Corinthian Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 Tommycat, what on earth do we need more iron for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 China has been doing a lot with their space program lately. I'm sure they're aiming for the monn as well. Chances are they're bidding to be the first to start a base there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommycat Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 Tommycat, what on earth do we need more iron for? Actually we could use Mars for manufacturing with the available ores. It's pretty well certain that it should have several other things than just Iron. But it seems like a good source for other things. Plus the lower gravity may open up new manufacturing tech.Granted it is also a rather inefficient use of resources... I mean shooting manufacturing off to another planet to be shipped back might not be all that good. Personally I think Mars would be interesting for the idea of making an environment that isn't exactly human friendly a place for human kind to exist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 Actually planetary mining wouldn't be as good as mining the asteroid field within our solar system that's between Mars and Jupiter. You'd be able to find more concentrated sources of ore there. However, that said, mining from an extraterrestrial source and bringing those materials back to earth would be an extremely dangerous process because we don't know what kind of effect it would have on our environment. As for human colonies... the moon is our best bet at the moment. Once we are able to survive on the moon, then we will be ready to settle other worlds... of course we'llhave to figure out a way to exist on this planet first without choking it to death XD lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corinthian Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 There's nothing IN the asteroid belt. It's not like the movies. The belt is so sparse it might as well not exist. Anyway, unless we can get petroleum in space, effectively impossible, there's really not much of a point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev7 Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 Anyway, unless we can get petroleum in space, effectively impossible, there's really not much of a point. QFT. Which, as far as I know, is not possible. Gas (petroleum) is a fossil may I remind you. Fossils are needed. I don't think that there are any fossils in space... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Of course there is no petroleum guys, but what about Beryllium Spheres and Dilithium Crystals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommycat Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 QFT. Which, as far as I know, is not possible. Gas (petroleum) is a fossil may I remind you. Fossils are needed. I don't think that there are any fossils in space... I dunno though they have liquid ethane on one of the moons of Saturn. Titan I think it is... (by the way I was mistaken about the propane lakes... it was ethane). It has a nitrogen methane atmosphere. So you can say that at least one other place in our solar system has a useful chemical... granted... getting the methane and ethane off of Titan might be difficult... Oh and NO SMOKING!!! it also happens to be -300f. Also known as OMFG cold. Nobody from earth will be joining the Titan Polar Bear Club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 There's nothing IN the asteroid belt. It's not like the movies. The belt is so sparse it might as well not exist. I know that, but it's still a lot better than carving into Mars. Either way, we all know the asteroid belt is going to be surveyed for mining purposes anyway so we'll see what's there then Anyway, unless we can get petroleum in space, effectively impossible, there's really not much of a point. Unless we can come up with a better fuel source than petroleum then we're not going to get very far in space. Our dependency on petroleum is one of the factors that is limiting space travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corinthian Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 The moons of Saturn are a little bit of a stretch, given that we haven't even attempted a manned mission to our nearest neighbors, much less gone out past Jupiter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 They haven't even tried to make a moon base yet and they're thinking about a base on Mars... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corinthian Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Mars is a pretty far cry from Saturn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Everything beyond the moon is too far for any manned mission of any sort at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 The moon is even too far at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sabretooth Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 Do not fear, my friend. You may still be an astronaut yet! Look at this list of future manned lunar missions. Do some research first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanir Posted November 29, 2008 Share Posted November 29, 2008 Hmm...I'm unconvinced. The proposed space program reminds me of funding and resource competition in prewar Germany. It seemed everybody had a revolutionary new technology and each of the services had revolutionary ideas which all only required adequate commitment... So somewhere in the region of 90% of the Nazi secret projects were paid for and never received, around 400% of the actual available resources of Germany were committed and in turn further committed to the nation to large scale war at some time, and it took sensible heads like Milch and Speer to inject a little realism in project development and general production to even try to fight this war. So what was on Bush's mind? A bit of Middle East "policing" ultimately funds Mars? Space exploration it has already been mentioned is expensive. Not just expensive, it is ridiculously expensive and not just ridiculously expensive but prohibitively expensive and furthermore entirely whimsical. But what the hell, nations have been conquered and peoples enslaved for no more than international prestige. Part of another issue however is technology. The old Space Race virtually funded the digital age and helped evolve a wide array of domestic technologies, as mentioned at ridiculously prohibitive cost...but then it was all for things like guidence accuracy and sabre rattling in the climate of very real nuclear threat. I dare say the day after China nukes India and Stalin II is elected in a democratic Soviet Socialist Republic covering half the globe and yelling something about we've become the modern Nazis, we'll be back at the Moon waving six shooters. Nevertheless a Mars project will probably await the prohibitively expensive development of the Uni of Chicago's fusion-ion drive technology. My two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarfieldJL Posted November 30, 2008 Share Posted November 30, 2008 Um, because where manned spaceflight is concerned NASA has proven itself to be grossly negligent and incompetent? That's not entirely true, I'd say it's more of recent management. Anyways the difficulty with going to Mars is two-fold, there is an issue with supplies, and the fact there is no shielding that we currently have that can adequately protect Astronauts in the advent of a solar flare. We're protected and Astronauts are protected currently by Earth's magnetosphere. Mars and the even Moon both lay outside that bubble that protects life on this planet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanir Posted December 1, 2008 Share Posted December 1, 2008 Van Allen radiation belts would do it. We can improvise ion shielding amid magmetic fields, but again...expense fellers. It's a whole new technology from scratch. And yes so was half Saturn V but again that was in the defence budget... Supplies is no drama. Water ice is all we seriously need and there's tons of it out there. You've got fuel and air, food is easy. Shielding is a concern (ie. cost) and so too is propulsion technology. Backups...something goes wrong and you're looking at what, two years for a rescue? Doesn't look good in the press release, "Corpses finally recovered." New propulsion technology can turn six months into weeks. But...guess what? Expense. So...who's paying for all this? GM Motors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarfieldJL Posted December 1, 2008 Share Posted December 1, 2008 Van Allen radiation belts would do it. We can improvise ion shielding amid magmetic fields, but again...expense fellers. It's a whole new technology from scratch. And yes so was half Saturn V but again that was in the defence budget... No because Mars is outside the Van Allen belts, seriously they'd have no protection. Maybe in the future, but it doesn't exist currently. Supplies is no drama. Water ice is all we seriously need and there's tons of it out there. You've got fuel and air, food is easy. Shielding is a concern (ie. cost) and so too is propulsion technology. Backups...something goes wrong and you're looking at what, two years for a rescue? Doesn't look good in the press release, "Corpses finally recovered." Food is harder than you think, because plants are also vulnerable to radiation. Additionally, the water ice argument doesn't work because you'd have to intercept an object that contains ice while enroute, if there are even any objects containing water in the path they take which isn't very probable. New propulsion technology can turn six months into weeks. But...guess what? Expense. Uh what propulsion tech is that, if you're referring to ion drive there are problems when it comes to larger objects, further some of the propulsion systems suggested would cause riots because they'd be nuclear in nature. So...who's paying for all this? GM Motors? We're assuming we'll even have a space program still, it really depends on who is in office. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanir Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 No because Mars is outside the Van Allen belts, seriously they'd have no protection. Maybe in the future, but it doesn't exist currently. Of course I was suggesting replicating them. It is not the magnetosphere which is needed to protect a Mars mission spacecraft, but an ionised field suspended within one. The Magnetosphere protects largely, only from solar radiation (ie. the solar wind). The Van Allen belts help degenerate gamma particles and other extrasolar, deadly radiation by producing muons. This kind of technology would also protect better against unforseen events like solar flares. Most importantly what I was outlining is that space technologies and the development of a space program, indeed technology in general is not a matter of theory, but expense. It has been said man could've gone to the Moon in the 19th century no problem, but the relative GDP of the United States was incapable of supporting the development of the technologies at the time. Money, not technology limits space exploration. It's all money. Uh what propulsion tech is that, if you're referring to ion drive there are problems when it comes to larger objects, further some of the propulsion systems suggested would cause riots because they'd be nuclear in nature. Fusion-ion drive. There is no problem moving large objects, the problem only lay in sustaining fusion reaction. There is no issue with environmental groups being that there is less danger to the environment of space by setting off a Hiroshima bomb than there is on most days of the week due to the normal radiation environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 Um, because where manned spaceflight is concerned NASA has proven itself to be grossly negligent and incompetent? That's not entirely true, I'd say it's more of recent management. There's nothing "recent" about it. NASA has been plagued by upper-echelon incompetence and complacency for decades. Please refer to this thread for my arguments on the matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Del_Boy Posted August 15, 2009 Author Share Posted August 15, 2009 Update..................... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation I had no idea ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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