von Braun - Project Mars (mind blown!)

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AllDigital

AllDigital

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This "Project Mars" book was written by Wernher von Braun in 1949 (translated from German the same year) and describes the technical effort to colonize mars, along with a detailed account of what would be needed and how society would function. Set in the futuristic 1980's, it describes the need for 950 ships with reusable boosters.

Chapter 24 talks about how mars will be governed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled the "Elon". :oops:



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AllDigital said:
This "Project Mars" book was written by Wernher von Braun in 1949 (translated from German the same year) and describes the technical effort to colonize mars, along with a detailed account of what would be needed and how society would function. Set in the futuristic 1980's, it describes the need for 950 ships with reusable boosters.

Chapter 24 talks about how mars will be governed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled the "Elon". :oops:



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YouTube has the old Wonderful World of Disney episodes that feature Wernher’s missions to the Moon and Mars that he wrote about in his articles. The video presentation was well done and top notch for the time.
 
It's sad to think that with 10 men on Mars, that he was brainwashed as a kid to think that there has to be a leader. The idea of people being equal and living together, making decisions on a group consensus level, proved he was uneducated in the field of social engineering, as the old saying, "We are all idiots, only on different subjects".
Kings, Queens, Popes, Presidents, etc. that control all the Sheeple, proves how primitive we are and how slow we are to progress as humans. Just look at a perfect example of how extremely flawed it is, " Putin ". One man who has the power to destroy an entire country to rubble, and while being allowed to be a "mass murderer", killing thousands of innocent women and children with no remorse. No one is allowed to stop him. An insane human being. In any decently run society, this would not be allowed. We only advance in science and technology, but when it comes to human behavior, we still conduct ourselves as Cave Men.
As one scientist said, "Mars, the grandest suicide mission ever conceived".
 
hobie1dog said:
It's sad to think that with 10 men on Mars, that he was brainwashed as a kid to think that there has to be a leader. The idea of people being equal and living together, making decisions on a group consensus level, proved he was uneducated in the field of social engineering, as the old saying, "We are all idiots, only on different subjects".
Kings, Queens, Popes, Presidents, etc. that control all the Sheeple, proves how primitive we are and how slow we are to progress as humans. Just look at a perfect example of how extremely flawed it is, " Putin ". One man who has the power to destroy an entire country to rubble, and while being allowed to be a "mass murderer", killing thousands of innocent women and children with no remorse. No one is allowed to stop him. An insane human being. In any decently run society, this would not be allowed. We only advance in science and technology, but when it comes to human behavior, we still conduct ourselves as Cave Men.
As one scientist said, "Mars, the grandest suicide mission ever conceived".
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He didn't say there would be ten men on Mars, he said the government would be directed by ten men. 😑 And good luck making decisions "on a group consensus level" with 7 billion humans.
 
AllDigital said:
This "Project Mars" book was written by Wernher von Braun in 1949 (translated from German the same year) and describes the technical effort to colonize mars, along with a detailed account of what would be needed and how society would function. Set in the futuristic 1980's, it describes the need for 950 ships with reusable boosters.

Chapter 24 talks about how mars will be governed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled the "Elon". :oops:



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In the Bible, Elon was a Judge of Israel. Most things can be traced back to some biblical reference, it permeates just about every culture.
 
lakeroadster said:
In the Bible, Elon was a Judge of Israel. Most things can be traced back to some biblical reference, it permeates just about every culture.
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Not any profound meaning however. "Elon" in Hebrew, is gender neutral and simply means, "Oak Tree." But Elon was a prominent judge from the tribe of Zebulun found in the books of Joshua and Judges, and also another Elon from the Hittite Empire (in northern Turkey) found in Genesis. There are several other appearances of persons named Elon which may well be several different persons from different time periods.
 
In the 60s we had "My Weekly Reader", sort of a short newspaper in 8 1/2x11 format. The only one I recall (of course!) had a depiction of a Mars craft leaving Earth. A bunch of cylindrical tanks surrounding a central probably-NERVA core. Probably derived from von Braun's depiction. It suggested that we should be able to get to Mars by the early 70s. :(

Oh well, so it goes.
 
Chapter 24 talks about how mars will be governed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled the "Elon".

Sooooooo, does this mean that the thing in my closet and the bodies in the freezer get a vote?
 
I had heard about this reference to the "Elon" in von Braun's book, but I had to buy the book to see it for myself. There are many other references in the book that just seem like crazy coincidences for someone dreaming up life on mars, before we'd ever launched a rocket to orbit.

There is a lot of detail about the underground pressurized tunnel transport system on Mars using maglev and small six person cars. Almost exactly describes hyperloop and the Boring company's work.
 
Pem Tech said:
Chapter 24 talks about how mars will be governed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled the "Elon".

Sooooooo, does this mean that the thing in my closet and the bodies in the freezer get a vote?
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Only if they’re Llama like…
Or is, like, a Llama… :rolleyes:
 
JackC said:
YouTube has the old Wonderful World of Disney episodes that feature Wernher’s missions to the Moon and Mars that he wrote about in his articles. The video presentation was well done and top notch for the time.
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Also, WWofD had an episode where they showed Disney artists’ depictions of how they believed Martian life would look. All I’ve got to say is those guys must have had access to a lot of hard drugs…
 
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Werhner must have been using some magic mushrooms from the Black Forest, or just knew how many more copies of the book he would sell by coming up with imaginary ideas.
 
The odd thing as well, with our current Elon, is that he apparently also believes in a scenario much as presented in Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles", in thar we must colonize Mars so that we can re-populate Earth following a nuclear holocaust.
 
Blast it Tom! said:
The odd thing as well, with our current Elon, is that he apparently also believes in a scenario much as presented in Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles", in thar we must colonize Mars so that we can re-populate Earth following a nuclear holocaust.
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Talk about some serious in-breeding, that ought to produce some screwed up people. Like the ridiculous story about our beginning.
Earth and Mars only come close (34 million miles) to each other every 2 1/2 years. Right now it's 145 million miles away. It takes a minimum of 6-8 months to get there. You would have to have enough food,oxygen, water for not only the trip there, and being couped up in a small capsule the whole time, enough for another 6 months back. When you get there, if you take off your suit, your blood will boil away in less than 3 minutes. If you don't turn right around and head back, then you're stuck there for 2 1/2 years until the two planets align again. Where's your supply of food, water, and oxygen for that? Like the scientist said, " The perfect suicide mission"
 
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hobie1dog said:
Talk about some serious in-breeding, that ought to produce some screwed up people. Like the ridiculous story about our beginning.
Earth and Mars only come close (34 million miles) to each other every 2 1/2 years. Right now it's 145 million miles away. It takes a minimum of 6-8 months to get there. You would have to have enough food,oxygen, water for not only the trip there, and being couped up in a small capsule the whole time, enough for another 6 months back. When you get there, if you take off your suit, your blood will boil away in less than 3 minutes. If you don't turn right around and head back, then you're stuck there for 2 1/2 years until the two planets align again. Where's your supply of food, water, and oxygen for that? Like the scientist said, " The perfect suicide mission"
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Well, the Ray Bradbury vision was for a LOT of people to go, hence Starship, and frequent missions. Elon Musk is certainly not as impractical as Bradbury, who at one point had thousands of southern blacks heading for their rocket, but his plan is certainly along the lines of having plenty of folks there to avoid said problem.

And don't be too dismissive of Adam and Eve, there are more ways to look at that than just straight-up literal.
JackC said:
Especially the Looney Tunes!
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Naw! Looney Tunes are for EVERYONE! Now I've never been drunk or stoned in my life, and I love me some Looney Tunes! Great for kids, great for adults!
 

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