DARPA Chooses Leader For 100-Year Starship Project

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DARPA Chooses Leader For 100-Year Starship Project

Posted by timothy on Saturday January 7, 2012 @04:32AM from the make-it-so dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "With Nasa scaling back its manned space programs, the idea of a manned trip to the stars may sound audacious, but the 100 Year Starship (100YSS) study is an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible. The goal is not to have the government fund the actual building of spacecraft destined for the stars, but rather to create a foundation that can last 100 years in order to help foster the research needed for interstellar travel. Now DARPA has provided $500,000 in seed money to help jumpstart the effort and chosen Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space, to lead 100YSS. Jemison, who is also a physician and engineer, left NASA in 1993 after a six-year stint in which she served as science mission specialist aboard space shuttle Endeavour, becoming the first black woman to fly in space. Since leaving the space agency, she has been involved in education and outreach efforts and technology development. Rounding out her resume, Jemison also served as a medical officer for the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia, is a professionally trained dancer, speaks Russian, Swahili and Japanese, and was the first real astronaut to make a cameo in an episode of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' Jemison won the contract with her proposal titled 'An Inclusive Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth & Beyond.'"

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My Awesome Bio by alphatel · 2012-01-07 04:36 · Score: 3, Informative

This reads like a bio of Jemison and her funding opportunities. News?

--
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
1. Re:My Awesome Bio by mikkelm · 2012-01-07 06:16 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The guy is right. Why must they mention her race twice? Race wouldn't even have crossed the minds of those of us not familiar with the person, had it not been highlighted. Forget loud-mouthed bigots; this is true racism. For these people, race is considered relevant in everything as a matter of course, as long as the person of interest is a minority.
2. Re:My Awesome Bio by Beelzebud · 2012-01-07 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  No, actually the guy is a racist moron. No where is that OP lamenting the fact that her race had to be pointed out. He's saying the reason the manned space program went to hell was because of "diversity" which is dog whistle language for "affirmative action". We say "the first man in space, the first Israeli in space, etc; so what's wrong with pointing out that this was the first black female to go in to space?
3. Re:My Awesome Bio by awrowe · 2012-01-07 07:56 · Score: 1
  
  I had a fat finger problem and moderated your answer "redundant" instead of "insightful". Invalidating the moderation, sorry.
  
  --
  A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working
4. Re:My Awesome Bio by KingAlanI · 2012-01-07 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed on both counts:
  * I don't know about Jemison in particular either.
  * Yeah, AA makes less sense in such a small elite group. The sample size is small enough that a low percentage of blacks might not mean much. Making sure X percent of astronauts are black won't make much of a difference in a population of millions. Also, one less-qualified person getting in would have more of an impact.
  
  --
  I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
5. Re:My Awesome Bio by flyingsquid · 2012-01-07 11:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I have no idea as to exactly how qualified Jemison is. She may fit the bill on her own merits.
  However, it is true that the foundation of Affirmative Action is the suspension of hiring standards in order to fill racial quotas for ethnic groups with lower mean qualifications, especially IQ. It cannot work any other way if it is to be implemented across the board in a society. If AA is enacted, it follows that most (not all) black people in highly qualified positions did not get there solely because of merit. It also follows that organizations like NASA that exist to pioneer very difficult things will be adversely impacted by AA.
  Jesus Christ. OK, sure, the fact that she added some variety to the space program after a parade of white men in the 1960s and 1970s undoubtedly helped her career and opened some doors. But read her bio on Wikipedia. She entered Stanford at 16 and majored in chemical engineering, she has an MD from Cornell, she worked in the Peace Corps, she was an astronaut, she was a professor at Dartmouth for seven years, now she's hired by DARPA... yeah, sure, maybe you could get one or two lucky breaks as a diversity hire. But you don't have a career like that without being the smartest kid in your class and working amazingly hard. You don't have a career like that by being below average, you don't have a career like that just by being good, you have a career like that by being better than 99% of everyone else out there, and I guarantee this woman didn't bring down the average IQ of the astronaut program.
  To do all of those things and to have some bigoted, asshole internet troll like you say that maybe she's not really qualified, and to suggest that perhaps she just got a pass because she's a black woman... well, what the hell have you ever accomplished with your life, other than to write perhaps the single most racist, sexist comment I've ever seen on Slashdot? Although perhaps you could argue that this is an accomplishment, in a perverse sort of a way. If nothing else, it's eye-opening about just how far we all have to go. Maybe we've got black astronauts and a black president, but we're still a damn long way from the color-blind Star Trek universe that inspired Jemison to become an astronaut in the first place.
6. Re:My Awesome Bio by KingAlanI · 2012-01-07 12:29 · Score: 1
  
  that comparison is insulting to sewers. ;)
  Stormfront is a Mos Eisley Cantina of the Internet (wretched hive of scum and villainy)
  
  --
  I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
7. Re:My Awesome Bio by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 14:35 · Score: 1
  
  Well, that's pretty much the unseen problem with Affirmative Action. It trivializes the accomplishments of minorities by planting the possibility that they're unqualified.
8. Re:My Awesome Bio by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 15:45 · Score: 1
  
  The racists and advocates of AA deserve each other.
  2 wrongs don't make a right. Even a child knows affirmative action is bullshit. I'm familiar with the statistics that inspire this mindset and I don't have enough white guilt apparently because I find them to be totally inadequate as a justification.
  -Is there systemic racism? Very much so. The War on Drugs has been a borderline racial cleansing.
  -Has this systemic racism resulted in a generational disadvantage, perhaps even on a genetic level? No doubt.(1)(2)
  -Is there a known correlation between race, gender, and wages/advancement? Yes.
  Do any of these things justify further discrimination by government against non-disadvantaged groups to balance the scales?
  Do any of these things justify gift wrapping an argument for racists adding fuel to the fire of race relations?
  Will a heavy thumb on the scales of justice even come close to balancing out the damage done by the backlash?
  Not a snowball's chance in hell.
  If you want to redistribute wealth to improve social mobility and prevent the formation of an economic caste system, do it racially blind or lose the moral high ground. I grew up with and went to school with children of meth cooks. These children were raised in a trailer with a handgun on the coffee table next to a scale and a crack pipe, and with milk jugs full of anhydrous ammonia in the trunk of their car.
  Their rate of single mother-hood was terrible, and their food stamp diet frequently resulted in malnutrition. It was common for these kid's to have an incarcerated parent.
  Impoverished slums know no racial lines, and these children had no more opportunity than a child in an inner city school.
  All of this said, I think it's a bullshit disservice to soil the accomplishments of someone who has obviously done so much for society with accusations of Affirmative Action. In most places it has gone from a policy to an unspoken practice, which may be an improvement of the unspoken practices of some of my past employers.
  At the end of the day, businesses hire people to make money, not to do society a service or to correct injustices. If a minority get's to the age of 18 and the government and that individual have failed to make that individual competitive, the fault and burden should not fall on the business owner to correct the governments fucked up economic & education policy's, or right the wrongs of a racist criminal justice system & failed war on drug users.
  (1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene%E2%80%93environment_interaction
  (2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetic_Theory
  Affirmative Action is the consequence of academics getting so isolated from reality that they find themselves with their brains falling out of their open minds.
9. Re:My Awesome Bio by one+cup+of+coffee · 2012-01-07 15:49 · Score: 1
  
  I hear this kind of argument quite a bit and it makes me wonder, no offence but, were you born yesterday? It comes off like you don't know anything about America, it's history or culture. I'll be honest, I didn't even notice he mentioned her race twice, the fact that you did, and that it made you lament that "true racism" is at play by "these people" in favor of minorities is a bit of a tell. To me it seems like you may have a distortion in your perception filters which makes you overly sensitive to instances of minorities using race to their advantage, which seems to be for you an injustice which offends to much to be permitted to go undenounced, at least in this case. I think you may wish to re-calibrate if you keep coming up with false positives as you did in this case. Anyway, you seem like someone passionate about right and wrong, I think it might be an interesting, even consciousness expanding exercise to examine how keenly your senses pick up, and how strongly you sense of justness is offended when you encounter instances of the majority abusing race in its favor.
10. Re:My Awesome Bio by Rakshasa-sensei · 2012-01-07 16:25 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't read the summary yet, but why wouldn't race be important when hiring someone to lead our 100 year starship project?
  
  The project leader will likely have important duties when we meet some alien race out there, and thus who we hired for the job will matter a lot. Imagine if we head towards a sector with aliens who have been in conflict with our project leader for millennia? That's going to cause all kinds of issues.
11. Re:My Awesome Bio by drsmithy · 2012-01-08 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  However, it is true that the foundation of Affirmative Action is the suspension of hiring standards in order to fill racial quotas for ethnic groups with lower mean qualifications, especially IQ. It cannot work any other way if it is to be implemented across the board in a society. If AA is enacted, it follows that most (not all) black people in highly qualified positions did not get there solely because of merit. It also follows that organizations like NASA that exist to pioneer very difficult things will be adversely impacted by AA.
  "You have the qualifications AND you're $RACE" is not the same thing as "You're $RACE".
  There's no inherent reason "hiring standards" need be relaxed to carry out "AA". Unless you want to try and argue that anyone of $RACE is incapable of meeting those standards.
  (Not that I'm a huge supporter of "AA", but your argument against it is shit.)
12. Re:My Awesome Bio by kdemetter · 2012-01-08 02:04 · Score: 1
  
  No, actually the guy is a racist moron. No where is that OP lamenting the fact that her race had to be pointed out. He's saying the reason the manned space program went to hell was because of "diversity" which is dog whistle language for "affirmative action". We say "the first man in space, the first Israeli in space, etc; so what's wrong with pointing out that this was the first black female to go in to space?
  I see no evidence of it of the above post. It's probably meant as sarcasm, which is often misinterpreted here.
  The point is, race is not valid in this case : expertise is.
  So the people who say : 'Look : we have a first African American astronaut ' , are making a distinction based on race, which is also racism.
  A real problem would be, if they start selecting people on the basis of race ( quota ) , instead of expertise . I'm not saying that's what happened here, but it does happen in other places. This is not fair to other candidates, and makes it much harder for the selected to proof themselves ( as everyone thinks they got the job due to their race ).
  Anyway, i wish her well, and i hope she can ignore this nonsense and do a great job there.
  
  --
  Slipping shoelaces ?
13. Re:My Awesome Bio by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-08 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Low IQ score butt-hurt detected.
14. Re:My Awesome Bio by khallow · 2012-01-08 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  Imagine if we head towards a sector with aliens who have been in conflict with our project leader for millennia?
  That's why we do background checks. It catches most of these intragalactic scandals before they start!
This should have been done a long time ago by teknx · 2012-01-07 04:38 · Score: 1

I've heard arguments that the space program should have never been put in the hands of government in the first place. If it had been left to the private-sector from day one, space travel would be the norm by now because of the competitive aspect of the private sector and the ability to raises more capital than going the bureaucratic route.
1. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Moryath · 2012-01-07 04:57 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Bullshit.
  The private sector STILL can't get a man into space. If it had been left to the private sector "from day one", the US would never have had anyone try, because the private sector never would have put forth the R&D money to get anything done.
  Scaling back NASA is a result of small-minded fools from the right wing who scream "cut cut cut everything we like yeah military!!!" They want to kill PBS, they want to kill NASA, they call numerous things "government waste", but they never want to admit that the biggest waste of government money is sending the US military everywhere to be the world's policeman, wasting $500 billion a year to invade countries, set up military bases, and bomb the fuck out of places where nobody wants us.
  PBS gets $422 million currently. That is 0.084 PERCENT of what we waste on the military.
  NASA's annual budget is only $19 billion in 2011. And for that you get all this stuff that you fucking take for granted.
  We should say fuck the military, stop buying them new toys, and spend the money on NASA instead. We'd be to Mars in 5 years if we budgeted it.
2. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by currently_awake · 2012-01-07 05:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The private sector does stuff for money. The only "Space" thing with a ROI is satellites. The moon and probes would never have happened. Americans have this strange mind set where they think everything should be done by "not the government", even stuff like this where the government is the ONLY realistic solution.
3. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by jythie · 2012-01-07 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  Unlikely. The private sector tends to do pretty badly with anything that requires sustained long term research before having a return. The first commercial application was communication satellites, but it took decades of research (and failures) before it was possible at a reasonable success rate for private companies to get interested.
  
  I always wonder if the people who put forward that idea have actually worked in research before. I have been on both sides (public and private) and have generally found that they dovetail and the economy moves forward best when they are both doing what they do well.
4. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by triclipse · 2012-01-07 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  That $422M given to PBS is a powerful pro-war propaganda "investment."
  
  --
  No Inflation Taxation without Representation
5. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Moryath · 2012-01-07 05:30 · Score: 2
  
  2011 military budget, actually $683 Billion. I took off personnel ($154 billion) and rounded down to the nearest $100 billion since SOME maintenance of bases, equipment, and so on would be necessary. The rest? Oh yeah, first we WASTE money bombing someone back to the stone age, then we WASTE more money putting a military base in their country and WASTE more money sending "foreign aid" to rebuild the place we just WASTED money bombing the shit out of.
  Welfare, medicare, SS, Education $2.7 Trillion - but unlike the military that actually cycles right back into the economy. Money spent on welfare goes straight to food and housing for actual humans. Money spent on medicare goes to the medical care of actual humans. Social Security goes into food and housing for elderly humans.
  Education goes into raising the next generation of humans to be (hopefully) functioning members of society - though in your case it appears not to have worked. Oh and yeah, it pays mostly for the money to pay the teachers to teach the kids (though I personally would say fuck high school/ college sports, especially the basketball and football programs that are the government wasting a fucking ton of money subsidizing the hell out of the NBA and NFL by running their minor leagues for them).
  As for the Wall Street bailouts, I agree. Put all that money to NASA instead and we'd be far better off than if it were in bankers' pockets.
6. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Scarred+Intellect · 2012-01-07 05:44 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The waste isn't necessarily the military.
  It's General Dynamics and Fluor and countless other DOD contractors. My time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Infantryman was beyond understandably austere. Larger bases has clean flush toilets, clean showers every day, fresh cooked food every day including pop (soda) and ice cream. They had Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway, Green Beans coffee, movie theaters, dance night... Reliable communication back home. Mail delivery every day. Gyms. And electricity. We shat in bags and burned it. We were able to shower at most once a week. Our Staff NCO's had to pay out of their own pocket to get a water pump that worked. We usually lacked air conditioning or heat in our bunks...
  All that we lacked is understandable and doesn't bother me at all. What bothered me was that the POG's had it, and bitched if they lost it like it was their right to have it while we ate stuff I wouldn't feed to my dogs.
  When it was suggested by a Marine General in charge of such things that they cut back on these MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) activities in Stars and Stripes, there was outlandish backlash from POG's (Person Other than Grunt) about how it would affect them and how they needed these services. Nevermind that he wanted to cut them back to divert the funding for these activities to us that were farther deployed and had practically none of that.
  Virtually all of these services are provided by civilian DOD contractors. I think the largest compound in Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan was the Fluor compound.
  While there IS waste in military spending, it dwarfs compared to what is spent on unnecessary contractors. Hell, they built a golf course in Baghdad for the Generals to play golf!
7. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  Scaling back NASA is a result of small-minded fools from the right wing
  Except that the people who actually scaled back NASA were left-wingers who wanted to give the money to people who produce nothing but more children.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
8. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 05:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  but unlike the military that actually cycles right back into the economy
  Where exactly does military spending go, if not right back into the economy?
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
9. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Moryath · 2012-01-07 06:00 · Score: 2
  
  Wasted resources.
  Bombing someone = wasted resources.
  Fired bullets = wasted resources.
  Crashed planes, fuel, all the rest = wasted resources we're not going to get back.
  Military spending is almost ALL wasted resources. You think 3500 Tomahawk missiles, a cost ot $2.6 Billion, is anything but wasted resources? And that's JUST the Tomahawks, not all the bombs and missiles (most of which cost significantly more).
10. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  Except that people (presumably Americans) get *paid* to make (from mining the ore to writing the software) those Tomahawks. That money goes into the economy.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
11. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Moryath · 2012-01-07 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  Except that people (presumably Americans) get *paid* to make (from mining the ore to writing the software) those Tomahawks. That money goes into the economy.
  Except that the "pay", labor, is an infinitesimal fraction of the "cost" of those Tomahawks. And the material resources placed into them are destroyed, rarely recovered. Just as the lives that they take are unrecoverable, and the things that they are used to destroy - which usually amounts to a village, house, or the water supply for the immediate region - then cost even MORE material resources to restore.
  It's waste. Pure and simple.
12. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  Precision guided weapons were designed for the sole purpose of not having to bomb villages, houses and water supplies.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
13. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Moryath · 2012-01-07 06:52 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Do we need to bomb Iraq back to the stone age in order to defend Alaska?
  Do we need to bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age in order to defend Alaska?
  Do we need to invade Libya in order to defend Alaska?
  Do we need to have soldiers in over 1000 military bases in countries around the world, most of who don't want us there, to defend Alaska, Hawaii, and the continental US from invasion?
  No. That's what I mean by WASTE. The military, to fulfill its actual, Constitutionally mandated role of protecting the borders of the US against actual enemies, needs less than 10% of the toys they have WASTED taxpayer money on since WW2.
14. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Moryath · 2012-01-07 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  And we've seen how often they actually worked as designed.
  And how often the retarded "blow everything up" Rambo fucktards of the US military just targeted villages, houses, and water supplies anyways.
15. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by egamma · 2012-01-07 06:56 · Score: 2
  
  I've heard arguments that the space program should have never been put in the hands of government in the first place. If it had been left to the private-sector from day one, space travel would be the norm by now because of the competitive aspect of the private sector and the ability to raises more capital than going the bureaucratic route.
  And what, exactly, has prevented the private sector from putting a man in space the last 50-60 years?
  My guess is, a lack of government subsidies.
  
  --
  Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
16. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by TheCouchPotatoFamine · 2012-01-07 07:01 · Score: 2
  
  so very true. Government agencies can train people with specialities that private industry would look at as wasteful - but thats because private industries' involvement ends at their front door. There are some things you /cannot/ accomplish alone. Humans are communal. Government is a given.
  Privatize-everything-people are either stupid, or control freaks - but they are not as efficient as they want to think in accomplishing greatness. It takes a whole /people/ to do that - Not any one company.
  
  --
  CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
17. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 07:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What are you, an asshole?
  Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
  It's not the cost of a missile. It's the opportunity cost of a missile. As well as the cost of human life. Do you have any idea how many civilians have been killed by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last ten years?
18. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by SETIGuy · 2012-01-07 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  If we didn't have them, we would be less likely to launch strikes on defenseless countries. Look at where the Tomahawk has been used since its deployment. The few launches that were necessary were largely unsuccessful, and would have been better accomplished with a couple dozen SEALs on helicopters.
  
  --
  Support SETI@home
19. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  we would be less likely to launch strikes on defenseless countries.
  That "defenseless country" needs, like all of us, to know who it's getting in bed with before it gets in bed with them.
  
  better accomplished with a couple dozen SEALs on helicopters.
  But we're all so terrified of American casualties!! (Oh my, I think I'm going to faint.. [girlish swoon])
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
20. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · 2012-01-07 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  > The private sector STILL can't get a man into space.
  Perhaps you mean "can't get a man into orbit"? Suborbital flights above the altitude defined as the edge of space have happened.
21. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by 0xdeadbeef · 2012-01-07 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Broken window fallacy.
  Of course, the other fallacy is stating that killing people has no value. Somebody wanted those people dead, and the weapons were made and used to do so, so they must have been worth their cost.
  The problem is... who the fuck values killing people in third world shitholes so highly, and why are they calling the shots for our military instead of the American people?
22. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  who the fuck values killing people in third world shitholes
  People who are pissed of at what the shithole's guests do. (Remember that "we" don't just wake up each morning and decide to bomb some random shithole. Otherwise, large swaths of China, India and Africa would be depopulated by now.)
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
23. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by khallow · 2012-01-07 09:46 · Score: 2
  
  The private sector STILL can't get a man into space.
  They actually have several times with SpaceShipOne. I know you mean in Earth orbit now. In a few years, you'll mean beyond Earth orbit. Then it'll mean landing on the Moon. Then some time after that, beyond cislunar space. Then it'll be beyond the asteroid belt. Then it'll be beyond the orbit of Neptune, another star system, the local galactic spiral, whatever.
  
  I don't know what the fascination is with telling us somewhat difficult things can't be done, but it has to be one of the more futile pursuits ever engaged in.
24. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by khallow · 2012-01-07 09:51 · Score: 1
  
  The private sector does stuff for money. The only "Space" thing with a ROI is satellites.
  Currently. Once things change, then statements like this become false.
  
  The moon and probes would never have happened.
  More accurately, they wouldn't have happened until private industry got to the point where they're feasible on modest budgets.
  
  Americans have this strange mind set where they think everything should be done by "not the government", even stuff like this where the government is the ONLY realistic solution.
  A "realistic solution" without a problem.
25. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Zibodiz · 2012-01-07 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know. I think the jury is till out about what 'wing' B.O. is from. I mean, really... he has more people in Afghanistan that Bush ever did, he's not supporting things like PBS, Guantanamo Bay is still open...
26. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Nutria · 2012-01-07 13:11 · Score: 1
  
  Eh? Democrats eviscerated NASA almost 40 years ago.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
27. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by turbidostato · 2012-01-07 14:30 · Score: 1
  
  "Where exactly does military spending go, if not right back into the economy?"
  Broken window fallacy.
  If it were so simple we could end all the world's economic problems today: just pay half the population for digging holes and the other half to cover them.
28. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by turbidostato · 2012-01-07 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  "Except that people (presumably Americans) get *paid* to make (from mining the ore to writing the software) those Tomahawks. That money goes into the economy."
  Yes, but it doesn't create wealth, which is what matters.
  Again, the broken window falacy in action.
29. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by turbidostato · 2012-01-07 14:36 · Score: 1
  
  "Precision guided weapons were designed for the sole purpose of not having to bomb villages, houses and water supplies."
  May I suggest a third option? What about trying not bomb them -at all?
30. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by turbidostato · 2012-01-07 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  "You don't earn a single penny bombing out places in Afghanistan.
  They don't even have oil."
  But they do have rare earths. You didn't really believe they were doing it for free, do you?
  http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2936
31. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by Rhodri+Mawr · 2012-01-07 16:24 · Score: 1
  
  Your entire argument is destroyed by quoting the single most dubious tabloid newspaper in existence - the Sun newspaper. There is no reason why anyone should trust a word they say. The Sun hires liars and spouts bile continuously. I wouldn't even wipe my backside with it.
32. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by khallow · 2012-01-07 19:17 · Score: 1
  
  How do you get to that point? Who pays for basic research with no immediate gain but which may, eventually, lead us to a point where private entities see revenue-making opportunities and jump in?
  I can think of two kinds just off the top of my head: non-profits and business labs. For example, the Keck Observatory is a state of the art, non-profit observatory. And there are numerous famous examples of business-oriented labs that produced a lot of research without immediate gain.
  
  It's also worth noting that research which was intended to produce immediate gain often produces research with gain over longer time frames.
  
  Looking past these abstractions to the specific case of development of space and of profitable enterprises in space, it is worth noting that commercial space flight has only been around for a bit over 25 years. Arianespace was the first commercial spaceflight vendor in 1984. A couple of US businesses followed shortly after, to develop privately owned commercial launch vehicles (the Delta and Atlas series of rockets).
  
  Since then, there have been two US businesses which have successfully created an orbital launch vehicle from scratch, Orbital Sciences, which developed the Pegasus air-launched rocket, and SpaceX, which developed the Falcon series of rockets. Development costs for these vehicles was much lower than earlier development costs had been.
  
  At the amateur level, there have been numerous cases of people building all sorts of relatively sophisticated systems from scratch. For example, hybrid propulsion (which involves a very thick, solid shell of material through which a reactive fluid or gas is pumped causing ignition of the two, which is then ejected through a nozzle), such as was used in SpaceShipOne and attempted in SpaceShipTwo, was for forty years developed mostly by amateur groups.
  
  This brings up two related aspects of rocketry development. First, that development costs for a potential rocket would probably have declined anyway, even in the face of no government involvement. There would have been amateur groups exploring the technologies. And manufacturing and control technologies have steadily advanced for decades, making rocket construction and launch ever more feasible.
  
  Second, effective space development has tended to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Attempts to jump large distances ahead, such as the Apollo lunar program or Indium's satellite phone system tend to fail because the destination doesn't turn out as expected while incremental development is favored by current commercial efforts such as Scaled Composites's development of the SpaceShipOne/Two vehicles and SpaceX's efforts with the Falcon series of rockets.
  
  A large part of the reason for that is because the current obstacles to space activities are more economic than technological. For example, every orbital launch vehicle is launched well below what would be its optimal launch frequency. Similar problems can be seen with most satellites, probes, and other spacecraft. Each new design tends to be rather expensive, so the more spacecraft that use the design, the lower the cost per spacecraft.
  
  So I don't see space development really being that far behind present even without significant government development. Amateur groups could have developed the technologies and launching infrastructure. Then they could transition to satellite launching businesses when the technologies became reliable enough.
  
  And once you can launch a large enough satellite, you can launch people into space as well or probes to travel beyond Earth orbit, transitioning into yet other sorts of space activities. It has been somewhat helpful to have trillions of dollars of government money from several countries over the past 60 or so years put into space development, but I don't think it's been that good a deal for the money spent.
33. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by cffrost · 2012-01-08 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  WTF, don't talk down to your soldiers like that.
  WTF indeed... I thought Marines didn't appreciate being referred to as "soldiers" like that.
  Further, GP has a point. If Scarred Intellect didn't like USMC's disparity of treatment, he should have chosen a more equitable or all-POG branch.
  Finally, every American's comment in this thread is (currently) protected by the first amendment, including those that offend your bullshit self-righteousness. If you want to order people how they can and cannot speak or write, you're in the wrong fucking place, asshole.
  
  --
  Thank you, Edward Snowden.
  
  "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
34. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by IrquiM · 2012-01-08 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  There haven't been any left-wingers in US able to do anything about budgets, ever!
  
  --
  This is blinging
35. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by khallow · 2012-01-08 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  Government agencies can waste money because they have a captive revenue stream.
  FTFY. The number one reason that private industry would look at a government action as wasteful is because the government action is wasteful.
  
  Privatize-everything-people are either stupid, or control freaks
  "Stupid" is possible. Relinquishing control as would be done with privatization is not the symptom of a control freak. So "control freak" is not possible.
  
  but they are not as efficient as they want to think in accomplishing greatness. It takes a whole /people/ to do that - Not any one company.
  Pardon me for rolling my eyes at this nonsense. But the real answer here is several competing businesses. Not "any one company" nor a "whole /people/".
36. Re:This should have been done a long time ago by jwhitener · 2012-01-12 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  I think most people who complain about military waste are (should be) referring to the horrendous waste spent on no-bid contractors. At least, I hope they are aware of how bad it has become.
  Most of the people I know and associate with are under the impression that almost any push for military action is 50% to accomplish some strategic goal and 50% to funnel tax payer money to campaign contributors and/or companies that are directly or indirectly connected with some politician. Cheney-Haliburton for example.
What can't she do? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 04:40 · Score: 1

Seriously. This woman reads like "Also she built a time machine, killed Hitler, and fought back the entire Napoleonic army from Moscow." I know a lot of smart people make me feel stupid. This woman just makes me feel lazy.
1. Re:What can't she do? by jythie · 2012-01-07 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  Heh. Agreed. I had not heard of her before, she seems rather awesome. The TNG cameo is just icing on the cake.
2. Re:What can't she do? by Hartree · 2012-01-07 12:39 · Score: 2
  
  You and me both, AC. And I've met Jemison.
  Believe me, compared to her I feel like a bumbling moron and an utter layabout.
  And she topped it off by being the cutest person in the room.
For those wondering by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 04:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

That's the episode where the Enterprise finds Riker's transporter-accident created duplicate that was abandoned on a planet several years earlier. The new Riker, dubbed Thomas, eventually goes on to leave the ship before one day ending up at DS9 where he steals the Defiant to help the Maquis and is captured/imprisoned by Cardassians. Fun fact: TNG writers briefly considered killing Riker Classic in the episode to have Riker II take his place in the show, but at a lower rank.
1. Re:For those wondering by gmhowell · 2012-01-07 11:41 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for the information. I was wondering why the submitter included a link to that shitty Peace Corpse page instead of one to Memory Alpha.
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
2. Re:For those wondering by bondsbw · 2012-01-07 18:01 · Score: 1
  
  Ha, watched the DS9 episode on Netflix just yesterday.
  
  --
  All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The private sector won't wait for 100 years by Hentes · 2012-01-07 04:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

The private sector will not finance anything like this. They want quick, guaranteed profits. This is why governments should pioneer space travel: the private sector will never go further than LEO unless they are sure it's profitable.
1. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by Megahard · 2012-01-07 04:52 · Score: 3, Funny
  Here's one way to solve it.
  
  1. Develop near-light-speed spaceship.
  2. Put the stockholders on the ship
  --
  I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
2. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by Megahard · 2012-01-07 04:55 · Score: 1
  Sorry, forgot the obligatory.
  
  1. Develop near-light-speed spaceship.
  2. Put the stockholders on the ship.
  3. Profit!
  --
  I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
3. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by huckamania · 2012-01-07 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  They will go for profit. It is already profitable, which is why Branson, Allen, etc are all trying to get in on the ground floor. The cost of shipping a 'thing' to orbit is astronomically high. Lower the costs and you have a guaranteed profit.
  IMO, this project is a waste of time and money. We have space around our own star that we have not figured out how to exploit. I would much rather see us try to build automatic mining/extraction probes for asteroids or recyclers to clean up some of the junk in orbit. I'd like to see a 100 year plan to get us to the asteroid belt. There are enough resources in our own system to sustain us for practically ever.
  By the time we reach the edge of our own system, we won't need a 100 year plan to go to the next star. We'll already be there.
4. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by Moryath · 2012-01-07 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  Think about the profits possible to the first company that builds an interstellar ship...
  it will likely be the culmination of thousands of other advancements along the way, the kind that the private sector is very good at making
  What profits? It's going to go into space and never come back.
  Exploration of near space wasn't "profitable" at the time. Not a dime of "profit" was made by any company in going to the moon.
  All the "Profits" from space exploration have been from companies being subsidized far beyond 100% of cost on the R&D that went into developing what space travel we have now.
  Was it worth it? Hell Fucking Yes. But if it had been left to "companies" and "private enterprise", none of it would ever have happened. The private sector takes all the things that were necessary to land on the moon, and says "where's the ROI on that? Fuck this, let's put the money into developing another muscle car or a pill to make men have 6-hour erections and multiple orgasms."
  NASA is responsible for an incredible number of things you know and take for granted today. None of which would exist without NASA, because the "private sector" would never have come close to putting in the money to do the R&D.
5. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by CRCulver · 2012-01-07 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  They will go for profit. It is already profitable, which is why Branson, Allen, etc are all trying to get in on the ground floor. The cost of shipping a 'thing' to orbit is astronomically high. Lower the costs and you have a guaranteed profit.
  
  Branson is not aiming for orbit. Virgin Galactic seeks to offer sub-orbital flights for touristic purposes, which is a long way away from orbital flights for commercial purposes.
6. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by timeOday · 2012-01-07 05:38 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  There is no remotely feasible way to make this a quick trip. At 1G acceleration halfway there and 1G deceleration the other half - that is, the fastest you could possibly go without suffering super-gravitational forces the whole time:
  
  "A journey from the sun to the galactic core at 1G constant acceleration takes 340 years as experienced by the ship crew and 30,000 years as experienced by Earth observers." cite
  
  So (overwhelming technical hurdles aside) the business case (especially for investors on earth) is extremely hard to imagine. Sure, corporations can outlive humans, so investors today can be paid in the hopes of returns in the future. But there is no corporation, no government, NOTHING manmade that has any creditworthiness over that time period.
7. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by cduffy · 2012-01-07 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  Think about the profits possible to the first company that builds an interstellar ship...
  I'm having trouble thinking of any such profits. I mean, seriously, what's the business model? Put a few trillion dollars into space and wave goodbye, hoping that it'll by some miracle come back with discoveries that'll make your great-great-great-great grandchildren rich?
  There are much safer investments to make if you're only caring about getting a return generations after you're dead. Compound interest, after all, is a beautiful thing.
  
  Even notwithstanding that point, if interstellar travel will ever be possible, it will likely be the culmination of thousands of other advancements along the way, the kind that the private sector is very good at making.
  The private sector is very good at incremental enhancements, but not big, high-risk research. Once upon a time corporations were willing to fund long-term research, but over the course of the last several decades American corporations have deprioritized their long-term, blue-sky research spending.
8. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-01-07 06:00 · Score: 2
  
  "A journey from the sun to the galactic core at 1G constant acceleration takes 340 years as experienced by the ship crew and 30,000 years as experienced by Earth observers." cite
  Hmm, my calculations show ~30400 years as seen from Earth, but only 20 years foe the crew.
  Of course, noone is interested in going to the center of the Galaxy. I think we'd settle for Alpha Centauri first. 3.5 years for the crew, 6 years from our PoV on Earth.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
9. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by physburn · 2012-01-07 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  Profit, By combining the twin powers of compound interest and relativistic time dilation. It indeed would work. Plus the passengers could benefit from the all the advances in Medical technology and other technologies when they get back to earth.
10. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by climb_no_fear · 2012-01-07 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  As was already pointed out, nearby stars with travel times in the years to decades would be enough.
  
  I agree that this is a job for government. All the really big projects in the past (pyramids, cathedrals, Great Walls) were the result of government or religious (usually equivalent to government back then) entities throughout history. Some of them took hundreds of years to complete.
11. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by kid_wonder · 2012-01-07 07:41 · Score: 2
  
  You sir, are apparently unfamiliar with the newly discovered element unobtanium.
  
  --
  
  "Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
12. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-01-07 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  This notion of building a giant ship to go to another solar system is extraordinarily impractical.
  The point of the operation, I think, is to consider the changes required for human society to implement plans requiring decades/centuries/millenia to complete.
  Right now, we have a hard time holding our focus for one Congressional Election cycle, much less a decade. Much less a century.
  So some fundamental changes will have to go down to even make an interstellar trip possible to plan, much less implement.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
13. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by HuguesT · 2012-01-07 13:06 · Score: 1
  
  You need to decelerate halfway. 20 years to the core is if you go full throttle all the way and don't brake.
14. Re:The private sector won't wait for 100 years by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-01-07 15:15 · Score: 1
  
  You need to decelerate halfway. 20 years to the core is if you go full throttle all the way and don't brake.
  Nope. ten years subjective to accelerate 15,000 light years, another ten to decelerate the other 15,000 light years.
  And yes, I did recheck my math. 10.0234 years acceleration and the same deceleration, rounded to 10 for lack of signifcant digits in the distance....
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
That is pretty much nuts by demachina · 2012-01-07 04:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

$500,000 isn't exactly a lot of money by U.S. government standards, but for a country that currently can't even get to people in to LEO spending money on interstellar space travel is completely nuts.
So, how about you get to Mars first, maybe then we can talk.
There is pretty much zero chance anyone in the private sector is going to sink any money in to interstellar space travel unless there is a juicy cost plus government contract funding it. If you dangle one of those Lockheed and Boeing will be on it in a heart beat, especially if the contract runs for a 100 years before they have to deliver anything.
This "foundation" will just be used by the DARPA haters in Congress, mostly Republicans and Tea Partiers, as further evidence of how far DARPA and the Obama administration has gone off the rails, and after reading this I can see their point.
DARPA does some amazing things but they need to exert a little self restraint and focus on things that will payoff in less than a millenium. It will be unfortunate if the good R&D DARPA does gets cuts because they seem to have gone completely nuts on this. The U.S. doesn't do enough R&D as it is.

--
@de_machina
1. Re:That is pretty much nuts by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  Agree.. to put in perspective, you can't even buy a house in San Diego for $500,000.
2. Re:That is pretty much nuts by currently_awake · 2012-01-07 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Pro: The best science isn't the huge dollar mega-projects, it's the slow steady bleeding edge science that gives long term huge results. If the government doesn't fund this then it won't get done, ever. Con: If your goal is to suck money out of the taxpayers and give it to your friends then this could be a workable plan. At least until your country goes bankrupt because your friends bled the country dry. Followed by a revolution where you and your friends are targets.
3. Re:That is pretty much nuts by csmicfool · 2012-01-07 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  Interstellar Human travel is the only way to ensure survival of the human race beyond any one single cataclysmic event. If the Earth gets destroyed - or more likely, if WE destroy the Earth - this is the only true way we would be able to continue our existence. The important thing is finding a way to ensure that we don't land on some crappy planet without internet access - then it would certainly be a mistake.
4. Re:That is pretty much nuts by Cold+hard+reality · 2012-01-07 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  This isn't science, it's PR.
5. Re:That is pretty much nuts by uniquename72 · 2012-01-07 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  There is pretty much zero chance anyone in the private sector is going to sink any money in to interstellar space travel
  There's a fair amount of private sector money flowing into space travel now (not specifically interstellar, but have you to walk before you can run). Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas is one example (although they've had some cutbacks recently thanks to what Bigelow refers to as the "Obama recession").
  
  It would be hard to argue that working towards private space flight/exploration won't have a vast effect on interstellar study. It would be equally hard to argue that focusing on interstellar travel (one of many, many things DARPA is doing right now) won't have vast, ongoing short-term effects on space flight (and many, many other types of) research, so I'm not sure why you're criticizing it as a long-term goal.
6. Re:That is pretty much nuts by Nutria · 2012-01-07 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Interstellar Human travel is the only way to ensure survival of the human race beyond any one single cataclysmic event.
  A journey has to have a destination; there is only pie-in-the-sky hand waving crap in interstellar travel.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
7. Re:That is pretty much nuts by ModernGeek · 2012-01-07 06:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  We decided that we were going to go to the moon before we could put a man into orbit. Brains aren't the only thing to get you somewhere, you also have to have the balls to try.
  
  --
  Sig: I stole this sig.
8. Re:That is pretty much nuts by demachina · 2012-01-07 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Actually no Mars is the only rational place to put a colony in the foreseeable future. At least it has some water, some CO2 for greenhouses, a barely tolerable temperature and some atmosphere. As Mars is a desert compared to Earth, the moon is a vast desert by comparison to Mars.
  
  --
  @de_machina
9. Re:That is pretty much nuts by demachina · 2012-01-07 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  " It would be equally hard to argue that focusing on interstellar travel (one of many, many things DARPA is doing right now) won't have vast"
  Actualluy it would be EXTREMELY easy to argue that focusing on interstellar travel wont have vast, ongoing short-term effects on space flight.
  It will most probably be extremely counterproductive.
  In the current hyper critical budget environment in D.C. this will just be a dart board for all the politicians who want to kill off science and R&D funding.
  
  --
  @de_machina
10. Re:That is pretty much nuts by demachina · 2012-01-07 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  The moon program acheived its goals in 10 years. Politicians could rationalize the expenditure especially in the context of the cold war and the space race. Getting to the Moon was trivial compared to this. Von Braun was already planning for it in the 40's. Colonizing Mars is trivial comparted to this. When we successfully colonize Mars, come back and we will talk. This is seriously out of sequence on what we need to be doing in space exploration right now.
  It will be a challenge to land on a planet and successfully colonize it in this solar system with the aid of resupply and technological support for Earth. At interstellar distances it will be a formidable challenge with a high probability of failure without a somewhat improbable FTL drive breakthrough.
  Unless you come up with an FTL driver you aren't going to get to even Alpha Centauri in less than nearly forever and its open to debate what you would do when you got there unless there was a habitable planet there ready to colonize with water, oxygen, fuel, reasonable temperature profile and gravity. I think the nearest discovered planets that have a remote chance of being habitable are an even more formidable distance away than Alpha Centauri.
  So, you have no chance to get anyone in government to sink any serious money in to a hundred/thousand year project at a time when the U.S. debt is passing 100% of GDP and has been going parabolic since 2008. The U.S. was still flush with cash from the post ware boom in the 60's.
  You also have no chance to get anyone in the private sector to sink any money in to this unless its a billionaire with a sci-fi fetish like Paul Allen who are willing to blow a few billion on something they wont live to see pay off.
  All things considered I think someone at DARPA was reading a little too much Sci-Fi or this lady had a friend at DARPA who could throw a half million to her to let her indulge her little fantasy. The cool thing is that since its advertised as a hundred year project she doesn't really need to deliver on anything for the rest of her life. Sweet job, where do I sign up?
  
  --
  @de_machina
11. Re:That is pretty much nuts by 0xdeadbeef · 2012-01-07 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  DARPA does some amazing things but they need to exert a little self restraint and focus on things that will payoff in less than a millenium.
  
  Yeah, because Mars rocks will totally pay dividends that engineering won't.
  Maybe you need to exert a little not whining to your betters about what they should and shouldn't be doing.
12. Re:That is pretty much nuts by aztektum · 2012-01-07 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  DARPA does some amazing things but they need to exert a little self restraint and focus on things that will payoff in less than a millenium.
  You don't feel the research and development would create anything useful in the short term? The space program of the 60's didn't achieve anything for us in the last 30 years?
  Let's just keep focusing on our own short-term gain. That seems to be working out well.
  
  --
  :: aztek ::
  No sig for you!!
13. Re:That is pretty much nuts by turbidostato · 2012-01-07 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  "what was the ROI motivation of the moon program in the 60s?"
  Are you kidding?
  1) For the contractors: obviously, the contracts.
  2) For those signing the bills (the politicians): the bribes from the contractors and the warm feeling for the American citizenship "we are the good ones, we are in a crusade and we are going to win it" that would insure the statu quo both for the contractors and the politicians.
  Do you imagine the catastrophe if the Americans would even hinted that some thing might be learnt from the hatred communism?
14. Re:That is pretty much nuts by gatkinso · 2012-01-07 17:27 · Score: 1
  
  Better PR: slashing a few failing projects (of which DARPA has many).
  
  --
  I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
$500K by atari2600a · 2012-01-07 05:17 · Score: 1

What is this Somalia!?
Star Dancer by lazarus · 2012-01-07 05:28 · Score: 1

"Jemison ... is a professionally trained dancer".
Spider Robinson must be thrilled.

--
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
you're all missing the real story here by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-07 05:36 · Score: 1

DARPA is now hiring people on 100 year contracts? Forget space, advances in battlefield medicine are the real story.
Don't Blame Me! by grumling · 2012-01-07 05:37 · Score: 1

I voted for George Clinton!

--
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2012-01-07 05:38 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Getting Real About Capitalism by Baldrson · 2012-01-07 05:50 · Score: 1

The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value.
But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen.
So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work.
This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no "means testing". Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all.
In other words: All fall down.

--
Seastead this.
1. Re:Getting Real About Capitalism by DanDD · 2012-01-07 18:57 · Score: 1
  
  Woa, this is a new idea for me. I'm not an economist, just a lowly engineer, but I find this idea rather tickly in my brain. Do you have any books or references where this idea is investigated further?
  
  --
  "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
2. Re:Getting Real About Capitalism by Baldrson · 2012-01-08 01:31 · Score: 1
  
  My 1992 white paper introduces an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to privatize government technology development programs in space and energy.
  Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea related to the citizen's dividend.
  
  --
  Seastead this.
Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion by istartedi · 2012-01-07 05:59 · Score: 1

The other elephant: collision. If we get any significant fraction of c, how are we going to know when a rock the size of a marble is in our path? At that velocity, it's bye-bye charlie when it hits you.

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Interstellar garbage skow by kawabago · 2012-01-07 06:11 · Score: 1

It might be cheaper to send our garbage to other star systems rather than keep using expensive land to bury it!
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2012-01-07 06:21 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Funding... by Gavin+Scott · 2012-01-07 06:44 · Score: 1

Now DARPA has provided $500,000 in seed money to help jumpstart the effort
"All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for."
G.
Yes, $.5M is a lot of money, but... by Dammital · 2012-01-07 07:13 · Score: 5, Informative

... damn, you should have gone to the symposium. These people were not nuts - they were capable engineers and sociologists and educators and authors and astronauts, who well understood the enormity of the challenge (which does in fact edge into astronomic scale).
There were reviews of existing technologies, reports on current research, proposals ranging from modest to blue-sky, discussion about the science that would have to be done. Social engineering was also prominent - any future colony would be a microcosm of human society after all.
Without the Dreamers, you wouldn't have the Planners. It was awe-inspiring to be among the Dreamers for a couple of days, and I begrudge not one dime of the money DARPA spent on it.

The U.S. doesn't do enough R&D as it is.
Right you are.
Starship Project by mfnickster · 2012-01-07 07:20 · Score: 1

Well, this project may not build a colony on another world... but it might just build a city on rock 'n' roll!

--
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Money Awarded to a Track Chair and Organizer? by Araes · 2012-01-07 08:27 · Score: 4, Informative

I deeply enjoyed attending the 100 YSS symposium, and actually presented in the economic track that Jemison headed. However, awarding the final seed money to one of the track chairs and program organizers makes the whole process seem like collusion. Note the Education, Social, Economic and Legal Considerations track in the 100 YSS Symposium Agenda. Having worked program allocation, this is the kind of stuff that could spark lawsuits if it weren't for such a small sum (in gov't terms). Also depends on whether she was funded by DARPA in her track chair duties. (Note: I did not submit a proposal to the RFP)

Hopefully the money is put to good use, as it looks like she partnered with Icarus, who are at least motivated and active.
intersteller = nukes = governments by 0111+1110 · 2012-01-07 09:53 · Score: 1

1. Interstellar missions require thousands of nuclear bombs.
2. Governments are the only ones how have nuclear bombs.
3. Governments are required for interstellar missions.
Until we rewrite the laws of physics the only practical interstellar propulsion is going to be Freeman Dyson's Orion pulsed nuke system. IOW interstellar travel is all about nuclear bombs.
Here are the steps:
1. Start a small permanent lunar base (Moonbase Alpha) whose immediate goal is to set up mining/smelting operations while seeing if long term survival on the moon is possible. Once we have lunar manufacturing a lot of things become much easier.
2. Construct a nuclear power plant to power the settlement as well as supply plutonium for nuclear bomb manufacturing. Solar is not adequate for serious manufacturing capacity. Although solar furnaces might be possible.
3. Start work on building a spacecraft manufacturing facility at an earth-moon Lagrange point.
4. Before even thinking about interstellar ships, build smaller nuclear powered interplanetary craft to finish exploring the solar system and nuclear powered shuttles for transfers between the moon and the Lagrange spacecraft assembly station.
5. Continue to grow the size of the moonbase by allowing anyone with relavent technical skills on semi-annual transport ships. It shouldn't be just astronauts and pilots. The idea would be to have an entire 'army' of people up there working together toward a common idealistic goal.

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Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
African-American by arisvega · 2012-01-07 10:16 · Score: 2

Slightly off-topic, but since TFS mentions it, am I the only one that finds the designation "African-American" stupid? I have heard of Native Americans, yes. But no "European-Americans", or "Caucasian-Americans". And somehow, Asians are just Asians.
This for a point: http://snarkyintuition.blogspot.com/2011/11/p-p-p-pass-mic-yo.html
It used to be simple, now I have no idea what the frak is going on.

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The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
1. Re:African-American by manwargi · 2012-01-07 20:56 · Score: 1
  
  Not the only one. All terms used are misnomers, and they all desperately try to label something that isn't even a thing anymore. Plus, it has lead to such wonderful things as this gem.
The word I'm thinking of is: by Hartree · 2012-01-07 12:27 · Score: 1

Fool. Yeah, that about sums you up, AC.
I have the advantage of having met Jemison, albeit only talking to her for a few minutes.
Race wasn't a factor. She could be yellow with purple polka dots and still be highly qualified for anything.
Extremely bright gal.
1. Re:The word I'm thinking of is: by turbidostato · 2012-01-07 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  "Race wasn't a factor."
  Sure. But then, why somebody feel necessary to mention it?
  Do you know how can we know ours is not an eye-color hating society? Because nobody mentions the eye color of somebody when stablishing that person's achievements. And we don't do it because nobody gives a damn.
  We can't have a truly egalitarian society till the same happens with the skin color too.
2. Re:The word I'm thinking of is: by IrquiM · 2012-01-08 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  We don't mention it, because everybody knows that people with blue eyes are better than the ones with green ones. However, for people with green eyes, the subject is a bit touchy.
  
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  This is blinging
Starship studies way premature by jwbales · 2012-01-07 13:19 · Score: 1

It will be hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before mankind will travel to other stars unless some kind of faster than light travel becomes possible.
One or a few ships would never make it. It would have to be a journey of an entire civilization, one large enough and with the resources and technology to endure a journey lasting thousands of years. And it would only make sense to take such a journey when the resources of this solar system have been exhausted. When the Oort Cloud has been exhausted, its civilization might have the ability and the motive to make such a journey. And such a civilization will have little use for habitable planets, they will be looking for systems with lots of asteroids and other low-gravity resources.
Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion by MLease · 2012-01-07 13:49 · Score: 1

I do believe I just heard something go " WHOOOOOSH! ".

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I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
100 Years? by uranus65 · 2012-01-07 14:20 · Score: 1

Shouldn't they be choosing a baby for this?
Re:Mars by qxcv · 2012-01-07 21:17 · Score: 1

At NASA spending rates, $500k would get you three or four "artist's impression" drawings of an American-flag covered spaceship which looks suspiciously like the USS Enterprise. $500k is chicken feed for a government agency like DARPA.

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"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
Do we want it? by Bensam123 · 2012-01-08 01:14 · Score: 1

A lot of people are commenting about how asinine it is to spend money on other things besides NASA, which I generally agree on, and the general mindset in the US is that everything should be done by private sectors, which I don't agree with.

Has anyone thought about what would happen if we seeded an extremely profitable business to outer space for private companies to suck the life out of? The government is paying for the groundwork and they're paying to get people interested, why are they even doing that in the first place? We'll just end up having some giant conglomerate in a 100 or so year that's milking the government and milking the citizens. It's not like the corporation is just going to prance around with their new product and/or service and then give it back for free, they'll milk us for every dime we have. That's how businesses work, especially very big ones with a death grip on a certain market.

I mean this is pretty much what the internet has turned into and is a stunning example of just such a creation. Everyone is all about making businesses in america, but no one stops to think about what happens when giant mega corp is taking their lunch money. Somethings you don't want companies to run or if they do they have to be heavily regulated or they will just have their way with you, your spouse, your kids, and your doggie too. I for one don't want giant megacorp being the one delivering a significant portion of a market back to us after building off our lunch money, just to take more of it. At least we have some control over the government, the same can't be said for the motivators behind companies, even if in the end they try to control the government.
Immoral by Sqreater · 2012-01-08 02:21 · Score: 1

Once again: space is a vast desert like no desert on the face of our Earth and unworthy of our money. And to cause someone to be born outside the Earth steals from them their genetic legacy of life on the Earth. This is immorality of the highest order and anyone who works to bring about phony "colonies" on other planets is immoral because they work to bring about massive unhappiness and suffering in human beings. It is simple and it is obvious. We are not living on the Earth; We ARE the Earth. We are not Mars and we are not the Moon and we can never live comfortably or at all anywhere else. Period. Stop the nonsense.

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E Proelio Veritas.
Missed Opportunity by Ambiguous+Coward · 2012-01-08 10:16 · Score: 1

"Jemison Starship" just doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

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Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Re:The elephant in the room: propulsion by jigenbakado · 2012-01-08 15:06 · Score: 1

Did ya see that? It's a joke, son! Flew right by ya!
Political Correctness News? by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-01-08 19:15 · Score: 1

Out of the Hundreds of Thousands, if not Millions, of qualified candidates, from all races, men and women, is it mere coincidence that they choose a black female to lead this program?
The news-worthiness of the entire article boils down to Political Correctness

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Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !