New Mars Forums

While I selected "Deep Impact" (hey - its gonna happend someday ... and statistically speaking, we're overdue ...), I would like to mention that, even though "Starship Troopers" was a bit cartoonish and oversimplified, the general universe created by Robert A. Heinlein (in his books) offers a very intersting take on a future for mankind ...

I've also been thinking along the lines mentioned in the article. The twist of making the bonds convertible to property titles is interesting though - I was thinking more in the direction of revenues based on licensing access and technology developed during the project to finance the interest and capital on the bonds ...

As for the current UN space treaty ... it's only signed by a limited number of signatories - and it wouldn't be the first time that that UN treaty have been ignored. As the saying goes: Possesion is 9/10ths of the law - if you claim it before anyone else AND you control access ... who's going stop you?

How different would a tour on Mars be to an average tour on a US nuclear submarine? Same confined spaces, long duration. Heck - a mars base might be even roomier, especially if you build greenhouses.

With the right training and equipment we can do almost anything.

And more so if we use robots as well. The two are not mutually exclusive, both must happen.

True - but there is (almost) nothing to run into in space.

For future space robotics, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with to robotically service the Hubble. That'll be a much better indicator to the viability of robotic transports, - assembly etc.

But very little stills beats a pair of hands, eyes and the human brain.

Does anybody have Paul Allen's e-mail address ? - He's known to support space initiatives ... maybe he'll be interested to
fund the "Rocket Company"

And maybe to convince his old buddy William Gates to pitch in - Microsoft has $53 billion in cash available. Another market that they can monopolize.

I just noticed [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/garden/11ROBO.html]this article in the NYTimes about a guy trying to automate construction.

I wonder if this could be leveraged for remote construction of infrastructure on Mars?

2525 Election platforms:

"Social Security for ET"

"Temporary working permits for illegal aliens"

"Marriage: Not between man and alien?"

I guess that settles the whole argument that liberals are anti-SEI ...

Just barely. 0.1666667 less and I would have been a liberal airhead. 

Since I'm in the US at the moment I guess it a question of "When in Rome ..."   

Well in Bill Bryson's book of "A Short History of Nearly Everything" he contends that, given enough time most of us have billion or so atoms from a deceased "great" person. (Given that they have been deceased for a while)

So it's destinctly possible that you are some former Dalia Lama (at least a couple of them) ... 

Just my two cents.

I have to agree with clark on this matter - for SEI to attain the goals that all of us wants it reach (I hope) some difficult and hard decisions will be made. Hubble and the eventual abandonment of the ISS are some of these. Its just pragmatic.

Heck - there are still mounds of data from Hubble that have not been analysed, and 2007 (at the earliest) is still a while away. Chandra is still out there, James Webb is on its way. Astronomers have their hands full as it is - none of them will be getting laid off or anything like that.

Let's get back to constructive discussion on how to get to Mars, instead of pointless mudslinging.

Have you ever seen a salt mine? Along the coast of Namibia they periodically dam (salty) sea water. As the water evaporates it leaves behind salt, which is then harvested.

These huge pans would be pretty similiar to the proto environment that formed those sediments on Mars (except the soil is more sillicate than ferrous).

During the early stages, before all the water has evaporated, it is also very corrosive.