Gravity.. HELLO! As the mass of the moon decreases, the gravitational force between us and it decreases. Then the tides get less and less and, in the end, we're screwed. Instead of the moon moving aaway at 3" / year, the more we mine, that rate will get faster and faster. Sure, we won't notice it in our lifetimes much, but future generations will. But hey! It doesn't affect us too much, right? So why the hell not?! Just something I thought of...
I had a PowerPad! I'd play World Class Track Meet on it with my friends. My parents hated it since my room was upstairs and you could hear our pounding and running from the other side of the house. It was great!
I, for one, hope the Chinese race to the moon in the next 6 years and bring their first lander down right on top of the American flag posted there. Perhaps THEN the rest of America would get their balls back. What we need is a nemesis.. another superpower for us to destroy. Hell, the Cold War spawned the greatest advance in technologies, did it not? I think it's time for another! Come on China.. make my wishes come true!
And did you conduct a study or have some data to back up your claim that most of us in the country don't have any desire to become a multi-planet species...?
Also, why spend money to determine if life can survive in a desert when we already know it can? I happen to live in a desert.. there's plenty of life here. There's life in the Sahara.. Antarctica, ocean vents.. The point is, getting life to survive on this planet is fuckin' easy.
Humans are an exloratory species.. always have been. We've spread across the entire planet, have we not? So to continue our exploration, we need to go into the Great Unknown.. space! And that starts with Mars.
How about P2P for as much as possible? There is a ridiculous amount of wasted processing power in the world. Why not harness it? All we need is a new spec for email and others. Eventually, every email client will join this worldwide network when it's loaded.
Hhmmm.. I'm taking a software design class next semester and we'll have a semester-long project of our choosing. Perhaps I can convince my buddies to work on it with me.
Any when was the last time the UN did ANYTHING worthwhile other than pass a "resolution" to "condemn" some act? When was the last time they took any action? If the UN wants to be respected, action is required. You know that age old saying "Actions speak louder than words"? Well, THEY DO! Thus far, all the UN does is whisper.
Yes.. the UN sucks. They are totally inefficient as a governing body. Their record speaks for itself. Why do people think they'll do any better with the internet?
Kofi Annon:"We have just passed a resolution condemning crackers, software pirates, and copyright infringement. Whew.. glad we took care of THAT problem!"
The UN is a joke. Sure, the idea is a good one, but the implementation of that idea has left A LOT to be desired.
We could do it. granted, it is cost prohibitive, but we could manage were the need great enough. I mean, how hard could it really be to slow this bad boy down? i realize that it is travelling at an incredible speed, but that only means we would need more thrust in the opposite direction. So I say let's launch a fleet of rockets to rendezvous with this rock, have them all land on their noses and then light 'em up. It'll eventually slow this bad mamma-jamma down.
Who doesn't maintain >1 email address? I have two, my primary one and my junk account. I empty the junk account once a month. Problem solved. My 'real' inbox gets no spam.
As far as I know, to claim property, you generally need to stand on it nd plant a flag or something. For some reason, I have a hunch that he has to do that. Besides, even if he did "own" it, does the paltry price he is charging just a sign that he's only trying to be a pain in NASA's ass?
Perhaps you are forgetting the many, man, many, many,... experiments that can only be performed in space? How many of those do we do every year in an effort to assist humanity?
I think international pressure would be enough to keep China from claiming the moon. What would really piss me off is if they took down the American flag once they got there! Or if they decided to destroy American footprints.. I think either one of those would put NASA and America back into high gear.
Moving away from readily available, standardized parts always drives cost up. Then again, I guess Microsoft could handle having slightly lower profits from XBox Next.
Besides.. what's more impressive? Hand-drawing an entire movie or having a computer render it based on a script and some other binary information? As much fun as computers can be, they certainly take the human-ness away from most everything.:-\
I enjoy hand-drawn animation much more than CG. Now, Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. and such were all cool, but there's something about a hand-drawn cartoon that is simply awesome. Perhaps it is the fact that a human does all of the work versus a computer working based on your inputs. There's something almost romantic about it. But alas.. most everything will yield to technology.:-\
Re:Minor factual error: no "darkside" of the moon
on
The Case for the Moon
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· Score: 1
Why not just cover the entire moon in solar cells? Imagine the power that could be collected. Granted, us Earthlings would have a crappy view, but eh.. anything in the name of progress, right?:-)
As for the gravity on the moon, its actually 1/6th.
How about a vehicle launched via mag-lex? I know there are some people at JPL working on this. The idea is to build a track that is many miles long that upturns at the end. Once we can create some magnets that are financially doable, they may end up testing this out. Personally, I like the idea. Perhaps after escaping Earth, that ship could land on the moon where it is fueled for its deep space journey. You would avoid the problem of carrying your fuel with you off of the planet. Just a thought..
Slashdot Mirror
Gravity.. HELLO! As the mass of the moon decreases, the gravitational force between us and it decreases. Then the tides get less and less and, in the end, we're screwed. Instead of the moon moving aaway at 3" / year, the more we mine, that rate will get faster and faster. Sure, we won't notice it in our lifetimes much, but future generations will. But hey! It doesn't affect us too much, right? So why the hell not?! Just something I thought of...
Yup yup.. Physics 101.. You can't get more energy from a system than you put in it.
I actually laughed outloud whilst reading this post!
I had a PowerPad! I'd play World Class Track Meet on it with my friends. My parents hated it since my room was upstairs and you could hear our pounding and running from the other side of the house. It was great!
I, for one, hope the Chinese race to the moon in the next 6 years and bring their first lander down right on top of the American flag posted there. Perhaps THEN the rest of America would get their balls back. What we need is a nemesis.. another superpower for us to destroy. Hell, the Cold War spawned the greatest advance in technologies, did it not? I think it's time for another! Come on China.. make my wishes come true!
I see no problems wth the current state of the economy. What were the recent statistics? Fastest growing economy ever? That's right!
And did you conduct a study or have some data to back up your claim that most of us in the country don't have any desire to become a multi-planet species...?
Also, why spend money to determine if life can survive in a desert when we already know it can? I happen to live in a desert.. there's plenty of life here. There's life in the Sahara.. Antarctica, ocean vents.. The point is, getting life to survive on this planet is fuckin' easy.
Humans are an exloratory species.. always have been. We've spread across the entire planet, have we not? So to continue our exploration, we need to go into the Great Unknown.. space! And that starts with Mars.
I know.. kung fu.
In short, no, it won't stop priacy/leaks. It can't be stopped! Mwahaahaahahaa!!
How about P2P for as much as possible? There is a ridiculous amount of wasted processing power in the world. Why not harness it? All we need is a new spec for email and others. Eventually, every email client will join this worldwide network when it's loaded.
Hhmmm.. I'm taking a software design class next semester and we'll have a semester-long project of our choosing. Perhaps I can convince my buddies to work on it with me.
Any when was the last time the UN did ANYTHING worthwhile other than pass a "resolution" to "condemn" some act? When was the last time they took any action? If the UN wants to be respected, action is required. You know that age old saying "Actions speak louder than words"? Well, THEY DO! Thus far, all the UN does is whisper.
Yes.. the UN sucks. They are totally inefficient as a governing body. Their record speaks for itself. Why do people think they'll do any better with the internet?
Kofi Annon:"We have just passed a resolution condemning crackers, software pirates, and copyright infringement. Whew.. glad we took care of THAT problem!"
The UN is a joke. Sure, the idea is a good one, but the implementation of that idea has left A LOT to be desired.
And what about me?! I wrote my own wishlist for my site! Does that mean they're gonna sue me?! AT&T can suck it.
We could do it. granted, it is cost prohibitive, but we could manage were the need great enough. I mean, how hard could it really be to slow this bad boy down? i realize that it is travelling at an incredible speed, but that only means we would need more thrust in the opposite direction. So I say let's launch a fleet of rockets to rendezvous with this rock, have them all land on their noses and then light 'em up. It'll eventually slow this bad mamma-jamma down.
Who doesn't maintain >1 email address? I have two, my primary one and my junk account. I empty the junk account once a month. Problem solved. My 'real' inbox gets no spam.
You know what they say.. Possession is 9/10ths of the law. So NASA has 9/10ths.. Mr Nimitz has 1/10th. Hhmmmm...
As far as I know, to claim property, you generally need to stand on it nd plant a flag or something. For some reason, I have a hunch that he has to do that. Besides, even if he did "own" it, does the paltry price he is charging just a sign that he's only trying to be a pain in NASA's ass?
..then punch them in the face!
Perhaps you are forgetting the many, man, many, many, ... experiments that can only be performed in space? How many of those do we do every year in an effort to assist humanity?
I think international pressure would be enough to keep China from claiming the moon. What would really piss me off is if they took down the American flag once they got there! Or if they decided to destroy American footprints.. I think either one of those would put NASA and America back into high gear.
Moving away from readily available, standardized parts always drives cost up. Then again, I guess Microsoft could handle having slightly lower profits from XBox Next.
Besides.. what's more impressive? Hand-drawing an entire movie or having a computer render it based on a script and some other binary information? As much fun as computers can be, they certainly take the human-ness away from most everything. :-\
I enjoy hand-drawn animation much more than CG. Now, Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. and such were all cool, but there's something about a hand-drawn cartoon that is simply awesome. Perhaps it is the fact that a human does all of the work versus a computer working based on your inputs. There's something almost romantic about it. But alas.. most everything will yield to technology. :-\
Why not just cover the entire moon in solar cells? Imagine the power that could be collected. Granted, us Earthlings would have a crappy view, but eh.. anything in the name of progress, right? :-)
As for the gravity on the moon, its actually 1/6th.
How about a vehicle launched via mag-lex? I know there are some people at JPL working on this. The idea is to build a track that is many miles long that upturns at the end. Once we can create some magnets that are financially doable, they may end up testing this out. Personally, I like the idea. Perhaps after escaping Earth, that ship could land on the moon where it is fueled for its deep space journey. You would avoid the problem of carrying your fuel with you off of the planet. Just a thought..