New Mars Forums

Bon voyage Venus Express ...

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No, no, the $30M is like the spark from rubbing sticks together.  Now they have to build the bonfire.
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Do you really not see the irony of quoting van der Riet Wooley in support of your argument?  The guy was wrong.  He was one of the most respected scientists in the world, he had access to a whole community of genius, and he was wrong.  Probably some engineer said to him "well, maybe if you build it out of Titanium but that stuff costs $10000 per gram, it'd cost you $100 billion dollars."  Impossible, never, can't be done.  What did he say when the headlines read "REDS ORBIT ARTIFICIAL MOON" and "SOVIET SATELLITE CIRCLES GLOBE EVERY 90 MINUTES"?  "Well, hrumph, who could have possibly predicted that technology x, y and z would become available."  Is that what you'll say?
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Thanks for making it work again Josh   
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Yes, yes.  Very sensible.  Very safe.  You have some august company ...

"..so many centuries after the Creation it is unlikely that anyone could
find hitherto unknown lands of any value."  - committee advising Ferdinand
and Isabella regarding Columbus' proposal, 1486

"Drill for oil?  You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? 
You're crazy." - Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his
project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H.
Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,
president, Royal Society, 1895.

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be
obtainable.  It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at
will."    -- Albert Einstein, 1932

"The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]...presents
difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the
notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent
appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility
of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished."  Richard
van der Riet Wooley, British astronomer, reviewing P.E. Cleator's "Rockets
in Space", Nature, March 14, 1936

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas
Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943   

"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be
used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio
service inside the Unided States." -T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -
Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn
better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." - A Yale University
management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper  proposing
reliable overnight delivery service.  (Smith went on to found Federal
Express Corp.)
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That's really quite freaky that the lichen basically just shrugged off 14 days of hard vacuum. 

Awesome links karov, thanks.
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A difference between the Martian frontier and, say, the American frontier, is the restricted options for someone who is dissatisfied in a community.  Especially at first, there will be resources that cannot be created on Mars.  One example is power.  Power is not merely a luxury on Mars, it is essential to survival for any significant period of time.  A single person or small group deciding to break-off from a larger group must acquire sufficient power generating resources.

But look at the power generation options for Mars: nuclear, solar, fuel cell.  Local manufacture of nuclear generators and fuel just isn't going to happen anytime soon after settlement.  Local solar or fuel cell manufacture is more likely, but each involves specialist equipment and/or materials (e.g., dopants, fuel cell membranes) that make it easy for a single group or even a single person to monopolize the ability to produce new power generation capacity.

I'm sure power isn't the only vital area where such monopolies could arise.  The point being that it may be easy for a monopoly to disallow establishment of competitive settlements if there is no higher authority explicitly requiring that they be allowed.  In this situation, the frontier could look a lot less entrepreneurial and a lot more centrally planned than I imagine you'd like. 

I think true independence will require quite advanced personal fabrication technology.
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Well Earth has 20 ppm abundancy and we produce enough for 2 million tonnes of HF.  Is there any reason you know of that Mars won't have similar high grade fluorite ores?

To be honest, I've never thought of nuclear transmutation as particularly energy efficient.  But then again, I didn't know that you could build your own fusor for under $10000  8)  I'll ask for one for Christmas and see how much fluorine I can make.
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I don't get it.  Everyone here thinks this can be done, that someone will do it, and that one day it will be profitable.  The only arguments are over when, who and how much credit they'll need in the meantime.  4Frontiers is certainly bold to answer: now, us and whatever we can get.  But when did having courage become crazy?
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Article says they raised $30 million, so they're going to be around for a few years unless they start taking out Superbowl ads.
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Formisano puts HF at 40-100 ppb.  That's comparable to, say, xenon in the Earth's atmosphere. 

Now on Earth, xenon is produced as a sideline to nitrogen production - you liquify air and use fractional distillation to separate out nitrogen, oxygen, krypton and xenon among others.  Nitrogen production is quoted in terms of hundreds of thousands of tons per year, oxygen production is quoted in terms of thousands of tons per year, krypton and xenon are quoted in terms of tons per year.

Now cryogenics is fairly easy (low energy) on Mars, so liquifying air isn't going to be a big problem.  This works in your favor, but I think your production would be hundreds of tons of HF per year rather than hundreds of thousands of tons.  You're only out by a factor of 1000 though.  Good tech has leaped bigger gaps.  I bet you could get most of that with a properly designed filter/membrane (something like they use in reverse-osmosis desalination - nanotech will help out here) and some of the rest with ridiculous power levels.

However, if HF is in the atmosphere, there are probably some nice fluorspar ores about.  It's almost certainly going to be more energy efficient to dig those up first.  Atmosphere processing might be a good option for long term maintenance though.

I believe the MRO has instruments that will detect CaF2, so we might get some data on this soon 
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They're just being careful.  The first launch has to go perfectly or those whose faded laurels were threatened will gleefully tear them apart.

When NASA is axed as part of the current administration's self-immolation, the AltSpacers will be able to hire NASA's best and brightest for 50 cents on the dollar, which should speed things right along 
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