Supplies for colonization? Like, say, an atmosphere? How exactly do we bring that?
Land near an area of frozen water previously mapped out by probes. Use power generated from a small nuclear reactor to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. Dump the H2, breathe the O2. The other possibility is inflated domes with hydroponic agriculture of plants that regenerate oxygen from CO2. And, no, we won't be terraforming the planet for another few centuries but we've got to start somewhere.
The article mentions the same company has developed a vaccine that makes nicotine ineffective. Googling it, it looks like it's being "fast tracked" and will be FDA-approved in 2008-9. How long before a smoking vaccine is mandated by companies, schools, and governments looking to reduce healthcare costs? How long before vaccines are developed against other drugs? Personally, I *like* some chemical substances that give me pleasure (mostly weed, cigs, and coffee). I don't overuse them. I can understand abusers wanting to quit, but I'd hate to see drug vaccines be mandated even for people who may use occasionally.
The only way humans are going to stay on Mars for any period of time is if that stay is prepared by a fleet of robotic probes
I'm not against that idea, BTW - I'm just saying that a Mars mission shouldn't be a "tag and run" type affair. But we should start sending the probes soon (like now) to prepare for colonization 15 years from now.
Require Science Fiction reading in HS...lots of it.
Actually, abolish part of HS altogether[1]. If you have decent grades and the required courses, allow applications to state universities as a junior in HS (age 16 or 17). They're talking about making the engineering curriculum 5 years or the equivalent in the US (NCEES model law for professional engineer certification). If you're going to graduate at age 23, this won't encourage very many people to take up engineering. Thus the earlier start date, especially because a lot of college is a repetition of high school.
-b.
[1]- Public HS is more focussed on sports and rote lock-step techniques than true learning.
The probelm is funding. The feds don't want to put any money into space. If we took the budget we have put into the Iraq war 8 years ago, a moon base would already be under construction and ready to be completed in 5-10 years. Like I said, the technology has been around. The FUNDING has not.
And I bet that fewer people would die colonizing the moon than have died in the Iraqi war since 2003.
And I, for one, would volunteer to send you there!
Thanks! We need more competent navigators and drive system engineers. Please send me your resume - do you have experience in hydroponic agriculture as well? It ought to be an interesting trip.
there's very little we can do [on Mars] of consequence other than bang on rocks and report back how sparkly the insides are.
We send humans *one way* to Mars with supplies for colonisation. Keep sending a ship every year or even more often. Some of the colonists won't survive. Others will - anyway, they'll be too busy creating another world to worry about being bored. All volunteers, of course, with the full understanding that their undertaking will be a dangerous one. The current modus operandi of "tagging" space, the moon, or Mars without plans to establish a permanent presence was appropriate for the Cold War, not for today.
Once computer simulations reach a certain point, you can create a universe bigger and more entertaining than the real one.
Nah: it'll be limited by human conceptions of what the universe ought to be. I'll bet that the real universe has parts that are more interesting (and frightening) than we could have ever imagined them to be. And this won't change the fact that we'll be just as screwed if the Earth somehow gets rendered unfit for habitation.
Where a good starting point is to stop having to send people
People are much more versatile than robots, though. But I agree about stopping *sending* people. We need a viable colony in Earth orbit. Rotate the thing to create pseudo-gravity. Grow plants hydroponically using abundant solar energy. Figure out a way to shield the colony from the bulk of radiation (magnetic fields or just "safe rooms" surrounded by water tanks). Possibly even (gradually) selectively breed people to be more viable in space and less susceptable to the effects of low gravity and radiation.
Chances are, the Sun will become a red giant and destroy human life, before we colonize the galaxy. And even if
we get off this rock before that happens, the universe will eventually either experience heat death or collapse into a singularity; either one of which almost certainly ends all life.
Chances are that our bodies will deteriorate and we'll die sometime within the next century. Why should we prolong our lives by eating, drinking, and breathing? After all, it only delays the inevitable.
We have a few billion years before the universe collapses. We may only have a few hundred years before the Earth wears out, the way we're going.
A manned mission to Mars and settling Mars are two entirely different propositions; even if we managed to pull of dozens of manned landings on Mars, we'd still be far away from any sort of settlement.
Send a group of people (of both genders so as to make breeding possible) to Mars with enough supplies to live for a year or two. Encourage them to keep log and send the logs back to Earth by telemetry so we can learn from their mistakes if they don't make it. Keep sending ships at 6 mo. or a year's intervals. Some of the people will die. That's why we should send volunteers who fully understand the risks and are willing to make sacrifices for exploration and adventure. I for one would volunteer.
People built their own turntables, for the most part, to listen to Mozart and Wagner and (Richard) Strauss and perhaps Berio and Ligeti as I recall, not pop music which was beneath contempt; it was, after all, the product of multiple remixings from tape and there was no depth to bring out.
AFAIK, there was pop music ever since the early 1900s through the 1960s. It just wasn't called "rock" yet and most of it is forgotten today. Remember that Elvis started in the 50s. Perhaps it wasn't popular in your milieu, but it did exist and lots of people listened to it. And how many people really built their own "systems?" There was mass-market stuff then as now, and a lot of people bought it. Even now, there's a set of people who custom-builds audio equipment to listen to classical music.
Our problem is that we waste most of the power we generate. We can solve that by finding a new-fangled way to make the power, or we could just stop the waste. I vote for stopping the waste.
Remember that a small fraction of the world's people use the lion's share of the world's energy. As standards of living increase for *all* people, barring a catastrophic shrinkage in population, you'll be back to the same situation (or worse) pretty soon even if the industrialized world slashes consumption by 50% or more.
pressing matters on the homeworld, such as poverty, climate change, terrorism etc etc.
Poverty will always exist unless you're going for an initiative-less Sociality utopia. Alleviating poverty, as I said before, will actually worsen climate change in the absence of other factors. OTOH, developing new industries such as space explo. may very well boost the economy and reduce poverty.
Climate change: what's wrong with technological solutions? Is austerity really the answer that you want?
Terrorism: it isn't as large of a problem as you may think. What's going on in Iraq is insurrection against an invading force, not terrorism. However bad Hussein was, at least he was the Iraqis' *own* dictator, not an interloper. As far as terrorism against the US, it has killed less than 3,000 people domestically since 1990. When you compare it to other causes of death and injury, this statistic seems tiny. But, yes, we need to stop financing the funders of terrorists and radical Islam. If building solar panels in space can help us stop buying oil from them without destroying our environment, then let's go!
we've been pretty much as far as we can feasibly go.
Maybe with normal chemical-propulsion rockets this is true. I suspect that we could get a manned mission quite a bit further with nuclear-fission powered drives. But, no, the enviro-fascists would never allow something like that to be launched from Earth. A possible solution would be to build the reactor in space. Launch the fuel into space in basically impervious ceramic casings and then fuel the reactor in a safe, high Earth orbit. Even have emergency boosters on the reactor portion itself that'll launch it far out of Earth orbit and toward the sun if something really screwy happened. There'll be *no* chance of Tchernobyl raining down on our heads then.
If they really want to ignite interest, let regular folk go to space. For the last 50 years, only the most perfect people have been given the chance to go. It's our turn...
Mod parent up insightful!
That's what private companies based in places with more relaxed views of liability like India and Brazil are going to be for. If you die in space - too bad - you signs the contract, you takes the risk. And that's the only way to look at exploring a dangerous place. We (even NASA, though they do try) can't hope to achieve perfect safety. Nor could the sailors that sent out ships to explore the world in the 15th century.
BTW- the people who'll ultimately end up working in space may very well not be "model citizens" nor "perfect." They'll be the same people who have gravitated towards any "frontier" - those who are either too restless for the old society or running from something in it.
Do you honestly believe that any of that is ever going to end?
And space explo. may provide technological solutions to these problems either deliberately or accidentally. Of course, it will raise new environmental problems, no doubt, but that's the way that things work.
sending astronauts into orbit to solve exactly none of these potentially life-threatening problems?
Orbiting solar power stations beaming power down to a station in an unpopulated area using microwaves have been proposed. So have orbiting mirrors to reflect some sunlight and possible combat global warming. This isn't even mentioning moving some mineral mining operations off the planet (moon or asteroid belt) given a cheap (nuclear?) energy source so that the Earth doesn't get polluted and scraped clean by them.
Who will do this stuff in space?
(a) Santa Claus
(b) Aliens with mind control implants raised from birth in Area 51
(c) Astronauts
(d) Earthbound "environmentalists"
The more we learn about space, the more we realise that it is extremely empty and boring.
Should mankind put its eggs in one basket, though? The way things are going with population increase and everyone wanting to live an industrialized lifestyle, the Earth will eventually wear out. Not to mention the threat of nuke war, an asteroid strike, or even something totally unforeseen. Being spread out throughout the Solar System will certainly help assure our survival. As will moving some mining and the messiest industrial processes off-planet.
If you had read the IEE Wiring Regulations you would know that the ring design is more than capable of dealing with a cable break without overloading.
Maybe now. Not as originally implemented - the original purpose of the "ring" design was to save copper and wires *were* made lighter than for a single run. And you can't deny that British circuits are fused at a much higher power than US circuits - you have 30A at 240V, with outlets being fused at 13A. In the US, entire circuits are generally fused at 15 or 20A at 125V.
Perhaps it would be shocking to find that your comment did nothing to make me like you more or hate you less.
Who are "you" and why are you hiding behind an Anon. Coward profile? Oh wait, you're a troll. Go back under your bridge, boy. Some of us want to be able to eat without viewing your ugly mug.
Nearly every powerblock I've ever had is either 12 volts or 6. Very rarely (e.g. on my printer and laptop) they are higher than 12v.
Actually, Thinkpad and other laptop supplies seem to be in the 16-19V range. Remember that you need a higher voltage than the battery's output to reliably charge the battery. So you'd need 48V or a step-up switching power supply from 12V and you'd have to essentially carry the power supply in the laptop.
Also there's a whole bunch of stuff operating at 3 or 4.5VDC that's powered by 1.5V cells with optional AC power. CD players, ipods, digital cameras and the like. Unless the regulator is a more expensive switching type, stepping down from 12VDC will make the device less efficient, larger, and create heat inside of it.
From the article: 'Microsoft executives say the system works anonymously and they won't pass on people's names or addresses to advertisers.
Why, of course they won't pass *my* info onto advertisers. All they'll have to go on is an IP and maybe a name - it's not like I use my real address when applying for any free online services. I only use a real address and/or phone # if I actually want the people in question to contact me like if I'm buying a product online and want it to be shipped to me.
This is true to an extent, but the amount of power drawn in "zero load" conditions is quite small.
Of course power drawn changes with load, but I've understood no-load mains power draw to be at least 25% of max. power draw (at least in cheap wallwart type supplies).
Some energy is wasted as heat. IIRC, a typical iron-core transformer is around 85% efficient at 50/60 Hz line current.
Switch mode power supplies can be much more efficient
The other problem with *pure* switchers is that they're probably illegal in some applications. Got to have that means of isolation from the mains!
80/85% is a bit deceptive though. Normally, this is qualified as "at rated load." Deviate from that load either direction and efficiency drops significantly.
Just a minor point - circuit breakers are generally designed to fail off. When they wear out, they almost always turn off earlier than expected.
"Generally designed to" != real world behavior, sometimes. (Especially if you have a Federal Pacific aka NoBlow panel.) Not all breaker panels are new and some of the designs from the 50s to the 60s were fricken' abominable.
Slashdot Mirror
Land near an area of frozen water previously mapped out by probes. Use power generated from a small nuclear reactor to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. Dump the H2, breathe the O2. The other possibility is inflated domes with hydroponic agriculture of plants that regenerate oxygen from CO2. And, no, we won't be terraforming the planet for another few centuries but we've got to start somewhere.
-b.
-b.
I'm not against that idea, BTW - I'm just saying that a Mars mission shouldn't be a "tag and run" type affair. But we should start sending the probes soon (like now) to prepare for colonization 15 years from now.
-b.
Actually, abolish part of HS altogether[1]. If you have decent grades and the required courses, allow applications to state universities as a junior in HS (age 16 or 17). They're talking about making the engineering curriculum 5 years or the equivalent in the US (NCEES model law for professional engineer certification). If you're going to graduate at age 23, this won't encourage very many people to take up engineering. Thus the earlier start date, especially because a lot of college is a repetition of high school.
-b.
[1]- Public HS is more focussed on sports and rote lock-step techniques than true learning.
And I bet that fewer people would die colonizing the moon than have died in the Iraqi war since 2003.
-b.
Thanks! We need more competent navigators and drive system engineers. Please send me your resume - do you have experience in hydroponic agriculture as well? It ought to be an interesting trip.
-b.
We send humans *one way* to Mars with supplies for colonisation. Keep sending a ship every year or even more often. Some of the colonists won't survive. Others will - anyway, they'll be too busy creating another world to worry about being bored. All volunteers, of course, with the full understanding that their undertaking will be a dangerous one. The current modus operandi of "tagging" space, the moon, or Mars without plans to establish a permanent presence was appropriate for the Cold War, not for today.
-b.
Nah: it'll be limited by human conceptions of what the universe ought to be. I'll bet that the real universe has parts that are more interesting (and frightening) than we could have ever imagined them to be. And this won't change the fact that we'll be just as screwed if the Earth somehow gets rendered unfit for habitation.
-b.
People are much more versatile than robots, though. But I agree about stopping *sending* people. We need a viable colony in Earth orbit. Rotate the thing to create pseudo-gravity. Grow plants hydroponically using abundant solar energy. Figure out a way to shield the colony from the bulk of radiation (magnetic fields or just "safe rooms" surrounded by water tanks). Possibly even (gradually) selectively breed people to be more viable in space and less susceptable to the effects of low gravity and radiation.
-b.
Chances are that our bodies will deteriorate and we'll die sometime within the next century. Why should we prolong our lives by eating, drinking, and breathing? After all, it only delays the inevitable.
We have a few billion years before the universe collapses. We may only have a few hundred years before the Earth wears out, the way we're going.
-b.
Send a group of people (of both genders so as to make breeding possible) to Mars with enough supplies to live for a year or two. Encourage them to keep log and send the logs back to Earth by telemetry so we can learn from their mistakes if they don't make it. Keep sending ships at 6 mo. or a year's intervals. Some of the people will die. That's why we should send volunteers who fully understand the risks and are willing to make sacrifices for exploration and adventure. I for one would volunteer.
-b.
AFAIK, there was pop music ever since the early 1900s through the 1960s. It just wasn't called "rock" yet and most of it is forgotten today. Remember that Elvis started in the 50s. Perhaps it wasn't popular in your milieu, but it did exist and lots of people listened to it. And how many people really built their own "systems?" There was mass-market stuff then as now, and a lot of people bought it. Even now, there's a set of people who custom-builds audio equipment to listen to classical music.
-b.
Remember that a small fraction of the world's people use the lion's share of the world's energy. As standards of living increase for *all* people, barring a catastrophic shrinkage in population, you'll be back to the same situation (or worse) pretty soon even if the industrialized world slashes consumption by 50% or more.
pressing matters on the homeworld, such as poverty, climate change, terrorism etc etc.
Poverty will always exist unless you're going for an initiative-less Sociality utopia. Alleviating poverty, as I said before, will actually worsen climate change in the absence of other factors. OTOH, developing new industries such as space explo. may very well boost the economy and reduce poverty.
Climate change: what's wrong with technological solutions? Is austerity really the answer that you want?
Terrorism: it isn't as large of a problem as you may think. What's going on in Iraq is insurrection against an invading force, not terrorism. However bad Hussein was, at least he was the Iraqis' *own* dictator, not an interloper. As far as terrorism against the US, it has killed less than 3,000 people domestically since 1990. When you compare it to other causes of death and injury, this statistic seems tiny. But, yes, we need to stop financing the funders of terrorists and radical Islam. If building solar panels in space can help us stop buying oil from them without destroying our environment, then let's go!
-b.
Maybe with normal chemical-propulsion rockets this is true. I suspect that we could get a manned mission quite a bit further with nuclear-fission powered drives. But, no, the enviro-fascists would never allow something like that to be launched from Earth. A possible solution would be to build the reactor in space. Launch the fuel into space in basically impervious ceramic casings and then fuel the reactor in a safe, high Earth orbit. Even have emergency boosters on the reactor portion itself that'll launch it far out of Earth orbit and toward the sun if something really screwy happened. There'll be *no* chance of Tchernobyl raining down on our heads then.
-b.
Mod parent up insightful!
That's what private companies based in places with more relaxed views of liability like India and Brazil are going to be for. If you die in space - too bad - you signs the contract, you takes the risk. And that's the only way to look at exploring a dangerous place. We (even NASA, though they do try) can't hope to achieve perfect safety. Nor could the sailors that sent out ships to explore the world in the 15th century.
BTW- the people who'll ultimately end up working in space may very well not be "model citizens" nor "perfect." They'll be the same people who have gravitated towards any "frontier" - those who are either too restless for the old society or running from something in it.
-b.
And space explo. may provide technological solutions to these problems either deliberately or accidentally. Of course, it will raise new environmental problems, no doubt, but that's the way that things work.
-b.
Orbiting solar power stations beaming power down to a station in an unpopulated area using microwaves have been proposed. So have orbiting mirrors to reflect some sunlight and possible combat global warming. This isn't even mentioning moving some mineral mining operations off the planet (moon or asteroid belt) given a cheap (nuclear?) energy source so that the Earth doesn't get polluted and scraped clean by them.
Who will do this stuff in space?
(a) Santa Claus
(b) Aliens with mind control implants raised from birth in Area 51
(c) Astronauts
(d) Earthbound "environmentalists"
-b.
Should mankind put its eggs in one basket, though? The way things are going with population increase and everyone wanting to live an industrialized lifestyle, the Earth will eventually wear out. Not to mention the threat of nuke war, an asteroid strike, or even something totally unforeseen. Being spread out throughout the Solar System will certainly help assure our survival. As will moving some mining and the messiest industrial processes off-planet.
-b.
Maybe now. Not as originally implemented - the original purpose of the "ring" design was to save copper and wires *were* made lighter than for a single run. And you can't deny that British circuits are fused at a much higher power than US circuits - you have 30A at 240V, with outlets being fused at 13A. In the US, entire circuits are generally fused at 15 or 20A at 125V.
-b.
Who are "you" and why are you hiding behind an Anon. Coward profile? Oh wait, you're a troll. Go back under your bridge, boy. Some of us want to be able to eat without viewing your ugly mug.
-b.
Not really that shocking, nor confined to Philly. NYC had wooden piping as late as the early 90s. Possibly even today.
-b.
Actually, Thinkpad and other laptop supplies seem to be in the 16-19V range. Remember that you need a higher voltage than the battery's output to reliably charge the battery. So you'd need 48V or a step-up switching power supply from 12V and you'd have to essentially carry the power supply in the laptop.
Also there's a whole bunch of stuff operating at 3 or 4.5VDC that's powered by 1.5V cells with optional AC power. CD players, ipods, digital cameras and the like. Unless the regulator is a more expensive switching type, stepping down from 12VDC will make the device less efficient, larger, and create heat inside of it.
-b.
Why, of course they won't pass *my* info onto advertisers. All they'll have to go on is an IP and maybe a name - it's not like I use my real address when applying for any free online services. I only use a real address and/or phone # if I actually want the people in question to contact me like if I'm buying a product online and want it to be shipped to me.
-b.
Of course power drawn changes with load, but I've understood no-load mains power draw to be at least 25% of max. power draw (at least in cheap wallwart type supplies).
Some energy is wasted as heat. IIRC, a typical iron-core transformer is around 85% efficient at 50/60 Hz line current.
Switch mode power supplies can be much more efficient
The other problem with *pure* switchers is that they're probably illegal in some applications. Got to have that means of isolation from the mains!
80/85% is a bit deceptive though. Normally, this is qualified as "at rated load." Deviate from that load either direction and efficiency drops significantly.
"Generally designed to" != real world behavior, sometimes. (Especially if you have a Federal Pacific aka NoBlow panel.) Not all breaker panels are new and some of the designs from the 50s to the 60s were fricken' abominable.
-b.