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Audacious Visions For Future Spaceflight
New submitter nagalman writes "There is a very powerful video out that takes the audio of words from Neil deGrasse Tyson, receiver of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, and meshes it with powerful images of the history and successful outcomes of NASA. Through Penny4NASA, Dr. Tyson is pressing for the budget of NASA to be doubled from 0.5% to 1% of the federal budget in order to spur vision, interest, dreams, public excitement, and innovation into science and engineering. With Kansas stating that 'evolution could not rule out a supernatural or theistic source, that evolution itself was not fact but only a theory and one in crisis, and that Intelligent Design must be considered a viable alternative to evolution,' and North Carolina's legislature circulating a bill telling people to ignore climate science, maybe it's time we start listening to experts who have a proven record of success, rather than ideology that has only been 'proven' in the mind of elected politicians."
Why link together disbelief in evolution with disbelief in climate alarmism?
They are polar opposites, evolution is clearly a reaonable theory only opposed by those who would rather believe in some superstition.
Climate alarmism is a theory from the 1990s and very early 2000s that fewer and fewer people believe in and generally is only supposed by people after tax or research grants these days,
>Since when has any reasonable individual listened to a politician over a scientist, to ideology over reason? This person you imagine does not exist.
They think they are reasonable, and they vote.
>writing them off instead of fighting them tooth and nail.
Yup, a sure strategy for getting ideologues, religionists, etc, off of school committees and out of state legislatures.
Yup.
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BMO
Great video. I'm not sure what it has to do with Intelligent Design though. It strikes me that Intelligent Design is compatible with Natural Selection. The two theories diverge when it comes to the ultimate source of life which Natural Selection says evolved spontaneously as a single cell life form from which all other life evolved, and ID suggesting that our DNA may have come from elsewhere. It seems to me that expanding the exploration of space is key to discoving where we come from and the answer may be something which would be considered very unscientific at this point in time. Until we encounter other intelligent life in the galaxy or prove there is none and that under the right conditions life can evolve spontaneously in a previously sterile environment it would be short sighted to deny that life may have originated elsewhere.
The most effective critics are the ex-fundamental Christians. Michael Shermer for one. They got there because of exposure to folks, the data (or lack there of) and their ideas and thoughts.
And every so often, a light bulb goes off in one of them. Sure there are plenty who doggedly stick to their beliefs regardless of the data, but there are plenty who don't.
Part of the reason there are so many folks who still believe in these things were there is no evidence or let alone the existence conclusive evidence (like evolution) is because it is culturally acceptable for one to say that their beliefs trump data ("I just KNOW in my heart that God placed us here!"). I'm not saying at all that we should point fingers and call them "idiots", "morons" or some other derogatory name, but maybe make it as acceptable as an adult who still believe in Santa Claus or worships Zeus. And the way to do that, is to continually make science, thinking, reason, logic and so on a mainstream value - and that takes exposure, promotion and folks like Tyson to make it "cool".
When I start seeing kids wanting to be astronauts again - instead of ball players and hip-hop stars - then I'll be happy
Someone proved we either evolved from some pan-spermic event, OR our planets fauna was some alien experiment? The latter also incorporates intelligent design also, just not THEIR view of intelligent!
...on this topic, it is WELL worth your time. I was fortunate to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak in person recently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It's well worth a little over an hour of your time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJzHHkmJ-8
I don't believe climate change skeptics and those who support intelligent design should be wrapped together. While I don't fit into either group, I find that those who believe in "ID" are very often... well... retarded, but I've met individuals who are skeptical of climate change and do not appear to be retarded.
Given the input that I've received, I find this to be somewhat unfair to the global warming skeptics.
Being an astrophysicist (and not american), I'm entirely pro-science, and would support spending more on NASA vs say on war. But for some reason, the video by Tyson make the case that spending on science (and particularly big PR projects like flying to Mars) is the solution to all problems. I don't think it is. I think spending a good chunk of GDP on science is very productive way to incurage innovation etc., but it is not a panacea. Furthermore, I'm a bit skeptical about projects like flying to Mars, which are good PR, probably very good for engineering and technology, but not that exciting from scientific prospective.
After watching the first link, talking about "why," I found Mr. Rogers at the top of the related videos, demonstrating "how" to dream big, in the "Garden of your Mind." It dovetails with Neil deGrasse Tyson surprisingly well.
And what would you rather have, nobody making science look good?
Without the popularizers of science, science loses funding. It's really that simple.
>He's an entertainer.
Where is /your/ PhD in Astrophysics?
--
BMO
We want the economy to improve, we want jobs, we want to make money. Instead of feeding an overstuffed pig such as NASA, with bloated budgets and projects that accomplish little, PRIVATE space industry should be supported, subsidized, and given free reign. The first private space ports are only now opening around the world. This is the new hi-tech industry for the 21st century, the US needs to take and KEEP the lead in this cutting edge new frontier. Let us relegate NASA to the bygone era of the coldwar. Space is the future of humanity, it must not be monopolized or held hostage by political whims of self-serving elected officials. Give space back to the people, the entrepreneurs, the visionaries. I could care less if NASA sends a manned mission to Mars, I would much rather have a job working in orbit, or a lunar colony....or even able to buy a ticket for a sub-orbital flight to cross the world in under an hour.
Seriously, how do people come up with this garbage?
Have you ever heard the man speak passionately about science and astronomy? Who the hell is he 'entertaining', besides perhaps people who are interested in science and astronomy? The man is smart enough to get a doctorate in astrophysics from Columbia and be the head of the damn Hayden Planetarium. He does more to educate the public about matters of science than most actual science teachers. Yet for some reason you feel the need to put him down.
And with 'He's an entertainer.' no less. That's rich. Honestly, if that's what it takes to be heard in this country I say let him entertain. That does nothing to diminish his qualifications, intelligence, or ability to convey knowledge. Except perhaps to someone who can't see past the size of his or her own fragile ego.
My guess is you're either trolling or a complete moron.
Probably both.
NASA is not at the moment a space organisation.
They are a welfare organisation for aerospace.
For example - taking the budget for the Space Launch System up till the first couple of flights, and purchasing commercial launch from SpaceX gets you 85000 tons or so launched. (Assuming that reusability does not kick in)
Everything done in space by NASA is driven by launch costs.
The size of spacecraft has to be reduced, and they have to be more carefully engineered and built, which dramatically raises costs.
NASAs previous attempt to lower launch costs (X33) picked a major aerospace companies bid.
This company proposed, with NASAs encouragement to use three seperate fundamentally untried technologies on the one vehicle.
(Linear aerospike, conformal tanks, and metallic TPS).
SpaceX (for example) is building on their successful rocket launches so far, with the aim of reusing their rockets several-many times.
At the moment, space launch costs several thousand dollars a kilo.
The soon-to-be-launched http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper_(rocket)#Grasshopper is a test stage, to test propulsive landing for the first stage - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF81yjVbJE is a video outlining this.
The absolute starting point for any space program has to be getting things into space. ...) means you have a welfare reason, not a space reason.
Doing this expensively, for political reasons (SLS,
A sane space agency should have very limited mission definitions.
'Fly safely to ISS, dock using this adaptor'.
Previously they've made a practice of making proposals that effectively pick from one of several large aerospace corporations.
By requiring technologies they've developed, for no good reason, rather than simple functional requirements.
A fundamental change in space could occur if SpaceX (or one of the other new entrants) gets reusability up and running.
The fuel cost for a launch is well under $10/kg.
Even if you 'only' get to $100/kg, from the current $5000/kg or so, that enables a dramatically different space program.
It becomes feasible to put a lot more people up, and have them debug stuff on orbit.
It becomes comparatively cheap to have massive redundancy in systems, based on comparatively inexpensive and massive designs.
You don't end up spending 220 million to design an air-conditioner.
You launch 5 candidate systems built by bidders for $10M, and see which one works.
all revenue from trolling cases goes straight to nasa but the trolls themselves can keep the moral win if they like, that should solve two bits at the same time
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
The two theories diverge when it comes to the ultimate source of life which Natural Selection says evolved spontaneously as a single cell life form from which all other life evolved, and ID suggesting that our DNA may have come from elsewhere.
Sorry, but you are reading-in things that you like into an ideology which doesn't support it. BTW, how did you like Prometheus?
First off, let me correct your Natural Selection definition. Not "a single cell life form" but life formS.
Also, underneath that is a layer (or more accurately LAYERS) of inorganic matter reacting for thousands of millennia until some of it started clicking together, creating amino acids.
It strikes me that Intelligent Design is compatible with Natural Selection.
What you seem (to me) to be thinking is that when you get right down to it, life and intelligent life is a pretty straightforward path - from sub-atomic particles, to simple hydrogen, to more complex elements and molecules (I mean, WTF would atoms HAVE to link into molecules? Says who?), to inorganic, to organic, to cells, colonies, multicellular organisms, plants, animals, intelligence.
I mean... it's as if someone actually planned it that way? Or at least as if the laws of the universe have strangely conspired to make it so.
So, isn't that exactly what ID claims to be the case?
Well... for one, that "pretty straightforward path" is anything but.
It is more like a game of statistics. Throwing shit at the wall and seeing what will stick after a couple of billion years.
Also, just because that whole carbon-hydrogen thing worked for us, doesn't mean that somewhere else it didn't go in some other direction.
Plus there is all that blackish-darkish... umm... stuff... out there that the most of the universe is made of.
We are actually here by accident - IF the whole thing is "designed".
Designer was actually making all that other stuff. We are the waste product of the universe.
And the I-D-ers will have none of that.
Cause their version always ends with Jesus/Jehovah deliberately, purposefully making the ENTIRE universe just so he could make US.
None of that "throw the basic elements in the bowl and see what comes out of it" crap.
And not only that, but because their thinking is led by fairy tales - they are vehemently refusing every single step in the chain above.
"God made us in HIS image, not in the image of monkeys!"
That what you are seeing as compatibility is them making compromises in the face of indisputable facts.
"OK, both we AND the monkeys came from the same ancestors, but God still made US into not-monkeys. We are still created in his image."
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I don't believe in the Theory of Kansas!
I've never been there.
The maps are just a giant conspiracy by geographers!
We'd see much better results if we increased the budget of National Science Foundation from 0.2% to 0.5% instead. I'll take solid results in basic research over vision, interest, and dreams any day.
"maybe it's time we start listening to experts who have a proven record of success, rather than ideology that has only been 'proven' in the mind of elected politicians."
And this is exactly why NASA and other scientific endeavors will never get the funding they need.
No sig? Sigh...
That powerful video uses music from Mass Effect 3. It works a lot better in this video than it did in the game, although considering that the plot of the game is that all space faring races are being systematically wiped out, I'm not sure it sends the right message.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Well, looking at the introduction to the article, would you say as an expert that this is about raising funds for NASA or proving Creationism happened on the moon? Atheists changing the climate or intelligent design of space capsules? Circulating bills to ignore politicians?
Folks, punctuation won't save this. If we all send in a penny, we can eventually educate writers to make coherent, cohesive statements with clarity.
Till then we will just be translating mumbled doubletalk in Esperanto.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
the random anti-religious rhetoric, wtf?
Why not drop 0.5% of the federal budget on government backed renewable energy research. Innovate now and get off fossil fuels before there is a real global energy crisis. The market is not going to solve this problem without a large amount of government of spending because fossil fuels are currently too cheap, and once they become scarce - it will be too late for the world economy and perhaps the planet.
As an added bonus there will then be clean, cheap energy available for the exploration of space.
All that natural selection in regards to whoever is the wackiest nut has the most chances to breed and survive only means that good old genes are finally starting to kicking in on the american society
That Kansas thing was a long time ago and they overturned it.
Apparently God created everything *BUT* evolution in the minds of these lot! He created heavy and earth, but not evolution, even though its demonstrably measurable in things like evolving bacteria.
This is a faith test, some manipulative person invented it as a way of controlling people, by using their religion against them to further Republican aims, whether its pro oil, or anti-science.
If only we could get quality people of this caliber to choose from. It would put an air of confidence around the future of the US instead of the corporate-sponsored Reality TV show it's turned into.
Go Neil!
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Global warming/climate change? How about cutting pollution for the sake of cutting pollution? Cleaner air is certainly nice even if it doesn't have any effect on global warming.
Schools need to stick to science regardless of whether that theory is incorrect. When it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that intelligent design is true, then it could be introduced into our schools. But until it is, it needs to be kept out of schools. However, as to scientific debates and discussions in science classes, well, if it's kept academic and relevant, would there be any harm?
Intelligent Design, at best, is a hypothesis.
BIG difference.
ID is religion.
The investigation of Natural Selection is science.
They are *not* compatible, by definition.
--
BMO
And your meteorological qualifications are?
in the video, with its predictable post-rock sounding uplifting score (I called it before even clicking the link), Neil Tyson asks of me: how much would [I] pay to "launch our economy?"
um, I'm sorry, pal, but I don't think that's how "the economy" works.
or maybe it's time to get the government out of education?
The big problem with this proposal is simply that NASA as it currently exists is a colossal waste of money. One would not want to put in 1% of the federal budget only to have NASA squander it on developing a vastly overpriced, heavy lift rocket (SLS and Ares V, for example). The money has to go into something useful or it's just another money sinkhole like so much of defense spending was.
uh, the first two people you list are string theorists (lol.) so is the third, but he's also a complete charlatan and quack.
give me a fucking break.
With Kansas stating that 'evolution could not rule out a supernatural or theistic source, that evolution itself was not fact but only a theory and one in crisis, and that Intelligent Design must be considered a viable alternative to evolution,' and North Carolina's legislature circulating a bill telling people to ignore climate science, maybe it's time we start listening to experts who have a proven record of success, rather than ideology that has only been 'proven' in the mind of elected politicians."
First, Kansas no longer says that. From Wikipedia:
The Kansas Board of Education voted 6â"4 August 9, 2005 to include greater criticism of evolution in its school science standards, but it decided to send the standards to an outside academic for review before taking a final vote. The standards received final approval on November 8, 2005. The new standards were approved by 6 to 4, reflecting the makeup of religious conservatives on the board.[75] In July 2006 the Board of Standards issued a "rationale statement" which claimed that the current science curriculum standards do not include intelligent design.[76] Members of the scientific community critical of the standards contended that the board's statement was misleading in that they contained a "significant editorializing that supports the Discovery Institute and the Intelligent Design networkâ(TM)s campaign position that Intelligent Design is not included in the standards", the standards did "say that students should learn about ID, and that ID content ought to be in the standards", and that the standards presented the controversy over intelligent design as a scientific one, denying the mainstream scientific view.
[...]
On August 1, 2006, 4 of the 6 conservative Republicans who approved the Critical Analysis of Evolution classroom standards lost their seats in a primary election. The moderate Republican and liberal Democrats gaining seats, largely supported by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, vowed to overturn the 2005 school science standards and adopt those recommended by a State Board Science Hearing Committee that were rejected by the previous board.
[...]
On February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005. The definition of science was once again returned to "the search for natural explanations for what is observed in the universe."
It must have been an unpleasant year and a half, but Kansas voters did fix the problem as quickly as they could.
It's also worth noting that the North Carolina bill forces only a particular planning agency (for NC ocean shores) to ignore certain climate predictions (and may have been in response to possible abuse of such climate predictions by the planning agency in question).
It's far more limited in scope than claimed in the summary above and while short-sighted may have been proposed in response to valid concerns about what the planning agency was going to do.
Tyson... He's an entertainer. It's like getting John Travolta's opinion.
One's a scientist, the other is a scientologist. People who can't see the difference is what the summary is warning about.
Use Kickstarters or NASA start its own crowd sourcing site. I will donate directly to NASA and NASA projects. Heck, I will skip paying tax just to donate to NASA. BTW, peoples who think or say NASA is giant waste of money in the current form, find a way to fix it. Destroy it and rebuild it, but please don't believe in our future. I am not even an US national.
I don't think it needs to be exciting from a scientific perspective. Going to space should be seen as an exercise in engineering and nation building.
When it was growing rapidly, Japan, either by force or choice, didn't pursue a manned space flight program. The Japanese became rich but they had no vision (or should I say delusion) for the future beyond purchasing the newest gadget.
The US managed to recover from its economic crises better than the Japanese because the US had, besides its war machine, a space program, even if that consisted merely of flights to low earth orbit or the afterglow of the Apollo program (relived on TV or the movies). In contrast, Japan, whose GDP was close to surpassing the US, stagnated.
China's ruling clique probably knows this too well. So it's pushing for a manned space program of dubious benefit. (I say dubious because autonomous space hardware is much better from a military or economic perspective.) It allows the Chinese, laboring at their iPhone factories, to feel proud of their country without the need to smartbomb some tyrant into submission or kingdom come.
Big countries need big projects. Ancient Egypt had its pyramids. Ancient China had its Great Wall. These projects united people. Without these big projects, a big country might as well dissolve itself into smaller independent states whose interests are more mundane.
We could all just stop being lead around by a bunch of politicians picking fights for us over trivial matters like religion in the classroom and focus on getting rid of the corrupt bastards in office before accepting any solution the government derives.
NASA started being friendly toward private launch services only when it was apparent it could no longer play the same good-ole-boy game that had for so long presented an anti-competitive barrier to the entry of true freedom to pursue industrially reasonable launch services.
To now listen to "experts" that are designated as such by NASA telling us to pump huge amounts of money into NASA so it can turn SpaceX and others into yet another good-ole-boy network is the moral equivalent of pumping huge amounts of money into creation science.
Seastead this.
Dr. Tyson is pressing for the budget of NASA to be doubled from 0.5% to 1% of the federal budget
At last, twice the Muslim outreach.
The first part of your post was okay. I actually think it would be handled better by companies like Spacex rather than NASA. But then you yourself plunge into ideology and political discourse. Then again, unfortunately the reality of science is that it does not exit in a vacuum. I dislike the political and ideological baggage tossed in there by all sides. It won't go away either.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
NASA, just make a kickstarter project. "Mars base. $4 trillion goal."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
NASA needs to make the transition from an executing agency to a support agency, more like NSF and less like the post office.
It's still appropriate to have NASA labs and NASA projects, but the next big advances are going to come through private partnerships and creative investments. NASA's budget is more than 5 times DARPAs budget, for example, but DARPA grabs much more of the public eye these days. The key difference is that program managers (people who control the money) serve 3 year terms in DARPA. There's no time for empire building or lawyering up, which are BIG problems at NASA.
I think he messed up by comparing NASA's budget to social safety net and education budgets in the video though, the implication that one should grow at a cost to the others is not going to sit well with many. He carefully stepped around mentioning the bloated military budget for some reason.
In fact, I thought about including a comment about this in my post —
He realizes that our military infrastructure is one of the things that also drives and protects our society, and while war isn't preferable to other motivations for technical progress and scientific research, it is one of the chief motivations throughout our history. He also realizes that exploration can reinvigorate the human spirit, even stoking industry and the economy, which actually would help the people served by the "government safety net" more in the long term by creating a robust economic environment instead of having an environment where half of US households are on the government dole.
There was an interesting part of his UW-Madison speech where he reflected on how many Americans assume that NASA's budget is a lot larger than it actually is. He then went on to (jokingly) propose a new model for government budgets, wherein each agency would get the amount of money that the public thinks they get.
I was amused because if that were true, even among this informed and educated audience, that would mean that DOD would get something like "50%" or "over half" of the federal budget — as many people erroneously assume — when in reality, all of "national defense, veterans, and foreign affairs" is closer to 20%, while "Social programs" and "Social Security, Medicare, and other retirement" are what accounts for "over half" (55%) of our spending.
And some people will still say it's too much; to that I say that China exceeded US space launches for the first time in 2011, has increased their military spending 12% every year for the last decade, and is on track to exceed US military spending by 2025. Hint: that's not all for "peaceful regional defense". In sum, Neil deGrasse Tyson isn't anti-military, and recognizes its necessity and the significant scientific and research contributions it has brought to our society. He also talks about the broader historical context for war. You should really listen to his speech.
Of course, many folks don't understand this fundamental truth. There is no more succinct way to say it than you did.
but but glenn beck is a figure head and he's just an entertainer, that means all figure heads are just entertainers!
awsum lawjik ftw
godamnit. i forgot what ftw means...fuck the world? fun times ahead? ah shit this is too hard...ohh a piece of candy!
We'd be much better off spending research money on fusion power than on space. If we get fusion, we'll get space. Sending people to Mars is a dead end. We know what Mars looks like. We have a space station, and no use for it.
It looks like Space-X has the low-cost booster thing figured out. That took long enough, especially considering that the US mass-produced ICBMs in the 1960s.
Closing about half the NASA centers would be a good start. NASA Slidell (the "Stennis Space Center") was scheduled to downsize, but instead they got funding for a big museum. NASA Ames is dead except for the wind tunnel. NASA still has 23,000 employees, and that doesn't include the contractors.
... Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flame wars as Slashdotters discuss evolution vs creationism instead of, you know, the TOPIC, which is the sorry state of NASA's funding.
Rockey stick, err I mean puck. remember science has ... to be truthful. Not a Heinlin story. But we have to get back to the line,of truth, do not mess with the data. or Adjust it to fit your theory, modify your theory to fit the data. The hockey stick fit the data after the data was modified as proved by the "stolen" e-mails. Lately as argued, data has and is again been modified, only some of the skeptical people, are looking to the archived newspapers and datasets, and noticing adjustments are still being made to the old records that were transcribed to electronic media. this means no honor, just false data sets, where the baseline is not set, no way to verify, no truth of science. I wounder why there are scheptics, just as there are non-believer of religon. Don't make fun of them, unless you can prove what is not in your eye.
Long term space projects are secondary to extending the human life. I'm amazed daily by all of these people that proclaim to be Athiests and act like they can diddle away their life. Let me tell you a little secret. If there isn't a God... It's going to suck to die. Poof - gone. Everything you've done will be forgotten. You didn't matter jack shit in the scheme if things.
If we really believe that, we need to get our asses in gear. Item ranked by importance:
1. Extending human life and removing natural death (and disease).
2. High energy sources (hopefully that are a bit more green). This is the key to civilization... And to getting off this rock.
3. Everything else.
I see all this distracted crap every day. "I'm an Athiest and I sell sunglasses". Wtf, are you stupid? If you really believe that, get your ass in gear supporting something to extend human life. Everything else is a waste.
I don't know about dubious - China has spoken of capturing an asteroid in lunar orbit to be mined - not the sort of project that could realistically be done autonomously. Or a least the sort of thing that would be much easily/cheaply by sending up people that can interact and adapt in real time. Especially if you're okay with a certain number of human losses and can spin them as the "valiant explorers who gave their life for the glory of their nation", and frankly I think most people would accept that narrative a lot more readily than, say, the loss of troops fighting in distant countries to secure long-term strategic and economic interests.
And once you have an orbital asteroid base then you're head-and-shoulders ahead of every other nation on the planet in terms of space superiority - you've got a space station that's actually well-shielded from radiation and micrometeorites, and massive enough to serve as a base for magnetically launching vehicles into the rest of the solar system. Obviously such a station could have numerous military applications as well (Cheyenne mountain in space?) but that's a lot less interesting.
Or my own idea: forgo the magnetic launch system, instead anchor a cable a few tens/hundreds/thousands of kilometers long to the asteroid and set the whole thing spinning, anything at the end of the cable will be like a rock in a sling and when combined with the asteroid's continuously varying orbital heading can be released with virtually any trajectory you'd like. By fine tuning the asteroid orbit and rotation speed you can even make a space elevator to the moons surface, with the "sling" matching surface velocity every time it's at it's lowest altitude, like a point on an imaginary wheel rolling over the surface. With enough control, and a winch system connecting the sling and cable to introduce some "play" into the system, you could even conceivably have the sling briefly (many seconds) "park" directly on the surface at specific "launch sites", allowing cargo pods to be deposited or picked and transferred directly to an extremely elliptical Earth orbit without any fuel consumption whatsoever. A matching asteroid station around Earth could then catch them and drop them into the upper atmosphere at non-orbital speeds where they could glide safely to the surface (conceivably at least, the synchronization issues would be a nightmare). Sadly the Earth station wouldn't be nearly as elegant since the sling couldn't touch down without requiring powerful engines to compensate for atmospheric turbulence along the 60 miles of cable that dips into the atmosphere. But it offers a near-zero-energy Earth-Moon transfer system with exit points to the rest of the solar system. As long as the mass-flow is equal in both directions and the asteroids are massive enough to make the velocity changes negligible for any single transfer the whole system could operate essentially for free. Shoot, the stations could even be used for surface-to-surface transportation on the same planet - instead of being released onto an elliptical transfer orbit just ride the sling back down to the next transfer site and you've jumped partway around the world in very little time and with no net energy consumption.
And frankly, for all it's faults I could see the Chinese government actually having the long-term vision to start building such a system, whereas the entire Western world barely managed the ISS.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
For heavy lift, why not copy the Soviets? Instead of building a space shuttle, they built a heavy lift rocket that had a spinoff commercial rocket (Zenit). Why doesn't the United States follow in their wise footsteps? Cluster 8 Atlas V first stage booster rockets around a 8.4 meter diameter LH2 upper stage, just like Energia.
A few rocket scientists have thought of that idea, and called it AJAX. http://www.ajaxlauncher.com/ The web site is bare, because they have been lazy.
Congress just needs to stop using NASA as a pork receptacle.
"and was a jock in college"
Are you saying Kaku's knowledge of Judo disqualifies him?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvxQz8PPSbg
We know nothing beyond the walls of our universe, thus you can never know if anything outside of our understanding of the universe has, or will have an impact on our universe. It's Plato's allegory of the cave. How can you "know" something we don't even understand? You're limiting your understanding by forgetting that being the in the cave (or 3 dimensional beings traveling forward in spacetime in our observable universe) means we do not know what is beyond our perception of the universe. You cannot fairly claim that we have any knowledge of what has or hasn't happened pre-Big Bang or what effect it has or has not had on our universe. Further, there is no way to prove that there is no way to travel beyond our universe or vice versa. You have trapped your self in the 21st century's best theories, and espouse them as fundamental unassailable laws. This is not substantively different than the learned-men of ancient Greece who held so strongly to so many provably incorrect notions. The first step to take is to understand we cannot know what we do not know, and then to realize we do not know what is beyond our universe. To purport that you can divine knowledge that no human possess is tantamount to the thing here you most ardently oppose.
...and was a jock in college according to his wiki page.
WTF? How many wedgies must someone have received to hold being a "jock in college" against a person who never gave him one, and indeed probably never even met? I suggest getting some therapy, and I bet a little more exercise would be good for you, too. Just move on with your life already; there's just no way holding onto that kind of baggage can be good for you.
- T
Lets put the control of this idea in the hands of the people touting Intelligent Design must be considered a viable alternative to evolution,,,. Surprised, you shouldn't be those same people are the reason we had the death trap known as the space shuttle in service for so long. NASA is controlled by these freaks and you and Neil deGrasse Tyson want to double their budget??? Hmm a losing track record for the last 3 decades and you think blowing more money on NASA will fix this? Seriously, No it won't, we'll just waste more money, and still get no where. What you fail to see was the long lost greatness that was NASA was from a time of greatly more friendly budgetary realities of that day and not this day and age. While I will agree it was a great catalyst for technology that has spawned the ability to even respond to you on this website, don't kid yourself for one moment that by looking backwards that you're somehow looking ahead. The only way we will ever achieve our greatness will be when NASA is out of the Equation and privately funded science programs funded by private institutions and by donations lead the way. With out thought, if you were to create a private organisation to attempt this I personally would pony up $500.00 to that cause, but I will offer you nothing if you keep bowing in deluded prayer to the evolutionary dead end known as NASA!
What, like his puff-piece in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, " The Faint-End Slopes of Galaxy Luminosity Functions in the COSMOS Field"? Or are you referring to the blatantly ephemeral " Radial Velocity Distribution and Line Strengths of 33 Carbon Stars in the Galactic Bulge" from the Astrophysical Journal? No? Surely then, you mean his sad grab at populist sensationalism " On the Possibility of a Major Impact on the Uranus in the Past Century"...
What's that? You really have no idea what you're talking about?
Well, there's a surprise.