New Mars Forums

CC:-

GCNR:-

There's no doubt in my mind that they'll be producing thousands of tonnes of it in just a few years. The uses for material like this are limited only by the imagination and things will start leapfrogging as currently manufactured CNTs are incoporated into commercial products, creating markets for ever-longer and purer CNTs. The evolving market demand will then spur more research and development, and so on and so forth. "Where there's a buck, there's a way"!
-- The beauty of the CNT is that it isn't all-or-nothing. There are applications for the technology at each stage of its development and that spells success for Space Elevator grade material in the not-too-distant future. 

Of course, whether or not Space Elevators themselves can be made to pay their way is an all together different point. There was a discussion about that very point here at New Mars about 2 years ago but I can't remember if a consensus of opinion was ever reached or not. I know some people were very doubtful that enough paying customers could be found to justify the $5-10 billion cost of setting up an elevator, with all its associated infrastructure. Having to place the ground station in the South Pacific Ocean, west of South America, for various reasons including storm frequency and terrorism, didn't help much. I suppose it would be much more convenient if the equator ran through Dallas or Denver or Cairns, or some such place! 

Reddragon:-

I agree.

This stuff is very exciting but I don't know why everyone is so surprised. Once carbon nanotubes were invented (or should I say discovered), it was only ever going to be an engineering development problem between us and a viable Space Elevator cable material.
-- I'm on record as saying I think a viable cable will come sooner rather than later and news like this does nothing to change my mind.

GCNR:-

Tsk, tsk, GCNR.
I think your ingrained 'bah-humbug' pessimism is showing! 

Cindy:-

Hmmm. Well, I happen to feel that the "crime  issue" is out of control, at least here in Australia. The reason for it is the illicit drugs problem.
-- I happen to espouse the notion that the tendrils of the drug business reach far and wide, into the law enforcement organizations and even into government. I have a friend, an ex-politician, who was a Minister in State Parliament, who has told me he reported specific drug crimes to the Police Commissioner's office in his state some years ago. My friend had his and his family's life threatened and his property damaged as a result. What he'd told the Commissioner's office had been reported directly to the drug gangs because those 'tendrils' I'm telling you about had reached and infiltrated that office!
-- Now, it seems very likely to me that if the Police Commissioner's office was implicated in the drug business, then echelons higher up still were probably involved .. and probably still are. 

I firmly believe that this is the reason the drug problem, with all its criminal ramifications, will never be solved. There are far too many people 'on the take' at all levels of law enforcement and government. I don't know what goes on in the U.S. but I'd be very surprised if it's not exactly the same there.
-- It's estimated that 90% of all crime in Australia is drug related. If you took away the drug problem, we'd be back to the much lower crime rates of the 1950s, when people in my home town could leave their cars and houses unlocked with a better than 99% chance they wouldn't be robbed or burgled.

So yes, I think the crime issue is very much out of control and the honest police, assuming there are some left, are physically unable to deal with all the crime we're faced with. Every day here in Australia, innocent people are subjected to appalling violence and the law courts hand down laughable sentences - usually community service or suspended sentences.
-- Makes me wonder if elements of the judiciary are also 'on the take'.

There are places here in my country where it seems like madness not to own a gun. And yet, the politicians and the judiciary have gradually seen to it that ordinary law-abiding citizens have no chance of ever being able to get hold of one. Sometimes I wonder what the real reasons are.  :?

That would be illegal here in Australia in an urban environment. However bad the restrictions on personal liberty are in America, believe me, they are much worse here. Only the criminals have guns in Australia.
-- We never needed them at all until the drug problem started. Now, we're not allowed to have them to defend ourselves. Interesting, isn't it?

[:: EDIT ::  This post was edited by me about an hour after the original version was posted. I altered some references to certain people, which, in retrospect, I thought were too specific and explicit. The main points of the original post remain intact.]

Cindy:-

That picture reminds me of wood grain. 
And yes, I think CO2 frost would burn you. Dry ice is just solid CO2, after all. The only difference would be the consistency of the frost, which I imagine would be fluffier.  :?: 

CC:-

More good points from CC.
Reminds me once again of the town in America somewhere, the name of which escapes me, in which everyone 18 years old (or 21?) and over is required to own a gun and to have completed an approved course of instruction in how to use it.
-- Result: A virtually crime-free town. Every crook knows there's at least one gun in every home .. and a person who knows how to use it!
-- Should be more of it.  8)   

Questionable:-

Yes. It was a hoax.

Rik:-

Yeah, I think you're right about that. The overwhelming majority of Australian politicians wouldn't have the foggiest notion about anything to do with space or science.
-- We've got Cape York Peninsula, which is practically perfect for a spaceport because it's so close to the equator, but nobody has the vision to get on with it.
-- But how do you get the politicians to wake up to the future in space unless the electorate wants it to happen? And the electorate will never see the value in it as long as the damned media either disseminate BS about it (as in the above article) or treat it as a joke. It's a classic 'chicken-and-egg' conundrum.
-- Sheesh!! 

Cindy:-

As far as I'm concerned you sure can!
They sound like they were both wonderful people. Thanks for sharing. 

Rik:-

Exactly! 
They say that any publicity is good publicity but, with ignoramuses like this guy writing derisory garbage like this, we'll never persuade the general public to back Mars colonization.
-- This kind of thing fits in with my other pet hate. You know, the way news items about human space colonization or Earth-grazing asteroids get tucked in at the very end of the news bulletin and the newsreader presents it with a wry smile and a giggle - as though it's all just fairy tale science-fiction, good for a laugh, but not worth taking seriously. (Or at least, that's how it's usually portrayed here in Australia.)
-- It's like the universe ends at the cruising altitude of a Boeing 747 and there's nothing above that level!  I wonder how these medieval clowns will react when we finally detect an asteroid headed straight for Earth. : "Huh? You mean space is a real place? And we could actuallyget hurt?!!  :shock: "
[Twits!]

This thread came into being because it was determined that the residual Martian south polar cap is made of water ice and not carbon dioxide ice. This upset some terraforming calculations, which were relying on the CO2 they thought was there in order to bulk up the thin Martian atmosphere.
-- Some of you may recall I had a somewhat heated exchange here with someone called mbastion over the idea of terraforming in general, and the use of perfluorocarbons as greenhouse gases in particular. Mbastion claimed this class of gases is toxic; which I refuted.

Some 14 months on, we're still getting reports like this one, from CBS News:-
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/ … 0044.shtml

It tells of research on the terraforming of Mars by Margarita Marinova, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. :-
"Marinova says that the goal is to warm Mars enough so that the planet’s south polar cap will evaporate."
-- This is a fine goal but seems to rely on the outdated belief that the south polar cap is predominantly CO2. As we now know, that's not the case. So why are some people still basing their research on it?!  :?:

The CBS report goes on to include statements like this:-

And this:-

Octafluoropropane, or C3F8, is a perfluorocarbon (PFC) and an essentially inert gas with no measurable toxicity. To re-quote an excerpt from the Proceedings of the Postgraduate Course on Mechanical Ventilation, Dept. of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Technical University of Dresden, Germany:-

-- C3F8 is also used to inflate the human eye as the vitreous gel is removed during vitrectomy surgery. As the eye gradually refills with aqueous fluid over a period of some weeks post-operatively, the gas is harmlessly absorbed by the body and vented to the atmosphere in the way described above.
-- To describe it as "really nasty" is about as far wrong as you can get!

And, as for C3F8 being blamed for global warming here on Earth, that's another error. Although some C3F8 has escaped into the atmosphere from refrigerators and from factories manufacturing semiconductors, and although it is certainly a potent greenhouse gas, the amount released in comparison with CO2 and CH4 (methane), is negligible.
-- Perfluorocarbons are minor players and are not routinely blamed for global warming at all.

-- It should also be pointed out that perfluorocarbons are not the same as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which contain chlorine. The chlorine in CFCs is released into Earth's stratosphere when the parent molecule is bombarded with UV light. In the bone dry stratosphere, chlorine is an extraordinarily potent catalyst in the destruction of O3, or ozone, and has been rightly blamed for the creation of the 'ozone hole' we're all concerned about. PFCs contain no chlorine and therefore do not contribute to ozone depletion.
-- Again, it's impossible to level the accusation of "really nasty" at C3F8 molecules.

All this could perhaps be construed as nothing more than lamentable scientific illiteracy on the part of the reporter, Jerry Bowen, except for some other comments I think are designed to help 'set the mood' of the piece. :-

Let's have a look at the whole theme of the report, shall we? :-
" .. same toxic stuff already blamed for global warming here .."
" .. the devil’s in the details. And the little devil’s name is octafluoropropane."
"Octafluoropropane is a really nasty greenhouse gas .. "
" .. B-grade science fiction thrillers .. "
" .. it’s doable – even if it's not understandable."
" .. raising questions of whether it’s right to fool with Martian nature."

Is anyone else here getting the impression Mr. Bowen is trying to tell us something with his inaccurate (?malicious) account of the science here and his apparent attitude toward Martian terraforming in general?
-- And what kind of impression is his nonsense going to leave in the mind of the average reader, who may not have the scientific background to see through his gross inaccuracies and might not be able to recognize the subtle antagonism and gentle derision in his journalistic style?  :?:

I sympathize wholeheartedly.
We once employed a builder to do a major renovation and extension on our home in Victoria.
"3 months", he said.
We moved into a 5.5 metre caravan (do Americans call these 'trailers'?) in the back yard, with two toddlers aged 2 and 4 years, expecting to at least get back into the house in a few weeks.
We didn't get back into the house for over 3 months (it was winter) and he didn't finish the job for 12 months in total!
At one stage I went around to his house, met his wife, explained we had two little kids in a caravan in a freezing back yard, and begged her to ask her husband to get on with the job.
She closed the door in my face.

Don't talk to me about builders!