/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4071084
You might also wonder where the fuck are the Solar panel. Well, it has none. That thing is MOTHER FUCKING POWERED by a NUCLEAR REACTOR (a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, to be precise). It doesn't use Thorium, tough.

>>4071093
>POWERED by a NUCLEAR REACTOR
devil's machine, I see. well hopefully there aren't tsunamis in space

>>4071093
Its not a nuclear reactor because there is no chain reaction, its a nuclear battery. quite a few spacecraft have them, they've been in use since the 60's.

>>4071105
>>4071093
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Mission_Radioisotope_Thermoelectric_Generator
Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
This the actual generator it has on board.
It work on SCIENCE!

Hey Curiosity, I'm gonna let you finish. But Spirit was the best rover of all times. All times.

yeah it's a nice yoshi

>>4071093
It's a nuclear battery, it is NOT a reactor

Why are they sending another rover to Mars? Didn't they already confirm that there's no life on that planet?

>>4071426
well I've read that NASA is focusing on deep space probes for the future, this is prolly the last one for a really long time

also, what ever happened to that probe that was supposed to collect data on comets, it had an ion engine and was supposed to travel through a comet tail, I haven't heard any followup to it

>>4071426
no, the only life sensing experiment sent was with Viking and it came back positive. curiosity isn't looking for life. and there is always the methane question.

>>4071438
there is a European rover going in 2016/18 (originally with a US rover), a small European lander in 2014 and two static landers from esa and nasa in 2018/2020.

and there was no mission to a comet with an ion engine, Dawn has an ion engine but its going to asteroids, and stardust collected samples from a comet's tail.

>>4071084
>watching this
>remember the mars rover videos
>expecting it to deploy air-bags
>"air bags? What do you think this is, ladies night?"
>motherfucking jetpacks down to the surface

>>4071426
Needs more permanent structures, and fewer rovers.

It may sound childish, but I really hope that one day we'll recover the first rover and put that brave little toaster in a museum.

>>4071426
yeah, why don't they send some bacteria

How did the big rocket shoot the top part so precisely?

>>4071475
The sadness :(

>>4071513

The happiness!

Do they control the robot from earth? Or is it all preprogrammed to find rocks and shit. (btw not a science, just geology on mars)

>>4071535
The US rovers have their commands sent from earth, The ESA rover exomars will be able to navigate its self.

>>4071513

>>4071521
sweet

>>4071513

:(

Poor little rovers.

>>4071521
Lucky they don't have their own AI, they might send a constant stream of distress signals.

>Just turn the radio off until the signal stop ;_;

>>4071555
How long do the transmissions back and forth take?

>>4071665
I think it's somwhere on the order of 20 minutes.

>>4071665
Couple of hours

>>4071521

mfw Spider Jerusalem glasses on tiny ass man

How long can it operate with that nuclear battery?

>>4071438
They did sent it and it collected a sample from a comet!

it was on an episode of the show THE UNIVERSE on discovery

the one about space probes

>>4071673
>>4071672
it is 43 min to mars via radio signals to the rovers.

>>4071465
My thoughts exactly.

>>4071677
shouldn't that say omae wa mou shindeiru? Right now it says you are also dead. Mou would make it already.

>>4071665
It also mostly depend of the distance between Earth and Mars. It greatly vary.

>>4071459

There is also Red Dragon mission by SpaceX, looking for DNA under polar permafrost.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/11/red-dragon-mission.html

Captcha: genomes ioadqui

>>4071704

After 14 years, it will still produce 100 watts, down from original 125 watts.

>>4072719
I thought I had read that the Rover would only be operational for 2 years.

'sup!

>>4072786
'sup!

So, unlike the remaining working Mars rover, this rover will definitely stop working at a specific time.

just as guys at cracked said:
make a toy RC version of this motherfucker and you got NASA funded for next 10 years

>>4072778
thats how long it's ' warranty' last, current mars rovers had a warranty that lasted a couple months, last time I checked Opportunity is still roving.

That sucker could last a long time, there's no solar panels to cloud up since they have the RTG.

Can't wait / hope I'm alive for when they send rovers to Titan and Europa.

>>4072694
You are correct and wrong. The form in the picture is the one most remember due to "mō" usually getting interpreted as "mo", even though the more correct interpretation would be "mou".

Something very weird just hit my brains which is unlikely but still interesting:

What if we send a human to mars along one of those rovers, the human would probably die before he even arrives, than he would be dumped on the surface of mars, than the bacterias would feed on the human, and replicate theirselves, creating life on mars! Later we could also start sending plants and bigger animals!

I know this has many flaws, but would be interesting to try?

>>4072928
eww

>>4072928
Change the Sahara to temperate climate and then i'll listen to you guys that want to go to mars.
Also build a moon base.

Before that you guys really need to chill with all this mars nonsense.

does any of the curiosity roovers use hydrogen peroxide propulsion ?

>>4072944
>"change sahara to temperate"
>doesn't know how climate works

>>4072928
forget about mars bases and moon bases until you invent giant broom to brush all the freaking dust away.
Unless you knew, that shit is corrosive as fuck and LETHAL to humans. It's so fine, it can get through fucking space suits

lol btw were already on mars ppl on this forum could be on mars right now js :P

>>4072965
oh no I know what im talking about.

I want you to have full control of earths weather before you try to terraform another planet.

Can't change the Sahara from a desert to a jungle?

Well i don't see how we are going to work with mars.

>>4072984
>make it temperate
>I meant jungle
Fuck you.

>>4072997
I changed it because i don't care what you do to it.
Make it a fucking snowstorm every day.

My point is if you can't change the climates and ecosystem of an area then what the fuck are we trying to do with mars?

>>4073013
>>4073013

> Implying we can't already influence the ecosystem and climate of an area
> Implying that everyone and their mother wouldn't curbstomp you if you even suggested that as a politician
> Implying that changing the Sahara's climate won't fuck over other parts of the world

You really are a complete retard.

>>4073039
I am well aware of what changing the Sahara will do to the rest of the world.
But thats why you'd adjust for the change.

If we can't change something on a planet and adjust the affect it does to the rest of the planet. I still would like to know how the fuck we would terraform mars? Especially since its so far away to begin with.

>politics
Just no.

>>4073057
Obviously a terraformed mars is going to have it's own differentiating climate zones, and changing the climate will change all of them.

You're suggesting we learn how to produce one unique, invariant global climate. Which just isn't necessary here.

>>4073013
It would be relatively simple to irrigate and green up the Sahara. The problem is, it's still going to be on the equator with the same amount of energy coming in and, unless you go crazy, the same basic atmospheric composition as you have now.

That means it's going to be balls hot. We could grow all sorts of tropical shit there, but without causing massive changes to the rest of the earth like a giant fucking ice age we aren't going to make it temperate.

The water evaporating from a green Sahara would do crazy shit to the climate in the rest of Africa and East Asia, by the way.

Mars is the same thing. We couldn't make any part of somewhat warm and wet without changing the whole world pretty drastically, by releasing oxygen and other compounds bound up into the regolith and melting the CO2 and water at the icecaps. Ideally, we'd like to drop ice and ammonia junk from the asteroid belt on it to bring in plenty of water and nitrogen.

>>4073068
>>4073069
Alright i retract changing climates on earth, i just wanted someway of knowing we could terraform a planet without wasting resources doing all the traveling to mars to test it and not even knowing itll work.

As for the moonbase that's still on my list.
Why build a base on mars when like i said its so far away when it would be easier to try it out on the moon and we'd have a base to launch from with lower gravity.

>>4072970

On Mars, this isn't really a problem. Before you'd be able to do anything close like trying to live without a suit on the surface the free water and thicker atmosphere would push you to the point of erosion that dangerous microparticals would be worn down to harmlessness, just like on earth.*

As far as the moon, other then He3 there isn't much there you'd want, and you can harden equipment to operate in the lunar regolith without a real problem. They had a fucking battery powered golf cart run there in the 70's.
*Except for when they aren't, like asbestos and shit.

>>4073057

I'd like to see you try and change a regions climate without the politicians of that region coming down on you like the fist of an angry god.

>>4073057
It's easier to change the climate of a whole planet than to only modify a particular are to it.

Think about it this way: mars is a giant block of granit. It wouldn't take much effort to give it a vaguely human look: two legs, two arms, one torso and a head, even if the surface is rough, it still can look human.

Now imagine earth as an already finely sculpted statue, you are not required to change its frown into a smile, and make the fingernail look better. It is much more difficult and is a work of much higher precision, with way more potential of screwing up.

That's basically the difference between terraforming mars and making the Sahara better.

Beside we already know how to improve the Sahara: it mostly require irrigating work and balancing with the already existing plants and fauna. It's just that it require to much work and money for anyone actually wanting to do it.

>>4073094
>>4073090
>>4073084

One other problem. Mars' magnetic field.

The sun would just destroy any progress you made.

>>4073080
Mars has some pretty big advantages:

Plenty of free water and carbon. These are the basic building blocks of life, and there are large concentrations of them available on Mars.

Higher gravity. Helpful for human health. Theoretically, a human embryo should develop in Martian gravity with only modest complications. Lunar gravity is half of that, and is less likely to be sufficient for long term human health and embryo development of complex animals.

Terrforming. Lunar gravity is too light and available resources too few.

>>4073105
The moonbase wouldn't even need to have humans. Robots preferably.
Or even a better space station, or a space elevator.

Something so we don't have to leave earths gravity every time we want to travel to mars.

>>4073098

For fucks sake, Mars had liquid water for millions of years.

Yes, you'd have slow depletion of the atmosphere as it was either locked in the soil or blown off into space.

No, this would not be an unmanageable problem. Cracking the soil to release carbon, nitrogen and oxygen is an option, as are using automated spacecraft to keep up a steady stream of Kepler belt objects to add more ammonia and water to the system would work too.

The problem would be like if someone came and took a few buckets of dirt off your island every day. Yes, if that keeps going for a long time, the island will be all gone. But all you need to do to fix it is to add a few buckets a day, or a few million.

>>4073114
There isn't much romance to a bunch of robotic drones processing lunar regolith for He3, but it would probably be the best way to use the moon.

>>4073117
No.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/

Anything you did to mars surface without a new magnetic field would just vaporize.

Mars isn't generating a strong enough magnetic field.

>article date
>2001

I thought you wouldve known this.

>>4073127
Seriously, read for fucking comprehension.

>" The Sun's ultraviolet output was larger in the past, and the solar wind was probably much stronger. This means that solar wind erosion was likely much more effective in the past than it is today."

If you melted the martian icecaps and pelted it with Kepler belt objects, it would have a thick atmosphere. Solar wind would start eroding that atmosphere at a rate that would take hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years for depletion of atmosphere again.

The martian atmosphere would be temporary in the way that Saturn's rings are temporary.

>>4073150
I am still not seeing how you would get to that point before the sun started its work.

Venus is the only example in our solar system that we have of an atmosphere without a strong magnetic field and all of its water is gone.

You'd have to make the atmosphere fast enough and thick enough.

>>4072694
>>4072880
>>weeboogbt/co/

>>4073114
This is what the space station should've been working towards. Setting up and launching ships easier and cheaper.

>>4071521

>And they lived happily ever after on the orbital Sagan

Oh god, that image.

Gets me every time.

>>4072778
spirit and opportunity had mission goal of 3 month. they went on for 5 years.

>>4071426
> Why are they sending another rover to Mars? Didn't they already confirm that there's no life on that planet?

It doesn't matter what's confirmed or not. We send probes and rovers and other such crap since we have NO INTENTION OF EVER GOING THERE.

If they found life on Mars they'd just send AN EVEN LARGER AND MORE EXPENSIVE ROVER.

you people are retarded. in order to terraform mars you have to get the core going again somehow. which is gonna take ridiculous amount of energy that we cannot deliver right now.

if the muricans do it this time,

<---- this will be me dancing.

go nasa.

>>4073191
>You'd have to make the atmosphere fast enough and thick enough.
You think terraforming Mars is going to take a million years?
Because the rate of atmospheric loss isn't as great as you seem to imply.

We could get a breathable atmosphere in a few thousand years, while the dissipation of such an atmosphere would take something on the order of several million years.

And that's IF we don't create an artificial magnetic field for Mars to shield it from solar wind.

>>4075377

Actually even with a geologically dead planet like Mars, the effects of terraforming would lst for hundreds of thousands of years even if we did nothing to sustain them artificially, which we would. It is better to refrain from assuming other people are retards when there's a possibility that they might know things that aren't obvious to you that make their position more tenable than it initially appeared.

>>4075403
>And that's IF we don't create an artificial magnetic field for Mars to shield it from solar wind.
Oh boy, talk about scifi. Let me know when you discover some new magic energy source powerful enough for that.

>>4075406
>doesn't refute anything
>hurr durr I is not dumb.

nigga please.

>>4075413

But it does. In practice, terraforming Mars works because the same technology used to do so can also be used to maintain those conditions afterward in spite of natural influences trying to revert it to the way it was before.

Also I was polite in my response, just throwing that out there.

>>4075409
Well, how about solar power?
It's not gonna run out before the planets themselves run out.

The magshield wouldn't even have to block off everything, as the thickening atmosphere would relatively soon become protection enough in itself.

>>4075377
> in order to terraform mars you have to get the core going again somehow.

The core of Mars has nothing to do with with the surface. Imposition of an atmosphere would produce weather. The only particular problem is that the world would end up being very cold. The insolation at Mars orbit is about 44% of what we receive in Earth orbit. Somebody needs to do the math on the atmosphere to find a better fraction; since the pressure would be less, the O2 fraction would have to be higher in order to produce appropriate air to breathe, but not too high, due to the risk of uncontrolled fires. Depressing the N2 and upping the CO2 might be in order, in order to increase the greenhouse effect, but increasing the partial pressure of CO2 might have bad effects on Human respiratory action.

>>4075422
>maintain
>lets magically pump dem oxygen and nitrogen and water into the planet
>we'll use a big pipe from earth to mars.

nigga.
please.

>>4075431
>core
>nothing to do with a planet's upper parts

we got another dumb one here.

>>4075426
You're one of those people who think we can power the Earth with solar, aren't you?
/sigh

>>4075434

You are deliberately misrepresenting my views. It seems apparent that you're irrational, unreasonable and unreceptive to polite, productive conversation. That's unfortunate.

For anyone else wondering, obviously I never suggested a pipe from Earth nor would I ever. Mars already has a Co2 atmosphere so oxygen can be made by plants, liberated from the soil, and from the ice. The unpleasant, unthinking gentleman I was just attempting to reason with apparently hadn't considered solutions like these, but rather the sort of methods that might appear in a cartoon.

>>4075439
> we got another dumb one here.

Fuck yourself. Add atmosphere and you'll have a water-weather cycle. The core has nothing to do with a livable surface when it comes to that. Any UV problem can be taken care of with sunglasses.

You don't need volcanoes.

Terraforming Mars won't turn it into an Earth-like planet because the low gravity of Mars won't support a dense atmosphere.

>>4075477

>>4075477
It can support liquid water and a lower energy ecology then we have on earth. Getting the atmospheric pressure to 1 bar is hardly necessary, when .25 bar would be quite enough to support life as we know it.

>>4075434
Fuck, how many times do people have to say "hit Mars with ammonia and ice Kuiper belt objects" before you understand where nitrogen and oxygen are going to come from? There is enough out there to MAKE A WHOLE NEW PLANET so it's not like they are going to run out.

>>4073191

The sun would be working constantly to erode the atmosphere. It's doing so right now. The effect would be the same as a person coming and taking one stone a day from a wall you were trying to build. Eventually, in a long time, he's going to take the whole wall or make it tiny. But if you build the wall with thousands of stones on the first day, then repair it with fifty stones a month you will stay well ahead.

guys, guys! creating a atmosphere, are you nuts? we
cannot even manage the little amounts of CO2 here on
earth! you have no idea of the required energy to process
this load of material!

>>4075588
>There is enough out there to MAKE A WHOLE NEW PLANET
Not speaking against terraforming, but there may be enough for worlds in the Oort cloud, but the estimates for the Kuiper belt mass vary wildly from a fraction of Earth's mass to dozens of Earth masses.

Though we don't really need that much. An atmosphere is the least massive part of a planet, so a few cometary impactors, properly broken down and distributed around Mars would raise the volatile content significantly.

>>4075707
>the required energy
How about the potential energy or a few cometary impacts? Or asteroid impacts?
Or solar power concentrated with giant mirrors in space?

Does that make you hard?

>>4075747
The forceful impacts from the comets might cause previously unknown underground deposits of poisonous gases to be released into the Martian atmosphere.

comets and asteroids, ok thats possible, but a lot of material will be blown away by the sun during the impact. Also we would have to wait hundereds of thausends of years till the dust calms down.

>>4075747

it will take 600 years for voyager 1 to reach the closest portion of the oort cloud

>>4075756
Like what?

>>4075763
>a lot of material will be blown away by the sun during the impact
The solar wind doesn't work that way. It's only powerful enough to blow off some of the most light molecules from the top of the atmosphere. If the solar wind was as powerful as you seem to envision, the Earth and Venus would also be well on the way to being sans atmosphere.

>we would have to wait a few years till the dust calms down
FTFY, even on Earth, an impact winter would last maybe ten, twenty years, depending on the impact, and the Martian atmosphere is so thin the dust wouldn't stay suspended as long, even from multiple impacts.

>>4075785
twenty years? when earth cooled down, in took several thousand of years for the water vapor to rain down on earth and form the oceans.

>>4075804
That's a bit of a different case there, pal.

>>4075785
>Like what?
Chlorine, fluorine, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, methane, among others. None of the rovers sent to Mars have probe deep beneath the surface, so we can't rule out any of those possibilities.

>>4072716
>looking for DNA
FOR FUCK'S SAKE. THERE IS NO LIFE ON MARS AND NEVER WAS. GIVE IT UP ALREADY.

If we start now? You need to do two things, take it through a chemical succession until we get a suitable environment for base life forms, then take it through a biological succession until you get larger plants and oceanic cyanobacteria. Then wait for a long ass time for O2 levels to get breathable, then STILL use a respirator to breathe outside.

Terraforming (starting from T=0 in each case):
1. Water enrichment by comet bombardment ~50-200 years
2. Temperature increase by comet bombardment, greenhouse gasses (H2O g), creation of an atmosphere ~200 years
3. Seeding of watery surface with organic materials and cyanobacteria ~600 years
4. Breakdown of rock surface by genetically modified lichen and water flows ~300 years
5. Creation of 5cm of organic soil by brachiophytes ~800 years
6. Increase of soil to foot deep or deeper by primitive grasses and gymnosperms ~1000 years
7. First trees ~1000-3000 years to fully spread across the planets surface

You could probably start sending settlers after the first 50-100 years, they can live in habitats.
Each of these steps requires us to interfere heavily in delivery and maintenance of the lifeforms or processes. Even then, organic life will cover maybe 1% of the surface and the atmosphere won't be breathable at any altitudes too high above "sea" level. The first kilometer of atmo will be a mixture of H2O, CO2 and O2 requiring some sort of breathing device to breathe, higher atmosphere will be a mixture of H2 and other light gasses. Maintenance of atmosphere will be required to prevent losses, maybe a few smallish comets (5km) smack the poles every century.

>>4075707
>are you nuts?

>>4075818
>carbon dioxide
Current martian atmosphere is mostly made of it

Besides, you can crash comets in the poles like >>4075855

>>4075841
yeah, but what about that martian methane? One way to explain the methane is life, the other is underground geologic processes that require heat and liquid water.

So if it's not life that's causing the methane, there's a good chance Mars harbors conditions that could harbor life.

>>4075818
>chlorine
Elemental chlorine, will soon oxidize present material.
>fluorine
Elemental fluorine? It will almost immediately oxidize any present material and be bound.
>carbon monoxide
Can be broken down by bacteria, if it doesn't do so on it's own.
>carbon dioxide
Good, that's what we need.
>hydrogen cyanide
Might as well burn up in the impacts. If not, most will naturally break down.
>methane
Good, that's what we need.

>yfw I have been in the same room as the curiosity rover or maybe a prototype, while it was still in development
(but it was underneath a curtain, to keep out oxygen. didn't actually see the real thing unfortunately)
The other day I was talking with one of the people working with Opportunity.

When Spirit died, what they believe happened:
lacking topographic maps, they inadvertantly steered Spirit into a sand-filled crater region.
It got stuck
They were unable to position the rover in an optimal area for sunlight
Without notifying the team really, the head administrator something of the project declared Spirit a Stationary Research Platform.
In the last days, they made some progress in getting the wheel unstuck.
But because it couldn't orient itself, it didn't get enough sunlight energy
Their current theory is that because of this, the clock ran out of battery,
and it couldn't communicate with Earth anymore.

Now, Opportunity is going to be looking at a big crater.

>>4075707
You could get Co2 with genetically modified organisms to release Co2 trapped in the martian regolith, increasing the global temp enough to melt the martian "dry icecaps" though the whole year rather then just in summer.

Yes, massive amounts of energy would be required to process the atmosphere. Most of that energy would come from self-replicating solar powered and autonomous devices. We call them "plants".

>>4071139
hey, what about Opportunity?
Opportunity is still giving us some golden Opportunities to investigate some neat Craters.
Spirit, tried, and I know, it had some Spirit, but eventually it couldn't stay alive.
However, I'm curious as to what new things Curiosity will turn up.

>>4071475
me too.
°_°;

Stop. You cannot terraform mars. It is geologically dead and has no magnetic field. So nothing will stop UV radiation from reaching the surface. Also the solar wind will strip the atmosphere of the dense oxygen rich atmosphere needed to survive on the surface. Let it be. Better chances with Venus. Besides, why not terraform the earths deserts? Hmm?

>>4075913

All of that has already been addressed earlier in this thread.

>>4075913

The sad irony is that if Humanity ever does try to terraform Mars, they will try to do it with ROBOTS. They will never go to Mars personally. That's how fucking delusional Humanity is about spaceflight for now and into the foreseeable future; UNMANNED CRAP ONLY, THEREFORE THERE'S NO POINT TO IT ALL.

>>4075841
you realize that doing any work on earth with a rover is like, doing only 1% as much work as a human geologist with proper equipment would be able to do in a day?
They haven't explored THAT many places, they have hardly even pierced the top cover, when evidence suggests that all the water that used to be on Mars was underground.

>>4075934

>That's how fucking delusional Humanity is about spaceflight for now and into the foreseeable future

Dude, people think that it's possible to go the speed of light or faster with just the energy in the solar system because they don't know shit about reality other than movies and they expect a plot-convenient loophole in physics to be discovered "Any day now"

People are idiots. Humanity has no preordained destiny. We do what we feel like and hey, nobody feels like going to space judging by the .0001% of the world's money that's spend on it.

>>4075934
It's unmanned probe hater guy again, here to tell us how planetary exploration is pointless.

>>4075978

I believe you misread that in a zest of bumgrumpy.

>>4075978
At some point humans have to actually leave earth

That's the point of exploration

>>4075990

The point of exploration is exploitation. Columbus didn't do it for noble reasons, he wanted the money.

Going to space will destroy the economy when it begins to be flooded with once rare-earth metals.

Let me ask you this: What company in their right minds would invest in something that would destroy their profits?

For the greater good? I certainly hope you're not that naive.

the be truthful, the only reason I support any kind of immortality/life-extending research is for the sole purpose of space travel.

Also, remember: if you go to Mars, much of the internet will be inaccessible. You will have to ask beforehand for the data to be streamed to you.
Basically, having the ability to converse nearly instantaneously with anyone else who exists (physically possible) is just a temporary phase which means that the entire earth is just one huge room with a party.

the pro side is: you are freed from internet addiction! hard work and reading books is sure to occupy nearly all of your free time!

>>4075996
>Going to space will destroy the economy when it begins to be flooded with once rare-earth metals.
Lolno. It'd be an absurdly-expensive drop in the bucket, which is why noone in their right mind will ever actually pay to bring resources from extraterrestrial sources.

>>4075990
Not necessarily. For example, why do we send probes to Mercury, a planet that would be very difficult to terraform and is of little benefit to colonize?

We send probes to learn things about the solar system and understand stuff better.

But yes, we still need to send humans to space.

Also how would we send humans to places like Venus, Io, or Jupiter, which are too hot or dangerous to send humans?

>>4076004
screw the economy, I'm going there for science.
I'm pretty sure that Capitalism works well when your survival depends on the well-being of everyone else.
(I hope)

>>4075996
Oh, you mean like the european economy was destroyed by the influx of gold from the americas?

Or do you mean the way northman economy was destroyed when the vikings got their hands on everyone else's fortunes?

Or do you perhaps mean the way the byzantine economy was destroyed when the secret of silkmaking was leaked to them?

Or perhaps you mean the way the arabian economy was destroyed after the discovery of the oil fields?

Sure, industries will change with the influx of new wealth, but talking about destruction is jsut simply ignorant.

Flooding the market with loads and loads of materials would be great for the economy. What are you talking about.

>>4076018

What are you talking about? None of those things concerns a global economy. You can't just cite historical precedence without context.

>>4076029

Supply and demand. The price of titanium would plummet.

>>4076016

>Also how would we send humans to places like Venus, Io, or Jupiter, which are too hot or dangerous to send humans?

Send the lowest members of society, as always?

>>4076073

So what if the price of titanium would plummet?

Think about it like this, if there are 10 people, and there are 10 people people have X amount of well-being. If suddenly 10 more apples enter this reality (or market, or what have you), are they worse off? I would think having more apples makes these people better off. If they are selling these apples with each other, yes the price would go down, but that just represents how much more abundant things are.

>>4076083

What board committee would vote on a project that would lower the price of their goods?

And for what reason?

Titanium is only expensive because it is rare. What businessmen in his right mind would fuck that up?

>>4076091
The businessman who can come filthy rich by selling stuff made from cheap titanium.

>>4076075
As in too hot for humans to even exist there without impractically expensive personal protection systems and life support. Even sending cheap humans would be expensive.

>>4076099

How would that work?

"it's a car, but made from titanium!"

"why do we need you?"

>>4076091
Contrary to popular belief titanium ain't all that rare. It's the ⑨th most abundant element in earth's crust. Much of titanium's cost comes from reducing it from it's oxide form.

>>4076091

>What board committee would vote on a project that would lower the price of their goods?

Committee? I am assuming one of two groups are behind this:

1. The Government
2. A company.

A company has every reason to provide a good service to people. The logic in saying "if they go to space the price drops" applies to outer space as much as it applies to mining in chile. The fact that there is a huge resource of material in space is an incentive to get it, because you can sell it (in the most strictly profit based incentives).

>Titanium is only expensive because it is rare. What businessmen in his right mind would fuck that up?

Why would a businessman want something to be expensive?

>>4076120
Because one of thing they teach you is business school is never to flood the market, so you can make more profit with what you already have.

>>4076113
It's a car, made from titanium, so it's stronger, lighter, more durable, doesn't rust, has better mileage and doesn't scratch as easily.

>>4076120
>>4076119

Alrighty. In light of these two posts and this statement:

>The logic in saying "if they go to space the price drops" applies to outer space as much as it applies to mining in chile.

Explain the current price of diamonds.

>>4076134
How are you going to compete with cars made from Carbon fiber? Carbon fiber is stronger, lighter, and more durable than titanium.

Carbon fiber also has the word car in it, so you know it's for cars.

>>4076134
Also, it's an aeroplane, lighter and safer than before.

It's a ship that doesn't corrode in seawater.

It's a space rocket that is cheaper than ever.

Also, I think you could sell /g/ and /v/ a computer case made from titanium.

>>4076130

Have you ever been to a business school?

>Because one of thing they teach you is business school is never to flood the market, so you can make more profit with what you already have.

I can see this being true in some circumstances.

First of all, I think we are being very un-percise. If there was one apple in the world it would probably be worth quite a lot. If it cost $1 to farm 1 apple, and you could sell it for $1000 your profit margins would be extremely high. But that is different from maximizing profit. If you could sell 1000 apples for $2 each you would be more profitable, AND you would be selling more.

So, my main objection is that "flooding the market" and "keep thing expensive" arent well defined things. Given that you have some amount of power over the market, there is an profit maximizing amount that is some amount short of selling as much as possible. Sometimes this can be subjectively refereed to as "keeping stuff expensive" but it also applies in completely normal events that are in no way remarkable. Like crackers... or dildos.

Lets say you have significant market power over the titanium market, and all the sudden the abundance of titanium shoots up. You can still make money by lowering the price.

Most of all though, all this stuff is no way universal.

>>4076145
And the word Titanium has tit in it, so you know anything made from the stuff is totally tits.

Check and mate.

>>4076144

I think with diamonds you have two things.

1. Sellers with great market control

2. Buyers who are operating with very poor information, and really no concern for the price of diamonds. As in, rich people who just think expensive things just arent as good if they arent expensive. Of course, referring to the luxury appeal of diamonds.

With that said, I have some questions about diamonds.

Are diamonds themselves expensive, or just diamond jewelry? Also are industrial diamonds as expensive. Like if I want some diamond tiped lathing machine or something, am I paying the same prices as some rich woman who just wants a necklace?

This is just my speculation. If every rich woman turned into a smart engineer or something, I bet the price of diamonds would drop, because engineers care more about getting a low price on diamonds and are willing to investigate various sellers of diamonds.

Also I think there is a company that has a monopoly on the diamond market. So there is one company that has significant buying power. I dont think the same is true regarding metals like titanium.

>>4076145

How about a car made from God? That runs on Jesus blood?

You have to consider cost too. Maybe a titanium car would cost less.

>>4076148
>all the sudden
GOD DAMNIT GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU COCK-SWARMING CUNT FARM

>>4076162

>1. Sellers with great market control

So if only one or maybe two companies controlled all of the titanium coming from space, then they'd monopolize it and drive up the costs even further because now everyone else wants in?

Oh future, you get darker every day.

>>4076168
You have to consider the costs over the lifecycle of the car, the fuel costs would be less than the titanium car as it would be lighter.

>>4076176

Yes I think that if one or two companies controlled the supply of titanium, and they suddenly had access to all kinds of fancy space titanium, they could manipulate the market to their advantage, charging significantly more than they really have to.

But I want to say thats not really plausible. Its very hard to do that. Especially with abundant, and extremely practical materials. And the reality is there is no single company that can control the world's titanium supply like that.

I heard somewhere that goldman sachs owns 25% of the worlds aluminium.

>>4076191

Well we're talking about at the very least getting men into orbit, which very few nations can even achieve, so i think it is realistic that only one company could make it to space and that it would monopolize everything in space.

Shit, imagine if they went the steve jobs route and patented everything that looked like a rocket.

We're just that stupid, too.

>>4076212
which is more likely now that nasa is being dialed back. Private enterprise means more private patents.

>>4076212

>Well we're talking about at the very least getting men into orbit, which very few nations can even achieve

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, the whole premise of people going into space for resources is a stretch anyway. At least for the short term.

I would hope that if this potential future ever comes about that it can be at least a little competitive. As in we can manage at least 2 or 3 competing space firms.

>>4076217

And since there's no laws in space, the corporation could treat and pay workers whatever they felt like. Especially the naive nerds who would go without pay and decent living just to see the curvature of the earth.

Just like Airline Pilots.

It's like i'm living in 1983.

>>4076226

>Two or three companies

>probably american and chinese.

>Like all big companies these days, they'll eventually merge to monopolize the market.

>oh shit what have we done

>>4076237

>Like all big companies these days, they'll eventually merge to monopolize a market

This brings me to another point that has been rolling around in my head.

If we establish some decent anti-trust laws (like the ones Reagan repealed) we could prevent this.

>>4076246

How could one country regulate all of space?

And for two:

What government isn't already a subsidiary of corporations?

>>4076251

I dont think it would be difficult to manage a 1 or 2 companies first going out into space. Not difficult like, managing the millions and millions of pot smoking americans who break the law. The capacity to regulate isnt dependent on locality, or proximity.

>>4076259

>The capacity to regulate isnt dependent on locality, or proximity.

Uh... What?

I just... what? You've been making sense up to this point.

Are you saying that because america says pot is illegal that it's illegal worldwide?

The Outer Space Treaty states that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. The Treaty establishes the exploration and use of outer space as the "province of all mankind." The Moon Agreement expands on these provisions by stating that neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof, or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person.

Legally, nothing in space can be regulated. This treaty would have to be repealed otherwise.

Guess who's best interest it would be to legislate for not repealing the treaty?

>>4076273

>Are you saying that because america says pot is illegal that it's illegal worldwide?

No, thats not what I am saying.

>The Outer Space Treaty states that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. The Treaty establishes the exploration and use of outer space as the "province of all mankind." The Moon Agreement expands on these provisions by stating that neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof, or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person.

This is a real treaty? It sounds like.. a load of junk. How could anyone enforce this?

When Apollo 8 orbited the moon one of the astronauts gave a prayer. NASA was subsequently sued for violation of church and state. The case was rejected by the supreme court. But I think that still stands as an example that just because of some space treaty, or the vastness of space, doesnt mean people are free to do whatever they want.

Like, I bet spaceX couldnt just set up rockets one day without some expressed permission from the government. Likewise if they went into space and started engaging in behavior that the government or public found inapprorpaite (like gay space marriage) it doesnt mean they are off the hook.

My original point is that the vastness of distance, of unexplored nature of space doesnt imply that it is also without contraints from earth. Not much can leave the earth yet, and what can is heavily regulated and managed by the government. Likewise if some outer space mining operation got underway, it would not be free from opinion of the government simply because the US is on the earth.

>>4071084
oh it's not that big calm down dude
>expand image
wait those are PEOPLE back there?
sweet jesus it's bigger than my pickup!

just imagine all the HARDWARE packed into that thing, OH BABY

>>4071093
>uses an RTG
wait, for the entire thing?
i didn't think RTGs could put out that much juice, or does it store it up and only operate like 30 minutes a day

>>4075978
> It's unmanned probe hater guy again, here to tell us how planetary exploration is pointless.

BE DEFINITION, it's all pointless if there's ZERO INTENTION of ever going physically to any of those places in order to establish Human civilization. Living is the point of living!

You stupid fucking pasty-white basement-dwelling virgin-nerd Cheetos eater! Stick your orange-stained fingers up your own ass!

>>4072804
i would buy
THE FUCK
out of this

and anyone who'd been to cape canaveral can tell you, nasa loves their merch.
but, i mean, i want to give them my money for an rc version of some of the rovers. a pathfinder model with an actual solar panel would be bitchin. why do you have my money nasa? why?

>>4076300

>This is a real treaty? It sounds like.. a load of junk. How could anyone enforce this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

It is. The people were so naive and well-intentioned that they never fathomed the tyranny of corporations.

>not be free from opinion of the government simply because the US is on the earth.

In this day and age, are you really certain that the two are disparate?

>>4072944
terraforming mars on a budget is entirely possible, it just takes a while.
by far the hardest step will be getting the atmospheric density high enough for algae to take root

>>4076341

>In this day and age, are you really certain that the two are disparate?

Yeah I distinguish between the two. The influence of super large businesses on government might be a legitimate concern, but I dont equate government and super large businesses as being a single entity.

>>4076308

I'm pretty certain that RTG's can be scaled to all kinds of different applications.

>>4076346

I said disparate for a reason. I'm not saying that they're one, not yet at least. But they are not things so unlike that there is no basis for comparison.

If they want the regulations to favor them, they will.

>>4075890
this is why i'm not a fan of solar panels
radioactive decay is much more reliable

>>4076344
> terraforming mars on a budget is entirely possible, it just takes a while.

Your "while" is far, far, far, far, far beyond the maximum waiting time for profit by ANY Human agency. Dweeb. Stop shoveling all those Cheetos into your blubbery mouth; it's suppressing YOUR BRAIN.

>>4075913
i like the wacky idea put forth about grabbing an asteroid, putting it at mars' legrange point, boring out the center of it so some light gets in, putting a hard UV filter over said hole in the center, then slapping a nuclear reactor on there to produce a moderate EM field, which when pushed back by the solar wind, provides a decent pseudo-magnetic field for mars.

it wouldn't be perfect, but blocking most of the UV and maybe 30% of the solar wind would do WONDERS

>Terraforming
You fucking nerds can't keep your sci-fi bullshit out of ANY thread, can you?

>>4076373
> You fucking nerds can't keep your sci-fi bullshit out of ANY thread, can you?

Oh, it's not scifi. If we were ANY OTHER RACE THAN THE CURRENT ONE, the goal could be achieved. But we're not another race; we're violent simians and our goal is to fucking JEW EACH OTHER out of our wealth, sanity and finally LIVES, in order to remain the pointless and big-balled TOP DOGS over the spreading HELLPIT that the Earth is becoming. All balls, NO FUCKING BRAIN: That's what it really means to be "Human".

Another race might terraform. But Humanity will NEVER get it done. We're going to savage our billions to occupy our simian time.

>>4076360
hey, i like cheetos
and yes it would be an entirely non corporate venture, as any potential gains would like 50 to 100 years away from initial seeding.

also for people suggesting genetic engineering of species? keep in mind that nature is the best genetic engineer, if we manage to add anything we'd have to take away other aspects of the organism. the best we can do it over-specialization, not "make it better"

>>4076373
honestly, some terraforming methods are much more grounded than....some of the stuff i see around here

>>4076387

Possibly not true, wait and see.

Terraforming anything is going to be a messy, polyglot affair not a single project by some big Agency or Corporation. Mars Trilogy had it about right or Sterling's Shaper-Mechanist cycle.

>>4076397
yeeah, it'll probably be a case of
>one government pours a few billion into solar reflector satellites to melt the ice caps
>they forget about it for a few years
>some other government, or a few of them, start seeding modified algae for a few years over two or three missions
>they forget about it to
>a few decades pass
>excitement builds as the atmospheric density and oxygen levels start rising enough to use super hardy plantlife that can take the cold, some government drops them on the surface and parades it around
>another few decades
>repeat the process over another few decades with different governments and short lived corporations until plain old trees start getting deposited

>then every corporation ever starts jumping on a claim of land or resource or anything. exotic hotels, space zoos, you name it. mars turns into "rich-people-land"

>the government which made the solar reflectors takes all the credit

well, at least mars is green now i guess.

>>4076387
Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?

What's wrong with taking things one step at a time? If people like you were in charge, nothing would ever get done because you silly motherfuckers don't realize that you need to learn to crawl before you can run.

This rover is the next step. It's a major achievement and a sign of progress. But you fucking ADD-ridden geeks can't even discuss it for more than a few posts before launching into a half-retarded argument about something that we realistically won't be able to achieve until several centuries (and that's VERY optimistically-speaking) after we're all dead.

The RTG doesn't need to directly power the machine. It can simply charge a bank of batteries. The total lifespan of the RTG is something like 12 years and lithium batteries can last almost exactly that long if high grade and well cared for. So basically when it's chilling and waiting for the next command, its batteries are recovering. Like an animal taking a rest and getting it's second wind.

>>4076360
At least you make your retarded self easily recognizable from your cliched speech patterns.

>>4071084
>crash on landing
Not to worry, American scientists, not Russians.

>>4076409

>> Syndicate yeast-nanites attack the CO2 uptake mechanisms of enemy cybertrees.
>> sympathetic Phoboan miners EM pulse bases on every pass.
>> Upgraded octopi invade trees, stealing control of water reserves.
>> Tunnelers (native to Mars, suckers) burrow into enemy bases, we all rush out with knives and cudgels.

Not a shot will be fired.

>>4076423
that's what i suspected. the real strength of RTGs is their fucking insane lifespan

>>4076434
it's like the 2075 version of fighting on the backs of bears

>>4076091
>Titanium is only expensive because it is rare. What businessmen in his right mind would fuck that up?
Titanium is not rare, you're a moron

It's expensive because it's difficult to mine, so the company selling it has to cover the costs of mining to cover the initial costs

LRN2 revenue model silly /sci/entist

>>4076423
>well cared for.
>On a rover on another planet which experiences temperature-swings ranging from cryogenic up to above-freezing
Yyyyyyyyeah.....

>>4076440
>dolphins
did you know that people are raped to death by gangs of young dolphins every year?

they swim up and grab them with their prehensile penises them drag them underwater to rape them.

often times, the corpse is dragged into an underwater cave to be further raped, as evidenced by a tracking beacon equipped human decay which scientists threw into open water.

sorry, what was this thread about?

>>4076441

>Implying that those designing the probe didn't take those conditions into consideration and insulate accordingly
>Implying it's impossible to design a rover with battery insulation, active heating/cooling, whatever the mission calls for

>>4076440
Exactly, the cost of mining an asteroid and transporting millions of tonnes of pure shit here is in the billions of dollars.

End user cost is probably something far MORE than $661000 per tonne, which is why no one is mining a fucking asteroid.

>>4071093
>RTG
>hurr its a nuclear reactor!
How would it even use thorium you fucktard?

>>4076453

especially if you consider prospecting

you need to send dozens of probes each costing a few hundred million just to find the choice deposits

>>4076459

This is why Earth-returned minerals will be rare for a long while. The values are in processed feed stocks in space and weightless things like data, personal experiences and electricity coming down from orbit.

Some day, Jovian plastics are going to be all the rage.

>>4076457
very poorly i'd wager

>>4076441
Funny how the Voyager RTG's have done so well.

>>4076522
>Comparing the vacuum of space to a planetary body with it's own climate and weather system

ISHYYDT
No to mention the rover actually has moving parts

>>4076522
I wasn't talking about RTGs, I was talking about lithium batteries.

Ultimately, though, the usage of RTGs makes the presence of chemical batteries largely irrelevant.

>>4076530
well, RTGs have a set output, you can't really use them like winding a spring to release lots of energy at once, batteries do that.

and if you just set an upper limit on all the equipment you use in the rover so it never exceeds the RTGs output, your rover isn't going to do much

>>4076530
What? See >>4076423

>>4076529
I know, sorry, I was being flippant.

But maybe we can salvage those RTG's in the future to get some of the starter fissionables for a LFTR using Martian thorium.

>>4076537
>But maybe we can salvage those RTG's in the future to get some of the starter fissionables for a LFTR using Martian thorium.
yeah....
no
an RTG will barely power a workshop lamp, it isn't going to be useful for any kind of large scale thorium extraction

Holy shit are they finally sending xboxes into space?

>>4076539
What?
No, I didn't mean to use it like that. I just thought if there's some chain-reaction capable material left, it can be used to kickstart the reaction in a thorium reactor.

>>4076692
Too small to be an eksbawks. Besides, we didn't have a lifter capable of boosting one into orbit even when NASA still had the shuttle.

>>4076711
I think it's the wrong material. The Plutonium in the battery is produced by LFTR's

>>4076740
I was afraid of that, but due to headache I can't form the question so I could get the necessary information from google.

Do they have anything useful after depletion?

>>4076751
I don't think so, but it will be useful for around 15 years. So maybe after the mission is complete they can use it to recover Spirit

>>4076711
It uses plutonium 238, not 239. It doesn't fission.

>>4076756
>>4076759
Aww. I really like the thought of exotic recyclables.

>>4076759
>>4076740
P238 decays to U234, which may be useful if you can fire some neutrons at it to turn it to U235

U235 is basically reactor fuel or nuke-the-aliens-tiem

>Why did nobody told me how FUCKING FREAKING HUGE that thing is!

The RTG on board imposes a minimum size. That entire thing sticking out its ass end is the plutonium battery.

>>4076308
>i didn't think RTGs could put out that much juice

Just a couple hundred watts, but that's massive compared to what solar panels provide on Mars. Also it works at night and in the winter.

Anyone saying terraforming is easy by all means please enlighten us. Also it only takes a year to reach mars now? Why aren't we on vacation there already?

>>4077150
>Also it only takes a year to reach mars now?

It's never taken that long, as long as you time your approach right.

Why do they need clean suits?

>>4077150

Because you won't fund the trip.

It was a 6-month trip at one point during our orbits. That would have been the best time to go but they cockblocked any missions for that window.

>>4076711
that's not going to work because...
>>4076740
>>4076759
yeah, that.

>>4077117
235 is too abundant to justify attempting to breed it up from 234 to 235.
and 235 has to be hella refined from natural uranium

>>4076781
exotic usually means expensive, get out your checkbook

>>4077150
easy in a relative sense. over a long period it's just a few missions and a lot of waiting. if you try to do it in ten years you'll bankrupt the whole damn planet, but if you stretch it to 100 years using a few methods and some time, it's not so bad.

>>4077297
>235 has to be hella refined from natural uranium
Hence
>breed it up from 234 to 235.

Besides, the question was "is it possible", not "is your aspergers preventing you from seeing possibilities".

>>4077314
lots of things are possible
few of them are practical
very few are practical enough to pursue

i was implying that breeding 234 up to 235 would be inefficient enough that it would be more troublesome than refinement, which is already monstrously troublesome and expensive and fuck the higher uranium cycles anyway.