Actually, Stargate is quite intelligent.
Of course its cheesy in some ways, but it managed to successfully develop the storylines and build an arc. It also combines space sci-fi with the present, and shows what many people always wanted to see in an action-oriented sci-fi series. See, the humans have been the destabilizing factor which is leading to the downfall of the Goa'Uld. Scenes with marines shooting some Goa'Uld Deathglider with a rocket launcher are nice. And the battle scene in Antarctica at the end of Season 7 was amazing. The series manages to give the feeling that mankind is developing into a new player in the galaxy. Of course they are far from it, but the actions in the show let you feel exactly like that. I also like the way they implemented aliens like the Asgard or the Ancients. They really took many ideas and introduced them into the series (aliens being the origin of nordic & egyptian mythology => Asgard / Goa'Uld, other humans evolved long before we did => Ancients etc.)
It is also one of the few series with a plausible explanation why almost all aliens look like humans:)
they don't give him a free pass to go and dictate what people shall call "good". Its all a matter of taste, you know. Mr. Card, however, says that Trek is bad, and that everyone who likes Star Trek is an idiot. Talk about arrogance.
And the part about deeper ideas! Oh my, why can't a sci-fi series be just entertaining? No, of course every series has to be an incredibly deep analysis of about 5 million ideas, with incredibly profound science. Oh come on. This is hard SF. *NEVER* attack soft SF from a hard-SF point of view. This is what Card doesn't realize.
No, for the middle ages to come again you need: a total devastation (nuclear war), total eradication of all cultural and social advances (like, human rights), complete and utter eradication of science, complete reinstallation of some dogmatic church as the center of power, total destruction of any technological advancements (even as simple as a canal system - in the middle ages there was no canal system) etc. So it is a little more difficult. The aftermath would be more likely a cuban- or south america-like scenario.
I don't like the situation either. No, I wasnt referring to a mild crisis with only 3x increase. Actually, I was thinking it from the worst case - have an infrastructure with little to no oil. Transportation would collapse, but my main concern was water and electricity, and you don't need oil for either of these. Take Austria for example, 2/3rd of the produced electricity is gained with hydroelectric plants. For the middle ages to come back, you need people to forget about electricity as well. As someone posted before, you can get a generator to work with steam.
The scenario I was referring to was a world after a total collapse, slowly rebuilding things like electricity and infrastructure. This was not the case in the 70ies.
Yes, transportation is the real problem. I agree with that.
The oil crisis of the 70s, which was the result of an artifical shortage, was caused by a 5% drop in production. One we have reached the point of global decline, production will drop by 3-7% every year. Where will that leave us 5 years after decline?
The old infrastructure will most likely crash. After that, we have to rebuild everything. Not pleasant, but it is the way out. As I mentioned before, you can build crude plants, or use still standing ones, and power machines to create better plants etc. Once you reach a certain power output, connect a solar cell factory to it etc.
It is actually quite interesting. In the US no dogmatic belief has firmly established itself fully because there are dozens of other sects trying to do the same (Scientology for example). In Europe, this isn't possible either, but because the catholic church still has considerable power and privileges. While they are far from being the ultra-totalitary cruel governor it was in the middle ages, the catholic church still gets loads of money by convenient church-taxes only they get (!) no other religion gets income from taxes - this tax exists at least in Austria and Germany, i don't know about other countries.
What makes you think we have enough energy reserves as it is to bridge the gap? I can always build some crude generator working with hydroelectric power. Just stick it into a river. Then you have some electric power, you can power machines to build a better hydroelectric plant etc. Until you get nice hydroelectric plants. Then you can connect a thermal depolymerization facility, or a factory for solar cells. Then use the solar cells for yet more power etc.
Electricity has been around well *before* the age of oil. In fact, industralization began before the age of oil. So no middle age scenario here. And no perpetual doom either, since an electricity grid can be achieved without any oil.
We need something for the cars, though. Oh well, in Europe many trains have electrical engines, so maybe we would see a revival of the train. That is, until someone finds a way how to stuff a lot of energy in a battery or in a H2 tank (without being so unstable that it could blow up).
If that is the case, we do not have enough time to replace our existing energy infrastructure.
Enough time - for what? You sound as if after a certain timespan there is no chance to ever again be able to create something like a generator. This will *not* be the case.
I live in Austria, however, where 2/3rd of all power is gained by hydroelectric plants, and the remaining 1/3rd from caloric plants and renewable energies. I don't know how the United States gets its electricity, but AFAIK in Europe *electricity* won't be the main problem.
The big issue is transportation. Currently there is no battery with enough energy density capable of replacing oil. Also, batteries are not that reliable, and can't store electricity for a long amount of time. Hydrogen could be a potential replacement, but right now its too insecure and expensive.
I expect Peak Oil to be a big, BIG economical hit, leading to a massive world-wide crisis. But then people will start building solar cells, fission plants etc. Slowly at first, but there is nothing making the production of solar cells *impossible*. AFAIK there is no oil needed in the production of the latest solar cell types. And even if there is one: a) Peak Oil means the end of *CHEAP* oil, not the end of all Oil. Which leads to b) thermal depolymerization (for gaining it as a resource for other materials, NOT for transportation!), which is too expensive *right now*, but would be a net gain then (get the power from solar cells). Of course there would be a rather slow oil production at first, but in the meantime, society could - slowly - rebuild, and research could be done in fusion, renewable energies, and better thermal depolymerization.
As for plastics, there are several ways to grow plastics with algae, and I even read about a way how to get plastics from orange peel and CO2.
The part that's left is mostly medicines like aspirine (which needs oil directly as a resource). Thermal depolymerization would address this issue.
Still, transportation remains. Well, we'll have to wait until somebody gets those hydrogen tanks right. It is not that research will be *impossible*. It will just take longer.
So, relax.
I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but while Peak Oil is likely to happen, it will NOT prevent the stuff he is talking about, it will delay it.
Middle Ages are a thing of the past. You need to get rid of ALL SCIENCE, of all technical achievements, of all cultural changes, reinstall the church as the supreme power....
While it is wise to take Peak Oil seriously, doomsaying won't help anyone. Oh yes, a crisis is likely, it will result in drastic cuts in energy until alternative energy sources are fully installed. When fusion power becomes feasible, we're back on track again.
Was your source the interview with the designer? Well, they did leave the possibility of human survivors open.
Come to think of it, it would have been a very interesting story. In the game, it becomes clear that some sort of underground computer network exists, which controls the weather. These Orbs are just terminals. Thats exactly what the designer said.
Now, what if some humans put themselves into some sort of cryosleep beneath the surface, ready to be reawakened when all signs of the virus are gone?
Just imagine... humans, while rebuilding their civilization, encounter the Morphs. A really weird close encounter of the third kind, with the humans being the advanced aliens.
Last but not least this game makes me wonder if our world is really as bad as many pessimists say. For the morphs, it appeared to be a miracle world. After playing through this game, seeing all those magnificent human constructions so empty, forgotten and desolated, somehow I just didn't want mankind to end like this.
something like "Stargate: 2030". Take the Stargate scenario from the present to about 15 years in the future, and throw in a similar feeling like in Space Above & Beyond. (Instead of the Chigs, you get the Goa'Uld, the Aschen, the Wraith....) Now THAT would rock. The show would be about mankinds first real steps to space colonization - the Stargate would be public knowledge by then, obviously.
As for Star Trek, I would like a show that: a) does not throw around with lots of technobabble b) does not imply time travel c) has a consistency in the introduced technologies (for example, there was an advanced cloaking technology built by the federation allowing not only invisibility but flying through matter too - this technology was never mentioned again. Stargate SG-1 actually makes use of past storylines) d) get the federation consistent again. first, they were utopia. then, in DS9, they became something else. in voyager, they were utopia, in a manner of speaking. whats going on? e) no more episode-by-episode only, please. f) use some of the less known races! what about the breen, for example? they appeared in ds9, but thats it.
he sounds exactly like a Star Wars fanboy who quite possibly saw something NOT happy/funny/good for the first time.
I hope I'm wrong, because Ep3 has potential. We just need to have things as cold and threatening as in Empire. That would be a good start. But dark, dark, dark - you can't get the Star Wars universe to this point easily. The SW world is much too shiney for it. Try to create a SW movie with a dark feeling like in Space Above & Beyond - THAT would classify as "dark". Or a movie with a similar feeling as in the Alien movies & comics.
Then again - SAAB and Alien have ships and settings with a run-down, used look, where Star Wars shines perfectly.
And because he can't remember all those passwords, he has them written in clear uppercase letters on a paper hidden in one of his socks.
Or he has the paper beneath the floor mat, along with the key to the house.
This wouldn't work. Everyone would point at VMware with Linux running correctly. So, anyone interested in emulating Linux would ditch the MS virtual PC, and go for VMware instead.
I want to know how many of you are bashing Star Wars because the other do it. I for one like Ep2, Ep5 and Ep6 most (except that annoying romance scenes in Ep2 and the Ewoks in Ep6). I found Ep4 to be quite uninteresting and cheesy, and Ep1 quite boring.
Ep3 looks promising, and I don't fucking care about the CGI. The battle scenes at the end of Ep2 and Ep6 are awesome. The only danger for this movie could be an exaggeration of the Anakin-Amidala story. This bogged down Ep2, and could be problematic for this one.
Re:Next round in: free will vs. biological machine
on
Mapping the Mind
·
· Score: 1
As long as we utterly fail in understanding - let alone reproducing - human consciousness, we can not dismiss this.
You, however, proved to be closed-minded right from the start. You say that it is a proven, totally secured fact that the conscious mind works exactly like a computer, a claim no scientists would dare to make. It may take much more than a Turing Machine concept to be able to understand consciousness, we don't know until there are definitive facts.
And no, you aren't parsing it correctly. He says that he tends to believe that there is more to the mind than just typical computing. Is it forbidden to believe something? (Note, I don't mean it in a religious sense.)
Re:Next round in: free will vs. biological machine
on
Mapping the Mind
·
· Score: 1
(an accused who argues to the judge that he "had no choice but to comit those actions, since free will doesn't really exist" will hear a judge retort "well then I can't stop myself from sentencing you, can I?")
Heheh. Actually, I read an interview with a neurologist claiming that there is no point in throwing someone into the jail, since he/she could not act another way because he/she never had a choice. It all boils down to the question of choice. If humans are capable of free choice, then there is a free will. If not, then you can say that sentencing the person could trigger a change, much like you change the behaviour of a tamagotchi by punishing it. (Dude, what a comparison.)
I always wondered about one possibility, however: what if we are just avatars in some weird sort of simulation? Lets take an RPG for example. No figure of this RPG recognizes that this person is being remotely controlled, or that the world is a simulation. The same could apply to us. This would also bring the debate about the human soul into a new level. This "soul" would exist outside of the known universe, remotely-controlling its flesh-and-bones avatar. The problem is that while this is certainly possible, there is no way how to prove or disprove it. Maybe the asian monks with their enlightenment and inner eye stuff are closer to the truth than we know....:)
Next round in: free will vs. biological machine
on
Mapping the Mind
·
· Score: 1
You know, when I hear about "the illusion of free will", I always wonder about one thing: what about the quantum brain idea? Has it been debunked?
And, even if there is no free will: we cannot determine it either way. For this to be possible, we need to know all factors, from the past AND the present.
Good point. Helium-3 would be one good attractor. The other one would be the asteroid belt.
Finally, people would move because of the same reasons people moved to America: a hope for a better nation/world/planet. So, you are screwed in Earth? Go somewhere else.
The survival thing is actually quite appealing to the Average Joe, however. He/she sees loads of bad news, about wars, crimes, starvation etc. The argument that another colony would be left untouched by such events on earth DOES sound attractive to most people.
Agreed. (Well, I'm 22, maybe I come to see one in my old days:) )
Right now, fully-fledged stations and colonies are not feasible without immense efforts. Somebody mentioned Master Of Orion. Well, it is an excellent example; you don't plan to attack Orion or colonize a planet on the other end of the starmap when you are beginning. Sure, you can build 2 Billion Starfighters and Warships to kill the Orion Guard. But you'll waste A LOT of resources, and many years will pass until that fleet is ready. Later in the game, you only need to build about 8-10 Battlecruisers, and you can beat that guard. Same applies here. RIGHT NOW it is unrealistic to plan a base on mars. A moon base *could* be feasible, but only as a research outpost, maybe fully automated or remote controlled.
Major problems that need to be solved:
a) Propulsion. This is THE key to space. I do think that anisotropic artifical gravity is possible, much like electromagnetism. Would rock if someone achieves it.
b) Energy. Nuclear fusion would be adequate. I read about micro fusion reactors suitable for space ships, but all of this is useless if nobody manages to sustain the fusion, and exceeding break-even. Current fusion results are at 0.35. We need >1. Maybe bubble fusion turns out to be real. It could speed up the research.
c) Life support. No life support, no fun. An artifical O2CO2 converter would be needed. Plants are not that suitable as a space ship equipment:)
d) Radiation shielding. This one is often forgotten, but CRUCIAL if you want to survive out there. All this nice life-support systems are for nothing if the radiation shoots your DNA. This will be a real issue for the mars expedition. The thing is: with a metal hull, it actually gets worse. A good shielding would be a nanotube layer with embedded water molecules. But it will take some time until we succeed in producing this in adequate masses.
Good thing: all of these issues are engineering challenges (except the artificial gravity stuff), so there is no law explicitely forbidding anything.
But see it this way: ANY breakthrough in any of these points would radically change your life. Especially b). Fusion would change just about everything. And controlled, >1 fusion IS possible in the foreseeable future. We might be old by then, but we will come to see it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Stargate is quite intelligent. Of course its cheesy in some ways, but it managed to successfully develop the storylines and build an arc. It also combines space sci-fi with the present, and shows what many people always wanted to see in an action-oriented sci-fi series. See, the humans have been the destabilizing factor which is leading to the downfall of the Goa'Uld. Scenes with marines shooting some Goa'Uld Deathglider with a rocket launcher are nice. And the battle scene in Antarctica at the end of Season 7 was amazing. The series manages to give the feeling that mankind is developing into a new player in the galaxy. Of course they are far from it, but the actions in the show let you feel exactly like that. I also like the way they implemented aliens like the Asgard or the Ancients. They really took many ideas and introduced them into the series (aliens being the origin of nordic & egyptian mythology => Asgard / Goa'Uld, other humans evolved long before we did => Ancients etc.) It is also one of the few series with a plausible explanation why almost all aliens look like humans :)
they don't give him a free pass to go and dictate what people shall call "good". Its all a matter of taste, you know. Mr. Card, however, says that Trek is bad, and that everyone who likes Star Trek is an idiot. Talk about arrogance.
And the part about deeper ideas! Oh my, why can't a sci-fi series be just entertaining? No, of course every series has to be an incredibly deep analysis of about 5 million ideas, with incredibly profound science. Oh come on. This is hard SF. *NEVER* attack soft SF from a hard-SF point of view. This is what Card doesn't realize.
Where can I get a torrent to download this?
No, for the middle ages to come again you need: a total devastation (nuclear war), total eradication of all cultural and social advances (like, human rights), complete and utter eradication of science, complete reinstallation of some dogmatic church as the center of power, total destruction of any technological advancements (even as simple as a canal system - in the middle ages there was no canal system) etc. So it is a little more difficult. The aftermath would be more likely a cuban- or south america-like scenario.
I don't like the situation either. No, I wasnt referring to a mild crisis with only 3x increase. Actually, I was thinking it from the worst case - have an infrastructure with little to no oil. Transportation would collapse, but my main concern was water and electricity, and you don't need oil for either of these. Take Austria for example, 2/3rd of the produced electricity is gained with hydroelectric plants. For the middle ages to come back, you need people to forget about electricity as well. As someone posted before, you can get a generator to work with steam.
The scenario I was referring to was a world after a total collapse, slowly rebuilding things like electricity and infrastructure. This was not the case in the 70ies.
Yes, transportation is the real problem. I agree with that. The oil crisis of the 70s, which was the result of an artifical shortage, was caused by a 5% drop in production. One we have reached the point of global decline, production will drop by 3-7% every year. Where will that leave us 5 years after decline? The old infrastructure will most likely crash. After that, we have to rebuild everything. Not pleasant, but it is the way out. As I mentioned before, you can build crude plants, or use still standing ones, and power machines to create better plants etc. Once you reach a certain power output, connect a solar cell factory to it etc.
You can build the first generator yourself, or using coals. Small, humble beginnings. We don't need oil for that.
Then we can power machines with electricity to build better plants etc. The obvious disavantage is the lack of speed here, but it would be a way out.
It is actually quite interesting. In the US no dogmatic belief has firmly established itself fully because there are dozens of other sects trying to do the same (Scientology for example). In Europe, this isn't possible either, but because the catholic church still has considerable power and privileges. While they are far from being the ultra-totalitary cruel governor it was in the middle ages, the catholic church still gets loads of money by convenient church-taxes only they get (!) no other religion gets income from taxes - this tax exists at least in Austria and Germany, i don't know about other countries.
What makes you think we have enough energy reserves as it is to bridge the gap?
I can always build some crude generator working with hydroelectric power. Just stick it into a river.
Then you have some electric power, you can power machines to build a better hydroelectric plant etc. Until you get nice hydroelectric plants. Then you can connect a thermal depolymerization facility, or a factory for solar cells. Then use the solar cells for yet more power etc.
Electricity has been around well *before* the age of oil. In fact, industralization began before the age of oil. So no middle age scenario here. And no perpetual doom either, since an electricity grid can be achieved without any oil.
We need something for the cars, though. Oh well, in Europe many trains have electrical engines, so maybe we would see a revival of the train. That is, until someone finds a way how to stuff a lot of energy in a battery or in a H2 tank (without being so unstable that it could blow up).
If that is the case, we do not have enough time to replace our existing energy infrastructure. Enough time - for what? You sound as if after a certain timespan there is no chance to ever again be able to create something like a generator. This will *not* be the case. I live in Austria, however, where 2/3rd of all power is gained by hydroelectric plants, and the remaining 1/3rd from caloric plants and renewable energies. I don't know how the United States gets its electricity, but AFAIK in Europe *electricity* won't be the main problem. The big issue is transportation. Currently there is no battery with enough energy density capable of replacing oil. Also, batteries are not that reliable, and can't store electricity for a long amount of time. Hydrogen could be a potential replacement, but right now its too insecure and expensive. I expect Peak Oil to be a big, BIG economical hit, leading to a massive world-wide crisis. But then people will start building solar cells, fission plants etc. Slowly at first, but there is nothing making the production of solar cells *impossible*. AFAIK there is no oil needed in the production of the latest solar cell types. And even if there is one: a) Peak Oil means the end of *CHEAP* oil, not the end of all Oil. Which leads to b) thermal depolymerization (for gaining it as a resource for other materials, NOT for transportation!), which is too expensive *right now*, but would be a net gain then (get the power from solar cells). Of course there would be a rather slow oil production at first, but in the meantime, society could - slowly - rebuild, and research could be done in fusion, renewable energies, and better thermal depolymerization. As for plastics, there are several ways to grow plastics with algae, and I even read about a way how to get plastics from orange peel and CO2. The part that's left is mostly medicines like aspirine (which needs oil directly as a resource). Thermal depolymerization would address this issue. Still, transportation remains. Well, we'll have to wait until somebody gets those hydrogen tanks right. It is not that research will be *impossible*. It will just take longer. So, relax.
I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but while Peak Oil is likely to happen, it will NOT prevent the stuff he is talking about, it will delay it.
Middle Ages are a thing of the past. You need to get rid of ALL SCIENCE, of all technical achievements, of all cultural changes, reinstall the church as the supreme power....
While it is wise to take Peak Oil seriously, doomsaying won't help anyone. Oh yes, a crisis is likely, it will result in drastic cuts in energy until alternative energy sources are fully installed. When fusion power becomes feasible, we're back on track again.
Was your source the interview with the designer? Well, they did leave the possibility of human survivors open.
Come to think of it, it would have been a very interesting story. In the game, it becomes clear that some sort of underground computer network exists, which controls the weather. These Orbs are just terminals. Thats exactly what the designer said.
Now, what if some humans put themselves into some sort of cryosleep beneath the surface, ready to be reawakened when all signs of the virus are gone?
Just imagine... humans, while rebuilding their civilization, encounter the Morphs. A really weird close encounter of the third kind, with the humans being the advanced aliens.
Last but not least this game makes me wonder if our world is really as bad as many pessimists say. For the morphs, it appeared to be a miracle world. After playing through this game, seeing all those magnificent human constructions so empty, forgotten and desolated, somehow I just didn't want mankind to end like this.
There were the usual Furries, they called themselves "Morphs". I hope this games was not a reliable prediction of our future :)
something like "Stargate: 2030". Take the Stargate scenario from the present to about 15 years in the future, and throw in a similar feeling like in Space Above & Beyond. (Instead of the Chigs, you get the Goa'Uld, the Aschen, the Wraith....) Now THAT would rock. The show would be about mankinds first real steps to space colonization - the Stargate would be public knowledge by then, obviously.
As for Star Trek, I would like a show that:
a) does not throw around with lots of technobabble
b) does not imply time travel
c) has a consistency in the introduced technologies (for example, there was an advanced cloaking technology built by the federation allowing not only invisibility but flying through matter too - this technology was never mentioned again. Stargate SG-1 actually makes use of past storylines)
d) get the federation consistent again. first, they were utopia. then, in DS9, they became something else. in voyager, they were utopia, in a manner of speaking. whats going on?
e) no more episode-by-episode only, please.
f) use some of the less known races! what about the breen, for example? they appeared in ds9, but thats it.
he sounds exactly like a Star Wars fanboy who quite possibly saw something NOT happy/funny/good for the first time.
I hope I'm wrong, because Ep3 has potential. We just need to have things as cold and threatening as in Empire. That would be a good start. But dark, dark, dark - you can't get the Star Wars universe to this point easily. The SW world is much too shiney for it. Try to create a SW movie with a dark feeling like in Space Above & Beyond - THAT would classify as "dark". Or a movie with a similar feeling as in the Alien movies & comics.
Then again - SAAB and Alien have ships and settings with a run-down, used look, where Star Wars shines perfectly.
And because he can't remember all those passwords, he has them written in clear uppercase letters on a paper hidden in one of his socks. Or he has the paper beneath the floor mat, along with the key to the house.
Do they release it because It Just Works?
This wouldn't work. Everyone would point at VMware with Linux running correctly. So, anyone interested in emulating Linux would ditch the MS virtual PC, and go for VMware instead.
emulate Linux in a virtual PC to bypass the GPL.
I want to know how many of you are bashing Star Wars because the other do it. I for one like Ep2, Ep5 and Ep6 most (except that annoying romance scenes in Ep2 and the Ewoks in Ep6). I found Ep4 to be quite uninteresting and cheesy, and Ep1 quite boring.
Ep3 looks promising, and I don't fucking care about the CGI. The battle scenes at the end of Ep2 and Ep6 are awesome. The only danger for this movie could be an exaggeration of the Anakin-Amidala story. This bogged down Ep2, and could be problematic for this one.
As long as we utterly fail in understanding - let alone reproducing - human consciousness, we can not dismiss this.
You, however, proved to be closed-minded right from the start. You say that it is a proven, totally secured fact that the conscious mind works exactly like a computer, a claim no scientists would dare to make. It may take much more than a Turing Machine concept to be able to understand consciousness, we don't know until there are definitive facts.
And no, you aren't parsing it correctly. He says that he tends to believe that there is more to the mind than just typical computing. Is it forbidden to believe something? (Note, I don't mean it in a religious sense.)
(an accused who argues to the judge that he "had no choice but to comit those actions, since free will doesn't really exist" will hear a judge retort "well then I can't stop myself from sentencing you, can I?")
:)
Heheh. Actually, I read an interview with a neurologist claiming that there is no point in throwing someone into the jail, since he/she could not act another way because he/she never had a choice. It all boils down to the question of choice. If humans are capable of free choice, then there is a free will. If not, then you can say that sentencing the person could trigger a change, much like you change the behaviour of a tamagotchi by punishing it. (Dude, what a comparison.)
I always wondered about one possibility, however: what if we are just avatars in some weird sort of simulation? Lets take an RPG for example. No figure of this RPG recognizes that this person is being remotely controlled, or that the world is a simulation. The same could apply to us. This would also bring the debate about the human soul into a new level. This "soul" would exist outside of the known universe, remotely-controlling its flesh-and-bones avatar.
The problem is that while this is certainly possible, there is no way how to prove or disprove it.
Maybe the asian monks with their enlightenment and inner eye stuff are closer to the truth than we know....
You know, when I hear about "the illusion of free will", I always wonder about one thing: what about the quantum brain idea? Has it been debunked? And, even if there is no free will: we cannot determine it either way. For this to be possible, we need to know all factors, from the past AND the present.
Yes you can. Thats called reflection.
Good point. Helium-3 would be one good attractor. The other one would be the asteroid belt. Finally, people would move because of the same reasons people moved to America: a hope for a better nation/world/planet. So, you are screwed in Earth? Go somewhere else. The survival thing is actually quite appealing to the Average Joe, however. He/she sees loads of bad news, about wars, crimes, starvation etc. The argument that another colony would be left untouched by such events on earth DOES sound attractive to most people.
Agreed. (Well, I'm 22, maybe I come to see one in my old days :) )
:)
Right now, fully-fledged stations and colonies are not feasible without immense efforts. Somebody mentioned Master Of Orion. Well, it is an excellent example; you don't plan to attack Orion or colonize a planet on the other end of the starmap when you are beginning. Sure, you can build 2 Billion Starfighters and Warships to kill the Orion Guard. But you'll waste A LOT of resources, and many years will pass until that fleet is ready. Later in the game, you only need to build about 8-10 Battlecruisers, and you can beat that guard. Same applies here. RIGHT NOW it is unrealistic to plan a base on mars. A moon base *could* be feasible, but only as a research outpost, maybe fully automated or remote controlled.
Major problems that need to be solved:
a) Propulsion. This is THE key to space. I do think that anisotropic artifical gravity is possible, much like electromagnetism. Would rock if someone achieves it.
b) Energy. Nuclear fusion would be adequate. I read about micro fusion reactors suitable for space ships, but all of this is useless if nobody manages to sustain the fusion, and exceeding break-even. Current fusion results are at 0.35. We need >1. Maybe bubble fusion turns out to be real. It could speed up the research.
c) Life support. No life support, no fun. An artifical O2CO2 converter would be needed. Plants are not that suitable as a space ship equipment
d) Radiation shielding. This one is often forgotten, but CRUCIAL if you want to survive out there. All this nice life-support systems are for nothing if the radiation shoots your DNA. This will be a real issue for the mars expedition.
The thing is: with a metal hull, it actually gets worse. A good shielding would be a nanotube layer with embedded water molecules. But it will take some time until we succeed in producing this in adequate masses.
Good thing: all of these issues are engineering challenges (except the artificial gravity stuff), so there is no law explicitely forbidding anything.
But see it this way: ANY breakthrough in any of these points would radically change your life. Especially b). Fusion would change just about everything. And controlled, >1 fusion IS possible in the foreseeable future. We might be old by then, but we will come to see it.