2.1.11 - I have no idea what Greg is talking about

[Mae Dean]

The one causes the other.

[oobee]

Yo dawg, we heard you like orbits. So we put an orbit in your orbit so you can orbit while you orbit.

Something like:

[barawn]

But really, Mars's mass is the reason why it's not inhabited. It can't hold an atmosphere, which therefore means no liquid water. Terraforming's possible, but it wouldn't convert it into another Earth - left alone, in 10-20 million years, it'd be a barren rock again.

Yeah, but even if you Terraformed it would be immediately uninhabitable on the surface, not just in ten million years, thanks to the amount of solar radiation it gets without a protective magnetic field.

No, the atmosphere would protect the surface. Earth's magnetic field protects the atmosphere (primarily water vapor) from being stripped away, but the atmosphere is what protects the surface. The radiation that is diverted by the Earth's magnetic field is all low-energy stuff. They'd be absorbed within a kilometer of an Earth-density atmosphere and never get anywhere near the surface.

Mars's lack of a magnetic field is only a big deal because of the lack of atmosphere, which is due entirely to the planet's lack of mass. Now, if it was larger and didn't have a magnetic field (like, say, Venus) the lack of magnetic field would be an issue because the solar wind would ionize water vapor, the hydrogen would escape, and the planet would dry out.

[mattym]

Apparently there is a new show that is coming out. We shall see.

Although, I never gave Caprica a chance. I had a hard time believing that the first cylon was a teenage girl and then that kinda threw out the the entire "original" ones, right? What about the toaster ones? I just felt like it was too much of a stretch for me to even waste my time on.

Yeah i just heard of the new one a day or two ago. Caprica is worth the watch. You only have to invest yourself for one season, and they did a decent job of giving it an ending, even though they canceled it mid season.

[Jirin]

Where did you get this official map? Is it presented in the show or was in compiled in some sort of fan book like the Enterprise technical manual?

I'm pretty sure in the show, each of the planets is orbiting around a star in it's corresponding zodiac constellation. Or at least, if that's not so, it's the kind of continuity blip abhorred by Ron Moore.

I watched the first half season of Caprica. It wasn't terrible but it was completely lacking direction. I hear Ron Moore isn't involved in the new series at all, so I'm pretty skeptical. I'll give it a shot.

[Bellerophon]

I'm pretty sure in the show, each of the planets is orbiting around a star in it's corresponding zodiac constellation. Or at least, if that's not so, it's the kind of continuity blip abhorred by Ron Moore.

Uh, no. They were always all in the same star system way elsewhere. The zodiac constellations surround Earth.

The colonies had the constellations as the old symbols for the colonies, but they didn't know the dot-symbols were from constellations until they found the planetarium showing the skies from Earth on Kobol.