A human Mars mission?

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 17:51:39 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 17:37:35 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Christopher) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

but your political system is irrelevant.

How so?

Because it's not the one that you claim that you want to go to Mars.
Ours is.

I don't care if the Chinese space program sends humans to Mars, so
long as I can live long enough to see it happen.

You described bribery, which is illegal here as well (though it's
often done), but has absolutely nothing to do with what I was
proposing.

No I described the fact you are not allowed to influence the way an MP
asks questions, he/she is your representative in Parliament.

But the example you provided involved bribery.

The Hamilton case was a totally unprecented event in British politics.
And it was so much bribary as stupidity on Neil Hamiltons part.

We were talking about getting Congress to do something. I've
described how it's done. If you want to see it happen, you have to
pay me, or someone else, unless you can persuade them to do it gratis.

As I told you I am not an American so '*your* political system is
irrelevant'.

That doesn't matter. If you want to influence Congress, you can hire
me. There's no law requiring you to be an American to do so.

Even if I did, do you honestly think a bunch of local American
politicians will take any notice of an Englishman?



Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 18:29:07 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

(Christopher) wrote:

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 22:41:36 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

(Christopher) wrote:
Thats a sad indictment of America and it's 'frontier sprit'

The 'frontier spirit' is mostly a myth anyhow. What truth there was
to it was mostly about economics and exploitation, not about going
someplace for the sake of going there.

Trade follows the flag.

laughs No. The flag goes were trade desires. It's a myth that it
flows the other way 'round.

To maybe, but then your country never had an empire like mine.

I bet if our European Space Agency announced a human mission to Mars
and started major work and had a date for the landing Congress would have
a rapid change of mind, as Americans don't like coming in second place.

Not only is the Cold War over, the odds of the EU/ESA doing such a
thing are slightly less than that of my neighborhood Little League
team winning the world series.

As I don't follow rounders I can't comment.

I'm starting to wonder what you do follow and/or understand.

I follow football, thats our football, and not your countrys version.
And I understand the human race has to go to Mars, as human beings are
natural explorers, and Mars is new land to investigate and explore.


Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 21:40:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Christopher) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

but your political system is irrelevant.

How so?

Because it's not the one that you claim that you want to go to Mars.
Ours is.

I don't care if the Chinese space program sends humans to Mars, so
long as I can live long enough to see it happen.

Look, this all started because you were complaining that NASA wasn't
doing enough. I was simply explaining how you could change that in a
way that would be more effective than whinging on Usenet. Try to
follow the subject.

That doesn't matter. If you want to influence Congress, you can hire
me. There's no law requiring you to be an American to do so.

Even if I did, do you honestly think a bunch of local American
politicians will take any notice of an Englishman?

No, but they'll take notice of his lobbyist, if it's a good one...

Believe me, I wouldn't go in and argue "We should set up a Mars
program. Christopher the Englishman wants one." Even *I'm* a better
lobbyist than that. ;-)

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:55:33 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote:

The British weren't the first to the New World, so your argument
fails.

True, but the Danes took one at it look saw what a dump it was then
turned round and went back. The English were the first to stay and
establish colonys, so my 'argument' dosn't fail.

Actually it's not even clear the English were the first to stay and
establish colonies. The Vikings appear to have tried.

Trying is only 1/2 the battle. Succeeding is the other half.



No, that would be the *Spanish*, by a significant margin.

Brian

don't want to spend $100 billion to
raise our flag on Mars?

Your DoD has been given that amount extra to raise your flag all over
the middle east.

That has to do with *protecting* our people, and yes our interests, from
*attack.* That takes precedence over a prestige stunt that few in the world
really care about.

more important things to do with that
kind of money right now.

If we had thought that way we'd have never built the British Empire,
starting with a collection of colonys in a place called the New World.

There was *money* to be made in that, for the generation that did it. There
will come no money from Mars, even for the *nation* that sends the ships there.

"Christopher" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 18:29:07 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

(Christopher) wrote:

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 22:41:36 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

(Christopher) wrote:
Thats a sad indictment of America and it's 'frontier sprit'

The 'frontier spirit' is mostly a myth anyhow. What truth there was
to it was mostly about economics and exploitation, not about going
someplace for the sake of going there.

Trade follows the flag.

laughs No. The flag goes were trade desires. It's a myth that it
flows the other way 'round.

To maybe, but then your country never had an empire like mine.

Can you rephrase this sentence to make your point clear? The first clause
is total nonsense and it is hard to understand what you are implying.

Jason

On 10 Aug 2003 22:50:50 GMT, (G EddieA95) wrote:

That takes precedence over a prestige stunt that few in the world
really care about.

....that's because those who are not part of the "few" are unwashed,
uneducated, inbred idiots.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"Jason Rhodes" wrote in message
...


To maybe, but then your country never had an empire like mine.

Can you rephrase this sentence to make your point clear? The first clause
is total nonsense and it is hard to understand what you are implying.


Insert the word you in the first part.

Jason

In article ,
(Christopher) writes:


I don't care if the Chinese space program sends humans to Mars, so
long as I can live long enough to see it happen.

The Chinese may very well be the first to do it, since their developing
country would probably feel that it needs the prestige more than
any other. Realistically, on the other hand, it's hard to see how it could be
done
without major cooperation between the superpowers, which itself
could be a reason to do it (there's value in keeping open friendly
communications).

But even if someone started NOW on it, I'd be surprised if it could
happen in the next 50 years. How are they going to get there?
A Hohman-transfer orbit would require keeping astronauts alive
for about 2 years, 14 months in space and the rest on the surface
of Mars. What's the longest anyone has lived in space? A year?
Is it possible to counteract the effects of no gravity on the human
body? Nobody knows yet. Is it possible to make a system that
can provide food/air continuously for long periods away from earth?
A mars-direct launch might cut the time but then you need
a BFR (big f****** rocket), which we don't have now. You'd probably
in either case have to build a ship in orbit, not launch it from the earth,
and you'd probably need at least two, one to go ahead of time
to set up a supply base on Mars. Right now we can't even build the
ISS because of the shuttle problems. So even if we want to do it and
decide to do it, it's a major, major, major undertaking, even if
dollars were infinite.

This web page has documents on the issue. The first one has the
details of the mission and the options ("Practial Methods for Near
Term Piloted Mars Missions"). The windows doc file version worked
on my computer (the text version had every paragraph as one long
sentence in my browser):

http://www.nw.net/mars/marsdirect.html


Patrick

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 21:53:43 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 21:40:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Christopher) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

but your political system is irrelevant.

How so?

Because it's not the one that you claim that you want to go to Mars.
Ours is.

I don't care if the Chinese space program sends humans to Mars, so
long as I can live long enough to see it happen.

Look, this all started because you were complaining that NASA wasn't
doing enough.

No, I simply inquired if any work was being done for a Mars mission
yet.

I was simply explaining how you could change that in a
way that would be more effective than whinging on Usenet. Try to
follow the subject.

I started the subject, you simply went off on a tangent.

That doesn't matter. If you want to influence Congress, you can hire
me. There's no law requiring you to be an American to do so.

Even if I did, do you honestly think a bunch of local American
politicians will take any notice of an Englishman?

No, but they'll take notice of his lobbyist, if it's a good one...
Believe me, I wouldn't go in and argue "We should set up a Mars
program. Christopher the Englishman wants one." Even *I'm* a better
lobbyist than that. ;-)

Probably, but your Congress has probably been 'lobbied' for 25 years
for a Mars mission, and it hasn't coughed up the nessessery wonga yet.

I fear I'll be dead before I see a human on Mars.



Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill