[Winnipegger]

andyt andyt:

Learn to run economies on a sustainable basis.

The obvious question is what does "sustainable" mean? The guy in the presentation I linked uses the word "sustainable" in the traditional economic sense. He described "sustainable" as a large demographic of young people paying taxes to fund healthcare and pensions. One way to sustain that pattern is to kill off older people, like the 1976 movie "Logan's Run". I don't think we want to do that. With improving medical technology, more people are surviving into old age. Maintaining a "sustainable" demographic then creates a growing population. Many countries tried to address population growth, but that resulted in top-heavy demographic.

Another way of dealing with that is to increase retirement age. Before the Great Depression people worked until they couldn't, there was no mandatory retirement. The policy of mandatory retirement was to open jobs for young people. So increasing retirement age simply adjusts for realities of today's economy. Harper's Conservatives tried to do that with a small tweak. They introduced a bill to phase-in change of eligibility for CPP and OAS from age 65 to 67. But older people screamed, so Justin Trudeau's Liberals promised to change it back to age 65.

So then what? Continue rapid population growth to maintain the demographic pattern? That's where space comes in. Mars is another planet, more land to live. Metal asteroids are solid iron/nickel alloy, laced with gold, silver, platinum, and platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, osmium). Carbonaceous chondrite asteroids have ice and tar that can be processed to rocket fuel and volatiles needed to process metal asteroids. Actually, moving heavy industry off-world could allow us to reserve Earth as a garden planet.

Don't want to do that? Then what? John McCallum's solution is massive immigration.

[ShepherdsDog]

Your scenario won't be viable for a couple centuries......at the very least.

[raydan]

Thing is, worldwide economy is based on growth... no growth and the economy fails... and for growth, you need population increase. So who do you think is pushing for immigration, big biz of course.


Conflict is good for big business too.

[andyt]

raydan raydan:

Thing is, worldwide economy is based on growth... no growth and the economy fails... and for growth, you need population increase. So who do you think is pushing for immigration, big biz of course.


Conflict is good for big business too.

And we know that unlimited growth is impossible, so at some time we'll have to face up to an aging world population. Unless of course we reduce it thru war, pestilence or famine, of course. McCallum's solution is a temporary fix of course. But then temporary fixes is all politicians are capable of anyway.

[Winnipegger]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Your scenario won't be viable for a couple centuries......at the very least.

Did I mention? I'm the founder and president of the Winnipeg chapter of the Mars Society. The only chapter that's still active in Canada. I could give a long-winded lecture how to do it. Actually, unmanned asteroid mining and colonizing Mars are a couple decades away; not centuries.

But I did give a couple options. One is to promote more babies. That would take a couple decades before they start a job. I'm serious, the child benefit is supposed to promote that, but I fear it will cost a lot with no significant effect. What about parties that are *EXPECTED* to result in a pregnancy?

And Harper's option: what about raising retirement age just 2 years?

[Freakinoldguy]

If the Liberals and Mccallum are hell bent on substantially increasing immigration why don't they target the millions of Europeans who'd be happy to leave their paradises and emigrate to Canada.

The only trouble with that is, given their countries of origin and our gov't's need for UN approval in everything they do, these people likely wouldn't get through the front door.

[herbie]

$1:

Learn to run economies on a sustainable basis.

That's just too fucking hard.
So we'l label it leftist and dismiss it out of hand.

[Strutz]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Mars is another planet, more land to live. Metal asteroids are solid iron/nickel alloy, laced with gold, silver, platinum, and platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, osmium). Carbonaceous chondrite asteroids have ice and tar that can be processed to rocket fuel and volatiles needed to process metal asteroids. Actually, moving heavy industry off-world could allow us to reserve Earth as a garden planet.

But shipping costs of all these products would be rather high.

[martin14]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Rather than immigration, this is why both the Conservatives and Liberals introduced child benefits. It's intended to bribe people to have more babies. Don't think it's working, though. What else? Wild drinking parties with no condoms?

It isn't just money, it's how the kids can be raised.
Unless you reorganize the economy so that one spouse can create enough money to support
another spouse and children,child bennies will never really work.

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

They introduced a bill to phase-in change of eligibility for CPP and OAS from age 65 to 67. But older people screamed, so Justin Trudeau's Liberals promised to change it back to age 65.

Don't want to do that? Then what? John McCallum's solution is massive immigration.

Everyone in Europe has gone or will go to 67 very soon.
It's not just Canada facing this problem.

The Germans have put out a paper thinking about raising it to 73.


Changing the demographics of Canada by 1% per year is already way too much.
It's no surprise the Liberals want to accelerate the destruction.

[Winnipegger]

Strutz Strutz:

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Mars is another planet, more land to live. Metal asteroids are solid iron/nickel alloy, laced with gold, silver, platinum, and platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, osmium). Carbonaceous chondrite asteroids have ice and tar that can be processed to rocket fuel and volatiles needed to process metal asteroids. Actually, moving heavy industry off-world could allow us to reserve Earth as a garden planet.

But shipping costs of all these products would be rather high.

Trying to keep it short: A reusable unmanned cargo spaceship would carry precious metal bullion back to Earth. Nickel and chrome, some cobalt and molybdenum, and a tiny bit of aluminum and carbon, form an alloy called Inconel 617. Carbon monoxide is needed to extract/refine metals, CO2 would come from the carbonaceous chondrite asteroid. Metals would come from the metal asteroid, left-overs after extracting precious metals. Inconel 617 is an alloy NASA has identified as a metal heat shield. An aeroshell is a heat shield an back shell, each made with a 2 part mould. Fill the aeroshell with precious metal bullion, then weld the heat shield to back shell. A reusable unmanned spacecraft would carry the shell back to Earth, line up on a desert, then drop it. No parachute, no control rockets, just drop 3 metric tonnes of metal. When it crashes, a flat bed truck with truck crane will pick it up. Considering this is several tonnes of precious metal, you will probably want a helicopter with armed guards to protect it until the truck arrives.

[BRAH]

Translation Liberals are looking for new votes.

[Winnipegger]

BRAH BRAH:

Translation Liberals are looking for new votes.

My space interest is completely separate from Liberals. I spoke to one Liberal MP when Marc Garneau was president of the Canadian Space Agency, before he became a politician himself. I asked for funding for the project that Marc Garneau wanted. I had attended the 4th Canadian Space Exploration Workshop, where CSA asked industry and academia to work with them to set priorities for CSA for the next few years. Mr. Garneau described his project to the audience. But when I spoke with this MP, she reacted as if I was something that crawled out from under a rock.

[ShepherdsDog]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Strutz Strutz:

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Mars is another planet, more land to live. Metal asteroids are solid iron/nickel alloy, laced with gold, silver, platinum, and platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, osmium). Carbonaceous chondrite asteroids have ice and tar that can be processed to rocket fuel and volatiles needed to process metal asteroids. Actually, moving heavy industry off-world could allow us to reserve Earth as a garden planet.

But shipping costs of all these products would be rather high.

Trying to keep it short: A reusable unmanned cargo spaceship would carry precious metal bullion back to Earth. Nickel and chrome, some cobalt and molybdenum, and a tiny bit of aluminum and carbon, form an alloy called Inconel 617. Carbon monoxide is needed to extract/refine metals, CO2 would come from the carbonaceous chondrite asteroid. Metals would come from the metal asteroid, left-overs after extracting precious metals. Inconel 617 is an alloy NASA has identified as a metal heat shield. An aeroshell is a heat shield an back shell, each made with a 2 part mould. Fill the aeroshell with precious metal bullion, then weld the heat shield to back shell. A reusable unmanned spacecraft would carry the shell back to Earth, line up on a desert, then drop it. No parachute, no control rockets, just drop 3 metric tonnes of metal. When it crashes, a flat bed truck with truck crane will pick it up. Considering this is several tonnes of precious metal, you will probably want a helicopter with armed guards to protect it until the truck arrives.

We're going to have set up test operations on the continental shelf before we even think of colonizing or operating industrial operations in space. We're a couple centuries away from even small scale operations in interplanetary space. The first manned landing on Mars is decades away. The colonization....I stand by my realistic estimations.

[Winnipegger]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

We're going to have set up test operations on the continental shelf before we even think of colonizing or operating industrial operations in space. We're a couple centuries away from even small scale operations in interplanetary space. The first manned landing on Mars is decades away. The colonization....I stand by my realistic estimations.

What's up with "continental shelf"? That has nothing to do with space. Humans set foot on the Moon in 1969. Or do you think that was a hoax? In 1968 NASA promised a human mission to Mars would depart Earth for Mars in 1978. Didn't happen. On July 20, 1989, the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, president of the United States at the time, George H. W. Bush, announced "We will go to Mars!" And tried to make his speech sound like JFK's famous speech at Rice University. I don't think he pulled it off, but he did say Mars. NASA trundled off and came back 90 days later with a report called "The 90 Day Report". Ok, sometimes NASA has no imagination. This report called for everything under the Sun, with a price tag of $450 Billion! In 1989 dollars. Congress took one look at the price tag as said "You want what!?!?!" And that was the end of that. Then one contractor for NASA, Martin-Marietta, asked their engineers to come up with a mission plan that does what the president asked but with a price tag that's actually sane. They did. In June 1990 they presented to NASA a plan called "Mars Direct". It meant going directly to Mars, not the Moon and no space station. It would have worked. If that plan was implemented it would have resulted in humans on Mars in 1999. We've been ready that long.


Today, NASA could still go to Mars. And within NASA's current budget. It would require cancelling Orion. Keep the Dragon spacecraft by SpaceX, the CST-100 Starliner, and Dream Chaser by Sierra Nevada. That's 3 American spacecraft capable of carrying humans, no need for the ridiculously over expensive and heavy capsule called Orion. And it would also require giving up on the Moon. You could do both the Moon and Mars, but that would require more money. Doing it within NASA's current budget requires choosing just one destination.

But it looks like military contractors have their hand up the butt of American Congress. Military contractors treat NASA as a cash cow, they don't intend to actually accomplish anything. Allow "New Space" companies to take over and tell military contractors to take a long walk off a short pier? Not going to happen.

But space is quickly getting to a point that private industry can do it without NASA. That will happen soon, and they will make gobs of cash from space.

NASA's 1968 video, in which they promise a mission to Mars:


Book by one of the Martin-Marietta engineers, describing Mars Direct:

I could link the 2011 or 1997 editions of "The Case for Mars", the same plan by the same author.

[ShepherdsDog]

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