One other problem with this, is that the ISS is in a 59 degree orbital inclination. To put it in perspective, If you had a highway running between Earth and the Hubble, the ISS would be on a dusty backroad about 300 miles long.
I'm not sure what the hubble's orbit is, but the amount of fuel required to reposition it would probably be more than you could carry on three shuttle trips. In other words, why bother?
KDE3 is "pretty good" at the moment, but gnome2 will need more than a month to get fully cleaned up. KDE3 isnt vastly different from KDE2, aside from being a bit faster, better fonts, and having a few more features. Most of the work between KDE2 and KDE3 was porting the codebase to the new QT3 library.
I think that leaving it at KDE2.2 and Gnome 1.4 is a wise choice for now.
more like 600 million for each shuttle launch. Then threres the overhead for each launch which takes up another 300 million.
Storey Musgrave (astronaut extrordinaire) once remarked that the shuttle didnt launch, until NASA had completed enough paperwork that it could create a stack as tall as the orbiter itself (in the vertical launch position.
They dont install the telnet-server by default. Mandrake has a good number of security minded people working for it. Their early inclusion of xinetd, bastille, portsentry, proftpd, opensshd, and tripwire make this evident.
As for the lack of devel packages, clicking the 'devel' group during install will add all of that. Of course, you can always manually go around with rpm and install them manually.
I use the mandrake cooker anyways, which is the 'bleeding edge' edition. Much more up to date and a wonderful development platform.
Only one digit actually.. I screwed up with the $2000. According to the paper which I originally got the figure from, it was $13,000. Thats still not too bad. Although, bear in mind that the V2 rocket has little to do with an orbit-capable space vehicle, but it is worthy to note that they mass-produced these for only 13K each, and produced nearly 800 rockets per month. While costing $13,000 per rocket, its also interesting to note that the V2 weighted 13,000 Kg at launch time. Given a 1000 Kg warhead, The V2 could put a package up 40 miles, at 1/10th orbital velocity (16,500 mph i believe) So basically, the Nazis spent about $13 for each Kg of explosives they lobbed over the English Channel.
To make a point here, economies of scale apply to rocket launches too. The volume of launches is what drives down costs.
the article as at http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html
http://www.dera.gov.uk/html/whoweare/history/ven ge ance_weapons_v1_v2.htm
Theres a good picture here showing the relative size of the V2
Astute of you to catch that. Even though your reply had little relevance to my original topic, which was along the lines of 'public involvement will be a key factor in driving space development'
As for information, you may find http://www.permanent.com to have a lot of interesting ideas. Specifically on the matters of a lunar colonization expidition.
Unfortunatly, due to my pithy organic brain, I cannot recall _every_ source ive read on the subject of physiological aspects of space travel. The information is, however, readily accessible by a quick websearch.
zero-g smelting, orbiting ecologies, and asteroidal mining tools however, only exist as ideas on paper at this point. I cant say with any guarantee that space colonization will be practical within the next few years, but other people may be able to answer that. Thus, I feel an urge to interest people in space travel - which will drive the development of the anwsers to the questions which you recently asked.
You haven't thought this through very far, have you? Getting to space is the least of our problems. With our current level of technology, a human population cannot survive indefinitely in space, and can only stay there temporarily at massive cost.
We are nowhere close to making a safe, self-sustaining, self-feeding zero-g ecology.
Well, I believe that the establishment of space-based manufacturing capabilites are a vital step in the eventual creation of self-sufficient offworld colonies. However, I didnt feel it necessary to explain all of my ideas on colonzation during my initial post.
With our current level of technology,
who are you to say? Can I see your sources please? There is a good deal of information about the possiblities for living and working in space, although its somewhat difficult to find them all from one source.
There is a lot we have yet to research in order to undertake a _real_ colonization effort (4 astronauts in a space-tent doesnt count). That sort of knowledge wont just materialize from nothing. If there was a way, I would help promote a drive for public space access. It doesnt do any good to cheer on, while sitting on the couch.
A large project like this will likely have a big impact on the infrastructure of the island. There will be more people on the island (employees) to maintain the port. More people means more people per square kilometer, more garbage, more power needs, more food needs, more cars, more roads, etc etc etc.
This project will undoubtely have big impact on the island in many ways. That's why I think it cannot be that such a port is just being build without a good deep study to what the influence on the environment will be.
*nod* I agree with that, and I hope the planners on.cx will develop without causing too much impact on the local environment. Any activity can affect the locality, but its incorrect to equate all activity with 'environmental destruction'
Well, its not a matter of needing it or not. One could ponder if we need to read comic books or get ice cream every time we feel like it.
There are however, a lot of people who would want to go into space, for a variety of reasons. Yet, I feel that the public at large is paralyzed by their notion of the cost and complexity of space travel. I personally think that the perception of space access being unattainable by 'us mortals' is a myth which needs to be rectified.
Yes, it is expensive. No, we wont be flying to Mars tomorrow. But, unless we change our way of thinking about space travel, its either going to be 5 years, or 5 million years before an Earthling sets foot on an another planet. And im getting tired of waiting.
I believe that large scale public involvement will ultimatly be the greatest force behind the drive for space colonization.
As well, I believe the most important thing to focus on in the near-term would be the establishment of space-based industrial infrastructure. That is, mining the Moon and near-earth asteroids, and manufacturing space station components, lunar habitats, and space vehicles. If we can produce everything we need from space, then we can eliminate most of the launches that currently take place. After that, all we need to send up are people.
Space travel is not exotic. It shouldnt have to be so expensive that only multinationals and major governments can afford it. Rocket fuel costs about as much as milk. The suborbital V2-rocket produced by the Germans during WW2 only cost about 2000$ each. Space will not always be so expensive to reach. The sooner we can collectively realize this, the faster we can make inroads into space access. Thanks to economies of scale, we can either send 4 people to mars, or 40,000 people within the same timeframe. And most importantly, you could be one of those 40,000. Space can be had by the common public. We don't need to wait on new technological developments, and we dont need the support of a government agency. We just need pioneers.
Im not going to launch into a long well-thought out tirade about the many misconceptions surrounding oil shipping, Valdez, a particular Exxon tanker, and environmental nutballs; im too tired for that. I will state some interesting information though.
- approx 11 million gallons of crude oil were spilled. This was 1/5th of the cargo.
- a record fishing run was reported the _next_ year, in the same area of the spill.
- each sea otter rescued and returned to the wild was done for a cost of about $80,000 each. (The release of the first two sea otters was marked with much fanfare. The otters were eaten by killer whales not far off shore.) About 200 otters were released back into the wild. Otter populations returned to normal within 3 years.
- Alaska supplies about 1/4 of the oil consumed by the US.
- When people talk about 'drilling in alaska', they reveal their lack of education. The proposed drilling site is in a region called ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Preserve) The northern half of ANWR looks like the planet 'Hoth' from "Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back" Except, there is no rebel base or Taun-Tauns. Not even vegetation up there. This place is desolate. ANWR covers a good chunk of Alaska. The area designated as suitable for drilling is about the size of Dulles Airport in Virginia.
- North slope oil production from Prudhoe Bay is declining. It would take about a decade to turn ANWR into a prodcutive oil field. As much as I would hate to see gas prices jump about 5$/gal, the sadist in me would love to see all the SUV's stranded on the road, cities burning, and wholesale persecution of environmental extremists.
I do wish for a clean environment with industry conducted in a safe and unobtrusive manner. The 'final solutions' proposed by the likes of greenpeace, earth first, and others similarly uneducated yet greatly motivated people, are destructive to business, degrading to humans, and in a number of ways, damaging to the environment.
I support scientific investigations and solutions to environmental problems.
A boot to the face of 'eco-warriors' for all I care.
Im not sure if anybody has notices this, but sunlight plays a major role in ozone production. If you go far (north|south) enough, you wont see the sun during the entire winter. In the summer, the sun will just go around in a circle in the sky, or stay up for 20+ hours at a time.
The ozone thinning for the north and south poles occur during their respective winters. Coincidentally, the sun doesnt shine in these circular regions over the poles for that time. Thus: no ozone is created, and lack of sunlight negates the need for it in the first place.
As far as nuclear power, I disagree. Fission is a very poor way to convert nuclear energy to heat. It has dangerous, toxic, long-lived contaminants that are extremely difficult to dispose of. France, Germany and Japan have no choice.
Or mabye theyre just a bit more intelligent than us. Also, nuclear reactors do not produce any 'toxic' substances. And they dont leak radiation into the background either.
German, Japan and France use breeding reactors which recycle the spent nuclear fuel. We dont, due to laws passed during the Carter administration.
Japan had a incident about a year ago...someone mismeasured reactants, and a small explosion and release of material occurred in neighborhood around a processing plant. Hold your nose!!
The incident you refer to did NOT involve an explosion, nor leakage to the surrounding areas. The workers in the immediate vicinity did get a rather nasty dose of radiation though..
It was hard growing up with an HP48 in a TI school. People would ask to borrow my calculator, and I'd have to ask them if they knew how to use it. This resulted in an indignant reply.. followed by 5 minutes of punching random buttons on my HP 48-GX. stupids:)
Another disturbing thing.. the math teacher (calculus) would draw up a problem on the board - tell the class to enter it into their TI-85's, and hit 'poly solv'
We dont need no steeenkin polysolv!
I had to learn differentiation on my own.. sheesh. whats these schools coming to.:)
Re:And what infrastructure are you looking for?
on
Space Tourism
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· Score: 1
The space station we have up right now? pfft:) I seem to recall some science fiction author commenting on the ISS - saying that we should have 20 of them up there by now.
So why does nobody want to get them? Because if there were pure gold to be scooped up in Low Earth Orbit a Space Shuttle flight that filled it's cargo bay with the stuff would lose money.
A bucket of dirt in low earth orbit would be worth as much as a bucket of gold on the ground - because thats how much it would cost to put it up there!. heh. I do believe that there are more efficient ways than the space shuttle for heavy lifting - so it doesnt necessarily have to cost that much for payload weight. Btw, taking material DOWN from orbit would seem just insane. Not to mention landing an orbiter with a full cargo bay of gold.. hehe.
Even if space tourism has the potential to get people interested in space travel, i think its an awfully expensive way to do it:/
Re:Pioneers, NOT tourists!
on
Space Tourism
·
· Score: 1
say tesserae, send me a mail if youd like to ramble about possible 'space infrastructure building strategies':)
irondragon@gci.net
Pioneers, NOT tourists!
on
Space Tourism
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· Score: 3
This will never get anywhere. Oogling at the earth from 50 miles up will not accomplish any long term goals.
There is a commonly held belief that space travel will always be expensive. This doesnt have to be the case. If there existed a space infrastructure, you could reduce the complexity of the launch vehicle to the point where its _only_ carrying up the human cargo. Food, oxygen, and etcetra could be availible in orbit. Rocket fuel costs a bit less than milk per gallon. It wont always be prohibitvely expensive to get into orbit.
What we really need is to establish an industrial infrastructure in space. This means mining the moon and Near Earth Asteroids. The vehicles, equipment, and perhaps even the crew for further projects out in space will need to come from a lunar base, or something similar.
Some possible benefits of space-based manufacturing:
- Satellite launches will cost thosands of times less.
- Satellites can be much larger, since the weight constraints from our gravity well are no longer a limiting factor.
- The moon and metallic asteroids are incredibly rich in minerals. Some of the Apollo samples were 6% platinum. Another compound found on the moon is Illmenite - TiFeO2.
Launching from the earth is an extremely wasteful venture. Even more wasteful if we spend it on 'tourist' missions. I seriously dont think that the cost of putting people into orbital joyrides will turn enough profit to fund an infrastructure-building mission. Mabye, but is that their intention? Or is the next project a 'space hotel', virtual reality mars tour, or somethig equally pointless?
I fear that someday we will reach a point where socioecononmic factors, public interest, and earth-based resources reach a point where large missions involving human launches would become an impossibility for public and private enterprise, left only to NASA or the ESA.
>>Just one question? are you suggesting that internet access is a right? What kind of person would think that?
Having the right to something doesnt mean its going to be given to you. If Internet access wasn't a right, then it would be a privledge. and who would hold the key?
Specifically, the 20-30 crowd who grew up playing nintendo||sega and eventually the psx and N64. Looking back, a lot of those games just arent as fun anymore:/
Besides the obvious advantages of 100MB ethernet, keyboard/mouse, mp3 jukebox, and DVD player, the indrema will likely have a wider variety of game developers. These factors give the indrema real utility and function. Thats what I want:)
So, the Indrema may be the BOFH console of choice.
Back to the statement about old games not being any fun anymore.. lots of them were, but they were usually deficient in many other areas - storyline, graphics, gameplay, etc. This may partially be due to the oligopoly of game developers for the previous platforms, and making games that would appeal to the widest market segment. Since the licensing is very low compared to the other competing boxes, there would be less resistance for developers to create any sort of games for the Indrema. Thus, we should see a wider variety of games, ranging from mindless shooters to huge in-depth RPG adventures. A game wont have to sell a million copies to be successful. Even if this means that there may be a bunch of crap games, there would still be a high volume, and it would generally give a wider variety of games more suited to various game-style niches.
Another exciting concept.. release games with an SDK as common practice, then watch the users create new levels and additions to the game:)
This could be the 'hole hawg' of gaming consoles:) (see http://www-classic.be.com/users/cryptonomicon/begi nning_print.html for the reference)
pencil tips break. On earth, this isnt that big of a deal, but in space, these things could cause problems. Graphite dust or pencil tips getting sucked into the computers.. or facing the threat of getting a piece of it lodged in your eye or throat.
Admittedly, it may not be the most cost-effective thing in the world, but NASA doesnt like to take chances with its people.
Slashdot Mirror
One other problem with this, is that the ISS is in a 59 degree orbital inclination. To put it in perspective, If you had a highway running between Earth and the Hubble, the ISS would be on a dusty backroad about 300 miles long.
I'm not sure what the hubble's orbit is, but the amount of fuel required to reposition it would probably be more than you could carry on three shuttle trips. In other words, why bother?
I wouldnt trust installing a package made for another distro like that.
KDE3 is "pretty good" at the moment, but gnome2 will need more than a month to get fully cleaned up. KDE3 isnt vastly different from KDE2, aside from being a bit faster, better fonts, and having a few more features. Most of the work between KDE2 and KDE3 was porting the codebase to the new QT3 library.
I think that leaving it at KDE2.2 and Gnome 1.4 is a wise choice for now.
My recent builds of kde3 are looking rather nice. Everything runs smooth, the fonts look good, and a lot of older bugs no longer show up.
:)
Whats the problem here?
I dont think anybody would bother stealing these.. rather just knock the person off and break IT in half. Good laughs all around.
Mean People are out in force.
more like 600 million for each shuttle launch. Then threres the overhead for each launch which takes up another 300 million.
Storey Musgrave (astronaut extrordinaire) once remarked that the shuttle didnt launch, until NASA had completed enough paperwork that it could create a stack as tall as the orbiter itself (in the vertical launch position.
They dont install the telnet-server by default. Mandrake has a good number of security minded people working for it. Their early inclusion of xinetd, bastille, portsentry, proftpd, opensshd, and tripwire make this evident.
As for the lack of devel packages, clicking the 'devel' group during install will add all of that. Of course, you can always manually go around with rpm and install them manually. I use the mandrake cooker anyways, which is the 'bleeding edge' edition. Much more up to date and a wonderful development platform.
Only one digit actually.. I screwed up with the $2000. According to the paper which I originally got the figure from, it was $13,000. Thats still not too bad. Although, bear in mind that the V2 rocket has little to do with an orbit-capable space vehicle, but it is worthy to note that they mass-produced these for only 13K each, and produced nearly 800 rockets per month. While costing $13,000 per rocket, its also interesting to note that the V2 weighted 13,000 Kg at launch time. Given a 1000 Kg warhead, The V2 could put a package up 40 miles, at 1/10th orbital velocity (16,500 mph i believe) So basically, the Nazis spent about $13 for each Kg of explosives they lobbed over the English Channel.
n ge ance_weapons_v1_v2.htm
To make a point here, economies of scale apply to rocket launches too. The volume of launches is what drives down costs.
the article as at http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html
http://www.dera.gov.uk/html/whoweare/history/ve
Theres a good picture here showing the relative size of the V2
Re: Burden of proof
Astute of you to catch that. Even though your reply had little relevance to my original topic, which was along the lines of 'public involvement will be a key factor in driving space development'
As for information, you may find http://www.permanent.com to have a lot of interesting ideas. Specifically on the matters of a lunar colonization expidition.
Unfortunatly, due to my pithy organic brain, I cannot recall _every_ source ive read on the subject of physiological aspects of space travel. The information is, however, readily accessible by a quick websearch.
zero-g smelting, orbiting ecologies, and asteroidal mining tools however, only exist as ideas on paper at this point. I cant say with any guarantee that space colonization will be practical within the next few years, but other people may be able to answer that. Thus, I feel an urge to interest people in space travel - which will drive the development of the anwsers to the questions which you recently asked.
Ill follow up more info by email.
Well, I believe that the establishment of space-based manufacturing capabilites are a vital step in the eventual creation of self-sufficient offworld colonies. However, I didnt feel it necessary to explain all of my ideas on colonzation during my initial post.
who are you to say? Can I see your sources please? There is a good deal of information about the possiblities for living and working in space, although its somewhat difficult to find them all from one source.
There is a lot we have yet to research in order to undertake a _real_ colonization effort (4 astronauts in a space-tent doesnt count). That sort of knowledge wont just materialize from nothing. If there was a way, I would help promote a drive for public space access. It doesnt do any good to cheer on, while sitting on the couch.
*nod* I agree with that, and I hope the planners on
Well, its not a matter of needing it or not. One could ponder if we need to read comic books or get ice cream every time we feel like it.
There are however, a lot of people who would want to go into space, for a variety of reasons. Yet, I feel that the public at large is paralyzed by their notion of the cost and complexity of space travel. I personally think that the perception of space access being unattainable by 'us mortals' is a myth which needs to be rectified.
Yes, it is expensive. No, we wont be flying to Mars tomorrow. But, unless we change our way of thinking about space travel, its either going to be 5 years, or 5 million years before an Earthling sets foot on an another planet. And im getting tired of waiting.
To briefly state my opinions..
I believe that large scale public involvement will ultimatly be the greatest force behind the drive for space colonization.
As well, I believe the most important thing to focus on in the near-term would be the establishment of space-based industrial infrastructure. That is, mining the Moon and near-earth asteroids, and manufacturing space station components, lunar habitats, and space vehicles. If we can produce everything we need from space, then we can eliminate most of the launches that currently take place. After that, all we need to send up are people.
Space travel is not exotic. It shouldnt have to be so expensive that only multinationals and major governments can afford it. Rocket fuel costs about as much as milk. The suborbital V2-rocket produced by the Germans during WW2 only cost about 2000$ each. Space will not always be so expensive to reach. The sooner we can collectively realize this, the faster we can make inroads into space access. Thanks to economies of scale, we can either send 4 people to mars, or 40,000 people within the same timeframe. And most importantly, you could be one of those 40,000. Space can be had by the common public. We don't need to wait on new technological developments, and we dont need the support of a government agency. We just need pioneers.
I live in Valdez, Alaska.
Im not going to launch into a long well-thought out tirade about the many misconceptions surrounding oil shipping, Valdez, a particular Exxon tanker, and environmental nutballs; im too tired for that. I will state some interesting information though.
- approx 11 million gallons of crude oil were spilled. This was 1/5th of the cargo.
- a record fishing run was reported the _next_ year, in the same area of the spill.
- each sea otter rescued and returned to the wild was done for a cost of about $80,000 each. (The release of the first two sea otters was marked with much fanfare. The otters were eaten by killer whales not far off shore.) About 200 otters were released back into the wild. Otter populations returned to normal within 3 years.
- Alaska supplies about 1/4 of the oil consumed by the US.
- When people talk about 'drilling in alaska', they reveal their lack of education. The proposed drilling site is in a region called ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Preserve) The northern half of ANWR looks like the planet 'Hoth' from "Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back" Except, there is no rebel base or Taun-Tauns. Not even vegetation up there. This place is desolate. ANWR covers a good chunk of Alaska. The area designated as suitable for drilling is about the size of Dulles Airport in Virginia.
- North slope oil production from Prudhoe Bay is declining. It would take about a decade to turn ANWR into a prodcutive oil field. As much as I would hate to see gas prices jump about 5$/gal, the sadist in me would love to see all the SUV's stranded on the road, cities burning, and wholesale persecution of environmental extremists.
I do wish for a clean environment with industry conducted in a safe and unobtrusive manner. The 'final solutions' proposed by the likes of greenpeace, earth first, and others similarly uneducated yet greatly motivated people, are destructive to business, degrading to humans, and in a number of ways, damaging to the environment.
I support scientific investigations and solutions to environmental problems.
A boot to the face of 'eco-warriors' for all I care.
Not to mention...
Im not sure if anybody has notices this, but sunlight plays a major role in ozone production. If you go far (north|south) enough, you wont see the sun during the entire winter. In the summer, the sun will just go around in a circle in the sky, or stay up for 20+ hours at a time.
The ozone thinning for the north and south poles occur during their respective winters. Coincidentally, the sun doesnt shine in these circular regions over the poles for that time. Thus: no ozone is created, and lack of sunlight negates the need for it in the first place.
"Are we learning yet?"
Or mabye theyre just a bit more intelligent than us. Also, nuclear reactors do not produce any 'toxic' substances. And they dont leak radiation into the background either.
German, Japan and France use breeding reactors which recycle the spent nuclear fuel. We dont, due to laws passed during the Carter administration.
The incident you refer to did NOT involve an explosion, nor leakage to the surrounding areas. The workers in the immediate vicinity did get a rather nasty dose of radiation though..
It was hard growing up with an HP48 in a TI school. People would ask to borrow my calculator, and I'd have to ask them if they knew how to use it. This resulted in an indignant reply.. followed by 5 minutes of punching random buttons on my HP 48-GX. stupids :)
:)
Another disturbing thing.. the math teacher (calculus) would draw up a problem on the board - tell the class to enter it into their TI-85's, and hit 'poly solv'
We dont need no steeenkin polysolv!
I had to learn differentiation on my own.. sheesh. whats these schools coming to.
A bucket of dirt in low earth orbit would be worth as much as a bucket of gold on the ground - because thats how much it would cost to put it up there!. heh. I do believe that there are more efficient ways than the space shuttle for heavy lifting - so it doesnt necessarily have to cost that much for payload weight. Btw, taking material DOWN from orbit would seem just insane. Not to mention landing an orbiter with a full cargo bay of gold.. hehe.
Even if space tourism has the potential to get people interested in space travel, i think its an awfully expensive way to do it
say tesserae, send me a mail if youd like to ramble about possible 'space infrastructure building strategies' :)
irondragon@gci.net
This will never get anywhere. Oogling at the earth from 50 miles up will not accomplish any long term goals.
There is a commonly held belief that space travel will always be expensive. This doesnt have to be the case. If there existed a space infrastructure, you could reduce the complexity of the launch vehicle to the point where its _only_ carrying up the human cargo. Food, oxygen, and etcetra could be availible in orbit. Rocket fuel costs a bit less than milk per gallon. It wont always be prohibitvely expensive to get into orbit.
What we really need is to establish an industrial infrastructure in space. This means mining the moon and Near Earth Asteroids. The vehicles, equipment, and perhaps even the crew for further projects out in space will need to come from a lunar base, or something similar.
Some possible benefits of space-based manufacturing:
- Satellite launches will cost thosands of times less.
- Satellites can be much larger, since the weight constraints from our gravity well are no longer a limiting factor.
- The moon and metallic asteroids are incredibly rich in minerals. Some of the Apollo samples were 6% platinum. Another compound found on the moon is Illmenite - TiFeO2.
Launching from the earth is an extremely wasteful venture. Even more wasteful if we spend it on 'tourist' missions. I seriously dont think that the cost of putting people into orbital joyrides will turn enough profit to fund an infrastructure-building mission. Mabye, but is that their intention? Or is the next project a 'space hotel', virtual reality mars tour, or somethig equally pointless?
I fear that someday we will reach a point where socioecononmic factors, public interest, and earth-based resources reach a point where large missions involving human launches would become an impossibility for public and private enterprise, left only to NASA or the ESA.
:/
wouldnt you just love for these to be in the hands of the police or teenage vandals?
...
>>Just one question? are you suggesting that internet access is a right? What kind of person would think that?
Having the right to something doesnt mean its going to be given to you. If Internet access wasn't a right, then it would be a privledge. and who would hold the key?
Geeks.
:/
:)
:)
:) (see http://www-classic.be.com/users/cryptonomicon/begi nning_print.html for the reference)
Specifically, the 20-30 crowd who grew up playing nintendo||sega and eventually the psx and N64. Looking back, a lot of those games just arent as fun anymore
Besides the obvious advantages of 100MB ethernet, keyboard/mouse, mp3 jukebox, and DVD player, the indrema will likely have a wider variety of game developers. These factors give the indrema real utility and function. Thats what I want
So, the Indrema may be the BOFH console of choice.
Back to the statement about old games not being any fun anymore.. lots of them were, but they were usually deficient in many other areas - storyline, graphics, gameplay, etc. This may partially be due to the oligopoly of game developers for the previous platforms, and making games that would appeal to the widest market segment. Since the licensing is very low compared to the other competing boxes, there would be less resistance for developers to create any sort of games for the Indrema. Thus, we should see a wider variety of games, ranging from mindless shooters to huge in-depth RPG adventures. A game wont have to sell a million copies to be successful. Even if this means that there may be a bunch of crap games, there would still be a high volume, and it would generally give a wider variety of games more suited to various game-style niches.
Another exciting concept.. release games with an SDK as common practice, then watch the users create new levels and additions to the game
This could be the 'hole hawg' of gaming consoles
Ha
Ha
HAa
Huaah
HA
HA
ha
HA
(it ruled)
pencil tips break. On earth, this isnt that big of a deal, but in space, these things could cause problems. Graphite dust or pencil tips getting sucked into the computers.. or facing the threat of getting a piece of it lodged in your eye or throat.
Admittedly, it may not be the most cost-effective thing in the world, but NASA doesnt like to take chances with its people.