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DARPA Building Futuristic Space Exploration Group
coondoggie writes "What started out as an idea about how to further explore the outer reaches of space is now beginning to take more serious shape as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today issued a call for industry information on how to form such as cosmic entity. Specifically DARPA said it issued a Request For Information intended to solicit ideas and information on structure and approach, and identify parties qualified and interested in furthering what's known as the 100 Year Starship project."
I'm just gonna download the entire Baen Library, reformat it and send it to DARPA.
Profit!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Helloooooo....SpaceX. Or were you thinking of outsourcing it to China?
I am glad to see someone else help pick up the long-term research slack.
NASA is on the top targets of the tea party mood under the misconception that is accounts for a large percentage of federal budget. Plus one president terminating the shuttle and the next president terminating its replacement.
Grow up. Dreams are our contribution to the universe and the foundation of our legacy. The individual's small contributions to mankind's monuments is the essence of life after death.
Starfleet? The organization could be a United Federation of Planets. No, nevermind, that's stupid.
The only way for humans to travel to the outer regions of space is to control time. It doesn't matter how fast you go if time stops.
Wormhole or quantum state teleportation might work too.
But it sounds more like subsidies to SciFi writers at this point. Or if they want to figure out what all you would need to build a 100% self-sufficient space station/ship, that would be an exercise for NASA.
Yeah. Cut NOAA funding. Who cares about tsunamis anyway? Whoops! No more tornado warnings either?
Now all those God-fearing Tea party rednecks can watch their mobile homes fly away.
Have gnu, will travel.
Amazing at how well-timed the previous XKCD turned out to be.
http://xkcd.com/893/
From the fine article
Methods to incentivize researchers,
Ummm, I'd try money.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Starfleet - you knew it was coming.
Said organization must comply with the following requirements: - Uniforms should be brightly colored, vaguely indicating role, and adaptable to look good while allowing for command-level officers to engage in hand-to-hand combat on a regular basis. - All senior officers should be skilled in everything. Yes, everything. We'll decide who does what based on who's standing around at the moment, not based on some specialized set of skills or designated responsibilities. - The organization should construct a fleet of vessels, with one vessel getting all the priority assignments while the rest of the fleet does Sudoku until needed for a well-intentioned but otherwise ineffective show of support. - The organization should be composed of scientists and explorers who just so happen to run around with the most powerful weapons currently available. Asteroids can hurt, right?
Close, but not quite. Unlike religious dogma, which is pretty much all fiction (it has zero real evidence supporting it), space age dreams are completely feasible and possible. The problem is that it takes political will, hard work, and a lot of money, over a long time (not just one election cycle) to make them happen. That's why they'll never happen here in the USA. The populace doesn't want to pay for it (though they'll happily pay over half their tax revenues to invade other countries), the corporations don't want to invest in it (because there won't be a big ROI within 5 years), and frankly, the populace just isn't capable of it any more because there aren't enough people with technical (science/engineering) educations able to pull it off.
The USA dreaming of large space projects is a lot like Zimbabwe dreaming of large space projects. It's just ridiculous to think about it. Now China, OTOH, is a different matter. While it'll be a little while before they're ready to do anything big in space, they're getting there quickly, because they have the political will and the money, and don't mind putting in hard work unlike Americans these days.
It's called Starfleet! It's formed by gathering up civilizations after they develop warp drive technology. Everybody knows that!
I8-D
You realize you just told an Anonymous Coward to grow up? That's like telling Gilbert Godfrey not to squint his eyes and sing bass.
I8-D
Would that be the Medicare cuts that are part of Obamacare? Or another set of cuts?
Or didn't you ever bother to notice that part of the financing on Obamacare was Medicare cuts?
Admittedly, even while those Medicare cuts were being used as part of the "revenue-neutral" financing of Obamacare, the White House was saying that they expected future Congresses to cancel them.
Personally, I expect that if we don't cut all spending by about 30%, we're not going to climb out of our deficit hole without massive inflation.
Note that even the bipartisan deficit reduction committee is only talking $4 trillion in cuts spread over ten years.
Which, by the way, leaves you with deficits greater than $1 trillion in each of those ten years.
And this doesn't even count the off-budget spending. Like, say, disaster relief.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Maybe I'm mistaken or something, but didn't the Republicans just vote to cut Medicare?
You're mistaken. Republicans != Tea Partiers. Although, Tea Partiers are mostly Republicans with many Libertarians: Note capital 'L'.
Medicare, Social Security, etc. are all socialist programs and should be cut, in their view.
Again, you're wrong. Most of the Tea Partiers are old white people who want their SS, Medicare and America to keep her military dominance at all costs: it's mostly keep taxes low and cut programs that they think are a waste to (maybe) balance the budget . Of course, the Tea Party has lost it's way and now they are incorporating other issues that have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility: abortion, Christianity being the State religion, homosexuality, and other irrelevant non-sense that only appeal the Evangelical Christian nut jobs.
Here, read more on the Tea Party hypocrisy.
Wait a minute, how can DARPA get money to *invest*. Remember the reason Umurikans voted for Tea Party folks is to *cut cut cut* government spending. Shouldn't this really be carried out by a private business -- particularly those private businesses that don't worry just about quarterly profits and share prices--- now don't everybody rush for the opportunity --- line forms to the left for all those interested businesses --- .
The TEA Party supports cutting government funds that go to programs not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. DARPA falls under the defense budget, which is Constitutional.
Read the 10'th Amendment for more information.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I want to be optimistic. When I chose engineering as a career, my goal was to aid humanity in colonizing space, because I could see that we've run out of terrestrial expansion room.
But TFA is Michael Cooney's Layer 8 blog. Cooney mines the Federal Business Ops website for RFIs and RFPs and then writes entire articles based on conjecture and conclusions reached by means of Boots of Springing and Striding. I've worked on programs that have received Cooney's attention and was amazed at how wrong he was on so many points, and how he presented his erroneous assumptions as facts. It's hard to take anything I read on Layer 8 credibly.
For instance, Cooney regularly glosses over the transient nature of the RFIs he cites. Keep in mind that an RFI is merely a "Request for Information." It's an unfunded solicitation of ideas and white papers, used to identify whether there's anybody credible out there who has an idea plausible enough and attractive enough to warrant going back to the DARPA Director and, eventually, Congress with a budget request for a real RFP and phase I study program. Many RFIs result in either nothing, or an RFP for an unfunded IDIQ or a shoestring SBIR type contract. They're fishing expeditions. And sometimes they're done for internal projects just to get new ideas for free, or for programs hardwired for an existing contractor just as a sort of threat. (But on the other side of the coin, DARPA is usually not tricksy like that... but there's still no guarantee of any money available.)
Still, I'm very glad that DARPA is soliciting ideas, at least... there's a phrase in the R&D world: "DARPA Hard." DARPA doesn't consider ideas that are just matters of engineering -- making existing tech lighter/faster/cheaper. They want to push the state of the art and hope to sponsor real, fundamental science that opens up new possibilities. Starships are indeed DARPA Hard.
I can see the fnords!
Let me simplify it for you.
If you want the TEA Party platform, read the 10th Amendment.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I don't know about this: aren't the Evangelicals mostly younger to middle-aged white people, along with blacks? After all, the black vote was absolutely instrumental in passing Prop. 8 in California a few years ago. The old white people are mainstream Protestants, not Evangelicals; Evangelicalism is a fairly new phenomenon that's taken over the country in only the last couple of decades or so. Yes, it's overtaken mainstream Protestantism, but while I haven't looked up any figures, I doubt it's because of conversion by old people, but rather young people.
BS. Just like most idealogical movements, the way to judge it is by the way its members currently conduct themselves, not the core principles its founders started with.
It's just like Christianity. If you listen to Jesus, he'd have you believe it's all about tolerance ("let he who has no sin throw the first stone"), love, and other hippy values. But modern-day Christianity isn't about that stuff at all, it's about bashing homosexuals, killing non-Christians, invading other countries to establish imperialism, etc.
Remember Jefferson Starship?
Are they still waiting for the first star ship to Hijack? It has been so many years that the original bunch may be too old now but I wonder if they trained their kids?
The star ship stonies rocking their way across the stars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUT1xvdrlDA
If bars don't serve drunk people, then McDonald's shouldn't serve fat people...
Now that I've actually worked in the corporate field for a while, I can say this: It's not that all Americans are lazy. It's that doing a better job than your boss, even at your own job and not his or hers, is political suicide. This is why you got the crap beat out of you by bullies in high school. If he or she can keep you from enjoying any benefits your intelligence and hard work provides, he surpasses you on the food chain. "If you're so smart, why'd you get your ass kicked." "If you're so smart, how come you work for me?"
It's a pain in the ass when your boss is simply incompetent, ol' chip will go ape-shit if you can do something he can't. His position entitles him to be inherently superior to you. It's nightmarish when your boss is narcissistic, God knows all and does all that is good. And, don't you dare do anything that would indicate otherwise. It's a taste of hell on earth if they are sociopathic, the devil will have his due. And if he doesn't get it, people will sacrifice you to appease him. "Trying too hard" is a nice way to get a target placed on your backside. Why Americans promote and encourage this kind of leadership is another matter, though.
We have a society that prioritizes aggressiveness and charisma over innovation and results, folks. Hell, we have to create and fund an agency with the purpose of finding more effective and flashy ways to kill people in order to get decent R&D towards long range constructive efforts.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
"space age dreams are completely feasible and possible."
They're not. Every decade that passes and still no Space Nuttery, they'll just come up with more noise, more obfuscation.
"That's why they'll never happen here in the USA. "
They won't happen anywhere else either because the basic physics driving the impossibility of these delusions is the same everywhere and everytime.
"Now China, OTOH, is a different matter. While it'll be a little while before they're ready to do anything big in space, they're getting there quickly, because they have the political will and the money, and don't mind putting in hard work unlike Americans these days.
No, they won't. They're just ramping up a modern economy in the late Oil Age, and are busy copying every perceived milestone they deem necessary. They won't get any further in space than the Russians or the West. Basic physics and chemistry garantees this.
In ten years, in twenty years, in a hundred years, we'll still be here. I think it's you guys that have a lot of growing up to do. But that's OK. I can wait.
"100 Year Starship Project"
BS. Just like most idealogical movements, the way to judge it is by the way its members currently conduct themselves, not the core principles its founders started with.
Have you ever been to a TEA Party event? The people I have seen there have been nothing but nice, even to those that were there counter protest. The only people who were treated poorly were the ones who had signs that were in poor taste. I'm not sure if they were "astroturphers" (liberal plants there to make the TEA Partiers look bad) or just people who were bought into the Democrat talking points repeated as fact by the media. Either way, they were not welcome.
It's just like Christianity. If you listen to Jesus, he'd have you believe it's all about tolerance ("let he who has no sin throw the first stone"), love, and other hippy values. But modern-day Christianity isn't about that stuff at all, it's about bashing homosexuals, killing non-Christians, invading other countries to establish imperialism, etc.
Again, when was the last time you've been to church? Nearly all of the churches I've attended have been welcoming to all types, including gays. My church had protestors once. They were invited in to cool off when it got to hot, provided they didn't disrupt the service of course, and brought cold beverages if they decided to stay outside. Sure, there are those few churches that are a bit more intolerant, Reverend Wright's Church that was attended by Obama for 20 years and and Westboro Baptist in Kansas, but those are certainly not the norm. Claiming that they are the norm would be like claiming that Cindy Shehan is representative of the Democrat Party.
In other words, I'm calling BS to your BS. You have no idea what you are talking about.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Our youngest generation is indeed rather lazy. I'm only 37, and I see a huge difference between my generation and the 20-somethings that are coming into the workforce now.
But there's also the big issue that we just don't have a lot of technical talent available for any big projects. Much of what we do have available is in the computer fields, which is necessary for, but in no way sufficient for, any space projects. You need aerospace engineers for that, and we haven't been making too many of those lately, because it's a very limited career field: your only possible employers are Boeing and a few defense contractors. And trust me, working for a defense contractor is NOT fun. It's not like a normal commercial salaried job where you have some flexibility on exactly when you arrive, what time you take lunch, and when you leave. You have to be there at 8 sharp, leave for lunch at 12, be back by 1 sharp (or else), and leave when the horn sounds at 5. This is not a work environment conducive to innovation by any means, which is probably why it costs tens of billions or more for every defense project. Why would any young person want to sign up for that, when he can go into so many other fields that pay better and have a better work environment?
Even if there were any political will and funding for some big space project, we wouldn't have enough scientists and engineers to actually do it. We'd have a bunch of politicians and laypeople sitting around saying "more people need to go into engineering so we can do these things!", but no one would actually bother to go to school for this stuff. Especially when getting a degree means $100k in student loans, and a very uncertain career path: our country has been anti-big projects for my whole lifetime (born mid-70s), and if the government does support something, it usually only lasts 4-8 years, until a new President gets elected. That's not a smart thing to base your career on.
"BS. Just like most idealogical movements, the way to judge it is by the way its members currently conduct themselves, not the core principles its founders started with."
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Democratic Party.
Sorry, low-hanging fruit and all.
But seriously, I wouldn't dignify what you posted by even referring to it as a comment. Never mind the pompous cynicism of considering everyone you disagree with some sort of ignorant, monolithic mass of bad intent, you're even so arrogant as to believe (or purport to believe) that you know enough about a political movement and a religion to judge both in their entirety against what you refer to as "core principles".
I'd love for you to state categorically what the founding core principles of both Christianity and the Tea Party movement are.
Don't worry, I'll wait.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
You're a moron. There's nothing in physics that keeps people from getting off the planet; we've done it before many times, both with humans and with robotic explorers. It doesn't even cost that much to send robots to Mars, compared to how much it costs to wage wars. A few hundred million is chump change for an economy the size of the USA.
If you're talking about sending people to other stars, you might have something (or you might not; considering modern physics is only about a century old, I'd say it's premature to make any long-term predictions based on our primitive science). However, "space exploration" doesn't necessarily mean travelling to other stars. There's tons of stuff right here in the inner solar system (and outer too) to do: exploration, mining, etc. Heck, if we could just build a giant solar power station in Earth orbit, we could eliminate the need for most if not all fossil fuels. LEO is only a couple hundred miles away. Even terraforming doesn't require fast space travel: Venus is right next to us and, with the right technology, would be perfect for terraforming and turning into a habitable planet. It's the same size and gravity as Earth, and just needs to shed its atmosphere.
There's nothing in our modern understanding of physics that prevents any of these big projects, only money and technology.
it's about bashing homosexuals, killing non-Christians, invading other countries to establish imperialism, etc.
Seriously I don't want to start an argument with you or anything, but I think you're way out of touch with christianity. All you do is cast generalized accusations at people based on parodies of them. You can find the lowest of the low on either side, and cast that in to the image of those who oppose you, but that isn't helpful at all. My father goes to Guatemala twice a year to help a village there by building a school and donating money. He is sent there by the church he attends and going there to help has pretty much infected him with an enthusiasm I've never seen him have. In what way is that not about love and instead about killing non-Christians and invading other countries? My wager is very few christians really think to themselves "we should kill brown people and establish an empire!" and the few that do aren't really christians. You may see that as the results of their philosophy, or the intentions of the people they support, but it is WILDLY wrong to suggest that is how christians think. So since they know they don't believe that, all you do by accusing them of that is make them blind to your real point, which is that those are the consequences of their policies of choice.
You see Jesus as a hippy, I see him as the model citizen, sent to show us what we should be like. Meanwhile our very libertarian God has all the power to force us to behave the way he wants us to, but allows us to live our lives as we see fit because it is our life. That's the point here. I can't speak for all libertarians, but as one of many I give to charities, I help people when I can and I do not believe in passing laws to force people to do what I do. I am me, I choose what is right and wrong for me, and I act accordingly. I believe the model person should give to charity, should help people on the street and should volunteer more than just money but also time to make the world a better place, but not even God forces people to do what in his mind is "right". That is the failing logic behind most liberals I encounter who rail against the tea party and libertarianism. They cast not wanting to force somebody to do something to mean they want the opposite of that thing to happen.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
The churches my wife's dragged me to had people wearing anti-gay-marriage and pro-Prop 8 T-shirts, and the leadership openly spouted that philosophy. After getting sick of this kind of stuff, my wife's stopped dragging me to church at all.
What kind of churches do you go to? Obviously not any evangelical Christian ones, which are the majority here in America and growing.
As for the Tea Partiers, all you have to do is look at what their representatives in Congress are voting for. I don't give a rat's ass what individual TPers at events are saying, you have to look at who they choose to represent them, and what they do. All I see is a lot of anti-abortion crap, no ending of funding for all these wars, and no real solutions to the budget problem.
"BS. Just like most idealogical movements, the way to judge it is by the way its members currently conduct themselves, not the core principles its founders started with."
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Democratic Party.
Sorry, low-hanging fruit and all.
What, is this supposed to be some kind of snarky come-back?
What I said applies equally to Republicans, Teabaggers, Democraps, or any other group you care to name.
You must be one of those stupid Americans who think everyone absolutely must be a Democrat or Republican: "You're either with us or against us". You probably watch a lot of sports too, and can't conceive of anyone that doesn't side with either team, right?
For instance, the 20-somethings are prone to standing around on their elders' front lawns. Totally unacceptable behavior, socially speaking, and a sure-fire sign of incorrigible laziness.
I wish we were all as smart, enlightened, liberal, non-christian, and hard-working as you are. Seriously, the world would be a better place if it were full of pedantic twats who love to talk about how much smarter they are than everybody else. Tell us more about how we're clueless idiots - we're fascinated, really.
My wager is very few christians really think to themselves "we should kill brown people and establish an empire!" and the few that do aren't really christians. You may see that as the results of their philosophy, or the intentions of the people they support, but it is WILDLY wrong to suggest that is how christians think.
Wrong. A few odd people who go on missions to Guatemala are not representative of American Christians in general. To see what American Christians support, all you have to do is look at who they vote for. The people they vote for support establishing an empire and invading other countries, and Christians here happily support this and vote for more of it. If they didn't like it, they wouldn't vote for it. Conservative Christians are overwhelming supporters of Republicans (such as GWB), and what have Republicans been doing for the last decade? Invasions and imperialism.
You see Jesus as a hippy, I see him as the model citizen, sent to show us what we should be like.
Where did I ever say that being a hippy was a bad thing? I only use that word because from the point-of-view of modern American society, values like peace and love are considered "hippy" values from the 60s.
Seriously I don't want to start an argument with you or anything, but I think you're way out of touch with christianity. All you do is cast generalized accusations at people based on parodies of them. You can find the lowest of the low on either side, and cast that in to the image of those who oppose you, but that isn't helpful at all.
And finally, this isn't true at all. I don't pick out the "lowest of the low", I simply look at who people vote for to represent them and make laws for them. You can see this on both sides of the political aisle in this country. The only assumption I'm using is that people want what they vote for, and if that's a bad assumption, then there's something seriously wrong with the people of this country.
Do your part and join the Mobile Infantry now to save the world!
# 1: Female uniforms must include mandatory Shiny Purple Sexy Wigs.
http://fortresstakes.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/ufo_moonbase_girls_purple_wigs.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UFOTVDVDnew.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(TV_series)
Said organization must comply with the following requirements:
- Uniforms should be brightly colored, vaguely indicating role, and adaptable to look good while allowing for command-level officers to engage in hand-to-hand combat on a regular basis.
- All senior officers should be skilled in everything. Yes, everything. We'll decide who does what based on who's standing around at the moment, not based on some specialized set of skills or designated responsibilities.
- The organization should construct a fleet of vessels, with one vessel getting all the priority assignments while the rest of the fleet does Sudoku until needed for a well-intentioned but otherwise ineffective show of support.
- The organization should be composed of scientists and explorers who just so happen to run around with the most powerful weapons currently available. Asteroids can hurt, right?
The smart thing to do would be to wait until we have better physics, and thenexplore space. There's no point using old shitty physics that's not going work anyway.
And as long as solar power on earth is cheaper/Watt than in orbit, let's build it on earth.
Where did I ever say that being a hippy was a bad thing?
I didn't say you said that. I was just transitioning. Perhaps roughly. If Jesus is a hippy, god is a libertarian.
what have Republicans been doing for the last decade? Invasions and imperialism.
See, right here, this is your problem. I doubt christians voted for GWB a second time hoping he would start another war, or are just waiting for us to invade somebody else. In fact, stuff with Libya seems to have people a little wary. Even Christians. This could be caused by simple partisanship, or it could be that they genuinely don't agree with the blanket "lets invade other countries" like you keep asserting, and believed in the two invasions under GWB. You will only make enemies when you try to tell somebody they believe something they don't. This is why I don't tell liberals they believe in killing babies. See? If I called a liberal a baby killer, thats ineffective. They don't believe they support that at all.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Modern physics is working just fine for tooling around the solar system. The various space agencies haven't had much trouble getting rovers on Mars, intercepting comets, getting MESSENGER into Mercury orbit, and many other things. NASA didn't even have any trouble getting men to the Moon on the first try way back in the 60s.
Liberals DO support abortion, or at least the right to choose it, but that's a little different from "baby killing". Denying that liberals support abortion choice is denying reality, and it shows in who they vote for.
Same thing goes for Republican voters. They obviously wanted wars, that's why they voted for GWB (esp. the second time). If they didn't want the wars to continue, they would have voted for someone else, but they didn't.
Sure, for short distances and/or small probes, it works fine. With an insane budget, you can even have 2 men walk pointlessly on the moon for a few hours.
For bigger stuff, like mining, terraforming, or human travel to other planets, we need better gear.
And your religious response full of the liturgy of the Space Nutter Church is probably too subtle to register with the hordes of Asperger's video-gaming children that infest /. They don't "do" subtle, sarcasm, or irony, and will probably swallow your bait hook, line and sinker. Congratulations!
Yes, we need better gear, but not better physics. The physics we have is fine for short distances, and doesn't change based on the size of the craft. What we need is better ways to lift cargo to orbit, and better ways to get around the solar system, such as ion engines, nuclear engines, etc. All these things have either been partially designed, or even prototyped. And finally, we need money, which is the real limitation of it all, but if we didn't waste money on oil wars and a bloated military, this wouldn't be such a problem. The sources of energy available outside our atmosphere would pay for the the cost of getting to them, but we have to make the investment first.
The only thing our physics is really a problem for is FTL travel, if it's even possible. According to our physics, it's not, but our physics may be wrong or incomplete. FTL is really necessary for any serious interstellar travel. But as I said before, we don't have a pressing need to get out of this star system; there's still tons of stuff to do and look at right here.
The most useful thing to build in space I can think of is a solar power station with a metals foundry attached. Then it opens up mining asteroids and building structures in space, which opens up many other things such as colonies on Venus and Mars.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Exactly. A solar power station either in geosynchronous orbit, or even at a Lagrangian point, could harvest tons of free solar power, then beam it back to earth, or do ore processing of mined asteroids. Then you don't have to mine all that material on Earth and lift it out Earth's gravity well for building space-based structures. Moon mining might also be feasible; after all, it's big, and it's always right there, unlike asteroids which pass by with weird orbits that bring them within convenient distance only every few decades or longer, but it does have more of a gravity well (though not nearly as large as Earth's).
The energy to send a description of an object to another star is roughly a million times less than the energy to send the object itself. So the right answer is to send a small nanotech factory which builds a receiving station at your destination. Then you scan a person at an atomic level here, transmit the data, and build a copy at the other end. Besides being frugal from an energy standpoint, it allows you to travel at the highest possible speed (that of light), and the trip time from the traveler's point of view is zero. The nanotech factory still is limited to some sublight speed, but it is likely to be much smaller than a starship carrying humans.
As to when will we be able to do stuff on an atomic scale, Intel announced their 22 nm chip process today. That's roughly 64 atoms across. At the rate things are going, they should be down to single atoms in about 20 years.
This is why I don't tell liberals they believe in killing babies. See? If I called a liberal a baby killer, thats ineffective. They don't believe they support that at all.
You forgot that they are for abortions.
Yes, it's all about Medicare. Geez. U.S. Farm Subsidies: Billions and Billions Served
Did Obama end the wars? The simple fact is that those wars were going to continue no matter who was in office. But it is easier for you people to blame Bush for everything, hell, some of you think he was behind 9/11. The funny thing is that you people also say he is completely incompetent.
The delegated powers includes laws written for the 'general welfare'. Every President, including George Washington, Madison, et al. have used the General Welfare clause. It's the basis of most federal power since the beginning, and why the framers 'snuck it in' and why they didn't close 'the big loop hole' in the Bill of Rights.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
What happens to the tides when you remove a large amount of the Moons mass? Not to mention orbits. I believe it would be wise to not mine the Moon.
Nope, Obama hasn't ended the wars at all, and what's really funny is the liberal morons who voted for him and "Change!" are now defending him, even though he's not much different from Bush. If Bush did something, they were completely against it, but now that Obama's doing it, they have some sort of twisted logic to defend him, whether it's continuing the wars, continuing Prohibition 2.0, molesting 6-year-old girls at the airports, etc.
The real test will be when Obama's up for re-election, if the liberals re-elect him or not. Then we'll see what their real opinion on things is, but on the blogs and such, most of them seem to back him no matter what he does. If Obama ends up losing the Democratic nomination to another Democrat, then we'll know that his backers were just a vocal minority.
As for the wars continuing, that's no simple fact at all. If the people had elected Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, the wars most likely would have ended very quickly. Unless there's some sort of "shadow government" (which given your statement on 9/11 you probably don't believe in), the President absolutely DOES have the power to unilaterally pull out of any military engagement if he so chooses.
When people consider using a launch loop on earth, it makes no sense as the air resistance near ground level would make it infeasible to launch an item into orbit, but I wonder how well it would work on the moon. You could use a very large area for acceleration up to escape velocity, then have it move up a hill or something to launch the item out of the moon's gravity well. If you worked it properly, it would be an entirely energy based launch mechanism rather then chemical based and could be man rated (use lower acceleration) if it was long enough. Solar power is quite feasible on the moon as well, so perhaps the moon would be even better than orbital, but I had not thought of this much before reading your comment. It is quite doable with today's technology to build something which would open up the rest of the solar system to colonization, and may even allow the build of a generational based starship to colonize another solar system when we finally are able to identify habitable planets around other stars.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Don't be ridiculous. How much mass do you think is going to be removed? Since the start of the bronze age, how much mass in Earth's crust has been mined? Compared to the total, a totally negligible amount.
If we start thinking about building ringworlds or Dyson spheres, then your concerns will have some merit. Moving 0.00001% of the moon's mass to earth is not going to affect anything.
That is, indeed, a very bad assumption. Generally people end up voting for whoever they think is "the lesser of two evils". This is why Condorcet voting or Instant Runoff Voting would change politics considerably. (Over time, admittedly. But perhaps not too much time.)
Just for instance, I voted for Obama despite despising hm, because I considered that he might be a little less bad than McCain. Was he? I'll never know. He's pretty bad. And he didn't keep his campaign promises any better than I expected. I basically consider him a moderate-to-conservative Republican posing as a Democrat.
N.B.: Both the Democrats and the Republicans are centralists, and as such I don't really support either of them, but if we're going to get a stronger central government anyway I'd prefer to get some benefits from it. I'd hoped that a civilized health care might be made available. Pity, really, that we got something so watered down that is just going to be cut anyway. After Obama voted for FISA I knew better than to believe that he'd be conciliatory in foreign policy, but I was hoping for a more decent domestic policy, and for the closing of Guantanamo. (Guantanamo kind of things are pretty much useless anyway, so closing it would be a propaganda victory at little to no cost.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
But abortion is not killing babies, at least not in the mind of a liberal. So you don't say "You support killing babies" you say "you support abortion". You don't say "Christians support homo bashing and invasions and imperialism" you say "you are against the gay lifestyle and for the war in Iraq" and focus on those issues. For the abortion thing somebody against abortion would say "here is why I believe abortion is wrong" and if you are pro gay marriage you say "here is why I think gays should be allowed to marry" If you are against the war in Iraq you say "Let me tell you why the war in Iraq was wrong [ethically, financially, politically, practically]". If you are against a particular budget cut, address that. Don't say tea partiers are racists. It has nothing to do with the policy. Has the tea party pushed for all white salad bars in congress? I don't think so. Now on the other hand if you support abortion a bad argument is "old men want to control women's bodies!" and a good argument would be along the lines of "there is no way to determine when a person becomes a person, therefore as the only verifiable person involved, the mother should be able to terminate the pregnancy when it is disputable that the baby has become a person. Otherwise we would be giving up our rights to our bodies in favor of the rights of a possibility." Do you see the difference?
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
The churches my wife's dragged me to had people wearing anti-gay-marriage and pro-Prop 8 T-shirts, and the leadership openly spouted that philosophy. After getting sick of this kind of stuff, my wife's stopped dragging me to church at all.
You mean churches are teaching the Bible? For shame! How dare those evil Christians teach the book that their entire religion is based on!
Either way, opposing gay marriage is not "bashing homosexuals". Marriage is seen as a religious institution. Homosexuality is not. The two don't mix so churches tend to be against it. Churches bash homosexuality, not homosexuals, and they are against homosexuality because it's a sin in the eyes of the church. Churches tend to "bash" all sin. For example, my church has come out far more strongly against gossip than they have against homosexuality. Is the church bashing little old ladies now?
Also I have never heard of a church support "killing non-Christians, invading other countries to establish imperialism, etc." You're just making that up.
As for the Tea Partiers, all you have to do is look at what their representatives in Congress are voting for. I don't give a rat's ass what individual TPers at events are saying, you have to look at who they choose to represent them, and what they do. All I see is a lot of anti-abortion crap, no ending of funding for all these wars, and no real solutions to the budget problem.
You mean that REPUBLICANS are against abortions? Yes, I said Republicans because there is no one in Congress that lists their party affiliation as "T". How dare those bastards stand for something they got elected on!
Here's a hint for you. The TEA Party supported them because they are fiscal conservatives. That is the official TEA Party platform, or it would be if there was such a thing as the TEA Party. If there were any pro-choice Democrats or Republicans who were as adamant about following the 10th Amendment, then they would receive TEA Party support as well. For example, the TEA Party endorsed Walt Minnick, a pro-choice Democrat, because he voted against Obamacare and the stimulus. However, Minnick rejected the endorsement because the open minded Democrats like yourself would have used it against him, and the endorsement was recalled.
... and no real solutions to the budget problem.
What would you suggest? Cutting funding from unnecessary programs like Planned Parenthood and NPR? It was tried. Why didn't that pass? The government nearly shut down and all I heard about was how the Republicans were going to shut down the gov't over NPR and abortion. Strange how I never heard that DEMOCRATS were going to let the government be shut down over NPR and abortion. Maybe we could start small, like cutting a mere $60 Billion from the budget? Yeah, that didn't go over too well either.
So it appears that it doesn't really matter what plans TEA Party supported candidates suggest. None of it will pass. So rather than saying that TP supported candidates have no plans, why don't you look up those plans and find out whose keeping them from becoming law. Once that is done, you can come back and explain who has no plans to balance the budget.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Actually, they had a LOT of trouble. This doesn't mean you're basically wrong though. The job is a bit harder than you seem willing to admit, and some of the payoffs are quite speculative. (And I do worry about some of the designs for an SSPS to power earth, though it should be quite easy to build one to power other space endeavors.)
Still ... If we're real lucky one of the outcomes of the Fukishima disaster will be a Japanese SSPS, And if that's done well ...
The Japanese are a country that has a real need for an SSPS, A dense population, not much native fossil fuel. And problems with nuclear power. (They do seem a little less twitchy about it now than they were a few decades ago, but even then their need was so great that they went ahead and put them in.) So maybe they'll do it. I wonder who they'll hire for the heavy lifting? China looks like a leading contender. Russia hasn't been putting much effort into heavy lifting, more the intermediate level stuff. Even Europe seems ahead of the US.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If Obama ends up losing the Democratic nomination to another Democrat, then we'll know that his backers were just a vocal minority.
I'm pretty sure a sitting President does not have to be nominated to run for a second term.
There *are* some basic problems that need to be addressed, but as you suggest they are largely engineering.
My take on it is that the primary problem that needs to be addressed it a closed ecology. We don't currently know how to maintain one, and there's a clear need for that before any extended human space project is feasible.
FWIW, I feel that we have a real need for several long term habitations in different locations. On various moons, on Mars, on Luna, possibly on Mercury, and definitely on various asteroids. We've already spent too long with all humanity living under the threat of annihilation. If we wait long enough we'll get someone really crazy with his finger on the button. And I don't consider our recent leadership to be particularly sane, do you? But the US isn't even the only country that could end everything. I can think of around 5 countries that could do it intentionally. And that's with current weaponry. Who knows what biology could come up with...or how cheap it might be? We could soon be at the level where a disaffected company manager could end the world. And a few decades after that, as college kid. The level of risk keeps rising. (Well, it's not monotonic. The current high point was during the Cuban missile crisis where we came within 30 seconds of global atomic war, and it hasn't, as far as I know, been that high since then. But the moving time average risk has kept increasing with a decade used as the averaging period.)
P.S.: This is my own informal risk assessment. Others may disagree. I'd be quite surprised if anyone sane thought the risk had been decreasing, though.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Define "very quickly"?
The president has the power to unilaterally pull out of any military engagement he chooses to, but it takes a great deal of time to withdraw (safely, and without leaving a shitload of material & equipment behind) 10's of thousands of troops from halfway around the world.
Not to mention the simple fact that "unilaterally" ending the wars would result in the situation simply getting worse where there is a sudden power vacuum that was occupied by those tens of thousands of troops with guns and tanks and bombers.
It has nothing to do with "shadow governments," it has everything to do with the practical realities of being forced to eat a soggy shit sandwich, and trying to minimize the mess it's going to make. Pres. Bush committed us to the wars, and we can second-guess his rationales and intelligence all we want, but it doesn't change the fact that we have those thousands of boots on the ground overseas, and bringing them all home is a lot more complicated than just sending each soldier a flight voucher via expedia.
Anybody who thought Pres. Obama was going to close Guantanamo in his first 100 days, or end the wars the moment he got into office *was* a credulous moron. But then, anybody who believed *ANY* candidate - including Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich - could have, and would have, done that is a credulous moron, as well.
For that matter, on the moon you could build a Space Elevator and use Kevlar for the cable. (Well, probably not really. Kevlar is strong enough, but you'd need to shield it against vacuum or it would probably become brittle.)
OTOH, the Space Elevator is only useful if you're expecting to average as much down traffic as up traffic. So a magnetic launcher would be a reasonable alternative. (Is that what you meant by a launch loop?) Most sky-hooks are out, however, because they almost all require an average of as much down traffic as up traffic.
Solar power on the moon has a similar problem to on Earth, but magnified. Every two weeks, over most of the surface, you are in darkness for two weeks. There's only one small area near one of the poles that is under continual illumination. So you can use it, but you either need a humongous amount of storage, or you need to time your energy expenditures for when the sun is shining.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Yeah. Cut NOAA funding. Who cares about tsunamis anyway? Whoops! No more tornado warnings either?
Now all those God-fearing Tea party rednecks can watch their mobile homes fly away.
the mobile homes fly away anyways? you're not helping your point. besides, good liburuls r supposed to "care" for the downtrodden and poor working schlep. you're letting your elitist stripes show.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
And this doesn't even count the off-budget spending. Like, say, wars which are much more expensive than disaster relief which is also off-budget.
FTFY
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Honest questions. Given your suggestion that we may be destined for inevitable self-destruction:
1) What makes you think expanding to half a dozen other locations wouldn't simply result in 6 times the self-destructive behavior? ("Mars humans are better than Luna humans, kill them all in the name of the Mars God!")
2) What makes our species worth the effort of preserving it, if you feel that self-destruction is inevitable? What changes the equation of inevitable self-destruction so drastically by simply uprooting a few people and slapping them down on a new piece of rock? All you've done at that point is postpone the inevitable by introducing a backup.
I don't see that expanding into space makes much of a difference to the long-term survival of the species either way - either we can get along with one another, and will learn to do so here on earth regardless of whether we're going to ever colonize the stars, or we can't get along, and will simply delay the inevitable by making the species go through self-immolation on N planets/colonies/space stations, and taking along N*(number of other species we share the planet with) with us when we do it - in short, a way to maximize our destructive effect when the balloon finally goes up.
FTL travel requires bypassing the energy required to move a mass through normal space.
The moment you have FTL, you have a method for adding infinite energy to the universe... say by using FTL to boost a mass out of the middle of a solar system, then letting it fall back in via traditional Newtonian methods from the outer edges of it.
I'm pretty sure the universe doesn't like that.
If you wish to trim spending, first trim the terms. First term politicians realize they only have one more term remaining, therefore can make the most of it one of two ways:
1 Follow up on first term promises.
or
2 Screw the voting populace for everything they can and suffer judicial review prior to leaving office.
Either way, a win - win situation for the voters.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
What we have been witnessing, for some time now, is the militarisation of the world of long term research; even worse, the secret militarisation of such. This is entirely the wrong path to take, if those of us with an interest in such are to be encouraged to follow.
For a start, I will absolutely NOT place my name or voice towards any such ongoing militarisation of long term research into space travel.
Period.
We are coming to an end of a long thought thread that started before the advent of the Cold War with Russia and which extended on into absolutely idiotic secret military adventures into just about every aspect of the freedom of thought of many other societies on the planet. Secret military organisations dominate the foreign policy of the United States and it is only now, with the advent of the new wave for a push for freedom in the Middle east, that it can be seen that these foreign policy adventures; supporting all forms of military dictatorships, all over the planet, are now falling through their fingers like dust.
Now they want to be able to control the future exploration of space; using the same organisations. Give me strength!
I will have nothing to do with such an ongoing attempt to dominate the long term free research of the planet with military funding for long term military purposes. As things stand, the majority of long term research money now comes from military sources. This must stop.
As also the use of the thoughts and aspirations of the free people to continue to be used to support long term research using military money for the long term interests of the United States dominated Military and Industrial complex. The urge to create a new “Star Wars” must be stopped in its tracks here and now.
I want to be able to see out my life in a more peaceful world, not dominated by military interests, not constantly pushed hither and thither by secret military money.
As such, I call on the rest of the free world to act now to create a completely new, long term research dominated organisation; that can be, indeed, must be, seen to be free of the influence of secret military and industrial money and influence.
DARPA must be told, from the top down, to stand back and not proceed with this further militarisation of long term research.
Cool story, bro.
Ever hear the phrase "putting all your eggs in one basket"? Understand at all what it means?
I don't consider our self-destruction inevitable, just extremely likely unless we take steps to lower the risk. One way to lower the risk is to eliminate single points of failure. Another is to operate separable components in different environments (so that they experience different stresses).
FWIW, I expect stability to be possible only with drastically changed social conditions...like having the executive control of the society vested in an advanced AI. We're quite a few years away from that, though, possibly as much as a century (though the median projection of experts in the field is closer to 40 years). And even once it appears, people would need to learn to trust it enough to replace the whims of politicians and boards of directors with it's decisions. (The boards of directors problem will likely resolve itself fairly quickly, as good decisions tend to be more profitable. Governments, however, are more often centered around lust for power, and thus are likely to be slower to change.)
N.B.: I don't see any legal obstacles to this happening right now. It just changes who advises the leader, and advisers change readily. The same outward forms would probably be kept.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Ever hear of focusing on low-hanging fruit?
Developing interstellar travel and spending trillions and trillions of dollars on building colonies in places which are not hospitable to human life, or on speculative interstellar missions to "find a planet" is about the most expensive and fanciful way of accomplishing your risk mitigation goals that it's possible to conceive of.
And 40 years ago, the experts in the field said we'd have flying cars, jetpacks, and be living on the moon. There are very real practical limits on what is possible without inordinately wasteful expense. I'd rather see trillions of dollars be spent here on earth, making life better for people here, today, right now, rather than seeing that money get spent on shipping a few hundred people to some remote spot where they'll probably die due to equipment failure or malfunction long before they have a chance to establish a self-sufficient colony.
You don't seem to get how DARPA works dude.
They think of if things are possible. then they think of how that stuff can be used militarily (and we hairless apes can use anything to neutralize threats, if we didn't, we wouldn't have survived long enough to avoid being lion food). They then fund the research to see if it can be done. Once the research is done, they allow civilian groups to do their own research to figure how to practically do the thing DARPA researched. The civilians then take the next step and build the systems that do what DARPA researched. The military then uses this knowledge to design things to use. However the civilian market also uses the fruits of this research (C4 was originally meant as explosives for combat. The civilian market found it very useful for construction, demolition, and mining).
So in short, if the military wants to research into the science of deep space travel, let them. The science and technology we get out of it will be more then worth it. Without defense research from work on missiles, we wouldn't even have space travel and all the technology that we take for granted. (and don't give bullshit about private groups doing it, basic research has left the round of interesting experimentation decades ago)