MARS or BUST

Theres a Co now working on a space elevator. If they can get it to work its THE way to get stuff to & from orbit, much less messy than a rocket & you can make it the size of a supertanker if need be.

As for our spacecraft being tiny. Do you know that Columbus' flagship the Santa Maria was less than 90ft long & the Pinta was like 60 ft long ? Have you ever seen a modern Supertanker or aircraft carrier ? If our spacecraft are small its our own damm fault. Outer space is A LOT bigger than all the Oceans of Earth so theres no reason we couldnt build a space tanker 10 miles long to bring stuff back from the Moon or Mars to fill up a space elevator

 

I'd rather see these billions spent on preventing further births. Pay women under the ages 18-25 $2,000-6,000 to get their tubes tied. The amount of women that are crazy, extremely poor, starving, drug addicted or whatever their problem is that would do this would be surprisingly high. It would lower the number of starving people, welfare cases and crime over a 20 year period. This would work especially well in places like Africa where the people are very poor and the land is just not suitable for large populations.

As far as space exploration goes, I lean more towards privatizing it. I'm sure businesses could do it for less money and at a faster rate. I haven't given up on the idea of living on this planet yet. I'm sure if the population gets too big, a disease or war will happen that will lower it.

 

I'm all for privatizing space also. A lot of BIG $ has $ invested in space, like Gates, & his partners. Hilton hotel has done studies for space hotel and you know Mining Cos are just itching at the bit to start strip mining the Moon & Mars & mining the atmosphere of Jupiter & Uranus with Cloud Scoops. Last year WIRED mag had an article where they stated that the owner of the 1st Space Mining Co will make Gates look like a pauper.

I am also invested in aerospace in BA, LMT, NT, SPDV, ORB & more cos

Burt Rutan now has the worlds only private space shuttle that he built. Its already flown & its already broken the sound barrier. He intends to launch it into orbit this June at the Oshkosh airshow Cant wait

 

Vague space exploration is the dumbest thing around & nobody does it cus its far too expensive to be vague. The smartest thing is to explore space & find out how to mine the Moon & Mars & later other planets for resources on Earth as well as for founding permanent cities on the Moon & Mars. Space EXPLOITATION is the only way that human civilization can continue to support an ever increasing population & growing consumption

 

It's downhill.

Literally.

Earth's escape velocity is 11.4 km/sec (kps), and it takes a Shuttle to get into orbit or a SaturnV to launch a moon ship.

The moon's escape velocity is 2.0 kps and the LEM pops off that with a single little booster.

Mars' escape velocity is only 3.2 kps, and the surface has actual air pressure, and there's a handy space station already in orbit. (Phobos). Where Earth's moon is two days away by Apollo CM, Phobos is in a tight little orbit around Mars -- a perfect place to base microgravity factories.

Our "spacecraft" are limited because we've only ever built one: the LEM. Everything else has been a "getting to space craft" not a "flying in space craft".

Consider the shuttle. It's made of aluminum. F1 cars, and even the wing on my "winter rat" EVO are made from carbon fiber. Why are we still building our space orbiter out of metal? Budget. NASA hasn't had one.

And carbon fiber is a compromise forced on us by having to make materials in a gravity field. Think about the crystals we can grow in a microgravity environment. Even diamond is just crystalized carbon. (Diamond would make a great heat shield. You could even sell the re-entry vehicle(1) hull ... until the volume of microgravity diamond drove the prices down.)

We can't do that in Earth orbit, because all the materials would have to be hauled out of Earth's deep dark gravity well. The materials on Mars are a lot closer to flat space, and Phobos has raw materials of its own.

Getting around in space is pretty easy, once you're living there. Getting there in the first place is the tough step.

Take the "apollo asteroids" -- the ones that cross Earth's orbit. The focus so far is worrying about one hitting Earth. Give us a base in space, and we can not only see it coming further out, but we can go grab the thing and push it into orbit. And then we could build a microgravity industry in Earth orbit. But we need one a bit further out before we can do that.

Worried about the ozone "hole"? If we can build an ozone layer for Mars, patching the one here would be a cinch. And where do you want planetary environmental engineers to make their "first steps" mistakes? Mars, or your back yard?

But the biggest reason to go to the frontier is to get away from the "benefits" of civilization: such as declining speed limits, increasing regulation, increasing taxes, terrorists trying to impose their politics on everyone else, et cetera ad nauseaum.

Get the non-conformist kooks out where they can try out their stupid political ideas without bothering the rest of us. And if they work, we can adopt them here ... once they've been proven "off broadway". Democracy was a radical notion, 200-odd years ago, until a bunch of kooks out in the sticks made it work (more or less).

(1) It technically wouldn't be a "re-entry vehicle", because it was never on Earth before. Some terminology updates will be required.

 

Space exploration is a great idea an im all for it. But at what cost??
Decades later after reaching the moon theres no less fortunate person living there? None of these poor we speak about will see a diffrence in thier lifetime cause we are thinking about going to Mars.
William you sound as if you have given up on Earth completly.
Then suggest that we make the same mistakes here on the rest of the solar system. Just rape each planet an then move on.
I agree with others that we spend more money protecting our oceans an find safer alternatives to nuclear power. Solar has come a long way as has wind power etc......
If we cant fix the problems here on our own planet why do we deserve the chance to repeat our mistakes on some other!?
If there is other intelligent life out there i hope they dont read this thread. Im not sure they would want us as neighbors.

 

My Take:

1) 95% of the homeless don't need a home, they need a mental hospital/sanitarium. The "homeless problem" arose coincedentally when funding for mental hospitals was slashed to nothing. Another factor is many 'beggars' have frickin homes anyway.

2) I say let's go for the moon base, rather than Mars. More opportunity to actually set something up and bring crap back.

3) It's funny how Democrat legend/idol/deity JFK can announce a space mission and it's the uniting force of America, but Bush does the same and it's the Democrats freak. And there's not even segregation anymore! But then again, I've read that JFK would be a "conservative" today based on his political platform.

4) My wife is an elementary school teacher, and she notes a high correlation between underachieving kids and dumb@$$/ignorant parents who don't frickin care if their kids can read a cereal box (who are unfortunately numerous). She said the parents who cared and were involved in their kid's life and learning had kids that did fine. She also said that there was a high correlation between the economic status of the parent and the amount of attention they gave to their kids' education... meaning the poor would get poorer and the rich richer eventually, because of the cycle of education.

People complain about the pi$$-poor discipline of children in public schools, well, that's because teachers can't do anything disciplinary nowadays for fear of student/parental reactions/lawsuits/school board discipline. Moral principles are also scarce in a secular education system (I always went to religious/parochial schools and liked that they could say "THIS is wrong" definitively, even if I wasn't the same religion, the ability to define good/evil was good); that's another can of worms though.

 

That's just absurd... Did you proof-read this before you hit Submit Reply...? Unbelievable...

 

Do you really think it wouldn't cut down on unwanted pregnancies? I've had a conversation about this with co-workers many times, and while bleeding heart liberals hate the idea, a lot other people realize that it would help some. Just like people on welfare should be REQUIRED to have a Norplant injection prior to getting any financial help. People that can't afford kids shouldn't have them, but yet people still do because their too stupid to do the right thing. I think the government should try to encourage certain types of people (junkies, mental cases, etc.) not to have kids. It's good for society.

Bleeding heart liberals want to throw endless amounts of money at problems, and while I rarely side with conservatives, this is one spot I always side with them. The fact is through strict enough punishments, you can fix a lot of societies problems. You don't need a stronger police force, just a stronger judicial system.

 

Mars is further away, but the surface has air pressure, so living spaces are easier to maintain, nitrogen is free as air, and the temperatures are less extreme. (It was actually warmer at the rover site than in New Hampshire, yesterday.)

The moon has 1/6 earth's gravity ... which is still too much for microgravity industries. Phobos has almost no gravity, and can be easily reached from the Mars surface.

For the long run, it's probably better to build a space industrial base on and around Phobos, with living and support spaces on Mars.

The drawback, as far as US politicians are concerned, is that the residents of Mars aren't going to let a bunch of flatlanders tell them how to run their planet, once they can support themselves.

JFK ran on the platform that Ike was "too soft" on the Russians, and by playing up a phantom "missile gap" which didn't actually exist -- e.g. non-existant WMD.


I wonder why the "Earth First" types don't go back to the Sahara. After all, it used to be cropland, a few thousand years ago. And society in the Americas is the result of greedy exploration for commercial gain by the Spanish, English, Dutch, and French, so it's obviously "useless", right?

I note that the Earth First types are perfectly willing to accept the returns on their great-grandparents' investment. They're just not willing to make a similar investment on behalf of future generations.

 

What happens when Miners on Mars go on strike?

 

We call in the repair tech. You don't ship unskilled labor to Mars.

The Earthers have a saying: "The meek shall inherit the Earth"
The Martians have a saying: "They did"

 

The Apollo program & space exploation have helpd people everywhere on else. Look atGPS, TV, satelite imagins, + all the tec that came fromApollo that we use tday. IF spaceexploration didnt help more people its bcus the people at the top in power dont care about helping others,not that sace exploration is a waste.

 

What do you think of undersea exploration?

 

The oceans are so linked to the global climate that it would be a really bad place to make major mistakes.

If we screw up Mars' ecology, it doesn't mess up 6 billion people.

Maybe after playing in Europa's waters, we can muck about in the Atlantic with a clue what we're doing.

 

I agree that the people at the top don't care. Thats my whole point.
A trillion dollar space program will not help the poor people for sure an hardly anyone else for that matter. GPS while neat an all is hardly a must have. The money could be spent today more effectively on things we know need improving.
Its great for the President to launch this though as there is no accountability. No one expects the hoped for payoffs from this to be seen for decades.

 

So why don't we spend this space budget to clean up our oceans that we have allready screwed up. Every time we have an above average rain storm here the runoff is automatically diverted to the sound.
This problem could be easily fixed... it simply costs money.

 

My Father worked for NASA in Huntsville,Al. for many years. Therefore, I am a big supporter of the space program. Back in its hayday, when they were testing a booster rocket, you could not only hear it but you could feel the ground rattle.

 

This is completely untrue. Technology from Apollo helped people everywhere in many different industries, GPS, satelite tech, composite materials are justhe tip othe iceberg. A serious space program aimed amakinfrom space will help a lot of people have jobs + it will effect other industries like mining, medicine, materials, energy production, robotics, construction, computers. It would also transfrom the world economy & drop the price of many materials like diamonds, crystals, medicine, gold. Iwould also create a new source of fresh water for the world. 1 of the most important effects of space EXPLOITATION would be Peace. By obtaining new sources of materials & energy & water people would be less inclined to invade their neighbors when they have enough resources to go around & PEACis good for everybody

 

William. The tip of the iceberg stuff you mention all has its place.
The satilite technology sure did not help predict the snowstorm that surprised us here in CT. today. A dusting turned into 7 inches!!
I just wonder if NASA has paid off. A trillion more dollars to go to Mars is kinda steep i say. The rest you mention is all conjecture. An if it does happen when..... 20-30-40 years maybe??
We all know there are places an problems that deserve to be made right now.

 

Actually, the notice on weather.com on saturday morning did indicate that an unstable air mass had the potential to cause spots of heavy snow. If your local radio station didn't pick up on that, that's not the satellites' failing.

If you drop a hammer on your foot, it's just "conjecture" that it will hurt. Conjecture based on past experience. But then, if you persist in refusing to see the direct and indirect benefits from the moon program, you're depriving yourself of the past experience with which to conjecture.

Oh, Velcro with you. Velcro would never have been developed without a need to invent a fastener for space suit pockets that you could use wearing gloves. That "ripping" sound you hear ... is ripping. Hundreds of tiny little hooks rip loose from loops of threads. Something that eats itself just wasn't the kind of thing we would have tried for Earth use, back in the '60s. But a space suit pocket only had to operate a few times. And Velcro operates a few hundred times. (There are thousands of loops.)

It's ironic that microchips to run the LEM and Apollo guidance computer eventually led to the machine you're using to deny the value of the space program.

The reason that the first steps are expensive is that you have to develop the technology first -- and you get to keep the technology.

Nobody will be around then, right? Neaderthals couldn't envision the future. Homo sapiens are supposed to have a little more insight.

And the gov has been throwing money at most of those problems for over half a century.

If they ain't fixed it by now, maybe more money isn't the answer.

 

DGS. I wish you had told me about this VELCRO invention earlier.
I feel silly now. I say spend the trillion $$ buget to go to Mars now.
Heck if we can one up VELCRO it would be worth it for our species.

Seriously now this discussion is going nowhere.
My point has only been that lets take better care of this planet to the few who argued that we might run out of room and or resources here.
To give up on mother earth so early on while spending trillions for solutions elsewhere makes it a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

You keep missing the point that what we learn "out there" will give us a better idea of how to take care of Earth, without Sol-3 having to bear 100% of our mistakes as we learn.

And by your arguments, public education is a waste: Any results are merely conjecture, and it takes decades to show results.

Hmm, there may be a connection between these points.

 

Randall... A norplant injection before financial assistance...? That's just downright crazy... What if the financial assistance actually does what it's meant for and gets that woman on her feet...? Then she soon becomes rich and successfull...? Alas, she'll be back on her feet, loving life but not able to create it... Do you see how financial assistance contingent upon a norplant injection is just absurd...?

Having the government "encourage" "certain types" of people to not have kids is a sort of fascist population control...?