New Mars Forums

Sure maybe he should of known the complete cost of the program, but how relevant is that? People add up the complete cost of a program over many years in order to make it sound much more expensive then it really is. The point of the new space initiative is sustainable investment in a forward looking space program. The moon is simply a short term goal to help focus the development of the technology and infrastructure, which with each step will further reduce the cost of future programs, and extend the current reach of mankind. Each step is its own program with its own rewards. The real strength of this program is the rewards are not cumulative, they are exponential. Each future step increases the value of previous rewards.

Why do you say that?

From the pictures the crew part of the CEV looks small compared to the shuttle. Is there enough space in there for a mission to mars?

For the benefit of those not on the mars society mailing list:

Now that bush has announced a new space initiative what should the mars society do to help insure that it, a similar plan or a better plan is implemented? What should people outside of the US do? How many people in this board are active in such an initiative?

With current plans for bases on the moon and mars, completion of the ISS, and a possible space elevator I can?t help but wonder the impact of this in the short term on life on this planet. What are the influences to, art television and music, and to the educational dreams of the young? Will these historical landmarks make profound differences on our life or will the impact be know bigger then a few good movies or television shows. What is the real measure of the short term value of these events?

There may soon be a vehicle that can go well beyond mars. What does this mean to the average JO. What does it mean if in 50-60 years we have people living or exploring europa and what significance does it have to us if they discover life. Try to respond not to the been counter. Try to write in a way to unlock the hart of the existentialist. I am not an existentialist but if you can unlock the hart of an existentialist you have done far more then captured my imagination.

I agree with Clark. Save the Hubble if it is feasible but if it?s not let it burn. The NASA engineers need to make their decisions on a technical basis and not a political basis. After all this investment the international space station must be finished. How, much risk is there of this not happening because of an extra mission to service the Hubble.

I thought the people here would be more pro nuclear power.

Also if we have a nuclear power ion engine, who cares if we stop at the moon. Couldn't such a craft take us most places in the sollar system?

I?v noticed a lot of papers I seen about beamBots on the net seem speculative and give little information about how these work. They also seem more interested in playing god then trying to find usefull applications. However, beamBots do seem well suited for walking. The design strategy seems to be based on evolutionary algorithims. So I guess to control these beamBots there could be several input that are activated by a remote control. The beamBots that obeys these commands the best will be selected as the parents for future designs.

What kinds of robots? Perhaps for production: Arc welders, Hypersonic Cutters, gluers, molders, robots to cover other robots with armor. Perhaps for Science: sptrocpocy,   MRI,  Humidity, bio detectors, photographers. For agriculture: Weeders, planters, pollinators, watering robots.

So I was thinking of something slightly more intelligent then beam boats. I know feed forward neural networks are good for pattern classification and I know that human memory is associative. In associative memory ideas are liked together for instance the concept of a fire truck may be linked to truck and truck may be linked to dump truck, fire truck and toe truck. Each unique idea can have its own place in memory.

Attached to this place in memory could be words, sounds, images, and links, to related ideas. Some where within this associate memory there needs to be a pattern classification mechenisim, so that the robot knows which ideas corresponds to which external input (i.e. sound, image, spectrum, etc). The pattern classification can be accomplished by a feed forward neural network.

If the robot can identify simple objects, simple commands can be given to it like, find me blue rocks, don?t go over any cliffs, if upside down flip yourself back up. Maybe BEAMbots will be smart enough. Lets try both concepts.

In machine learning the objective is to find a set of parameters so that for a typical set of input patterns, the corresponding output is optimal. If there is one input and one output the objective of the adaptive system may be to find the best fit line between the input patterns and the output patters. The system will learn for a given input around what to expect for the output.

In a robotic colony there are various objectives. In terms of the composition of the population, robots can be assessed upon there ability to locate resources, harvest resources, produce energy, there typical life span etc? On the scale of the robot, the objective could be to decide which rocks are interesting in terms of resources or in terms of scientific curiosity.

Various algorithms could be thought up to decide which robots are the best suited for the next generation and which rocks hold the greatest curiosity. The purpose of the simulation is to test these algorithms and the various robot designs.

P.S. For Inspiration
Rover Pictures