Ion engines we have today are about as far away from hopping around the solar system, as is Kon-Tiki's sale from a nuclear aircraft carrier.
We, humans may build projects that will last decades or centuries, but we build them because we either need them today or we are certain that we will need them tomorrow. Wasting time and resources just so we could "toot around" may be a fine romantic notion, but it is far from productive. Just as today you don't build coal power plants in the middle of the desert so you could decrease pollution to the inhabited areas, but instead you build them where there are coal deposits - you wouldn't mine the asteroids for ore. You would mine it either for raw, distilled/enriched material (if it is easy to transport) or the final product - say transport ships.
At the same time, while you may get couple of thousand people to one of those habitats - most will always want a hard rock under their feet for their family and themselves. And we are talking of billions of colonists in a couple of centuries here. Heck.. we were at under 2 billion humans a hundred years ago. You can't build habitats fast enough for that.
All things being equal - you always have that advantage of NOT floating off into space if something goes wrong with your artificially maintained habitat. Oh... and something tells me that a civilization that has the ability to build torus like that has no problems with launching expenses.
On another point, having colonists sitting on a large chunk of rock, building infrastructure and creating tax revenue for your government is one thing. Having them wisp around the solar system uncontrolled, maybe mining for weapons of mass destruction to be used against your government is another thing. What world government would allow for something like that? Heck, we would sooner see a population cap or soilent green factories or both than that happening.
I'm sure or ~_~ well atleast i hope you wouldnt hit your wife in the same way so why your child? If my wife ran down the isle knocking the cans of the shelves giggling like it was the funniest thing in the world I would probably not be able to reach her through all the security personnel that would get around her in order to taze her.
Oh... and hitting IS fine and OK. Any bully on the playground, including the government officers, will explain it to you rather quickly.
Equalizing spanking or a slapping your child with child abuse is just another example of a blanket measure. Cause it is easier to justify "No spanking or hitting whatsoever" than maybe have a system that would take in all the facts and consider each case. I know quite a few grown men and women that could have used some of that "detrimental" you mention.
On the other hand, sure, a child that runs around the supermarket knocking cans off the shelve deserves both that slap and spanking and to get separated from its parents afterwards and put to foster care./sarcasm
And moving between those locations at full impulse I suppose?
Besides, even if we had that kind of mythical ultra-fast and ultra-cheap propulsion system that would allow a colony to hop around the system there is one far more important reason why humans tend to gravitate (no pun intended) to the nearest giant rock.
It is in our nature. We are land creatures.
We got thousands of square miles of free oceans, yet most of us would rather stay on the shore. We could live off the sea far easier than we could off the space. And we have been sailing the seas for thousands of years now. And how many floating colonies do we have?
A self-sufficient platform somewhere in space is not a home. Planet or a moon is.
(Scene : A front door of a flat. A man walks up to the door and rings bell. He is dressed smartly, like a Salesman.)
Salesman: Burglar! (longish pause while he waits, he rings again) Burglar! (woman appears at other side of door)
Woman: Yes?
Salesman: Burglar, madam.
Woman: What do you want?
Salesman: I wart to come in and steal a few firings, madam.
Woman: Are you an encyclopaedia salesman?
Salesman: No madam, I'm a burglar, I burgle people.
Woman: I think you're an encyclopaedia salesman.
Salesman: Oh I'm not, open the door, let me in please.
Woman: lf l let you in you'll sell me encyclopaedias.
Salesman: I won't, madam. I just want to come in and ransack the flat. Honestly.
Woman: Promise. No encyclopaedias?
Salesman: None at all.
Woman: All right. (she opens door) You'd better come in then.
(Salesman enters trough door.)
Salesman: Mind you I don't know whether you've really considered the advantages of owning a really fine set of modern encyclopaedias...(he pockets valuable) You know, they can really do you wonders.
(Cut back to man at desk.)
Man: That man was a successful encyclopaedia salesman. But not all encyclopaedia salesmen are successful. Here is an unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesman.
(Cut to very tall building; a body flies out of a high window and plummets. Cut back to man at desk.)
Man: Now here are two unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesmen.
(Cut to a different tall building; two bodies fly out of a high window. Cut back to man at desk.)
Man: I think there's a lesson there for all of us.
Once we get off of Earth's gravity well, why in God's name would we build another society within another gravity well? Cause that is where the resources usually are?
OK, that is one brave Anonymous Coward. Balls, hard to come by these days.
Anyone else willing to comment?
FYI - I had no intention to be trollish about it. I am guessing that I was simply combining the memory of the photo above with this one. Had the photo been say... shades of blue or green, it would probably not register that way.
I just hope that Russians, Chinese and the French will have enough good taste to nuke the remains of the Country Formerly Known as United States of America into oblivion.
Its tham tiny things they use in that Urp country to measure thangs. Much smaller than inches. 'Mercans are used to inches of waves, which goes to show that tham there mil-meter waves are harmless.
Aah... TSA pedophiles... God bless them. God bless them all...
It is going to be hilarious when photos snapped from the scanner's screens start leaking out. Naturally, all the screens will then have to be replaced with brand new anti-photo defense. Better yet... Why not buy and install a whole new machine instead?
There is about as much logic in what Eagle proposes as in banning trenchart on account that the material it is made of has been used to (maybe) kill or hurt someone, it "arouses" the possessor of said trenchart to also kill or hurt someone and that the said trenchart is a dangerous weapon in itself because it DERIVES from a real weapon that can be and might have been used to kill or hurt someone.
Move it to Las Vegas and have Tevatron double as the world's largest roulette wheel? Base the entire center around games of chance - with a scientific twist.
In a year or two, US government will be asking Fermi Lab and Casino Inc. for money, not the other way around.
Don't thank me... Thank Tom and Jerry. Got the idea for a Big F-in roulette wheel from them.
Slashdot Mirror
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out "DUH!" and then were silenced.
Ion engines we have today are about as far away from hopping around the solar system, as is Kon-Tiki's sale from a nuclear aircraft carrier.
We, humans may build projects that will last decades or centuries, but we build them because we either need them today or we are certain that we will need them tomorrow.
Wasting time and resources just so we could "toot around" may be a fine romantic notion, but it is far from productive.
Just as today you don't build coal power plants in the middle of the desert so you could decrease pollution to the inhabited areas, but instead you build them where there are coal deposits - you wouldn't mine the asteroids for ore.
You would mine it either for raw, distilled/enriched material (if it is easy to transport) or the final product - say transport ships.
At the same time, while you may get couple of thousand people to one of those habitats - most will always want a hard rock under their feet for their family and themselves.
And we are talking of billions of colonists in a couple of centuries here. Heck.. we were at under 2 billion humans a hundred years ago.
You can't build habitats fast enough for that.
All things being equal - you always have that advantage of NOT floating off into space if something goes wrong with your artificially maintained habitat.
Oh... and something tells me that a civilization that has the ability to build torus like that has no problems with launching expenses.
On another point, having colonists sitting on a large chunk of rock, building infrastructure and creating tax revenue for your government is one thing.
Having them wisp around the solar system uncontrolled, maybe mining for weapons of mass destruction to be used against your government is another thing.
What world government would allow for something like that?
Heck, we would sooner see a population cap or soilent green factories or both than that happening.
Oh... and hitting IS fine and OK.
Any bully on the playground, including the government officers, will explain it to you rather quickly.
We all know that there is no room for that Socialism and other Commie stuff in the US of A.
...we may expect that there will be significant investments in "alternative means of flight".
Equalizing spanking or a slapping your child with child abuse is just another example of a blanket measure.
/sarcasm
Cause it is easier to justify "No spanking or hitting whatsoever" than maybe have a system that would take in all the facts and consider each case.
I know quite a few grown men and women that could have used some of that "detrimental" you mention.
On the other hand, sure, a child that runs around the supermarket knocking cans off the shelve deserves both that slap and spanking and to get separated from its parents afterwards and put to foster care.
And moving between those locations at full impulse I suppose?
Besides, even if we had that kind of mythical ultra-fast and ultra-cheap propulsion system that would allow a colony to hop around the system there is one far more important reason why humans tend to gravitate (no pun intended) to the nearest giant rock.
It is in our nature. We are land creatures.
We got thousands of square miles of free oceans, yet most of us would rather stay on the shore.
We could live off the sea far easier than we could off the space. And we have been sailing the seas for thousands of years now.
And how many floating colonies do we have?
A self-sufficient platform somewhere in space is not a home. Planet or a moon is.
(Scene : A front door of a flat. A man walks up to the door and rings bell. He is dressed smartly, like a Salesman.)
Salesman: Burglar! (longish pause while he waits, he rings again) Burglar! (woman appears at other side of door)
Woman: Yes?
Salesman: Burglar, madam.
Woman: What do you want?
Salesman: I wart to come in and steal a few firings, madam.
Woman: Are you an encyclopaedia salesman?
Salesman: No madam, I'm a burglar, I burgle people.
Woman: I think you're an encyclopaedia salesman.
Salesman: Oh I'm not, open the door, let me in please.
Woman: lf l let you in you'll sell me encyclopaedias.
Salesman: I won't, madam. I just want to come in and ransack the flat. Honestly.
Woman: Promise. No encyclopaedias?
Salesman: None at all.
Woman: All right. (she opens door) You'd better come in then.
(Salesman enters trough door.)
Salesman: Mind you I don't know whether you've really considered the advantages of owning a really fine set of modern encyclopaedias...(he pockets valuable) You know, they can really do you wonders.
(Cut back to man at desk.)
Man: That man was a successful encyclopaedia salesman. But not all encyclopaedia salesmen are successful. Here is an unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesman.
(Cut to very tall building; a body flies out of a high window and plummets. Cut back to man at desk.)
Man: Now here are two unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesmen.
(Cut to a different tall building; two bodies fly out of a high window. Cut back to man at desk.)
Man: I think there's a lesson there for all of us.
OK, that is one brave Anonymous Coward.
Balls, hard to come by these days.
Anyone else willing to comment?
FYI - I had no intention to be trollish about it.
I am guessing that I was simply combining the memory of the photo above with this one.
Had the photo been say... shades of blue or green, it would probably not register that way.
I just hope that Russians, Chinese and the French will have enough good taste to nuke the remains of the Country Formerly Known as United States of America into oblivion.
It is not a train.
Its a ride.
Anyone else reminded of concentration camps by these photos?
Seen any Star Trek? Federation is a classic socialist utopia.
Ya kno'... mil-meter...
Its tham tiny things they use in that Urp country to measure thangs. Much smaller than inches.
'Mercans are used to inches of waves, which goes to show that tham there mil-meter waves are harmless.
Aah... TSA pedophiles...
God bless them. God bless them all...
It is going to be hilarious when photos snapped from the scanner's screens start leaking out.
Naturally, all the screens will then have to be replaced with brand new anti-photo defense.
Better yet... Why not buy and install a whole new machine instead?
HEY!
Micro Machines rule!
...pick any two?
And some people I know...
There is about as much logic in what Eagle proposes as in banning trenchart on account that the material it is made of has been used to (maybe) kill or hurt someone, it "arouses" the possessor of said trenchart to also kill or hurt someone and that the said trenchart is a dangerous weapon in itself because it DERIVES from a real weapon that can be and might have been used to kill or hurt someone.
Move it to Las Vegas and have Tevatron double as the world's largest roulette wheel?
Base the entire center around games of chance - with a scientific twist.
In a year or two, US government will be asking Fermi Lab and Casino Inc. for money, not the other way around.
Don't thank me... Thank Tom and Jerry.
Got the idea for a Big F-in roulette wheel from them.
Only the GOOD kind.
Where do you think those 5 mil. came from?
Not all of it comes from Nigeria, you know?
Mr. Wayne.
Particle physics is the key to penis enlargement.