The Mars Colony

[August]

The side discussion in the suckup administration thread got me to thinking about what it would take to create a self sustaining colony on Mars that was large enough to ensure the survival of the human race if a "planet killer" asteroid were to hit earth. What would be the minimum population required? What would it take to make a colony self sustaining? What would be the economic incentive for creating a colony?

[UnderseaLcpl]

I can only answer the last question with any degree of certainty, and the answer is "Much more than any rock in this solar system has, Mars included". There would have to be a remarkable advance in spacecraft propulsion to make it profitable to mine gold on Mars, let alone the worthless rock that it is primarily composed of. I think the day will come when it is economically feasible to exploit extraterrestrial resources, but we're a long way from it at present.

[TLAM Strike]

The side discussion in the suckup administration thread got me to thinking about what it would take to create a self sustaining colony on Mars that was large enough to ensure the survival of the human race if a "planet killer" asteroid were to hit earth. What would be the minimum population required? What would it take to make a colony self sustaining? What would be the economic incentive for creating a colony? Self Sustaining? Not in the near future, best defense against a PKA would be a well developed space infrastructure- the ability to get stuff in to LEO quickly.

Economic Incentive would be farming (in domes and underground) to support mining in the Asteroid Belt. (see below)

Minimum population requirements are moot, genetic material could be transported and stored to breed future colonists. Eventually sending probes with such genetic material and the gear to artificially gestate new humans to other stars would be a good idea.

I can only answer the last question with any degree of certainty, and the answer is "Much more than any rock in this solar system has, Mars included". There would have to be a remarkable advance in spacecraft propulsion to make it profitable to mine gold on Mars, let alone the worthless rock that it is primarily composed of. I think the day will come when it is economically feasible to exploit extraterrestrial resources, but we're a long way from it at present. Doubt we would go to Mars for mining, Asteroids are better sources of rare ores, talking up to tens of trillions of $ per asteroid here. Hollowed out Asteroids also make good colonies or even spaceships.

Also asteroids are not just found in the space between Mars and Jupiter but near our orbit. Sometimes they are even closer to Earth than the Moon.

[Zachstar]

This topic keeps coming up as "Justification" Despite massive job loss environmental disasters and other priorities that would better served by the TRILLIONs of dollars needed to do a serious mars colony.

Why do I say trillions? Lets just talk about a few of the things that we would HAVE to develop.

Fully functional multi use SSTO shuttle 1 stage no booster or anything falling off.

PB11 fusion

50 percent efficient with holographic multi angle multi spectrum thin film solar that is reliable for 10-20 years with only 20 percent drop being pounded by mars dust particles

Fully functional and efficient dual use Hydrogen fuelcell and ultracapasitor energy storage system.

Complete Algae protein to foodstuff system. (Growing massive amounts of traditional food on mars is a waste of space and any disaster would cause starvation)

Laser drilling

A low power system to break up and enrich ore so the colony can be self sustaining.

A complete system to cheaply extract carbon from the atmosphere to manufacture plastics.

A said a few and these MASSIVE economy changing techs are just the start of what is needed for a serious colony. What about radiation in the thin atmosphere? etc...

100 years minimum

[UnderseaLcpl]

Doubt we would go to Mars for mining,
Then we are agreed. How marvelous!


Asteroids are better sources of rare ores, talking up to tens of trillions of $ per asteroid here. Hollowed out Asteroids also make good colonies or even spaceships.

Also asteroids are not just found in the space between Mars and Jupiter but near our orbit. Sometimes they are even closer to Earth than the Moon.
True, but most official sources indicate that the Earth will have run out of Aerosmith by the time we can develop the technology to drill on asteroids, making the mission all but pointless.

[TLAM Strike]

True, but most official sources indicate that the Earth will have run out of Aerosmith by the time we can develop the technology to drill on asteroids, making the mission all but pointless. Aerosmith?

I know its a band but Huh?

BTW They just flew a space probe in to an asteroid a few years ago to see what its made of on the inside. In other words they blasted a lot of potentially valuable ore in to the cosmos

Kinda like a Gulf Oil Spill in space. All we need is a ship in space to collect and process the ore then crap out the good bits in the direction of Earth.

[razark]

I'm not sure what the minimum population would need to be. To maintain the human race, I would think it would need to be a rather large sample, which would not be sustainable for quite a long while. After the colony is established, the population could be enlarged, but starting out it would need to be much smaller.

It would take years for any colony to become completely self-sustaining. The very first outpost is going to need large quantities of power and water. Mars has water, but most of it is currently frozen. Once a colony has been established, mining water from the polar caps will be an option, as well as vaporizing and condensing it from the soil. But at the beginning, water (or hydrogen to combine with oxygen generated by other processes) will be one of the most valuable resources. The power supply could be provided at first from methane/oxygen fueled generators, supplied by rather simple production facilities that have already been demonstrated, but this fuel might be better used for rockets and other vehicles. Mars soil is rich in silicon, which can later be used to produce solar panels, but that would come much later. Some areas of the planet are also young enough to be useful for geothermal power, but that also will be a resource that will take time to develop. I think the most useful power source for founding the colony would be a nuclear reactor. (However, just imagine the environmental lobby's reaction as soon as you mention you want to shoot a reactor into space... yeesh). Once you have sufficient water and power, you can begin to use native resources to expand the colony. With water and soil, you can create bricks to build structures. Dig a trench, line it with bricks, vault it over, and pile dirt on it, and you've got a structure that you can pressurize with breathable air, and will even be self sealing if leaks develop. Any air leaking out will contain moisture, which would freeze in the soil, sealing the leak. Food is another early concern. Large supplies of food will need to be imported early on. As materials are shipped, or become available from native sources, domes could be constructed, and pressurized for growing food crops. Importation of livestock, and methods of raising them, would be problematical at first. Meat could be shipped in from Earth, but I believe that the first colonists would need to get used to a very highly plant based diet.

Economic incentive? That's where the plan falls apart. It'll be quite a long time before the colony is able to show a profit. That's the main reason I doubt that any private company will get into the game anytime soon. However, if the colony could be established and maintained, new technologies for travel to and from will be developed, possibly making transportation prices drop significantly. Eventually, products that once needed to be imported will be replaced by local production. But it will be a long time.

[UnderseaLcpl]

@TLAM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(1998_film

I was sure everyone would get the reference.:cry: Aerosmith did the theme song for "Armageddon", and while the song was a hit, the movie sucked, hence "making the mission all but pointless".

[TLAM Strike]

@TLAM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(1998_film (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_%281998_film)

I was sure everyone would get the reference.:cry: Aerosmith did the theme song for "Armageddon", and while the song was a hit, the movie sucked, hence "making the mission all but pointless".

You know I had forced that horrid movie out of my brain along with Star Trek V! Thanks for making me remember! :damn:

Its late, I would have gotten the joke eventually. :O:

[razark]

This topic keeps coming up as "Justification" Despite massive job loss environmental disasters and other priorities that would better served by the TRILLIONs of dollars needed to do a serious mars colony.

Why do I say trillions? Lets just talk about a few of the things that we would HAVE to develop.
Why do we HAVE to develop these technologies? We could go to Mars, and begin colonizing with today's technology. While I agree it would be horribly expensive, I don't see that any new tech is needed to begin, or even carry out the process.

Doubt we would go to Mars for mining, Asteroids are better sources of rare ores, talking up to tens of trillions of $ per asteroid here.
While asteroids are a good source of ores, we don't know exactly what might be available on Mars. In addition, any resources on Mars have the benefit of not having been ravaged for thousands of years.

[TLAM Strike]

While asteroids are a good source of ores, we don't know exactly what might be available on Mars. In addition, any resources on Mars have the benefit of not having been ravaged for thousands of years.
Ravaging of billions (not thousands unless you are a Jesus riding a dinosaur christian.:03:) of year of ionizing radiation from the sun simply means more exotic elements (the fun stuff at the bottom of the Periodic Table) are likely to form. Exotic is valuable.

[razark]

Ravaging of billions (not thousands unless you are a Jesus riding a dinosaur christian.:03:) of year of ionizing radiation from the sun simply means more exotic elements (the fun stuff at the bottom of the Periodic Table) are likely to form. Exotic is valuable.
I was referring to thousands of years of human civilization ravaging the useful, easily obtainable bits of metals and such. Mars, having been a wet planet, is speculated as likely to form many of the same ores as Earth. And they haven't been picked up and dug out and stuck in someone's pockets yet.

Deuterium, I believe, is also supposed to more plentiful on Mars. Useful for fusion, if we ever get that working.

[August]

Ravaging of billions (not thousands unless you are a Jesus riding a dinosaur christian.:03:) of year of ionizing radiation from the sun simply means more exotic elements (the fun stuff at the bottom of the Periodic Table) are likely to form. Exotic is valuable.

But exotic is valuable mainly because it is rare. What does the infusion of another complete planets worth of exotic elements do to their value?

[TLAM Strike]

I was referring to thousands of years of human civilization ravaging the useful, easily obtainable bits of metals and such. Mars, having been a wet planet, is speculated as likely to form many of the same ores as Earth. And they haven't been picked up and dug out and stuck in someone's pockets yet.

Deuterium, I believe, is also supposed to more plentiful on Mars. Useful for fusion, if we ever get that working. Deuterium and He3 are even more plentiful on Saturn and Uranus (insert joke here). Mars is just a way station to that rich region.

But exotic is valuable mainly because it is rare. What does the infusion of another complete planets worth of exotic elements do to their value? Makes expensive high tech things get cheap. There is a huge amount of gold and titanium in the space shuttle. What would happen if it became as cheap and plentiful as silicon? Mass production of spacecraft and space stations.

Value can mean many things, not just that something has monetary value.

[Zachstar]

You HAVE to develop those technologies for the colony to have even the SLIGHTEST hope of being self sustaining.

People really have no idea what an advantage having breathable air and easily accessed water is. Have no idea how much it costs to send even simple probes to mars much less many ton modules. Have no idea how much energy it takes to mine even high quality ore. etc. etc..

Why do I mention Algae for instance? NASA loves to show their hydroponics and all that Jazz but if you look at how much real life farmland it takes to feed a single person every year you quickly realize how silly it is. Sure some needs to be grown such as herbs medical use plants and some foodstuffs but history has shown us that disaster can come out of nowhere. There is no escaping a potato blight on mars. A major crop disease could mean collapse of economy due to how workforce is affected. Algae technology tho grows a GREAT amount of food in a single day without genetically altering it. What is needed is to be able to transform that algae into something reasonable to eat. That will take a bunch of time and money. But the risk of failure due to the food failure is too great otherwise.

Do it today? Sure put the entire world on the project somehow stop discrimination and corruption and politics overnight and at the same time convince the populace that all entitlement and social services and 75 percent of the military is going to mars instead. I'm being serious.

[razark]

Deuterium and He3 are even more plentiful on Saturn and Uranus (insert joke here). Mars is just a way station to that rich region.
Except that Mars is the one we can reach now, with what we have today.

Besides, Saturn and Uranus are just a fuel stop on the way out of the solar system.

[Zachstar]

But exotic is valuable mainly because it is rare. What does the infusion of another complete planets worth of exotic elements do to their value?

As TLAM said a new market develops. Iron is extremely valuable even tho it is not rare. It has allowed civilization to go into the next stage.

When a previously hard to extract metal becomes easier through development and technology a new age usually develops.

[thorn69]

One lucky man and a long line of women could populate Mars!

[Zachstar]

Except that Mars is the one we can reach now, with what we have today.

Besides, Saturn and Uranus are just a fuel stop on the way out of the solar system.

As far as He3 the moon is obviously the first stop. Tho He3 fusion will not be economically viable for a great deal of time anyway. Why would you develop all that infrastructure to get a small bit of advantage in the reaction when you can use PB11 and get boron from mines or the ocean?

[razark]

As far as He3 the moon is obviously the first stop. Tho He3 fusion will not be economically viable for a great deal of time anyway. Why would you develop all that infrastructure to get a small bit of advantage in the reaction when you can use PB11 and get boron from mines or the ocean?
Why wait for any of that, when we can use what we've got now?

Columbus would have made his voyages a lot faster if he had waited for someone to invent the steamship.

[Zachstar]

The interests that gave him the mission and the fleet did not have to really answer to the populace and was unlikely the majority would have even heard about it much less gotten a chance to comment to a newspaper or poll about it.

Today that is politically impossible. Even the few apollo missions got funded to "beat the russians" I highly doubt there are Russian or Chinese plans to colonize mars anytime soon and you wont be able to tell a mom her child gets to go without school budget and take classes packed more together in order to colonize mars much less remove social security. Welfare. Budget for law enforcement and fire and all medical and more.

[aergistal]

There was a nice sci-fi trilogy on the subject, The Red/Blue/Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, which had some not so sci-fi ideas.

For a moment I even considered doing my diploma project there as the sites are available on Google Mars :DL But I was concerned I might not get all the info on time.

[FIREWALL]

I just want a Halodeck and a good still. :yep:

[aergistal]

I just want a Halodeck and a good still. :yep:

What's a halodeck? Is it Microsoft's next gimmick dedicated to Halo players?

[Zachstar]

I just want a Halodeck and a good still. :yep:

Hard to have a holodeck if the economy dosent work.

[Dowly]

Someone should make horror a movie off a colony on another planet. Have like a big facility of somekind that slowly changes the atmosphere breathable. Maybe have some alien ship crashland on the planet and the colonists go investigate it an.. and... oh wait... GOD DAMN YOU JAMES CAMERON!! I COULD HAVE BEEN RICH! RIIIICH!! :damn:

[krashkart]

Someone should make horror a movie off a colony on another planet. Have like a big facility of somekind that slowly changes the atmosphere breathable. Maybe have some alien ship crashland on the planet and the colonists go investigate it an.. and... oh wait... GOD DAMN YOU JAMES CAMERON!! I COULD HAVE BEEN RICH! RIIIICH!! :damn:

:rotfl2:

[Oberon]

Thread music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39M5UpUzCoM

I hope I see the first men or women (or both) on Mars in my lifetime although I suspect that they will be Chinese.

Then, I'll just wait to see if they get Heat Rayed or not... :haha:


In all seriousness though, I don't hold out much hope for space programs in the west for the next two or three decades. The current economic climate and the focus towards climate change means that anything outside of the planet takes a back seat. Look at the shuttle program for example.

Such a shame, but I guess it makes a bit of sense for humanity to try and solve its problems on one planet before it starts messing with another, lest we become a race of space locusts, wrecking one planet after another in an attempt to keep our civilisation alive.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Such a shame, but I guess it makes a bit of sense for humanity to try and solve its problems on one planet before it starts messing with another, lest we become a race of space locusts, wrecking one planet after another in an attempt to keep our civilisation alive.

Yeah, maybe we'll find some blue cat-people and bulldoze their trees to get their unobtainium:O::DL

No need to worry, Oberon. It is highly unlikely that people will ever manage to destroy this planet, let alone another one. IMO, most people have skewed perception of just how these things work, generally because they buy into alarmist environmental arguments that often have very little to do with the environment. Know what I mean?

[Oberon]

Yeah, maybe we'll find some blue cat-people and bulldoze their trees to get their unobtainium:O::DL

No need to worry, Oberon. It is highly unlikely that people will ever manage to destroy this planet, let alone another one. IMO, most people have skewed perception of just how these things work, generally because they buy into alarmist environmental arguments that often have very little to do with the environment. Know what I mean?

"You ain't in Kansas anymaar..."

Yeah, I'm with Carling, it's impossible to kill this planet, well certainly at our primitive level of technology, but we can certainly make our lives on it uncomfortable...well, for some people anyway.
I'm more concerned about resource shortages than I am climate change if I'm honest, but there's not a great deal one can do about it, not as a singular being and certainly not in the planets fractured socio-political state.
I often do ponder how mankind would face a large scale hostile extraterrestrial event, be it an asteroid or an alien. Would the planets governments band together to try to combat it or would they all just work to further their own objectives. Sometimes mankind can be so brilliant...and yet at other times it can be so dumb. :damn:

[TLAM Strike]

...It is highly unlikely that people will ever manage to destroy this planet, let alone another one.

One of my favorite SG:A bits.

Col. Shepperd: What are you working on anyway?
Col. Shepperd: You'll be surprised to hear that removing a planet from the database is actually a lot of work.
Col. Shepperd: I thought you'd be pretty good at that by now.
Dr. Mckay: You just can't resist bringing up the fact that I once accidentally destroyed a couple of planets, can you?
Col. Shepperd: It was an entire solar system.
Dr. Mckay: You want to do the honors?
Col. Shepperd: No, you go ahead.
Dr. Mckay: All right, M7R-227, you were a constant pain in the ass. It's good to see you go.
>Mckay presses button and planet vanishes<
Col. Shepperd: If only it was that easy in real life.
Dr. Mckay: Area 51 is working on it.

[UnderseaLcpl]

"You ain't in Kansas anymaar..."

Yeah, I'm with Carling, it's impossible to kill this planet, well certainly at our primitive level of technology, but we can certainly make our lives on it uncomfortable...well, for some people anyway. People make their lives uncomfortable for themselves, nothing we can do about that. The poorest, most wretched nations in the world are the way they are because they just refuse to trade freely. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Some nations want to trade freely but Western nations keep them out with tariffs and quotas. We should definitely do something about that.


I'm more concerned about resource shortages than I am climate change if I'm honest, but there's not a great deal one can do about it, not as a singular being and certainly not in the planets fractured socio-political state. Define "fractured". I'm of the firm belief that order generated without design will far outstrip the plans that men consciously contrive. I think it's great that there are billions of individuals on this planet with different beliefs and needs and wants and ideologies, so long as they don't try to force them upon others. Our differences are what make us so successful. We trade and commune and work because of our differences. Where we are permitted, a million of us working to accomplish seperate ends can build a society in a matter of days. Where we are not permitted, a million of us working together can build a dam or something, in like, 5 years. Ask Western China.

I often do ponder how mankind would face a large scale hostile extraterrestrial event, be it an asteroid or an alien. Would the planets governments band together to try to combat it or would they all just work to further their own objectives. Sometimes mankind can be so brilliant...and yet at other times it can be so dumb. :damn:
I think you already know the answer to that. Nothing unites people like an external threat. In the case of a hostile extraterrestrial event, you can bet that the whole planet would be out for alien blood.

One of my favorite SG:A bits.
What's SG:A? Stargate.. something? I'm not current on any sci-fi shows other than Firefly.



edit- Thanks krashkart! Now I just need to go find out what Stargate has to do with Atlantis. I hope it has submarines:)

[krashkart]

What's SG:A? Stargate.. something? I'm not current on any sci-fi shows other than Firefly.


Stargate Atlantis

[TLAM Strike]

What's SG:A? Stargate.. something? I'm not current on any sci-fi shows other than Firefly.
So the Lcpl is a Browncoat! All your Libertarian ranting suddenly makes sense...

Oh yea
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6582/29188343099627e83d6f.jpg

For Firefly.

...I'm a Jayne Hat wearing Browncoat too! ;)



Now I just need to go find out what Stargate has to do with Atlantis. I hope it has submarines:)Check out Episode 214 "Grace Under Pressure" and 318 "Submersion".

[UnderseaLcpl]

So the Lcpl is a Browncoat! All your Libertarian ranting suddenly makes sense...

Oh yea
Oh yeah!:yeah:
Steve got me started on it, now I can't stop watching it over and over. And over. :DL






Check out Episode 214 "Grace Under Pressure" and 318 "Submersion".
I'll see if I can't find it on hulu after I get done moving. Man, I hate moving.:x

[TLAM Strike]

Oh yeah!:yeah:
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/3373/twirkoolaid.jpg
OH YEAH!!

Damn it now look what we did... :doh:

Great going there Lcpl... :O:

[Skybird]

My image of Mars was seriously influenced by this book that I read as a small boy of 12 years, or 13:

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/7262/bojeweltraumpeterdubina.jpg (http://img693.imageshack.us/i/bojeweltraumpeterdubina.jpg/)

Robots! Many robots! Laser beams! Jungles of meat-eating tentacle swinging plants! Ghost towns full of computers! One man all alone! Pure Magic for a boy of that age. I read it in one rush (like most books at that time), and could not sleep for two nights, for i was so excited and my imagination ran amok.

Ray Bradbury writing about a boy who has read this book - that would be something!

[Oberon]

People make their lives uncomfortable for themselves, nothing we can do about that. The poorest, most wretched nations in the world are the way they are because they just refuse to trade freely. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Some nations want to trade freely but Western nations keep them out with tariffs and quotas. We should definitely do something about that.

True, true, I cannot deny this, there are certainly quite a few nations out there who are pretty good at shooting themselves in the foot, Zimbabwe and the DPRK come immediately to mind. Likewise there are some who would do more if they had more to do it with, sorting the wheat from the chaff is the foreign aid departments job and I'm glad its not mine. Of course, there is the risk that nations will come to exist wholly on foreign aid and never walk on their own two feet, I think this is another problem which is prevalent in some countries, particularly in Africa.
However, one problem which keeps cropping up in my mind is the birth rates and death rates and the widening gap between the two. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely to have your friends and family around for longer (in most cases) however at the same time there is an extra burden on resources, particularly in an aging population as Europe is finding out now. So, that takes resources from other areas and puts it into caring for the elderly, and that's good...but then you've got to encourage people to have babies to your population growth from going negative (and your tax income with it) so you've got to put more resources into child care...because you need your parents to keep working to keep the economy going, so that's more resources in...and that's just things like financial and work hours. When you factor in food supplies and water supplies as well, then things start getting a bit tighter.
What do I think it will mean? Well...quite simply the richer nations will continue on as normal but with higher food prices and the poorer nations will have mass famines. So, not much change there.
Then of course, there's the possibility of Peak Oil...I don't know precisely where to stand on that, but it's going to run out at some point, and that won't be such a great time if we haven't developed alternatives to an extent that they can be phased in as crude oil is phased out.


Define "fractured". I'm of the firm belief that order generated without design will far outstrip the plans that men consciously contrive. I think it's great that there are billions of individuals on this planet with different beliefs and needs and wants and ideologies, so long as they don't try to force them upon others. Our differences are what make us so successful. We trade and commune and work because of our differences. Where we are permitted, a million of us working to accomplish seperate ends can build a society in a matter of days. Where we are not permitted, a million of us working together can build a dam or something, in like, 5 years. Ask Western China.

Our differences make us so successful and also what make us so conflicted. Of course, this is inevitable on a planet where the fittest survive at the expense of the unfit, however it can also slow things down in bureaucracy and it can lead to corruption due to each man trying to profit himself over others.

I'm no communist, I used to be quite left, but I'm more central now because I've seen how communism falls apart when exposed to reality, but some parts of intense competition is damaging whilst the others are indeed beneficial.


I think you already know the answer to that. Nothing unites people like an external threat. In the case of a hostile extraterrestrial event, you can bet that the whole planet would be out for alien blood.

True...although if they were smart enough they'd play us off against each other.


What's SG:A? Stargate.. something? I'm not current on any sci-fi shows other than Firefly.

I'll be in my bunk.



I...I started so well in typing this but it's kind of faltered out. I blame the weather...too friggin hot for this islander, where's that fabled British rain gone? :damn: But I do see where you're coming from UnderseaLcpl, but you cannot deny that mankind can be very shortsighted...but thankfully, hopefully, now we can see a change with people thinking more about their actions and how they will effect their children, be it economically or be it environmentally.

[Oberon]

My image of Mars was seriously influenced by this book that I read as a small boy of 12 years, or 13:

Robots! Many robots! Laser beams! Jungles of meat-eating tentacle swinging plants! Ghost towns full of computers! One man all alone! Pure Magic for a boy of that age. I read it in one rush (like most books at that time), and could not sleep for two nights, for i was so excited and my imagination ran amok.

Ray Bradbury writing about a boy who has read this book - that would be something!

Awesome, that was about the age I was when I read War of the Worlds. Still one of my favourite books. :yep:

[MH]

I guess that if there was same motivation in NASA now as it was in 60s and 70s humanity could reach Mars and beyond.
As for now there is no will and money for space programs.

As a SF fun -i kind of hoped we would live in more exiting age for space exploration.

Who cares about some rocks in space.
No life no votes.

[Skybird]

Awesome, that was about the age I was when I read War of the Worlds. Still one of my favourite books. :yep:
"Boje Weltraum-Abenteuer", a series of eight books from a publisher of youth books - true classics of youth literature in Germany, and German science fiction. Mark Brandis also is such a classic series, aiming at teenagers and younger adults. It is popular until today, although the series is from the late 70s and 80s.

German readers, heads up! the Mark Brandis books, all 30+, are in the process of getting republished since some time, the first half of the series is already available again! I have bought and read "Bordbuch Delta VII" some months ago - that was great fun and brought back many memories! they also have turned the books into radioplays of accustically absolutely outstanding quality - the scenery sounds like you used to know it from movies.

http://62.75.219.232/ernstwurdack-s34h13-Mark-Brandis.html?sid=8807df95a43ec1d49388cfbae9b6f6f9

[August]

This is the series that turned me on to Mars as a kid:

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n4280.jpg

[Sailor Steve]

I didn't really get into Burroughs until I was a teenager, and not the John Carter series until my twenties. When I read the part where Barsoomian women lay eggs I thought "How cool - the never lose their figures!"

But then I was married to a woman who had two kids the human way and didn't change a bit.

[Platapus]

First we must find the atmosphereum.


"Amish Terrarium. Must find Amish terrarium" :D

(one of my favourite movies) :yeah:

[TLAM Strike]

Such a shame, but I guess it makes a bit of sense for humanity to try and solve its problems on one planet before it starts messing with another, lest we become a race of space locusts, wrecking one planet after another in an attempt to keep our civilisation alive.

I have to disagree with you on this Oberon. If its true that entropy is going to slowly destroy the universe then I think we should go out and consume as much resources as possible and "empire build". Spread, propagate and consume because somewhere in a vast Human Empire someone might discover a way out and we might have the resources to accomplish it.

Every planet we colonize or space habitat we build is like a mini-"Foundation" dedicated to this effort.

:salute:

[Skybird]

I think we will have deleted ourselves long before the term "space colony" and "stellar empire" could start to make sense for us. "Stellar sailors" we want to see ourselves as? Right now we are not more than a kid on the beach, throwing little stones at the waves, and running away when they roll up the beach, frightened.

And before entropy - if it turns out to bbe true - ever could make a difference for mankind's ongoing existence in this universe, many billion more years must go by. To make entropy an argument why we should embark on conquering space, is a bit far fetched, for my taste.

the truth is much more profane, I fear: we have depleted out ressources in reach of us long before we could even be dreaming of colonizing otger pkanets to a degree that it would a difference for the evolutionary path of mankind. Our technological and high civilisation will fall, leaving future generations to live on the level of small tribes living by the ways of hunters and gatherers again.

Actually, it might even be a good thing for life on Earth if we do not start to pump ressources from other stellar objects into the system of earth'S planetosphere. it would change balances between substances and chemical agtns to a degree beyond that level that would be possible if we only deal with what is available to us on this planet. And if we even cannot reach a consenus on how our current modern messing-ups of the biosphere and ecosphere is creating what effect for Earth, and if we even cannot reliably calculate the longterm consequences of our modern playing around with the elem,nts of the pplanetosphere we already hav ein reach right here on Earth - how much more unable must we be to reliably forsee how it could change Earth's fate if we start to bring even more for example carbon from extraterrestrial sources into the internal Earth-based cycle of chemical interaction. - Not that we are close to being able to industrially exploit ressources on the moon in large scale.

Optimism is one thing. Fantasizing is a different one. and this talking of space colonization and stellar empires and industrial exploitation of foreign stellar objects, to me is currently just - nothing. We even cannot reliably opertae a simple space sation without running into problems time and again, a space station that is not even a space staion becasue it is still embedde din the upper layers of earth's atmopshere.

That far out into space we reach with our "space travelling" ...! :DL

And it is very liekly, that even in a most optimal future setting, we wpuld not reach out into space purselves, but send robots and probe droids, or discover other forms of travelling, via mind and spirit and mental projection or whatever.

Many cosmologists, btw, expect that if there are any civilisations out there running space travel programs successfully, will be civilisation that have left any animalistic, biology-dependant staes of life behind, and will be - as we would see it - robot civilisations, by that defeating the monumental problems of time and ageing when travelling huge distances like between stars, and alos deleting the high vuolnerability of biologic life to chnages in the enviuronmentl variables. maybe higher biologic life forms simply are not robut eniough to enable them for long-lasting space travels that would be needed to run space travels and empires indeed.

I also want to remind you that plkanet Eaerth is located in those 10% of our galaxy that is the youngest 10% of this galaxy alltpgether - 90% of the space and in this galaxy is millions of years older than the 10% we are embedded in. That means that we must expect most intelligent life out there to be eons older than we are, and thus being of higher developement levels and knowldge and ability, than we are. the difference probably is such that not only "their" abilities wopuld appear like magic to us - mor elieklöy is that we would not even be capable to recignise these higher intellegnes as what they are: higher intelligent life forms (like the ant does not realise the intellkictual superiority of man).

If somebody thinks we men from planet Terra could storm into space and make our way into this galaxy's history with flying banners and sounding fanfares, then this is most probably not matching reality. we more likely compare to this galaxy's junior class in kindergarten, and maybe we have been put under quarantine because we promise to annoy the adults with our noise and trouble-making.

[Platapus]

"Human thought is so primitive it's looked upon as an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies. That kind of makes you proud, doesn't it? huh?"

:yeah:

[TLAM Strike]

I think we will have deleted ourselves long before the term "space colony" and "stellar empire" could start to make sense for us. "Stellar sailors" we want to see ourselves as? Right now we are not more than a kid on the beach, throwing little stones at the waves, and running away when they roll up the beach, frightened. People traveled the Pacific in canoes and colonized Australia and many islands. The primitive slow boat approach has the advantage of being less noticeable to other civilizations and that by the time it arives at its destination any civilization there has died out.

Actually, it might even be a good thing for life on Earth if we do not start to pump ressources from other stellar objects into the system of earth'S planetosphere. it would change balances between substances and chemical agtns to a degree beyond that level that would be possible if we only deal with what is available to us on this planet. And if we even cannot reach a consenus on how our current modern messing-ups of the biosphere and ecosphere is creating what effect for Earth, and if we even cannot reliably calculate the longterm consequences of our modern playing around with the elem,nts of the pplanetosphere we already hav ein reach right here on Earth - how much more unable must we be to reliably forsee how it could change Earth's fate if we start to bring even more for example carbon from extraterrestrial sources into the internal Earth-based cycle of chemical interaction. - Not that we are close to being able to industrially exploit ressources on the moon in large scale. Millions of tons of extraterrestrial material fall on the Earth every day. Its believed that the early amino acids the joined together to form the first string of protein and then on to be the first life on Earth were brought here on comets.

Optimism is one thing. Fantasizing is a different one. and this talking of space colonization and stellar empires and industrial exploitation of foreign stellar objects, to me is currently just - nothing. We even cannot reliably opertae a simple space sation without running into problems time and again, a space station that is not even a space staion becasue it is still embedde din the upper layers of earth's atmopshere. What we got running and what we are capable of are two different things. If politics had not killed Project Orion the solar system would be ours.

And it is very liekly, that even in a most optimal future setting, we wpuld not reach out into space purselves, but send robots and probe droids, or discover other forms of travelling, via mind and spirit and mental projection or whatever. I agree with using robot probes (especially Von Neumann Probes) to explore and colonize space. When we arrive at that level of technological advance (its really not that far away) there is nothing preventing the designers of such probes from using them to seed human life on the worlds they visit.

Many cosmologists, btw, expect that if there are any civilisations out there running space travel programs successfully, will be civilisation that have left any animalistic, biology-dependant staes of life behind, and will be - as we would see it - robot civilisations, by that defeating the monumental problems of time and ageing when travelling huge distances like between stars, and alos deleting the high vuolnerability of biologic life to chnages in the enviuronmentl variables. maybe higher biologic life forms simply are not robut eniough to enable them for long-lasting space travels that would be needed to run space travels and empires indeed.

I also want to remind you that plkanet Eaerth is located in those 10% of our galaxy that is the youngest 10% of this galaxy alltpgether - 90% of the space and in this galaxy is millions of years older than the 10% we are embedded in. That means that we must expect most intelligent life out there to be eons older than we are, and thus being of higher developement levels and knowldge and ability, than we are. the difference probably is such that not only "their" abilities wopuld appear like magic to us - mor elieklöy is that we would not even be capable to recignise these higher intellegnes as what they are: higher intelligent life forms (like the ant does not realise the intellkictual superiority of man). And its also possible that those civilization have long since died out. The lack of signals and visible signs of (highly advanced) life in the MW tend to support this.

If somebody thinks we men from planet Terra could storm into space and make our way into this galaxy's history with flying banners and sounding fanfares, then this is most probably not matching reality. we more likely compare to this galaxy's junior class in kindergarten, and maybe we have been put under quarantine because we promise to annoy the adults with our noise and trouble-making. Then again we could be like a virus, once we escape confinement we slowly consume the host and spread until all is consumed, then we go dormant- like Spanish Flu.

[Oberon]

"The problem is, of course, the Humans, they have developed primitive intelligence, yet their society is structured around perpetual conquest and conflict..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMsJqYwvkY8

[Skybird]

People traveled the Pacific in canoes and colonized Australia and many islands. The primitive slow boat approach has the advantage of being less noticeable to other civilizations and that by the time it arives at its destination any civilization there has died out.

This is the kind of ocean our canoes deal with now:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9266/image1nu.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/i/image1nu.jpg/)

If this is the new ocean you want to paddle on with new engines, than the Pacific witht hose canoes was a spoon with some drops of water. It doesn't compare in any way. All our thought-about future spacecraft engines trying to cover these distances make the canoes in the pacific look like Ferraris sprinting in 1 second to a finsihing line just 40m away.


Millions of tons of extraterrestrial material fall on the Earth every day. Its believed that the early amino acids the joined together to form the first string of protein and then on to be the first life on Earth were brought here on comets.

Stellar matter reaches earth in form of dust particles caught by Earth'S gravitation, and some meteorites that reaches deep enough i nto the atmosphere that afetr their burning to gas this gas cannot escape again the atmosphere/gravitation field of the planet. But that does not make "millions of tons per day".

How damaging a coincentraded massing of any agent or substance can be, you see in the disucssion about the dangers of methan-hydrate now thawing. All that stuff once was dissolved in the Earth's ocean and atmosphere - and has almost killed all life there was.


What we got running and what we are capable of are two different things. If politics had not killed Project Orion the solar system would be ours.

Our cultural thinking focusses around a money-driven system, and currently I do not see us abandoning that. So, money is a reality-defininf varoiable for us. So is our political system. But even if these things would be oragnised most optimally,I absolutely doubt that ther solar system then would be ours.Not with a technolcogy that is not intellogent in itself, is as vulnerable as it currently is, and has no ability to maintain and repair itself, autonomously (?), reacting to unforseen events with creative decision-making, etc. there is not one day without malfunctions in the ISS, and each time you take a flight over the atlantic remind yourself of that the many hundred processors they have in the cockpit produce between 60 and 400 malfunctions in those eight hours - fortunately most of them are so harmless that they do not even get nocitced by the pilots.

Wanna ride to Saturn with such a technology? I wouldn'T. Even Mars already is a high risk mission.


I agree with using robot probes (especially Von Neumann Probes) to explore and colonize space. When we arrive at that level of technological advance (its really not that far away) there is nothing preventing the designers of such probes from using them to seed human life on the worlds they visit.
And why should people on Earth need to want that? also, to support a colony of modern people that you somehow manage to get there, you would need a tremendous ammount of material, goods and tziems transported there. Or you are about transporting just the genetical blueprint, or frozen eggs and sperm cells at best, and release them into a foreign environment. Then you would need a tehcnology being intelligent and creative and autonomous to support these germs once you released them.

If it is an alien environment already carrying some kind of life, think about the invasion of foreign spoecies do in the shifting living habitats right here on earth. It often leads to pushing back and extinction of the once regional species by the new arriving ones. But in our case discussed here, it is most likely that those germs you are about to send there, simply would not survive.

Not to mention the eons the trip itself would take, and the many accidents and collisions that necessarily would mean.


And its also possible that those civilization have long since died out. The lack of signals and visible signs of (highly advanced) life in the MW tend to support this.
that is just antropomorphic self-reference - we would do something like we do, so we expect others to act in the same way. This ignored the meaning of this word in our language: alien. however, on the civilisations extincted, that is the full argument behind cosmologists arguing that most civilisation out there would be robot civilisations: they either have taken over from their biologic creators by killing them, or, and that is the real argument, these creators have designed their teczhnology to take over and transport theirn own intelligence, and who knows: maybe even their mind, deleting the need for vulnerable biological carriers of their "life".

The absence of signlas is somethign we cannot even speculate about. We hagve in no way any information that would enable us to make conclusions, to assume for inentional silence, or absence of any sender. We know nothing, and our behavior and desire and our technology hardly is the standard to which the rest of the universe must compare.

Maybe there is lots of communication going on - and we just do not have the means to perceive it or to recognise it as such.The biggest, most convincing argument against us contacting superior civilisations ist this: that every intelligence is capable only to perceive another intelligence that is relatively close to it's own intelligence level. We cannot reocgnise an intelloigence as such if it is too primitive - or too superior. It simply is beyond our perception range, appears to us as just nothing, or a chaos of signals whose order and nature we cannot recognize due to their superior structure, or as coincidences, or magic events which due to their magical nature we consider to be hallucinations. That ant under your show does not know about you thinking to step on it or not, for this ant it you do not even exist, and the signs of your intelligent life and culture and civilisation and examination of ants is beyiond it's recognition level. Some superintelligence out there could as well have not recongised our presence, or it has decided that we are too uninzeresting and unimportant in this huge universe as if it would see a need to deal with us. Becasue this also is problem for us: we cannot make the smallest of staements regarding a foreign intelligence'S motivations and goals. maybe it even considers our destruction right now - not because it is hostile to us, but because it cares as much for us as we care for that heap of dirt on the shovel that we push aside in order to flatten the ground for that new gardenway of ours - or that new radiotelescope we are about to construct.

This is right the reason why many prominent scientists, including stephen Hawking, have started to recommend that maybe we should not be so arrogant and eager to always send signlas into space in an attempt to make others aware of that we are here. We do not know about their nature and intentions, and cannot know it. Maybe it would be more clever to stay in hiding and observe with passive means what is - or is not - going on. Our own history tells us that almost every time when a superior civilisation meets an inferior, the first have crushed and destroyed the latter one. If others are like we are in this regard, our own nature and history should be a warning to us. Thewir morals may be different, if they even have any, and those robot civilisdations maybe are creative and clever and superintelloigent - but who said that they have emotions and sentiments at all, like we define them?

Then again we could be like a virus, once we escape confinement we slowly consume the host and spread until all is consumed, then we go dormant- like Spanish Flu.

And must we even want to be like that - a plague for the rest of this galaxy? maybe others are very well aware of our presence - and thus have decided to isolate us and not to answer to our signals - right because the reason you mentioned? And "ecaping confinement", you said, implying an idea of conflict, violently breaking through a barrier, hostility, invasion. That is typical for human civilisations. And maybe that is why we are not wanted out there.

And where we are not wanted, we can be stopped and crushed, if needed. Of this we better should be sure. Because we belong to the babyclass of civilisations in this galaxy, and we are babies playing with daddy's explosives and mines in the armoury.

We can consider ourselves lkucky if we manage to survive the coming one hundred years wiothout having blown ourselves up and without having ruined the ecosphere beyond a level where it can maintain higher life (in an understanding of lifeforms as to be met on earth).

[August]

Then again we could be like a virus, once we escape confinement we slowly consume the host and spread until all is consumed, then we go dormant- like Spanish Flu.

I like the way you think TLAM! It's always good to have a positive attitude. :D

[TLAM Strike]

This is the kind of ocean our canoes deal with now:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9266/image1nu.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/i/image1nu.jpg/)

If this is the new ocean you want to paddle on with new engines, than the Pacific witht hose canoes was a spoon with some drops of water. It doesn't compare in any way. All our thought-about future spacecraft engines trying to cover these distances make the canoes in the pacific look like Ferraris sprinting in 1 second to a finsihing line just 40m away.

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/3322/map6.gif (http://img693.imageshack.us/i/map6.gif/)

I got a map too! ;)

In a 300 ly area around Sol we have over 20 G type stars (Yellow main sequence starts like our own friendly neighborhood yellow dwarf).

With Orion (See Below) traveling at .1c This puts Alpha Centaruri with in reach (a 44 yr trip). However the theoritical maximum speed of an Orion could be up to .3c to .8c using 1g acceleration and sufficient bombs... err "units" (as NASA etc likes to call them now) to ride on. The most optimistic speed of .8c puts most of the galaxy in reach (perhaps most of the universe) although it would require the development of Anti-mater enhanced nuclear bombs. Even without; 44 years isn't that long.



Stellar matter reaches earth in form of dust particles caught by Earth'S gravitation, and some meteorites that reaches deep enough i nto the atmosphere that afetr their burning to gas this gas cannot escape again the atmosphere/gravitation field of the planet. But that does not make "millions of tons per day". Per day was a typo. Its about 1,000 tons per year (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/101_earth_facts_030722-1.html).

How damaging a coincentraded massing of any agent or substance can be, you see in the disucssion about the dangers of methan-hydrate now thawing. All that stuff once was dissolved in the Earth's ocean and atmosphere - and has almost killed all life there was. Simple solution: with an adequate space infrastructure in LEO we can decrease the amount of raw material we bring Earth side if there are factories and refineries up there. All that needs to be send down in manufactured goods and energy.

Sufficient space launch capabilities also brings solar shades in to the realm of possibility. Making planetary temperature control within our ability.



Our cultural thinking focusses around a money-driven system, and currently I do not see us abandoning that. So, money is a reality-defininf varoiable for us. So is our political system. But even if these things would be oragnised most optimally,I absolutely doubt that ther solar system then would be ours.Not with a technolcogy that is not intellogent in itself, is as vulnerable as it currently is, and has no ability to maintain and repair itself, autonomously (?), reacting to unforseen events with creative decision-making, etc. there is not one day without malfunctions in the ISS, and each time you take a flight over the atlantic remind yourself of that the many hundred processors they have in the cockpit produce between 60 and 400 malfunctions in those eight hours - fortunately most of them are so harmless that they do not even get nocitced by the pilots.

Wanna ride to Saturn with such a technology? I wouldn'T. Even Mars already is a high risk mission. Monetary systems? Not my point at all. I'm a pure scientist at heart, I don't care how its funded or what political system (within reason) I'm working for.

My point was since the 1960's nuclear pulse propulsion (Orion) has been feasible as a method of sending massive (1,000s of tons) in to orbit and on to its destination cheaply. An Orion equipped spacecraft would be capable of acceleration of up to (and possibly over) 4g in a 10,000 ton spacecraft with about 1,300 tons of payload. 4g accelration over a spacecraft's flight equals about Saturn in 3 months, Mars in about a week, and Luna in about the time it takes you to finish reading this post.

Yea malfunctions happens but as you said most are minor. Difference between an Orion and a 747 is that if its engines stop running it keeps moving and it has the payload to bring massive redundancies (Say an additional engine system and lifeboats the size of the ISS).




And why should people on Earth need to want that? also, to support a colony of modern people that you somehow manage to get there, you would need a tremendous ammount of material, goods and tziems transported there. Or you are about transporting just the genetical blueprint, or frozen eggs and sperm cells at best, and release them into a foreign environment. Then you would need a tehcnology being intelligent and creative and autonomous to support these germs once you released them. Any early interstellar colony would need to be self sustaining.

I see a verity of techniques (why stop at one? One may not be suitable for all situations).

(Obviously this ISN'T something we can do now- it would take 100s of years)

The 1st stage would be probes to locate suitable worlds for colonization.
The 2nd stage would be seed probes to introduce Earth microorganisms etc to the environment. (What environments they would be introduced in, I leave that up to the people of this time period, and their moral judgments.)
The 3rd stage would be the settlers, either on a generational ship (depending on distance) or artificially gestated.

If it is an alien environment already carrying some kind of life, think about the invasion of foreign spoecies do in the shifting living habitats right here on earth. It often leads to pushing back and extinction of the once regional species by the new arriving ones. But in our case discussed here, it is most likely that those germs you are about to send there, simply would not survive. Then again our germs maybe so virulent that they overwhelm the native life which has no defense against it. Or they are biologically incomparable and unable to consume the nutrients each other feeds off of.

Not to mention the eons the trip itself would take, and the many accidents and collisions that necessarily would mean. Eons? Depends on distance. See above about Orion.


that is just antropomorphic self-reference - we would do something like we do, so we expect others to act in the same way. This ignored the meaning of this word in our language: alien. however, on the civilisations extincted, that is the full argument behind cosmologists arguing that most civilisation out there would be robot civilisations: they either have taken over from their biologic creators by killing them, or, and that is the real argument, these creators have designed their teczhnology to take over and transport theirn own intelligence, and who knows: maybe even their mind, deleting the need for vulnerable biological carriers of their "life".

The absence of signlas is somethign we cannot even speculate about. We hagve in no way any information that would enable us to make conclusions, to assume for inentional silence, or absence of any sender. We know nothing, and our behavior and desire and our technology hardly is the standard to which the rest of the universe must compare.

Maybe there is lots of communication going on - and we just do not have the means to perceive it or to recognise it as such.The biggest, most convincing argument against us contacting superior civilisations ist this: that every intelligence is capable only to perceive another intelligence that is relatively close to it's own intelligence level. We cannot reocgnise an intelloigence as such if it is too primitive - or too superior. It simply is beyond our perception range, appears to us as just nothing, or a chaos of signals whose order and nature we cannot recognize due to their superior structure, or as coincidences, or magic events which due to their magical nature we consider to be hallucinations. That ant under your show does not know about you thinking to step on it or not, for this ant it you do not even exist, and the signs of your intelligent life and culture and civilisation and examination of ants is beyiond it's recognition level. Some superintelligence out there could as well have not recongised our presence, or it has decided that we are too uninzeresting and unimportant in this huge universe as if it would see a need to deal with us. Becasue this also is problem for us: we cannot make the smallest of staements regarding a foreign intelligence'S motivations and goals. maybe it even considers our destruction right now - not because it is hostile to us, but because it cares as much for us as we care for that heap of dirt on the shovel that we push aside in order to flatten the ground for that new gardenway of ours - or that new radiotelescope we are about to construct.

This is right the reason why many prominent scientists, including stephen Hawking, have started to recommend that maybe we should not be so arrogant and eager to always send signlas into space in an attempt to make others aware of that we are here. We do not know about their nature and intentions, and cannot know it. Maybe it would be more clever to stay in hiding and observe with passive means what is - or is not - going on. Our own history tells us that almost every time when a superior civilisation meets an inferior, the first have crushed and destroyed the latter one. If others are like we are in this regard, our own nature and history should be a warning to us. Thewir morals may be different, if they even have any, and those robot civilisdations maybe are creative and clever and superintelloigent - but who said that they have emotions and sentiments at all, like we define them? I shamelessly direct you to Projectrho's page on Alien life (http://projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html) for a discussion on the possibility of encountering alien life on a planet.

ProjectRho is a great source for anything related to future space exploration.

[krashkart]

^^ I wish someone would get Orion working for Orbiter again. :)

I'll be long dead before our species reaches the point where it can colonize other worlds, but for the record:

Nothing beats setting foot on unexplored terrain. :up:

Part of the human spirit is exploration; to see new lands with our own eyes and feel the soil under our boots. This is where I start having issues with space exploration today and the drive toward using autonomous landers -- I fear that it will become habitual and completely eliminate the need or desire to explore firsthand. That leads me to wonder, would the human spirit indeed be crushed by total dependence on machines?

I try to balance that with the notion that we must use landers to further our understanding before committing any jellyware (people) to the destination. It would be foolish and irresponsible to drop people off somewhere without first assessing what risks are present and whether the region can shelter life. I just don't want our future generations to rely solely upon machinery to do what a human can and should do. ;)

[TLAM Strike]

^^ I wish someone would get Orion working for Orbiter again. :) In the mean time you can build your own with some fire crackers and an aluminum can.

Its awesome seeing it fly above your house.


I try to balance that with the notion that we must use landers to further our understanding before committing any jellyware (people) to the destination. It would be foolish and irresponsible to drop people off somewhere without first assessing what risks are present and whether the region can shelter life.Hay it worked for James T. Kirk...
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9549/demotivationalpostersre.jpg

:O:

[krashkart]

In the mean time you can build your own with some fire crackers and an aluminum can.

Its awesome seeing it fly above your house.

Ah, the ol' firecracker inna can trick. :D Provided hours of fun when I was a twig. My youngest cousin (genius kid he is) has trumped me; he uses aluminum foil and [MAJIC EYES ONLY].



Hay it worked for James T. Kirk... :O:

True, true. :yep:

[TLAM Strike]

Ah, the ol' firecracker inna can trick. :D Provided hours of fun when I was a twig. My youngest cousin (genius kid he is) has trumped me; he uses aluminum foil and [MAJIC EYES ONLY].

:D

Guessing a compound based on Ammonia or Potassium? ;)

[krashkart]

:D

Guessing a compound based on Ammonia or Potassium? ;)

I'll have to ask the cousin next time I see him. :DL