It's only controversial for those who haven't read Turing's paper, or have completely failed to understand it. Really, it only takes 1 clever question to trip Eliza and all similar programs.
Since the ISS is the only manned space project that was done in the last decades, except perhaps for some Hubble maintenance, I don't see why making a big distinction between the two is all that useful. I'm against manned space projects in general, and against the very expensive ISS in particular.
On the contrary, I am curious. I follow the news about Rosetta, Curiosity, and other space projects. The only thing I'm advocating is that we drop the entire manned space program, because human presence in space isn't a useful goal in itself, and not a cost effective method for doing science. Of course, in typical slashdot style, disagreements aren't met with sound arguments, but with a -1 Troll.
The point is that the $100 billion spent on the ISS is a waste of money. If it were my choice, I would prefer to have move that budget to unmanned space exploration. Now, if somebody counters this by claiming that medical research done on board the ISS is vital, I'll be willing to concede a portion of the budget to medical research on Earth, and spend the rest on unmanned space projects.
Of course, in either case, we're talking about diverting the ISS budget, which remains completely orthogonal to military and other budgets.
Plus another 10 years to get back. And how much more fuel would it require to send dozens of tons of stuff on a round trip, compared to 100 kg one way ?
The expansion of the sun won't happen in a few billion years. If there's still a civilization, let them worry about a solution. In the meantime, let us worry about things that threaten our way of life in the next couple of decades.
To go beyond our solar system requires first and foremost a much better propulsion system. And, given that a better propulsion helps with anything you want to do in space, it would seem the best place to start. Until we have such propulsion (which may never happen), there's no need to start figuring out how to survive.
There's food, air, good climate and soil, and plenty of other useful resources in North America. Space is just empty. Instead of short-sighted, I prefer to call it realistic.
Yes, if launch costs were cheaper many things would work better, including unmanned probes. Now, there's just a little problem of reducing launch cost.
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So you wouldn't consider an alien from another planet intelligent unless he shared our bodily functions ?
It's only controversial for those who haven't read Turing's paper, or have completely failed to understand it. Really, it only takes 1 clever question to trip Eliza and all similar programs.
With an FPGA eval board, you can do very similar stuff, but with a single chip.
There's nothing wrong with the Turing test, but it needs to have some thought put into the set up and execution, plus competent judges.
It's very simple: we can't get there, and they can't get here.
And unless they happen to be very close, we can't even notice each other.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these breadboards.
The earliest life forms probably didn't have complicated pathways.
Like what ? Typical modern microprocessors capable of running Linux aren't very breadboard friendly.
That's why the SI system has prefixes, like tera.
The new facilities only provide helium as long as the gas fields last, which is most likely measured in decades.
Why would you need ? To hide the facts ?
Or, maybe less challenging, they could try to fill the balloons with hydrogen.
Natural gas is constantly formed in biological processes. Also, it can be synthesized. Helium can only be mined.
Huge tracts of land in Canada and Russia are plagued by short growing seasons
These are basically frozen swamps, not very suitable for growing crops as they thaw. In addition, they get poor amounts of sunlight.
You first need a lot of water to make a jungle. High temperatures are only a secondary requirement.
"not warmer than today" would be a reasonable start.
You mean that the Antarctic sea ice is growing. "Ice sheet" refers to the land ice.
Since the ISS is the only manned space project that was done in the last decades, except perhaps for some Hubble maintenance, I don't see why making a big distinction between the two is all that useful. I'm against manned space projects in general, and against the very expensive ISS in particular.
On the contrary, I am curious. I follow the news about Rosetta, Curiosity, and other space projects. The only thing I'm advocating is that we drop the entire manned space program, because human presence in space isn't a useful goal in itself, and not a cost effective method for doing science. Of course, in typical slashdot style, disagreements aren't met with sound arguments, but with a -1 Troll.
The point is that the $100 billion spent on the ISS is a waste of money. If it were my choice, I would prefer to have move that budget to unmanned space exploration. Now, if somebody counters this by claiming that medical research done on board the ISS is vital, I'll be willing to concede a portion of the budget to medical research on Earth, and spend the rest on unmanned space projects. Of course, in either case, we're talking about diverting the ISS budget, which remains completely orthogonal to military and other budgets.
Plus another 10 years to get back. And how much more fuel would it require to send dozens of tons of stuff on a round trip, compared to 100 kg one way ?
The expansion of the sun won't happen in a few billion years. If there's still a civilization, let them worry about a solution. In the meantime, let us worry about things that threaten our way of life in the next couple of decades.
To go beyond our solar system requires first and foremost a much better propulsion system. And, given that a better propulsion helps with anything you want to do in space, it would seem the best place to start. Until we have such propulsion (which may never happen), there's no need to start figuring out how to survive.
There's food, air, good climate and soil, and plenty of other useful resources in North America. Space is just empty. Instead of short-sighted, I prefer to call it realistic.
Yes, if launch costs were cheaper many things would work better, including unmanned probes. Now, there's just a little problem of reducing launch cost.