We Stopped Dreaming |
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tallen702
Moderator Group Hipster before Hipster was cool... Joined: 10 June 2002 Location: Under Your Bed Status: Offline Points: 11850 |
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The survival of humanity is among the stars. I'm not talking about a million years from now, or even two million, but within the next thousand years, there simply will not be enough land, enough resources, enough of anything for the human race to continue to not only grow, but survive outright. Your classification of other worlds in our solar system being "barren wastes" is so far off the mark, one would think you're stuck back in the "viking" days of exploration when grainy stills of Mars were sent back from those landers showing what appeared to be a dingy, waterless waste which we have since found out is an incredible planet with the necessary elements to support life. The same can be said of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. |
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tallen702
Moderator Group Hipster before Hipster was cool... Joined: 10 June 2002 Location: Under Your Bed Status: Offline Points: 11850 |
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Can somebody please address the spam filter. I've just typed up a xxxxxxxxx thesis-length response and there's something in there that keeps kicking it out.
Edited by Mack - 12 March 2012 at 9:39pm |
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<Removed overly wide sig. Tsk, you know better.>
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usafpilot07
Moderator Group FreeEnterprise's #1 Fan & Potty Mouth Joined: 31 August 2004 Location: Tokelau Status: Offline Points: 4626 |
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/Uranus joke |
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Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
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Lightningbolt
Platinum Member PHAT and PLAT Joined: 10 July 2002 Location: bumping up Status: Offline Points: 5055 |
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I found this link regarding space debris interesting
Space debris pics Maybe we can start a colony on Uranus and fix that planet too. Edited by Lightningbolt - 12 March 2012 at 7:51pm |
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oldpbnoob
Platinum Member Not old, Not noob. May be Dave's grandma Joined: 04 February 2008 Location: Yankee Stadium Status: Offline Points: 5676 |
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Canadians should feel free to kick in a few billion a year anytime they want.
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"When I grow up I want to marry a rich man and live in a condor next to the beach" -- My 7yr old daughter.
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choopie911
Moderator Group Commie Canuck Joined: 01 June 2003 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 30773 |
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Science, and space exploration, should have INCREASED funding if anything. The NASA budget is a crumb off of America's plate yet they just want to keep cutting it down.
It's sad sometimes to think about where we COULD be, and where we are. |
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agentwhale007
Moderator Group Forum's Noam Chomsky Joined: 20 June 2002 Location: Statesboro, GA Status: Offline Points: 12014 |
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Discussions like this are the reason I keep coming back here. We should have these more often.
I'll respond some when I'm not teaching (My childrens are busy on a press release right now). |
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BARREL BREAK
Moderator Group Official Jackbooted Thug Moderator Joined: 08 September 2003 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 10840 |
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Coming soon: The moon, brought to you by Viagra.
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oldpbnoob
Platinum Member Not old, Not noob. May be Dave's grandma Joined: 04 February 2008 Location: Yankee Stadium Status: Offline Points: 5676 |
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It took me a while, but it dawned on me why Darurs post bothered me. All these situations, aside from saving mankind, are activities that should be carried out by private enterprises. Neither mining, nor semiconductor manufacturing are activites that should be carried out by the government. If mining is such a tremendous and profitable activity, let the private sector have at it. Your post is actually a near perfect support for reasons why space exploration should be privatized. |
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"When I grow up I want to marry a rich man and live in a condor next to the beach" -- My 7yr old daughter.
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GroupB
Gold Member Joined: 05 September 2010 Status: Offline Points: 1255 |
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Now, I'm no space expert, but I'm pretty sure there is a ton of dust in space. Even if there isn't, the amount of debris we have thrown up there has made it anything but a clean room. Also, I really doubt pollution wouldn't be a problem. Remember, it has to come down sometime.
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Lightningbolt
Platinum Member PHAT and PLAT Joined: 10 July 2002 Location: bumping up Status: Offline Points: 5055 |
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The fact that astronauts are still strapping gas cans and a giant bottle rockets to their rear ends to explore space is laughable.
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oldpbnoob
Platinum Member Not old, Not noob. May be Dave's grandma Joined: 04 February 2008 Location: Yankee Stadium Status: Offline Points: 5676 |
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It would have to become vastly cheaper to get things into space to make space mining even remotely profitable. I remember this being covered. Also, value is based on current prices. Much like oil, once you dump 100 million tons of gold onto the market, the price is going to bottom out, thus lowering the value and making it even less interesting to spend billions of dollars building space ships to mine for gold. It's not impossible, but you have to weigh the value of the asset against what it costs to source it.
Edited by oldpbnoob - 12 March 2012 at 4:04pm |
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"When I grow up I want to marry a rich man and live in a condor next to the beach" -- My 7yr old daughter.
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Darur
Platinum Member Stare directly into my avatar... Joined: 03 May 2003 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 9178 |
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But there are motivating reasons to do these things. Aside from the blatantly obvious one of our Earth won't be here forever, and spreading Humanity out is the next natural progression to preserve ourselves, there are countless economic benefits. Minerals and materials naturally occurring off of Earth in quantities that will be practical to mine, for starters.There's the potential for discovering new lifeforms (intelligent or otherwise) which could open up new understandings of biology and chemistry. The rise of entirely new industries centered around space, exploration, manufacturing, and research.The list goes on and on. But let's not even consider travel outside of this solar system. Let's just look at economic opportunities that exist. The asteroid belt beyond Mars contains a massive amount of the leftover materials from the formation of our sun. Aside from Hydrogen, Oxygen and Water, heavy metals such as gold, platinum, nickle, iron and virtually any other metal in industry occur in obscene quantities (where do you think these metals on Earth originally came from?). Some estimates say that a single 1km diameter asteroid could have a value in the trillions of dollars. Aside from mining in space, we can build in space as well. Zero gravity creates many challenges, but it removes many others as well. One instance I can think of is semiconductor manufacturing. The average modern day fab costs billions of dollars and its equipment becomes antiquated in only a few years. Much of that cost is due to the equipment, but a substantial amount goes into developing clean rooms and dealing with defects in silicon due to uncontrollable phenomenon. Move your fab to space, and provide appropriate cosmic shielding and you're now building in the largest cleanroom ever. Not to mention pollution isn't an issue in space. If we want to manufacture dirty or dangerous substances, what better place then space? Heck, lets address some other concerns while we're at it. Power and Energy are big items today. Solar power has long been popular as a clean option, but it's only available for portions of the day. What if we put solar arrays in space? Or even nuclear reactors in space (see dirty and dangerous above). We can beam power down in microwaves, or maybe even resonant induction. Cheap, clean, reliable power. The biggest obstacle in space isn't distance or time, we can deal with those items later, it's getting into space to begin with. We've always used rockets, but they are terribly inefficient. To reach space, our rockets have to hit 7.8km/s. By comparison, a bullet might travel around 4300km/hour. To achieve this, we use multistage rockets to provide that extra boost. This is the equivalent of firing a bullet, then that bullet containing a gun that fires another bullet. That third bullet contains still another gun that fires yet another bullet. This process would have to repeat itself 8 times to hit our required escape velocity. That's where proposals such as space elevators come into play. These could conceivably make moving people and materials into and out of orbit economical. The trouble is these things require materials that just don't exist yet. But putting money into programs like NASA or even other research agencies could make space travel practical. So, no, it's not a waste of money.
Edited by Darur - 12 March 2012 at 3:56pm |
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Real Men play Tuba
[IMG]http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1859/newsmall6xz.jpg"> PH33R TEH 1337 Dwarf! DONT CLICK ME!!1 |
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oldpbnoob
Platinum Member Not old, Not noob. May be Dave's grandma Joined: 04 February 2008 Location: Yankee Stadium Status: Offline Points: 5676 |
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"When I grow up I want to marry a rich man and live in a condor next to the beach" -- My 7yr old daughter.
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oldpbnoob
Platinum Member Not old, Not noob. May be Dave's grandma Joined: 04 February 2008 Location: Yankee Stadium Status: Offline Points: 5676 |
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It's actually the lack of ignorance saying that some things are very unlikely to happen. I am not basing it off of my own knowledge, which is limited I assure you, I base it off of several things I have read and TV shows watched dedicated to the discussion of the ideas of warp drives/space travel etc. Even at the speed of light, which it's debated is even possible to acheive, you are looking at many years of travel to reach the closest solar system. IIRC, to reach one that has a planet that we THINK may be able to sustain life is farther than that. Without lightspeed travel, it would take lifetimes.
* I see you edited it. Your original time was only 20 years. My point was that we have stalled it seems shortly after reaching the moon. Edited by oldpbnoob - 12 March 2012 at 3:54pm |
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"When I grow up I want to marry a rich man and live in a condor next to the beach" -- My 7yr old daughter.
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Rofl_Mao
Platinum Member request denied Joined: 27 October 2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 3210 |
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I think unless the entire vessel was a mirror, that thing is going to burst into flames because of the amount of energy being tossed at it. |
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Rofl_Mao
Platinum Member request denied Joined: 27 October 2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 3210 |
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I believe it is ignorant to think that the things of the future will never happen. Did you ever realize that people in the 19th century would scoff at the idea of manned flight? Sure things seem impossible right now, but look at how far we have come in just the past 100 years.
Edited by Rofl_Mao - 12 March 2012 at 3:42pm |
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oldpbnoob
Platinum Member Not old, Not noob. May be Dave's grandma Joined: 04 February 2008 Location: Yankee Stadium Status: Offline Points: 5676 |
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Edited by oldpbnoob - 12 March 2012 at 3:42pm |
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"When I grow up I want to marry a rich man and live in a condor next to the beach" -- My 7yr old daughter.
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usafpilot07
Moderator Group FreeEnterprise's #1 Fan & Potty Mouth Joined: 31 August 2004 Location: Tokelau Status: Offline Points: 4626 |
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Movies? I think it is rather common knowledge that the race to the moon wasn't all that well received publicl at the time, and een after a sucessful landing, public enthusiasm was less than stell.(harhar) INb4 you turn this into a government conspiracy too. This post brought to you by two very dialated eyes. I can't see my screen, so I imagine itsrather roughshod. |
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Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
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Lightningbolt
Platinum Member PHAT and PLAT Joined: 10 July 2002 Location: bumping up Status: Offline Points: 5055 |
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No stun option? Taken from FoxNews.com One if by land … lasers if by sea. |
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