Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

[Gopher]

This reminds me of Kim Stanley Robbinson's Red Mars trilogy. Fascinating stuff.

Nice pic, too. I assume it's enhanced, though, more than just high-resolution exaggeration.

[matesol]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684835509/qid=1122878168/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/102-3078743-0935358?v=glance&s=books

For a fascinating book read "The Case for Mars" by a fomer NASA engineer, Robert Zubrin.

He thinks going to Mars is economically feasible even using only technology available today and would be PROFITABE (which will probably ensure that it happens).

In a nutshell, NASA will never make it to Mars. It will be some billionaire who takes a risk, much as aviation developed because sponsors paid the bills for people to fly across the Atlantic when no one knew if it could be done, etc. NASA has too much bureacracy which is enourmously exspensive. He draws a historical comparison between how North America was explored. Hugely funded "expiditions" invariably failed, while those who learned to live off the land, using the natives' "primitive" technology were the ones who made it. His book outlines several "cheap" ways Mars could be explored and eventually colonised.

One of the main reasons going to Mars would be profitable is that Mars has about 10 times as much deuterium as earth does. On earth, deuterium sells for $10 000/kg, at the time of the printing of his book.

There are other kinds of reasons why living on Mars is feasible too. The iron rich soil will eventually be a good source of making cheap iron. The atmosphere can be used to make Methane - all you need to do is bring your own Hydrogen. If you can get the termperature right by means of a green house, the soil on Mars is probably more fertile than on earth! Also, on Earth plants suffer from CO2 defficiency. That won't be a problem on Mars where the atmosphere is mostly CO2. Also, plants do not require a fully pressurized environment as people do.

Why aren't people going to Mars already? Again a historical parallel. Europeen Kings know about North America long before it was "discovered" by Colombus. However, they mostly regarded as useless barren land, disregarding the opportunities available until the trend caught on.

One quick example of why NASA can't do it. Here's a way to make cheap artificial gravity for a 2 year long trip to Mars. Put people in a big tuna can. The sides of the tuna can are the "floor". Spin it around and you have artificial gravity which sucks you to the floor (centrifugal force). NASA isn't interested. They are more interested in keeping the funding to study the effects of no gravity on the human body, etc. People's jobs are on the line if a cheap way to create artificial gravity is implemented. There are many similar kinds of things discussed in this book.

There's too much to say about it. It's a fascinating read. You've got to read the book to really understand how possible it is.

[Gwangjuboy]

http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~meg3c/200R/Projects/fall_1999/1999TCCMars/go2mars7.htm

Very interesting read about the benefits of colonising Mars.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Hyalucent]

[matesol]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/103-8716621-3940613


Yeah, the whole story of pre-colombian explorers is fascinating as well. I had three books by "Barry Fell" an archeologist who was a tenured professor at Harvard. Most of his books are out of print now because they go against conventional wisdom. There is absolutely incontrverble proof that Europeens, especially from the Iberian peninsula were in North America, even several centuries before Christ.

Things which simply cannot be overlooked are a Babylonian winged bull that was discovered in Peru, a copy of the 10 commandments written in Stone in Mexico, endless Roman coins discovered in New England, etc. If some skeptic were totally convinced that all these were fake, what is still amazing is the amount of linguistic similarity between several North American Indian languages and Celtic. There are still inscriptions in North America, carved in stone, which can be viewed today, incriptions that have Celtic writing. You have to know where they are though.

Barry Fell thinks the Romans were doing logging in North America to get enough timber to build all their ships.

So many fascinating books out there ....

[Dispatched]

[mithridates]

We were just talking about that on another board actually (Gord's board). The best way to do it would be with two stations tethered together so that they spin around each other, letting you keep them small. The area in the centre is where spaceships would first dock, attach themselves to the wire and then slide up to go into the station.

[mithridates]

I think I remember reading about a possible compromise as well, that having an artificial gravity of 10% or so wouldn't require quite the same size and wouldn't make people as dizzy either, and that's still enough to keep people rooted to the floor, able to eat and drink without problem and sleep relatively well.

[Dispatched]

The first idea using the tether sounds feasible.
The second idea I'm not so sure... if you're travelling for 2 years in a greatly reduced gravity then your body will adapt. Considering only the heart, it will become weaker not having to pump blood all around the body against the forces of gravity. Once you get to mars which has a gravity 38% of earths you might struggle. If you plan to return to earth I *think* you wouldn't last very long without artificial enhancements upon landing. So I think you would have to travel in a ship with a gravity almost the same as earths if you planned to return to earth after 4+ years travelling in space.

[mithridates]

There's actually a better idea than all the others as well, and would only require a 2 month journey as opposed to the 6-month one we have to make now. It would require a small station on Mars (could be uninhabited) as well though. Earth would have one station and Mars would have another, and they would be beamed power from the surface or through solar cells which is then beamed at the ship, accelerating it to the speed it needs to cruise there in two months, but since the speed is extremely fast there would need to be another one upon arrival to slow it down.

The journey only takes 6 months at present speed though, and people have been weightless longer than that so 10% would still be preferable though technically they wouldn't even need that.

There's a group down in the antarctic right now that is living as if they were already on a base on Mars, so they don't go outside until the room has been 'depressurized', they can't take off their gloves or helmet to touch things, etc. They say they would want to go to Mars even if the chance of coming back was 25% and that they would leave tonight if they could.

[matesol]

Robert Zubrin discusses many of these issues in his book. You don't need a 2 mile large spaceship. I don't know where you get that idea from. The most reasonable amount of gravity to subject astronauts to, en route to Mars, is the amount of gravity that they will experience on Mars. That way, when they arrive, they feel perfectly normal on Mars. On the way back, the gravity could be increased incrementally, so that they would be used to Earth gravity again by the time they got back again. In any case, a great deal of exercies while en route will keep them busy, function as a form of recreation and kill time.

I don't mean any offense, but puching holes through the whole theory before you've even read the book is really silly. That's what NASA does, since simplicity is a threat to their funding.

Another example of NASA's bureacracy: they have funding going on to study the effects of 6 months isolation on Astronauts. And they are never going to let a mission to Mars happen until they have been funded to the tune of millions of dollars to study the dreadful effects of isolation on the human psyche. Come on. Sure it won't be easy, but when you consider what the first settlers in America had to go through to establish themselves. As Zubrin says in his book: "War, Farmine, Disiese, you name it, you've got ancestors who lived through it. A 6 month journey to Mars wouldn't be that bad. The Astronauts would be provided simple exercise equiment, reading material, games and exercises to be performed in anticipation of landing on Mars. They would have the knowledge that when they get back, their fortunes are made". (Quoted from memory - not word for word, but close)

[Dispatched]

[matesol]

A spinning Tuna can isn't on a tether, like a bucket on a rope is. It spins on an axis. Obviously, if you don't swing the bucket fast enough the rope won't be taut. Theoreticaly, if you swing it fast enough the rope will break. If there were no rope, the bucket would travel in a straight line due to momentum. A spinning tuna can isn't on a tether. It rotates on an axis. You reduce the force or increase it by slowing down or speeding up the spin. It really isn't really difficult physics. The amount of force depends on two things: 1) the speed or rotation and 2) the distance from the center. One problem that Zubrin does discuss is that if the spinning tuna can is too small, the amount of gravity acting on your feet is more than the amount of gravity acting on your head, since your feet are farther from the center of the circle. Nevertheless, it doesn't have to be that big. In anycase, having a hab (habitational unit) spinning on a tether is poor engineering because the tether could get tangled or snag on something.

NASA trying to keep their funding is no conspiracy theory at all. Government departments routinely spend money on useless things to keep their "budget". They know very well, that if they don't spend enough money one year, their budget will be cut the next year. A simple example, students who get into "special education" almost never seem to get out, once a budget has been allocated for one teacher for five to ten students. If the students never improve enough to get back into regular education, no one questions the teacher. Budget Budget. In any case Zubrin Worked for NASA. He was a NASA engineer. He doesn't work for them anymore because they get in the way more often tha not with their beaurocracy.

If the government wants to be involved, Zubrin suggests ways that it can be done. Offer prizes. A million dollars for the first person/company/sponsor, whatever to return an authentic sample of Martian soil to earth or other such things. This happened in the development of avaition. What's his name who first made it across the Atlantic wasn't just doing for his health. There was a cash prize for it. If there is anything that is know about government projects, it's that they amost invariably cost MANY times what they were estimated to cost. A better way is to develop a project and have private coorporations bid on the project and let them get paid by NASA. This woudl be much more effective in the same way that building highways etc is often cheaper if the government has a company do it, rather than do it themselves.

I don't think six months in deep space with three other people is that bad. There are people who spend years in prison, often solitary confinemnt and manage to get their lives back together and they are certainly not "quality people" to the extent that any one who would be selected to go to Mars would be. Again Zubrin discusses this in his book. Some reasons for the lethargic exploration of North America were the sirens, sea monsters, wild Indians vicious animals. There will always be naysayers who will find any little objection they can to naysay a trip to Mars. This is why it will probably be done by private money. A rich entrepreneur who takes a risk will eventually do it, in just the same way that aviation developed. There are lots of engineers and scientists out there who would jump at the change to be the first person to go to Mars.