Starship Asterisk*

Freedom is one of the greatest things but how much freedom should one have at the expense of others? Are we a nation by individual or a nation by majority?

"Nasa -To the moon, mars and beyond" Manned missions on the horizon!

Dr. Skeptic wrote:NASA has recently determined that the substance flowing the crater's edge is not H2O. Using more sophisticated cameras the reflected light does not match the properties of H2O, and the light colored material has not shown signs of sublimation over the last year.

Yes! Alcohol flowing on Mars! Martian Coolers!

Carbon dioxide exists as a liquid only at pressures above 5 atm (1 atm = standard pressure of air on earth at sea level at normal temperatures). On Mars, CO2 would go directly from solid to gas, or gas to solid.

Knowing next to nothing about C02 - could it flow as a liquid on Mars for a short enough duration to cause erosion resembling water erosion? I am not suggesting for a second, though, that water does not exist on Mars .. there is plenty of it.

About maned versus robot - why do people think they know what is best for the other guy when they don't know what is best for themselves? Freedom is a nice concept.

NASA has recently determined that the substance flowing the crater's edge is not H2O. Using more sophisticated cameras the reflected light does not match the properties of H2O, and the light colored material has not shown signs of sublimation over the last year.

Thanks Pete, I missed that one!!!

That was an APOD almost 2 years ago
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html

I found an image of Standing Water on MARS http://www.bloganything.net/2006/10/29/ ... ars-found/

I agree with Martin and Dr. Skeptic,

Humand kind have to go out and now. If all countries give 1% of is income and put it into a common pot then space can be a home very fast.

City on the moon can be build from the earth by radio control. No need to send many human at first. Just¸send the payloader and tractor and mini factory and machinery at first then use the heat of the sun to melt the mineral that is already on the moon. Once the machinery is over there the cost will stop. That way you can build city with the people living here on earth by using radio control. A second in light year distance aint a problem with radio communication. From the dirt you can produce oxygen, iron, titanium and collect hydrogen from mineral and also carbon (I think that all the elements that exist can be extract from that dirt with solar collector.). From all these element it is possible to produce anything, from water to plastic to fuel (Fuel can be liquid aluminium with oxygen or the hydrogen that hav been detect on the pole of the moon inside a crater.). The moon need a first investment then it will grow by itself at very low cost. All this material can also be sent to earth orbit a lot more cheaply too (Weak gravity of the moon).

I say a lot but i read a lot. May be it is possible to use the rock on the moon to build burried dome and fill its inner wall interior with a tiny plastic film and then air. Or seal a cavern and fill it with air. There will always be problem on earth and the best way to solve them is with the development of technology and the expansion of humandkind.

As for mars, there are water there and everything needed to survive. Once there, i think it will be easyer to survive. Again we need a boost of investment at first to start the process of colonisation and the rest will follow.
By the way, it does not take 2 years to go there but 6 to 8 months with classic chemical rocket engine. Hmmm the window of launch does come each 2 years. Using chemical pulse detonation engine (If the technology is develop, wich appear to be.) might double the specific impulse of a chemical rocket engine and will reduce the time in space travel. Rotating ship to create artificial gravity seem the easyest way to go there.
Also nuclear engine seem the best solution. The solid core will be use at first then the liquid core and may be some day the gaz core. Each of these reactor increase the speed of a ship. It may take only 1 month or less to go there. (Yes it's a dream for now but hey all this aint my idea. They are made by scientist and engineer who says it is feasible right now if humandkind want it. I beleive it.

There will always be problem on earth between human. Mostly because of religion. History is fill with religion war. Waiting to solve it is a dream. Yes we should try to solve it as they happen but we also should try to expand in the solar system with the same amount of effort. That way human kind will prevail.

Dont forget that once the installation is done in space, trillion of dollards will come from it in benefit. There are a trillion time more money there to make then it is possible to do here on earth.

For argument sake, let say one of the reader has decided to purchase a new SUV when their present mode of transportation can be considered adequate. Should the rest of the readers take a austere, disapproving stance against them and the designer of the SUV for excessive extravagant spending before all world social deficits are rectified? Why should a double standard apply to the government and not the individuals and their behavior?

Individuals are better suited to solving social problems, the government’s function is/was to pool the resources and the will of the people for projects that are too extensive to otherwise be accomplish.

Note: The Apollo mission has added an estimated 300 trillion US dollars to the world economy (25.4 billion dollar investment), the technologies are responsible for saving tens of millions of lives, and accelerated technology an estimated 15 years ahead of where it would have been.

All of what you say sounds truthful lewishb. I don't believe anyone is second guessing the requirements needed for a manned exploration or base on Mars. However, this does not mean that we should just sit with idle hands and not rise to the challenge of securing the continued existence of our species.

Most people will not prioritize this correctly due to a false sense of security. However, when one seriously considers the viability of the threats and the timelines involved -well there can only be one solution! We must not waiver from furthering our presence in space. There can be no sound argument against this.

i am old enough to remember that science has repeatedly stated that due to mars low gravity all water on mars had to have evaporated and dissappeared into space with the loss of the atmosphere half a billion years ago.....

unless water can be found on mars it is impossible with todays tech to go there and stay any length of time

the mars colonization problem is this....... a 50 ton supply ship has to leave earth orbit for Mars ever three months....... it takes 2 years to get there....... thats 16 space cargo ships you would need and boosting the needed material to orbit...... this is not includeing the immense amount of water needed....

you also need a delivery system on the mars end..... all this is impossible financially with todays tech.....

Martin, you were sying manned mission could happen in x*100 years from now, but how do you know that in (x*100-1) years from now it will not suddenly become pointless?

iamlucky13, I think "inventors, entreprenuers, engineers, parents, etc" are pretty well payed already. Every time I buy some thing I pay extra value that results into patentholders and entreprenuers profit. additionally, I am employee, so my compensation is less than the value I myself create in my daily labour, and so they get even more. finally, my parents are still alive, so I can pay them back directly with personal care. In the end of the day, I just do not feel myself "owing" anything to anyone, and no theological reason can change that.

ckam wrote:why should it matter to me if humanity survives in the distant future, or mice and dolphins, if I myself will 100% die in 50 years? why should I give a ef-you-see-key about ice shrinking and ocean pollution, if I was born dying? these all things do not matter at all

Because selfishness offends some people?

I really should just let this thread wither and die off-topic, but I guess one could make the argument that others have contributed to the quality of your life (not just those who haven't personally destroyed the world, but the inventors, entreprenuers, engineers, parents, etc who give us what we have) so you should pay it forward.

There's also theological reasons offered by most religions, but again, I'm only contributing to the wandering of this thread by even saying it.

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 0400#80400

Even if there would actually be such thing as "my next incarnation", think about it: this entity has no physical connection to me, e.g. it has none of my memories, nothing in common with my body, possibly not even the same life form, and the only connection between me and this thing is that it came alive because I died. Under these circumstances, I would hate my next incarnation and wish it all the worst EDIT: to make my post a bit less worthless than that, I will add that in my oppinion there are much more important tasks in everybody's lifes that need our attention right now than outer planets exploration or extinctions prevention. Planets were there unexplored and species dying out for billions of years, and god's supreme galactic government has not seen that as a problem.

Well ckam,
Consider Harry, and others views of a recycling universe and apply it to your immortal etherial self. You may be born again and again into new lives to experience new things and ideas, (reincarnation). What kind of world do you want to leave yourself in your next incarnation? And do you want to take the chance that you could be mistaken about only living once and give yourself a messed up world for your own future lives?

why should it matter to me if humanity survives in the distant future, or mice and dolphins, if I myself will 100% die in 50 years? why should I give a ef-you-see-key about ice shrinking and ocean pollution, if I was born dying? these all things do not matter at all

kovil wrote:What is so special about the human species?
Why should the human species be preserved at the cost of thousands of other life form species?

<devils advocate mode> Because we can? </devils advocate mode>

Of course... Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Having found the means to destroy it, in our position we have a unique responsibility to preserve this planet. The dolphins and the mice will have left long before then, so they'll be no help to us.

A gold brick in fact! But apparently the Cafe doesn't sell alcoholic beverages...especially anything with Arcturian Mega-Gin!

For those who are curious, here's the official recipe for a pan galactic gargle blaster!

You're probably right...we've rather wandered away "possible water errosion" haven't we?

And isn't it a pan-galactic gargle blaster? The best drink in the galaxy? They say it's like getting smacked in the head with a brick wrapped in a lemon.

If we are going to continue this conversation, perhaps it should move to the thread Martin started in the Cafe? I could sure use a pan-galactic latte anyway...

What is so special about the human species?
Why should the human species be preserved at the cost of thousands of other life form species?

To answer the topic, robotic missions are what to do until our space medicine and habitat designs enable us to travel and stay healthy in space for over a year at a time. Then we can begin to do manned missions to Mars and the Moon and maybe the asteroids.
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Religion without Science is like; humorous, . . . a joke.

Martin, if you'd like to continue the discussion about manned space travel as a means of species preservation, I'll go ahead and chime in my thoughts.

You focus on species preservation as the most important aspect of space travel, because something really bad has to happen sooner or later. That's fair enough. Even if we dodge all odds and don't get wiped out by a comet or whatever, the sun will still die out in 5 billion years.

But what makes survival of the species more important than survival (through what Orca termed "social responsibility) of an individual, perhaps even with a prudent level of excess (beyond food, water, shelter). Most certainly it is so that the species can yield more individuals to live out their own lives. Therefore, we have just as much right to live comfortable lives as future generations should, and our efforts to build redundancy into the race are entitled to be balanced with our efforts to make a good life for ourselves.

Obviously, many of us disagree on where that balance lies, and I don't care to address that disagreement to closely, but I will touch on it briefly with two points.

First, we would never be where we are today if we hadn't acted as somewhat selfish individuals. We couldn't even have serious conversations about going to another planet if people like Robert Goddard had fussed solely on saving the world from influenza rather than tinkering with liquid fueled rockets. We couldn't hold this discussion and engineers and scientists couldn't as effectively share designs for rockets and data on places to go if others hadn't taken DARPA's work on networked computers resilient to a nuclear attack and expanded it into the internet for personal reasons. We'd still be burning coal for heat in the average home if the desire for electric lights hadn't built up a global power infrastructure. In short, slacking in seemingly unrelated pursuits to species survival will very probably leave us behind in the long run.

Second, despite our best efforts, we may still fail. We could pour every resource we have into countering every known threat, only to have a gamma ray burst or miniature black hole wipe us out on Tuesday. Certainly we should work to reduce the number of threats, but we also can't lose focus on today.

The mix of opinions on what we should allow ourselves today and what we should focus on for tomorrow, frankly, should be expected.