With some of the income and infrastructure from this project, why not use it as a way station for Mars expeditions? Build a self sufficient habitat and inject it into the favorable orbit between L5 and Mars. Then every two years a group of colonists could ride it with very little fuel expenditure to Mars. They would need to park their descent vehicle nearby. Food, water, and radiation protection could be provided in the habitat, with artificial gravity and greenhouse food production managed by a team of robots during the long sector of the orbit.
Way too lenient! If you rape my young daughter, would it be appropriate for me to rape yours since I, not being a sicko, would have no interest? What I would be interested in would be watching you being eaten by wild dogs (tiny ones, that would take a long time).
There are two schools of thought. One, based on "original intent" by the Founding Fathers held that the nation was governed strictly by the plain language of the Constitution which limited the power of the federal government to national security and international relations. All other power and authority was left to the several states and to the people, as they greatly feared the inevitable tyranny of democracy. The legislature was to pass laws only within this specific authority and the judiciary was to determine only if such laws did or did not violate the bounds of that authority. Put simply, this established a free society rather than a governing system that had the power to do things for you but also to do things to you in an manifestly unfree society. This didn't sit well with the political class and their special friends since it left them few ways to dispense privilege (or more accurately corruption) and perpetuate themselves in office, so this second view is that the legislature is free to pass virtually any law (based on the interstate commerce provision when in fact the clear intent of that provision applied only to duties levied between states) and the judiciary is free to make any decision they like on virtually any subject they like based on their political leanings. Worse yet, while we slept the political class created a vast unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy that is allowed to make laws (regulations) and oppress the citizenry completely beyond the consent of the governed. Kings would have liked such powers. Be very afraid; the second option is in control and the tyrannical panderfest is afoot. Few people here and abroad understand that this is the problem with Europe and that we are next.
It would be interesting to speculate on how in the computer age we could reform the process to regain our freedom. With the judicial system, forget a Turing test; intelligence is not needed. A fairly simple program could determine if a particular law passed by Congress was in violation of federal authority. Enforcement would be an issue since electric shock to the offending legislators is probably out. I would personally favor cutting them off for the rest of their terms; no more fat paychecks and nobility style perks. That should get their attention since at present most of them have no idea what their Constitutional authority is, or consider it relevant and violate their Oath of Office with impunity.
There is a serious flaw in the English idiom, ROBOT. It was originally, from the Czech screenplay of the 1920s, applied to autonomous elecro mechanical copies of humanoids. Much later, the term ANDROID was invented to define this type of robot.
To those without any scientific, or at least science fiction, background this would hardly qualify as a robot. It has no real intelligence and cannot operate except under the direct control of a human operator. A better term to describe this would be WALDO, another sci fi term for a device remotely controlled by a human operator. Using the label robot conjures up capabilities which are far from the current technology, except experimentally.
The Space Elevator is a great thing for someday. We don't have to wait for it. The problem with the space shuttle is that it is like using a Ferrari to deliver lumber over dangerous mountain roads. It is so expensive and hazardous to operate that its costs eventually eat into its maintenance. 20 years ago there were those of us in the aerospace industry that advocated much less expensive solutions. But NASA has always been enamoured with iffy cutting edge technology. While they reluctantly went thru the Space Launch Initiative program, which invited innovative entrepeneurs to come up with launch ideas and thereby employing a few of the engineers who were excluded from NASA, Boeing, etc, thru affirmative action, they dissed their work and went back to Boeing, Martin, etc, "big iron" companies with more political pull. A quick look at what the entrepeneur solutions shows how a low tech, very safe approach would reduce costs by much more than a factor of 10. I don't suppose we will hear much about that in the PMA atmosphere.
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With some of the income and infrastructure from this project, why not use it as a way station for Mars expeditions? Build a self sufficient habitat and inject it into the favorable orbit between L5 and Mars. Then every two years a group of colonists could ride it with very little fuel expenditure to Mars. They would need to park their descent vehicle nearby. Food, water, and radiation protection could be provided in the habitat, with artificial gravity and greenhouse food production managed by a team of robots during the long sector of the orbit.
Way too lenient! If you rape my young daughter, would it be appropriate for me to rape yours since I, not being a sicko, would have no interest? What I would be interested in would be watching you being eaten by wild dogs (tiny ones, that would take a long time).
And both of them excellent! The screen versions do not capture his writing style, which, like Hemingway's, is unique.
There are two schools of thought. One, based on "original intent" by the Founding Fathers held that the nation was governed strictly by the plain language of the Constitution which limited the power of the federal government to national security and international relations. All other power and authority was left to the several states and to the people, as they greatly feared the inevitable tyranny of democracy. The legislature was to pass laws only within this specific authority and the judiciary was to determine only if such laws did or did not violate the bounds of that authority. Put simply, this established a free society rather than a governing system that had the power to do things for you but also to do things to you in an manifestly unfree society. This didn't sit well with the political class and their special friends since it left them few ways to dispense privilege (or more accurately corruption) and perpetuate themselves in office, so this second view is that the legislature is free to pass virtually any law (based on the interstate commerce provision when in fact the clear intent of that provision applied only to duties levied between states) and the judiciary is free to make any decision they like on virtually any subject they like based on their political leanings. Worse yet, while we slept the political class created a vast unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy that is allowed to make laws (regulations) and oppress the citizenry completely beyond the consent of the governed. Kings would have liked such powers. Be very afraid; the second option is in control and the tyrannical panderfest is afoot. Few people here and abroad understand that this is the problem with Europe and that we are next. It would be interesting to speculate on how in the computer age we could reform the process to regain our freedom. With the judicial system, forget a Turing test; intelligence is not needed. A fairly simple program could determine if a particular law passed by Congress was in violation of federal authority. Enforcement would be an issue since electric shock to the offending legislators is probably out. I would personally favor cutting them off for the rest of their terms; no more fat paychecks and nobility style perks. That should get their attention since at present most of them have no idea what their Constitutional authority is, or consider it relevant and violate their Oath of Office with impunity.
There is a serious flaw in the English idiom, ROBOT. It was originally, from the Czech screenplay of the 1920s, applied to autonomous elecro mechanical copies of humanoids. Much later, the term ANDROID was invented to define this type of robot. To those without any scientific, or at least science fiction, background this would hardly qualify as a robot. It has no real intelligence and cannot operate except under the direct control of a human operator. A better term to describe this would be WALDO, another sci fi term for a device remotely controlled by a human operator. Using the label robot conjures up capabilities which are far from the current technology, except experimentally.
The Space Elevator is a great thing for someday. We don't have to wait for it. The problem with the space shuttle is that it is like using a Ferrari to deliver lumber over dangerous mountain roads. It is so expensive and hazardous to operate that its costs eventually eat into its maintenance.
20 years ago there were those of us in the aerospace industry that advocated much less expensive solutions. But NASA has always been enamoured with iffy cutting edge technology. While they reluctantly went thru the Space Launch Initiative program, which invited innovative entrepeneurs to come up with launch ideas and thereby employing a few of the engineers who were excluded from NASA, Boeing, etc, thru affirmative action, they dissed their work and went back to Boeing, Martin, etc, "big iron" companies with more political pull. A quick look at what the entrepeneur solutions shows how a low tech, very safe approach would reduce costs by much more than a factor of 10. I don't suppose we will hear much about that in the PMA atmosphere.