#a city on mars

[cosmonautroger]

A City On Mars, 2023

#A City On Mars #2023

[zenosanalytic]

So I've been reading through A City on Mars(it's engaging, well-written, and Funny. If you have any interest at all in space exploration and settlement, I thoroughly recommend checking it out) and, beyond everything else, I just want to say how Fucking Gross space-travel is. Just absolutely Disgusting. My God: why would anybody do this? Why would ANYBODY want to Put Themselves through this?? Zeus above it's So Vile. Don't worry, I'm not going to share the details here, you can read the book yourselves if you want to know but, Sincerely, Yuck :| Yuck Yuck Yuck :| :| I'll wait until we've mastered the Amenities, thank you very much X| X| X|

#Kelly Weinersmith #Zach Weinersmith #A City on Mars #Space #Space Travel #Space Settlement #SciFi #Terrible Space Facts #Our Staff #zA Opinions #zA Writes

[trainsinanime]

A City on Mars

It's really good!

"A City on Mars" is the newest popular science book by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (@zachweinersmith). Besides their popular science books, they're mostly known for @smbc-comics (like xkcd but sometimes meaner and in color). This book deals with the question of space settlement: Where can we settle in space, how would we settle in space, which questions are still unanswered, and is this even a good idea? They review all the applicable research to come up with answers.

Interestingly, the answer to the question "is this a good idea?" turns out to be no, even to the author's surprise. As a result, they expect that the space settlement community, who helped a lot with creating the book, will absolutely hate it. My guess is that here on Tumblr, the conclusion "we shouldn't let Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos use their incredible wealth to build weird semi-independent company-controlled colonies on foreign planets" will prove to be rather popular. I think they make good arguments for their point of view. They conclude that if we want to do space settlement, the best solution is to "wait and go big". That means first do a lot of research, maybe with some temporary research outposts, and only then start with a long-term settlement once we worked out most of the kinks. And that first settlement should be very big, at least in the thousands of people, from basically the start, because anything less than that will cause way too many problems.

The book itself is really well written, full of fun anecdotes and drawings, and it makes all of its topics accessible without ever feel like it's talking down to people. It's funny, informative and well researched. If I have any criticism, it's that I almost wish it was twice as long. Its goal is to provide an overview into a field that is incredibly broad, reaching from physics, geophysics and biology all the way to international law and philosophical questions about property rights, and it does an admirable job with all of them. But the book can't go into too much depth on any of these issues, and some (like how an economy on such a settlement would be set up) needed to be skipped entirely. There's more than enough material here to write at least two to three more books like this, and I would absolutely love to read them if they ever happen.

But really, this book is great. I intended to only look into the first chapter yesterday, and accidentally ended up reading through all of it. Very much recommended.

#a city on mars #space exploration #space settlement #this has nothing to do with the rocket test yesterday the book just happened to arrive on the same day for me

[saurotitan]

Back on the Moon

There was a moon landing a few weeks ago, and I didn't take the time to geek out about it. Now you're all in for a little lesson on space travel. Buckle up!

A number of posts over the years that I’ve been running this website have been about space. These posts aren’t as popular as the posts I’ve written about small towns in Wisconsin or daily life in rural America, but I’m fine with that. My understanding is that people like to read about places they’ve actually been or things they’ve actually done. They like things that are relatable to their lives,…

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#A City on Mars #Article #Blog post #Column #Humor #long story #Lunar lander #moon #Personal Opinion #Space #Space history #space travel #Technology

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

#space #space history #venus #NASA #Venera #spost #I will talk all day about venus #ask me about venus floating sky cities #unpopular opinion venus > mars #this is probably my favorite space history story #the surface of venus is made of lens caps #don't try to tell me the universe doesn't have a sense of humor #well #I guess its more that people have a sense of humor and we happen to live in the universe

[hug-your-face]

Long Post Ahead ("A City On Mars")

And I think it's worth your time to read. Or just go get the book.

TLDR: "(Capitalist) life in space sucks, is grotesquely expensive, and produces little useful science..." BUT! Space science itself is incredibly useful and should be applied right here on earth.

Enjoy the post.

#a city on mars #cory doctorow #capitalism

[parsleysagerosemarytimemachine]

Fun, interesting non-fiction, learned a bunch of stuff about space exploration and what we don't know yet. There's something really good about books that just set out a bunch of questions and what we know about the parameters. Would recommend for anyone interested in the current state of space travel.

#books #reading #reviews in brief #A City on Mars #Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

[kammartinez]

#books #a city on mars #kelly weinersmith #zach weinersmith #nonfiction #science

[kamreadsandrecs]

#books #a city on mars #kelly weinersmith #zach weinersmith #science #nonfiction

[puppyeared]

littlest furth shop

@laikascomet

#i think i had a little too much fun with this lol #i also wanted to draw road boy and other characters but maybe when they actually get introduced #i do have a sketch of him with a lil chainsaw.. im not gonna be normal when he gets introduced man he looks so sillygoofy #if you squint laika's eye marking is a clover yue's is a crescent moon and mars' is a star ^_^ #i wanted to give laika an accessory too but i couldnt think of anything.. maybe a stack of pancakes?? #im curious to see the apocalypse side of the story too.. like so far we have an idea of the comet fucking everything up #and im assuming that lead to a ripple effect causing the apocalypse but exactly how bad?? i cant wait to find out #rn im kinda piecing stuff together.. larkspur delivers mail in a beat up van so that might mean all transportation is grounded #the buildings we've seen so far are intact like the observatory and turnip's house but idk if thats the same for big cities #laikas playlist only includes songs downloaded on yue's computer and there hasnt been internet in 20 years.. but radio signals might #still work.. if yue grows his own food we can assume that mass production and distribution also isnt a thing anymore #sorry im a sucker for worldbuilding.. and the furth puns are fun to me. i like to think toronto would be clawronto.. and vancouver wld #be nyancouver.. barktic circle.. mewfoundland and labrador.. canyada.... #christ i have so many drawing ideas. willow if youre reading this im so sorry youre probably gonna expect to see a lot of drawings frm me #like. i wanna draw laika in the akira bike pose so sosososo bad. IT WOULD BE SO AWESOMECOOL. ill teach myself to draw bikes if i have to #i also wanted to animate laika leekspin.. man #my art #myart #fanart #laika's comet #laikas comet #laika #mars #yue #furry art #fur #littlest pet shop #lps

[brookbee]

David Bowie performing "Suffragette City," 1973

#the second one is right before he says “wham bam thank you ma'am” #the spiders from mars are there too obviously but they're not in the gifset so it feels weird mentioning them in the caption #david bowie #the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars #ziggy stardust #suffragette city #da pennebaker #1973 #hammersmith odeon #bowieposting #my gifs

[amarakaran]

top 3 underrated phineas & ferb songs go (and do NOT say busted or gitchie gitchie goo)

#evil for extra credit #city of love #let’s go digital #honorable mention to queen of mars #tv #phineas and ferb #nostalgia #personal #shut up sunny #myposts

[sirlonius]

#gif #kanye west #kanye #west #30 seconds to mars #city of angels #quote #universe #law of attraction #manifestation

[marrowage]

i’m just. sick to my stomach over the video of georgia state patrol tasing a street medic who was already handcuffed and on the ground. donate to atlanta solidarity fund to help with protestor bail if you have the means

#fuck atl pd fuck cop city fuck emory administration #most importantly free palestine #mar

[minifiguresadventures]

Red planet

#toyphotography #lego #lego space #the spaceman #space #mars #lego photography #lego city

[jilllovesmike]

#mike faist #lucas hedges #jack twist #jack and ennis #ennis del mar #brokeback mountain #soho place #london theatre #connor murphy #west side story 2021 #dear even hanson #panic amazon #riff west side story #morris delancey #newsies #the atlantic city story #challengers #challengers 2023 #challengers movie #challengers 2024 #art donaldson #the bikeriders #pinball the movie #iciwid