Great, get on that. In 50 years, we can chat, and you can tell me how great your new rental property is, while I can tell you how great my new SPACE FRONTIER is.

No, you're missing the point that it's actually cheaper to just burn once to get out of Earth orbit and be done with it, than it is to go to a "gas station" that's in orbit around the thing you're trying to escape the gravity well of, slow down, dock, do stuff, and then burn AGAIN... than it is to just GTFO in the FIRST PLACE like you SHOULD HAVE DONE. . The physics are actually pretty simple, if you're capable of math, and reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/145160811X

You're not wrong, but you're just misreading the entire thing.

The point is: cost of mission is built on weight. Weight is built on engineering. Overengineering, therefore, costs more weight -> increase launch costs. Make your structures as lightweight as possible to save on launch capacity, and you can fit more usable *stuff* on the mission. So why overengineer something just to make it survive on the Moon (and make it heavier, etc) when you can make it reasonable to survive on Mars, and spend more propellant on other important stuff?

Almost, but consider: the struggle here is that we can't get funding to do a completely reasonable thing in the first place. Moon is cool and all, but honestly, let's just use the funding to go where we really want to go in the first place. NASA has the same budget now as it did 30 years ago, but it's just being incompetent about the whole "leadership" and "presidential mandate" thing. Backyard? Yeah. We did that. It sucked, had no resources, was full of caustic dust. Also, MOON TICKS.

tl;dr: stop dicking around, let's just do this properly, we are completely capable of it except for this whole idiotic attitude that we have to go to the moon first, which inflates budgets, complexity, and probability of failure by 300%.

Are you aware of He3? Because anyone who knows what it is, knows that it's all over the place on the Moon. But you seem to be unaware of the fact that we have no way to utilize it because the US is nation of nuclear-ignorant morons. (That includes you, by the way, because you have bought into this hype about He-3 without the understanding of what kinds of scientific developments the nation must make to utilize it.)

Please gain awareness of CO2, H2, and what happens when you combine CO2 + 4H2. Once you dismount from your high, yet sadly misinformed horse, you may be able to make more intelligent conversation about this whole process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

My point exactly. This "gas station" crap again, when we can go to Mars today and make enough methane to get a crew back, for a fraction of the cost.

a) Aluminum fine, great. Water ice, great. Ponder this: why bother hauling all of that heavy equipment to mine and process the aluminum, when you can do the same amount (or less work), to get to Mars in a single trip, bring a bit of extra hydrogen with you, and then make a silly amount of methane using easily captured carbon dioxide? It just doesn't make sense.

b) yes, we are in agreement on that, it's easy to make fuel on Mars. Hence my point, why would anyone bother with the Moon? It's just unnecessary and silly.

c) are you sure? read up on atmospheric pressures and temperatures, specifically the extremes on Mars vs. those on the Moon, and the relative radiation levels. Basically you can use a similar design but you have to overengineer the hell out of it to make it feasible on BOTH, because the Moon has no ozone and has ridiculous 28-day cycles with insane temperature extremes.

Point being: going to the Moon is great but it drastically increases mission cost, complexity, and time to complete, when compared to just making things for Mars in the first place. Like I said, read up on Mars Direct and get back to me.

So let's say the Moon is acting as a "gas station". Gas stations are great and all, but the fuel they dispense has to come from somewhere. On Earth this occurs via tanker truck. If you're arguing that "most of the mass involved in a trip to Mars consists of fuel", and therefore it would be cheaper to refuel ships at the Moon, great. You are trying to say that this makes economic sense.

How do you account for the cost of getting "tanker trucks" to the Moon? If you want to refuel rockets on the Moon you have to get the fuel there somehow, or create it on-site.

Currently the options for that are:
a) mine lunar helium-3. Cool, but let's get some rockets that can use it first.
b) spend unnecessary money to ship fuel there just so we can put that fuel into another rocket, which needs it because... it spent all the fuel going to the Moon instead of Mars.
c) ???

Anyone who hasn't actually read up on Mars Direct really just needs to stop commenting and do that first, so they can actually understand what the hell they are talking about. The Moon as a waypoint is completely and utterly unnecessary. It has no useful resources for this purpose other than helium-3, which we can't even make proper use of (because we're too scared of anything relating to nuclear energy to launch a damn RTG, let alone finish development on any actual nuclear engine). Doing anything on the Moon requires an absurd amount of machinery, life-support, and docking mechanisms, which are completely overkill for what you're trying to do (i.e, go to Mars, which is a balmy paradise compared to the environmental hell of the Moon.)

Your comment reinforced my conviction that I had to make it over there. Glad I did. Jason is a great fellow and I'm glad I was able to help out, even if only in a minor capacity.

(a) because people will pay it

(b) see (a)

I mean, the cell chip adds a little cost per-unit (but not that much), and agency approval adds a lot more (but that's NRE, and doesn't amount to all that much in the grand scheme). So it really comes down to "we can charge that much more because people will pay it."

No.

ERROR: Logic gate lockup
The statement:

... [2011] was the coldest in the last 30 [years]

is NOT contradicted by EITHER *OR* BOTH of the following statements:

... 2011 was the 11th warmest *globallly*
... [2011 was] the 35th year in a row where temps are above the 100 year average

gb2logic and retry before considering yourself qualified to say "your information is just plain incorrect" again, kthx.

"Mobile device" does not always mean "cell phone". There's a whole batch of devices that use IP communication - things like dynamic street signs, cameras, call boxes, remote sensors. Lots of stuff you see/interact with (or at least, get data from) use the mobile network and require IP communication. So don't automatically assume that this is saying "everyone has 7 cell phones", because if they meant "cell phones", they would say "cell phones". Instead, read it as "devices that use the mobile network" -- even if the devices themselves aren't really "mobile" per se.

timothy, I recall meeting you at CTY one summer, probably in 2000... heh.

One of the neat things that I recall about CTY was the relative level of independence you were given... yeah, you had to be places at certain times, and your whereabouts had to be accounted for, but you still had a lot of leeway, so there were opportunities to explore and interact outside the standard structure. Combine that with being around around other nerds, and it can be really rewarding for a kid at that age.

...that someone's not being completely reactionary about this. Maybe it's Torchwood?