you live by what you consider to be good morals and rules of behavior - but how do you determine them and the fact that they're good?
The frame of "good" in this case was one I felt the individual I was addressing could reference easily, and didn't force me to belabour a nicely piquant demolishing. If the truth be known, the terms "good" and "bad" hold very little meaning in the larger scale, which is the only scale I generally address myself to, albeit in very small ways, most of the time. Like posting on slashdot.
There is only the truth of matters, and what you are going to do about them. Or not, as the case may be. All the opinions of "good" and "bad" in the world don't change the facts, and the facts are the only things that should guide one's actions. Everything else is conjecture and the product of a possibly flawed view of reality.
What you are referring to by talking about "good" is not the actions in and of themselves, but the motivation behind them. Where I am coming from, the actions are facts, this cannot be denied, and since facts are the only things that guide my actions, my motivations must therefore be facts. So self interest doesn't even come into it. If you want to know what motivates me, look at the world around you. As for the implications that might have for free will, I have as much or as little as anyone, it really doesn't bother me since I just don't know, and have no way of ever finding out.
And if you're an atheist, why do you live by them?
Oh I never said I was an atheist. I couldn't strictly be called an agnostic. The thing is, I don't know what happens after you die, which is the source and fount of all religions, and anyone that claims they do wants something from you, generally something notably non spiritual in nature. My denomination would be "Ignorant", with caveats and addendums. I find it a remarkably liberating perspective.
I'd ask how strangling one person with anothers entrails fits into your definition of "good morals"
Well it really doesn't, but since I have already explained that neither good nor morals come into it for me, the question becomes one of truth. Will mankind only be free if this happens? In my opinion, based on what I know to be true, yes. Not to say that one should interpret that literally, but the spirit of it is undeniable, and I find I admire the bald embrace of this fact as put forth by Diderot. There are very few ways to interpret what he said except in the way he meant it.
As for the bible, I fear to say it is, like the foundations of all major religions, shoddy and of dubious vintage. I never get into debates as to which passage means what, or how it should be interpreted, since at its very best, the minutae of the oral tradition of nomads in the middle east a few thousand years ago has little to no significance to the questions and issues that modern life raises, regardless of how the church may revise it. I have no intention of living out the power games of Moses and his ilk. Any christians reading this need not feel singled out, I hold similar disparaging opinions of most faiths, especially Islam and Buddhism. Not to say that all religions are a complete wash, but the useful tools in them are few and far between.
However, after studying a couple dozen, the feeling of deja vu becomes almost overpowering. Which is of course interesting in itself. What are the common elements? Does that hold an answer to the ultimate question? Being ignorant, I have no idea. I have only one fact in this case; I will eventually find out. Thats not quite good enough for me, but it will do for now.
The ones with any juice live there. Tell me where you live and I'll drive you out of that, so.
the Puritans didn't leave England because they wanted to dodge the age of Enlightenemnt
Aha yes, well you are making the mistaken assumption that I was talking about the classical age of Enlightnment. I was rather referring to the point in time when significant powers in Europe started giving demented cults of personality the final heave-ho. You know, became enlightened.
I assume that by fundie, you mean somebody who dares say that the Bible is right, how silly of him?
So lets see here, you are saying that this book which contains a variety of often self contradicting stands on various issues, this book can be either "right" or "wrong"? Jaysus. As an historical document, its fairly entertaining. As a guide to how life is to be lived, you could do worse than certain passages. As an ironclad method to decide your every action, you are off your head, and a menace to yourself and society. Hence the crusade.
Do you really believe that it's a sign of freedom for a woman to dress in outfits that don't leave much to the imagination.
I know its a sign of slavery to forbid it, bub. And what the hell is wrong with you, you don't want to see a womans nipples? You think god gave her those as a mark of shame? Demned sodomites. CRUSADE!
And, just so you know it, I'm as opposed to revealing clothing for men as I am for women, so it's absolutely not a case of double-standards.
So you're an equal opportunities idiot. Splendid.
Very often, I hear people rant about how fundies are bad, how you can be a good christian and believe in everything liberal theology teaches.
I am not any kind of christian. I am however a very spiritual person, who lives by what I consider good morals and rules of behaviour. the only time I try to inflict those rules on others is when I meet dullard bible-junkies that honestly need a good infliction or two.
aybe you have faith in both orthodox christianity and subscribe to the widespread belief that the Bible is mostly myth, but that would simply mean that you faith would be baseless (which is stupid)
What the fuck is that? Russian orthodox or Greek orthodox? Or some peculiar vision of "straight" christianity? What a tiny little narrow world you live in, to be sure. I myself am a fan of Diderot; mankind will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Thats an interesting point, and in a perfect world, I think you would be right. However if stem cells start getting associated with miracle cures, you can bet demand will outstrip supply, and the for-profit healthcare services in the US will be all over that like a cheap suit. Dollar value, sadly, is the almost inevitable result, illegal or not.
Harvard seems to have totally forsaken its once-christian heritage.
What? You know what, christian fundamentalists / evangelists / baptists and islamic fundies are basically exactly similar. They go nuts if a woman shows an ankle, you go nuts if a woman shows a nipple. Basically you both hate women. See, this is why the nutty religious cults were driven out of Europe some centuries ago, no one wanted you psychopaths near them. Unfortunately this time the loopers found a whole new continent to dodge the age of enlightenment in, and the result is what we have in the US today. Sigh. I wonder how long it will take for the US to drive out you nutty little fudgepackers? Now thats a crusade I'd sign up for...
Should we close our eyes and pretend that the benefits doesn't exist? The future baby has already died. Don't let it die completely in vain.
See here you run the risk of putting a market value (possibly an incredibly high one) on the results of abortions. What happens if stem cells start to become worth thousands of dollars per sample? You will have women queueing up to supply the demand. People might start making careers out of it. That is an unethical abomination, and thats what everyone should be trying to avoid.
Look, you're obviously new here, so I'm going to tell you how it goes down. This is slashdot. We don't read the articles, and for gods sake we don't go looking for backup or counter-information UNLESS it is to incite a flamewar or torrent of abuse, not to present a perfectly cogent and reasonable argument as you seem to have done. I'll let it slide this time, but I'll be keeping my eye on your account. Now I want you to practise 50 knee-jerks every day and repeat the words "Oh for gods sake, you are a typical democrat/republican and it doesn't even run on linux, *AA shill!"
In theory it is more efficient than polling the known universe on everything.
No. It was more efficient. Now with the advent of these wonderful devices called computers, its a perfectly realistic option. Can't be made secure, you say? Well then we'd better cancel all ecommerce transactions and sue the bejaysus out of anyone with a web shop. On with a technocracy I say, true government by the people! (albeit with caveats and addendums to prevent the majority overrunning the minority every time).
And as for lawyers, those brave legal beagles, fire the lot. All the law is is a collection of data, statutes and past laws. A properly indexed database would make them essentially redundant, anyone could argue their own case. Even now, paralegals, private individuals and contractors often have a better grasp of relevant laws for their cases than their lawyers. As for complex legalese, well guess what, if a law can't be understood, its practically impossible to follow it, making it worthless. So strike all those laws and replace them with clearer english language ones.
Hey, I just fixed everything. Will someone write me a cheque now please?
I also demand to put the scores near the comment title.
I think the thinking there is to cut back on the karma whoring and make comments stand on their own merits. Also it should help keep groupthink under control, and is more indicative of the fact that moderation really only represents the opinions of one, two or maybe five basically random people out of all the thousands that read slashdot. To whit, its not terribly important.
IMHO, the problem is the unreadably tiny size of the font
No, the AC had it right, nail on the head. Its actually easier to read slashdot now if you make font size smaller. It compresses the text somewhat. Bizarre. I also hate the high contrast in discussions. This is what happens when print artists try to design for the web. High contrast on a page, boys and girls, low contrast on luminous surfaces like monitors. FWIW the most readable test is dark grey on light grey. Most relaxing.
That sound you may have heard, that grinding squishy sound, was your pwnage in the last post I made. Your entire post has degenerated into a tantrum of some sort, lacking facts, real responses, any manner of thought, or originality. There are so many holes in what you are saying it would take me the best part of an hour to go through it all, and my time is far more valuable than that. You even mentioned turrursts, and that took some doing. In fact, its boring the shit out of me listening to your ass-gas flappery. And you can quote me on that.
Ah yes, the hard headed realist who advocates a magical space elevator.
Which does very little good for me as I'm right now down here and not up there. Bringing down such things is not easy (can't build your reentry vehicles in space for quite a while) and simply dropping them down would incur even more costs. You can't easily process it in space either. In addition you'd need to overcome the political and technological hurdles of getting a rock that close to earth. Keep in mind that bringing things up would cost around $100 to $200/lb not counting the cost of your investment
I feel like I am talking to myself here. The cost of bringing things up would be much lower with a tower launch, thats the entire point. The whole. Entire. Point. Bringing them down would be the easiest part. Since you don't have to haul up massive engines and drop them again, you can be more flexible in your re-entry vehicle design. Gravity, meet glider. Or even a big balloon.
Quite a few, all of them far away and we don't know that much about them.
Now I know you're trolling. Educate yourself, young man. FTFA: Another example of wealth can be found on an asteroid called Amun, the smallest metallic asteroid of several dozen known. According to Lewis, Amun contains roughly 30 times as much metal as the entire amount of metals mined and processed over the history of humanity... University of Arizonas Lewis adds that many of these asteroids are relatively inexpensive to reach because they have orbits that are remarkably accessible from Earth.
That would make that one asteroid worth several times the GDP of the US. Seeing any ROI yet?
Not near future and possible on earth as well. You'd need to bring all those materials close which is not feasible in the near future. Then you'd need to again bring the processed goods back down.
No, you wouldn't need to bring it close. You could just saw it up where it is, even process it on the spot and float ingots gently back to earth orbit. Where will you get power for all this? There's a large star right nearby there... As for not near future possible, its already being done.. Anything else you'd like to share with us?
Personally I wouldn't want a new brain and barring that I'll be dead anyway... This could also be more easily done on Earth.
Bleh. Who cares if it doesn't suit you. And I can see many advantages to keeping it in orbit, not least of which is fast deployment in medical emergencies.
Trillions in costs probably, you'd need to figure out new mining methods and manufacturing methods or build complex structures to use earth based ones. Not to mention the general costs of designing things for space.
More figures pulled out of your ass. The only thing stopping us getting into space and taking advantage of it is the cost to orbit. Thats it, nothing else.
Yeah, how about a few which aren't so far in the future as to be worthless due to unpredictability of scientific advance. Someone has been reading way too much sci-fi. In essence your idea is not profitable for at least the next 40 years, so you have no ROI right now.
Blah. If you want an ROI right now, go deal some heroin. This whole operation could be up and running in fifteen years, with a little elbow grease. In more serious business, long term investments with massive potential returns regularily draw companies to the trough. In fact any company without a fifteen year plan shouldn't be in business in the first place.
The question then becomes where do you get the raw materials from and where do they stuff the garbage. Unless they send all their garbage back up into space (See previous numbers for how many flights you'd need per year) Earth would become one giant garbage dump very quickly.
Remember that extremely low cost to orbit I was talking about? Good man.
Such a venture is not realistic or profitable for at least another 30 to 40 years so we can wait. Theoretically such a material is possible using carbon nanotubes and we'll probably know in 40 years if it is actually possible.
Or possibly 300 to 400 years. Or never. Magical imaginary materials are all well and good, but honestly, I wouldn't trust my weight to them.
If you lose 1% of your launches you're not going to get many engineers to go up there and build your space based infrastructure.
They already did. And they still are. The point being that you have to take some risks to conquer space. It's not socialised or subsidised, it won't fall into your lap if you just wait long enough.
Rockets can be aborted in case of failure...In addition a rocket failure costs you one, currently expendable, rocket while a catastrophic failure in your tower costs you one very expensive tower or at least heavy damage to said tower.
Thats a reasonable consideration. Of course you are failing to account for a variety of different modes of failure, nor flexing your headspace to consider how things might be compensated for. Eight-way rails would be more than redundant enough for a failure of three and still maintain a successful launch. As for rockets being aborted, your philosophy rather falls down in the face of the challenger disaster, doesn't it?
Because for affordable manned space flight what we all want is to require extensive training and medical tests.
As I already pointed out, leading me to believe you are short sighted or possibly trolling, you can withstand massive g-forces for a short time. And who was talking about 9 Gs in this setup? No special training required. Not that I'd put grandma in it, mind you...
Well the idea of evacuating the tower is twofold; one is to remove friction drag, the other is to stop shock wave effects weakening the tower structure. This ain't the barrel of a gun here.:D It would also be a lot more difficult to pump air out of the entire tower, as opposed to a small area on the top. As to the speed of the irises, if we can design processors of over 4 gigs commercially, a couple of irises shouldn't stretch our engineering abilities.
One single asteroid up there contains about 5 tons of high quality steel for every man, woman, and child on earth. How many more asteroids do you think there are? Algae pods (nutrients, sunlight, and ice are abundant, albeit spread out a bit) to grow biodiesel or refine metals, clone banks to hold replacement organs (eternal life anyone?). Manufactories to process the ores retrieved and shape them into useful products. Biodomes where crops and vat-grown meat can be cultivated. The ultimate removal of all manufacturing and food production from the earths surface. And thats just orbit. Would you like a few more?
Much safer travel, no massive acceleration or high speeds on either the way up or down. On that note going down doesn't require being a few feet from fiery death. The structure has nicer failure conditions and less mass that can impact if it fails, and is basically impossible to take out. The construction is simpler in many ways if the correct material is found, both in the elevator itself and the actual "construction".
But your shortfall there is that we have not and may never have the neccessary materials. Maybe they will be designed next week, maybe (and more probably) in four or five centuries. The space elevator as it stands is not a viable option; we literally can't do it. If it was a viable option, I would definetely favour it over tower launches. But its not, so I am aiming to get us there within my lifetime.
Shit happens, having that shit mean a 5km/s object to ripping through an 11km structure is never a good idea.
Well we may as well shelve the whole space program then, in case "shit happens". And just to belabour the point a little, would you consider it more or less risky than blasting into orbit strapped to many tons of blazing rocket fuel?
I wouldn't consider that reasonable myself, the shuttle and soyuz are 3 to 4 G for example.
Nope, materials cost for a carbon fibre tower 1800km tall would be 80 billion, so you aren't talking costing the earth. Then you have construction costs, insurance fees, permits and labour, but I mean, who said we should build it in America? Hell build it in international waters you could declare it your own nation. In any case the initial costs, however steep, are always going to be dwarfed by the ROI. This is space, baby, space.
Slashdot Mirror
you live by what you consider to be good morals and rules of behavior - but how do you determine them and the fact that they're good?
The frame of "good" in this case was one I felt the individual I was addressing could reference easily, and didn't force me to belabour a nicely piquant demolishing. If the truth be known, the terms "good" and "bad" hold very little meaning in the larger scale, which is the only scale I generally address myself to, albeit in very small ways, most of the time. Like posting on slashdot.
There is only the truth of matters, and what you are going to do about them. Or not, as the case may be. All the opinions of "good" and "bad" in the world don't change the facts, and the facts are the only things that should guide one's actions. Everything else is conjecture and the product of a possibly flawed view of reality.
What you are referring to by talking about "good" is not the actions in and of themselves, but the motivation behind them. Where I am coming from, the actions are facts, this cannot be denied, and since facts are the only things that guide my actions, my motivations must therefore be facts. So self interest doesn't even come into it. If you want to know what motivates me, look at the world around you. As for the implications that might have for free will, I have as much or as little as anyone, it really doesn't bother me since I just don't know, and have no way of ever finding out.
And if you're an atheist, why do you live by them?
Oh I never said I was an atheist. I couldn't strictly be called an agnostic. The thing is, I don't know what happens after you die, which is the source and fount of all religions, and anyone that claims they do wants something from you, generally something notably non spiritual in nature. My denomination would be "Ignorant", with caveats and addendums. I find it a remarkably liberating perspective.
I'd ask how strangling one person with anothers entrails fits into your definition of "good morals"
Well it really doesn't, but since I have already explained that neither good nor morals come into it for me, the question becomes one of truth. Will mankind only be free if this happens? In my opinion, based on what I know to be true, yes. Not to say that one should interpret that literally, but the spirit of it is undeniable, and I find I admire the bald embrace of this fact as put forth by Diderot. There are very few ways to interpret what he said except in the way he meant it.
As for the bible, I fear to say it is, like the foundations of all major religions, shoddy and of dubious vintage. I never get into debates as to which passage means what, or how it should be interpreted, since at its very best, the minutae of the oral tradition of nomads in the middle east a few thousand years ago has little to no significance to the questions and issues that modern life raises, regardless of how the church may revise it. I have no intention of living out the power games of Moses and his ilk. Any christians reading this need not feel singled out, I hold similar disparaging opinions of most faiths, especially Islam and Buddhism. Not to say that all religions are a complete wash, but the useful tools in them are few and far between.
However, after studying a couple dozen, the feeling of deja vu becomes almost overpowering. Which is of course interesting in itself. What are the common elements? Does that hold an answer to the ultimate question? Being ignorant, I have no idea. I have only one fact in this case; I will eventually find out. Thats not quite good enough for me, but it will do for now.
As much as you like to believe it isn't so, Europe can be just as ass backwards as any other nation.
1. Europe isn't a nation, 2. the difference is we actually cheer when a woman flashes her tits.
See, not all so-call fundamentalists live there
The ones with any juice live there. Tell me where you live and I'll drive you out of that, so.
the Puritans didn't leave England because they wanted to dodge the age of Enlightenemnt
Aha yes, well you are making the mistaken assumption that I was talking about the classical age of Enlightnment. I was rather referring to the point in time when significant powers in Europe started giving demented cults of personality the final heave-ho. You know, became enlightened.
I assume that by fundie, you mean somebody who dares say that the Bible is right, how silly of him?
So lets see here, you are saying that this book which contains a variety of often self contradicting stands on various issues, this book can be either "right" or "wrong"? Jaysus. As an historical document, its fairly entertaining. As a guide to how life is to be lived, you could do worse than certain passages. As an ironclad method to decide your every action, you are off your head, and a menace to yourself and society. Hence the crusade.
Do you really believe that it's a sign of freedom for a woman to dress in outfits that don't leave much to the imagination.
I know its a sign of slavery to forbid it, bub. And what the hell is wrong with you, you don't want to see a womans nipples? You think god gave her those as a mark of shame? Demned sodomites. CRUSADE!
And, just so you know it, I'm as opposed to revealing clothing for men as I am for women, so it's absolutely not a case of double-standards.
So you're an equal opportunities idiot. Splendid.
Very often, I hear people rant about how fundies are bad, how you can be a good christian and believe in everything liberal theology teaches.
I am not any kind of christian. I am however a very spiritual person, who lives by what I consider good morals and rules of behaviour. the only time I try to inflict those rules on others is when I meet dullard bible-junkies that honestly need a good infliction or two.
aybe you have faith in both orthodox christianity and subscribe to the widespread belief that the Bible is mostly myth, but that would simply mean that you faith would be baseless (which is stupid)
What the fuck is that? Russian orthodox or Greek orthodox? Or some peculiar vision of "straight" christianity? What a tiny little narrow world you live in, to be sure. I myself am a fan of Diderot; mankind will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Thats an interesting point, and in a perfect world, I think you would be right. However if stem cells start getting associated with miracle cures, you can bet demand will outstrip supply, and the for-profit healthcare services in the US will be all over that like a cheap suit. Dollar value, sadly, is the almost inevitable result, illegal or not.
Harvard seems to have totally forsaken its once-christian heritage.
What? You know what, christian fundamentalists / evangelists / baptists and islamic fundies are basically exactly similar. They go nuts if a woman shows an ankle, you go nuts if a woman shows a nipple. Basically you both hate women. See, this is why the nutty religious cults were driven out of Europe some centuries ago, no one wanted you psychopaths near them. Unfortunately this time the loopers found a whole new continent to dodge the age of enlightenment in, and the result is what we have in the US today. Sigh. I wonder how long it will take for the US to drive out you nutty little fudgepackers? Now thats a crusade I'd sign up for...
greets from japan.
Greets from Nanjing. Hows that mutant thing going these days?
Should we close our eyes and pretend that the benefits doesn't exist? The future baby has already died. Don't let it die completely in vain.
See here you run the risk of putting a market value (possibly an incredibly high one) on the results of abortions. What happens if stem cells start to become worth thousands of dollars per sample? You will have women queueing up to supply the demand. People might start making careers out of it. That is an unethical abomination, and thats what everyone should be trying to avoid.
Some that track Children's Church attendence
You are a psychopath, you do know that...
Look, you're obviously new here, so I'm going to tell you how it goes down. This is slashdot. We don't read the articles, and for gods sake we don't go looking for backup or counter-information UNLESS it is to incite a flamewar or torrent of abuse, not to present a perfectly cogent and reasonable argument as you seem to have done. I'll let it slide this time, but I'll be keeping my eye on your account. Now I want you to practise 50 knee-jerks every day and repeat the words "Oh for gods sake, you are a typical democrat/republican and it doesn't even run on linux, *AA shill!"
In theory it is more efficient than polling the known universe on everything.
No. It was more efficient. Now with the advent of these wonderful devices called computers, its a perfectly realistic option. Can't be made secure, you say? Well then we'd better cancel all ecommerce transactions and sue the bejaysus out of anyone with a web shop. On with a technocracy I say, true government by the people! (albeit with caveats and addendums to prevent the majority overrunning the minority every time).
And as for lawyers, those brave legal beagles, fire the lot. All the law is is a collection of data, statutes and past laws. A properly indexed database would make them essentially redundant, anyone could argue their own case. Even now, paralegals, private individuals and contractors often have a better grasp of relevant laws for their cases than their lawyers. As for complex legalese, well guess what, if a law can't be understood, its practically impossible to follow it, making it worthless. So strike all those laws and replace them with clearer english language ones.
Hey, I just fixed everything. Will someone write me a cheque now please?
I also demand to put the scores near the comment title.
I think the thinking there is to cut back on the karma whoring and make comments stand on their own merits. Also it should help keep groupthink under control, and is more indicative of the fact that moderation really only represents the opinions of one, two or maybe five basically random people out of all the thousands that read slashdot. To whit, its not terribly important.
IMHO, the problem is the unreadably tiny size of the font
No, the AC had it right, nail on the head. Its actually easier to read slashdot now if you make font size smaller. It compresses the text somewhat. Bizarre. I also hate the high contrast in discussions. This is what happens when print artists try to design for the web. High contrast on a page, boys and girls, low contrast on luminous surfaces like monitors. FWIW the most readable test is dark grey on light grey. Most relaxing.
Its true what they say. Never argue with an idiot, they will just drag you down to their level and beat you there.
That sound you may have heard, that grinding squishy sound, was your pwnage in the last post I made. Your entire post has degenerated into a tantrum of some sort, lacking facts, real responses, any manner of thought, or originality. There are so many holes in what you are saying it would take me the best part of an hour to go through it all, and my time is far more valuable than that. You even mentioned turrursts, and that took some doing. In fact, its boring the shit out of me listening to your ass-gas flappery. And you can quote me on that.
Yuo f4il it. Troll.
Ah yes, the hard headed realist who advocates a magical space elevator.
Which does very little good for me as I'm right now down here and not up there. Bringing down such things is not easy (can't build your reentry vehicles in space for quite a while) and simply dropping them down would incur even more costs. You can't easily process it in space either. In addition you'd need to overcome the political and technological hurdles of getting a rock that close to earth. Keep in mind that bringing things up would cost around $100 to $200/lb not counting the cost of your investment
I feel like I am talking to myself here. The cost of bringing things up would be much lower with a tower launch, thats the entire point. The whole. Entire. Point. Bringing them down would be the easiest part. Since you don't have to haul up massive engines and drop them again, you can be more flexible in your re-entry vehicle design. Gravity, meet glider. Or even a big balloon.
Quite a few, all of them far away and we don't know that much about them.
Now I know you're trolling. Educate yourself, young man. FTFA:
Another example of wealth can be found on an asteroid called Amun, the smallest metallic asteroid of several dozen known. According to Lewis, Amun contains roughly 30 times as much metal as the entire amount of metals mined and processed over the history of humanity... University of Arizonas Lewis adds that many of these asteroids are relatively inexpensive to reach because they have orbits that are remarkably accessible from Earth.
That would make that one asteroid worth several times the GDP of the US. Seeing any ROI yet?
Not near future and possible on earth as well. You'd need to bring all those materials close which is not feasible in the near future. Then you'd need to again bring the processed goods back down.
No, you wouldn't need to bring it close. You could just saw it up where it is, even process it on the spot and float ingots gently back to earth orbit. Where will you get power for all this? There's a large star right nearby there... As for not near future possible, its already being done.. Anything else you'd like to share with us?
Personally I wouldn't want a new brain and barring that I'll be dead anyway... This could also be more easily done on Earth.
Bleh. Who cares if it doesn't suit you. And I can see many advantages to keeping it in orbit, not least of which is fast deployment in medical emergencies.
Trillions in costs probably, you'd need to figure out new mining methods and manufacturing methods or build complex structures to use earth based ones. Not to mention the general costs of designing things for space.
More figures pulled out of your ass. The only thing stopping us getting into space and taking advantage of it is the cost to orbit. Thats it, nothing else.
Yeah, how about a few which aren't so far in the future as to be worthless due to unpredictability of scientific advance. Someone has been reading way too much sci-fi. In essence your idea is not profitable for at least the next 40 years, so you have no ROI right now.
Blah. If you want an ROI right now, go deal some heroin. This whole operation could be up and running in fifteen years, with a little elbow grease. In more serious business, long term investments with massive potential returns regularily draw companies to the trough. In fact any company without a fifteen year plan shouldn't be in business in the first place.
The question then becomes where do you get the raw materials from and where do they stuff the garbage. Unless they send all their garbage back up into space (See previous numbers for how many flights you'd need per year) Earth would become one giant garbage dump very quickly.
Remember that extremely low cost to orbit I was talking about? Good man.
Such a venture is not realistic or profitable for at least another 30 to 40 years so we can wait. Theoretically such a material is possible using carbon nanotubes and we'll probably know in 40 years if it is actually possible.
Or possibly 300 to 400 years. Or never. Magical imaginary materials are all well and good, but honestly, I wouldn't trust my weight to them.
If you lose 1% of your launches you're not going to get many engineers to go up there and build your space based infrastructure.
They already did. And they still are. The point being that you have to take some risks to conquer space. It's not socialised or subsidised, it won't fall into your lap if you just wait long enough.
Rockets can be aborted in case of failure...In addition a rocket failure costs you one, currently expendable, rocket while a catastrophic failure in your tower costs you one very expensive tower or at least heavy damage to said tower.
Thats a reasonable consideration. Of course you are failing to account for a variety of different modes of failure, nor flexing your headspace to consider how things might be compensated for. Eight-way rails would be more than redundant enough for a failure of three and still maintain a successful launch. As for rockets being aborted, your philosophy rather falls down in the face of the challenger disaster, doesn't it?
Because for affordable manned space flight what we all want is to require extensive training and medical tests.
As I already pointed out, leading me to believe you are short sighted or possibly trolling, you can withstand massive g-forces for a short time. And who was talking about 9 Gs in this setup? No special training required. Not that I'd put grandma in it, mind you...
20s at 5g, 18s at 7g..
wut. Where are you going, mars?
Just google it in slashdot, I already discussed this with a variety of people and I'm not going over the same ground again.
Well the idea of evacuating the tower is twofold; one is to remove friction drag, the other is to stop shock wave effects weakening the tower structure. This ain't the barrel of a gun here. :D It would also be a lot more difficult to pump air out of the entire tower, as opposed to a small area on the top. As to the speed of the irises, if we can design processors of over 4 gigs commercially, a couple of irises shouldn't stretch our engineering abilities.
One single asteroid up there contains about 5 tons of high quality steel for every man, woman, and child on earth. How many more asteroids do you think there are? Algae pods (nutrients, sunlight, and ice are abundant, albeit spread out a bit) to grow biodiesel or refine metals, clone banks to hold replacement organs (eternal life anyone?). Manufactories to process the ores retrieved and shape them into useful products. Biodomes where crops and vat-grown meat can be cultivated. The ultimate removal of all manufacturing and food production from the earths surface. And thats just orbit. Would you like a few more?
Much safer travel, no massive acceleration or high speeds on either the way up or down. On that note going down doesn't require being a few feet from fiery death. The structure has nicer failure conditions and less mass that can impact if it fails, and is basically impossible to take out. The construction is simpler in many ways if the correct material is found, both in the elevator itself and the actual "construction".
But your shortfall there is that we have not and may never have the neccessary materials. Maybe they will be designed next week, maybe (and more probably) in four or five centuries. The space elevator as it stands is not a viable option; we literally can't do it. If it was a viable option, I would definetely favour it over tower launches. But its not, so I am aiming to get us there within my lifetime.
Shit happens, having that shit mean a 5km/s object to ripping through an 11km structure is never a good idea.
Well we may as well shelve the whole space program then, in case "shit happens". And just to belabour the point a little, would you consider it more or less risky than blasting into orbit strapped to many tons of blazing rocket fuel?
I wouldn't consider that reasonable myself, the shuttle and soyuz are 3 to 4 G for example.
The early manned-space flight program used to launch astronauts at 9 Gs, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. Also the amount of acceleration you can take depends on how long it is applied for. As the linked article shows, you can take accelerations of a hundred Gs for a very short period. The period of launch here would be no more than a few seconds, so yes, I would call that reasonable.
20:1 height to base ratio. Read the links.
Nope, materials cost for a carbon fibre tower 1800km tall would be 80 billion, so you aren't talking costing the earth. Then you have construction costs, insurance fees, permits and labour, but I mean, who said we should build it in America? Hell build it in international waters you could declare it your own nation. In any case the initial costs, however steep, are always going to be dwarfed by the ROI. This is space, baby, space.
And the big dig in Boston cost 10 odd billion. Kindly read all the links before responding, thanks.
Wow. Sometimes it helps to read past the first few words of a post. Not often, but on occasion.
Very gracious of you sir, and I apologise for being so snappy. I got something of a case of sunburn yesterday and everything is a bit red tinged.