From Apollo 11 to Martian Missions

[Brant Gaede]

Raw materials! We don't need no stinkin' raw materials!

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Nuclear propulsion might be doable.

--Brant

the technology is over 50 years old, but abandoned

Only for vehicles constructed in orbit. A nuclear powered vehicle would not get off the ground. Out in space in zero g a low thrust nuclear powered ion drive could get a vehicle moving at many times the velocity of current chemical rockets because the acceleration could be applied over extended periods of time. It is a possibility.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ed Hudgins]

Huge Water Reserves Found All Over Mars

For those of you space geeks who follow this, looks like you'll have plenty to drink when you establish your colony on Mars! Some cool photos in the article as well!

 

[Peter]

I remember that there is a 'habitable zone" around Mars' equator where humans could live with a light weight oxygen ventilator (70 degrees F. during the day though minus 30 at night.) I have no idea how large in population the Free State of Mars could be but a lot of people could live in a green house environment and thrive.

Peter  

[BaalChatzaf]

On 7/18/2013 at 3:13 PM, Ed Hudgins said:

From Apollo 11 to Martian Missions

By Edward Hudgins

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made those historic first footprints on the Moon. But the ensuing decades have been frustrating to those who assumed that Apollo 11 would lead to permanent lunar bases and colonies on Mars.

NASA, a government agency, could not bring down the costs of spaceflight, ensuring that such visionary goals would be multibillion dollar boondoggles.

But today those who want to see Mars become a future human habitat might have their aspirations realized.

The Buzz about Mars

Aldrin’s new book, Mission to Mars, with journalist Leonard David, argues for the Red Planet as the principal target for future explorers. Aldrin, with an astronautics Ph.D. from MIT, has designed an interplanetary “cycler” system. (Aldrin published a first description of the system in my book Space: The Free-Market Frontier.)

A spacecraft would be launched to Mars on a trajectory that would use that planet’s gravity to fling the craft back toward Earth, where it would use Earth’s gravity to fling it back to Mars in a never-ending cycle. (A similar system could be set up with the Moon.) Aldrin still needs to work out how astronauts get on and off the speeding ship at their planet of choice. But hey, he’s a rocket scientist!

Flyby and one-way

Dennis Tito, the first individual to pay for a trip to the International Space Station, founded and is helping to finance Inspiration Mars, a private effort to send a man and a woman on a 501-day flyby mission to the Red Planet, similar to Aldrin’s cycler but with the craft landing back on Earth. To hit the planetary alignments right, the mission must be launched in January 2018.

Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp has founded Mars One with a plan to send humans on one-way missions to begin colonizing Mars, with the first mission in 2023. He will finance the project in large part as a "global media spectacle."

Making it real

In the past such missions would have been impossible dreams since cost-effective technologies were unavailable. But today private space entrepreneurs are stepping in to make such dreams come true.

For example, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has already launched three private rockets to berth with the ISS for a fraction of the cost of the NASA Shuttle. He is testing larger rockets that could travel to the planets. Musk’s ultimate goal is Mars and he says he wants to die on the Red Planet—but not on landing!

Robert Bigelow’s company has developed innovative, low-cost inflatable habitat modules that he wants to put into orbit. Bigelow already has launched two one-third size prototypes and NASA will test a full-size module at the ISS in 2015. These modules could serve as habitats for bases on the Moon or Mars.

These are just a few examples of entrepreneurs, inspired by Apollo 11, putting their money and their minds toward other space achievements that will inspire future generations and make us a spacefaring civilization!
----
Hudgins is director of advocacy for The Atlas Society.

For further information:

*Edward Hudgins and William R Thomas, Video: “Crony Capitalism in Space?” June 19, 2013.

*Edward Hudgins, "Neil Armstrong, America Hero.” August 27, 2012.

*Edward Hudgins, “SpaceX’s Entrepreneurial Triumph.” May 25, 2012.

*Edward Hudgins, “When We Walked on the Moon.” July 17, 2009.

*Edward Hudgins, “The Spiritual Significance of Mars.” August 12, 2003.

Mars is a shithole.  We would be much better off learning how to live on the Moon (as a kind of Antarctica  240,000 miles from the surface).  On the Moon we can learn survival, spacefaring and build the best telescopes (of all kinds including gravitational interferometers) that mankind is capable of building.   Mars, at this stage, is a futile quest and a waste of resources.  We need proper long term propulsion like ion drives and fusion ramjets  so we we could build ships that make gravity by acceleration  (not coasting after a burn)  and ships that could carry proper shielding against cosmic rays, 

Then when we are properly equipped (which is not now at present) we can set  up on mars HQ  for asteroid mining enterprises.  I can see that in about 200 years if we start to work on it now instead of fiddling around.  Eventually we will need a real honest to goodness manned program,  not that pissing contest we had with the Soviet Union in the last century.

[BaalChatzaf]

On 7/20/2013 at 1:07 PM, Ed Hudgins said:

Actually, the reason the U.S. government took up the mission of going to the Moon was a three-fer.

First, it was to demonstrate to non-aligned countries as well as some of America’s allies that our open and generally free system was technologically superior to the Soviets. They should hitch their wagons to America. It was for prestige.

Second, while the Moon missions were civilian activities, the U.S. was developing a capacity to dominate the High Frontier for defense purposes, if needed, and developing a lot of duel-use technologies.

Third, going to the Moon was an important scientific endeavor. It was something that a private consortium of universities, National Geographic, and others might have done if they had the money.

As to Baal’s remarks about Mars, I might suggest looking at the scientific information coming from the probes above and on the planet in recent years showing the abundance of water in the regolith. I might suggest looking at the knowledge coming out of those probes that brings us closer to answering one of the greatest scientific questions of all time: whether life arose on a planet other than Earth. I might suggest considering the Inspiration Mars project paper on the habitat issues involved with traveling 500 days to and from the planet. I might suggest looking at the new work done by the Mars One folks—building on Zubrin’s work in The Case for Mars—on settling Mars as the goal, not only doing missions with a return to Earth. I might suggest we should take seriously the fact that Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin as well as a lot of folks with money—Musk, Tito—see Mars as most important target for human attention.

Or I might just say, stop being on old, curmudgeonly grumpy-stomp!

We will get to mars and settle there when we have proper propulsion systems   Burn and Coast is no good for long term manned missions.  The passengers and crew will be done to a turn by cosmic radiation before they ever make planet-fall.   As it is, look at the condition of the twin brother who lived on ISS for a year (on alpha shitcan I, overpriced and less useful than it should be).  That poor suffering bastard is a physical wreck.  See please:  https://www.space.com/35527-nasa-astronaut-twins-study-early-results.html  If you still have the stomach to see what happened to Scott Kelley then please read:

http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/astronaut-scott-kelly-on-the-devastating-effects-of-a-year-in-space-20170922-gyn9iw.html

And this was while Kelley was still in the protection of the van Allen Belts.  Think of what would happen in Deep Space where there is nothing between the passengers and cosmic rays  by a few inches of metal.

 

[Peter]

What are the potential benefits of living in space or on a surface with lesser gravity? The evidence suggests longevity, once the downsides are worked out, and increased height, if that matters to anyone. Mars may not be tomorrow’s wonderland but it will supply gravity, water, and minerals. A recent article on The Mars Rover showed a new photograph of perhaps billions of gallons of water suspended in the rock face of a cliff and that was just one location. Of course there is always the species benefit inherent in the dispersal of human entities: no catastrophe in one location can wipe humanity out. For instance, we know North Korea is developing biological weapons that may destroy them and the rest of humanity. What would happen if only two percent of humanity was left on earth? In contradiction to that threat, two percent of humanity living on Mars, is sensible: letters and packages from home, delayed videos, and TV shows for the people left on earth, and the great adventure for the people on Mars. What could beat that?

Peter    

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

What are the potential benefits of living in space or on a surface with lesser gravity? The evidence suggests longevity, once the downsides are worked out, and increased height, if that matters to anyone. Mars may not be tomorrow’s wonderland but it will supply gravity, water, and minerals. A recent article on The Mars Rover showed a new photograph of perhaps billions of gallons of water suspended in the rock face of a cliff and that was just one location. Of course there is always the species benefit inherent in the dispersal of human entities: no catastrophe in one location can wipe humanity out. For instance, we know North Korea is developing biological weapons that may destroy them and the rest of humanity. What would happen if only two percent of humanity was left on earth? In contradiction to that threat, two percent of humanity living on Mars, is sensible: letters and packages from home, delayed videos, and TV shows for the people left on earth, and the great adventure for the people on Mars. What could beat that?

Peter    

Humans cannot live a health life in zero g or weak micro gravity.  The lack of gravitational stress leads to the decomposition of bone material.  Exercise is not sufficient to prevent this.  The human body evolved in a one g environment.   In zero g  the human body no longer functions well.  See what happened to Mike Kelly one of the identical twin astronauts who spent a year on ISS.  The effects on his body have not been happy.  Please see: http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/astronaut-twins-study-preliminary-results-trnd/index.html

With current propulsion technology a trip to mars will take ten months  in deep space with no protection against cosmic rays except the vessel itself.  It is ten months in 0 g since no of our vessels are constructed to spin and provide centrifugal forces as a surrogate to gravitation.  The return trip will also take 10 months. Mars will provide 3/10 g gravitational acceleration so a round trip to mars is at least 2.5 years of living in reduced gravitation and with mostly no protection against cosmic rays.   It is not a happy prospect.  The astronauts will return to earth after 2.5 years with their bodies aged 10 years in that interval (figuring in bone loss and exposure to radiation).  They will have an increased chance of getting cancer even after to returning to earth.  Their immune systems will be compromised.  

[Peter]

I highly recommend Gregory Bedford’s novel “The Berlin Project,” although I am only up to page 54.The famous scientists Teller, Fermi, Szilard, Bohr, Urey, and Einstein make a very believable appearance in this Science Fiction / Historical drama, set in America in the year 1939. It is nearly impossible to put down.

Just as with the Manhattan Project, if someone has a vision and a plan to go to Mars it will happen just as when John F. Kennedy told us, we WERE going to the moon.

Peter

September 12, 2016 FEATURE ARTICLE Futurism TV Nine Ways Star Trek Anticipated and Celebrated the Future by Robert Tracinski

In the field of future technology, life has a tendency to imitate art. The creators of science fiction are often able to imagine something before science fact makes it possible. The real technology then catches up when somebody sees it in fiction and asks: how could we actually do that? This is true of Star Trek perhaps more than any other science fiction franchise. It's no coincidence, because the show's creators consulted with scientists and technology experts about what was possible or might be possible. They took the future seriously and wanted to know what things might look like when we got there. In a lot of ways, they got it right. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first episode of the original series, let's look at nine ways Star Trek anticipated the future, helping us to imagine the next wave of innovation and to think about how we will live with it.

1. The Gadgets Star Trek predicted or inspired a lot of the devices we have now, and the Internet is full of lists of them--even thought this is just the start of my list.

Of course, a lot of Star Trek technology still isn't here yet. No, your 3D printer is not just like a real-life replicator. We don't know how to "beam up" anyone or anything in a transporter. And no one has figured out warp drive yet. It's not just that we don't know the specifics of how to do these things. We don't even know if they're possible. So we still have something to aim for over the next century or two. But a lot of other Star Trek technology is ahead of schedule. The communicator has already been and gone, in the form of the good old late-1990s flip phone. Some compare the tricorder to certain new medical devices, but I don't think that gets to the essence of it. You have to cast yourself back into a 1960s mindset and realize that what was really radical about the tricorder is that it was a handheld computer--at a time when your average computer took up an entire room. Speaking of handheld computers, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" brought us what is clearly a touchscreen tablet computer--an iPad 15 years early. Star Trek's universal translator works a lot more smoothly than anything we have today, but you can still go on Google and get your text translated in seconds with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Throw in a few more decades of progress in artificial intelligence and language processing, and real life is on course to match fiction way ahead of schedule.

And speaking of AI....

2. Artificial Intelligence Yes, we'll get to Commander Data in a moment. But the closest thing in Star Trek to what we're doing with artificial intelligence right now is the Star Trek computer, which is capable of communicating in normal spoken English. It responds to commands, gives relevant answers to requests for information, and can even perform some fairly complex (in a few cases implausibly complex) analysis. It is well known that this is the inspiration and goal for Google: to be able to ask a question in normal English and give an accurate, relevant answer. We're still not there yet today, but we're headed in exactly the direction imagined by Star Trek. As for higher-level artificial intelligence--the kind that goes way beyond the advanced pattern-recognition we're experimenting with now and actually achieves sentience--"Star Trek: The Next Generation" gave us Commander Data, and it used him, in true Star Trek fashion, to explore some larger questions about what it means to be conscious, to be alive, to be human, and to be a person with rights. While the original series suggested that uploading a human consciousness into a robotic body would result in a loss of humanity--Ray Kurzweil take notice--Commander Data suggested that a sentient robot could become fully human, or if not actually human, it could be as interesting as a human. All of this came to a head in one memorable story arc in which Data's status is put on trial. What stands out most about this, two decades later, is that this is a benevolent, sympathetic portrayal of a sentient android. Yet sentient robots are featured today mostly as the monsters in our horror films--a dozen different variations on the Frankenstein myth in which the creation turns on its creator and seeks to kill him. Star Trek is famous for its optimism and for its humanism, so it is no surprise that it brought both to its portrayal of AI. It is a surprise, perhaps, that those characteristics are lacking from so much of our contemporary science fiction. Oddly, though, Star Trek did not show us the use of robotics. We got Commander Data, but the Star Trek universe doesn't really have anything below his level--simpler robots performing menial tasks. Except with maybe one exception.

3. Autonomous vehicles. This is not emphasized much in the franchise, and we rarely even see anything like an automobile. Why drive when you can beam up? But by the "Next Generation" era, the shuttlecraft seem to be "piloted" exactly the way we would expect autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles to be piloted. There's no stick and rudder, no steering wheel. The operator sits at a console and gives the computer instructions, which it appears to execute in its own way. In the new "reboot" movies, we're starting to see more of this. Star Trek into Darkness features a fight scene on what appear to be flying autonomous garbage barges. But material from the reboots doesn't hold as much weight, from the futurist's perspective, because autonomous vehicles are almost upon us and don't really count as a "prediction" any more. There are other technologies from today, though, that have older roots in the franchise.

4. Virtual Reality It's fair to say that everything people are doing with virtual reality right now is just an attempt to recreate what "The Next Generation" did with the Holodeck. The Holodeck went beyond mere holographic projections--the stuff of most previous science-fiction speculations--and offered a fully immersive experience with what we're now calling "haptic" feedback: a sense of touch and solidity to virtual objects. It also included taste and smell, which is presumably the next step. What is most interesting about the Holodeck today is the rich and varied ways it is used. It is used for entertainment, for games, for exercise, as a set for plays, a place for a first date, and for bringing favorite works of fiction or historical settings to life in an interactive way. We're basically working on the same thing today. The biggest lesson for today is that Star Trek's most interesting uses of virtual reality are to create a shared experience. Today's VR headsets tend to be a closed-off, individual experience. It's kind of hard to have a first date with one of those visors on. But the Holodeck reminds us that virtual reality is going to have to expand to become something that people can enjoy together. The one thing Star Trek didn't really envision was the mixing of virtual reality with the real world, i.e., augmented reality. The only prominent science fiction franchise to present a really prescient vision on this was The Terminator--so much so that before the Pokemon Go popularized the term "augmented reality," it was generally known as "terminator vision." That's one thing that I think is going to end up looking dated, particularly when it comes to computer interfaces. In "The Next Generation," everyone is interacting with the starship's super-advanced electronic systems through the super-advanced technology of...touchscreens. And the displays are all in Okudagrams, which give Star Trek's visual displays a distinctive look but not a futuristic one, certainly not now. I'm afraid the "Next Generation" user interfaces are going to seem as dated as the clunky push-buttons of the original series.

But not always. The closest they got to anticipating elements of virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence--and how they could all work together--was Geordi La Forge's holographic brainstorming session with an AI reconstruction of a starship engineer.

5. Technological Progress Star Trek doesn't just feature a lot of futuristic technology. It also takes for granted that technology is constantly changing and advancing. I don't want to get into the never-ending battle of the franchises between Star Trek and Star Wars, but this is a striking contrast between them. The story line of Star Wars now spans about 60 years, but the technology is all pretty much the same from start to finish. Sure, maybe this was a period of war, political chaos, and dictatorship that caused the Galactic Republic and the subsequent Empire to stagnate. But not much seems to have changed for a very long time. Star Trek was so founded on the idea of future progress, and the vast changes in technology from then to now, that when they made "The Next Generation," they decided to keep it going, giving the new crew more advanced technology and better gadgets with sleeker design. Just the way it works in the real world. But for all its optimism, Star Trek didn't actually celebrate all new technology. It made a few key exceptions.

6. Genetic Engineering This is an area the Star Trek franchise is notably reluctant to explore. The franchise created a major recurring villain--Khan--to stand for the evils of genetic engineering (eugenics in the original series). We're led to believe that the technology has been banned after a group of genetically engineered superhumans tried to subjugate everyone else. This is explored a little bit more in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," but still mostly in a negative context. The Founders who rule the Dominion, the main Federation enemy in "Deep Space Nine," have genetically engineered whole subject races of administrators and warriors that they use as their minions. This is an interesting contrast to most of the future technology in Star Trek, which is either accepted as natural progress or at least regarded in a balanced, open-minded way, as something with advantages and disadvantages. It is perhaps a missed opportunity to explore the pros and cons of changing human nature itself. The same is true for another form of human enhancement.

7. Cyborgs "The Next Generation" features a major character with a visor that allows him to perceive non-visible wavelengths of light and which connects to him through a brain-machine interface. So how come Geordi is the only one who gets this funky new technology? In the real world, everyone else on the crew would be looking at him and thinking: I want one of those. Instead, the franchise's main portrayal of the cyborg future is though their biggest, most reviled villain: the Borg. The Borg are a collection of cybernetically enhanced drones integrated into a kind of collective mind. And while I appreciate the use of the Borg as a metaphor for the evils of collectivism and its subjugation of individual identity, it is the integration of technology with biology that is portrayed as the main mechanism for stripping away individuality. In the real world, we're going to be cyborgs in our own small way. It's just a matter of time. We sure could use a more encouraging model to follow in figuring out how to do it without losing our humanity. Fortunately, Star Trek generally does a good job of that in other areas, and that leads us to one of its happier omissions.

8. No Media Frenzy There's no Twitter in the Star Trek universe and no Facebook. People aren't glued to their devices all the time waiting for the latest news updates or celebrity gossip--thank goodness. It is certainly true that there are whole parts of life Star Trek deliberately omits for dramatic reasons. For example, it's pretty clear that the Federation is not a dictatorship--but we never hear about elections, and the crew never debates politics. We get to see some of the internal political wrangling among the Federation's competitors, and the politics of the Klingon High Council intrude pretty frequently into "The Next Generation." But the Federation's own politics are opaque. Economics is also pretty much absent from the Star Trek universe. This is sometimes a bit embarrassing, as in the (fortunately infrequent) references to the idea that the Federation no longer uses money, which is definitely science fiction--with an emphasis on the "fiction"--from the standpoint of the science of economics. Both of those omissions are corrected a bit in the later spinoffs, especially in "Deep Space Nine," where Quark's bar is the thriving commercial hub of the space station, and Commander Sisko and his crew get swept up in Federation galactopolitics. But they're not a defining feature of the Star Trek universe. Which is probably just as well, because part of the point of tuning into Star Trek is to get away from politics. Yes, the franchise has always dabbled in political and social commentary--the Klingons vs. the Federation were an obvious analogy for the Cold War--but it generally did so allegorically. It distances us from the details of current controversies by projecting some deeper issue onto a weird alien species, which makes it feel more like the show is raising questions and less like it's taking sides. And there's one more reason to omit these things. If the future inhabitants of the Federation don't have their noses always stuck in some future equivalent of the smartphone, you could see that as a failure to project the impact of technology, or maybe as hope that we will outgrow our current ways of using it. Which leads us to the final way Star Trek anticipated the future.

9. Human Progress While Star Trek's futuristic technology draws a lot of attention, the biggest improvement isn't in our machines. It's in ourselves. No, I don't mean in our basic physical or mental capabilities--and maybe that's part of the reason Star Trek doesn't embrace genetic engineering and cyborgs. The franchise tends to be more interested in the progress of our minds and character. The future envisioned in Star Trek is a better place because we are better people. At root, Star Trek is a vision of the eventual triumph of humanistic values. This triumph is portrayed as hard-won, with humanity having suffered through a period of warfare and chaos, a kind of mini dark age. The beginning of this dark age keeps getting pushed back as we keep catching up to it in real life (though sometimes in this election cycle I've thought we might finally be getting there). But we have come through that and emerged into a very hopeful future. One of the things that was shocking and refreshing in the original series is how it showed all of mankind united and at peace, including a ship with black and white crew members and Americans and Russians working together. It was certainly a contrast to the real world circa 1968. This triumph of humanism is occasionally tied in with a certain degree of smug, conventional liberalism. But I can assure you that the show has plenty of fans on the right, too. After all, it would be the ultimate in smug liberalism to assume that only the left cares about a world without racism, poverty, war, and oppression. Star Trek is a little vague about the details of how we achieve this humanistic progress, but there is one aspect it repeatedly dramatizes: the importance of reason, science, and technology. The activities of scientific exploration and technological problem-solving are made into the central plotlines of whole episodes, and these are regarded as a Star Trek crew's most important activities. This is the root of the technological optimism of the series. Not that our machines were automatically going to make the future better, but that we are going to have to be better people--and clearer thinkers--in order to get to the point where we could build that amazing future. When it comes to technology, we're moving along toward the future anticipated by Star Trek at a pace that keeps us right on schedule. I hope we will be reminded to put the same degree of effort into the progress of our souls.

[BaalChatzaf]

20 hours ago, Peter said:

 

9. Human Progress While Star Trek's futuristic technology draws a lot of attention, the biggest improvement isn't in our machines. It's in ourselves. No, I don't mean in our basic physical or mental capabilities--and maybe that's part of the reason Star Trek doesn't embrace genetic engineering and cyborgs. The franchise tends to be more interested in the progress of our minds and character. The future envisioned in Star Trek is a better place because we are better people. At root, Star Trek is a vision of the eventual triumph of humanistic values. This triumph is portrayed as hard-won, with humanity having suffered through a period of warfare and chaos, a kind of mini dark age. The beginning of this dark age keeps getting pushed back as we keep catching up to it in real life (though sometimes in this election cycle I've thought we might finally be getting there). But we have come through that and emerged into a very hopeful future. One of the things that was shocking and refreshing in the original series is how it showed all of mankind united and at peace, including a ship with black and white crew members and Americans and Russians working together. It was certainly a contrast to the real world circa 1968. This triumph of humanism is occasionally tied in with a certain degree of smug, conventional liberalism. But I can assure you that the show has plenty of fans on the right, too. After all, it would be the ultimate in smug liberalism to assume that only the left cares about a world without racism, poverty, war, and oppression. Star Trek is a little vague about the details of how we achieve this humanistic progress, but there is one aspect it repeatedly dramatizes: the importance of reason, science, and technology. The activities of scientific exploration and technological problem-solving are made into the central plotlines of whole episodes, and these are regarded as a Star Trek crew's most important activities. This is the root of the technological optimism of the series. Not that our machines were automatically going to make the future better, but that we are going to have to be better people--and clearer thinkers--in order to get to the point where we could build that amazing future. When it comes to technology, we're moving along toward the future anticipated by Star Trek at a pace that keeps us right on schedule. I hope we will be reminded to put the same degree of effort into the progress of our souls.

The further we get away from the zero sum game the better off we will be and the better we will bay.  When everyone can have what they need without imposing a burden on others, then we can finally rid ourselves of the fear  the emerges from scarcity.   Once we get rid of the fear we can get along will with each other. 

[Peter]

Our rover has successfully landed on Mars. It will be a two year mission. 

[Peter]

On 11/26/2018 at 2:57 PM, Peter said:

Our rover has successfully landed on Mars. It will be a two year mission. 

This is old news but Musk is busy everywhere. On the moon they estimate there is a pint of water for every 1000 pounds of soil. Not a whole lot of water to mine and sustain life. So, is Elon Musk right about a test colony on Mars? Is it worth the effort?

William Harwood wrote on 9/24/2009, "Every indication is that this is forming a broad, continuous sheet beneath the surface," said Ken Edgett, a camera team member with Malin Space Science Systems of San Diego. "We have five separate impact sites, all showing more or less the same thing. I'd say the volume of water--and this is a guess--the volume of water is probably comparable to the volume we would have in, say, the Greenland ice sheet on the Earth, in the buried ice deposits (and the North Pole ice cap)."

[Peter]

I thought President Trump’s bid to buy Greenland was a spoof. But is it? A second, large meteor crater was just found under its ice pack. Coincidence? Some military personnel I knew growing up thought Greenland was like being assigned to exile on the Isle of Elba as was Napoleon. But my Dad served on Greenland on an off for a few months and he liked it better than being on board a ship or in Antarctica. From wiki, “A cluster of huts known as Pituffik ("the place the dogs are tied") stood on the wide plain where the base was built in 1951.” After being in Greenland he stopped scoffing at Naval Air Personnel who he used to call Airedales. The record high temperature on August 19 in Greenland? 53 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dad went to Antarctica for a few months with trips back to New Zealand for some rest and relaxation. When my Dad came back to the states from Antarctica he kept our house temperature around 78 and said he just couldn’t get warm.  Now about that crater . . . Peiter from Thule.   

Notes. Thule, US Military Bases in Greenland. Located more than 1100 km north from the Arctic Circle and about 1500 km away from the North Pole, Thule Air Base is the northernmost military base located of the United States of America. It is located in the eastern part of Greenland.

Danish PM: Trump's idea of buying Greenland is 'absurd' By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press 2 hrs ago  COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Greenland is not for sale and U.S. President Donald Trump's idea of buying the semi-autonomous Danish territory in the Arctic from Denmark is "an absurd discussion," Denmark's prime minister said . . . . Retreating ice could uncover potential oil and mineral resources in Greenland which, if successfully tapped, could dramatically change the island's fortunes. However, no oil has yet been found in Greenlandic waters and 80% of the island is covered by an ice sheet that is up to 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) thick, which means exploration is only possible in coastal regions . . . . Even there, conditions are far from ideal, due to the long winter with frozen ports, 24-hour darkness and temperatures regularly dropping below minus 20 Fahrenheit (minus 30 Celsius) in the northern parts. Trump is expected to visit Denmark Sept. 2-3 as part of his trip to Europe.

Trump said Sunday that he is interested in the idea, but it's not a priority of his administration. "Strategically it's interesting and we'd be interested, but we'll talk to them a little bit. It's not No. 1 on the burner, I can tell you that," the president said. It wouldn't be the first time an American leader has tried to buy the world's largest island. In 1946, the U.S. proposed to pay Denmark $100 million to buy Greenland after flirting with the idea of swapping land in Alaska for strategic parts of the Arctic island.

Under a 1951 deal, Denmark allowed the U.S. to build bases and radar stations on Greenland. The U.S. Air Force currently maintains one base in northern Greenland, Thule Air Force Base, 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) south of the North Pole. Former military airfields in Narsarsuaq, Kulusuk and Kangerlussuaq have become civilian airports. The Thule base, constructed in 1952, was originally designed as a refueling base for long-range bombing missions. It has been a ballistic missile early warning and space surveillance site since 1961.

Frederiksen, who became prime minister June 27, was on a two-day trip to Greenland before traveling to nearby Iceland for a meeting of the Nordic prime ministers. "Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over. Let's leave it there. Jokes aside, we will of course love to have an even closer strategic relationship with the United States," Frederiksen said. Notes. Greenland is an autonomous country of the Kingdom of Denmark located east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. While part of the North American continent, Greenland is more culturally associated with Europe, particularly Norway and Denmark. In 2019, Greenland has an estimated population of 56,672, which ranks 209th in the world. Greenland does not have an independent seat at the United Nations.

A second enormous crater that appears to have formed when a meteorite smashed into the Earth has been discovered underneath Greenland's ice. Buried around a mile underneath Greenland’s ice sheets, it is even larger than the site beneath Hiawatha Glacier revealed to the world in November. A team including Nasa scientists came across this second impact site after studying radar images mapping the region’s bedrock.

[Jonathan]

3 hours ago, Peter said:

I thought President Trump’s bid to buy Greenland was a spoof. But is it? A second, large meteor crater was just found under its ice pack. Coincidence?

I think Trump's probably been reading too much Clive Cussler, and is hoping to find ancient shipwrecks there.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Where have I been?

You mean the idea of buying Greenland is not part of AOC's Green New Deal?

Here's a different view from Breitbart. According to the article, this is the third time the US has contemplated purchasing Greenland (once after the Civil War and once after WWII).

Pinkerton: Why Buying Greenland Is One of Donald Trump’s Best Ideas

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let's hear from The Man.

What does he have to say?

Michael

[Peter]

6 hours ago, Jonathan said:

I think Trump's probably been reading too much Clive Cussler, and is hoping to find ancient shipwrecks there.

J

I was joking around about alien space ships under the ice. I ain't sure how high above sea level the newly discovered crater is. I have a new Clive book, "Celtic Empire,"  but I haven't read it yet. 

[Peter]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Let's hear from The Man.

What does he have to say?

Michael

A lot of Greenland could be built below ground like they do in Las Vegas to avoid the stifling heat, or cold in this case. Vegas's system of tunnels with stores and amusements that lead from one hotel to another was fascinating to see when my oldest daughter was married. 

[BaalChatzaf]

On 1/13/2018 at 12:22 PM, Peter said:

What are the potential benefits of living in space or on a surface with lesser gravity? The evidence suggests longevity, once the downsides are worked out, and increased height, if that matters to anyone. Mars may not be tomorrow’s wonderland but it will supply gravity, water, and minerals. A recent article on The Mars Rover showed a new photograph of perhaps billions of gallons of water suspended in the rock face of a cliff and that was just one location. Of course there is always the species benefit inherent in the dispersal of human entities: no catastrophe in one location can wipe humanity out. For instance, we know North Korea is developing biological weapons that may destroy them and the rest of humanity. What would happen if only two percent of humanity was left on earth? In contradiction to that threat, two percent of humanity living on Mars, is sensible: letters and packages from home, delayed videos, and TV shows for the people left on earth, and the great adventure for the people on Mars. What could beat that?

Peter    

Zero g over the long term is fatal to humans. Our bodies evolved to function in a one g environment.  In zero g the bones start to decompose.  

[Peter]

From the news. That PM of Denmark is tall like a model though I could not find what her height was. Men from Denmark are 6 foot on average which is 3 inches taller than American men. Perhaps she is around five ten? Nice looking lady. Too bad El Presidente stepped in it, with his sort of a joke / sort of serious comment. I don‘t think there are 6000 residents in Greenland. As I have mentioned, we have an airbase in Thule, Greenland. The comment could come back to haunt us.         

Living on Mars would not be easy. It would be colder than Thule, except for Mar’s equatorial region. Are there diamonds on Mars? Not without carbon lifeforms perhaps to lay down some coal over millenniums.  I don’t think an exercise and rowing machine would counteract the lower gravity either, Ba’al.

Now a space elevator that went up to a round, rotating space station might have some value. Perhaps the elevator would rise to orbital heights where humans could enter another vehicle to avoid damage from Mars quakes or sabotage. Then the rotational living quarters would create artificial gravity. Centripetal or centrifugal force might keep our bones strong and healthy. And chocolate milk. Society for cows on Mars President, and singer of that song, ‘Stairway to Heaven,” Osteo-Peiter    

Notes. Centripetal [senˈtripədl] ADJECTIVE physics moving or tending to move toward a center. The opposite of centrifugal.

Dec 16, 2016 · Mars Compared to Earth: On top that, the gravity on Mars’ surface is much lower than it is here on Earth – 62% lower to be precise. At just 0.376 of the Earth standard (or 0.376 g), a person who weighs 100 kg on Earth would weigh only 38 kg on Mars.

Mars has about 38 percent as much gravity as the Earth. This means that a man weighing 220 pounds on Earth would only weigh 80 pounds. While being light enough to bounce around like a child may sound fun, in actuality, gravity is important for much more than determining one's weight. Without enough gravity, human health would quickly deteriorate. Dr.

Weird Medicine. Life On Mars: How The Caustic Dust, Atmospheric Pressure, And Low Gravity May Alter The Human Body

[Peter]

Clive Cussler, Best-Selling Author and Adventurer, Is Dead at 88.

[Peter]

I just heard t minus  10 9 8 . . . 1. Damn. It was moving fast just after liftoff.  one minute after liftoff all systems are go.

3 minutes and all is well. 4 minutes. 5. 200 miles down range with "a nominal" or good trajectory.

[Peter]

On 7/18/2013 at 3:13 PM, Ed Hudgins said:

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made those historic first footprints on the Moon. But the ensuing decades have been frustrating to those who assumed that Apollo 11 would lead to permanent lunar bases and colonies on Mars.

Spread humanity about the planets to ensure survival? Sure, when we can do it. Mars has always been the go-to planet. It has water and an inhabitable zone.  Colonization is not worth it for thousands of years of survival at this point in history. But maybe next year? First we may need several hundred or thousands of “drops” of necessary human supplies from earth to ensure a Martian colony can survive . . . for how many years? What can we afford to send and what Should we send to Mars? Peter   

From Bing. . . . . The rover landed on the Red Planet on February 18 and has kept busy ever since. One of the instruments on board, MOXIE, has aced a critical test and pulled about five grams of oxygen from the planet’s thick carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. The rover has snapped a number of pictures and even recorded the first-ever sounds on Mars. Ah—the dulcet tones of a twirling Martian dust devil!

[Peter]

On 7/18/2013 at 3:13 PM, Ed Hudgins said:

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made those historic first footprints on the Moon. But the ensuing decades have been frustrating to those who assumed that Apollo 11 would lead to permanent lunar bases and colonies on Mars.

NASA, a government agency, could not bring down the costs of spaceflight, ensuring that such visionary goals would be multibillion dollar boondoggles.

But today those who want to see Mars become a future human habitat might have their aspirations realized.

From this month’s “AARP Bulletin” interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

. . . AARP: Do you see human missions to Mars in the next 20 years?

Neil deGrasse Tyson: No.

AARP: What? We’re not going?!

Neil deGrasse Tyson: It’s not a matter of technology. We have 10 rovers on Mars right now. My read of history tells me that to accomplish something as expensive and as dangerous as that will require either a geopolitical force operating it or some major and obvious and ever-present financial return. Until those things are realized, I don’t see it happening.

AARP: What do you think of private entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos getting into space technology?

Neil deGrasse Tyson: They should have done it decades ago. Space tourism — that’s a way to make money. Go right ahead. There are plenty of rich people. If you sell one seat for $200,000, there would be a waiting list. Multiple launches per year could reduce the cost to $10,000. I would forgo several vacation trips to take that trip to orbit the Earth . . . .