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A little injection of reality. What's the point of terraforming Venus or any other hostile planet?
For a tiny fraction of the cost and effort you could build large habs under the ocean or huge caves here on earth.
Completely sealed caves or ocean dwellings give you the "redundancy" that some people see in terraforming, at a minute fraction of the cost. Plus it's easy to get supplies and such in an emergency.
How about buying an old mine or something and "terraforming" that? It's doable with today's technology.
Don't forget that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, Tim.
The kind of gravity shielding you're talking about is the equivalent of the fictional "Cavorite" from H.G. Wells' "The First Men in the Moon". It's a fine concept but it contravenes the laws of thermodynamics, which basically tell us there's no such thing as a free lunch!
Even a wildly successful Podkletnov device, capable of 100% gravity shielding, will still require a power input. Whatever 'work' that device does, say like elevating billions of tonnes of CO2 out of Venus's gravity well, as you suggest, will take energy ... LOTS of energy! And you will have to provide that energy from somewhere.
Podkletnov's device doesn't break the so-called "law" of thermodynamics. It takes more energy to power the device than you gain in potential energy. (assuming it isn't a total fraud)
Anyway, centrifugal force will do some of the work to throw the CO2 out of the atmosphere. All you're doing is stopping it from falling back to the surface. I'm no mathematician, but a gigawatt or two should let you shield at least a few hundred square meters of the surface. That would be one hell of a huge chimney.
You're right - as far as changing the rotation, you can forget about that with any conceivable power supply we have now, but it's no different than the huge electromagnets some people were mentioning.
Bleed off the atmosphere and knock a few comets into the planet and you've got a pretty good start.
The easiest solution for terraforming venus is to wait until "gravity shielding" (aka Podkletnov) techology is ready. Then lay a good-sized gravity shield on the surface of venus and let the atmosphere bleed off above it - like a smokestack effect.
We could be 5-10 years away from such a device - and it would be light enough to send there and plop on the surface relatively cheaply. Then just let time do the work.
A similar strategy could be used to increase the spin of venus - you just place one of these magic "gravity shields" at the lagrange point between the sun and venus, and break the gravity between the sun/venus on only one edge of the planet. That edge would then be attracted less to the sun and would spin away faster than the unshielded side.
Now all we need is a podkletnov device that actually works.
This thread is intended for all information pertaining to the European Space Agency (ESA) Auroura program, which is comprised of several mission goals, including a Human to Mars program.
Yeah right. The europeans can't even sort out "Galileo" amongst themselves, let alone a mars program.
And what's the deal with stealing US codenames? Aurora? Galileo? What's next, Challenger and Hubble?
We need research programs on the magnitude of NERVA. NERVA is a great example, because in 10 years they made remarkable advancements in NTR technology, and this was with 1960's technology. If we restarted this program today, truly cheap and reusable SSTOs could be developed in 5-10 years.
I think Bush is doing exactly that. I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out with a bold initiative, although it may have to wait until after Iraq. My idea of a "bold initiative" is not necessarily going to mars, but to build a truly usable space plane, and of course Bush doesn't give a damn about "envirofascist" opinions.
These guys (the Bush Regime) have a lot of reasons for supporting space: 1) it's a voting block, albeit small, it can offset the environmentalists that Bush hates so much. 2) Handing out pork to Texas and various powers that installed him, and 3) Militarization, which is obviously one of his obsessions. 4) I think Bush wants to be able to say he has a vision beyond just warmongering. You saw little rays of that in his last SOTU address.
So I'm expecting this regime to capitalize on this "opportunity" as any politician would, and do something big. They were, after all, already fully funding the NSI before the columbia tragedy on saturday.
so by comparison, the chemical boosters on the shuttle produce about 400,000 lbs. each, and these have been developed for 30 years. NERVA was researched for less than a decade! Imagine what the results could be at this point had we continued. These engines would use 77 pounds of uranium for a round trip mission to mars. Imagine the possibility for SSTO flights! Surely, not now, but after further development to ensure full reliability, this could be a great option. I wonder how much the chemical fuels weigh, and how much less thrust you would need to get an orbiter into orbit with nuclear propulsion because of the decreased weight!
Surely you don't think the military abandoned such promising technology? Just because it's not public doesn't mean it doesn't exist, doubly so when it is so superior to chemical rockets.
I, for one, think NASA's unmanned program is awesome, and truly does contribute to science. Projects like Hubble, Galileo, Odyssey (there are countless dozens, really) are truly technological marvels that have returned a great deal of science. Hubble really stands out in my mind as a true gem and marvel.
My opinion of the manned program is not as favorable. Unfortunately, they have made space travel so boring as to be intolerable, even for technophiles like myself. The NASA channel is obscenely lame and a self-destructive force. I can watch C-SPAN for hours, but cannot tolerate 15 minutes of NASA channel. There guys appear to be using 1960's era video cameras, 10 years after DirecTV started beaming down 100% digital crystal-clear video from space.
Clearly, the shuttle and ISS are an albatross around the neck of any hopes for a space-based future for humanity. I have said many times in the past few days, that this is an opportunity to put the shuttle in a museum and splash the space station, and put our dollars into cost-effective and commercially-viable space transport. If you can reduce costs an order of magnitude, or two, you can have an entire industry develop.
I believe we can do it, technologically, if NASA's money were spent right, and it would enable a truly great explosion in private space exploitation, as opposed to the boring charade of launching the shuttle.
What the hell is going on here...
Depends on how much of a conspiracist you are. Chances are good that the military is way ahead of everyone on this stuff, and if some other country makes some announcments, you would probably see the air force unveil a craft that uses it, or some sort of impressive demo at least.
The power requirement will be too great to ever be practical onboard a launch vehicle
I doubt that you have enough information to make that determination at this point. It stands to reason that it will improve over time. Simply proving that the effect is real would stimulate massive worldwide investment in it.
Also, it stands to reason that the nullification is reduced the further away from the device that you are. ie. you might have a 2% reduction right over the plate, but 1000 ft above it, you might only have 1%. The reason is, you still have all the mass around you pulling down on that column of air. Only a small portion directly beneath the device is shielded.
"Anti/nul/shielded gravity schemes are so far fetched (to be generous) that even the most far-out physics don't contemplate the possibility. human-scale."
I think Dick is just being a troll to stir things up.
This is the same old "Vatican Mentality" - the earth is the center of the universe, it's flat, anyone who says otherwise is a nut.
Etc etc etc.
I really pity anyone who thinks that physics is all figured out, no holes, etc. If Dick really believes that, he's got to be out to lunch.
I wish I could figure out how this board works (quoting in particular)
"more varied, open, and interesting lifestyle in California as compared to dreary and dull northern Iowa [where the office was located]"
That's hilarious - I'm originally from Northern Iowa. What city was this office in?
It's well-known that women don't function well in office settings, but they can be OK in small groups, aka "Sex in the City". Maybe 8 people is too darned big though??
"cracks in the facade" seems to be a pretty accurate statement. It really caught my attention 2 months ago when Boeing was finally quoted as being interested in this technology, and further, Boeing was quoted as saying there may already be classified work in this area. (Conspiracists will tell you the military has had this stuff for decades.)
I've also read various stories where the reporter "felt a buzz in the air" when talking with the people at NASA about this. NASA researchers wouldn't be "buzzing" if they thought Podkletnov's device was a sham.
Here's a little story I wrote on the ramifications of gravity-control technology. It's a bit of an understament, because the effects are so sweeping and stunning.
If the real motivation here is "survival of the species", then why not build a sealed complex here on earth and live in it?
Think about it, if you have to build a sealed community and ship it to mars, surely the same thing could be built here deep underground at a fraction of the cost (plenty of old mines available).
Heheheh - yes I thought the sperm bank was a unique angle. A colony of lesbians could make for some interesting viewing on "reality tv". "Real World Mars" on MTV maybe? ;-)
Personally, I am hoping for a technological breakthrough that will make space launches cheap and practical, if not for everyone, than at least the upper middle class.
I've spent a lot of time looking into that possibility, and there are a couple of potentially interesting things in the works, with the "Black Light Rocket", the space elevator and "Eugene Podkletnov". The BLR appears to be scientifically validated, the space elevator is 15 years away, and NASA is currently working to validate the Podkletnov device.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03 … ty_pr.html
http://www.blacklightpower.com/pdf....202.pdf
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51792,00.html
So who knows, a full-blown settlement may be achievable in 10+ years by private investment alone.
Full story here:
http://scileap.com/stories/2002/marscol … id=8&cat=4
I read with great interest Dr. Robert Zubrin's excellent book The Case For Mars and it certainly stimulated my imagination to say the least. I began to think about how his "Mars Direct" plan could be modified to be even cheaper, and produce a permanent colony instead of a 500-day mission which may never be repeated. Instead of expending so much of the mission budget on a return vehicle, you could instead focus on delivering basic infrastructure to form a permanent colony on mars.