Thing is, it's been demonstrated to work for at least four decades now. They just trot out this old dog and pony show every once in a while either to scare someone or rustle up some delicious pork.
Thing is, our real technologies are so limited, that nothing will happen in space. It's just a pipe dream. You don't HAVE any real technologies for mega-scale engineering in space! And here's the kicker: if we DID have such technologies, we wouldn't need them because they would imply that we have gotten better at many things right here on Earth!
Just as an example, suppose someone comes up with a thin, reliable, tough and cheap solar panel that's also 70%+ efficient. The Space Nutter promptly thinks "wow let's put it in space!". Reality says "well this means space will be competing against a much better Earth-based panel and we don't need dozens of untested and hypothetical and ridiculously expensive technologies that may not even exist. Let's just put the panels on roofs and deserts, and let's let a smart grid handle it instead of a large, old-fashioned mega project."
This exposes you as an idiot, therefore an American. Guess what? Maybe I watched Red Dwarf years ago and "nutter" stuck with me? Is your mind so tiny you can't see that? Again, an American, and a Space Nutter too.
"Secondly, you seem to forget to consistently post as AC or as your user."
Since I just created that account yesterday....
"Idiomatic usage is a giveaway, so check your writing before posting."
Oh wow, gee thanks Dick Tracy for your keen insight, you're a fucking moron.
At least you can admit it. I used to believe the glossy NASA PR too, but it turns out that what NASA does a lot is take fully formed ideas from elsewhere, pump government money into it and develop it a bit more. Then NASA spins it so it looks like they invented it.
You also have the usual geek habit of self-aggrandizement of their pet delusions, like NASA inventing Velcro or Teflon, which NASA never claimed but it's part of the lore.
What do you call repeating what you heard without inquiry?
I never hear anyone talk about the down side of space based energy generation,
Well, not in this Space Nutter echo chamber you won't. You'll get modded down for daring to question humanity's glorious future floating around in free-fall grabbing all those easy to get resources and limitless energy.
You wanna play a fun drinking game? In the next slashdot space story, spot the following Space Nutter tropes:
We must get off this rock/mud ball.
Extinction level event!
Explore the universe (although we are doing fine from the comfort of our computer chairs)
Well if you're not actively backing life extension research, your time horizon is a handful of decades. Three, tops. In three decades, you won't see much different than now. If you look back three decades, things aren't that much different either. We have better communications and electronics, that's it. I also don't see the many breakthroughs in fundamental physics that are required by so many of the delirious space prophecies. We'll never see another equivalent of the 19th century ultraviolet catastrophe and the overthrow of classical physics by quantum mechanics. We should know, we've never had more people looking.
Electrons, protons, neutrons and photons. That's pretty much it as far as what we can manipulate. 92 stable elements, that's it. There aren't any other ones, outside of technobabble and other sci-fi delusions.
We already run our jet engines hotter than the melting point of the materials inside, which are single-crystal turbine blades with active cooling. 3D printing won't improve that, neither will better computers. The only thing we've gotten better at is processing information faster and cheaper and with less and less energy.
That's because to represent a bit doesn't take much energy at all, and it took us decades to shrink our manufacturing processes *down* far enough to match that. When it took two vacuum tubes to store a bit, dissipating 20W just to store that one bit, that puts limits on what kind of computers you can build.
" Theoretically, roomtemperature computer memory operating at the Landauer limit could be changed at a rate of one billion bits per second with only 2.85 trillionths of a watt of power being expended in the memory media."
Hmm, a few orders of magnitude there for us to improve, eh?
Guess what, that's pretty much what's been going on for five or six decades. Do you see any other physical reality changing by that many orders of magnitude? Compare the thrust from the first jet engines to the latest ones. The physical world just isn't amenable to the same kind of improvements as information processing. Which is why it constantly amazes me that people compare hard drives to jet engines. There's no connection between the two. Our computers can get a thousand times faster and it still won't make that 747 fly across the Atlantic any faster.
And it won't make any of the space fantasies from the '60s and '70s any more possible either. So sorry.
The most probable things we'll do in the future won't be selecting the floor tiles for our Mars condos, it'll be figuring out if we can run the dishwasher once or twice this week.
Was that so hard to admit?:) Seems to me, from what I am reading, that many people indulge in idle fantasies involving pseudo-technologies they read about as kids. Is that what is happening here? I used to do the same, but now I see the reality.
Our society will change so dramatically that none of your resource-intensive fantasies will even enter the picture. You're like a 19th century thinker imagining bigger and better steam engines. You're stuck in the past. Time will tell, but you are on the wrong side of things. Mega-scale engineering like you propose will never happen, ever.
So you just doubled the amount of fantasy-level technology you need to get electricity, which we can get by having water fall through a turbine, thanks to our god damn gravity well. I also note the total lack of numbers and calculations. Fantasies is all you have. I'm sorry you believe so fervently the NASA PR tripe from your childhood, but as some point childhood has to end, and if your user name has to do with your hair color, I think the time to grow up is now.
Ah, so you changed from "exploring space" to "exploring Mars". I see. When simple calculations showed you how utterly ridiculous and nonsensical your notions are, you cowered and scurried back into our solar system....
Please calculate the total available energy from solar falling on Earth vs energy consumption of the entire species. Then calculate the light pressure and solar wind effect on your large orbital solar panel, then calculate the energy required to keep your solar panel in position. Then calculate the cost of your array vs even the most expensive electrical source on Earth. Then tell me what we are supposed to do with electricity considering that electricity isn't typically used as a fuel for rockets, cars, airplanes or boats.
Show me the numbers for this killer app you think you have.
I've done the numbers and it's clear that it makes no sense whatsoever, and the only way you'll understand that is if you run the numbers yourself.
I also notice you're far away from "exploring space" now.
We do know what else. It's called the Periodic Table Of Elements. Or are you claiming there are elements out there that we don't know about? Water? That's your big "killer app" for comets? Look at how much water we have here in our god damn gravity well. Not sure what your point is here.
Slashdot Mirror
Thing is, it's been demonstrated to work for at least four decades now. They just trot out this old dog and pony show every once in a while either to scare someone or rustle up some delicious pork.
Ah yes, the old space FUD.
Just as an example, suppose someone comes up with a thin, reliable, tough and cheap solar panel that's also 70%+ efficient. The Space Nutter promptly thinks "wow let's put it in space!". Reality says "well this means space will be competing against a much better Earth-based panel and we don't need dozens of untested and hypothetical and ridiculously expensive technologies that may not even exist. Let's just put the panels on roofs and deserts, and let's let a smart grid handle it instead of a large, old-fashioned mega project."
You're obsolete, mega-engineering is the past.
Welcome to the World Wide Web.
" This exposes you as a Brit"
This exposes you as an idiot, therefore an American. Guess what? Maybe I watched Red Dwarf years ago and "nutter" stuck with me? Is your mind so tiny you can't see that? Again, an American, and a Space Nutter too.
"Secondly, you seem to forget to consistently post as AC or as your user."
Since I just created that account yesterday ....
"Idiomatic usage is a giveaway, so check your writing before posting."
Oh wow, gee thanks Dick Tracy for your keen insight, you're a fucking moron.
You also have the usual geek habit of self-aggrandizement of their pet delusions, like NASA inventing Velcro or Teflon, which NASA never claimed but it's part of the lore.
What do you call repeating what you heard without inquiry?
Religion.
Right there on Earth with real technologies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_Dual-Core
I never hear anyone talk about the down side of space based energy generation,
Well, not in this Space Nutter echo chamber you won't. You'll get modded down for daring to question humanity's glorious future floating around in free-fall grabbing all those easy to get resources and limitless energy.
You wanna play a fun drinking game? In the next slashdot space story, spot the following Space Nutter tropes:
We must get off this rock/mud ball.
Extinction level event!
Explore the universe (although we are doing fine from the comfort of our computer chairs)
Space Elevator
He-3
asteroid/comet mining
We only have computers because of Apollo
Can you find more?
It just isn't that much harder, why is why no one else has continued doing so. The cognitive dissonance of the Space Nutter.
Electrons, protons, neutrons and photons. That's pretty much it as far as what we can manipulate. 92 stable elements, that's it. There aren't any other ones, outside of technobabble and other sci-fi delusions.
We already run our jet engines hotter than the melting point of the materials inside, which are single-crystal turbine blades with active cooling. 3D printing won't improve that, neither will better computers. The only thing we've gotten better at is processing information faster and cheaper and with less and less energy.
That's because to represent a bit doesn't take much energy at all, and it took us decades to shrink our manufacturing processes *down* far enough to match that. When it took two vacuum tubes to store a bit, dissipating 20W just to store that one bit, that puts limits on what kind of computers you can build.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle
" Theoretically, roomtemperature computer memory operating at the Landauer limit could be changed at a rate of one billion bits per second with only 2.85 trillionths of a watt of power being expended in the memory media."
Hmm, a few orders of magnitude there for us to improve, eh?
Guess what, that's pretty much what's been going on for five or six decades. Do you see any other physical reality changing by that many orders of magnitude? Compare the thrust from the first jet engines to the latest ones. The physical world just isn't amenable to the same kind of improvements as information processing. Which is why it constantly amazes me that people compare hard drives to jet engines. There's no connection between the two. Our computers can get a thousand times faster and it still won't make that 747 fly across the Atlantic any faster.
And it won't make any of the space fantasies from the '60s and '70s any more possible either. So sorry.
The most probable things we'll do in the future won't be selecting the floor tiles for our Mars condos, it'll be figuring out if we can run the dishwasher once or twice this week.
Was that so hard to admit? :) Seems to me, from what I am reading, that many people indulge in idle fantasies involving pseudo-technologies they read about as kids. Is that what is happening here? I used to do the same, but now I see the reality.
Always leave yourself plenty of wiggling room when discussing things that make no sense.
Our society will change so dramatically that none of your resource-intensive fantasies will even enter the picture. You're like a 19th century thinker imagining bigger and better steam engines. You're stuck in the past. Time will tell, but you are on the wrong side of things. Mega-scale engineering like you propose will never happen, ever.
Name one.
So you just doubled the amount of fantasy-level technology you need to get electricity, which we can get by having water fall through a turbine, thanks to our god damn gravity well. I also note the total lack of numbers and calculations. Fantasies is all you have. I'm sorry you believe so fervently the NASA PR tripe from your childhood, but as some point childhood has to end, and if your user name has to do with your hair color, I think the time to grow up is now.
Ah, so you changed from "exploring space" to "exploring Mars". I see. When simple calculations showed you how utterly ridiculous and nonsensical your notions are, you cowered and scurried back into our solar system....
Show me the numbers for this killer app you think you have.
I've done the numbers and it's clear that it makes no sense whatsoever, and the only way you'll understand that is if you run the numbers yourself.
I also notice you're far away from "exploring space" now.
We do know what else. It's called the Periodic Table Of Elements. Or are you claiming there are elements out there that we don't know about? Water? That's your big "killer app" for comets? Look at how much water we have here in our god damn gravity well. Not sure what your point is here.