And just how the hell do you expect to fly men to these near-Earth asteroids? The shuttle ain't gonna do it. We'd need to develop a replacement vehicle.
FTFA:
In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.
off-Earth colonies would die out within a few years of losing support with Earth
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that Mars was void of heat and water. I also wasn't aware that we, as a species, are entirely incapable of developing robust shelters designed to protect from very hostile environments in which plants may be grown. Oh, wait....
Unless someone can make an as-yet unknown value proposition for going back to the moon, it's a waste of resources.
To give humans something to look forward to and hope for. To inspire coming generations of scientists and engineers to push the envelope like there's no tomorrow. To instill a sense of purpose and pride in a populaous that is becoming increasingly disenchanted, confused, embittered, pathetic, jaded, and all around broken.
Having pointed this all out, it also sounds like fun in a weird way, if you enjoy hanging with funny disfunctional drunks in a potentially lethal environment.
Sounds like having Thanksgiving with the family everyday! =D
Well, yes, but I mean carbon (or in this case a very particular phase of carbon) taking on the role that H2O does for us on Earth, as opposed to being the fundamental chemical base for organic molecules as it does already.
If everyday people are going to make important social decisions, they need to not be totally fucking ignorant and crazy
Because people dedicated to fact checking and rationality never have knee jerk reactions or unfettered bigotry towards a particular entity, group, or viewpoint.../sarcasm
Really though, if you think that religious folk are all, 'fucking ignorant and crazy' I would wager that you either live in a town where the churches are actively preaching door-salesman evangelism or some other such thing. If you think that doing away with religion is a great step towards common sense taking a hold in the populace I would wager you're wrong. Have you never heard of the tin foil hat brigade? What about the various so-called, Churches of Satan whose followers swear themselves to hedonism and claim to be more open-minded and rational than their Jewish zombie following counterparts? Don't forget the scores of agnostic PETA and Greenpeace members that are so hellbent on disenfranchising man's place as the dominant species on Earth that they firebomb places they don't agree with.
My point here is not to list every group of butt-fuck nutjobs out there, but to point out that irrationalism, idiocy, groupthink, and the outright debauchery of so-called common sense is not particular to the religious. Every belief system has its nut jobs. Every social entity has its zealots. The mass majority of folk tend to be simple people that just want to eat a hot meal and hang out with their family at the end of the day. Most religious folk fall into this ideal as well. Claiming that everyday people that make important social decision are fucking ignorant and crazy because they are linked to religion is a silly claim of correlation. Everyday people that make important social decisions are fucking ignorant and crazy because they are human. They are irrational when they are afraid. They get afraid easily today because they are raised with a false promise that the world is a safe place. Thus, to control them, you just have to scare them by showing them reality. It doesn't take religion to do that, just a pedophile down the street or a dead baby's body on the side of the highway.
will find other means to fill that existencial void
I do too. Taking an active role in the beautiful universe that we are part of seems to do away with the void entirely. There's not much time to fret about your soul if you keep yourself occupied with a wrench and a broken motorcycle (or, for the more cubicle oriented, perl and a broken subroutine).
Do the phrases "hellfire and brimstone" and "eternal damnation" ring a bell?
Only when I think of the Southern Baptist and extremism churches I have visited. Not all churches or sects use fear and terror to spread a message or control their constituency. In fact, some of the more popular churches I have been to used a more, 'Brave New World,' method to keep their constituency faithful. By preaching love and happiness and flowers and feely-goody candy they shoot their followers full of addictive endorphins every Sunday and have, thus, convinced a large swath of people that they have been touched by God's hand and should spread his message with bias.
Of course, those are the other extremes. Something that I think a lot of slashdotters fail to take into account regaridng modern religion (especially the major three Abrahamic religions) is that the mass majority of churches (Christian churches at least) and their followers do not fall into the typical, 'wide-eyed, irrational, holy rolling, evolution hating, close minded idiot' stereotype that is so fun to group the Jesus freaks into. In fact, most of the churches I attended while growing up and surveying throughout high school and college had a pretty consistent, reasonable routine to them:
1) "Good Morning."
2) Play some fun music and sing and dance (kind of weird unless, you know, you pay attention to the activities of most folk in the shower).
3) Preacher says, "Don't be a dick this week. Perhaps you should apologize if you were a dick last week."
4) More music.
5) The end (usually accompanied by donuts or other goodies).
That's really it. I am not saying that religious zealotry is not a problem...it really is. However, I think it is disingenuous to paint the mass majority of religious folk, at least in the United States, as a bunch of unreasonable nut job terrorists. When it comes down to it, I think Christianity and Islam and Judaism's original laws were drafted from the essential doctrines of, "Don't be a dick," and, "Don't be a dumbass." Unfortunately, the relative common sense place of these laws at the time they evolved (~2,000 years ago) caused widespread adoption, even by some political institutions (The Roman Catholic Church), and were, thus, corrupted over time by the promise of power and elitism.
It's a sad evolution to be sure, and trying to maintain a 2,000 year old doctrine without evolving it to modern society's needs (as in, science, homosexuality, etc.) is foolish. However, I think that tragedy comes more from a few corrupt and douchey individuals at the top, than some widespread terrorist conspiracy to keep the, 'sheeple' in line while making a grab for power.
I'm pretty sure the term 'fag' has evolved into a slander and slang that has very little to do with a person's sexual orientation these days. To be honest, I don't know too many folk that still use 'fag' as intended hate speech towards homosexuals. Those that do sometimes do it ironically. The mass majority, I suspect, tend to be yokels and fools. That being said, associating 'fag' with the gay community these days seems more like a self-imposed case of getting feelings hurt. People use 'fag' to refer to something they don't like...just like asshat and douchebag.
The French. What you think they don't have anything to do with this? After the royal ass kickings they earned themselves in the Napoleonic and World Wars they decided their best bet towards world domination was infiltration into and, therefore, control of the existing British Empire...of course, now that their plans are coming to fruition they realize they were about 100 years too slow. What do you think ITER is all about anyways? They are going to master fusion to appease the Greenies of America and thus infiltrate the new world empire. It was the froggies all along man.
Don't you guys remember the underwater city of Rapture? It became easy and accessible to splice one's own gene sequence and all hell broke loose down there. What did you think those splicers were doing? Heroine? Mark my words, this will start with harmless science projects but soon the populous will be killing little girls for ADAM and shooting lighting at each other out of their hands. Hell's come the surface!
My only concern is how well the honeycomb material handles impacts (everything from birds to micrometeorites...).
I don't know about birds, but in my space materials class we were told off the cuff that honeycomb materials (depending on the various base materials used) were actually very useful for micrometeorite impacts because the multi-layer nature of them tends to reduce the energy through the impact on the first and second layer (if there are more than 2) and trap the meteorite prior to entry into the spacecraft bus. Of course, certain blankets also perform a similar role, some better, some worse. It should be noted that most spacecraft actually have multiple layers of structure to them to protect their soft, squishy innards from everything from heat and radiation to micro-meteors and structural integrity collapse. In other words, NASA already knows to account for these things as you mentioned.
However, in response to your honeycomb curiosity, from my understanding, it depends entirely upon what kind of honeycomb you use. After all, honeycomb structures can be made with everything from trampoline fabric to wood or aluminum....or both...or all three...yay composites!
I am not going to try to refute your entire argument as you obviously have done some homework and I doubt that in an hour of googling or rhetoric on the interwebz I could change your mind. There are, however, a few of your bullet points I would like to address.
Their submarines are good enough to sneak up on US carriers, and they have demonstrated that they can shoot down satellites. Now I ask myself where the US will be with carriers on the bottom of the oceans and no satellites to coordinate communications for combined arms or provide overhead intelligence.
Regarding this. Last time I checked into it (and I will admit that was a few years ago) United States aircraft carriers are deployed as part of a large battle group known as a task force. They patrol their various portions of the globe, and perform their missions, with a rather sizable escort fleet of both submarines and destroyers. That means that, while Chinese (and any other country's) submarines are perfectly capable of sneaking up on US carriers, they must manage to do so without being detected by a large wing (I believe somewhere between 10 to 25 destroyers and/or submarines) of other naval craft that are designed specifically for sub hunting and killing. That's not simple task. It takes years worth of battle experience to become good at that kind of submarine warfare. That said, I think that it should be noted that there is a lot more to naval and, in general, military strategy than pure numbers. Disagree with me on that if you want, but if I recall correctly the size of the Iraq standing army was actually significantly larger than the US force sent over there. It was superior technology and strategy that put the US on top. While, as you pointed out, China is not Iraq, strategy is a big deal in any engagement and I would not underestimate the schools of American military strategy. We love our armies, it's what we do.
Regarding the satellite attacks you mentioned. Perhaps China is willing to knock out satellites as a means of warfare. If they do that, they will be polluting various orbits with a crapton of debris that is hard to track and avoid. If any country starts 'shooting down' satellites, it will make space a mess for everyone, not just the US. If China or any other country attempts this, that and that alone could be a significant factor in creating a rather large coalition against them. Furthermore, it would make it difficult for China to use GEO orbits for communications as well which, while it could be done, is kind of silly. GEO comm sats really are the quickest and most effective communication on the battlefield. To do away with it entirely is not the best idea, especially when you have spent a significant portion of time ramping up your own space program. Blowing up satellites in orbit to disable US military communications could work as an effective strategy if you can successfully communicate in a more organized fashion without that communication option yourself. Maybe China can do this, maybe they cannot, I don't know. What I do know is that the US military is all about backups and redundancy. If GPS and the other military comm sats are attacked and the networks are taken down, I can guarantee you that US commanders have a back up communications plan...probably two or three in fact.
They have a space program. They also have nuclear weapons. Combine the two and that means they can put a nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet with an ICBM. What's not known is their accuracy, but who needs accuracy if you have a multi-megaton device?
Their capabilities are still nowhere near those of the former Soviet Union. The advantage that the US has in having an over active defense lobby is that we are still producing military systems for fighting a war with the Soviets. One of the largest funded branches of military development right now is MDS (missile defense systems). We are slowly, but surely, building a very effective network of anti-ICBM technology. Take a look at the
Nah, see, you're letting your rational thoughts get in the way here. If you or anyone else wants this discovery to be a boone to the space industry its simple:
1) Elect a female President
2) Convince the entire country to elect female senators and assemblymen.
3) Tell the new political body that there are oceans of diamonds on Neptune (Uranus will just make them wrinkle their nose).
4) ???
5) Profit!
As always, the most effective means of overcoming barriers of common sense imposed by rationality involves letting women make the decisions when sparklies are involved. =D
Slashdot Mirror
So that's why the whalers get sent in the future...
And just how the hell do you expect to fly men to these near-Earth asteroids? The shuttle ain't gonna do it. We'd need to develop a replacement vehicle.
FTFA:
In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.
off-Earth colonies would die out within a few years of losing support with Earth
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that Mars was void of heat and water. I also wasn't aware that we, as a species, are entirely incapable of developing robust shelters designed to protect from very hostile environments in which plants may be grown. Oh, wait....
Unless someone can make an as-yet unknown value proposition for going back to the moon, it's a waste of resources.
To give humans something to look forward to and hope for. To inspire coming generations of scientists and engineers to push the envelope like there's no tomorrow. To instill a sense of purpose and pride in a populaous that is becoming increasingly disenchanted, confused, embittered, pathetic, jaded, and all around broken.
Value shouldn't always be measured in $$.
This is the world we live in.
And these are the hands we're given.
So stand up and let's start fighting,
To make this a world worth living in!
Ah Genesis, how you inspire.
That's why being a legitimate customer is overrated.
Sure, there is the novelty factor of "OMG I'm on the moon!!!" but that can only last for a few years.
That's why whalers do so well there, they thrive in isolated situations without any form of comfort.
Having pointed this all out, it also sounds like fun in a weird way, if you enjoy hanging with funny disfunctional drunks in a potentially lethal environment.
Sounds like having Thanksgiving with the family everyday! =D
Well, yes, but I mean carbon (or in this case a very particular phase of carbon) taking on the role that H2O does for us on Earth, as opposed to being the fundamental chemical base for organic molecules as it does already.
Flamebait? Hahahahaha! Once again satire is lost on the slashdot mods.
Oh dear modders,
Why so zealous?
To take things so seriously.
Tragic.
If everyday people are going to make important social decisions, they need to not be totally fucking ignorant and crazy
Because people dedicated to fact checking and rationality never have knee jerk reactions or unfettered bigotry towards a particular entity, group, or viewpoint.../sarcasm
Really though, if you think that religious folk are all, 'fucking ignorant and crazy' I would wager that you either live in a town where the churches are actively preaching door-salesman evangelism or some other such thing. If you think that doing away with religion is a great step towards common sense taking a hold in the populace I would wager you're wrong. Have you never heard of the tin foil hat brigade? What about the various so-called, Churches of Satan whose followers swear themselves to hedonism and claim to be more open-minded and rational than their Jewish zombie following counterparts? Don't forget the scores of agnostic PETA and Greenpeace members that are so hellbent on disenfranchising man's place as the dominant species on Earth that they firebomb places they don't agree with.
My point here is not to list every group of butt-fuck nutjobs out there, but to point out that irrationalism, idiocy, groupthink, and the outright debauchery of so-called common sense is not particular to the religious. Every belief system has its nut jobs. Every social entity has its zealots. The mass majority of folk tend to be simple people that just want to eat a hot meal and hang out with their family at the end of the day. Most religious folk fall into this ideal as well. Claiming that everyday people that make important social decision are fucking ignorant and crazy because they are linked to religion is a silly claim of correlation. Everyday people that make important social decisions are fucking ignorant and crazy because they are human. They are irrational when they are afraid. They get afraid easily today because they are raised with a false promise that the world is a safe place. Thus, to control them, you just have to scare them by showing them reality. It doesn't take religion to do that, just a pedophile down the street or a dead baby's body on the side of the highway.
will find other means to fill that existencial void
I do too. Taking an active role in the beautiful universe that we are part of seems to do away with the void entirely. There's not much time to fret about your soul if you keep yourself occupied with a wrench and a broken motorcycle (or, for the more cubicle oriented, perl and a broken subroutine).
Do the phrases "hellfire and brimstone" and "eternal damnation" ring a bell?
Only when I think of the Southern Baptist and extremism churches I have visited. Not all churches or sects use fear and terror to spread a message or control their constituency. In fact, some of the more popular churches I have been to used a more, 'Brave New World,' method to keep their constituency faithful. By preaching love and happiness and flowers and feely-goody candy they shoot their followers full of addictive endorphins every Sunday and have, thus, convinced a large swath of people that they have been touched by God's hand and should spread his message with bias.
Of course, those are the other extremes. Something that I think a lot of slashdotters fail to take into account regaridng modern religion (especially the major three Abrahamic religions) is that the mass majority of churches (Christian churches at least) and their followers do not fall into the typical, 'wide-eyed, irrational, holy rolling, evolution hating, close minded idiot' stereotype that is so fun to group the Jesus freaks into. In fact, most of the churches I attended while growing up and surveying throughout high school and college had a pretty consistent, reasonable routine to them:
1) "Good Morning."
2) Play some fun music and sing and dance (kind of weird unless, you know, you pay attention to the activities of most folk in the shower).
3) Preacher says, "Don't be a dick this week. Perhaps you should apologize if you were a dick last week."
4) More music.
5) The end (usually accompanied by donuts or other goodies).
That's really it. I am not saying that religious zealotry is not a problem...it really is. However, I think it is disingenuous to paint the mass majority of religious folk, at least in the United States, as a bunch of unreasonable nut job terrorists. When it comes down to it, I think Christianity and Islam and Judaism's original laws were drafted from the essential doctrines of, "Don't be a dick," and, "Don't be a dumbass." Unfortunately, the relative common sense place of these laws at the time they evolved (~2,000 years ago) caused widespread adoption, even by some political institutions (The Roman Catholic Church), and were, thus, corrupted over time by the promise of power and elitism.
It's a sad evolution to be sure, and trying to maintain a 2,000 year old doctrine without evolving it to modern society's needs (as in, science, homosexuality, etc.) is foolish. However, I think that tragedy comes more from a few corrupt and douchey individuals at the top, than some widespread terrorist conspiracy to keep the, 'sheeple' in line while making a grab for power.
But, as always, feel free to disagree.
I'm pretty sure the term 'fag' has evolved into a slander and slang that has very little to do with a person's sexual orientation these days. To be honest, I don't know too many folk that still use 'fag' as intended hate speech towards homosexuals. Those that do sometimes do it ironically. The mass majority, I suspect, tend to be yokels and fools. That being said, associating 'fag' with the gay community these days seems more like a self-imposed case of getting feelings hurt. People use 'fag' to refer to something they don't like...just like asshat and douchebag.
At least, that's my thoughts towards it.
If you are just trying to figure out why people do what they do,
When it comes to slashdot mods, PCP is the only reasonable answer to this inquiry.
The cowboy hat makes you look like a moron.
Not if you wear the accompanying handlebar mustache. What you're married? Be a man, grow a lip ferret!
Anyway, who boils frogs?
The French. What you think they don't have anything to do with this? After the royal ass kickings they earned themselves in the Napoleonic and World Wars they decided their best bet towards world domination was infiltration into and, therefore, control of the existing British Empire...of course, now that their plans are coming to fruition they realize they were about 100 years too slow. What do you think ITER is all about anyways? They are going to master fusion to appease the Greenies of America and thus infiltrate the new world empire. It was the froggies all along man.
Don't you guys remember the underwater city of Rapture? It became easy and accessible to splice one's own gene sequence and all hell broke loose down there. What did you think those splicers were doing? Heroine? Mark my words, this will start with harmless science projects but soon the populous will be killing little girls for ADAM and shooting lighting at each other out of their hands. Hell's come the surface!
My only concern is how well the honeycomb material handles impacts (everything from birds to micrometeorites...).
I don't know about birds, but in my space materials class we were told off the cuff that honeycomb materials (depending on the various base materials used) were actually very useful for micrometeorite impacts because the multi-layer nature of them tends to reduce the energy through the impact on the first and second layer (if there are more than 2) and trap the meteorite prior to entry into the spacecraft bus. Of course, certain blankets also perform a similar role, some better, some worse. It should be noted that most spacecraft actually have multiple layers of structure to them to protect their soft, squishy innards from everything from heat and radiation to micro-meteors and structural integrity collapse. In other words, NASA already knows to account for these things as you mentioned.
However, in response to your honeycomb curiosity, from my understanding, it depends entirely upon what kind of honeycomb you use. After all, honeycomb structures can be made with everything from trampoline fabric to wood or aluminum....or both...or all three...yay composites!
Unfortunately completely different laws of physics are no more conducive to human survival than heat death is.
I first read that as Fortunately....I liked it better that way....
Their submarines are good enough to sneak up on US carriers, and they have demonstrated that they can shoot down satellites. Now I ask myself where the US will be with carriers on the bottom of the oceans and no satellites to coordinate communications for combined arms or provide overhead intelligence.
Regarding this. Last time I checked into it (and I will admit that was a few years ago) United States aircraft carriers are deployed as part of a large battle group known as a task force. They patrol their various portions of the globe, and perform their missions, with a rather sizable escort fleet of both submarines and destroyers. That means that, while Chinese (and any other country's) submarines are perfectly capable of sneaking up on US carriers, they must manage to do so without being detected by a large wing (I believe somewhere between 10 to 25 destroyers and/or submarines) of other naval craft that are designed specifically for sub hunting and killing. That's not simple task. It takes years worth of battle experience to become good at that kind of submarine warfare. That said, I think that it should be noted that there is a lot more to naval and, in general, military strategy than pure numbers. Disagree with me on that if you want, but if I recall correctly the size of the Iraq standing army was actually significantly larger than the US force sent over there. It was superior technology and strategy that put the US on top. While, as you pointed out, China is not Iraq, strategy is a big deal in any engagement and I would not underestimate the schools of American military strategy. We love our armies, it's what we do.
Regarding the satellite attacks you mentioned. Perhaps China is willing to knock out satellites as a means of warfare. If they do that, they will be polluting various orbits with a crapton of debris that is hard to track and avoid. If any country starts 'shooting down' satellites, it will make space a mess for everyone, not just the US. If China or any other country attempts this, that and that alone could be a significant factor in creating a rather large coalition against them. Furthermore, it would make it difficult for China to use GEO orbits for communications as well which, while it could be done, is kind of silly. GEO comm sats really are the quickest and most effective communication on the battlefield. To do away with it entirely is not the best idea, especially when you have spent a significant portion of time ramping up your own space program. Blowing up satellites in orbit to disable US military communications could work as an effective strategy if you can successfully communicate in a more organized fashion without that communication option yourself. Maybe China can do this, maybe they cannot, I don't know. What I do know is that the US military is all about backups and redundancy. If GPS and the other military comm sats are attacked and the networks are taken down, I can guarantee you that US commanders have a back up communications plan...probably two or three in fact.
They have a space program. They also have nuclear weapons. Combine the two and that means they can put a nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet with an ICBM. What's not known is their accuracy, but who needs accuracy if you have a multi-megaton device?
Their capabilities are still nowhere near those of the former Soviet Union. The advantage that the US has in having an over active defense lobby is that we are still producing military systems for fighting a war with the Soviets. One of the largest funded branches of military development right now is MDS (missile defense systems). We are slowly, but surely, building a very effective network of anti-ICBM technology. Take a look at the
Speaking about it in the past tense seems disingenuous...
The only people who still go “Ooohhh, diamonds!” are either very uninformed, or ignorant retards.
I yell at you to think of the children before commenting, but it worries me that you already are....
Nah, see, you're letting your rational thoughts get in the way here. If you or anyone else wants this discovery to be a boone to the space industry its simple:
1) Elect a female President
2) Convince the entire country to elect female senators and assemblymen.
3) Tell the new political body that there are oceans of diamonds on Neptune (Uranus will just make them wrinkle their nose).
4) ???
5) Profit!
As always, the most effective means of overcoming barriers of common sense imposed by rationality involves letting women make the decisions when sparklies are involved. =D