Mars One Mission-Final

In this part also the final one, I'll go into much more details about Mars One, more details about things from the first part, training program and so on in this Mars One Final Part.

                In the first part I mentioned a training and the selection program. In order to even apply for the Mars One Mission you'll need to sign up on their page: https://apply.mars-one.com/ , in order to apply you need to be at least 18 years old, because that is the age by which children become legal adults in most countries around the globe and Mars One believes it is important that applicants who enter the selection program are capable of entering into a legal contract without the need of others. After the selection, if you were selected, they'll start creating groups by the applications you sent them and creating the teams as best as possible so you get along together as you will have to entrust your life to them and the other way around. There will be a few stages in which your group will be tested to see if you're the most skilled to be the first one on Mars, also you can back out anytime you want, the group will be assigned a new member to fill up your space and they'll need to do all the test from the beggining. The part for the audience comes after they've selected groups that can go to Mars, the world will then vote and decide which one will go first.

                What are the chances of success? Well it's a hard question to answer... Since there are a lot of dangers and anything can go wrong at any time. Mars One estimates that the chances are 87,5%, how did they get there? They took NASA's attempts to land there, NASA has tried landing on Mars 8 times, of all the tries only one failed to land, but the chances increase as there will be 8 low-risk cargo missions to Mars before the group is launched, how do the chances increase? With each landing they get valuable information and upgrade the landing system, which will result in a better landing and fewer failures. 

               So how will the group live on Mars? In order to answer that question I'll need to explain a lot of things. Firstly, about water, on Mars water can be extracted from the soil (it's not some kind of a pumping station like oil rigs or something like that), the procedure is very simple actually. Before the group arrives the rover will select the location for the settlement based on the soil analysis. When the group arrives the rover will deposit the soil into a water extractor in the life support units, the water extractor then heats the soil until the water evaporates. The evaporated water will be condensed and stored. About 1500 of reserve water will be stored in each life support unit. Oxygen will be produced from the water. It has all been calculated so that even in the dust storm, there will be production, but it will be limited, as well as the power. On the other hand food will be produced in portable high-tech greenhouses (also known as PlantLab). Each inhabitant will have about 250 m^3 and they will have as much comfort as they want.

              All in all this is a well prepared mission, there are already a lot of applications sent (about 70000 I think, but don't hold my word for it) and I'm sure as hell that I'll be sending one as well.

Some fun facts:
-astronauts will recycle everything, water will be filtered as much as it can be, but the unprocessable water will be thrown away;
-the government on Mars will be a lot different at the beggining as only one person will decide (the leader), but later the people in the settelment will have to decide which type of goverment will they have, Mars One will not order them to have a specific one, on the contrary Mars One will provide them with a database on each goverment system and then they will decide which one to implement;
-they will all be able to have children up there, but it is not advisable until the medical equipment comes, and the food for the baby is able to be produced as well.

Makrokrama

The Wall Live - a Concert Experience

A few thoughts on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock-opera, focusing on personal experience of Roger Waters' 2011 and 2013 The Wall tour.

Part 1 – a short, informative introduction

            The Wall is Pink Floyd's conceptual, double album released in 1979. The concept is conceived in its entirety by Roger Waters, the bassist, vocalist and lyricist of the group. He wrote all 26 songs on the album, three in collaboration with guitarist David Gilmour (those three being Young Lust, Run Like Hell and Comfortably Numb with its famous guitar solo) and one with Bob Ezrin (The Trial, orchestral epic that concludes the album).

            The narrative of the album and the 1980 movie of the same name scrypted by Waters follows the story of Mr. Pink Floyd, the son of fallen WWII soldier whom he never met. He gradually falls into madness, while society he grews up in builds metaphorical wall around him, people he lives with forming bricks in it; those are his overprotective mother, school system and abusive teacher, wife, pressure of being a rock star, etc. The character is based on Waters and partly on Syd Barrett, the founder of the band, who left them infamously due to his mental state induced by the extensive use of drugs.

            (I have no need to dig deeper into the storyline or into the meaning of it now; there's a fair deal of analizing texts on the Internet you can study and I'll probably write about it in some of the following articles. Hereafter I'm going to focus on the live rendition of The Wall, the 1980-1981 tour and especially on 2011 and 2013 tours since I have attended two associated concerts.)

            Live installation of the album had always been imagined as a spectacle presenting the whole story as a spectacular stage event with almost a cathartic effect on audience. The idea was to build the 12 meters high cardboard brick wall across the stage which was being completed during the show just to be torn down in the very end, symbolizing the protagonists liberation and acceptance of his guilt.

            The 1980-81 tour was limited only to 4 cities and 31 shows due to the great financial expenses. The group eventually lost money, save the keyboardist Richard Wright who wasn't the official member of Pink Floyd at that time for he had an argue with Waters during the making of the album. He was payed as an ordinary backing musician so he didn't have to suffer the expenses of the production. The idea of expanding the tour to more cities was, understandably, rejected. The Wall was resurrected for a show in 1990 in Berlin by Waters, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. Some songs, although, became live standards both for Pink Floyd and Roger Waters', who left the band in 1985.

The Wall live in Berlin 1990 - Comfortably Numb, with The Band and Van Morrison as guests

            Hopefully, technology has made a great progress since 1981 (ask Makrokrama, my blogging partner, about it), already enabling Pink Floyd's 1990's concerts to be a spectacular experience. But it was much less expensive and they made one of the greatest profits ever from a tour despite large stage sets, fireworks, grandiose light and other special effects.

            So, no wonder the musical sensation of the year 2010 was the another resurrection of The Wall, this time as a solo Roger Waters tour covering 56 concerts across the North America and 64 across the Europe. It was rumored to be one of the greatest concert experiences ever to be put on stage, a worthy successor to the 1980 original tour. Can you imagine my excitement when the show in my country was announced? In Zagreb, Croatia, just a bit more than 150 km away from my hometown.

        Next: Part 2 - where it gets really loud!

Hal

                                         

            For a more personal account of the concert check out the Dandy Ducks blogsite regularly and find out why Roger Waters' The Wall Tour is the greatest concert experience ever to be put on stage, at least for a 15 year old boy who found The Wall to be his musical inspiration.

            While waiting for it, I recommend you listen to The Wall album and watch a movie for deeper understanding. For old fans and those who are familiar with this masterpiece I suggest checking out this great site I stumbled upon: http://www.thewallanalysis.com/main/ A wonderful analysis of the story! 

            Feel free to send us your thoughts about The Wall!

Mars One Mission-Introduction

What is Mars One? What kind of mission it's leading? What are the chances? Why Mars One from all the other missions? ... and a lot more questions about it ansewered in About Mars One Part 1. Read on if you're interested.

            Mars One Foundation is a non-for-profit organisation which mission is to establish a first independent settlement on Mars without the need for resources from Earth. The technology needed for the settlement is already available from industry leaders world-wide. They plan to fund it by involving the whole world as the audience, as the training and the selection program will be broadcasted and everyone will be able to vote for their favorite group.

            What group? The group of four people which will be trained in almost everything possible. Why just four and not more? Because four people is the lowest possible amount of people to cover a variety of skills and specializations, if they were to send more, they would need to send an even larger rocket to Mars which costs more, is harder to land and control. The group needs to be physically and mentally prepared for the trip since they will travel in the rocket for seven months (yea, you read it correctly). When they land they will still be 200% stronger than needed, what do I mean with that? If you live in a non-gravity space your muscles will not be under any kind of pressure and they will lose their integrity and strength, that's why astronauts that are in a space station need to train daily in the gym up there. Since Mars has 32% of the gravity on the Earth even if they lose some strength, they will still be much stronger than needed.

            The whole mission to put the first four people on the Mars costs six billion dollars. Woah, that is a lot, well of course it is; just imagine how much money costs 1 rocket to Mars and they will send about five before the first group of people. The technology involved costs a lot. About the technology, there will be a few things: Launcher, Mars Transit Vehicle, Lander which will be used for five functions (Life Support Unit, Supply Unit, Living Unit, Human Lander and Rover Lander), Rover, Mars Suite and a Communications System.

            If you ask me, it is an extraoridanary expedition, although they might never return to Earth or die while trying to land, there are a lot of dangers, but if you ask me they are worth taking in order to be one of the first people on Mars. In the next chapters of Mars One Mission about which I'm writing about I'll go into much more details.

You can find the final part here:http://dandyducks.blogspot.com/2013/07/mars-one-mission-final.html

Makrokrama

The Beggining

Fellow readers!

            Welcome to the blogspot co-founded and administrated by my friend Marko Sišul and me - Hrvoje Crnjar. My primary interests cover art, philosophy and science. I'll be writing mostly about less-known pieces of art history and trying to give an insight or information about more popular works and novelties. Also, i'll be willing to do a research on a subject you want me to explore if I find it interesting or to answer your questions.

I hope you will continue revisiting our blog to check out our regular updates and interesting articles as much as I hope it will be worth revisiting. The real fun starts tomorrow!

 Hal

And for my turn, I'll be going with the nickname Makrokrama in my blogs, while my friend here will go with Hal. Some of you have certainly seen the nickname Makrokrama before, like in some MMO games etc. I'll be sure to make a list in which games and pages I'm using it so you don't confuse me with other people.

Firstly I’ll be writing about some fun facts in the world probably interesting as well. Since I love space and games you can expect that there will be some themes about that and I’ll surely be posting about programming, probably make some lessons too, if I have the will I’ll even teach you how to make a simple game. Like my friend, if you have something interesting or if you have anything you’d want us to write about just let us know and if we like it we’ll write about it. I guess that’s it for our introduction.

                                                                                                                                                                            Makrokrama

*As I promised, the list of pages and games with my nickname: World of Tanks (Warplanes and Warships) in the whole wargaming.net trilogy, Tribes Ascend, Dungeons and Dragons Online (I go by the nickname Rumas Kolis here), Star Trek Online (same as DDO), deviant art and youtube. – M.