'We may be able to grow asparagus on Mars'

[Junghalli]

IIRC, that's at least a decade and, two new Presidents, and an untold number of NASA officials away. Shit happens and NASA doesn't exactly have a history of perfect decision making.

Indeed, Obama already wants to delay the Moon programs by 5 years to free up money for his education programs.

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/obamas ... ttle_p.php

There's a bunch more sources if you're wondering and want to Google it.

[PeZook]

I thought their budget last year was like $17 billion?

Oh, right. I just checked, you're correct.

The Orion capsule isn't really a rocket though. When people say rocket they usually mean lift vehicle, of which they've really only got the Shuttle, Delta IV, and the in development Ares V. Can someone explain to me why the hell they never went after Sea Dragon? I have to find any reason for nixing a rocket with a theoretical payload of 500 tons and really cheap launch costs.

The Orion actually goes with the Ares I - and yes, its service module is a rocket by any definition of the word. Then there's the Altair lander, carried on the Ares V. It's a pretty ambitious project, all in all, and waaaaay overdue IMHO.

Sea Dragon was nixed because of budget constraints, IIRC. One more reason to hate the Shuttle.

You know what's best, though? The STS actually is sligthly more efficient than the Saturn V: if only NASA didn't decide upon the goddamned spaceplane as payload, they could've had a 100-ton-to-LEO partially reuseable launcher. Would surely make building the ISS way cheaper and faster.

[Zixinus]

Indeed, Obama already wants to delay the Moon programs by 5 years to free up money for his education programs.

Considering that this is the same country that still has support for creationism, I would say that its worth it.

[PeZook]

Considering that this is the same country that still has support for creationism, I would say that its worth it.

Yeah, five years aren't gonna change much. Of course, I wonder why NASA is the first thing to cut when the time comes ; Why not defence? 18 billion is pocket change for a country like the US ; A well-run health care reform would probably save at least as much. Of course, that would take time...

Ah, well. I'll still be alive when this happens, hopefully, and the US really need to get its shit together education-wise, since a manned space program would require a lot of qualified people.

Heh, this reminds me of guys who can't even do logarithms claiming the Apollo missions were faked. Epic fail - they want to criticize the most technologically complicated human undertaking to date without even understanding the rocket equation

[Omega18]

It's quite the opposite. Asteroids are cheaper and provide experience before taking on uber projects like Mars.

You're ignoring some key things with your asteroids are cheaper evaluation. For instance you have to spin something BIG to avoid nausea being a huge issue for your colonists. (Its a matter of the spin being slow enough, which requires something huge to provide enough gravity.)

Another gaping issue with a long term asteroid colony is the threat from radiation. On Mars you already have an atmosphere and could very well send out genetically engineered algae along with a couple other measures to work on thickening the atmosphere a bit more to block more radiation prior to humans actually landing on the new colony base. (The point is we could probably send out the genetically engineered algae pretty soon if we wanted to, while we figure out other details involved with actually having a base on Mars and work on establishing the necessary infrastructure for human in advance. If necessary, you could also potentially drill fairly deep into Mars to provide more radiation protection with only the "gardens" where the plants are grown needing to be on the surface.)

The other important difference, at least given what we appear to have learned about the soil so far, is the Mars soil is in fact highly suitable to growing a variety of plants. (I've learned crops that grow in alkaline soil also include Kale, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Collard Greens, Watercress, and Tatsoi among others.) This means you're going to have to mostly bring along nitrates for the crops, while you already have a huge amount of soil and water readily available on Mars. By contrast you're definitely going to have to bring along all your soil for growing crops to your asteroid colony, and water is also going to be a complicating factor you're going to have to at a minimum find. Another related issue is on an asteroid colony providing light for your plants without dangerously exposing your colony to radiation or breaches caused by space debris due to "gardens" being right next to the outside of the asteroid with a transparent bubble for protection is another complication. (You can solve this by having large numbers of powerful lights provide what the plants need, but a large amount of energy will need to be dedicated to this specific task, and you're also going to have to bring up all those lights to the asteroid colony in the first place.)

Another basic point to consider is due to the thread of radiation its going to be easier to have robots do the actual mining of assorted asteroids rather than arranging for building a sufficient radiation protection system and elements of a life support system among other things with each one. Of course if robots are pretty much doing all the actual mining that brings up the question of whether its actually necessary to have humans in an asteroid colony in the first place for asteroid mining in this solar system.

[Junghalli]

For instance you have to spin something BIG to avoid nausea being a huge issue for your colonists. (Its a matter of the spin being slow enough, which requires something huge to provide enough gravity.)

I don't think that'd be a huge issue. Just put your habitats at opposite ends of a long pole.

[Kanastrous]

Perhaps the costs of Martian development could be offset by the revenue off their asparagus exports.

Consumers might pay a premium for exotic off-world vegetables.

[Coyote]

Actually, the costs of a Mars colony will just be significantly reduced by increasing it's self-sufficiency.

So really th ebig question is if Mars's weak megnetic field is sufficient to keep all these grand surface plans from becoming overly-irradiated. I find it difficult to believe that all these probes we've sent not a one had a means to measure this? I'm sure the info is out there.

Well, unless it was on one of the many probes that Mars "ate".

[Coyote]

Also, WRT the Martian gravity-- would it be practical for people to spend, say, an hour a day in a large centrifuge, like the G-force tester that NASA uses to train Astronauts? It would be larger, and there'd probably be two or three, but would a mandatory centrifuge hour be sufficient? Since it would only be spinning to Earthlike gravity, it wouldn't have to spin at that insane 4+ gees rate thay use to test people's endurance for launch and landing stress...