What the french did was repeatedly eliminate the 1%-ers.
Not at all. I doubt most of the people killed were 1% of anything. IMHO, the primary purposes of mass executions like this is as a display of power and removal of rivals, real or potential. Targeting particular economic or social classes, while it occurred on occasion, was secondary.
A soldier has many jobs. And a lot of them go their entire career without trying to kill anyone. Their most important task is simply to act as a deterrent to anyone else with a military force.
Gee, the end of an era. We could have had so much more. It's good that we have SpaceX doing something sensible about space flight, and NASA funding enough of that, but I think we learned one sad lesson from the Space Program: You can't trust the American electorate and their political representatives to do what's important for the future of the species.
Why should you? It's not the job of either one to do what you think is important for the future of the species. Frankly, public funding of manned space activities have added a lot of noise to the process, but not much of anything useful. Maybe that's just not a good tool for big, long term goals.
That just isn't tight enough, even if it would work as intended. At the moment it is completely inadequate due to something called regulatory capture [wikipedia.org].
And what's going to keep the "tighter" regulation from suffering from regulatory capture either.
Nuclear reactors, like armies, should not be in private hands.
Or maybe it's evidence that regulation shouldn't be in public hands. After all, they don't have a vested interest in whether they do their jobs or not.
And here we see a member of the "NUKLYUR EVIL!!" crowd in action. Unconfirmable anecdote combined with unrealistic solutions. Bonus points for whining that someone thinks solution will be too "socialist".
Here's my take. As to "jam tomorrow", it's worth remembering that nuclear plants normally maintain their primary promise, delivering power cheaply.
It needs to be tightly controlled by people with no vested financial interest in it
How is building nitrous oxide hybrids that can't even get into orbit advancing us as a species?
Well, let's turn that question around. How is building a capable suborbital vehicle using nitrous oxide hybrids not advancing us as a species? Seems to me that developing a new vehicle for a mode of transportation that is virtually unused (namely, suborbital flight) is an advancement.
And if it should prove viable as a business model, then that can fund more sophisticated suborbital and orbital vehicles, which would advance things quite a bit. The economic activity would also provide a little benefit as well.
You forgot a word. "Yet." The problems are also exaggerated. For example, one doesn't need the whole of human industry or knowledge to make seed factories. Instead, one needs a thing that can make a copy of itself and have at least limited capability to make other useful machines.
It's worth noting that the basic machine shop plus furnace not only can make a copy of itself (with human labor and metal), but that all that one needs to make the machine shop is the human labor, metal, and the furnace (well, plus some sort of heat source and a place with dirt and gravity in order to make molds and pour metal).
The human is a powerful part of this particular scheme and they come with large requirements, but it's possible either to expend the overhead of bringing humans along (or have them teleoperating from nearby) or replace them with sufficiently advanced robotics. Obviously, that hasn't been done off of Earth. Yet.
Yet these private companies advertising orbital flights (for the last decade or so) still haven't launched a commercial service yet (I'm not talking preorders. I mean launching and recovering now as a regular mission).
The ULA (and its predecessors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing) have launched many things into orbit over the past twenty five years. Orbital Sciences has launched stuff for about 20 years. These are private companies advertising orbital flights.
A justification which expires the moment the money is no longer in your possession. In my view, even taxation with representation is turning out inadequate. I don't see anything better out there, so I'm trying to help turn things around with the current systems.
I guess what I find wrong with the situation is seemingly intentional and deliberate ignorance on the topic yet pronouncing policies based upon this ignorance.
The various space programs have talked big while not delivering even simple milestones. I honestly don't see Branson doing anything different here. He's got a long ways to go before doing any trips to Mars. I'd rather see action on the goals he's already set than talk about new goals.
If (human or otherwise) children can only be born on the Earth
We already know that's not true, by virtue of the same physical laws holding off of Earth. It may turn out that one needs a very similar environment in terms of pressure, gravity, etc. But that can be simulated well enough and it appears that you agree.
I just think it's disingenuous to argue against attempting colonization of Mars merely because no one has bothered to do the experiments on hazards to humans. In that circumstance, I have no troubles letting those who try, and their descendants works out the problems. I'm even willing to contribute to research that would help them succeed.
Please, tell us more about your experiences establishing colonies on Mars and other, uh, simple lifestyle changes...
How about we talk about your experience with such things? It is just as relevant as my experience to what was discussed, namely, the problem of getting people to commit to and show up for a paintball game.
The earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. On Mars the atmosphere is only 3% nitrogen, and it's much, much thinner than on earth. "Simply" harvesting a useful amount of nitrogen from the atmosphere is nowhere near as simple as you would have us believe.
Sure, it is. Here's a simple process:
1) Compress martian atmosphere to a workable level.
2) Cool that to below the freezing point of carbon dioxide to freeze out almost all carbon dioxide.
3) You're left with roughly three-fifths nitrogen, two-fifths argon, and small amounts of carbon dioxide, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and other low melting point gasses. Treat with something that reacts with the carbon monoxide to filter that out.
And there you go. Past this, all you need is a hydrogen source, such as the available water, to make ammonia, an important component of fertilizers. Or you can use legumes and nitrogen fixing bacteria to make nitrogen rich "green manure".
Considering that serious proposals are being drawn up at the moment to send people to Mars and significant policy plans are being made for sending people to Mars that amount in the range of billions of dollars, it seems sad that over all of the years that the ISS has been orbiting around this Earth that nobody has even bothered to find out what impacts upon any mammals of any kind might have in a reduced or zero gravity environment.
There's plenty of information on zero gravity environments and their effects on mammals. But in comparison, there's almost nothing for low gravity environments.
Yes, I've seen the "studies" of things somewhat like this, but none of them were longitudinal studies, with the longest such experiment being a rat that was already pregnant when she flew into space... but gave birth in space.
How do you square this statement with your "nobody has even bothered to find out..." claim? Longitudinal studies are far more difficult because it requires being able to keep nonhuman life forms alive in zero or low gravity for years. IMHO, the physical infrastructure for that hasn't existed until the ISS though it probably would have been possible to convert MIR or Skylab over to such an experiment.
Christ, when people won't even turn up to, say, a paintball game with free beer and a BBQ afterwards, after swearing "wild horses couldn't keep them away", etc, what hope is there of getting anyone - especially women - to front up for a place in a Mars colony?
You're just hanging around with the wrong crowd for this sort of thing. There are many people who thoughtfully make and keep such commitments. And anyone can learn how to do it, though sometimes it takes a surprising amount of work for such a simple lifestyle change.
1) THE FUCKING SUN has all the elements that humans and plants need though nitrogen content is very low.
Obviously, I meant in a way and concentration that we could use it. Having barely detectable traces isn't equivalent.
2) Are your crops going to live underground too?
Several things to note. First, yes, they can be grown underground. There are several ways to provide light to them. Second, they're not going to become inedible merely because they've been exposed to radiation that has modest health consequences for humans.
3) There is nowhere near enough water on Mars. What is there is not readily available nor easily concentrated.
At the poles, there's plenty of water. And I imagine there's underground water as well.
4) Dirt != Soil. This is where the nitrogen really bites you in the butt. Is it better to wait for hundreds of years to grow your own, or to ship tons of organic matter from mother earth?
It's worth noting that once your money becomes a tax payment, it's no longer your money. At that point, there's no compelling reason for that money to benefit you.
The primary reason to have something else eat the algae first is to filter out the excess nitrogen contained in algae. Algae tend to have a lot of nucleic acids. That can cause gout and kidney stones for a human trying to live exclusively on such a diet. Tilapia and shrimp are IMHO better diet choices than tardigrades (which frankly may still have too much nucleic acids in them due to their famous survivability characteristics).
Once they solve the "there isn't any air" problem, the "there isn't any magnetosphere" problem, the "there isn't any water problem", and the "there isn't any soil" problem they will easily be able to whip up some FTL communications tech.
You're talking about Mars right? 1) Mars air has all the elements that humans and plants need though nitrogen content is very low. 2) Living underground solves the "there's no magnetosphere" problem. 3) There is water on Mars. 4) There is plenty of dirt on Mars. That plus plants growing in it for a time creates soil. Nitrogen fixing is probably the largest obstacle.
I can't begin to describe the ethical, legal and moral problems presented by such a venture
Then don't bother. My view is that it is better to try things out with human volunteers rather than attempt inadequate studies that just won't yield the results you want even in twenty years. And work on the problems as they appear.
Slashdot Mirror
What the french did was repeatedly eliminate the 1%-ers.
Not at all. I doubt most of the people killed were 1% of anything. IMHO, the primary purposes of mass executions like this is as a display of power and removal of rivals, real or potential. Targeting particular economic or social classes, while it occurred on occasion, was secondary.
A soldier's job is to kill
A soldier has many jobs. And a lot of them go their entire career without trying to kill anyone. Their most important task is simply to act as a deterrent to anyone else with a military force.
Gee, the end of an era. We could have had so much more. It's good that we have SpaceX doing something sensible about space flight, and NASA funding enough of that, but I think we learned one sad lesson from the Space Program: You can't trust the American electorate and their political representatives to do what's important for the future of the species.
Why should you? It's not the job of either one to do what you think is important for the future of the species. Frankly, public funding of manned space activities have added a lot of noise to the process, but not much of anything useful. Maybe that's just not a good tool for big, long term goals.
That just isn't tight enough, even if it would work as intended. At the moment it is completely inadequate due to something called regulatory capture [wikipedia.org].
And what's going to keep the "tighter" regulation from suffering from regulatory capture either.
Nuclear reactors, like armies, should not be in private hands.
Or maybe it's evidence that regulation shouldn't be in public hands. After all, they don't have a vested interest in whether they do their jobs or not.
The challenge will be to get them for the same research.
Here's my take. As to "jam tomorrow", it's worth remembering that nuclear plants normally maintain their primary promise, delivering power cheaply.
It needs to be tightly controlled by people with no vested financial interest in it
It is, via NRC.
why don't they just install 5 pumps then?
Because then they'd have to shut down when one of the (N+1) pumps fails.
How is building nitrous oxide hybrids that can't even get into orbit advancing us as a species?
Well, let's turn that question around. How is building a capable suborbital vehicle using nitrous oxide hybrids not advancing us as a species? Seems to me that developing a new vehicle for a mode of transportation that is virtually unused (namely, suborbital flight) is an advancement.
And if it should prove viable as a business model, then that can fund more sophisticated suborbital and orbital vehicles, which would advance things quite a bit. The economic activity would also provide a little benefit as well.
You forgot a word. "Yet." The problems are also exaggerated. For example, one doesn't need the whole of human industry or knowledge to make seed factories. Instead, one needs a thing that can make a copy of itself and have at least limited capability to make other useful machines.
It's worth noting that the basic machine shop plus furnace not only can make a copy of itself (with human labor and metal), but that all that one needs to make the machine shop is the human labor, metal, and the furnace (well, plus some sort of heat source and a place with dirt and gravity in order to make molds and pour metal).
The human is a powerful part of this particular scheme and they come with large requirements, but it's possible either to expend the overhead of bringing humans along (or have them teleoperating from nearby) or replace them with sufficiently advanced robotics. Obviously, that hasn't been done off of Earth. Yet.
an organization that has as main purpose to kill people
Your initial premise has yet to be satisfied.
Yet these private companies advertising orbital flights (for the last decade or so) still haven't launched a commercial service yet (I'm not talking preorders. I mean launching and recovering now as a regular mission).
The ULA (and its predecessors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing) have launched many things into orbit over the past twenty five years. Orbital Sciences has launched stuff for about 20 years. These are private companies advertising orbital flights.
And we see the difference between building something to higher fault tolerances and building something you'll use.
A justification which expires the moment the money is no longer in your possession. In my view, even taxation with representation is turning out inadequate. I don't see anything better out there, so I'm trying to help turn things around with the current systems.
I guess what I find wrong with the situation is seemingly intentional and deliberate ignorance on the topic yet pronouncing policies based upon this ignorance.
The various space programs have talked big while not delivering even simple milestones. I honestly don't see Branson doing anything different here. He's got a long ways to go before doing any trips to Mars. I'd rather see action on the goals he's already set than talk about new goals.
If (human or otherwise) children can only be born on the Earth
We already know that's not true, by virtue of the same physical laws holding off of Earth. It may turn out that one needs a very similar environment in terms of pressure, gravity, etc. But that can be simulated well enough and it appears that you agree.
I just think it's disingenuous to argue against attempting colonization of Mars merely because no one has bothered to do the experiments on hazards to humans. In that circumstance, I have no troubles letting those who try, and their descendants works out the problems. I'm even willing to contribute to research that would help them succeed.
Please, tell us more about your experiences establishing colonies on Mars and other, uh, simple lifestyle changes...
How about we talk about your experience with such things? It is just as relevant as my experience to what was discussed, namely, the problem of getting people to commit to and show up for a paintball game.
The earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. On Mars the atmosphere is only 3% nitrogen, and it's much, much thinner than on earth. "Simply" harvesting a useful amount of nitrogen from the atmosphere is nowhere near as simple as you would have us believe.
Sure, it is. Here's a simple process:
1) Compress martian atmosphere to a workable level.
2) Cool that to below the freezing point of carbon dioxide to freeze out almost all carbon dioxide.
3) You're left with roughly three-fifths nitrogen, two-fifths argon, and small amounts of carbon dioxide, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and other low melting point gasses. Treat with something that reacts with the carbon monoxide to filter that out.
And there you go. Past this, all you need is a hydrogen source, such as the available water, to make ammonia, an important component of fertilizers. Or you can use legumes and nitrogen fixing bacteria to make nitrogen rich "green manure".
Considering that serious proposals are being drawn up at the moment to send people to Mars and significant policy plans are being made for sending people to Mars that amount in the range of billions of dollars, it seems sad that over all of the years that the ISS has been orbiting around this Earth that nobody has even bothered to find out what impacts upon any mammals of any kind might have in a reduced or zero gravity environment.
There's plenty of information on zero gravity environments and their effects on mammals. But in comparison, there's almost nothing for low gravity environments.
Yes, I've seen the "studies" of things somewhat like this, but none of them were longitudinal studies, with the longest such experiment being a rat that was already pregnant when she flew into space... but gave birth in space.
How do you square this statement with your "nobody has even bothered to find out..." claim? Longitudinal studies are far more difficult because it requires being able to keep nonhuman life forms alive in zero or low gravity for years. IMHO, the physical infrastructure for that hasn't existed until the ISS though it probably would have been possible to convert MIR or Skylab over to such an experiment.
Christ, when people won't even turn up to, say, a paintball game with free beer and a BBQ afterwards, after swearing "wild horses couldn't keep them away", etc, what hope is there of getting anyone - especially women - to front up for a place in a Mars colony?
You're just hanging around with the wrong crowd for this sort of thing. There are many people who thoughtfully make and keep such commitments. And anyone can learn how to do it, though sometimes it takes a surprising amount of work for such a simple lifestyle change.
And? I guess I'd be more sympathetic to your observation, if there was some other way for humans to stick around than by having children.
1) THE FUCKING SUN has all the elements that humans and plants need though nitrogen content is very low.
Obviously, I meant in a way and concentration that we could use it. Having barely detectable traces isn't equivalent.
2) Are your crops going to live underground too?
Several things to note. First, yes, they can be grown underground. There are several ways to provide light to them. Second, they're not going to become inedible merely because they've been exposed to radiation that has modest health consequences for humans.
3) There is nowhere near enough water on Mars. What is there is not readily available nor easily concentrated.
At the poles, there's plenty of water. And I imagine there's underground water as well.
4) Dirt != Soil. This is where the nitrogen really bites you in the butt. Is it better to wait for hundreds of years to grow your own, or to ship tons of organic matter from mother earth?
Or simply harvest nitrogen from the atmosphere.
Earth happens to be in space. And Earth isn't hard on the eyes.
It's worth noting that once your money becomes a tax payment, it's no longer your money. At that point, there's no compelling reason for that money to benefit you.
The primary reason to have something else eat the algae first is to filter out the excess nitrogen contained in algae. Algae tend to have a lot of nucleic acids. That can cause gout and kidney stones for a human trying to live exclusively on such a diet. Tilapia and shrimp are IMHO better diet choices than tardigrades (which frankly may still have too much nucleic acids in them due to their famous survivability characteristics).
Once they solve the "there isn't any air" problem, the "there isn't any magnetosphere" problem, the "there isn't any water problem", and the "there isn't any soil" problem they will easily be able to whip up some FTL communications tech.
You're talking about Mars right? 1) Mars air has all the elements that humans and plants need though nitrogen content is very low. 2) Living underground solves the "there's no magnetosphere" problem. 3) There is water on Mars. 4) There is plenty of dirt on Mars. That plus plants growing in it for a time creates soil. Nitrogen fixing is probably the largest obstacle.
I can't begin to describe the ethical, legal and moral problems presented by such a venture
Then don't bother. My view is that it is better to try things out with human volunteers rather than attempt inadequate studies that just won't yield the results you want even in twenty years. And work on the problems as they appear.