Also, by how much is the "machine learning, neural network" approach better than simpler approaches? There's no point in shooting machine learning bullets at things that can be analyzed with much simpler means to a similar degree of sensitivity and specificity.
We could try putting a reactor together on Earth. We don't have long-term experience with molten salt reactors.
Additionally, these reactors require lots of supporting technology, especially fuel reprocessing if they are to run continuously (not a problem in a nuclear powered long-range bomber application, but definitely something to consider in an extraterrestrial colony). And while a thorium fission reactor doesn't create as many actinides as an uranium- or plutonium-fueled on, it creates about the same amount of fission products that need to be removed from the fuel and stored someplace where they don't negatively affect the colonists.
And sources of thorium would still have to be found, mined (beginning on a very small scale) and processed, whereas a deuterium extraction step can be added on to water/ice mining.
OK, so our two options are either a "fully self-sufficient, Earth-goes-pop-and-noone-notices" colony, or nothing at all? Can anyone say "false dilemma fallacy"?
It's not a false dilemma. A colony that does not eventually reach the point of self-sufficiency is a dead-end outpost. A colony that has to wait six months for critical equipment to arrive from Earth is a death trap. So is a colony without either sufficient evacuation capacity or tons of redundancy if anything goes wrong. And I doubt it is feasible to provide evacuation capacity for more than just a handful of people.
Sure, we could probably send a few people for a picnic and some digging to Mars. But staying there for years, or decades, requires more technology. Once on Mars, you're months away from either returning to Earth or receiving anything from Earth. Just consider medical issues that can probably wait a few days, or even weeks, but not months or years, for example
Also, if the launch vehicle doesn't have to carry all the fuel, it can carry more useful payload instead - which drives down launch costs.
Just imagine being able to swap seven tons of rocket fuel for seven tons of additional cargo on something like a Soyuz rocket. That's double the payload. If the launch costs stay the same, you have just halved your relative launch costs.
The rocket's efficiency can be measured in dollars and the fuel is cheap - only 1% or 2% of the cost of a launch is due to fuel.
You also need a launch vehicle that can carry and burn all the fuel. You basically need to buy the biggest rocket engines for the part of the trip that only lasts a few minutes.
It's kinda like mounting a jet engine on your car to move it from your garage down your driveway and onto the street, where you switch to a regular internal combustion engine.
If it was that simple the Manhatten Project would probably have happened in 1850.
Well, with the right mix of isotopes, nuclear reactors just happen without human effort, see Oklo. We're about a billion years beyond that stage in this star system, though.
So you can prove that Mars has an adequate supply of minable fissionable material and have a plan for extracting and processing it into reactor fuel? I'm sure NASA or some similar agency would like to hear it.
Chemical engineering, life support, genetic engineering, etc; not necessary.
So if the colonists need a certain drug, fertilizer or other chemical from Earth, they'll have to wait at least six months for the next supply ship to arrive? I sure hope it's not urgent.
Build a dome.
A dome, as in one? Built with materials brought from Earth? And if it breaks, then everyone dies (or has to pack up and evacuate in a hurry), because they have no way of constructing more domes without having to rely on shipments from Earth?
We actually know how to do that part.
We don't, really.
We already have a sampling of plants which will grow in the martian regolith, even food plants which are edible.
We have a sampling of plants we believe will grow in Martian regolith. We have no idea of how this will work in the long run, which extra chemicals will be necessary to keep the plants growing, which diseases they might develop, and whether they will be actually edible (hexavalent chromium, anyone)?
And without flexible chemical synthesis and manufacturing, the colonists will have to wait months for a solution to be shipped in from Earth, or evacuate the colony, or die.
A colony that isn't capable of self-sufficiency and growth is a dead-end outpost.
We need to launch from space to eliminate all the massive amounts of energy to leave Earth gravity.
No. First we need a way to get stuff into orbit (and possibly beyond) that does not require the vehicle to transport all of the reaction mass and fuel necesary for this step.
Once that is accomplished, we can think about setting up infrastructure away from Earth, including infrastructure for further launches.
The only way to skip this first step is developing infrastructure capable of sustained growth (this includes self-replication) that can be launched with a system of about the size of a Saturn V. However, I think better launch systems are easier to develop.
They've been gutting the shit out the the UK armed forces for years and years and years now, it's now a shadow of its former self and we still haven't been invaded or anything,
That's just because Germany gutted its armed forces even harder.
No, not willfully blind. I have excluded fission after careful technical consideration. Nuclear fission requires very specific resources that may cost more energy to acquire and process on an extraterrestrial settlement that the amount that can be gained from them as fuel.
And a colony that depends on regular shipments of fuel from Earth fails one of the very basic criteria of self-sufficiency. It is an option during the ramp-up phase to self-sufficiency.
To be more precise: The technology needed is at least D-D fusion. Deuterium should be common enough on most celestial bodies (especially those farther away from the Sun than Earth) that self-sufficient energy supply is possible.
We are still lacking the technology for establishing even a somewhat self-sufficient colony on any celestial body.
Here's the short list:
Power. Except for the moon, Venus and Mercury, where solar power may be feasible, I don't see any option other than nuclear fusion for sustainably fulfilling a colony's power needs.
Flexible, small scale chemical engineering. We need a way to synthesize almost arbitrary chemical compounds out of simple precursors. Basically, a machine that will produce a spoonful of sugar out of CO2, H2O and power. Or one does of acetaminophen out of H2O, CO2 and NH3.
Flexible, small scale manufacturing. We need to reduce the size of the smallest manufacturing unit that is capable of producing a copy of itself as well as producing other useful outputs.
Medical technology. We need better ways of easily diagnosing and treating a number of diseases, especially cancer (which will be a problem on any extraterrestrial colony).
Launch-to-orbit technologies. Especially ones that don't involve the vehicle having to contain all of the fuel and reaction mass necessary to reach orbit.
Life-support and maintenance. The colony needs to remain habitable for decades or centuries, unlike our current and past space stations that were simply de-orbited when they became too dirty.
Easy and flexible genetic engineering of microorganisms, plants and possibly animals, to adapt them to the colonys needs.
If time didn't exist, then there was no time for a god to create the universe.
Deities have to be timeless - at least I won't settle for anything less. If an entity has apparent super powers, but is still subject to the passage of time (and thereby to the second law of thermodynamics), it is merely technologically more advanced.
Time, to a deity, has as much meaning as page numbers in a book. Or CPU clock cycles to a programmer who is able to observe, preserve and set every single state of the machine, thereby being essentially able to "turn back time" from the CPUs point of view.
Proof of divine power is as simple as showing a perpetuum mobile (preferably first or second kind, but I'll settle for third kind).
If you can build a dyson sphere, you can probably move to a quiet neighborhood before building.
I would assume that moving an entire star by a meaningful distance requires even more advanced civilizations than building a Dyson sphere (which "only" requires moving several planets worth of matter).
If you have all that energy, and some way to store large parts of it, you can shoot down all the stuff that is coming your way.
It will be hard to deal with debris of all sizes and velocities.
Building the "sphere" with a number of smaller, independent satellites would allow individual components of the sphere to move out of the way.
So essentially a civilization would not need to create a Dyson sphere. Only a fusion reactor like this one?
Using an artificial fusion reactor as an energy source is superior to a Dyson sphere in any scenario where you don't want to take an entire star with you.
Besides, a solid "sphere" would get smashed to bits by all the rocks, dirty snowballs and other debris that's also orbiting the star or just passing through its vicinity.
They expect to put a brain in a different skull and not have to deal with all kinds of reconnection issues? What about connecting the brain to the spinal cord? What about connecting the brain to its blood supply?
Slashdot Mirror
Also, by how much is the "machine learning, neural network" approach better than simpler approaches? There's no point in shooting machine learning bullets at things that can be analyzed with much simpler means to a similar degree of sensitivity and specificity.
We could try putting a reactor together on Earth. We don't have long-term experience with molten salt reactors.
Additionally, these reactors require lots of supporting technology, especially fuel reprocessing if they are to run continuously (not a problem in a nuclear powered long-range bomber application, but definitely something to consider in an extraterrestrial colony). And while a thorium fission reactor doesn't create as many actinides as an uranium- or plutonium-fueled on, it creates about the same amount of fission products that need to be removed from the fuel and stored someplace where they don't negatively affect the colonists.
And sources of thorium would still have to be found, mined (beginning on a very small scale) and processed, whereas a deuterium extraction step can be added on to water/ice mining.
It's not a false dilemma. A colony that does not eventually reach the point of self-sufficiency is a dead-end outpost. A colony that has to wait six months for critical equipment to arrive from Earth is a death trap. So is a colony without either sufficient evacuation capacity or tons of redundancy if anything goes wrong. And I doubt it is feasible to provide evacuation capacity for more than just a handful of people.
Sure, we could probably send a few people for a picnic and some digging to Mars. But staying there for years, or decades, requires more technology. Once on Mars, you're months away from either returning to Earth or receiving anything from Earth. Just consider medical issues that can probably wait a few days, or even weeks, but not months or years, for example
Just imagine being able to swap seven tons of rocket fuel for seven tons of additional cargo on something like a Soyuz rocket. That's double the payload. If the launch costs stay the same, you have just halved your relative launch costs.
You also need a launch vehicle that can carry and burn all the fuel. You basically need to buy the biggest rocket engines for the part of the trip that only lasts a few minutes.
It's kinda like mounting a jet engine on your car to move it from your garage down your driveway and onto the street, where you switch to a regular internal combustion engine.
Well, with the right mix of isotopes, nuclear reactors just happen without human effort, see Oklo. We're about a billion years beyond that stage in this star system, though.
So you can prove that Mars has an adequate supply of minable fissionable material and have a plan for extracting and processing it into reactor fuel? I'm sure NASA or some similar agency would like to hear it.
Chemical engineering, life support, genetic engineering, etc; not necessary.
So if the colonists need a certain drug, fertilizer or other chemical from Earth, they'll have to wait at least six months for the next supply ship to arrive? I sure hope it's not urgent.
Build a dome.
A dome, as in one? Built with materials brought from Earth? And if it breaks, then everyone dies (or has to pack up and evacuate in a hurry), because they have no way of constructing more domes without having to rely on shipments from Earth?
We actually know how to do that part.
We don't, really.
We already have a sampling of plants which will grow in the martian regolith, even food plants which are edible.
We have a sampling of plants we believe will grow in Martian regolith. We have no idea of how this will work in the long run, which extra chemicals will be necessary to keep the plants growing, which diseases they might develop, and whether they will be actually edible (hexavalent chromium, anyone)?
And without flexible chemical synthesis and manufacturing, the colonists will have to wait months for a solution to be shipped in from Earth, or evacuate the colony, or die.
A colony that isn't capable of self-sufficiency and growth is a dead-end outpost.
No. First we need a way to get stuff into orbit (and possibly beyond) that does not require the vehicle to transport all of the reaction mass and fuel necesary for this step.
Once that is accomplished, we can think about setting up infrastructure away from Earth, including infrastructure for further launches.
The only way to skip this first step is developing infrastructure capable of sustained growth (this includes self-replication) that can be launched with a system of about the size of a Saturn V. However, I think better launch systems are easier to develop.
That's just because Germany gutted its armed forces even harder.
*SCNR*
It doesn't even need to be a giant hole, just one big enough to allow the airflow to finish the destruction.
Design engineer here. I get paid for implementation, not for visions. I'd be really rich if it was the other way 'round.
No, not willfully blind. I have excluded fission after careful technical consideration. Nuclear fission requires very specific resources that may cost more energy to acquire and process on an extraterrestrial settlement that the amount that can be gained from them as fuel.
And a colony that depends on regular shipments of fuel from Earth fails one of the very basic criteria of self-sufficiency. It is an option during the ramp-up phase to self-sufficiency.
To be more precise: The technology needed is at least D-D fusion. Deuterium should be common enough on most celestial bodies (especially those farther away from the Sun than Earth) that self-sufficient energy supply is possible.
I'm pretty sure that the capability to depopulate the entire planet a few times over is far beyond what's necessary to stop you.
Sorry, but a world where 7 billion people magically get along with each other is a fantasy.
It would be laudable, however, if humanity would just spend a little less money and effort on not getting along.
Here's the short list:
Power. Except for the moon, Venus and Mercury, where solar power may be feasible, I don't see any option other than nuclear fusion for sustainably fulfilling a colony's power needs.
Flexible, small scale chemical engineering. We need a way to synthesize almost arbitrary chemical compounds out of simple precursors. Basically, a machine that will produce a spoonful of sugar out of CO2, H2O and power. Or one does of acetaminophen out of H2O, CO2 and NH3.
Flexible, small scale manufacturing. We need to reduce the size of the smallest manufacturing unit that is capable of producing a copy of itself as well as producing other useful outputs.
Medical technology. We need better ways of easily diagnosing and treating a number of diseases, especially cancer (which will be a problem on any extraterrestrial colony).
Launch-to-orbit technologies. Especially ones that don't involve the vehicle having to contain all of the fuel and reaction mass necessary to reach orbit.
Life-support and maintenance. The colony needs to remain habitable for decades or centuries, unlike our current and past space stations that were simply de-orbited when they became too dirty.
Easy and flexible genetic engineering of microorganisms, plants and possibly animals, to adapt them to the colonys needs.
Deities have to be timeless - at least I won't settle for anything less. If an entity has apparent super powers, but is still subject to the passage of time (and thereby to the second law of thermodynamics), it is merely technologically more advanced.
Time, to a deity, has as much meaning as page numbers in a book. Or CPU clock cycles to a programmer who is able to observe, preserve and set every single state of the machine, thereby being essentially able to "turn back time" from the CPUs point of view.
Proof of divine power is as simple as showing a perpetuum mobile (preferably first or second kind, but I'll settle for third kind).
And who makes those robots?
Chinese-owned companies!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No, it's not. Hint: The reason is in the meaning of 'essential'.
Except for essential fatty acids, the body can synthesize the fat it needs.
It will, if the rest of the day involves paleo activities like "20 km mammoth chase" and "1 km sprint from sabertooth tiger".
I would assume that moving an entire star by a meaningful distance requires even more advanced civilizations than building a Dyson sphere (which "only" requires moving several planets worth of matter).
If you have all that energy, and some way to store large parts of it, you can shoot down all the stuff that is coming your way.
It will be hard to deal with debris of all sizes and velocities.
Building the "sphere" with a number of smaller, independent satellites would allow individual components of the sphere to move out of the way.
Using an artificial fusion reactor as an energy source is superior to a Dyson sphere in any scenario where you don't want to take an entire star with you.
Besides, a solid "sphere" would get smashed to bits by all the rocks, dirty snowballs and other debris that's also orbiting the star or just passing through its vicinity.
Yes, pretty much like finding the holy grail.
Only suffering from incomplete paralysis due to spinal cord stuff, but I am still waiting for this.
They expect to put a brain in a different skull and not have to deal with all kinds of reconnection issues? What about connecting the brain to the spinal cord? What about connecting the brain to its blood supply?
Of course you can have other things, like sabres. It says "arms" and not "firearms", right?