I don't know if your are joking or not, but know a number of scientist (of the rocket persuasion) who were very into the tech, specifically in engine efficiency, and some who even got patents working with some of the greats of the field.
A guy I went to college with went on to get a masters (ME) after graduating, then onto a motor sports team last I heard. He knew a lot of that stuff (ev's too which is how I met him)....worked on an electric race car for uni and helped out with their solar car entry. He raced sprint cars too until an accident, then just tech design. Very interesting and extremely bright guy.
The technology for robots in space is immediately useful on Earth. Self driving cars, remote geographical exploration, space weather (you certainly wouldn't put people in a solar polar orbit to take pictures of the sun), remote mineral sensing.
I think it's optimism rather than pessimism. Today we can learn more about the Earth in 91 minutes than we could in the prior 4 billion years.
People "on Mars" will not do anything other than push buttons to run the machines to do whatever test they want. The scientists who actually study the planets (I used to work there) know this. I think most scientists, at least the ones that I knew, are against manned space exploration.
But the fact that the total NASA investment of $55 billion yielded a paltry $5 billion in true spinoffs, creating entirely new products or industries, suggests a very poor return of ten cents on the dollar. Again, this should not be surprising, given the highly specialized nature of much of the engineering and development work conducted by NASA.
So rather than being an unusually good investment paying 7:1 or 22:1 for each dollar invested, NASA has an astoundingly bad 1:10 payoff -- about a factor of 100 worse than the commercial economy as a whole.
When I was 7 years old, I flew a bat kite up way over 500'. It was actually my friend's kite, but we pooled our money and bought 10 rolls of string (the kind that came on yellow cardboard tubes).
We had 2000' of string and flew it once in a dust storm.
Futaba is still around as are my many planes I built in the 70's and 80's. I still build them, and model rockets too. I probably have close to 30 model airplanes still in existence. Most are not currently flyable, but 5-10 hours and some glue would fix that.
It costs about $60 to turn any rc plane (car or boat) into an autonomous vehicle. Basically an arduino and a $2.25 ebay gyro/magnetometer board and free open source software.
Not everyone wants to live in San Francisco or Oakland. For the price of a home there, you could retire at age thirty to some quiet little out of the way town, as millions of others do, and live your life for yourself, not serving someone else.
You won't get to go out to clubs every night and wander home drunk, as I've done in SF a few times, but there are tradeoffs in life. If that's the lifestyle you chose, then deal with the downside.
What exactly is a dystopia? If you were to take someone from the 18th century and plop them down in modern times, or even in the 1960's if you prefer, I'm sure they would consider it a dystopia.
The difference between Orwell and Huxley is top down vs bottom up. If Huxley turns out to be correct, then people will have done it to themselves willingly and without the use of force. Read some Neil Postman.
Mine too. One thing, most of my friends were not born in the US and their parents were not raised here. They all seem to be doing fine, better than fine in most cases.
Our parents were raised during the 60's, I wonder if that had anything to do with it? You really have to skip a generation for new ideas and ways to 'gel'.
There is a drawback in using atmospheric oxygen. The vehicle must stay low enough to have something to scoop up. Exactly how low is a messy calculus problem and also requires different structures and heat dissipation techniques.
The two extremes are 1. shoot straight up out of the atmosphere, then straight tangential to the local surface (horizontal) and 2. Stay at sea level until you achieve orbital velocity, then head straight up. The space shuttle accent is closer to (1), popping out of the atmosphere then diving down toward Earth to pick up the horizontal component. And remember, every second you are not in orbit, you have to expend fuel to keep yourself off the ground. SpaceX did this analysis and concluded that while it was interesting and has merit that their current solution was better. Musk also said they might to back to revisit the problem in the future, but that it is a close trade off.
It could blow up and kill a lot of people. It could fail to make it to orbit and crash into NYC. It could make early investors billions. It could do a lot of things.
This worries me because I use them so much, maybe a few times a month. I'm sure I spend thousands of dollars a year there. Once I ordered product that I needed in an emergency and got next day delivery. I got a low end cheap model because I was not ready yet for the real thing that cost a few thousand (though it was on my wish list).
Anyway, the cheapo product arrived next day as promised, but was DOA. I wrote to amazon who immediately shipped out the replacement. When I received that early the next day, they shipped the thousand dollar and not hundred dollar model. I wrote back and asked if they wanted me to return it or pay extra and they said no, just keep it.
Slashdot Mirror
the same sort of - occasionally even the same instances
Shhhh. You're ruining what I think is referred to as a circlejerk. Must feel superior regardless of the truth.
I don't know if your are joking or not, but know a number of scientist (of the rocket persuasion) who were very into the tech, specifically in engine efficiency, and some who even got patents working with some of the greats of the field.
I'm not that into judging people though.
Yet another advantage of not showering daily.
The technology for robots in space is immediately useful on Earth. Self driving cars, remote geographical exploration, space weather (you certainly wouldn't put people in a solar polar orbit to take pictures of the sun), remote mineral sensing.
People "on Mars" will not do anything other than push buttons to run the machines to do whatever test they want. The scientists who actually study the planets (I used to work there) know this. I think most scientists, at least the ones that I knew, are against manned space exploration.
But the fact that the total NASA investment of $55 billion yielded a paltry $5 billion in true spinoffs, creating entirely new products or industries, suggests a very poor return of ten cents on the dollar. Again, this should not be surprising, given the highly specialized nature of much of the engineering and development work conducted by NASA. So rather than being an unusually good investment paying 7:1 or 22:1 for each dollar invested, NASA has an astoundingly bad 1:10 payoff -- about a factor of 100 worse than the commercial economy as a whole.
but unlike the earlier times, this time is different
should be enough for any planet
We had 2000' of string and flew it once in a dust storm.
RC (drone) gliders do not buzz. They're also capable of thermaling and staying in the air for hours.
Futaba is still around as are my many planes I built in the 70's and 80's. I still build them, and model rockets too. I probably have close to 30 model airplanes still in existence. Most are not currently flyable, but 5-10 hours and some glue would fix that.
Not nearly as much as birds
It costs about $60 to turn any rc plane (car or boat) into an autonomous vehicle. Basically an arduino and a $2.25 ebay gyro/magnetometer board and free open source software.
You won't get to go out to clubs every night and wander home drunk, as I've done in SF a few times, but there are tradeoffs in life. If that's the lifestyle you chose, then deal with the downside.
What exactly is a dystopia? If you were to take someone from the 18th century and plop them down in modern times, or even in the 1960's if you prefer, I'm sure they would consider it a dystopia.
The difference between Orwell and Huxley is top down vs bottom up. If Huxley turns out to be correct, then people will have done it to themselves willingly and without the use of force. Read some Neil Postman.
we're working ourselves into exactly the population that Huxley describe
ectogenesis will be here in 20 years
Our parents were raised during the 60's, I wonder if that had anything to do with it? You really have to skip a generation for new ideas and ways to 'gel'.
If it's anything like me, it will happen to you multiple times in the next 50-60 years.
Marshal Brain wrte about this in Manna .
The two extremes are 1. shoot straight up out of the atmosphere, then straight tangential to the local surface (horizontal) and 2. Stay at sea level until you achieve orbital velocity, then head straight up. The space shuttle accent is closer to (1), popping out of the atmosphere then diving down toward Earth to pick up the horizontal component. And remember, every second you are not in orbit, you have to expend fuel to keep yourself off the ground. SpaceX did this analysis and concluded that while it was interesting and has merit that their current solution was better. Musk also said they might to back to revisit the problem in the future, but that it is a close trade off.
It could blow up and kill a lot of people. It could fail to make it to orbit and crash into NYC. It could make early investors billions. It could do a lot of things.
junk food isn't to blame for America's obesity epidemic ?
honestly don't know how they turn a profit.
This worries me because I use them so much, maybe a few times a month. I'm sure I spend thousands of dollars a year there. Once I ordered product that I needed in an emergency and got next day delivery. I got a low end cheap model because I was not ready yet for the real thing that cost a few thousand (though it was on my wish list).
Anyway, the cheapo product arrived next day as promised, but was DOA. I wrote to amazon who immediately shipped out the replacement. When I received that early the next day, they shipped the thousand dollar and not hundred dollar model. I wrote back and asked if they wanted me to return it or pay extra and they said no, just keep it.