Hi I'm Carl from New York.

I am reading the Part Two of "The High Frontier" and I'm very excited by the
idea! I'm an artist (illustring books and magazines) and so it's easy for me
to image how the process can work.

I also think that some part of O'Neil's ideas can be combined with Mars
Direct plan in that the two stage landing of a return rocket and a base can
be used for moon (See The Case For Mars). Also, on the case of Mars, we can
use Mars Direct to explore and to search for life and to plan for
terraforming the planet while we're building Island One colonies that might
move to Mars. Then if it's doable, we'll send a ice rock into Mars to begin
terraforming. While Mars heats up, an Island One can show up to being a long
study and work on terraforming.

It also seems to me that the biggest roadblock on humanization of space is
the launch cost. There's some possiblities to improve the cost. I am
particular to the idea of land-air-space plane that use jet engin and rockets
for two stage climbing. At same time, I'm reading about "dark engery" in
science magazines. This dark enegry seem to be a force that can repal
gravity and help to speed up the expansion of universe. We don't know enough
about dark enegry to make a guess yet but I can't help wondering that if we
can control such enegry, we could create ant-gravity drive that would really
cut the cost of launch. Oh I can dream, can't I?

Are there any clubs for space fans in New York City?

Carl

In a message dated 2/12/01 8:02:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, Ravenart@...
writes:

<< Hi I'm Carl from New York.

I am reading the Part Two of "The High Frontier" and I'm very excited by the
idea! I'm an artist (illustring books and magazines) and so it's easy for
me
to image how the process can work.

I also think that some part of O'Neil's ideas can be combined with Mars
Direct plan in that the two stage landing of a return rocket and a base can
be used for moon (See The Case For Mars). Also, on the case of Mars, we can
use Mars Direct to explore and to search for life and to plan for
terraforming the planet while we're building Island One colonies that might
move to Mars. Then if it's doable, we'll send a ice rock into Mars to begin
terraforming. While Mars heats up, an Island One can show up to being a
long
study and work on terraforming.

It also seems to me that the biggest roadblock on humanization of space is
the launch cost. There's some possiblities to improve the cost. I am
particular to the idea of land-air-space plane that use jet engin and
rockets
for two stage climbing. At same time, I'm reading about "dark engery" in
science magazines. This dark enegry seem to be a force that can repal
gravity and help to speed up the expansion of universe. We don't know enough
about dark enegry to make a guess yet but I can't help wondering that if we
can control such enegry, we could create ant-gravity drive that would really
cut the cost of launch. Oh I can dream, can't I?

Are there any clubs for space fans in New York City?

Carl
>>

Did you hear about the NEAR spacecraft landing on Eros? NEAR wasn't even
designed to land on an asteroid. I think this boosts the case to have a
"deliberate" asteroid lander sometime soon. Landing on asteroids it seems is
very easy, and so is taking off. I think asteroids are definitely the
resource we should exploit. A sample return mission should be very easy and
we should be able to return very large samples. I think if we can land a very
large reentry vehicle on an asteroid, fill it up using robots, and then
return it to Earth using a minimum energy Hoffmann we could return tons of
asteroid samples to Earth. If we can do that, mining asteroids should be very
easy, much easier than the Moon. The next trick would be to process that
asteroid rubble and make a bernal sphere out of it. I think Eros is large
enough for that. In fact I think there is enough material in Eros to make an
Island 3.

As for Dark Energy, I think it is a form of antigravity or negative energy
associated with empty space. We need a large about of empty space to make a
considerable repusive force. I don't think it is anything we could use in the
near future.

Tom Kalbfus