The European Space Agency just unveiled its plans to build a base onthe moon

In sci.physics Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

On 4/5/2016 6:14 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

All historical colonizations have been to places with air, water, and
growing things where one could be dropped nude and survive. ....




Bull****. Lots of colonies in the New World succeeded only by the
skin of their teeth and lots of them failed and they all had the best
technology available at the time.



silly boy,

the moon and mar have NO AIR, NO WATER, NO FOOD, NOTHING but sand and
rocks, and high radiation.

Both the moon and Mars have water. Mars has a very thin atmosphere of
CO2. Other chemicals, such as oxygen on the moon, can be extracted from
the local "soil". No, there are no animals or plants to eat, but the
raw materials are definitely there to make them.

Jeff

There are no raw materials off the Earth to make Jello.

Sure you can theoretically do all that, all it takes is very large, very
sophisticated, very heavy, very expensive, and very expensive to transport
equipment along with a very expensive power system to make it all work.

The key here is the horrendous cost of getting things to the Moon or Mars
in the first place and that any equipment used there will likely be a
one off custom design that will come at another huge expense.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...
Colonies with insufficient support from 'back home' tended to
disappear. You talk like all colonization attempts are easily
successful. There are enough failed colonies to prove that to be
bull****.

I never said anything like that.

However, support from 'back home' wasn't oxygen, food, water, and
repair parts for high tech equipment.

Water is available on both the moon and Mars at at least one of the
poles on each. Oxygen is also available on both the moon and Mars; it
just needs to be extracted. Food can therefore be grown.

Sure, all this is theoretically posible at a horrendous cost that no
one will ever want to finance.

Repair parts for high tech equipment is exactly the sort of thing that
Fred is talking about when he says "support". For early earth colonies,
things which are difficult to manufacture locally, like anything made of
metal, had to be shipped in, unless there was a readily available source
of metal at the colony and all of the tools to smelt and then process
and work with it.

Repair parts take more than metal. Concider all the bits and pieces
needed to make something as simple as a relay to control a blower
motor. You need several different kinds of metal and alloys as well
as wire and insulators.

For the most part it was luxury items such as good china before such
manufacturing could be established in the colonies.

In return the colonies, depending on where they were, sent back things
like spices, precious metals, furs, and timber.


Agreed that this pattern would often continue with even well established
colonies. The colony would mostly ship back raw materials, or goods
easily manufactured locally, and the "old world" would send the colony
finished "hard" goods.

There is nothing off the Earth so valuable it would be worth the
shipping cost in fuel to send it back to Earth.

Depends. If the fuel is largely made locally (on the moon or Mars), the
cost is local too. It may be more difficult to extract, but the supply
(the entire planet or moon) versus demand (a fledgling colony) would be
quite favorable.

Cost is cost no matter where it comes from and again, there is nothing
off the Earth so valuable it would be worth the shipping cost.

No successful colony in history required anything beyond 10th Century
technology to survive.


Bull****. Lots of colonies in the New World succeeded only by the
skin of their teeth and lots of them failed and they all had the best
technology available at the time.

And that technology, except for a very few things like muskets, dates
back to at least the 10th Century.

Most certainly, but even that early tech (e.g. metal knives, axes, and
etc) would be quite difficult to manufacture at many early colonies
which may lack readily available raw materials (e.g. iron ore right on
the surface).

Totally misses the point; the colonies could buy such things until
local production was establishe with things like timber, fur, and
spices.

And, BTW, the indigious populations where most colonies where established
were surviving just fine on Stone Age technology long before the Europeans
appeared.

"Just fine" is a stretch, depending on the technological level of the
indigenous populations. (Primitive) technologies like farming and
domestication and selective breeding of animals *greatly* increased the
potential population density of even indigenous populations.

Point missed yet again. The indigenous populations were able to live,
in some cases for thousands of years, without any resupply from Europe.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

No successful colony in history required anything beyond 10th Century
technology to survive.

Because thats just the nature of how time works. In a future where
humanity is looking to colonize planets around other stars, some yahoo
like you will likely crawl out of the woodwork and say something like
No successful planetary colony in history required anything beyond
22nd Century technology to survive.?


If Star Trek technology were available, then off Earth colonization
would be possible, but Star Trek technology doesn't exist.


And apparently neither does logic in your world. If magic existed,
then the colonization of North America would have been possible, but
magic doesn't exist.

Non sequitur; you are grasping at straws trying to be insulting and
ignoring the economics of doing anything off planet as well as the
realities of what motivates people to colonize a new place.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

And if Star Trek technology did exist, people wouldn't bother attempting
to colonize airless, barren rocks.

Stupid people will always try to inhabit stupid places for stupid reasons.
Access to technology that makes it easier to do so only makes the problem
*worse*.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl

Perhaps I should have said the vast majority of people wouldn't bother
attempting to colonize airless, barren rocks.

There will always be hermits in one form or another, but a colony implies
a community with families and kids.

If Star Trek technology did exist, there are currently several million
refugees in Europe that would jump at the chance to colonize somewhere
else, but not an airless, barren rock.


--
Jim Pennino

Fred J McCall schrieb:

Colonies always need supply and support initially. Colonies off the
Earth will be no different.

The main problem I see for space coloies is the complexity of the
technology that is needed for survival, if spare parts cannot be
imported.

Take a simple O-ring used as a seal as as an example.

Currently, this is made from an elastomer. If it needs to
withstand oil, you will probably need NBR, a rubber made from
1-3-Butadiene and Acrylonitrile.

So, you need 1-3-Butadiene.

You can get that from a C4 stream coming from a steam cracker, which
needs a hydrocarbon feedstock and is an enormously complex chemical
plant, requiring catalysts and dozens of distillation columns.
To separate it from the other C4 products, you usually use a sulfuric
acid extraction. A steam cracker also produces dozens of other
products, which you will have to dispose of (wasteful) or
use (for what?)

Hmm... maybe not that, dehydrogenation of n-Butane may be better.
Dehydrogenation catalyst needed, typically Platinum. To get
n-Butane, you need a steam cracker.

Or maybe dehydrogenate Ethanol (a catalytic reaction, of course).

OK, let's assume we have Butadiene. Next, we need acrylonitrile,
which is made from Propylene and Ammonia.

Propylene you get from that steam cracker (see above). Ammonia
manufacture is a high-pressure process requiring nitrogen and
hydrogen. Nitrogen on the Moon will be hard to get, on Mars
it could be done.

Because NBR is made by emulsion polymerization, you need emulsifiers
(and water). Emulsifiers are basically soap, so please set up
your soap factory somewhere.

Now you've got the basic polymer, please also set up your plants for
making all the additives which make it into a usable rubber.

And set up the plants for making the catalysts that the different
processes above require.

You can't really use the latex produced in the polymerizaion, so
please use your ready-made plant for precipitation and washing of
the latex and drying (which could involve both a screw and a dryer).
Think of a way to deal with the huge amount of waste water this
will generate, and don't forget the Polyethylene film to wrap
it in.

Now you've got your rubber bale, but it is not yet an O-Ring.
You need to compound and vulcanize it.

Just grabbing a random recipe from the net, please also have
ready your Zinc Oxide, Magnesium oxide, Stearic acid, Styrenated
Phenol, Benzothiazol Disulfide (an accelerator), Tetramethyl
Thiuram Disulfide (another accelerator), Carbon Black, Sulfur and
Dioctyl phtalate. Also put some old motor oil in, and Add a few
anti-aging and anti-oxydizing chemicals while you're at it.

And this is just to make one simple everyday part that you
could order for a few cents on Earth.

So, is there a way around this? You can try to restrict yourself
to the materials that you really, really need. This will mean
that your solutions will be much worse than what you could get on
Earth by just ordering the products you needed. I am not sure
that this will be easy given the harshness of your environment,
where your solutions should be good if you want to survive.

So, a self-sufficient space colony would have to be quite
large to support something like our technological base.

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:


I would say the odds of finding limestone deposits to make cement
highly unlikely. You do know limestone is organically created, don't
you?


You do know that we can make concrete and cement out of lunar rock,
don't you?

Sure, one can make concrete out of just about anything. It is making
the cement that is the problem, which requires limestone.


You need to research before you run your mouth. They actually tested
the suitability of lunar rocks for making construction materials and
they could do everything they needed to do. We use limestone as the
calcium source here on Earth because it's easily gotten, but a lack of
limestone really doesn't mean **** as long as you have rocks with
calcium in them.

Are there extensive calcium deposits on the Moon?


Extensive enough. Is Google broken on your machine or what?

Are there cement factories on the Moon?

What would it cost to build a cement factory on the Moon?


http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/s...3/lunacem1.htm

You may find bauxite or iron ore, but unless it is really close to
where you set up your colony, you would have no way to transport it.


This is presumably because the colony was planned by you and you
didn't allow any supplies but stone axes and bear skins.


That is both childish and stupid.


Oh, look whose talking, Mr "They all believe Star Trek science and
economics are real" who does nothing but wave hands and make strawman
arguments.


Like pointing out facts?


You have yet to point out any 'facts'. I've posted links to papers
and studies that explode any number of the falsehoods that seem to be
your stock in trade, though.

Care to detail how you would transport raw ore over just a hundred
miles on Mars and what would power that transport?


Truck. Hydrogen works. Yes, you have to plan on needing the truck.
You could crush and smelt to rough ingots (solar furnace works for
that) to lower the volume you need to drag to your factory.

Where do you get the hydrogen and what do you do with it then?


I posted a link to a paper about this. Perhaps you should bother to
actually read things people point you to instead of insisting on
remaining ignorant?

Unable to give a simple answer and prefer to be insulting?

Let's try again. READ IT THIS TIME, YAMMERHEAD!

http://chapters.marssociety.org/winnipeg/plastics.html

Yes, that's not how we do it here on Earth, but we're not talking
about here on Earth anymore.

Right, we are talking about a place with zero infrastructure, a thin
atmosphere that is 95% CO2, and easily obtainable source of either
oxygen or water.


You really haven't kept up, have you? Turns out there's all sorts of
available water on Mars and there's even adequate amounts on the Moon.
That's why we send those probe things, you know.

Is there a water plant on the Moon or Mars?

How much would it cost to build a water plant on the Moon or Mars?


If you setup your colony next to some ore deposit, you need a refinary
and power for it, which could only come from a fair sized reactor.


Certainly one way to do it (and probably easiest for the initial
colony), but long term production of power isn't that hard.


Really, where do you propose to get that power?


The same place all power comes from; the Sun. Crack water to get
hydrogen if you need a portable power source, take a bunch of small
reactors, RTGs, or whatever with you (along with a couple of big
reactors to get you started).

With a solar irradiance of less than 100 W/m^2 you are going to get
very little power from solar sources unless your array is measured
in kilometers.


Your number is low. Did you read the paper on power on Mars that I
pointed you to? Or did you just dishonestly delete the link?

I read several articles on the available irradiance on the surface
of Mars, all with wildly varying numbers from less than 100 W/m^2
average to as much as 500 W/m^2 average. The 100 W/m^2 number came
from a paper taking great care to include atmospheric diffusion.


There is no known readily available source of water to crack.


Of course there is. Pull your head out of your ass and update your
knowledge.

So you are saying there is a water plant on Mars all ready to go?

Or would water plants have to be first built and at what cost?


If you get the water somehow, you need to store both the hydrogen
and the oxygen.


Well, gee, no ****! You know, we sort of know how to do that.

So what does it cost to build the water plant, the oxygen/hydrogen
generation plant, and the power source for all of it?

What does it cost to ship oxygen and hydrogen tanks to Mars?


Sure, all of this is theoretically posible.

The current cost to build a reactor on Earth is about $9 billion.


You're talking about a multi-hundred megawatt power reactor that we'd
never build on Mars. A big chunk of that cost is environmental
studies and other bureaucratic bull**** that won't need to take place
on Mars.

Most all the environmental savings will be offset by the one off cost
of designing a reactor that will work on Mars.

Also, there is a chicken and egg problem. Massive amounts of water
will be required for you oxygen/hydrogen fuel and reactor cooling
but you can't get that until you have a reactor.

If you are talking about a real colony, then you do need that hundred
megawatt reactor.

If you are talking about a research station, you don't need any of
that expensive infrastructure, you just need resupply.


So what is the total cost to haul a reactor in pieces along with all
the needed to put it together on Mars?


Why haul it in pieces? Again, we're not talking about the sort of
power reactor we build here on Earth.

We are if you are taling about a real colony with families and kids.


What is the tranportation cost for the kilometers of solar panels?


In situ resource.

Last I heard the Chinese didn't have any solar panel plants on Mars,
so there is yet another thing that would have to be built for a
real colony.



What is the tranportation cost for the machinery to dig out the ice
we THINK is buried beneath the surface?


You 'think'. The rest of us are more current and 'know', because that
free flowing water NASA probes have found evidence of has to come from
somewhere and I'm pretty sure little green men aren't shipping the
stuff in.

Good way to ignore the question about the costs and throw in a gratuitous
insult.


What is the tranportation cost for the machinery crack water?

The point is that all this crap is just too expensive for it to ever
happen.


Well, nobody is going to throw a dart at a map of Mars and drop
Pittsburgh somewhere, true enough. Again (I don't know why I'm
bothering; you won't listen), you might want to read up on exploration
and colonization back in the 15th century or so and adjust the costs
by 600 years of inflation.

Wrong answer.

In the 15th century or so all you had to transport was basic hand tools,
seeds, clothes and a few other things.

There was no requirement for things like pressure suits, oxygen, water,
food and repair parts for high tech equiment just to stay alive for
more than a few minutes.


Go read the Mars Reference Mission, Chimp.

Which is to establish a research station, not a colony.


Everything starts somewhere, Chimp. If you're waiting for us to be
able to drop Pittsburgh on Mars, you should just toddle back to your
Intel 8008-based computer. From the Mars Reference Mission "Goals and
Objectives":

"Goal IV+: Preparation for sustained human presence. MEPAG (2006) uses
the term ?Goal IV? to describe preparation for the first human
explorers. By definition, this cannot be a goal for the first human
missions; by then the preparation would have to have been complete.
However, a goal of the first human missions is to prepare for the
subsequent future after that."

In case you don't get it yet, "sustained human presence" is the start
of a colony.

No, it is not.

We have had "sustained human presence" in Antartica for a long time,
but not a colony.


Certainly not from solar power as the solar irradiance on the surface
of Mars is less than 100 W/m^2.


Check your math. Your number is wrong.

Not my math, The Univerity of Colorado's math.

That was an average number adjusting for the presence of haze in the
atmosphere.


And counting hours of darkness and averaged over latitude, no doubt.
In other words, if you're STUPID that's the number you plan to and put
forward.

Nope, mid latitudes, ass hole.

Certainly not from wind power as the atmosphere is so thin there
is no energy to speak of in the wind, no matter what you saw in
"The Martian".


Wrong again. Once again, please educate yourself on the issues before
flapping your arms and squawking. Again, let me help.

http://www.marspapers.org/papers/MAR98058.pdf

It appears that this paper pretty much agrees with what I said.


Then English isn't your first language.

You: Solar power is a non-starter.
Paper: "Solar power is readily available on Mars,..."

In small amounts; great for a research station, not so much so for an
actual colony.


You: Wind power is a non-starter.
Paper: "Although the atmospheric density is about 100 times less than
the Earth, Mars has several advantages for successful wind power
applications..."

In small amounts; great for a research station, not so much so for an
actual colony.

You need a lot of raw material and the ability to process it into
something usefull to build the domed and pressurized buildings
required to survive and do anything.


You need to be able to dig a hole.


Dig it with what and then what do you do with it?


Dig it with tools (they're this marvelous thing we've invented since
you looked at colonization of anywhere) and then seal it up and live
in it.

How much to transport all those tools to Mars?


As a percentage of mission cost, not much. And that's not how mission
costing for these things works anyway. You're sending the vehicle.
Cost is opportunity cost. Dollar cost once you are going to launch
the vehicle is irrelevant, since it doesn't cost you much less if you
leave out a few tons of stuff.

Dollar cost is always relevant as someone has to come up with the dollars.

Given a transport of some fixed size, the cost of transport is in how
much fuel is required per pound to get the cargo somewhere.


Where do you get stuff to seal it unless you send it from Earth and
what does that cost?


Which part of 'in situ plastics' is it that you missed?

Which part of there are no plastic plants on Mars or the Moon have
you missed?


Line it and cover it with something shipped from Earth in pieces
at huge expense?


Or instead you can pull your head out of your ass and seal it with
locally produced plastics. What you suggest will probably be how a
base would do it initially, but again this is a problem people have
thought about. You need to study up.

Again, you would need massive infrastructure already in place to make
plastic on Mars.


Not as massive as you seem to think, but in any case you build up to
it. First missions you do with inflatables that you bury. Digging
holes and throwing dirt on top of something is pretty low tech stuff.
Each mission brings more stuff and leaves it behind for the next
group. Eventually you're staying full time and you start getting that
critical mass of 'infrastructure'. Nobody sane thinks we're going to
up and put Pittsburgh somewhere on Mars as the first 'colonization'
mission and nobody sane thinks we have to.

The needs of a research station and a colony with families and kids
are so horrendously different that you will never, even slowly,
get to that critical mass of 'infrastructure'. Resupply would be
far cheaper.


You will be lacking just about all usefull chemicals as most of
them come from petroleum, so no plastics.


Jimp, you just make them a different way. Unlikely on the Moon, but
not difficult at all on Mars. Educate yourself. People have examined
all your 'impossible' problems and there are solutions to all of them.


No, not difficult at all on Mars for someone that isn't going to be
doing it or paying for it.


Chimp, better people than you have thought about all the problems you
raise as things that are 'impossible' and it turns out they're just
not that hard if you plan for them.

I never said anything about hard, I am talking about the cost.


No, you were talking about solar being impossible and wind being
impossible and everything else being impossible until you got swatted
back on that and NOW you want to raise cost.

You are listening to the voices in your head again.

I never said ANYTHING was impossible, I said it was so horrendously
expensive no one will be willing to pay for it.


Again, the cost for all this pie in the sky is so horrendous it will
never happen.


Good Lord, man, Isabella had to hock her jewels to pay for it! This
whole 'new world' pie in the sky has such horrendous costs that it
will never happen!

And Isabella got a huge return on her investment.

There is no conceivable ROI for going to the Moon or Mars.

The issue is not whether or not it is theoretically possible to do
something on Mars, the issue is that doing anything on Mars, including
gettting there in the first place is horrendously expensive.


Initially getting to North America was "horrendously expensive", too.
Just look at what those expeditions cost and adjust them for
inflation.

And most of them were done at a profit from all the stuff the expeditions
returned.


Go study some more.

Lke your example of Isabella which resulted in enormous wealth for Spain?


There is nothing on Mars that is anywhere near the value of the transportation
costs.


Not the argument you've been trying to make, Chimp.

Nope, not the arguement I am making but my response to why anyone would
attempt to establish a real colony off the Earth.


You keep arguing how things "aren't possible". If you want to argue
that it's not worth the money, that's a different issue.

I have never said "aren't possible", that is the voices in your head.


And there's the Chimp that wonders why he gets bile and insults.

You mean because you keep saying I said things I never said?


What I have said over and over again is that the cost of a colony on
Mars is so horrendously expensive with zero economic return it will
never happen absent the invention of techology that reduces the costs
many orders of magnitude.


Yeah, the New World wasn't worth it for a long time, either.

Right, it took a year or two from the time Columbus sailed until Isabella
started seeing profits.

Trudge back to your cave, Chimp...

Go back to your space cadet movies, dreamer.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

As Antarctica has never had any colonies, Antarctica is irrelevant to
a discussion of colonies.

And yet *you* were the one who brought it up. It’s always fun to see
people attacking their own straw man arguments! :-)

So just what are the natural resources available on Mars?

All the ones we know about, and all the ones we *dont yet* know about.
The main problem with your thinking is that you seem to use Earth-
centric thinking when evaluating the resources that are available.

I use economic thinking.

It is well known that there is lots of gold in sea water but it costs
far more to extract than the gold is worth.

There are no forests, no lakes, no rivers, no life and no air.

You seem to have more knowledge than NASA on those things. How is that?

When did NASA announce there are forests, lakes, rivers, life, and
air anywhere else than Earth?


I would say the odds of finding limestone deposits to make cement
highly unlikely. You do know limestone is organically created, don't
you?

You do know that civilizations have been built without relying on
limestone, dont you?

Yep, but modern civilizations are built with concrete and steel; before
that it was wood.

[blathering about industrial mining snipped]

something usefull to build the domed and pressurized buildings
required to survive and do anything.

If thats how you think about what is *required* to survive, you clearly
havent thought much about the problem. These are *your* straw men.

So you think you can survive on the Moon or Mars without a presurized
building? Are you going to live in a pressure suit 24/7?

You will be lacking just about all usefull chemicals as most of
them come from petroleum, so no plastics.

You do know that civilizations have been built without relying on
plastics, dont you?

Not modern ones with the advanced technology required to survive off
the Earth.


You miss the point, it would take Star Trek technology to make it affordable.

I dont miss that point at all. I *made* that point when I questioned
the proposed budget. But I am also making the point that it does *not*
require magical technology if you dont make the assumption that you’re
going to live an Earth-styled life on such an inhospitable landscape.


I have been talking about colonies, i.e. families and kids.

A research station requires very little in terms of infrastructure, just
constant resupply.

It is my opinion that an off Earth true colony would cost far too much
for anyone to ever try it and few people would be willing to permanently
move to one.

It is my opinion that off Earth research stations are of limited value
and the cost and rewards of doing them should be balanced against sending
swarms of robots throughout the solar system.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Thomas Koenig wrote:
Fred J McCall schrieb:

Colonies always need supply and support initially. Colonies off the
Earth will be no different.

The main problem I see for space coloies is the complexity of the
technology that is needed for survival, if spare parts cannot be
imported.

Take a simple O-ring used as a seal as as an example.

Currently, this is made from an elastomer. If it needs to
withstand oil, you will probably need NBR, a rubber made from
1-3-Butadiene and Acrylonitrile.

So, you need 1-3-Butadiene.

You can get that from a C4 stream coming from a steam cracker, which
needs a hydrocarbon feedstock and is an enormously complex chemical
plant, requiring catalysts and dozens of distillation columns.
To separate it from the other C4 products, you usually use a sulfuric
acid extraction. A steam cracker also produces dozens of other
products, which you will have to dispose of (wasteful) or
use (for what?)

Hmm... maybe not that, dehydrogenation of n-Butane may be better.
Dehydrogenation catalyst needed, typically Platinum. To get
n-Butane, you need a steam cracker.

Or maybe dehydrogenate Ethanol (a catalytic reaction, of course).

OK, let's assume we have Butadiene. Next, we need acrylonitrile,
which is made from Propylene and Ammonia.

Propylene you get from that steam cracker (see above). Ammonia
manufacture is a high-pressure process requiring nitrogen and
hydrogen. Nitrogen on the Moon will be hard to get, on Mars
it could be done.

Because NBR is made by emulsion polymerization, you need emulsifiers
(and water). Emulsifiers are basically soap, so please set up
your soap factory somewhere.

Now you've got the basic polymer, please also set up your plants for
making all the additives which make it into a usable rubber.

And set up the plants for making the catalysts that the different
processes above require.

You can't really use the latex produced in the polymerizaion, so
please use your ready-made plant for precipitation and washing of
the latex and drying (which could involve both a screw and a dryer).
Think of a way to deal with the huge amount of waste water this
will generate, and don't forget the Polyethylene film to wrap
it in.

Now you've got your rubber bale, but it is not yet an O-Ring.
You need to compound and vulcanize it.

Just grabbing a random recipe from the net, please also have
ready your Zinc Oxide, Magnesium oxide, Stearic acid, Styrenated
Phenol, Benzothiazol Disulfide (an accelerator), Tetramethyl
Thiuram Disulfide (another accelerator), Carbon Black, Sulfur and
Dioctyl phtalate. Also put some old motor oil in, and Add a few
anti-aging and anti-oxydizing chemicals while you're at it.

And this is just to make one simple everyday part that you
could order for a few cents on Earth.

So, is there a way around this? You can try to restrict yourself
to the materials that you really, really need. This will mean
that your solutions will be much worse than what you could get on
Earth by just ordering the products you needed. I am not sure
that this will be easy given the harshness of your environment,
where your solutions should be good if you want to survive.

So, a self-sufficient space colony would have to be quite
large to support something like our technological base.

McCall will never get the point and has obviously never had to make
something on a budget.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Doc O'Leary wrote:
For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

No successful colony in history required anything beyond 10th Century
technology to survive.

Because thats just the nature of how time works. In a future where
humanity is looking to colonize planets around other stars, some yahoo
like you will likely crawl out of the woodwork and say something like
No successful planetary colony in history required anything beyond
22nd Century technology to survive.?


If Star Trek technology were available, then off Earth colonization
would be possible, but Star Trek technology doesn't exist.


And apparently neither does logic in your world. If magic existed,
then the colonization of North America would have been possible, but
magic doesn't exist.

Non sequitur;


Glad you got my point, which was mocking your original remark as being
a non sequitur (and a violation of the rules of basic logic).


Don't you really mean I have gored your ox of space cadets hanging
out in Martian bars?

--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

Have you ever responded with anything other than bile and name calling
to posts you don't agree with?


Yes, I have. For example, I've posted links to research and resources
that explode most of your claims. Do you ever read them? You only
get "bile and name calling" when you act like a lying dishonest dick.
Of course, you do that a lot, so that might be why you get slapped
around so often.

OK, so you mix your bile and name calling with off topic links about
research stations when the topic is colonies.


And you think there's no relationship? Wow, we need to feed you nitro
and see if we can blow your head loose from being lodged so far up
your ass.

**** off and die, space cadet.


How about YOUR outline to colonize Mars, what it would cost, and how it
would be financed.


The world hardly needs my outline. Several different groups have put
together workable plans. See the Mars Reference Mission from NASA, or
Zubrin's "Mars Direct", or any of a number of others. Why don't you
go through those and explain why all the experts are wrong and you're
right?

None of the things you reference talk about a colony on Mars, they
talk about research stations.

A colony, other than a penal colony, has families raising kids.


And you think those are totally different things with totally
different needs? Wow, talk about being a maroon!

Yes, a true colony is totally different than a penal colony or a
research station.

The big driver on cost for most of them is launch costs and those are
dropping pretty damned quickly these days. Yes, a large, fully
independent colony on Mars will take a long time. But then, such
colonies have always taken a long time here on Earth, too.

Nope, most all successful colonies were survivable without outside resupply
in a time frame measured in months, i.e. how long it took to erect basic
shelter, find water, and get the crops planted.


You're ignorant about colonies here on Earth so I suppose I shouldn't
be surprised that you're so ignorant about colonies off it.

I see you are in denial, space cadet.

Probaly never been camping either.

The big driver on cost in getting to Mars is the cost per pound of getting
stuff off the Earth, to Mars, and landing it softly on Mars.


And that cost is currently around 100 times higher than it needs to
be.

Wishfull thinking space cadet, the cost is what it is.



And to establish a colony, not just a research station, takes so many
pounds of stuff just to survive on Mars, it just isn't going to happen ever
without astounding new technology.


No 'astounding new technology' required unless you're insisting we
have to be able to instantaneously drop Pittsburgh on Mars. We're
already on the road to dropping launch costs by orders of magnitude.

I never said instantaneously, space cadet, that is those voices in
your head again.

Back to your cave, Chimp...

Back to your well worn Heinlein novel, space cadet.


--
Jim Pennino