[Winnipegger]

[Canadian_Mind]

That's pretty neat. I cringed when they said the tech was hand-made in china, though.

[BartSimpson]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

That's pretty neat. I cringed when they said the tech was hand-made in china, though.

What? You don't think that 10-year-old Chinese kids deserve to have a job?

[andyt]

By the time earth is ready to go to Mars, probably not only will the equipment be built by Chinese, but the whole project will be run by Chinese. I mean we get such a good deal buying all our stuff from them, what could go wrong?

[Winnipegger]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

That's pretty neat. I cringed when they said the tech was hand-made in china, though.

Yea, I noticed that. I wonder, could you do it with different screens? They used displays the full height of bus windows, and 3 windows wide. Instead use displays one pane high, and one window wide. So 2 displays for each window: one top, the other bottom. As a repair technician, I have dismantled laptop LCD displays. They have a very thin glass display, with fluorescent lamp behind the full size of the display. The LCD is actually transparent. Could you take the display from a desktop monitor the size of a bus window pane, remove the back light, and do the same thing? It's delicate, requires a firm backing, if the back light is gone it will have to be sandwiched between a pair of panes of glass. It would mean a lot more displays, 6 times as many monitors. You would need several really good video cards. The YouTube video shows the bus going completely dark before the displays turn on, so the "switchable film" must be completely opaque. Is there something that becomes translucent instead? Instead of a fluorescent lamp back light, it would be illuminated by sunlight. The translucent film would become solid white so you don't see the outside through the image. A quick Google, "switchable film" is available on the market now. When I worked a Micropilot, I developed equipment to calibrate sensors for their miniature autopilot. It used solid stage accelerometers and solid state rate gyros. And that was 2003-2005.

[Winnipegger]

andyt andyt:

By the time earth is ready to go to Mars, probably not only will the equipment be built by Chinese, but the whole project will be run by Chinese. I mean we get such a good deal buying all our stuff from them, what could go wrong?

NASA has been able to go to Mars for a long time now. But "Old Space" contractors want to gouge NASA, and Congress doesn't want to pay that. They could go with NASA's current budget, but corporate executives don't want to go along with that. It might happen when "New Space" contractors like SpaceX get up to speed.

[stratos]

Seeing as how China is being the most ambitious nation right now in terms of space exploration they might be the ones to colonize mars. They are already planning a trip to the moon. With todays technologies I don't see us being that far from a Mars colony being a reality.

[Winnipegger]

How to...

On the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11, 20 July 1989, President Bush Sr. asked NASA to come up with a plan to send humans to Mars. NASA came back with everything under the sun: space station as big as ISS, permanent Moon base, and Mars. Price tag was $450 billion, in 1989 dollars. Congress took one look at the price and said no way in hell! Martin-Marietta asked their engineers to come up with a plan that's sane. It would just do what the president asked: send humans to Mars. Nothing else. Robert Zubrin was one of the engineers working for them at that time. They presented a plan to NASA in June 1990, price was $20 billion for the first mission plus $2 billion for each mission thereafter. Mars and Earth align once every 26 months, so that's one mission every 26 months. They could have sent a human to Mars in 1997 or 1999.

Now that Shuttle is cancelled, NASA is building a big rocket called SLS. They could go using that. But contractors are gouging NASA, and they're going slower than a snail. They could have gone in the 1990s. Since then Martin-Marietta merged with Lockheed, it's now Lockheed-Martin. So the company interested in controlling cost (so they could get a contract) doesn't exist any more.

Robert Zubrin published the mission plan. The first book is the 1996 hard cover edition, then 1997 soft cover, then 2011, then 2013.

[Freakinoldguy]

stratos stratos:

Seeing as how China is being the most ambitious nation right now in terms of space exploration they might be the ones to colonize mars. They are already planning a trip to the moon. With todays technologies I don't see us being that far from a Mars colony being a reality.

The bad news is that when they get there they'll probably find an NHL franchise.

[PluggyRug]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

stratos stratos:

Seeing as how China is being the most ambitious nation right now in terms of space exploration they might be the ones to colonize mars. They are already planning a trip to the moon. With todays technologies I don't see us being that far from a Mars colony being a reality.

The bad news is that when they get there they'll probably find an NHL franchise.

....occupying the tent next to a McDonald's and the Liberal party headquarters, we can't have those nasty conservatives running the show.