Monday, August 21, 2006
AllSpace Mexican Dinner Recap
San Diego members of the Mars Society, the Planetary Society, and the National Space Society got together at Acapulco Restaurant today under the auspices of The Alliance for Space. Over margaritas and tacos, we talked about some of the historic events happening in space today.
For instance, the new definition of planet being debated by astronomers. We liked the planet/pluton proposal and couldn't quite understand what all the fuss was about.
There's also NASA's big news with the selection of SpaceX and Kistler Rocketplane as COTS finalists. We were glad SpaceX got picked. It turns out we all think pretty highly of Elon Musk.
Which of the non-finalists will switch gears and compete for Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize? Whatever happens, we all agreed we're rooting for San Diego's own SpaceDev to do something in space with their plans to fly a spaceplane using hybrid rockets.
We talked about the plans by the Mars Society to conduct a four-month long mission in the Arctic next summer.
And then we went way out there and started talking abour terraforming the planets. We got to talking about Venus and Mars and how Venus has the gravity we need but Mars has the "better" climate. This got us talking about how much better it would be if Earth's sister planets were located in the Sun's sweet zone for life. By the time dinner was over, we had moved Venus and Mars to the trojan points of Earth's orbit around the sun. Venus especially would be great to have nearby. It's got that gravity that is almost Earth-like, easier for humans to adapt to than Mars would be. Once we decided to move Venus and Mars it seemed a shame to leave Mercury way down there out of reach so close to the Sun. So we thought about moving Mercury and all its minerals too. After all, if you're going to think big, then think BIG. How to do it? That's just an engineering problem!
Join us next month at Killer Pizza From Mars in Escondido. When? Stay tuned at the AllSpace blog (here) or the AllSpace mailgroup (here).
-tdr
For instance, the new definition of planet being debated by astronomers. We liked the planet/pluton proposal and couldn't quite understand what all the fuss was about.
There's also NASA's big news with the selection of SpaceX and Kistler Rocketplane as COTS finalists. We were glad SpaceX got picked. It turns out we all think pretty highly of Elon Musk.
Which of the non-finalists will switch gears and compete for Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize? Whatever happens, we all agreed we're rooting for San Diego's own SpaceDev to do something in space with their plans to fly a spaceplane using hybrid rockets.
We talked about the plans by the Mars Society to conduct a four-month long mission in the Arctic next summer.
And then we went way out there and started talking abour terraforming the planets. We got to talking about Venus and Mars and how Venus has the gravity we need but Mars has the "better" climate. This got us talking about how much better it would be if Earth's sister planets were located in the Sun's sweet zone for life. By the time dinner was over, we had moved Venus and Mars to the trojan points of Earth's orbit around the sun. Venus especially would be great to have nearby. It's got that gravity that is almost Earth-like, easier for humans to adapt to than Mars would be. Once we decided to move Venus and Mars it seemed a shame to leave Mercury way down there out of reach so close to the Sun. So we thought about moving Mercury and all its minerals too. After all, if you're going to think big, then think BIG. How to do it? That's just an engineering problem!
Join us next month at Killer Pizza From Mars in Escondido. When? Stay tuned at the AllSpace blog (here) or the AllSpace mailgroup (here).
-tdr
Labels: Science Fiction, Space Societies
