[Winnipegger]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Wishful thinking. The moon is a perfect example. Been there done that, beat the Russians...no realistic plans for even a semi permanent base. If we haven't bothered with Lunar scientific or industrial bases why do you think we'll achieve anything on Mars or in deep space in a few decades? Imagination and hope are good and necessary, but you're straying into unrealistic fantasy.

Try reading the book. I have a copy of the 1997 book, and been a member so long that the author knows me. I could give you a long-winded description, but that's a subject for another thread. I could list my library of books on the subject. I've been keynote speaker on this subject a couple times. I give annual talks at a Winnipeg convention.

[Thanos]

You're one of the few left that has any faith that any of this kind of space exploration is going to happen in anyone's lifetime. In reality it'll be two centuries before there's any kind of colony on the Moon or Mars. FTL travel will still be a fictional dream. And the expense of mining the asteroids will still outweigh any profits that come from making the attempt.

I like sci-fi as much as the next guy but all that kind of dreaming really set everyone up for an emotional fall. Humanity is never going to get it's shit together and all that cool stuff from the books/movies/TV shows is simply not going to happen. Not now, and not even a thousand years from now.

[andyt]

It certainly won't solve earth's demographic problem either. The people chosen to go will be young, dynamic, fertile, people to populate the new planet. Leaving the old and the halt back on earth in even more dire predicament. Basically the space colonization movement will repeat the mistakes of past colonizers, without natives to exploit. Leave a mess back home, set up the same system on the new world. Repeat. I hope those aliens that have set up a cordon sanitaire around earth to contain the reptiloids step in at some point. Maybe Trump is an attempt to defeat from within, with some zombie fungus growing on his brain.

[Thanos]

It's my desperate hope that there's some sort of alien super-race acting as the galaxy's protectors that will show up one day and say to the earthlings "no, you're not allowed to behave the same way out there that you've been behaving at home". If there isn't than any other lifeforms out there that aren't as technologically advanced as humans one day will be are as good as dead. It'll be our worst crime ever, way worse than anything we've ever done to ourselves.

[ShepherdsDog]

If they are avian, porcine or bovine analogs first contact might be better described as first course.....especially if the Chinese make it out first.

[Thanos]

If pricks like the Trump sons or that evil dentist who murdered Cecil the lion are any proof there'll be a huge competition among all the Ernest Hemmingway-wannabes and other wealthy sociopaths to put the first alien head on their wall. Sad!

[ShepherdsDog]

Well to be honest any life form battered deep fried and served with a sauce is too tasty to resist.

[Thanos]

The human race defined in 55 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twVvnr7bOw4

[PluggyRug]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Wishful thinking. The moon is a perfect example. Been there done that, beat the Russians...no realistic plans for even a semi permanent base. If we haven't bothered with Lunar scientific or industrial bases why do you think we'll achieve anything on Mars or in deep space in a few decades? Imagination and hope are good and necessary, but you're straying into unrealistic fantasy.

Try reading the book. I have a copy of the 1997 book, and been a member so long that the author knows me. I could give you a long-winded description, but that's a subject for another thread. I could list my library of books on the subject. I've been keynote speaker on this subject a couple times. I give annual talks at a Winnipeg convention.

So if McCallum so desperately wants to increase immigration why not ship him to Mars. He can fulfill his immigration policy from there. A one way trip for all the radicals.

[ShepherdsDog]

It's all sand too. No one will get homesick

[martin14]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

It's all sand too. No one will get homesick

[BRAH]

Hey, immigrants! Beat it! Country's full!

[Winnipegger]

Well, I tried to be serous. The world is actually trying to deal with overpopulation, but that resulted in a demographic pattern that doesn't support current financial models. So I suggested bringing in more resources, increase wealth. You guys respond with such things as space aliens. Actually, it's sad. The space race of the 1960s was a time of great hope, demonstrating that humanity can do anything. Today people think of space as fiction. Both ShepherdsDog and Thanos said space is two centuries out. That means the United States has lost it, incompetent, incapable of doing anything worthwhile. I still think American engineers are able to do great things, look at what SpaceX is doing. But American politicians aren't, and NASA is infected with bureaucracy.

Back to what McCallum announced. The Conservative solution to the demographic problem was to increase retirement age, for Old Age Security (OAS) and Guaranteed Income Supplement. Those changes were reversed in the last budget. I thought the Conservatives changed CPP as well, but I can't find any evidence it was even changed. You qualify for full CPP now at age 65. So that solution is dead, and Liberals campaigned on that so hard that politically they can't reverse now.

From another perspective, the world may be reducing its birth rate, but global population is still growing at an alarming rate. Canada has vast land, it's really underpopulated. The logical solution is increased immigration. That does raise the issue that too much immigration too fast will not be assimilated. Instead they will bring their culture. Of course aboriginals could make the same complaint about us.

[Thanos]

No, space as a viable commercial enterprise is too far off to be relevant to anyone alive today. And, as someone already pointed out, when it happens they'll take the young, richest, and ginchiest and leave the rest of us obsolete and redundant klooges behind to die off in the wreck that's been made of this planet. Whatever good-will and dreams from the original space race will be left far behind as those with the wealth and power to escape all consequences will be the only ones to get away. This will not be an equal opportunity project to benefit the mass of humanity.

[Winnipegger]

Nothing ever is an "equal opportunity project to benefit the mass of humanity." But increasing wealth generally is a good thing. And you keep assuming asteroid mining means mass emigration. It doesn't. Because of the nature of asteroids, it has to be done with automated equipment. That means people stay here on Earth. There may be some repair technicians who go out to fix equipment, but other than that it will be 100% automated.

Mars is different. Mars is where there will be a lot of young people. The greatest attraction for Mars is that there is no government. No taxes, no regulation, the great Libertarian paradise. Live free or die, literally. Technology has been able to send an Apollo style exploration mission since the 1990s. As I said, the Mars Direct mission plan was developed in the last quarter of 1989 and first half of 1990, presented to NASA in June 1990. If it were done, the first human could have set foot on Mars in 1997. The planets align once every 26 months, so if they missed that launch opportunity the next one would be 1999. More likely 1999, but that didn't happen either.

One key technology in Mars Direct was a new big rocket, as big and powerful as a Saturn V but made of Space Shuttle parts. Core stage based on the external tank, 5 Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME), a pair of solid rocket boosters but advanced ones the manufacturer proposed instead of 4-segment boosters of Shuttle, and an upper stage with a single J-2S engine. Third stage of Saturn V had a single J-2 engine. In 1979 NASA developed an updated version called J-2S so the proposed rocket in 1990 would use that. Today NASA is building SLS, block 2 would have: core stage based on Shuttle's external tank, 5 SSME, a pair of advanced solid rocket boosters, and an upper stage with a single J-2X engine. The J-2X is the latest model of the J-2, so this is essentially the same rocket. Block 1 will have 4 SSME, 5-segment solid rockets that aren't "advanced", and a smaller upper stage that's from the Delta IV rocket. NASA currently plants to build block 2B instead of block 2: 4 SSME engines, advanced solids, and an upper stage with 4 RL-10 engines. It will lift less weight to Low Earth Orbit, but just as much to the Moon or Mars, and cost less. In fact, if the advanced solids were replaced with advanced liquid boosters, it would lift more. One manufacturer proposed advanced liquids with a pair of F-1B engines each. The first stage of Saturn V used F-1 engines, in 1969 the manufacturer developed an upgrade called F-1A that produced 20% more thrust. Never used, but direct bolt-in replacement. F-1B has the same performance as F-1A, but made with modern electronics and some parts made with 3D printing.

Another analogy. The Wright flyer first flew on December 17, 1903. The first flight of a 707, the first commercial jumbo jet, was December 20, 1957. That's 54 years. Yuri Gagarin flew in space on April 12, 1961. Alan Shepard flew the first Mercury in space on May 5, 1961. Based on that we expected a spacecraft that could carry 100 passengers or more to fly in 2015. There were proposals for a passenger module for the Space Shuttle, but never built and plans scrapped after the Challenger accident. SpaceShipTwo and New Shepard are equivalent to barnstorming, aircraft was doing that in the 19-teens and 1920s. We're way behind.