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Could Humanity Really Build 'Elysium'?

Posted by samzenpus on from the plenty-of-space dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Miriam Kramer writes at Space.com that in the new movie Elysium, Earth is beyond repair, and the rich and powerful have decided to leave it behind to live in a large, rotating space station stocked with mansions, grass, trees, water and gravity. 'The premise is totally believable to me. I spent 28 years working on NASA's International Space Station and retired last summer as the director of ISS at NASA Headquarters. When I took a look at the Elysium space station, I thought to myself, that's certainly achievable in this millennium,' says Mark Uhran, former director of the International Space Station Division in NASA's Office of Human Exploration and Operations. 'It's clear that the number-one challenge is chemical propulsion.' Nuclear propulsion could be a viable possibility eventually, but the idea isn't ready for prime time yet. 'We learned an incredible amount with [the International Space Station] and we demonstrated that we have the technology to assemble large structures in space.' The bottom line: 'If you threw everything you had at it, could you reach a space station of the scale of Elysium in 150 years?' says Uhran. 'That's a pretty tall order.'"

6 of 545 comments (clear)

  1. What humanity needs is COMMUNISM! by For+a+Free+Internet · · Score: 1, Funny

    That is our only hope. The working class has to defeat the bourgeoisie and establish its revolutionary Soviet dictatorship (Max is not going to save us!)

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    UNITE with the Campaign for a Free Internet because today, our future begins with tomorrow!
    1. Re:What humanity needs is COMMUNISM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Man, even the quality of the trolls have gone way downhill.

  2. Re:150 years is a long time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    How are you so sure Sir?

    Yours truly,
    Duncan McCloud

  3. Fabulous Idea by some+old+guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    1.Build a huge, opulent space city, and populate it with the obscenely rich and the world's political leaders.
    2 Blow it up.
    3.Start over.

    --
    Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
  4. Re:Betteridge's law of headlines by JackieBrown · · Score: 2, Funny

    Very true. That is why we are all still living under trees (if we're lucky!) and have no tech.

    Dang religion. If only it would allow us to advance. Heck, without religion, we might even have machines that would let us talk to each other across mass distances.

  5. Re:Betteridge's law of headlines by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Funny

    There are almost 6 billion people on Earth.

    What?! When did this happen?

    What the hell happened to the other billion???

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    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"