New Mars Forums

With colonization of the moon or mars it means that exploration or science objectives are done. This is a problem since governments are there to do science and not to colonize. Since there is no low cost means to get there and no return profits other than the price per seat to go. Making that last step to start colonization will be difficult against the goverments stacking of the deck IMO.

Intended to replicate and to improve upon the design of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Hubble Origins Probe offers an option that is low on risk yet high on scientific returns, according to Norman, principal investigator for the team that also includes Johns Hopkins astronomers Holland Ford, Warren Moos and Tim Heckman.

For instance, HOP would make use of instruments - the Cosmic Origins Spectograph (COS) and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) - originally built to be installed on Hubble during its fourth service mission. In addition, it would include a new Very Wide-Field Imager that would "greatly enhance the original science mission of Hubble," Norman testified.

That Very Wide-Field Imager, slated to be built in collaboration with Japanese partners who will underwrite the cost, will allow scientists to map the heavens more than 20 times faster than even a refurbished Hubble Space Telescope could, Norman said. What's more, the new Japanese camera will be open for use by the worldwide astronomical community based on a peer review system in the same way that all Hubble instruments have been.

Norman told the committee that it would take an estimated 65 months and $1 billion to launch HOP, which he stated would continue and even expand upon the flow of science and discovery that has made the original Hubble Space Telescope a "national treasure."

And no, we do not need a new space station to get to the Moon. The development, construction, and launch of a space station as a Lunar way-station, would bankrupt the Lunar program.

Not having any plans to use the ISS is a good thing, because the ISS is useless, wholey and utterly. There is not enough science that can be performed there to justify its cost, the ISS has always been a make-work program for US and Russian space agencies.

If other governments want to piddle around with it, fine, but we're going to the Moon.

As for the Europa idea, could this work? For some reason this almost seems like it would be easier to add mass to, considering how many other Moons could be used for raw materials.
Would adding mass to Europa put it in danger of being pulled into Jupiter?

Here is a thought, cross a run of the mill tread mill, a flywheel for energy storage and give it 4 wheels that each are steering capable. Now the astronaut can just walk his way there.

I don't know why everyone assumes that we can't survive a climate change.

Massive hydroponic farms can produce all the food we need year round regardless of whats going on outside. Were not going to run out of water, even if it means we have to put up desaltation plants. We can even build massive dikes to protect population centers.

The climate changes on its own anyway. Wouldn't we look silly when a couple hundred years after we abandon fossil fuels the temperture stablizes, and then starts rising again?

Massive hydroponic farms need a lot of building so by the time we have them built most people will have starved. Then it beggars the question how would you power these Farms if we have a winter that lasts a few years how would you heat them or worse we have the wild weather that destroys everything except the super toughened flood proof buildings, which also have to be well away from the new ocean shoreline

All of these things require fuel and energy to operate. If there is no fuel or energy then you starve. And even if you manage to get a powerplant working how do you get the fuel for it?

No its a lot more easier to actually just make sure we dont have the problem in the first place. Because whatever happens if we such a disaster then our society will change and possibly be destroyed. Nation states would certainly be destroyed and it will become small communities looking after themselves