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Green Baron

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  1. Green Baron
    What ? They should chop off his thumb ! Sorry, archaeologist's short circuit reaction ... :-/
  2. Green Baron
    Nope. They all died after days or weeks because they were too trustful and support didn't arrive in time. Edit: A series of satellites or landstrips does what exactly to create a planetary magnetic field ? But even a magnetic field would not enable Mars to hold an atmosphere (not enough gravity) and no speculative process can generate one faster than it escapes.
  3. Green Baron
    Who ? Colonists ? Days ! And millennia stir an iron core ? But people don't think millennia. Years at the most.
  4. Green Baron
    Nope, we are talking high tech. And with that it is not possible to survive independently on the bad (net even the worst) places on earth. Yes, but we must haul it to the places where we need it. And a worldwide industry must have made it. The "worst places on earth" would be yeah, the antarctic highlands, the extreme deserts, the open oceans. Nobody survives there for more than a few hours without the help of technology. Which fails. Then people die. And of course with a constant stream of supply. lol. How ? Boil an eventual iron core and stir a bit ? Or a forcefield with a flexibel plan ? Sorry for being sarcatsic, but "building a shield" doesn't sound ... practical. A few specially trained people with a worldwide technological apparatus in their back will eventually reach Mars in 20, 30, 40 years, if all goes well, our economy doesn't explode under our feet and people don't start to battle for resources. I'm so down to earth :-)
  5. Green Baron
    You mean, you have it magically appear in Quintillions (deduct a 0 if you like) of tons and then it slowly runs off ? Yeah, magic changes the game. [/irony] Pure oxygen at low pressure for longer time does not work, as said your lung's alveoles collapse over time. Also: Oxygen on a place like Mars will be soaked off fast to oxidise the environment through weathering etc. You'd have to wait a few 100 millions of years before conditions become stable and meanwhile add atmosphere after atmosphere (quintillions after quintillions of tons) until the upper crust is oxidised through and at the same time counter the boiloff on the upper rim to space. Forget it ;-) It's all not that easy guys, we are talking about processes, masses, timelines and energies that by far exceed everything we know and have and probably will ever now and have. Let's stay with the fantastic plastic bubbles that form a colony; for now ;-) Edit: Marsian crust is more porous then Earth's, the process will even take longer and go deeper.
  6. Green Baron
    Even if that is true (which is less than clear), it is still much faster than any realistically imaginable process could make it there. Magnetic field is of course an issue for surface radiation which kills plants and animals. Earth's atmosphere's mass is in the range of 10¹⁸ tons. That are Quintillions. Make it a two magnitudes less for Mars. Earth's atmosphere looses in the range of several tons of H and He per day, despite its high gravity and magnetic field. Make it several 1000 tons on Mars with a third of earth's gravity and no shield. Even O and N would probably escape as well (should be checked, they can't escape from Earth). Such masses cannot be hauled about the place.
  7. Green Baron
    Nobody knows. Pure oxygen is very bad idea. It is aggressive and a spark from plastic pants to chair will cause a fire that burns until oxygen is gone, which it did on Apollo. But the inhabitants will be gone before the oxygen;-) No colony in foreseeable time.
  8. Green Baron
    Well, yeah, but the longest theoretically possible thinking term is a human life time minus something at the beginning and at the end. Irl the term is much shorter and connected to a reporting term, an election period or in general to the momentary circumstances. In this special case: Bezos is short term thinking, bringing a brand and a name into the headlines. He would be really long term thinking if he built schools and colleges for example in central Africa from his money instead, to give moar opportunities to the next generation. Hey, this is only my personal opinion, which might be totally wrong and leaves room for others :-)
  9. Green Baron
    And people run after a new silly idea every other day. As if it had any impact on real life. @p1t1o, English tabloids like Sun and Express reported people in fear and hundreds of earthquakes on La Palma island (where i live, right above the quakes on the western slope). Tourism here was concerned about such sort of "information" and i can tell you the Spaniards are extremely relaxed usually. The truth: a swarm of earthquakes mag 1 to 2.5 in the upper mantle (depth 25-30km) since last November may be a hint of a slow intrusion of highly viscous material. Period. No panic, people here where informed by the usual news channels and frankly, microquakes are not unusual. Nothing could be sensed, it only got to our knowledge because the southern part of La Palma, being regarded as an active volcano, is watched over by several seismic stations, laser measurement of ground movement and gps stations for the same reason. Well, the other way round, the movement of celestial bodies (mainly moon, sun, Jupiter) is used to determine time and height of the tides and the connected streams :-) More info e.g. via Admiralty Tide Tables (ATT) which are sort of a nautical standard.
  10. Green Baron
    Thanks for sharing your experience, @Shpaget ! I am not proficient with plywood, but with normal full wood. Normal wood out the full stem can be heated and then bent into astonishing angles without delamination of the rings. That's how recurves in classic wooden bows are made. But the technique will probably not work with plywood as the glue will dissolve before the wood gets soft enough. Hmmm, my first idea was even to use 2 layers of 3mm plywood and glue them together into shape. But 3mm isn't available here, i would have to travel to the big neighbour island, Tenerife to get it. I tried a circle with the 8mm before but holding it in place needs a huge force (radius is 515mm, i don't have the space for big circles, slope will be around 2.5%) and results in a lot of tension. I somehow can't imagine that 15mm pine plywood could be bent at all. The other material i had in mind was poplar plywood, which is a lot lighter than pine but not quite as rigid. It is used in boat making for the interior. And it is expensive Being warned now i better go on a research in railroad forums .... Btw., the wood i got isn't exactly diy-store quality. It is a lot denser and heavier. I'll better give the frame a few days for acclimatisation before connecting it firmly with the plywood sheets. More photos tomorrow :-) And maybe a sketch of how i imagine the spiral.
  11. Green Baron
    lol, they could play with it after work in the "room" of a capsule or box hotel !
  12. Green Baron
    There is a lively cat here. Anything smaller than 5cm and auto-mobile will be hunted, caught, thrown about, chewed up and left laying aside. Cool that it is technically possible to build such a small model railroad .... I started with the first of the frames. More documentation soon(tm) :-) Maybe i should rethink the "cellar" height. 20cm leaves enough room for the cat to cause a nightly devastation in the station. Or i need something to close the sides, sliders or a curtain. I keep the saw dust to mix it with the plaster later. Oh, did i say i don't want to model ? Bah, that was a few days ago :-) Edit: oh, the finger is NOT in the foreground ! Unusual perspective that is :-) But the people have real size ?
  13. Green Baron
    Wood for the basic frame and what will later be the subterranean shadow station including spiral for 20cm of height difference in 2.5 circles. All measures in cm, all wood is pine. The frame parts are 12*3, the frame consists of 2 sections of 250*160, giving 500*160. The feet for the whole thing have 8*8. It must stand freely, only the short sides have a connection to walls/pillars. Plywood for the ground level and rigidity of everything is 2 pieces of 250*122*0.8 and a few smaller ones. The spiral will be of 5mm plywood because the 8mm is too rigid to bend it. Now give me 10 min. pls :-) *sound of electric drill and smell of white glue and cursing starts here*
  14. Green Baron
    We did. It is just futile like resistance to argue over taste ;-)
  15. Green Baron
    I am not. That's why i am a little on a consumer strike with what has lately crossed the pond. Namely Star Wars and Trek and other series. For my taste, there is too much militarism and "blood and honour" and "they shall not die in vain" involved. But people seem to like it ...
  16. Green Baron
    Sure, everyone knows about the dis- and advantages of peer review, no doubt there. But if the alternatives are political influence and/or paid research then i think we are quite well off with the current system. Of course it isn't the last word and doesn't totally exclude directed work, nonsense and disgressive or even absurd things and will one day be replaced, but for know we must live with it. Augmenting the current criteria by two new ones is a good idea. But it doesn't solve the principal problem that some sciences have a hard time transporting their findings to the general public. This is the case for physics as well as highly complex systems like a biosphere. As long as people name the shortcomings and downsides (e. g. and just because i am a bit into it, of a model for an environmental process) and others of the subject have looked over it we can give it a deeper look. And to that bashing of the big journals: they try to be in the first front of publishing current research(*). It is true that they are not always right(tm) and many publications go down the river of constant change sooner than later. But they are a condensed source of information of what's going on in the branches of natural science and far better then all the second hand stuff. Sure, always read things with a the usual salt grain of reason ... a fool who doesn't. Have a nice day or whatever time applies on your part of the disk ! (*) especially when people are away from the knowledge pool and access privileges of a university.
  17. Green Baron
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection I actually don't only accept his opinion, i strongly support it. Sad fact is, in some works (including the journals you meant) the principles are sometimes violated. But to judge if such a thing is the case or not in a specific work one must have deep knowledge of what is is about.
  18. Green Baron
    In general i don't see so many differences between the opinions here. The majority tenor goes in the direction "we will not see a colony for the normal mortals in a foreseeable time". What i want to personally add out of experience (and i think the more experienced colleagues here will agree) is that there is a discrepancy in what people say and what people actually do. This is especially the case with visionaries trying something new. As good and honest as their intentions might be, in the course of doing the work things come up that nobody could oversee before they show. I mean, the vision of a world wide network of suborbital bfrs transporting herds of those in a hurry from continent to continent is a nice thing, right now it isn't more than a story. While SpaceX engineers are working on the bfr it is probably best to wait for the first real solutions. As far as i estimate the boss, they won't hold back when they have something to show :-)
  19. Green Baron
    Absolutely. And where people can be brought home in a week or two if they get sick, like happened two years ago on one of the antarctic stations. That was a huge and expensive logistical effort. So many things that are banal on earth or in its vicinity, but would mean a dead body when underway in space. Mars mission on Marsian atmospheric entry: "Oh look, there enters poor Egon whom we tossed out after he died of inflamed appendix 2 months ago". "Oh yes, how beautiful !".
  20. Green Baron
    I'd be happy to, sure :-) Here or shall we move to a model railroad forum ? If so, which one ?
  21. Green Baron
    Hint: use the same couplers on all cars and locos, ones that can be pre-decoupled for shunting fun :-) All cars and locomotives should have the standardized NEM mounting. I just bought two packages of short couplers from a brand that i think will still exist in 20 years and changed them all through. Carpenter said they'll deliver the wood tomorrow afternoon
  22. Green Baron
    For natural science is valid: publications need to stand a peer review and must be repeatable with the right equipment and the necessary knowledge and in doing so yield the same outcome. Science philosophers like Karl Popper demand that a hypothesis needs to be falsifiable. This is not to make scientists lives miserable but to separate stuff from actual finding. It is simply a stronger foundation to a thought if somebody actually can step up and prove that a thing does not work that way. Pure theoretic / mathemagic edifices like String- or M-Theory are then in a strict sense not pure natural science any more, at least for now. tl, dr and personal opinion: yes.
  23. Green Baron
    Depends on its intended use. If it is used to haul heavy stuff up for money then that is an economic act. If it is used to ship paying people to Mars than that has at least an economic coat. Whether its a good bargain for both sides remains to be seen ;-) But first of all, it must be built. How long does it usually take to develop a spaceship ? A decade ? They started last year, so here's my bet on the time of the first successful missions, 2027.
  24. Green Baron
    Exactly, @DDE, nice example for a major failure. But i meant more a Marsian red, just to avoid politics ;-) Edit: what's written on the poster ? I don't speak Russian ...
  25. Green Baron
    The only reason why a few will try one day is a visionary chanting "follow the red flag !". They'll die on the way, on impact on the first major equipment failure. The rest summarizes reality quite well imo.
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