@diehardbrownsfan said:

Watch out, some of our members may actually think that is a real picture.

I blame Obama

@mr.-sensitive said:

To me its a welcome change, even if my ideas are cockneyed, from talking about how Obama will make us all slaves.

In that note, woody, what's a better idea for getting humans to mars?

Here's an abstract from a paper out of Princeton that discusses the propulsion options to Mars.

In this paper, high-power electric propulsion options are surveyed in the context of cargo and piloted missions to Mars. A low-thrust trajectory optimization program (RAPTOR) is utilized to analyze this mission. Candidate thrusters are chosen based upon demonstrated performance in the laboratory. Hall, self-field magnetoplasmadynamic (MPDT), self-field lithium Lorentz force accelerator (LiLFA), arcjet, and applied-field LiLFA systems are considered for this mission. In this first phase of the study, all thrusters are assumed to operate at a single power level (regardless of the efficiency-power curve), and the thruster specific mass and powerplant specific mass are taken to be the same for all systems. Under these assumptions, for a 7.5 MW, 60 mT payload, piloted mission, the self-field LiLFA results in the shortest trip time (340 days) with a reasonable propellant mass fraction of 57% (129 mT). For a 150 kW, 9 mT payload, cargo mission, both the applied-field LiLFA and the Hall thruster seem reasonable choices with propellant mass fractions of 42 to 45% (7 to 8 mT). The Hall thrusters provide better trip times(530-570 days) compared to the applied-field LiLFA (710 days) for the relatively less demanding mission.

Here's the full paper.

http://alfven.princeton.edu/papers/Astrodyn-Final.pdf

To be honest, I have no idea what the hell any of these technologies are, and I'd only heard of ion thrusters on the Discovery channel maybe a decade ago. But it appears that your magnet proposal does have some application

I like em, and I think Steve has the right idea of allowing all posters a chance to have a say!

@calfoxwc said:

What does this stupid ass thread have to do with politics ???

It should be moved to the barbershop. Oh, wait, if I had posted it,

Zomblow the hypocrite would have moved it.

To me its a welcome change, even if my ideas are cockneyed, from talking about how Obama will make us all slaves.

In that note, woody, what's a better idea for getting humans to mars?

@calfoxwc said:

Oh, sure, Steve. Have a really nice valid reply, you ... you....

non liberal.

dammit.

Except Zombo will. He's taken sides. Can you stop that?

Actually pal, I don't know that he has.

I don't have that power from my moderator controls.

I don't know what T or Bunker posted or sent to force his hand.

I've seen Bonkers over the top garbage here so I assume his personal stuff was even worse.

As I've said before I believe T is an asset to the board as a participant.

I have not seen the offending post office is, but I assume they existed.

WSS

non liberal.

dammit.

Except Zombo will. He's taken sides. Can you stop that?

@calfoxwc said:

What does this stupid ass thread have to do with politics ???

It should be moved to the barbershop. Oh, wait, if I had posted it,

Zomblow the hypocrite would have moved it.

You mean like a discussion 1 of our members wanted to have with his friends here about his new coffee maker?

Wait, maybe it was the 1 about popular music. That 1 even related to pop music has to generational politics.

This 1 has to do with politics since obama wants to dump the space program So we can afford to put every american on food stamps.

Even if that werent the case, I wouldn't move it.

Moving threads so far has only been used as a means to insult the member who posted it.

I don't plan to do that.

WSS

Even if you shot a craft off of a space station with magnets you would need a long ass rail to get up the the speed needed to escape the orbit of whatever the station is orbiting around and to just get there in a timely manner. Then once you are on your way you have no means of control or steering. You also have no way to get back.

It should be moved to the barbershop. Oh, wait, if I had posted it,

Zomblow the hypocrite would have moved it.

@vaportrail said:

It's Cysko, I think.

I guess if you guys are posting again it means my account us unlocked, but I kind of like this name better. Fwiw I'm an electrical engineer. However I'm just simply thinking of means to make the insanely long trip to mars more hospitible to human life

I think you're under the assumption I mean launching from earth or the moon when I'm envisioning something closer to a space station.

@ru4scuba said:

Trick question? A pencil can't be dropped on the moons surface.

Well, we're supposing you're in a spacesuit, so you can be on the moon's surface without dying.

Huh? The moon has gravity....

And that's correct. But you'd be shocked by how many people will say, "It'll float away." I've done this to a bunch of engineers and med students, and there's a large number of them that don't get it right. For some reason, no atmosphere and no friction somehow leads to the incorrect assumption of no gravity.

@ru4scuba said:

Trick question? A pencil can't be dropped on the moons surface.

Huh? The moon has gravity....

WSS

@vaportrail said:

You'd be surprised though, at how many intelligent people have misconceptions of gravity. Ask people what would happen to a pencil if you're standing on the moon and you drop it.

Trick question? A pencil can't be dropped on the moons surface.

@vaportrail said:

Lol

Let's turn this into a physics board. Then I'll be right even more often than I am now

@vaportrail said:

You're an engineer?

Lol

is that someone's second account?