Men and ships are just as expendable today as they were 100, 300, or 600 years ago. It is only your own vanity that makes you think that men's lives are worth more today. As for the expense of the ships - today's ships cost a lot of bucks, yesterday's ships cost a lot of currency as well. That famous Armada that was sunk in the storm off of England's coast was a substantial part of the kingdom's budget. You'll note that the Armada wasn't replaced, in fact, couldn't have been replaced as quickly as the United States replaced her damaged fleets after Pearl Harbor.
Salutes, bobs666. I get so frustrated with people who want to use robots for space exploration INSTEAD OF men. But, my own prejudices have blinded me a little. Of course it makes sense to automate something like this with robots, to save time and expense for the humans who follow. And, further, robots should be used for initial attempts to explore, just as we have already done on Mars. There is nothing wrong with using robots at all. But, when the robots have prepared the way, I most certainly want to see men putting their boots on the ground! And women, of course. There's not much pont in going to space if there are no women along for the ride!
And, several more hits on Google. Society at large didn't have the balls necessary to sail with that silly Italian named Columbus, either. The job will be done, sooner or later, all the same. SpaceX seems the most likely candidate at this point in time, but it may be China or the EU that gets it done first. Russians? Probably not, but they could surprise me too. India? Ditto - probably not, but they could surprise me.
I've always been a bit skeptical of elevators. I mean - they are so damned massive, and there is so much stored energy in it - if and when something bad happens, you have a cataclysm on your hands.
The mag lev idea seems a whole lot better, but I'm still a bit skeptical.
I've always favored a railgun concept, mounted on or dug into a mountain. You still have an appreciable quantity of energy being expended in case of an accident, but it would be "aimed" outward, rather than inward. More, I believe the initial investment would be much smaller. Energy consumption after construction was completed would be higher than the elevator, but IMO it's a good tradeoff. Especially if solar energy could be harnessed to operate the guns, it would be a great tradeoff!
Of course, we are lacking the technology to do any of those things at this point. But, it appears to me that the rail gun concept is closer to reality than the monumental task of erecting an elevator or a cable!!
You know that people can stream from their Linux boxes, don't you? I presume there is Windows and Mac software available that will do the same. Maybe I shouldn't mention that VLC will stream to a file. People might misuse that information . . .
"Wilbur, this here is a screwdriver. You use it like this to get these durned screws out of the cover. This here gadget is a pick - you can use it to move wires aside, and to scratch at capacitors and stuff. This thingamobob is a soldering iron - NO NO IT'S HOT! Don't grab it by that end! Here, Wilbur, this is ice water, it will make your burns feel a little better until they start hurting again. Look, Wilbur, there's the door, why don't you put yourself on the opposite side of the door from all these dangerous tools?"
Remember the predator software? It was never fully disclosed, and it has evolved into something else now. So, we know that they had some rather powerful software, for which some pretty wild claims were made, and it has been improved upon since then. With or without a warrant, the government arrives at your ISP one day, and sits down to intercept all your traffic for inspection. Everything that passes into or out of your network is theirs, simple as that. If you actually have anything that they can't peer into, or that they can't crack, then they just wait til you are at work, then with or without another warrant, they enter your home to install a keylogger on your keyboard(s).
If the government wants you badly enough, they've got you.
A number of authors, both serious scientists and untrained dreamers, have suggested orbital mirrors be stationed above the moon. It is only dark on the surface for two weeks at a time - sunlight is beaming past just a few miles overhead almost all the time. Given enough mirrors at the proper elevations, the entire "dark side" of the moon can be lit as brightly as the "bright side".
Of course, initially, grow lights would be necessary. Enough mirrors to make a real difference can't be hauled from the earth, economically. The moon colony and/or space habitats will have to arrange those mirrors in the long run, in a cost effective manner, using lunar material, or material brought more cheaply from elsewhere.
Heh, I remember that. Yes, my parents were told my IQ, but I wasn't supposed to know. I pissed the teacher off one day, and she blurted out, "I don't know how a kid with an IQ of blah-blah can act so dumb!"
I just looked at her for a couple seconds, and she says, "You didn't hear me say that, you're not supposed to know your score!"
It didn't affect me any - I just smiled, and wandered off in search of another teacher to piss off.
Well, Wyatt - I don't know what to say about being docked points for having cancer. But, you've got more to look forward to. You'll also be docked points for age, sooner or later.
I think one of the most closely held secrets among older people is the fact that we don't solve new problems as quickly as we could when we were young. We make up for it by applying old solutions to new problems, and hoping they work.
Hey - I wonder if I've stumbled over the real problem with politics? Let's get all the old bastards out of Washington!
I don't really think that is correct. An IQ test is supposed to measure how well you can solve problems, right? But - if you take a battery of tests, with many of the same problems repeated, then you're no longer solving problems, per se. At some point, you shift to writing down solutions that you have already found.
I'll attest to that. I got roped into taking one of those online tests. As usual, I was doing well, and confident of myself, until I got to the 4th section of the damned thing. Pattern recognition - in color. You had to match the shapes and colors in various puzzles. Oh, dear - I can't see the colors! Of course, my eyes are aging, and it was tough to even see the differences in some of the shapes.
Needless to say, I gave up. Even if I got every single question right on the rest of the test, I couldn't get any correct in this entire section.
Guess I'm an idiot because I was born with the wrong rods and cones in my eyes, huh?
Errr - you may be talking of a colony that can sustain the race. When I talk of a moon colony, I visualize that colony as a stepping stone, and a support base for further expansion. I visualize that colony eventually being mostly a stopping point on the way out to other, better colonies. It may even become a major medical center in support of other colonies - whether they be planet based or space habitats. I expect that some industry might develop on the moon, which proves to be most economical right there, on the surface of the moon. Other industries will develop which are most economically situated in orbit, or on Mars, or some other location.
But, the whole thing is - the sooner we start, the sooner we'll know what the moon is good for, and what it isn't good for. And, again, there are lessons to be learned there. Probably there are answers waiting to be discovered for which we haven't even formulated the questions yet.
All I can say is, let's get it started. Sitting around arguing about the value of the moon certainly has no economic benefit, to us on earth, or to any potential colonists. Let's get the first few dozen people out there, to be followed later by hundreds, then thousands. The hardest part of the colonization project will be overcoming inertia. Once things are started, people will begin solving problems that we can't even foresee from here.
Uhhhh - you haven't been paying attention to recent discoveries on the moon, I take it. There are fissures large enough to build entire cities in. Tunnels. Underground, the radiation doesn't matter very much. A few meters of dirt and debris overhead stops the radiation.
Muscular atrophy? Hmmm. That only matters if the people who immigrate to the moon plan to return to the earth one day. And, if they do, a regimen of exercise and/or limited periods of time on the moon should deal with that. Permanent residents of the moon won't care a whole lot if they are not strong enough to walk and run on the earth.
The elements and nutrients necessary for life probably can be taken care of with farming. I mean - we don't absorb much of anything directly from our environment. All our nutrients come from plants and animals. It may or may not take some genetic engineering to get wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables to grow nicely on the moon - but I'm sure that it can be done. And, if some vital nutrient is found to be lacking, that cannot be produced on the moon - well - hey, nations on earth trade routinely, right? The earth sends up a couple shiploads of compound X every year, and the moon sends back whatever is found to be economically important to the earthlings. Kinda routine, right?
Well, of course some will die. That's why you don't put every living soul into the same habitat, all dependent on the same pieces of equipment. And, the survivors learn from the mistakes of those who died. This is how life works, pretty much.
And, let's remember. No one gets out of this life alive anyway. Would you rather be one of the faceless masses on earth, or one of the pioneers who sacrificed to free mankind from earth? Either way, you're going to be dead sooner or later.
The colony is attainable in the near future - like the next 50 years. All that is required are funds, and people willing to endure some hardship. We had the means to put people on the moon about 40 years ago. Larger, more modern rockets could be built, capable of lifting materials up there to build a habitat inside one of those many vents. Supplies will be a problem at first, of course. Initially, all food, all water, all atmosphere, everything will have to be lifted. But, given only a few dozen people on site, with the initiative (survival is a pretty powerful initiative!) to solve problems, they can and will figure out just what they need to extract required materials from the moon itself. Almost everything man needs is there already. Erect a habitat, fill it with atmosphere, erect some mirrors, plant some seeds - you're halfway to having a sustainable colony. Only halfway - there will be setbacks, even some disasters. But, people do learn from their mistakes when their very survival is at stake.
I say that a self sufficient colony is possible in only 100 to 150 years - not hundreds of years.
"Their "overreaction" is the same for any company."
Intentionally or not, you have posted a falsehood. You need look no further than Bill Gates to prove that. Allow me to quote or misquote him:
"We would rather have them pirating our operating system, than using the competition's operating system!" Microsoft can and will go after business concerns for piracy, but they do not prosecute Random Joe Hacker.
More than enough reason to explore and colonize space. You should look at a culture in a petrie dish sometime. The organisms consume all the resources available, then start producing the very poisons that will kill off the culture. That's us. We're over crowded already, and it's only going to get worse.
GP's concern with a nova or supernova seems to me to be displaced - but I am betting on that mother of all asteroids. Somewhere out there, I'm quite certain that there is a rock on a collision course with the earth. It may or may not be large enough to "destroy the earth" - but it doesn't need to be that big to "end life as we know it" on earth. There is evidence of previous rocks, one of them in Siberia, one in the Gulf of Mexico, that were truly devastating, with global implications. Other less devastating rocks have hit the earth many times. "Less devastating" is a relative term, of course. Many rocks have hit the earth with enough force to destroy any one of our modern day cities. The fact that we had no direct witnesses to the events leads many of us to dismiss the very idea of it ever happening again.
Imagine, one morning, waking up to news that Hong Kong had been obliterated, and the resulting seismic activity had generated tidal waves that pretty much eliminated all the coastal cities in China, Korea, Japan, and much of the rest of the Pacific. Or, put that rock on Manhattan, or Paris, or - any city that is dear to you.
It really isn't a question of "if" such an event will happen, but "when" it will happen. And, please, don't even try to make us believe that NORAD or any other agency is ready and able to deflect a rock fifty or a hundred miles in diameter. That made an alright movie - but it isn't happening in real life, in this day and age.
Or, jailbreak. Nothing wrong with the hardware, after all. Or, probably nothing wrong with the hardware that isn't also wrong with all the competition. Jailbreak it, and make it do what you want, instead of the people who used to own it making it do what they want.
Governments often times "pay" by allowing you to remain in business, or in some cases, by allowing you to continue breathing. Governments are very much customers, and sometimes, you have no choice in the matter. All depending, of course, on which government we are talking about. Seems to me that Canada is among those nations where you have a lot of choice, the US less so, and some repressive governments in Asia and Africa give you no say at all.
You're trolling, but for the benefit of those who don't know better, I'll reply.
GP refers to the ease with which Linux systems can be locked down to prevent common users from accessing a USB drive. System administrators who are competent can do the same with Windows, but there seem to be many sysadmins who are incompetent, and fail to lock USB access from common users.
Slashdot Mirror
Men and ships are just as expendable today as they were 100, 300, or 600 years ago. It is only your own vanity that makes you think that men's lives are worth more today. As for the expense of the ships - today's ships cost a lot of bucks, yesterday's ships cost a lot of currency as well. That famous Armada that was sunk in the storm off of England's coast was a substantial part of the kingdom's budget. You'll note that the Armada wasn't replaced, in fact, couldn't have been replaced as quickly as the United States replaced her damaged fleets after Pearl Harbor.
Salutes, bobs666. I get so frustrated with people who want to use robots for space exploration INSTEAD OF men. But, my own prejudices have blinded me a little. Of course it makes sense to automate something like this with robots, to save time and expense for the humans who follow. And, further, robots should be used for initial attempts to explore, just as we have already done on Mars. There is nothing wrong with using robots at all. But, when the robots have prepared the way, I most certainly want to see men putting their boots on the ground! And women, of course. There's not much pont in going to space if there are no women along for the ride!
"Our society doesn't have the will for one-way trips."
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/12/why-volunteer-for-a-one-way-mission-to-mars/
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/12/space-cadets-400-people-volunteer-for-one-way-trip-to-mars/
And, several more hits on Google. Society at large didn't have the balls necessary to sail with that silly Italian named Columbus, either. The job will be done, sooner or later, all the same. SpaceX seems the most likely candidate at this point in time, but it may be China or the EU that gets it done first. Russians? Probably not, but they could surprise me too. India? Ditto - probably not, but they could surprise me.
I've always been a bit skeptical of elevators. I mean - they are so damned massive, and there is so much stored energy in it - if and when something bad happens, you have a cataclysm on your hands.
The mag lev idea seems a whole lot better, but I'm still a bit skeptical.
I've always favored a railgun concept, mounted on or dug into a mountain. You still have an appreciable quantity of energy being expended in case of an accident, but it would be "aimed" outward, rather than inward. More, I believe the initial investment would be much smaller. Energy consumption after construction was completed would be higher than the elevator, but IMO it's a good tradeoff. Especially if solar energy could be harnessed to operate the guns, it would be a great tradeoff!
Of course, we are lacking the technology to do any of those things at this point. But, it appears to me that the rail gun concept is closer to reality than the monumental task of erecting an elevator or a cable!!
You know that people can stream from their Linux boxes, don't you? I presume there is Windows and Mac software available that will do the same. Maybe I shouldn't mention that VLC will stream to a file. People might misuse that information . . .
"Wilbur, this here is a screwdriver. You use it like this to get these durned screws out of the cover. This here gadget is a pick - you can use it to move wires aside, and to scratch at capacitors and stuff. This thingamobob is a soldering iron - NO NO IT'S HOT! Don't grab it by that end! Here, Wilbur, this is ice water, it will make your burns feel a little better until they start hurting again. Look, Wilbur, there's the door, why don't you put yourself on the opposite side of the door from all these dangerous tools?"
Remember the predator software? It was never fully disclosed, and it has evolved into something else now. So, we know that they had some rather powerful software, for which some pretty wild claims were made, and it has been improved upon since then. With or without a warrant, the government arrives at your ISP one day, and sits down to intercept all your traffic for inspection. Everything that passes into or out of your network is theirs, simple as that. If you actually have anything that they can't peer into, or that they can't crack, then they just wait til you are at work, then with or without another warrant, they enter your home to install a keylogger on your keyboard(s).
If the government wants you badly enough, they've got you.
A number of authors, both serious scientists and untrained dreamers, have suggested orbital mirrors be stationed above the moon. It is only dark on the surface for two weeks at a time - sunlight is beaming past just a few miles overhead almost all the time. Given enough mirrors at the proper elevations, the entire "dark side" of the moon can be lit as brightly as the "bright side".
Of course, initially, grow lights would be necessary. Enough mirrors to make a real difference can't be hauled from the earth, economically. The moon colony and/or space habitats will have to arrange those mirrors in the long run, in a cost effective manner, using lunar material, or material brought more cheaply from elsewhere.
You sound like a pragmatist. Better watch out - Homeland Security will be after you!
Heh, I remember that. Yes, my parents were told my IQ, but I wasn't supposed to know. I pissed the teacher off one day, and she blurted out, "I don't know how a kid with an IQ of blah-blah can act so dumb!"
I just looked at her for a couple seconds, and she says, "You didn't hear me say that, you're not supposed to know your score!"
It didn't affect me any - I just smiled, and wandered off in search of another teacher to piss off.
Well, Wyatt - I don't know what to say about being docked points for having cancer. But, you've got more to look forward to. You'll also be docked points for age, sooner or later.
I think one of the most closely held secrets among older people is the fact that we don't solve new problems as quickly as we could when we were young. We make up for it by applying old solutions to new problems, and hoping they work.
Hey - I wonder if I've stumbled over the real problem with politics? Let's get all the old bastards out of Washington!
I don't really think that is correct. An IQ test is supposed to measure how well you can solve problems, right? But - if you take a battery of tests, with many of the same problems repeated, then you're no longer solving problems, per se. At some point, you shift to writing down solutions that you have already found.
"wildly different in quality"
I'll attest to that. I got roped into taking one of those online tests. As usual, I was doing well, and confident of myself, until I got to the 4th section of the damned thing. Pattern recognition - in color. You had to match the shapes and colors in various puzzles. Oh, dear - I can't see the colors! Of course, my eyes are aging, and it was tough to even see the differences in some of the shapes.
Needless to say, I gave up. Even if I got every single question right on the rest of the test, I couldn't get any correct in this entire section.
Guess I'm an idiot because I was born with the wrong rods and cones in my eyes, huh?
Errr - you may be talking of a colony that can sustain the race. When I talk of a moon colony, I visualize that colony as a stepping stone, and a support base for further expansion. I visualize that colony eventually being mostly a stopping point on the way out to other, better colonies. It may even become a major medical center in support of other colonies - whether they be planet based or space habitats. I expect that some industry might develop on the moon, which proves to be most economical right there, on the surface of the moon. Other industries will develop which are most economically situated in orbit, or on Mars, or some other location.
But, the whole thing is - the sooner we start, the sooner we'll know what the moon is good for, and what it isn't good for. And, again, there are lessons to be learned there. Probably there are answers waiting to be discovered for which we haven't even formulated the questions yet.
All I can say is, let's get it started. Sitting around arguing about the value of the moon certainly has no economic benefit, to us on earth, or to any potential colonists. Let's get the first few dozen people out there, to be followed later by hundreds, then thousands. The hardest part of the colonization project will be overcoming inertia. Once things are started, people will begin solving problems that we can't even foresee from here.
Uhhhh - you haven't been paying attention to recent discoveries on the moon, I take it. There are fissures large enough to build entire cities in. Tunnels. Underground, the radiation doesn't matter very much. A few meters of dirt and debris overhead stops the radiation.
Muscular atrophy? Hmmm. That only matters if the people who immigrate to the moon plan to return to the earth one day. And, if they do, a regimen of exercise and/or limited periods of time on the moon should deal with that. Permanent residents of the moon won't care a whole lot if they are not strong enough to walk and run on the earth.
The elements and nutrients necessary for life probably can be taken care of with farming. I mean - we don't absorb much of anything directly from our environment. All our nutrients come from plants and animals. It may or may not take some genetic engineering to get wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables to grow nicely on the moon - but I'm sure that it can be done. And, if some vital nutrient is found to be lacking, that cannot be produced on the moon - well - hey, nations on earth trade routinely, right? The earth sends up a couple shiploads of compound X every year, and the moon sends back whatever is found to be economically important to the earthlings. Kinda routine, right?
Dragons. Which country has the best dragons? I hear that dragon slaying is a lucrative business, if you're any good at it.
Well, of course some will die. That's why you don't put every living soul into the same habitat, all dependent on the same pieces of equipment. And, the survivors learn from the mistakes of those who died. This is how life works, pretty much.
And, let's remember. No one gets out of this life alive anyway. Would you rather be one of the faceless masses on earth, or one of the pioneers who sacrificed to free mankind from earth? Either way, you're going to be dead sooner or later.
The colony is attainable in the near future - like the next 50 years. All that is required are funds, and people willing to endure some hardship. We had the means to put people on the moon about 40 years ago. Larger, more modern rockets could be built, capable of lifting materials up there to build a habitat inside one of those many vents. Supplies will be a problem at first, of course. Initially, all food, all water, all atmosphere, everything will have to be lifted. But, given only a few dozen people on site, with the initiative (survival is a pretty powerful initiative!) to solve problems, they can and will figure out just what they need to extract required materials from the moon itself. Almost everything man needs is there already. Erect a habitat, fill it with atmosphere, erect some mirrors, plant some seeds - you're halfway to having a sustainable colony. Only halfway - there will be setbacks, even some disasters. But, people do learn from their mistakes when their very survival is at stake.
I say that a self sufficient colony is possible in only 100 to 150 years - not hundreds of years.
"Their "overreaction" is the same for any company."
Intentionally or not, you have posted a falsehood. You need look no further than Bill Gates to prove that. Allow me to quote or misquote him:
"We would rather have them pirating our operating system, than using the competition's operating system!" Microsoft can and will go after business concerns for piracy, but they do not prosecute Random Joe Hacker.
Oh, so the rights of people like geohot should become collateral damage, in deference to the rights of gamers?
Dude, you're simply caught in a crossfire. And, it wasn't the hackers who started the fracas, it was Sony. Wake up and smell the coffee.
"we're multiplying like hell"
More than enough reason to explore and colonize space. You should look at a culture in a petrie dish sometime. The organisms consume all the resources available, then start producing the very poisons that will kill off the culture. That's us. We're over crowded already, and it's only going to get worse.
GP's concern with a nova or supernova seems to me to be displaced - but I am betting on that mother of all asteroids. Somewhere out there, I'm quite certain that there is a rock on a collision course with the earth. It may or may not be large enough to "destroy the earth" - but it doesn't need to be that big to "end life as we know it" on earth. There is evidence of previous rocks, one of them in Siberia, one in the Gulf of Mexico, that were truly devastating, with global implications. Other less devastating rocks have hit the earth many times. "Less devastating" is a relative term, of course. Many rocks have hit the earth with enough force to destroy any one of our modern day cities. The fact that we had no direct witnesses to the events leads many of us to dismiss the very idea of it ever happening again.
Imagine, one morning, waking up to news that Hong Kong had been obliterated, and the resulting seismic activity had generated tidal waves that pretty much eliminated all the coastal cities in China, Korea, Japan, and much of the rest of the Pacific. Or, put that rock on Manhattan, or Paris, or - any city that is dear to you.
It really isn't a question of "if" such an event will happen, but "when" it will happen. And, please, don't even try to make us believe that NORAD or any other agency is ready and able to deflect a rock fifty or a hundred miles in diameter. That made an alright movie - but it isn't happening in real life, in this day and age.
Or, jailbreak. Nothing wrong with the hardware, after all. Or, probably nothing wrong with the hardware that isn't also wrong with all the competition. Jailbreak it, and make it do what you want, instead of the people who used to own it making it do what they want.
Governments often times "pay" by allowing you to remain in business, or in some cases, by allowing you to continue breathing. Governments are very much customers, and sometimes, you have no choice in the matter. All depending, of course, on which government we are talking about. Seems to me that Canada is among those nations where you have a lot of choice, the US less so, and some repressive governments in Asia and Africa give you no say at all.
You're trolling, but for the benefit of those who don't know better, I'll reply.
GP refers to the ease with which Linux systems can be locked down to prevent common users from accessing a USB drive. System administrators who are competent can do the same with Windows, but there seem to be many sysadmins who are incompetent, and fail to lock USB access from common users.