Thanks Dorian!
Could we really build Starfleet’s USS Enterprise?
Posted by doriangrey1 on May 14, 2012
Normally I prefer to ridicule any article written for MSLSD, er MSNBC, because, well, their idiots. But this time they have a genuinely thought provoking article up on their site.
Spaceship Enterprise in 20 years? Beam me up!By Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
updated 5/12/2012 12:13:38 AM ETIn Star Trek lore, the first Starship Enterprise will be built by the year 2245. But today, an engineer has proposed — and outlined in meticulous detail — building a full-sized, ion-powered version of the Enterprise complete with 1G of gravity on board, and says it could be done with current technology, within 20 years.
“We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise — so let’s do it,” writes the curator of the Build The Enterprise website, who goes by the name of BTE Dan.
A little background here is perhaps in order. In the 10th grade in high school I started taking college credit physic’s class, by the time I got to college I already had 2 years of college credit physic’s. I spent the first three years of my college experience as a physic’s major. I changed my major after it became painfully obvious that the Three Mile Island accident had pretty much killed the nuclear industry in America. So I switched my minor and major around a ended up with a B.F.A in music.
In 2005 one of my dreams finally came true and I was hired by an Aerospace contractor where I worked on a number of spacecraft, Communications Satellites and other project’s including a number of International Space Station projects. I am a member of an incredibly small fraternity, individuals who have interplanetary graffiti to their credit. That’s right, my name and crude artwork can be found between the layer’s of carbon-fiber composite that hold together various object either in orbit, such as the robotic grappler arm on the International Space Station or the petals on the landing platform of the Mar’s Rover Spirit .
Was I a fan of the Television Series “Star Trek”, absolutely, was I a Trekie? No, not by a long shot. Am I an advocate of manned space exploration, you bet your life I am. Unlike some people I fully understand the value of the Space Program, it isn’t a mulitbillion dollar boondoggle. You can thank the Space Program for things like, Personal Computers, Cell Phones, Satellite TV, 3D Sonograms and dopplar Radar. In fact, the space program may quiet possible be the only federal government funded program to ever give the public an actual return on it’s investment, which is currently estimated to be between $12.00 and $20.00 returned on every dollar invested.
If BTEDan is right, and my own experience in the Aerospace industry suggests to me that he most likely is, not only can we build the first Starship Enterprise, but we should. I guess one of the things that really hit’s me about this is that BTEDan isn’t the only person thinking along these lines.
Your next job: asteroid miner?But the entrepreneurs behind Planetary Resources have a track record of profiting off space ventures. Diamandis and co-founder Eric Anderson pioneered the idea of selling rides into space to tourists, and Diamandis’ company offers “weightless” airplane flights.
Investors and advisers to the new company include Google CEO Larry Page and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and (James)Cameron, the man behind the blockbusters “Titanic” and “Avatar.”
“The pursuit of resources drove the discovery of America and opened the West,” Schmidt said in a statement on the site. “The same drivers still hold true for opening the space frontier.”
Anderson says the group will prove naysayers wrong. “Before we started launching people into space as private citizens, people thought that was a pie-in-the-sky idea,” Anderson said. “We’re in this for decades.”
Think about that for a few minuets and let it sink in. Do you really want Google building and owning the Starship Enterprise?
I’d prefer google or another business venture do this than the project creators plan:
Sounds a little big government utiopianist to me.
@ Mars:
man has to get off of this rock. we are terminal here.
we WILL die in place.
it is man’s PRIMARY mission to get off of this rock. the earlier we start the better. i dont care who starts it private industry, fedgov, both, dont care.
we HAVE to get off of this rock.
Unfortunately the current U.S. Congress views NASA as nothing more then another barrel of pork in need of raiding.
The Constellation Empire Strikes Back
a house full of medical professionals and i cant find a band-aid!
(suture set, staple remover, surgical kit, bp cuffs, meds, tape, gauze saline, IV sets….no effing band-aids!!!)
Wouldn’t this distract from muslim outreach?
Building the Enterprise shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Hell, someone’s already built the Millennium Falcon and flew it to Roswell back in February.
@ citizen_q:
Not
About
Space
Anymore
@ coldwarrior:
“Planyeta yest’ kolybyel razuma, no nyelzya vietchno zhit’ v kolybyeli”
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1911)
No; we can’t do anything in space, ever again, because it’s racist.
@ coldwarrior:
So we can hit a “reset” button on humanity?
or because we will eventually experience a mass extinction event?
Either way, I share your view and enthusiasm.
This is very silly. How can you call it the Enterprise if it doesn’t have: (1) warp drive, (2) teleporters, (3) artificial gravity (but without any rotation), (4) cancellation of inertia during acceleration, (5) phasers, (6) shields (i.e., a force field), and (7) photon torpedos? If so, then here’s one that’s already available: http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/Enterprise_1701-E_kit_L.jpg C’mon, now.
Zimriel wrote:
ewwww…..i got sociologist slime on me from reading that.
grambo wrote:
sometimes i would like to hit the reset alright.
@ coldwarrior:
I would rather spend money on a serious space program than spend money on Nation building.
Rodan wrote:
I think we can do both by assigning progressives building stone preparation tasks to pay back the debt they’ve run up on our nation. Granted because they’re unskilled laborers it’d be a few years before we’d see any quality building stones
@ waldensianspirit:
Sometimes I read the comment’s here, and genuinely despair.
The U.S. Government has wasted the last 40 years and tons of money; I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
doriangrey wrote:
Dewd! What you need is a good fishing trip.
I would like my street paved first
roads around here suck
jus sayin
doriangrey wrote:
It’s a good topic.
I wonder where all the Geeks are hiding…
@ huckfunn:
well fishing on another planet would be interesting
@ doriangrey:
Relax, have a beer, and take the greatest comfort in the knowledge that the reign of Marxist terror found at Nasa has about 25 weeks left. Then it’ll become a space agency again. We’ll build the enterprise and fill it with liberals, so that they can go and wreak their havoc in other parts of the galaxy.
mawskrat wrote:
There’s plenty of ice fishing available on Callisto once we get there.
As long as the crew gets to wear those super cool Star Trek uniforms!
I never saw any real plumbing on the
Enterprise. though I could eat a lot of shrimp
coctails and scampi out of the food processor thing
@ Rodan:
I completely agree.
Sorry to go off topic, but wanted to get these two videos out before I leave tonight.
An aside…
My Aunt just called and her lung cancer is back. Stage 4 in both lungs now. Re-starts demo next Tuesday. Please say a prayer for her.
@ Dolphin:
Oh dear. I hope all goes well for her!
NASA has become just another beltway beast and needs a complete overhaul before it is once again useful.
@ Dolphin:
prayers done
@ Urban Infidel:
Thanks. Just really sad. Lost my mom to the evil c at the age of 19. This Aunt stepped up and filled the shoes for my mom (her sister) to be my segregate mom for me.
Bush touts Arab spring, says US can’t fear freedom
@ Dolphin:
Aw, that’s so sad. I know how it feels. I lost my dad to lung cancer in 2001.
Night all. Got to get to bed and tomorrow figure out what to do.
@ My 2 Cents:
Wer’ll call it the O’bama and give it: (1) a warped drive, (2) teleprompters, (3)
artificial gravityweight every one down with high taxes…………….. Nuff said.@ doriangrey:
@ waldensianspirit:
He needs to go back to keeping his mouth shut.
Former astronaut criticizes NASA’s current course
@ Dolphin:
Will do! {{Dolphin}}
http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/15/rhode-island-subsidizes-video-games-whos
As much as I love the game and the company that made it, is this really the best use of taxpayers money?
@ Dolphin:
Godspeed, Dolphin.
@ Mars:
Best use? Why that was never part of the criteria…
@ m:
Lol, very true.
Had some fun today at the gun range exercising my 2nd Amendment rights!
@ Mars:
never could play video games my hands
are to beat up from work
hahahahahaha! in 20 years?
in 20 years we will still be trying to make an electric car, sending money to terrorists, wondering why solar panels don’t work at night, learning to speak Spanish, paying off Obama’s debt and trying to Blame Bush. Humbug I say.
@ mawskrat:
Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I only play RPG’s and such with computer. Those modern controllers kill my hands. Plus I just don’t have the reflexes to play any kind of arcade style game anymore.
Urban Infidel wrote:
do you own the rifle?
@ brookly red:
No. I use the rifles they have at the range. I am going to get my own very soon.
Urban Infidel wrote:
well then you weren’t exercising any rights (yet) now were you?
Mars wrote:
I was pretty good at Labyrinth
back in the day though
@ mawskrat:
Not I, not enough coordination. I have to do Role Playing Games. My mind is far more capable than my hands.
brookly red wrote:
I am sooo disappointed that after the court ruled in favor of gun ownership in DC similar litigation has not occurred in NYC…
brookly red wrote:
or Chicago…
brookly red wrote:
Not over Bloomberg’s pink underpants~
Rodan wrote:
Privatize it. NASA was an egotistical boondoggle just to beat the USSR who launched a satellite that beeped, nothing more. Now NASA’s just another bloated political weapon of the government.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Ordered three of these today. Should be in in about a week.
Urban Infidel wrote:
but the precedence is there, it is ready for the taking but yet no one has steeped up… (I stopped giving money to the NRA years ago) why has not one private person stepped up?
@ JeremyR:
Nice.
@ Bunk X:
No way to privatization here. This is national interest which overrides the Free Market. What we need to do is stop nation building around the world and focus on a serious space program.
yea instead of building star-ships we’ll be hiding from predator drones in 20
doriangrey wrote:
Many Conservatives are short sighted about the space program.
waldensianspirit wrote:
He’s an idiot!
The trouble with teleporting is getting yer friendly bacteria to sign contracts to go with you. Other than that it’d have the side benefit of being very cleansing
Rodan wrote:
It’s already being done.
SpaceX’s 1st Private Capsule Launch to Space Station: How It Will Work
More, Faster…
Rodan wrote:
Sorry, I know I should have been here more tonight, since this is my thread, but I have been fight with my computer, which seems to be having a psychotic break from reality.
@ Da_Beerfreak:I watched their few seconds of revving the engines
@ Da_Beerfreak:
I’ve met Story Musgrave. He is a real Honest-to-God Brother of AKPsi…pledged at Syracuse in 1958!
Rodan wrote:
We can always nuke the site from Orbit….
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/05/14/051412-opinions-oped-youth-vote-melchior-1-2/?iXFs&utm_campaign=TD_Paid&utm_medium=Media&utm_source=stumbleupon&utm_keyword=&utm_content=&iQZs
Now this is a truly interesting article. I’ve been hearing a lot lately that the youth are very disappointed with O and were pulling away from him. This write up shows that from a very different angle.
More on privatization.
Private Space Taxi Builders Ponder Future Beyond NASA
Getting out of the way of the Free Markets is very much in the Country’s national interests.
Come on guys, what we are talking about here is a $50 Billion dollar a year for the next 20 years commitment. Obama has already spent enough money to build 5 Enterprises. Yes, I have built communications satellites and modules for the ISS as well as parts for both the Sojourner and Spirit rovers. This guy is right, all of the technology to build the First Interplanetary Enterprise already exists today, all we lack is the will to do it.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Sorry, other countries are perusing national programs. What if a private firm outsources it to India? How will America benefit from Space?
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
Privatization is only half of the solution.
@ Mars:
The Zero just isn’t cool anymore!
@ doriangrey:
Many Conservatives would rather spend 2 Trillion dollars nation building in the Muslim world.
Tom Coburn’s gotten himself into strong peyote
@ Da_Beerfreak:
How would China dominating space be in our interest?
@ waldensianspirit:
Hey you got a hat tip!
doriangrey wrote:
You do know that most computers are female??
(That explains a lot of their weird behavior…
)
@ doriangrey:
Yup, Government has to do the infrastructure and we need to be dominant in space on a national level.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Is that why Charles Johnson always act like an asshole?
Rodan wrote:
I respectfully disagree. Now I agree that the rise of Jihadists to power in that part of the word is not a good thing for us (or anyone else)but it is there mindset not their freedom we have to fear. If we were as free, we would name our enemies and confront them.
Rodan wrote:
no an asshole is what an asshole does.
Rodan wrote:
It’s not. But if we don’t do something about it that’s what’s going to happen.
@ doriangrey:
Just like China lacked the will to continue its explorations in the early 1400′s. It didn’t turn out so well fro them after that.
Rodan wrote:
Let’s be honest about this. China is not sitting on their ass with regards to a national space program. They are going ahead with it full speed. What we need, as much as many here obviously fear it, is a space equivalent to the United States Navy. A force capable of ensuring that China or India do not start placing restriction on where private companies can go or what they can do in space. The United Nations, a decidedly Marxist organization has already drawn up their version of a Marxist space legal system that would for all practical purposes exclude America private firms from exploiting any natural resources anywhere in our solar system.
@ brookly red:
Yeah if only!
Da_Beerfreak wrote:
Good god…
@ Rodan:
If we had been allowed to fight the war correctly in 90-91, there wouldn’t have been any nation building, just a lot of rubble, and a ton of dead assholes. But, we got a second chance and we hobbled our military even more.
Rodan wrote:
No it didn’t, and were about to get screwed the exact same way if we don’t pull our heads out of our collective asses.
@ doriangrey:
Yup, China learned its lesson on scrapping Zheng He’s fleet. They are determined to never again have the West have a advantage. We on the other hand are living a delusions.
Oh did I mention a good space program means jobs?
doriangrey wrote:
^^^^ What he said…
@ doriangrey:
Exactly! The wheels of history are turning. Either America thinks ahead, or we get left behind.
Rodan wrote:
Ironic that the greatest spread of Chinese culture & influence comes from those trying to escape China…
Rodan wrote:
Cool! He doesn’t mention all the Christians being murdered and driven from their homes. They should not fear the ‘freedom’ muslim now have to practice their religion
@ Mars:
Yup, our military’s job is to kick ass, not be a police force.
I’m all for space exploration, either privately funded or through NASA. We need to push for real science education instead of these crap degrees in gender/ethnic studies & working to make Muslims feel good about some imaginary accomplishments in science over the last thousand years or so.
Ok, most of the students majoring in gender/ethnic studies (and Sociology) probably couldn’t handle the hard sciences.
Rodan wrote:
What makes it all the worse is, that America is for all intents and purposes the nation that invented the technology necessary for real space travel.
@ waldensianspirit:
This from a man who claims to be a devout Christian and used to preach about “family values.”
Interestingly enough, the space program and the military are two areas that government actually does create civilian jobs. Everything is on contract. Infrastructure work also does, to a lesser degree.
@ doriangrey:
Yup, we have the means, just not the will. Eventually the Chinese will go from copying to developing. Its what happened when the West (Spain, France, England, Holland) leapfrogged ahead of the rest of the world.
waldensianspirit wrote:
I saw that and laughed so hard! That’s right, if we reelect 0, he’ll really do all the things he promises. No really. He’s serious. His fingers aren’t crossed or anything. Honest Elizabeth Warren.
Mars wrote:
Bingo and they go hand and hand. Some Military spending is space based and some space technologies lead to military advances.
mfhorn wrote:
How’s that go? Tuff shit, let them work at McDonald’s. Real science, real honest to god science is a brutal mistress, if you can’t hack the math required for real science she kicks your ass to the curb and gives her favors to those who can.
mfhorn wrote:
or hold down a (private sector) job…
@ Rodan:
And send people to colonize what? It’s easier to colonize the ocean, and we haven’t done that. Aside from the byproducts of taxpayer funded research (like Tang and toilets that work by vacuum)I don’t see the benefits.
I read this article this morning and it seems to fit well. It’s a really cool story. Even when half destroyed by O, NASA manages to pull of some really cool stuff.
http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/3/27/soviet-moon-mystery-solved-by-nasa-50-years-later
Mars wrote:
The problem is that the jobs are for Folks that are really smart and therefore not likely to vote for Liberals…
@ Rodan:
My point is that the private sector can do much better with space exploration than any government entity. The potential returns are zip. This place isn’t going to implode.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Sounds great to me, not so much for libs.
Of course having a degree in the “soft” sciences, this doesn’t help me much, lol.
Mars wrote:
Exactly, history has taught us that where ever there is money to be made someone will take the risk to make it. But that someone else will also take the risk of trying to steal it from them. Every single Navel Fleet in history was created first and foremost not to attack or invade other countries, but to protect the merchant class from piracy.
@ doriangrey:
Yeah. It’s a bitch that I showed up.
@ Bunk X:
So you want China to dominate space? If you have just private firms they will be out for themselves, not national interests. Humanity can not exist as a one planet species. You have to begin to explore space if we want to survive. The Chines and Russians get it. Too many Americans don’t.
@ Rodan:
That’s my point, too. So what?
Bunk X wrote:
Well first of all Tang did not come out of the space program, but the computer you are using most assuredly did, as did Cell Phones and about a thousand other every day things you use.
@ Bunk X:
When China places misses and lasers on the moon, you will wish you saw the benefits.
Bunk X wrote:
Hey, it’s ok. Every party needs at least one dufus or it just isn’t a party.
@ Rodan:
Apples and oranges. Our taxpayer-funded government space program should be focused on defense, and in large part it is.
Bunk X wrote:
So let the Chinese and Russians dominate space.
Bunk X wrote:
Not apples and oranges. Its called reality. China and Russia are going full bore with their space programs. They will have the military high ground. They will reap the benefits, while we continue on our decline.
Bunk X wrote:
Tang existed before the space program, project Mercury made it famous. As for trying to use a crapper in a vacuum… Well good luck with that.
Rodan wrote:
If you’re talking about space exploration, again, who cares? Let them do it. If you’re talking about national defense, that’s a different animal.
@ Bunk X:
They are interconnected. That’s a fact. Do you think China is doing a space program to benefit mankind? Nope. They are doing it out of national interest.
@ doriangrey:
Most of the hard sciences are hamstrung by the lesser capable controlling the money, direction and resources. They spend time figuring out how to bit and bridle the capable. It functions on the ant aphid relationship. They stroke your back and then run away with the honeydew. And waste it.
Places like NIH are incestuous money drains where the money flows to the less capable yet connected and there are millionaires made who never contribute to real products. Way too much politics in the ‘sciences’
There needs to be a big shuffle and exposure of what’s going on.
Rodan wrote:
Or you let enemy countries waste money on boondoggles not related to self defense.
The only big problem I can see is: this is a space based building project. With the insane level of regulation that OSHA and other organization seem to put on everything, it will only take one accident for the bean counters and safety fanatics to shut the whole project down.
Rodan wrote:
I’m not even worried about China placing missiles or lasers on the moon, Mercury, Mar’s, the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have natural resources that are mind boggling. For God’s sake, Titan has OCEANS made of methane, You know, liquid natural gas? Enough to supply the entire planet earth with fuel for 100,000 years.
Mercury was a planet nearly the same size as earth that had had it’s outer crust ripped off, it’s little more than a mantle and core now, the volume of easily accessible metals dwarfs anything here on earth.
@ Bunk X:
Yeah that’s what Ming Chinese eunuchs convinced an Emperor in the 1430′s when they scrapped their fleet. Within 70 years, Spain began the West’s run of world domination domination followed by other Western nations like France, Britain and the United States. Now China is looking to correct that mistake and we are making Ming China’s mistake.
I would rather spend money on a Space program, than nation build in Afghanistan.
@ doriangrey:
It would lead to an unprecedented economic boom and we can tell the Saudis to go eat sand.
@ doriangrey:
If the United Nations gets its way, no one will ever get to use then ever…
Mars wrote:
That is why it has to be a NASA based project. Because only the government can keep something as risky as space exploration going forward in the face of bureaucratic cowardice.
http://news.discovery.com/space/diamond-oceans-jupiter-uranus.html
And this. It would destroy the worth of diamonds, but it would be plentiful for industrial use. (Then again we already use synthetic and man-made, so maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal)
@ doriangrey:
Not under an administration like this one.
Idda carved Afghanistan and Iraq into territories where the useful minerals and oil are in American territories with no connection to tribal villages
OOT is up!
So, three new threads at once?
GWB supports MOBO
ME ME ME MEEEE
OOT
Why preserve Iraq but not Greece when it was still possible?
@ doriangrey:
Go there and bring it back. See you in a couple millenia with a tank or two. Meanwhile we’ve got nuclear and a hella lotta fossil fuels for cheap.
@ Rodan:
Great. Now I’m a eunuch from the 1400s. I’ll sing for you.
Rodan wrote:
Yup, and their is pretty indisputable evidence that the Ming Dynasties decision was a Comstock Load decision. For those who do not know, the Comstock Load in Virgina City Nevada started out as a gold mine.
After nearly ten years of producing only a few hundred dollars worth of gold a month the New York investment firm that had been funding it decided to close the mine down and sell it to the last operator who had worked it for them.
They stopped 10 feet and one month to soon. Ten feet and one month later the largest silver deposit on earth was discovered. The Chinese, just liked those New York Investors halted all exploration one month and ten feet to soon. The remains of the very last of thew Ming Dynasties Naval exploration fleet was discover about 6 years ago, on the Oregon coast line.
Mercury’s too close to the Sun. And small. The physics of getting to and from Mercury aren’t good. So, forget that.
Venus might be an idea -- put some floating cities in its thick atmosphere, where it’s not so hot, and it’s the chemical processing and trade nexus of the solar system.
And Mars, Vesta and certain of the other inner asteroids = never wanting for metal resources again.
@ Bunk X:
No, I wasn’t calling you a Eunuch. Just that the Eunuchs in the 1430′s thought the same.
Now Charles Johnson on the other hand!
@ Zimriel:
We can either tow it out or mine at night. Duh.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
mmmm tang…
@ Rodan:
The Chinese eunuchs weren’t talking about shooting there asses off into space, either.
@ doriangrey:
The Ming fleets did reach America in the last voyage. But the records where destroyed when the Fleet was scrapped. Many of the sailors were killed.
China was that close to global domination.
Bunk X wrote:
The Oceans were Space to them. They didn’t see the benefits and it came to bite China in the ass. They have learned their lessons. We are making their mistakes.
Rodan wrote:
Nothing to worry about. They will have global domination when they get control the high ground…
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Yup, the wheels of history turn.
Zimriel wrote:
Dude… Just shut up. The physics of getting to Mercury aren’t that difficult, Venus is an absolute no go period, a surface temperature of 860 degrees, 93 atmospheres of pressure and a sulfuric acid atmosphere mean were not going there. As far as the asteroids, your not going to find an abundance of heavy metals out there. It’s basic physics. The further out from the sun you go, the lighter all the materials are.
@ Rodan:
Your argument for space exploration based upon the actions/non-actions of Chinese eunuchs in the 1400s is bizarre. It also contradicts your long-time arguments against isolationism, as you want to abandon the problems here on earth and run away to Alpo Santorum or something.
Bunk X wrote:
Spreading out is not running away.
Bunk X wrote:
The “Nights” on Mercury last 176 Earth days. So yea, mining at night actually is a workable idea.
dorian: I wasn’t talking about Venus’s hellscape. Venus has an atmosphere. It’s been talked about.
Asteroids are of two sorts -- the sort inside the snow line, and the sort outside. The snow line is somewhere between Mars and Jupiter -- I forget where exactly, but I do know that Vesta is on the “terrestrial” side (2.3 AU from Sun, iirc). Vesta has differentiated, and another asteroid helpfully knocked off the outer layer. We can get at Vesta’s metal-rich core without even drilling.
And although as you note, Mars is metal-poor ON AVERAGE, at its surface the soil is metal-rich. Robert Zubrin’s written a number of books and articles on how it’s a happy hunting ground for many minerals.
So, Mercury. Almost skimming the Sun’s surface. I expect most ships to MISS when they approach that moonlet with delusions of grandeur and to get a permanent tan
Now, should we work with some other countries to develop space programs? Israel? Great Britain? Germany? Australia? Austria where, as we know (since Obama told us) they speak Austrian?
Zimriel wrote:
Zim, I used to do this shit for a living, did you?
Trying to post on disappearing threads is not fun. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. lol.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Twitterwars first. The Universe second.
Bunk X wrote:
It’s based on a historical mistake China made. We are close to make a similar mistake.
Exploring space is not isolationist. It means we are developing new technologies, industries and opportunities.
No thanks! I would never live on a planet controlled by Santorum!
Bunk X wrote:
Only Twits Twitter…
You know the only reason O has cut back on the space program is that he can only surrender or show deference to a limited number of countries a year. Space with its unknown number of life forms was just too risky for him.
Mars wrote:
Best time to post, really. You can say all kinds of dumb things and nobody notices…
@ mfhorn:
Heh. Israel. Some wag said that Iran will start a space program once Jews have a colony on the moon.
@ Bunk X:
How about we build ship and send Charles and his minions to another galaxy. Let them have their own planet where they will live in fear of space Nazis!
Dorian,
While I support space exploration, wouldn’t we get just as many (or more) technical challenges to solve if we concentrated on unmanned space exploration until we get our financial house right?
My gut feeling tells me that manned space flight is far more expensive than unmanned space flight.
No, dorian; but I did cite a couple of sites and people who do, in fact, do this stuff for a living.
On the side of “Mercury is too hard to get to and to get out of, xkcd’s gravity well diagram.
I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m trying to collect some cost / benefit facts and to present them here.
Bunk X wrote:
I don’t do Twitter.
Mars wrote:
Well, that and it’s damned near impossible to figure out which direction to bow down towards Mecca five times a day from when your X,Y, and Z axises are always in motion.
@ doriangrey:
Information technology access denier.
@ Mars:
Space weasels.
unclassifiable wrote:
We really have to do both.
@ doriangrey:
I thought the muslim outreach was to hammer that kind of stuff out.
@ Bunk X:
See my 165!
@ Rodan:
Been done. It’s called LGF and it’s sinking as we speak. Hot stuff coming up.
Zimriel wrote:
By getting your information from a comic strip.
@ Bunk X:
Personally I’d like to see a group of pissed off Gorn (Enterprise series version. CGI Baddasses) come to earth and take offense at a certain group calling themselves lizards.
@ Bunk X:
I can’t wait!
@ Zimriel:
I’m trying to be an asshole. It generates traffic and comments. TRUE
Coffee beats the hell out of tea.
Go for it.
unclassifiable wrote:
Actually no, because… Machines don’t have the survival issues humans do. We are fast approaching the point where unmanned space exploration is no longer giving us technologies that do anything significant. In other words, it’s dead ending.
Mars wrote:
That’s an easy problem to fix. Just mount the damn prayer rug on a 3D gimbal and let a computer figure out where in the hell Mecca is at any given time.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
And watch the fun when there is a momentary “glitch”.
@ doriangrey:
I should also add that remote problem solving has serious limitations. If something brakes, there is only so much you can do to fix it. Take the high frequency antenna on the Cassini probe. It failed to deploy properly and as a result they lost 75 percent of the data from the Cassini-Huygens probe.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Loser.
If you were on Twitter you’d already know that Willie Nelson turned down Roseanne Barr for a VP seat with the Green Party. True.
Bunk X wrote:
Yup, and that is a little factoid I simply couldn’t have lived without…
doriangrey wrote:
Skylab was another good example of people fixing things that broke.
@ doriangrey:
Dude, we’re cutting edge.
@ doriangrey:
So we are dead ended on robotics, telemetry, remote sensing, physical, chemical and biological analysis — not to mention all of the computational techniques and algorithms to make it all run?
My point is that machines have a better survival capability to get the data and get out to explore.
I look at the Mars rover missions as indicative of how far we have come and how much farther we need to go. God forbid if that Euro mission to Mars had been manned. That would have been disastrous and may have set space exploration back years.
Bunk X wrote:
Can a marble even have a cutting edge??
@ unclassifiable:
You keep sending your crap to Mars, we’ll keep shooting that shit down.
@ doriangrey:
But isn’t that more a function of nascent technology?
I happen to think we can eventually make machines that fix themselves on a consistent bases (a few do now on a limited scope).
@ Mars:
You need not have bothered with that Euro mission. It splat down just fine and big on them red rocks.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Hell yeah. It’s all about speed.
@ Bunk X:
OK OK I can come up with one reason for manned emigration from Earth.
If the number of dumbasses who vote for Obama this year increases I will take that as a clear sign that we are devolving and it is time for all the conservative to get the hell out.
unclassifiable wrote:
We have had the technology to go back to the moon for 40 years, and the only real reason we haven’t gone back, is because of scaredy cats.
@ doriangrey:
The real reason we did not go back is because there are no votes on the moon.
Friggin’ politicians sent 7 missions (6 made it) there just to make sure.
Vote whores!
@ doriangrey:
I was just like you in the 60s.
“If we die, we want people to accept it. We’re in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”
-Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom-
Bunk X wrote:
Yea, but now your just a grump old curmudgeon.
Two hundred and First…
You guys are really funny tonight! Ford is in his Fliver and all is right in the heavens.
@ doriangrey:
With biscuits.
@ doriangrey:
Sure there are heavy metals in the asteroid belt. Quite a large fraction of meteorites are comprised of nickel-iron alloy, and platinum group metals are present, too. The clay layer, found world-wide at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is anomalously high in Iridium, attributed to the asteroid that impacted near Yucatan, and created the Chicxulub Crater.
G’day Dorian mate. Nice blog subject but please allow me one small criticism for old time’s sake.
Make sure that you run your text through not only a spell checker but also check it for grammar SNAFUS. The make pone look silly and i know that you are not.
Using …… their….. when …...they’re…. should have been used
Typing Physic’s when physics should be used. Getting control of those pesky apostrophes is the mark of the literate man that I know you to be mate.
I know … I know… people in glass houses .. stones .. and all that and I also know I am an occasional malefactor with grammar and a frequent ‘whoopsy’ when it comes to typos.
Proof read before posting and knowing that a ‘spell-checker’ is not also a grammar checker will take you far.
Cheers mate
G’day Dorian mate. Nice blog subject but please allow me one small criticism for old time’s sake.
Make sure that you run your text through not only a spell checker but also check it for grammar SNAFUS. This makes one look silly and i know that you are not.
Using …… their….. when …...they’re…. should have been used
Typing Physic’s when physics should be used. Getting control of those pesky apostrophes is the mark of the literate man that I know you to be mate.
I know … I know… people in glass houses .. stones .. and all that and I also know I am an occasional malefactor with grammar and a frequent ‘whoopsy’ when it comes to typos.
Proof read before posting and knowing that a ‘spell-checker’ is not also a grammar checker will take you far.
Cheers mate
And just to prove my point I have now FIXED my ‘intentional’ typos
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
That was in Esperanto, right?/
@ yenta-fada:
It was supposed to be the “Hotchicksclub Crater” but the asteroid didn’t get the memo.