What i'm curious about is what you did on your climb of Long's and how long it took...but based on what you wrote, sorry, it sounds like you just didn't drink enough water. Assuming you are a healthy person (excercise 3 x a week or whatever, don't smoke, drink in excess) you can do Long's Peak in about 8 hours at a relatively slow pace without altitude sickness if they drink at least 2 liters of water. Now I'm assuming you're relatively healthy, but if you're not, then you'd need more water and probably more time, or to do more cardio work than 'hiking'.
I know this from my time living in Blue River, Colorado, elev. 10,000(next to Mt. Quandry, elev. 14,285), Breckenridge, elev. 9200, Cooke city MT, elev. 7400, Boulder, elev. 5000, and Indiana, elev. 20. And from my experience teaching snowboarding and dealing with tourists from all over getting on a snowboard for the first time on a mountain for the first time. I've seen way too much altitude sickness (damn you texas!)...so yeah IAAMC, and this altitude thing is bogus
Re:kinda like climing mt everest
on
Space Tourism?
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· Score: 1
good call...the everest analogy works on so many levels. You said it better than I did.
_j
unfourtunately moot
on
Space Tourism?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The fact is, space tourism is a reality and it is a joke in its current incarnation. Basically, these people are rich bastards who dreamed of being an astronaught (nothing wrong w/ that). Whenever I watch video of these guys up in space, they always look like some little kid yelling 'whopee!' as they go for a ride. Do these guys really think they are astronauts? More like preschool children to me...
Since space tourism is here, and probably here to stay, a more valid question is, is this a good thing?
I think it is if it generates more interest in space exploration. It is not if it supplants manned space exploration. It could happen...I can see space travel evolving into a rich man's vacation...something to brag about to other rich people. It could be very profitable, which would direct space efforts toward missions that enable more profitable tourism. NASA missions would be about looking for more ways to make money, not to explore, understand, and one day colonize.
Basically, many Americans now have given themselves over to artificial 'experience' rather than actually DOING something for themselves. The pioneering attitude that made America great has been supplanted by a spectator attitude.
An analogy to the European settlement of North American: Imagine if people had taken this spectator attitude at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Instead of colonies, they would have made condos. Lewis and Clark would have been sent to look for better vacation spots instead of mapping the west for modern habitation.
Space tourists get to do something cool, yes, but they are truly 'spam in a can'. Spectators. We should make sure they know that, and that the cutting edge of space research is devoted to fruitful scientific and explorational missions.
There are as many theories about this kind of thing as there are religious people. One thing about people of faith is they seldom acknowledge the value of things that might test their faith, such as science. Most would call this either A) typical anti-creation mainstream science B) human kind's way to justify its actions by 'sciencing' all traces of their faith from reality.
My personal take is that this is probably over-eager biologists trying to get in the history books for finding a 'missing link.' From what I've read in this story and others, there is very credible findings that dispute these remains being a separate species.
If it turns out after futher testing that they ARE a separate species, it doesn't really put a thorn in my faith. My personal belief is that what we perceive as 'time' is completely contextual and is not part of the nature of the universe such as something like gravity or nuclear forces. Given this, this species is just another part of God's creation. Nothing in the Old or New Testament says that God only created one species of humans. It is possible.
From a technical aspect China is in somewhere between Gemini and Apollo. An individual with enough money could do the same thing. The reality of this endeavor does not really justify any fears of space/technology domination by China.
It good, however, for the general public to see this kind of headline. It reminds them that space exists and that the U.S. doesn't run the show up there anymore. Hopefully this leads to funding...
I bet these strange erosion patters are from 'space' itself. What we think of as space actually has an ambient temperature and isn't a total vacuum, and anything with mass causes friction...so given enough time that could explain the appearance of these rocks.
You are lame. Your post signifies that you are incapable of at least TRYING to understand a a position that is different from your own.
The guy who wrote that article was tyring to help by relating his experiences. Take his words at face value TO START, instead of reading with a biased mind. AFTER you read and think about the article, then make up your mind.
You know, just doing something that is hard doesn't make you awesome. Neither does a fat paycheck.
The fact is, most engineering students struggle. There are reasons why, many reasons, and fixing those will help everyone involved. Just b/c your mind can tolerate boredom, malpractice, and incompetence better than the article writer doesn't mean you are smarter than him.
'thanks in advance'...ok you're right, but only a bitch says something like that...'thanks in advance'...you can thank me after you suck my balls, you proper-spelling little person who was right and i was wrong...
Do you have anything besides (questionable) annecdotal evidence to support your claim?
There is no doubt that aspects of the Asian diet are far more healthy than the American diet, but to imply that there is a racial aspect to that benefit requires strong proof, none of which you provide.
If one looks at the data, I would think that Asian (esp. jap, kor, and china) peoples have longer aggregate lifespans. I think the reason is diet, not any kind of genetic advantage...
A counterpoint would be the height of asians. Being 6' tall, i usually was about a head taller than most asians I met/saw. In fact most asians were between 5'4" and 5'8". I noticed that some asians were more proportioned like the Americans I was used to seeing. These taller, bigger asians were invariably of the wealthier classes. The classes that could afford to buy the more 'western' food that was more popular (and more expensive)...it's diet, pure and simple (genetics of course is highly salient, but my claim is that there is no inherent difference in the races)
off-topic and funny enough, I see America getting taken to task for racism everday in the news media, but the truth is, racism like parent's post is very common in the asian countries I've lived in (kor, jap) and visited (china, malaysia, thailand, singapore).
I definitely agree w/ your criticism of NASA, but I sincerely hope your 'solution':
Here's hope that someone in industry finds a really good reason to go into space regularly.
doesn't happen...
here's the problem: right now(and as far as i can tell, it won't change in the near future), the only viable reason for a business to go into 'space' (like SS1) is for SPACE TOURISM...
basically strapping a bunch of rich people who saw 'The Right Stuff' too many times into a plane similar to the x series of 40+ years ago and doing non-orbital 'spaceflights' 'WHOOPEEE! THAT WAS SO WORTH THE HUNDRED THOUSAND'
NASA needs to be REBOOTED...let's forget all this 'beat the russians quick and dirt' BS of the cold war...we need real innovation, real exploration, risk taking, and we will reap REAL rewards...
I don't object to rockets out of hand, they may work in the short run, but it is infuriating to those of us who know how much of a bastard plan NASA has come up with...for decades we've been working on new and better ways to get into space (platforms, etc.), and what does NASA do? Go BACK TO OLD-SCHOOL ROCKETS???
It stinks of the kind of thinking that scrapped the x-project in favor of traditional rockets...it stinks of over-celebrated wimps who have lost the ability to think big...it stinks of POLITICS, which is unfourtunate, but not beyond our control...WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN...LOBBY FOR SPACE ELEVATORS!!!
K.I.S.S. never got the Russians to the moon, and it didn't get them into space first...they just had a bigger rocket than we did at the time.
Your post is endemic of the thinking that has borne this bastardized project...NASA and America should lead, innovate, take risks, and reap the rewards...not de-evolve back to those hideous rockets 'like the Russians'....gimme a BREAK!
well, thanks for your kind response...i think my friend might be interested...she's still taking offers from publishers, but from what I know, she pretty much has the offer she wants and is now jsut seeing what else comes up...
I will talk to her, and if she's interested, she can talk to you directly...email me at globalepperly@yahoo.com if you're still interested
The pretentious losers at my local "hip" coffee shop have never recorded an album, painted a painting, written a book, or sculpted a sculpture.
THAT YOU KNOW OF!!!!!!!!
Your point is completely moot b/c you don't even KNOW any of these people personally, so you therefore have absolutely no grounds to claim anything about their work (or whether it exists). The truth is, you would be nervous and self conscious talking to these people, especially the chicks
you're just another one of those no-job, lives-in-mom's-basement, no-talent losers.
I'm not, I am a high school social studies teacher, p/t newspaper writer, p/t grad. student, snowboarding instructor, and i live alone. I loathe these kinds of kids as much as you do...pretending to be poor artists whilst chowing on mom's meatloaf at 6 every night...those people are not poor, not artists, and do not need free wifi...they need to move out of the damned house and get a job.
we have a name for these kids...trustafarians...and they are the ones who make the coffee shops profitable enough, spending their parent's money, so they are kind of a necessary evil
still think you're right??? a good friend of mine wrote her book (which has been picked up by an agent and will be printed next year) entirely at "Penny Lane" coffee shop on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado...why "Penny Lane"???
free...internet (and she lives alone too, w/o major parental funding)
1. post an article with the words 'windows' 'internet explorer' 'linux' 'opensource' 'apple' or 'gates'
2. post reply to said article in which a perfectly smart, capable computer geek has a problem while using a linux-based opensource OS
3. reply to that by a nerd with WAAAAY too much free time, enough free time to while away hours of trial and error bud fixing in linux (which you all KNOW is what is really required to run open source) who without any humor belittles the computert skills of the original postert
and there you have it...
maybe you have a hardware issue?
i'm laughing, because you appear to have phrased your comment to at least appear to be helpful, but..oh yes, you are a flamebait...your post is nothing more than shit-talking to feed your nerd ego.
moderators, don't let this continue, b/c it does nothing to promote true dialogue, just the same old back and forth.
You criticize weirdos, hippies, punks, and artists as 'unproductive members of the community'.
Ok, that's granted, but in order for you to be consistant, you must never buy, download, look at, read, or enjoy anything that artists do. Because if you do ever access/enjoy those things, then you prove your own 'unproductive' point wrong. Now your life is really boring, huh?
If you stop to think about it, most of the things you enjoy were created by these 'pretentious losers'
Making $3.50 per table every 2 hours will not keep them in business. It's all about getting drinks out the door.
obviously, you dont' understand the reason why people go to 'coffee shops'
If all you want is a quick cup of really good overpriced joe, just go to Starbucks or make your own at home for pennies. Locally owned coffee shops usually go for the tradition coffee shop crowd: freegans, beatnicks, hippies, students, artists, punks, emo kids...in general the 'hip' people. The kind of people who would be ashamed if their friends saw them going into evil starbucks.
Having free WiFi attracts these types b/c by definiton, living outside the mainstream usually means being poor in relation to the hyper consumer mainstream.
Now, by going for the 'hip' kids, it attracts all those who are curious, intrigued, bemused, etc. in the company of said 'hip' kids.
If you're looking for big black lines of profit from a traditional coffee shop, just move on, b/c that's not what it's about...it's about establishing a place that artists and whatnot can be artists, nurse one coffee for hours, and get free internet, adn THEN profiting off of all the WANNABE 'hip' people. It won't ever go public, but it will last, and be loved by it's patrons
So, to have a good, true 'coffee shop' you have to be willing to sacrifice some profit, but not a fatal sacrifice. And in return you get hours of amusement from your patrons, and they love you for it.
Maybe there's a way to just charge the wannabe's like you for wifi, while letting us punk beatnicks get our wifi for free.
this 'next big thing' you speak of just may be the Sci-Fi channel and its original programing.
'Battlestar Galactica' and 'SG:1' aren't really my favorite shows of all time, but they are well-produced. Getting good press like this frees up the show creators to make better shows.
If the Sci-fi channel plays its cards right, it could get permission to do the next Star Trek or something.
Oh man, you advocate FREE ENTERPRISE as a way to explore space. Good idea! Look what free enterprise has done to medical science. Now we have researchers working around the clock to patent medicines and such not to cure people of illness, but to make their dicks hard or skin tan.
Bottom line, business (or enterprise if you will) today has become all about perception. Perception is reality for the businessman. Industry will one day truly step into space, but it won't be for mining or exploration or anything worthwhile...it'll be to put rich people in vacation condos on the moon.
You heard it here first...moon condos, the biggest money maker of 2045.
about your 'risk adverse society' point, I would agree. I feel that there are many things contributing to the risk-averse (wimpy is the best word i have for it) nature of our culture. The media having to fill 24 hours with news, and compete with others causes reporters to blow risks, hazards, and accidents out of proportion (ex. shark attacks). Also our society has no true external threats like we had with the Soviet Union. They were trying to bury us, and they maybe could have...terrorists just don't motivate in the same way. And of course, with our riches comes complacentcy.
NerdTV? Give me a break. Wasn't there someone around to help these socially challenged people to come up with a better name? Nerds just suck, geeks get things done.
A new technology would presumably need a similar development cycle.
I disagree. You make a false analogy assumption, so your 25 years number is invalid. Sub-orbital rockets have been around alot longer than the 1930's. What happened is humans were able to fashion more powerful fuels for rockets, and stronger, more reliable materials to harness that power. The Nazi's had a military use for it and the will to develop it.
Nuclear propulsion is ready as soon as society says it is acceptable.
You're proving my point for me about motivation here. You're saying we have the technology but we aren't using/developing it. Check my last post...that's exactly my point. Who exactly is stopping us from using these 'existing' designs? Who says nuclear power is unacceptable anymore anyway? I'm ready, damnit! Sign me up.
Look, i think we're on the same team here. I just don't understand how you can say 'we need roughly 25 years for new technology' and then in the same post say that nuclear powered Pratt and Whitney tri-mode nuclear engines are here and ready to go, but the nebulous 'society' isn't ready. There's a logic breakdown.
Laser propulsion, space tethers (i think they're cool), Triton nuclear engines, I'm in favor of whatever...just give me something to give me hope that human space travel is not doomed to become space tourism in dandified Virgin Galactic X-plane rip-offs en route to moon condos...
You make a good case for staging, probably not unlike the case that the NASA engineers made. The 'cheap and easy' way...well, cheap and easy gets us little science fair projects in space...forward thinking and risk taking get us to the next level.
What bothers me is the LACK of motivation to truly innovate. Maybe I'm an idealist, but aren't all 'next steps' in any field inherently 'risky'?
The material advances and nuclear propulsion of which you speak are within technology's grasp. A re-usable earth based vehicle that can carry passengers and a payload could exist right now if the X project had gotten the funding and attention it deserved. We just have make our minds up not to stop until we get it right.
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What i'm curious about is what you did on your climb of Long's and how long it took...but based on what you wrote, sorry, it sounds like you just didn't drink enough water. Assuming you are a healthy person (excercise 3 x a week or whatever, don't smoke, drink in excess) you can do Long's Peak in about 8 hours at a relatively slow pace without altitude sickness if they drink at least 2 liters of water. Now I'm assuming you're relatively healthy, but if you're not, then you'd need more water and probably more time, or to do more cardio work than 'hiking'.
I know this from my time living in Blue River, Colorado, elev. 10,000(next to Mt. Quandry, elev. 14,285), Breckenridge, elev. 9200, Cooke city MT, elev. 7400, Boulder, elev. 5000, and Indiana, elev. 20. And from my experience teaching snowboarding and dealing with tourists from all over getting on a snowboard for the first time on a mountain for the first time. I've seen way too much altitude sickness (damn you texas!)...so yeah IAAMC, and this altitude thing is bogus
good call...the everest analogy works on so many levels. You said it better than I did.
_j
The fact is, space tourism is a reality and it is a joke in its current incarnation. Basically, these people are rich bastards who dreamed of being an astronaught (nothing wrong w/ that). Whenever I watch video of these guys up in space, they always look like some little kid yelling 'whopee!' as they go for a ride. Do these guys really think they are astronauts? More like preschool children to me...
Since space tourism is here, and probably here to stay, a more valid question is, is this a good thing?
I think it is if it generates more interest in space exploration. It is not if it supplants manned space exploration. It could happen...I can see space travel evolving into a rich man's vacation...something to brag about to other rich people. It could be very profitable, which would direct space efforts toward missions that enable more profitable tourism. NASA missions would be about looking for more ways to make money, not to explore, understand, and one day colonize.
Basically, many Americans now have given themselves over to artificial 'experience' rather than actually DOING something for themselves. The pioneering attitude that made America great has been supplanted by a spectator attitude.
An analogy to the European settlement of North American: Imagine if people had taken this spectator attitude at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Instead of colonies, they would have made condos. Lewis and Clark would have been sent to look for better vacation spots instead of mapping the west for modern habitation.
Space tourists get to do something cool, yes, but they are truly 'spam in a can'. Spectators. We should make sure they know that, and that the cutting edge of space research is devoted to fruitful scientific and explorational missions.
"What is the religious answer to this?"
There are as many theories about this kind of thing as there are religious people. One thing about people of faith is they seldom acknowledge the value of things that might test their faith, such as science. Most would call this either A) typical anti-creation mainstream science B) human kind's way to justify its actions by 'sciencing' all traces of their faith from reality.
My personal take is that this is probably over-eager biologists trying to get in the history books for finding a 'missing link.' From what I've read in this story and others, there is very credible findings that dispute these remains being a separate species.
If it turns out after futher testing that they ARE a separate species, it doesn't really put a thorn in my faith. My personal belief is that what we perceive as 'time' is completely contextual and is not part of the nature of the universe such as something like gravity or nuclear forces. Given this, this species is just another part of God's creation. Nothing in the Old or New Testament says that God only created one species of humans. It is possible.
From a technical aspect China is in somewhere between Gemini and Apollo. An individual with enough money could do the same thing. The reality of this endeavor does not really justify any fears of space/technology domination by China.
It good, however, for the general public to see this kind of headline. It reminds them that space exists and that the U.S. doesn't run the show up there anymore. Hopefully this leads to funding...
yeah i'm way off, i was looking at the wrong picture...
I bet these strange erosion patters are from 'space' itself. What we think of as space actually has an ambient temperature and isn't a total vacuum, and anything with mass causes friction...so given enough time that could explain the appearance of these rocks.
You are lame. Your post signifies that you are incapable of at least TRYING to understand a a position that is different from your own.
The guy who wrote that article was tyring to help by relating his experiences. Take his words at face value TO START, instead of reading with a biased mind. AFTER you read and think about the article, then make up your mind.
You know, just doing something that is hard doesn't make you awesome. Neither does a fat paycheck.
The fact is, most engineering students struggle. There are reasons why, many reasons, and fixing those will help everyone involved. Just b/c your mind can tolerate boredom, malpractice, and incompetence better than the article writer doesn't mean you are smarter than him.
hey man, do you go to cedarville???
sounds like you do...i was an engineering washout there...yes indeed...finished w/ a double major in comm arts and int'l. relations...
_justin
ooh guess i got served...
'thanks in advance'...ok you're right, but only a bitch says something like that...'thanks in advance'...you can thank me after you suck my balls, you proper-spelling little person who was right and i was wrong...
for being so concerned w/ names you should have checked your spelling. The correct spellings are: Lavernius and Jevon
Do you have anything besides (questionable) annecdotal evidence to support your claim?
There is no doubt that aspects of the Asian diet are far more healthy than the American diet, but to imply that there is a racial aspect to that benefit requires strong proof, none of which you provide.
If one looks at the data, I would think that Asian (esp. jap, kor, and china) peoples have longer aggregate lifespans. I think the reason is diet, not any kind of genetic advantage...
A counterpoint would be the height of asians. Being 6' tall, i usually was about a head taller than most asians I met/saw. In fact most asians were between 5'4" and 5'8". I noticed that some asians were more proportioned like the Americans I was used to seeing. These taller, bigger asians were invariably of the wealthier classes. The classes that could afford to buy the more 'western' food that was more popular (and more expensive)...it's diet, pure and simple (genetics of course is highly salient, but my claim is that there is no inherent difference in the races)
off-topic and funny enough, I see America getting taken to task for racism everday in the news media, but the truth is, racism like parent's post is very common in the asian countries I've lived in (kor, jap) and visited (china, malaysia, thailand, singapore).
I definitely agree w/ your criticism of NASA, but I sincerely hope your 'solution':
Here's hope that someone in industry finds a really good reason to go into space regularly.
doesn't happen...
here's the problem: right now(and as far as i can tell, it won't change in the near future), the only viable reason for a business to go into 'space' (like SS1) is for SPACE TOURISM...
basically strapping a bunch of rich people who saw 'The Right Stuff' too many times into a plane similar to the x series of 40+ years ago and doing non-orbital 'spaceflights' 'WHOOPEEE! THAT WAS SO WORTH THE HUNDRED THOUSAND'
NASA needs to be REBOOTED...let's forget all this 'beat the russians quick and dirt' BS of the cold war...we need real innovation, real exploration, risk taking, and we will reap REAL rewards...
I don't object to rockets out of hand, they may work in the short run, but it is infuriating to those of us who know how much of a bastard plan NASA has come up with...for decades we've been working on new and better ways to get into space (platforms, etc.), and what does NASA do? Go BACK TO OLD-SCHOOL ROCKETS???
It stinks of the kind of thinking that scrapped the x-project in favor of traditional rockets...it stinks of over-celebrated wimps who have lost the ability to think big...it stinks of POLITICS, which is unfourtunate, but not beyond our control...WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN...LOBBY FOR SPACE ELEVATORS!!!
K.I.S.S. never got the Russians to the moon, and it didn't get them into space first...they just had a bigger rocket than we did at the time.
Your post is endemic of the thinking that has borne this bastardized project...NASA and America should lead, innovate, take risks, and reap the rewards...not de-evolve back to those hideous rockets 'like the Russians'....gimme a BREAK!
well, thanks for your kind response...i think my friend might be interested...she's still taking offers from publishers, but from what I know, she pretty much has the offer she wants and is now jsut seeing what else comes up...
I will talk to her, and if she's interested, she can talk to you directly...email me at globalepperly@yahoo.com if you're still interested
where is your bookstore btw?
_j
ok, so if I present proof that I'm not BS'ing about this friend and her book, will you conceed your point?
The pretentious losers at my local "hip" coffee shop have never recorded an album, painted a painting, written a book, or sculpted a sculpture.
THAT YOU KNOW OF!!!!!!!!
Your point is completely moot b/c you don't even KNOW any of these people personally, so you therefore have absolutely no grounds to claim anything about their work (or whether it exists). The truth is, you would be nervous and self conscious talking to these people, especially the chicks
you're just another one of those no-job, lives-in-mom's-basement, no-talent losers.
I'm not, I am a high school social studies teacher, p/t newspaper writer, p/t grad. student, snowboarding instructor, and i live alone. I loathe these kinds of kids as much as you do...pretending to be poor artists whilst chowing on mom's meatloaf at 6 every night...those people are not poor, not artists, and do not need free wifi...they need to move out of the damned house and get a job.
we have a name for these kids...trustafarians...and they are the ones who make the coffee shops profitable enough, spending their parent's money, so they are kind of a necessary evil
still think you're right??? a good friend of mine wrote her book (which has been picked up by an agent and will be printed next year) entirely at "Penny Lane" coffee shop on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado...why "Penny Lane"???
free...internet (and she lives alone too, w/o major parental funding)
automatic slashdot post generator:
1. post an article with the words 'windows' 'internet explorer' 'linux' 'opensource' 'apple' or 'gates'
2. post reply to said article in which a perfectly smart, capable computer geek has a problem while using a linux-based opensource OS
3. reply to that by a nerd with WAAAAY too much free time, enough free time to while away hours of trial and error bud fixing in linux (which you all KNOW is what is really required to run open source) who without any humor belittles the computert skills of the original postert
and there you have it...
maybe you have a hardware issue?
i'm laughing, because you appear to have phrased your comment to at least appear to be helpful, but..oh yes, you are a flamebait...your post is nothing more than shit-talking to feed your nerd ego.
moderators, don't let this continue, b/c it does nothing to promote true dialogue, just the same old back and forth.
You criticize weirdos, hippies, punks, and artists as 'unproductive members of the community'.
Ok, that's granted, but in order for you to be consistant, you must never buy, download, look at, read, or enjoy anything that artists do. Because if you do ever access/enjoy those things, then you prove your own 'unproductive' point wrong. Now your life is really boring, huh?
If you stop to think about it, most of the things you enjoy were created by these 'pretentious losers'
Making $3.50 per table every 2 hours will not keep them in business. It's all about getting drinks out the door.
obviously, you dont' understand the reason why people go to 'coffee shops'
If all you want is a quick cup of really good overpriced joe, just go to Starbucks or make your own at home for pennies. Locally owned coffee shops usually go for the tradition coffee shop crowd: freegans, beatnicks, hippies, students, artists, punks, emo kids...in general the 'hip' people. The kind of people who would be ashamed if their friends saw them going into evil starbucks.
Having free WiFi attracts these types b/c by definiton, living outside the mainstream usually means being poor in relation to the hyper consumer mainstream.
Now, by going for the 'hip' kids, it attracts all those who are curious, intrigued, bemused, etc. in the company of said 'hip' kids.
If you're looking for big black lines of profit from a traditional coffee shop, just move on, b/c that's not what it's about...it's about establishing a place that artists and whatnot can be artists, nurse one coffee for hours, and get free internet, adn THEN profiting off of all the WANNABE 'hip' people. It won't ever go public, but it will last, and be loved by it's patrons
So, to have a good, true 'coffee shop' you have to be willing to sacrifice some profit, but not a fatal sacrifice. And in return you get hours of amusement from your patrons, and they love you for it.
Maybe there's a way to just charge the wannabe's like you for wifi, while letting us punk beatnicks get our wifi for free.
this 'next big thing' you speak of just may be the Sci-Fi channel and its original programing.
'Battlestar Galactica' and 'SG:1' aren't really my favorite shows of all time, but they are well-produced. Getting good press like this frees up the show creators to make better shows.
If the Sci-fi channel plays its cards right, it could get permission to do the next Star Trek or something.
Oh man, you advocate FREE ENTERPRISE as a way to explore space. Good idea! Look what free enterprise has done to medical science. Now we have researchers working around the clock to patent medicines and such not to cure people of illness, but to make their dicks hard or skin tan.
Bottom line, business (or enterprise if you will) today has become all about perception. Perception is reality for the businessman. Industry will one day truly step into space, but it won't be for mining or exploration or anything worthwhile...it'll be to put rich people in vacation condos on the moon.
You heard it here first...moon condos, the biggest money maker of 2045.
about your 'risk adverse society' point, I would agree. I feel that there are many things contributing to the risk-averse (wimpy is the best word i have for it) nature of our culture. The media having to fill 24 hours with news, and compete with others causes reporters to blow risks, hazards, and accidents out of proportion (ex. shark attacks). Also our society has no true external threats like we had with the Soviet Union. They were trying to bury us, and they maybe could have...terrorists just don't motivate in the same way. And of course, with our riches comes complacentcy.
NerdTV? Give me a break. Wasn't there someone around to help these socially challenged people to come up with a better name? Nerds just suck, geeks get things done.
A new technology would presumably need a similar development cycle.
I disagree. You make a false analogy assumption, so your 25 years number is invalid. Sub-orbital rockets have been around alot longer than the 1930's. What happened is humans were able to fashion more powerful fuels for rockets, and stronger, more reliable materials to harness that power. The Nazi's had a military use for it and the will to develop it.
Nuclear propulsion is ready as soon as society says it is acceptable.
You're proving my point for me about motivation here. You're saying we have the technology but we aren't using/developing it. Check my last post...that's exactly my point. Who exactly is stopping us from using these 'existing' designs? Who says nuclear power is unacceptable anymore anyway? I'm ready, damnit! Sign me up.
Look, i think we're on the same team here. I just don't understand how you can say 'we need roughly 25 years for new technology' and then in the same post say that nuclear powered Pratt and Whitney tri-mode nuclear engines are here and ready to go, but the nebulous 'society' isn't ready. There's a logic breakdown.
Laser propulsion, space tethers (i think they're cool), Triton nuclear engines, I'm in favor of whatever...just give me something to give me hope that human space travel is not doomed to become space tourism in dandified Virgin Galactic X-plane rip-offs en route to moon condos...
ps...speaking of sub-orbital rockets...happy 4th!
You make a good case for staging, probably not unlike the case that the NASA engineers made. The 'cheap and easy' way...well, cheap and easy gets us little science fair projects in space...forward thinking and risk taking get us to the next level.
What bothers me is the LACK of motivation to truly innovate. Maybe I'm an idealist, but aren't all 'next steps' in any field inherently 'risky'?
The material advances and nuclear propulsion of which you speak are within technology's grasp. A re-usable earth based vehicle that can carry passengers and a payload could exist right now if the X project had gotten the funding and attention it deserved. We just have make our minds up not to stop until we get it right.
Remeber, what makes rockets go up? funding!
Do we need Russians to compete with or something?