We could land on Mercury, I guess, but it's pretty far and quite hot.
I read somewhere once upon a time that it takes more fuel to get to Mercury than it does to leave the solar system entirely. You gain too much speed falling into the gravity well of the sun and Mercury has no atmosphere to help you slow down.
all knowledge, all questions, answered all the time (that might change the way we think of our education system!)
Yes, by providing even less incentive for people to actually study anything;) To quote a friend of mine: A masters in Google and a doctorate in speed reading.
Wouldn't it be clever if you'd stop being a dick and acknowledge that this particular discussion has nothing to do with the one way trip purposed in TFA?
I didn't say it was feasible "right now". I said we should be laying the groundwork for future generations and learning as much as we possibly can about space travel and our solar system.
Are you a professional pessimist or do you just play one on/.?
Who knows what profitable product there might be on mars? Nobody knew what profitable products existed in the New World until they came here. Are you really going to claim that in the entire solar system there isn't one single resource that could be profitably exploited by mankind?
The medication works by suppressing the "suicide mechanism" of cells hit by radiation, while enabling them to recover from the radiation-induced damages that prompted them to activate the suicide mechanism in the first place.
That's pretty interesting. So our cells have the ability to repair radiation damage but don't normally bother to try? Any molecular biologists around who would care to explain this in more detail than the aforementioned link? I always thought that ionizing radiation damaged the body on a molecular level beyond any healing ability that it may have.
The astronauts, however, are not just heading to a place of higher resource contention they are heading to a place of no resources. None for living anyway. You might find platinum ore on Mars but you aren't going to find fur trapping, fishing and logging.
Living resources might not matter as much if you can find other resources that make the enterprise economically viable. Every single British attempt at colonizing the New World failed (in spite of the ability to trap, fish, log, etc) until they find a profitable product. Once they found that the settlements took off and the rest is history as the saying goes. There are lots of potential profitable products out in the solar system right now -- there will be even more if we are indeed running out of resources here at home.
I doubt we'll see anything resembling colonization in our lifetimes (it took generations to carry that out right here on Earth in a much more friendly environment) but I do think it will happen eventually. We should be laying the groundwork for it and soaking up as much knowledge as we possibly can.
[Hint: Why didn't southern states just do this early on? Basically they didn't have the votes in either house of Congress or enough population to elect a President who would be sympathetic to them. Knowing this, they threw a tantrum, reached for their guns and got a lot of people killed.]
No. I am an American citizen who holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I hope you can appreciate the irony of condemning a group that "reached for their guns" while quoting from the Declaration of Independence. I guess Jefferson should have waited until he had the votes in the House of Commons before he reached for his gun.
but I no longer consider it absolute, noting that neither does the law in the United States
It's not absolute. For better or worse the Government can regulate the time and place that you get to exercise your right to free speech. But it can't regulate the content of your speech. Once that happens free speech ceases to mean anything.
I don't want to ban reasonable discussion, but I believe exceptions to free speech might sensibly include banning speech of klansmen, neo-fascists, and some similar groups. A very broad but not freedom of speech seems more sensible to me than either having it be nearly limitless or have it be restrictive.
Who gets to decide what's "reasonable discussion"? Am I engaged in "reasonable discussion" if I protest against gay marriage or am I engaged in hate speech? What about protesting religion? Is it hate speech if I protest Christianity? Scientology? Islam? If the Government can banish speech that isn't "reasonable" then it can banish anything that it wants to merely by labeling it as "unreasonable". More worrisome is that it can banish speech that happens to be politically unpopular.
From a practical standpoint, why would you want to muzzle klansman or neo-fascists anyway? Do you believe that the American public is too stupid to see for themselves how abhorrent those groups are? Do you think we need to protected from them like a bunch of children that can't decide for ourselves?
If one is restricting expression of the views of more than 5% of the country, one either has a fucked society or a fucked notion of free speech.
So 5% is your magic number? Under that threshold I suppose we can muzzle Libertarians, Communists, Green Party members, 9/11 truthers and Scientologists.
Why don't you move instead of whining that nobody wants to serve your unprofitable market? Or do you think that the Government should take MY money and give it to someone else so YOU can have broadband?
Move to civilization or enjoy the benefits (fresh air, open skies, ability to play with firearms in the backyard, etc) of living where you currently are and deal with the fact that everything in life is a trade-off.
And so I feel the same about trying to maintain a functioning nation made up of 50 very autonomous states in these modern times.
If you want to get rid of those 50 "very autonomous" states then I suggest you call for a Constitutional Convention. Until then stop trying to give the Feds power that they weren't granted by that document.
Upon which part of the Constitution is the expiration date printed?
Irrelevant. You didn't answer my question. No part of the Constitution says the Union is eternal or that states can't leave the Union. If Alaska, Texas or New York decided they wanted to leave tomorrow you'd think it was just fine and dandy to keep them in the Union at gunpoint? What happened to self-determination?
Here's what I think about those "impinged-upon" rights: That every man, woman, and child throughout the South directly benefiting from the insitution of slavery (owning, trafficking, overseeing, or other such involvement) and/or the formation and support (offered either through financial means, material, labor, or published works) did not have every cent of their wealth stripped away from them to repay the humans they kept in bondage and the larger nation itself is something I consider to be a great injustice.
If that had happened you'd still be fighting a guerrilla war in the American South. The fact that we managed to escape such an outcome after five years of bitter warfare is really quite amazing. It's owed almost entirely to the former Confederate leadership because after Lincoln died the radical Republicans had no check on their power and were hell bent on "punishing" the South. If Lee had allowed his Army to melt into the wilderness as some had suggested the struggle would have gone on for at least another generation and caused untold amounts of human misery and loss of liberty on both sides. It's amusing that you think he should have been hung and had his body dumped in a latrine. Are you a reincarnated Republican Congressman from the 1860s?
How lofty your comfy chair must be so that you do not feel any remorse for those who underwent pretty much every indignity and deprivation conceived of by Man without any justice, compensation, or retribution. And for what?
You can take your smug superiority and shove it up the highest part of your ass. I never said that I don't feel remorse for those bonded in servitude. All I've done is question the methods that Lincoln used to fight the war (methods that you keep ignoring in favor of going on rants about how evil slavery as -- as if that fact is in dispute) and the legacy of the expanded Federal Government.
No matter if it is a State Trooper or a Federal Agent, both of them will enforce laws that your did not have a direct hand in passing by picking your pocket, depriving you of your freedom through incarceration, putting a gun in your face, or some combination of all three.
How many people does your Congressman represent? How many does your Assemblyman represent? Even if you live in a largish state like New York or California your Assemblyman is going to be a lot more responsive to you than your Congressman is. Smaller Government is more representative. Larger Government ceases to be about the individual and eventually becomes about the institution instead.
You are quibbling. The Constitution was ratified by the initial States at kickoff and later by all other States as they joined and is the document that binds together the United States of America. One does not exist without the other and that which threatens one, threatens the other.
What part of the Constitution says that the union is eternal?
without grossly undervaluing the lives, perspectives, and basic human rights of literally millions of people.
What of the human rights of the citizens of the South who had their livelihood and property destroyed during Sherman's march to the sea? What of the human rights of the Union soldiers who died for no reason because of utterly incompetent leadership at Cold Harbor and Fredericksburg? Slavery would have died a natural death in another generation or so. Even if the South hadn't been willing to let it die it seems reasonable to assume that their primary trading partners would have eventually stopped doing business with them and forced the change.
The "ends justify the means" is not a convincing argument for me anyway. Lincoln should have been impeached for the methods he used to win the war. You don't get to fight a war by shutting down the 1st amendment (locking up critical newspaper editors), infringing on a state government (his actions in Maryland) and illegally suspending habeas corpus.
The counter argument to that is that welfare has (at least in my country) created an entire class of people that don't know how to be self-sufficient. It was meant to be a system to lend a temporary hand to people who have fallen on hard times but it's wound up creating a class of people that rely on the Government and literally don't know any other way to live. I've seen clients at work that are now in the third welfare generation. The parents don't work, the grandparents never worked and the kids aren't going to work.
So you've still got that "deeply impoverished underclass" that you are so worried about. Only now the rest of us are supporting them. I don't really see how this represents much of an improvement.
You end up with a deeply impoverished underclass who are effectively slaves, without a spare cent or a spare minute to better themselves
People on welfare have all the spare minutes in the world. Why aren't they bettering themselves?
I did their test and I score 80%. I failed on their racist/extremist stuff, coming from a country crippled by those fascists/extremists, I still have difficulties to accept Hitler's fans promoting their agenda on my doorstep after the ravage they have done to the whole Europe.
So you don't believe in free speech when the groups exercising it are advocating for something that most would find offensive?
I rather like the old quote: I may not agree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
What's wrong with that? It's arguable that the minimum wage does more harm than good. When you set an artificial floor for wages you wind up either limiting the number of people a company can employ or encouraging the company to violate the law by paying people (often illegal immigrants) under the table.
The current system sucks, but we can do better than this.
Baltimore was a crucial border state that wasn't falling 100% on the right side of the war.
Baltimore is a state? Since when? And who says the Union was the "right" side of the war? Slavery is abhorrent but the tactics that Lincoln used to win the war were equally abhorrent if not more so. Blackmailing US States, arresting newspaper editors who were critical of his policies, suspending habeas corpus. It might have been better for our civil liberties in the long haul if the Union had split and/or slavery was allowed to die a natural death, as it would have in another generation or so.
There were plenty of riots, troop assaults, insurrection etc in MD immediately prior to the outbreak of the Civil War
Actually Maryland wasn't as pro-confederate as is commonly believed. The reception that Lee's army got during the Antietam campaign was less than welcoming.
and that they must therefore be prevented from trying at all costs.;)
Hence the development of reality TV:
Future Thomas Jefferson: Yeah, I'm really sick of paying 50% of my income in taxes. Let's overthrow the Government! Are you with me?
Future George Washington: Yeah, the revolution! To arms! Call out the unorganized militia! We're with you to the bitter end!
Typical American Citizen #1: Yeah! I hate taxes! Down with the Governmen.... hey isn't American Idol on tonight? Can we do the revolution tomorrow?
Typical American Citizen #2: We can't do it tomorrow, the Amazing Race is on. How about next Wednesday?
Future George Washington: *puts gun to his own head and squeezes the trigger*
Not true. That was the main reason why the Soviet subs were always faster then the US equivalents. They were meant to keep up with carrier fleets while submerged and undetected (at a nuclear torpedo range).
Umm, they weren't 'always' faster, I can only think of one class that was appreciably faster than Western designs. You completely ignored the part about losing sonar effectiveness and becoming a big fat target too.
You are thinking WWII again. All a modern sub has to do is to fire its nuke torpedoes somewhere close enough to the carrier's location so that the shock-wave coming up from a few hundred meters below encompasses the carrier.
And then there is of course the nuclear long-range torpedoes
And you are thinking WW3. Employing nuclear weapons against an American carrier battle group would result in thousands of American deaths and would be followed shortly thereafter by missiles rising out of corn fields and the destruction of whatever country attacked our ships. Why don't we confine our discussion to the realm of reality and not Cold War era military tactics?
All of these strategies only work effectively in the absence of nuclear submarines.
Which is why we have our own nuclear submarines. And the ASW technology has improved just a bit from WW2.
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't take long for a wingnut to bring up Gore (Yes I saw your ;) )
I like how you acknowledge the fact that I was being sarcastic but call me a wingnut anyway.
We could land on Mercury, I guess, but it's pretty far and quite hot.
I read somewhere once upon a time that it takes more fuel to get to Mercury than it does to leave the solar system entirely. You gain too much speed falling into the gravity well of the sun and Mercury has no atmosphere to help you slow down.
Mind pointing out the portion of my post where I suggested the astronauts should sacrifice themselves?
all knowledge, all questions, answered all the time (that might change the way we think of our education system!)
Yes, by providing even less incentive for people to actually study anything ;) To quote a friend of mine: A masters in Google and a doctorate in speed reading.
Apparently Al Gore had his first child at the age of 21 ;)
Wouldn't it be clever if you'd stop being a dick and acknowledge that this particular discussion has nothing to do with the one way trip purposed in TFA?
I didn't say it was feasible "right now". I said we should be laying the groundwork for future generations and learning as much as we possibly can about space travel and our solar system.
Are you a professional pessimist or do you just play one on /.?
Who knows what profitable product there might be on mars? Nobody knew what profitable products existed in the New World until they came here. Are you really going to claim that in the entire solar system there isn't one single resource that could be profitably exploited by mankind?
Not to reply to my own post, but here's an interesting article about the cellular "suicide mechanism". Fascinating.....
The medication works by suppressing the "suicide mechanism" of cells hit by radiation, while enabling them to recover from the radiation-induced damages that prompted them to activate the suicide mechanism in the first place.
That's pretty interesting. So our cells have the ability to repair radiation damage but don't normally bother to try? Any molecular biologists around who would care to explain this in more detail than the aforementioned link? I always thought that ionizing radiation damaged the body on a molecular level beyond any healing ability that it may have.
The real problem is radiation exposure. 6 months there, 500 days on the surface, 6 months back.
So just transfer some auxiliary power to the deflector shields. Geez, do I have to figure everything out for you?
The astronauts, however, are not just heading to a place of higher resource contention they are heading to a place of no resources. None for living anyway. You might find platinum ore on Mars but you aren't going to find fur trapping, fishing and logging.
Living resources might not matter as much if you can find other resources that make the enterprise economically viable. Every single British attempt at colonizing the New World failed (in spite of the ability to trap, fish, log, etc) until they find a profitable product. Once they found that the settlements took off and the rest is history as the saying goes. There are lots of potential profitable products out in the solar system right now -- there will be even more if we are indeed running out of resources here at home.
I doubt we'll see anything resembling colonization in our lifetimes (it took generations to carry that out right here on Earth in a much more friendly environment) but I do think it will happen eventually. We should be laying the groundwork for it and soaking up as much knowledge as we possibly can.
[Hint: Why didn't southern states just do this early on? Basically they didn't have the votes in either house of Congress or enough population to elect a President who would be sympathetic to them. Knowing this, they threw a tantrum, reached for their guns and got a lot of people killed.]
No. I am an American citizen who holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I hope you can appreciate the irony of condemning a group that "reached for their guns" while quoting from the Declaration of Independence. I guess Jefferson should have waited until he had the votes in the House of Commons before he reached for his gun.
but I no longer consider it absolute, noting that neither does the law in the United States
It's not absolute. For better or worse the Government can regulate the time and place that you get to exercise your right to free speech. But it can't regulate the content of your speech. Once that happens free speech ceases to mean anything.
I don't want to ban reasonable discussion, but I believe exceptions to free speech might sensibly include banning speech of klansmen, neo-fascists, and some similar groups. A very broad but not freedom of speech seems more sensible to me than either having it be nearly limitless or have it be restrictive.
Who gets to decide what's "reasonable discussion"? Am I engaged in "reasonable discussion" if I protest against gay marriage or am I engaged in hate speech? What about protesting religion? Is it hate speech if I protest Christianity? Scientology? Islam? If the Government can banish speech that isn't "reasonable" then it can banish anything that it wants to merely by labeling it as "unreasonable". More worrisome is that it can banish speech that happens to be politically unpopular.
From a practical standpoint, why would you want to muzzle klansman or neo-fascists anyway? Do you believe that the American public is too stupid to see for themselves how abhorrent those groups are? Do you think we need to protected from them like a bunch of children that can't decide for ourselves?
If one is restricting expression of the views of more than 5% of the country, one either has a fucked society or a fucked notion of free speech.
So 5% is your magic number? Under that threshold I suppose we can muzzle Libertarians, Communists, Green Party members, 9/11 truthers and Scientologists.
Why don't you move instead of whining that nobody wants to serve your unprofitable market? Or do you think that the Government should take MY money and give it to someone else so YOU can have broadband?
Move to civilization or enjoy the benefits (fresh air, open skies, ability to play with firearms in the backyard, etc) of living where you currently are and deal with the fact that everything in life is a trade-off.
And so I feel the same about trying to maintain a functioning nation made up of 50 very autonomous states in these modern times.
If you want to get rid of those 50 "very autonomous" states then I suggest you call for a Constitutional Convention. Until then stop trying to give the Feds power that they weren't granted by that document.
Upon which part of the Constitution is the expiration date printed?
Irrelevant. You didn't answer my question. No part of the Constitution says the Union is eternal or that states can't leave the Union. If Alaska, Texas or New York decided they wanted to leave tomorrow you'd think it was just fine and dandy to keep them in the Union at gunpoint? What happened to self-determination?
Here's what I think about those "impinged-upon" rights: That every man, woman, and child throughout the South directly benefiting from the insitution of slavery (owning, trafficking, overseeing, or other such involvement) and/or the formation and support (offered either through financial means, material, labor, or published works) did not have every cent of their wealth stripped away from them to repay the humans they kept in bondage and the larger nation itself is something I consider to be a great injustice.
If that had happened you'd still be fighting a guerrilla war in the American South. The fact that we managed to escape such an outcome after five years of bitter warfare is really quite amazing. It's owed almost entirely to the former Confederate leadership because after Lincoln died the radical Republicans had no check on their power and were hell bent on "punishing" the South. If Lee had allowed his Army to melt into the wilderness as some had suggested the struggle would have gone on for at least another generation and caused untold amounts of human misery and loss of liberty on both sides. It's amusing that you think he should have been hung and had his body dumped in a latrine. Are you a reincarnated Republican Congressman from the 1860s?
How lofty your comfy chair must be so that you do not feel any remorse for those who underwent pretty much every indignity and deprivation conceived of by Man without any justice, compensation, or retribution. And for what?
You can take your smug superiority and shove it up the highest part of your ass. I never said that I don't feel remorse for those bonded in servitude. All I've done is question the methods that Lincoln used to fight the war (methods that you keep ignoring in favor of going on rants about how evil slavery as -- as if that fact is in dispute) and the legacy of the expanded Federal Government.
No matter if it is a State Trooper or a Federal Agent, both of them will enforce laws that your did not have a direct hand in passing by picking your pocket, depriving you of your freedom through incarceration, putting a gun in your face, or some combination of all three.
How many people does your Congressman represent? How many does your Assemblyman represent? Even if you live in a largish state like New York or California your Assemblyman is going to be a lot more responsive to you than your Congressman is. Smaller Government is more representative. Larger Government ceases to be about the individual and eventually becomes about the institution instead.
You are quibbling. The Constitution was ratified by the initial States at kickoff and later by all other States as they joined and is the document that binds together the United States of America. One does not exist without the other and that which threatens one, threatens the other.
What part of the Constitution says that the union is eternal?
without grossly undervaluing the lives, perspectives, and basic human rights of literally millions of people.
What of the human rights of the citizens of the South who had their livelihood and property destroyed during Sherman's march to the sea? What of the human rights of the Union soldiers who died for no reason because of utterly incompetent leadership at Cold Harbor and Fredericksburg? Slavery would have died a natural death in another generation or so. Even if the South hadn't been willing to let it die it seems reasonable to assume that their primary trading partners would have eventually stopped doing business with them and forced the change.
The "ends justify the means" is not a convincing argument for me anyway. Lincoln should have been impeached for the methods he used to win the war. You don't get to fight a war by shutting down the 1st amendment (locking up critical newspaper editors), infringing on a state government (his actions in Maryland) and illegally suspending habeas corpus.
And that's where it falls down. No welfare
The counter argument to that is that welfare has (at least in my country) created an entire class of people that don't know how to be self-sufficient. It was meant to be a system to lend a temporary hand to people who have fallen on hard times but it's wound up creating a class of people that rely on the Government and literally don't know any other way to live. I've seen clients at work that are now in the third welfare generation. The parents don't work, the grandparents never worked and the kids aren't going to work.
So you've still got that "deeply impoverished underclass" that you are so worried about. Only now the rest of us are supporting them. I don't really see how this represents much of an improvement.
You end up with a deeply impoverished underclass who are effectively slaves, without a spare cent or a spare minute to better themselves
People on welfare have all the spare minutes in the world. Why aren't they bettering themselves?
I did their test and I score 80%. I failed on their racist/extremist stuff, coming from a country crippled by those fascists/extremists, I still have difficulties to accept Hitler's fans promoting their agenda on my doorstep after the ravage they have done to the whole Europe.
So you don't believe in free speech when the groups exercising it are advocating for something that most would find offensive?
I rather like the old quote: I may not agree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
want to abolish the minimum wage
What's wrong with that? It's arguable that the minimum wage does more harm than good. When you set an artificial floor for wages you wind up either limiting the number of people a company can employ or encouraging the company to violate the law by paying people (often illegal immigrants) under the table.
The current system sucks, but we can do better than this.
Not with Government you can't.
Baltimore was a crucial border state that wasn't falling 100% on the right side of the war.
Baltimore is a state? Since when? And who says the Union was the "right" side of the war? Slavery is abhorrent but the tactics that Lincoln used to win the war were equally abhorrent if not more so. Blackmailing US States, arresting newspaper editors who were critical of his policies, suspending habeas corpus. It might have been better for our civil liberties in the long haul if the Union had split and/or slavery was allowed to die a natural death, as it would have in another generation or so.
There were plenty of riots, troop assaults, insurrection etc in MD immediately prior to the outbreak of the Civil War
Actually Maryland wasn't as pro-confederate as is commonly believed. The reception that Lee's army got during the Antietam campaign was less than welcoming.
and that they must therefore be prevented from trying at all costs. ;)
Hence the development of reality TV:
Future Thomas Jefferson: Yeah, I'm really sick of paying 50% of my income in taxes. Let's overthrow the Government! Are you with me?
Future George Washington: Yeah, the revolution! To arms! Call out the unorganized militia! We're with you to the bitter end!
Typical American Citizen #1: Yeah! I hate taxes! Down with the Governmen.... hey isn't American Idol on tonight? Can we do the revolution tomorrow?
Typical American Citizen #2: We can't do it tomorrow, the Amazing Race is on. How about next Wednesday?
Future George Washington: *puts gun to his own head and squeezes the trigger*
Good riddance to a fat murdering drunk.
Fixed that for you.
Not true. That was the main reason why the Soviet subs were always faster then the US equivalents. They were meant to keep up with carrier fleets while submerged and undetected (at a nuclear torpedo range).
Umm, they weren't 'always' faster, I can only think of one class that was appreciably faster than Western designs. You completely ignored the part about losing sonar effectiveness and becoming a big fat target too.
You are thinking WWII again. All a modern sub has to do is to fire its nuke torpedoes somewhere close enough to the carrier's location so that the shock-wave coming up from a few hundred meters below encompasses the carrier.
And then there is of course the nuclear long-range torpedoes
And you are thinking WW3. Employing nuclear weapons against an American carrier battle group would result in thousands of American deaths and would be followed shortly thereafter by missiles rising out of corn fields and the destruction of whatever country attacked our ships. Why don't we confine our discussion to the realm of reality and not Cold War era military tactics?
All of these strategies only work effectively in the absence of nuclear submarines.
Which is why we have our own nuclear submarines. And the ASW technology has improved just a bit from WW2.
And I certainly don't want to make it easier for someone to get away with messing up a person's life
So you agree with me that the trial lawyers need to be stopped? ;)