On Apr 12, 2:46*pm, Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:04:47 -0700, BradGuth wrote:
On Apr 12, 12:12*pm, Marvin the Martian wrote:
Tired of all the flame wars? Insane posts? Off topic postings?

Want to try a moderated forum?

Then Get your ass to Mars!

http://OnToMar.org/forum/

A new forum where you can discuss space policy, particularly if you
understand why Mars, and not the moon, should be our immediate goal of
our space program.http://www.ontomars.org/blog/?m=200903

Why the Moon isn’t a Stepping Stone to Mars

Mars has an atmosphere however thin, the moon doesn’t. A Mars day is 24
hours and 40 minutes, a moon day is about 14 earth days. Temperatures
are different between Mars and the Moon. The new technologies needed to
go to Mars like the simulated gravity tether and large mass aerobraking
to get to the Mars surface, have nothing to do with the Moon. So, other
than they require totally different technologies, the moon has little
to offer in the way of Mars development.

The moon would be a good place to build telescopes. Better than Mars.
That’s just about the only thing the Moon has going for it. Now, what
does Mars have?
Climate Science.

Many people are interested in the science of climate change. Mars is a
cold planet that once was much warmer. Further, like earth, the climate
of Mars is also changing. Ice core samples taken on Mars would advance
the science of climate change a great deal.

Since we WANT a warmer Mars, tinkering with greenhouse gasses on Mars
would not only help to terraform Mars, but provide a great deal of
science about climate change.

You don’t get any of this by going to the Moon, the Asteroids, NEOs or
any other dead rock.
Biology

The Moon, the Asteroids, and NEO are all dead, lifeless rocks. In the
past, Mars had an ideal environment for life with a warmer environment
and flowing water. What’s more, gas releases from Mars suggest that
life may be there to this day. What a fantastic discovery it would be
to find fossil life on Mars. And the probability of finding
extra-terrestrial life on Mars would be the most significant scientific
discovery since… well, FIRE. You don’t get this by going to the Moon. A
Home for Humanity.

Mars has carbon. Mars has oceans of frozen water. Mars can be
terraformed. The moon has no carbon, trace amounts of water. It makes
no sense at all for a carbon based life form made mostly of water to
try and colonize a world where there is no carbon and almost no water.
What’s more, because there is no volcanic activity or water on the
moon, there are no ores. Materials like copper will be hard to gather
on the moon. You can build bases on the moon, only on Mars can you
build a colony.

What’s more, you can grow crops in greenhouses on Mars, as the Martian
day is close enough to an earth day that our plants can grow there in a
greenhouse with a low pressure atmosphere. On the moon, the nights are
two weeks long!

* *Mars is the Gateway to the inner solar system

Because Mars can support a colony and the moon can only support a base,
Mars will eventually become humanity’s gateway to the inner solar
system. Once every two years, the energy required to go from Mars to
the Moon is much less than going from the earth to the moon! You can
get much larger payloads into space from Mars than you can from earth.
A Mars civilization would be a spacefaring civilization. The Danger of
going to the moon

Most of you are too young to recall, but in the early 1970s, when the
Apollo program was returning bags of rocks from the moon, people were
saying things like “We can go to the moon but we can’t cure the common
cold” or “We can go to the moon but we can’t end poverty” and so one.
People saw the product of the moon program: Moon rocks, which appeared
to be ordinary earth rocks and were only of interest to scientist. The
payback for space programs seemed small. Many people could put together
a bag of rocks for far cheaper. Space programs seemed wasteful, and the
Mars program was convicted by guilt by association with the Moon
program in the eyes of public that didn’t know better. There’s a
PAYBACK for going to Mars.

History repeats itself. Today, it is very much like it was in the
1960s. We have a plan to return to the moon in 15 years or so. However,
in 15 years , the people are once again going to see bags of rocks
coming back from the moon. They will not see the discovery of
extraterrestrial life. They will not see new discoveries in climate
science. And they will not see an exciting new self supporting colony.
WE didn’t learn from Apollo and we are in danger of making the same
error.

--http://OnToMars.org*For discussions about Mars and Mars colonization

I agree, that Mars would make a super terrific off-world penal colony,
that which I think only the rich and powerful should have to pay for.

Then we can get our greedy and selfish selves back to our primary task
of raping and systematically pillaging mother Earth for all she's worth,
before our Eden is taken over by ETs that have other ideas.

*~ BG

So, you disagree with me, and are not going to actually discuss the merit
of human missions and a human presence on Mars.

Why did you post this stuff, tho?

--http://OnToMars.org*For discussions about Mars and Mars colonization

Talk to William Mook about how dirt cheap and easy life on Mars is,
because you will get loads of infomercials and no naysay arguments as
long as you do everything his way.

Technically Mars is doable, though it's to/from is time consuming, a
wee bit on the lethal side, and damn spendy by all known methods of
research and accounting, of course that's other than by whatever
William Mook and good old Zubrin think is doable for less than ten
cents on the dollar.

~ BG