's hope they keep getting funding to continue their success.

One way... Not going to happen unless it's a crew of at least  like 50 people... imagine a 6-10 crew getting old... Who's gonna care for them?
Of course if you'd launch 10-20 people every 2 years, things would change.

Me, i'd love to live AND die on Mars, ever since being a child. Even with low-cost mass transport in a far off future, they'd never allow me, for that would be considered 'nuts' on their psy profiles

... but could they find 'normal, stable' people willing to go one-way today? A lot of people would see it as a kind of suicide misin (it is not, of course...)

BBC online

uh-oh...

Spaceref

Ik know some people are interested in the tether experiments, so this article might be worth a look....

apparently it was an announcement looking for opportuniies to launch their MIXER experiment...

Announcement

The more, the merrier, i'd say!

Spaceref

nice and educational project for on those long wintery nights.

The pdf is 2.9Mb, contains detailed step-by-step building info and a lot of explanation about the vehicle itself, so it's quite educationally-correct   

I don't have kids, but maybe an idea for some of the people here that have children with an interest in Mars-stuff etc...