It occurs to me that my grandchildren will never believe that we were once a space-faring nation. I am old enough to remember the last moon landing, and of course the advent of re-useable spacecraft. I am old enough to remember Skylab and Mir. My children have heard of these things, but it's not really real to them.
I think what actually killed the space program was a guy named Chuck Yeager. He was a hero pilot in WWII, a test pilot, and the first man to break the sound barrier. You have to remember that aeronautics were galloping ahead at this point, and we went from propeller planes to spacecraft in the blink of an eye...My great grandmother remembered the first flight at Kitty Hawk, and she lived to see the space shuttle flights become a routine thing.
So, anyway, Chuck Yeager was approached by the government to be the first man in space. He publicly laughed at the idea, referring to astronauts as "Spam in a can." While the public remained enthralled with the space race, the idea of astronauts went from "HOLY SHIT, WE'RE GOING TO THE STARS" to "We have to beat the Russians to the moon." After we beat the Russians, everything else was an afterthought, a resented and continually shrinking line item on the annual budget. Eventually, and recently, even that went away.
Little known fact: We no longer have the capability to get to the moon, even if we wanted to (much less the asteroid belt or anything else that might be actually useful). The plans and schematics for Apollo were thrown away under Reagan's "Clean Desk" rule...And we no longer have the engineers with the nuts & bolts experience to reverse engineer it in any reasonable amount of time.
I am not pleased by the notion of living in an empire in decline, and I am not pleased by a population that threw away the stars so they could "spend the money more wisely" (translation: We need 12 aircraft carriers, in case the ghost of Tojo attacks us while we're not looking). Mostly, though, I am not pleased by Chuck Yeager, who chose to kill space travel as an adventure, and given the chance, I will shit on his grave.
Okay for now,
Dok
Excellent.
:mittens:
My father has blueprints for the Lunar Module that he got from his father. Take that, Reagan.
The moment we stopped looking upwards and beyond we stopped developing as a people. I mean we can put a world of information on the head of a fucking pin but we can no longer send men to the moon? How fucked up is that?
We were supposed to have time travel by now Dok. Flying cars, teleportation devices, rocket backpacks, where are these things? I know most are a bit beyond us, but damn, we aren't even trying anymore it seems.
Working so hard to make computers smaller so they could do more, but we never moved. We are stagnant. And it is a shame because it appears the rest of the stupid planet has followed out lead.
:mittens:
I had never heard it put that way
Quote from: Khara on Hiatus.... on October 04, 2011, 07:35:03 PM
The moment we stopped looking upwards and beyond we stopped developing as a people. I mean we can put a world of information on the head of a fucking pin but we can no longer send men to the moon? How fucked up is that?
We were supposed to have time travel by now Dok. Flying cars, teleportation devices, rocket backpacks, where are these things? I know most are a bit beyond us, but damn, we aren't even trying anymore it seems.
Working so hard to make computers smaller so they could do more, but we never moved. We are stagnant. And it is a shame because it appears the rest of the stupid planet has followed out lead.
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY GODDAMN HOVERBOARD?! :crankey:
Quote from: Suu on October 04, 2011, 07:33:52 PM
Excellent.
:mittens:
My father has blueprints for the Lunar Module that he got from his father. Take that, Reagan.
But the plans for the infrastructure required for launch, the rocket itself, and the CM are long, long gone.
Game over. Reagan wins.
We went to the moon on 32K. My cell phone has more computing power than that, and we can't even make an operating system that won't crash on computers with gigabytes or more on board. But we can listen to Taylor Swift and Justin fucking Beiber for $0.99 a song on our Ipods.
I'm friends with a guy who was a programmer at NASA during Apollo. He worked on the launch program code. He's got some really great stories about it. Some really scary ones too.
You sound just like him when he talks about NASA these days.
I wasn't previously aware that the plans had been lost. That's a HUGE failure in document control and record keeping. I'd tie the guy who did it to the next rocke.. oh. never mind.
Yeah, I remember seeing on a BBC 4 documentary about how little computing power the Apollo program used to do the moon landings with. I was putting it on in class, for a science lesson, and I had to stop the video and explain to the kids that every single one of their computers and mobile phones is thousands and thousands of times more powerful than that computer.
The only possible benefit of letting the Chinese lead the space race is that the dried food they send up with the astronauts may be better than normal (instead of chile con carne, it's chicken and black bean sauce! etc). Also, we're going to need to escape this planet at some point. I'd rather invest in it while we still have a planet where super-hurricanes are a rarity.
Quote from: Disco Pickle on October 04, 2011, 07:41:45 PM
I'm friends with a guy who was a programmer at NASA during Apollo. He worked on the launch program code. He's got some really great stories about it. Some really scary ones too.
You sound just like him when he talks about NASA these days.
I wasn't previously aware that the plans had been lost. That's a HUGE failure in document control and record keeping. I'd tie the guy who did it to the next rocke.. oh. never mind.
It was deliberate.
Quote from: Cain on October 04, 2011, 07:43:02 PM
Yeah, I remember seeing on a BBC 4 documentary about how little computing power the Apollo program used to do the moon landings with. I was putting it on in class, for a science lesson, and I had to stop the video and explain to the kids that every single one of their computers and mobile phones is thousands and thousands of times more powerful than that computer.
The only possible benefit of letting the Chinese lead the space race is that the dried food they send up with the astronauts may be better than normal (instead of chile con carne, it's chicken and black bean sauce! etc). Also, we're going to need to escape this planet at some point. I'd rather invest in it while we still have a planet where super-hurricanes are a rarity.
The Chinese aren't doing anything, either. At least not yet.
Frankly, I don't care who goes, as long as someone goes. Not keeping all the eggs in one
asteroid target basket, so to speak.
I just worry the Chinese will do it on the cheap and make the spaceship out of lead or something. At least we know American spaceships don't poison people if they try and lick the walls.
But seriously, someone needs to set up a colony on Mars. At least until we can sort out this cryogenics business and escape the solar system. I know it's cliche and all, but with global warming etc, I'm not entirely convinced of this planet's long-term suitability. Plus, its space! Final Frontier and all that. And we seem to learn tons of stuff every time we put something up into space. That's a far worthier goal than so many things I could name.
If we wait until we sort out our problems down here, as certain opponents of the space program would like, before we go into space again, we'd never be going back. Which is pretty much exactly what seems to be the case, right now.
Quote from: Cain on October 04, 2011, 07:50:50 PM
I just worry the Chinese will do it on the cheap and make the spaceship out of lead or something. At least we know American spaceships don't poison people if they try and lick the walls.
But seriously, someone needs to set up a colony on Mars. At least until we can sort out this cryogenics business and escape the solar system. I know it's cliche and all, but with global warming etc, I'm not entirely convinced of this planet's long-term suitability. Plus, its space! Final Frontier and all that. And we seem to learn tons of stuff every time we put something up into space. That's a far worthier goal than so many things I could name.
If we wait until we sort out our problems down here, as certain opponents of the space program would like, before we go into space again, we'd never be going back. Which is pretty much exactly what seems to be the case, right now.
Mars is just another gravity trap, I think. The real payoff is the asteroid belt. We know there's water, and we know there's minerals out the ying yang.
There's no actual need for humans to live on a planet.
And yeah, you're right. It will never be "the right time" to go back.
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet... and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 07:56:41 PM
There's no actual need for humans to live on a planet.
I fully support spreading out into space as much as possible.
however, it was my understanding that we are not physically suited for living in zero, or even low, gravity for extended periods. i guess we can do the spinning space station deal, though.
of course, an atmosphere and magnetosphere are really nice little things to have, too...
i think i would support
others spreading out for the long term, while my line stays here and tries to clean things up a bit.
Dok, would you be an early adopter of the outbound crowd?
Also: Go Go, Space Elevator!
Anyone ever stop to think of when the last time you saw a science fiction show that wasn't either a billion years in the future, or "Gunsmoke in Space" that didn't make being in space look like a horror movie or corporate swine on parade?
Ever think that this might be deliberate?
Naw. That would be like shitting on the future. That would be just completely paranoid.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
St. Joss Whedon knew this 10 years ago. Including the China bit.
Why oh why don't people listen to science fiction more often?!
hmmm. i was certain that i had seen some space-positive sci-fi, but the only stuff i can think of is anime. no american stuff.
Quote from: Iptuous on October 04, 2011, 08:26:53 PM
hmmm. i was certain that i had seen some space-positive sci-fi, but the only stuff i can think of is anime. no american stuff.
Yep. It's either Westerns in a funny dress, or it's
In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Scream.
That, and asteroids are ALWAYS the bad guys. They do things like fall to the earth and kill Bruce Willis.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:09:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.
Oh, no. We'd be wallowing in our own poop, but we'd be doing it
in space.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:38:48 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:09:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.
Oh, no. We'd be wallowing in our own poop, but we'd be doing it in space.
At least we'd have Tang.
Quote from: Suu on October 04, 2011, 08:25:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
St. Joss Whedon knew this 10 years ago. Including the China bit.
Why oh why don't people listen to science fiction more often?!
Science fiction creates the future.
Seriously. If you want to change things, become a really good writer.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:39:08 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:38:48 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:09:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.
Oh, no. We'd be wallowing in our own poop, but we'd be doing it in space.
At least we'd have Tang.
But will we have beer to put in it??
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:40:00 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:39:08 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:38:48 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:09:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.
Oh, no. We'd be wallowing in our own poop, but we'd be doing it in space.
At least we'd have Tang.
But will we have beer to put in it??
No, that ruins the "orange poop" effect.
Think about it...You're an alien archaelogist, and you find a vented, ancient space habitat we left behind. There's frozen, BRIGHT ORANGE POOP all over the place.
They'll worship our memory, Nigel.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:41:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:40:00 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:39:08 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:38:48 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:09:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...
I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PM
and if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
And then we were extinct.
Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.
Oh, no. We'd be wallowing in our own poop, but we'd be doing it in space.
At least we'd have Tang.
But will we have beer to put in it??
No, that ruins the "orange poop" effect.
Think about it...You're an alien archaelogist, and you find a vented, ancient space habitat we left behind. There's frozen, BRIGHT ORANGE POOP all over the place.
They'll worship our memory, Nigel.
:peedee:
I think science-fiction got absorbed by the greater wave of dystopian fiction out there. It's all zombie apocalypses and the planet blowing up and terrorists and killer diseases. (Our favourite philosopher-troll, Slavoj Zizek, has a somewhat interesting idea as to why that is).
Quote from: Cain on October 04, 2011, 08:44:25 PM
I think science-fiction got absorbed by the greater wave of dystopian fiction out there. It's all zombie apocalypses and the planet blowing up and terrorists and killer diseases. (Our favourite philosopher-troll, Slavoj Zizek, has a somewhat interesting idea as to why that is).
Yeah?
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PMif we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
I don't quite see how this follows.
At least, given that at some point we'll figure out how to actually
live there, it's going to be a lot harder to destroy than a planet. That asteroid belt is huuuuuuge. It's like this ring around the sun, between Jupiter and Mars imagine what the radius on that is? Plus if you wreck one asteroid you don't fuck up all the others, like globelt-warming or something.
There's this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/
though he does go crazy. is a good movie though, I heard (not seen it yet).
Though I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for? It's not exclusively for Space. It's just about
every scifi story has the technology either be horrible or cowboys or both. Every Utopia has a dark edge to it. Otherwise it's just a soap drama in space, and you might as well not have it in space?
You want people to go to space in a movie and have everything go right? And then downplay the danger of the vacuum outside the ship?
Maybe a movie for kids, then. About an astronaut going into space, in the near future, where spacesuits are somewhat more comfortable and he discovers the cure for Christmas on the moon?
There's always the Hitch-hiker's Guide movie? It was pretty awesome. And space is real big and friendly and nobody really kills anyone, just like in Tom & Jerry.
Maybe that's the thing though, there used to be aliens everywhere in space. But we're becoming more and more certain that it's probably really really empty as far as we can possibly travel without making generation ships--which are somewhat more like novel material than for movies.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 08:45:00 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 04, 2011, 08:44:25 PM
I think science-fiction got absorbed by the greater wave of dystopian fiction out there. It's all zombie apocalypses and the planet blowing up and terrorists and killer diseases. (Our favourite philosopher-troll, Slavoj Zizek, has a somewhat interesting idea as to why that is).
Yeah?
Oh, sorry, I realized I should have followed up on that. Holding two conversations at once is more difficult than I first thought.
Basically, Zizek says, especially since Communism ended and it's been the End of History, Triumph of Liberal Democracy and blah, the idea of a better and different future from the current present has been increasingly hard to envisage. This has gotten to the point it is actually easier to imagine the entire planet being destroyed than the system changing from what there is now, because to the majority of people's minds, there are no other valid options to what currently exists.
As such, dystopian fiction becomes the only valid form of fiction dealing with change, the distant future etc. It's the only kind of difference that is considered viable.
Quote from: Triple Zero on October 04, 2011, 08:51:33 PM
Maybe that's the thing though, there used to be aliens everywhere in space. But we're becoming more and more certain that it's probably really really empty as far as we can possibly travel without making generation ships--which are somewhat more like novel material than for movies.
I think that maybe part of it too. Even 40 years is too long to go to another star, and we don't even know what's there for sure. Too expensive. Let's worry about fixing our problems here on Earth. You know, like the rich not being able to afford to feed their families starving African children because taxes are too high on them. I heard about that on some pundit show. It's terrible that the rich aren't able to eat more African babies. They're not only job creators but they're also helping keep overpopulation down! What are the stars to such problems here. Plus we need the nukes to use on countries that develop nukes to make sure they don't use nukes in the first place. And I blame Obama for that. He gave the Iranians the bomb because he hates Israel like the filthy Muslim that he is.
Twid,
Knows what problem down here actually needs to be fixed first.
Quote from: Nph. Twid. on October 04, 2011, 09:10:01 PM
It's terrible that the rich aren't able to eat more African babies.
Correction: There ARE enough dead babies, but making sure they get
transported to the rich's table is a problem that the free market has not yet solved.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 09:11:35 PM
Quote from: Nph. Twid. on October 04, 2011, 09:10:01 PM
It's terrible that the rich aren't able to eat more African babies.
Correction: There ARE enough dead babies, but making sure they get transported to the rich's table is a problem that the free market has not yet solved.
It's the gas prices. Michelle Bachmann will fix that by magically decreeing that gas is once more $2 a gallon, and somehow it will happen. I imagine it will involve tapping Christine O'Donnell's magick powers. The Teabaggers won't mind, as I'm sure it involves a lesbian version of the Great Rite. And while we all know that Teabaggers and God hate homos, he made lesbians for a reason. To make middle aged men horny. Which is a good thing.
Why the FUCK!!!!!!!!
Humanity is just fucked eh?
Wait...you guys think earth is going to be uninhabitable, compared to what? Constant cosmic radiation and temperature fluxes in hundreds of degrees kelvin whenever the sun isn't visible and no air or water or ecosystem services or van allen belts or ozone layer or soil seeded with a 3 billion year old complex of decomposition masters?
You can have your dead, inhopsitable exoplanets. I'll just stay here on this amazing living planet until the sun goes red giant, thank you very much. Grass is always fucking greener on the other side...except in this case, the green is a frozen chlorine/ammonia mixture.
Dok, they are going to kill me for telling you this, but I just can't keep quiet any longer, the truth has to come out.
There were no bailouts. All of that money was channeled into an international superfund that was created to exit certain people from this planet. The space program is very much alive and well, it is simply operating in secrecy as the elite class are being relocated to prepared location throughout the universe. All the rest about shutting down the space program is all a smokescreen.
The banks and the rich are really the good guys, they are the ones who will save humanity. I know you haven't heard yet, but this planet is already doomed. Yeah, the damage is irreversable now, it's just too late. The asteroid the Russians discovered, you remember, the one that should be a miss, well, it won't be a miss at all.
In fact, the situation is much worse that even the models predicted, we are talking complete destruction, no chance of recovery. Ever. Oddly, this will occur sometime in 2012, but not on the day the Mayan's record ended, no, I'm afraid we don't have that much time.
So, now you know why no one is trying to fix anything, they have far larger problems to be concerned with.
Well, they will be here any second, I can hear the boots on the porch, so
Quote from: Triple Zero on October 04, 2011, 08:51:33 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 04, 2011, 08:07:43 PMif we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.
I don't quite see how this follows.
At least, given that at some point we'll figure out how to actually live there, it's going to be a lot harder to destroy than a planet. That asteroid belt is huuuuuuge. It's like this ring around the sun, between Jupiter and Mars imagine what the radius on that is? Plus if you wreck one asteroid you don't fuck up all the others, like globelt-warming or something.
There's this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/
though he does go crazy. is a good movie though, I heard (not seen it yet).
Though I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for? It's not exclusively for Space. It's just about every scifi story has the technology either be horrible or cowboys or both. Every Utopia has a dark edge to it. Otherwise it's just a soap drama in space, and you might as well not have it in space?
You want people to go to space in a movie and have everything go right? And then downplay the danger of the vacuum outside the ship?
Maybe a movie for kids, then. About an astronaut going into space, in the near future, where spacesuits are somewhat more comfortable and he discovers the cure for Christmas on the moon?
There's always the Hitch-hiker's Guide movie? It was pretty awesome. And space is real big and friendly and nobody really kills anyone, just like in Tom & Jerry.
Maybe that's the thing though, there used to be aliens everywhere in space. But we're becoming more and more certain that it's probably really really empty as far as we can possibly travel without making generation ships--which are somewhat more like novel material than for movies.
... the planet started out habitable. It's already a self-contained, fully self-sustaining system without us having to do anything at all. We'd have to live in man-made habitats in space, and, given our track record, well...
The thing is, here on Earth we could just keep right on cruising along for
millions of years, presuming we get smart enough not to kill ourselves off. This planet isn't expiring anytime soon, and really, all we have to do is not fuck it all up for ourselves and we'll be just fine.
Quote from: ϗ, M.S. on October 05, 2011, 05:46:16 AM
Wait...you guys think earth is going to be uninhabitable, compared to what? Constant cosmic radiation and temperature fluxes in hundreds of degrees kelvin whenever the sun isn't visible and no air or water or ecosystem services or van allen belts or ozone layer or soil seeded with a 3 billion year old complex of decomposition masters?
You can have your dead, inhopsitable exoplanets. I'll just stay here on this amazing living planet until the sun goes red giant, thank you very much. Grass is always fucking greener on the other side...except in this case, the green is a frozen chlorine/ammonia mixture.
Plus, this. :)
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 05:48:54 PM
... the planet started out habitable. It's already a self-contained, fully self-sustaining system without us having to do anything at all. We'd have to live in man-made habitats in space, and, given our track record, well...
The thing is, here on Earth we could just keep right on cruising along for millions of years, presuming we get smart enough not to kill ourselves off. This planet isn't expiring anytime soon, and really, all we have to do is not fuck it all up for ourselves and we'll be just fine.
HEY, ALLAYOUS MONKEYS! DON'T FUCK THIS SHIT UP, OKAY?
I mean, how long do we have to get it right before the planet becomes inhospitable due to the sun's expansion? About a billion years, minimum?
A billion years. We only started using sharp rocks what, three million years ago?
If we can somehow just not kill ourselves off, I think odds are whatever our descendants have evolved into can make it into space by then, if we really want to.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 05:50:41 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 05:48:54 PM
... the planet started out habitable. It's already a self-contained, fully self-sustaining system without us having to do anything at all. We'd have to live in man-made habitats in space, and, given our track record, well...
The thing is, here on Earth we could just keep right on cruising along for millions of years, presuming we get smart enough not to kill ourselves off. This planet isn't expiring anytime soon, and really, all we have to do is not fuck it all up for ourselves and we'll be just fine.
HEY, ALLAYOUS MONKEYS! DON'T FUCK THIS SHIT UP, OKAY?
I just hope to hell we evolve faster than we're able to kill our own stupid asses off, and that future descendants of humans say shit like "Industrial Man was a brutish, violent, filthy creature with a large brain case but very limited cognitive ability and almost no foresight compared to modern humans".
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 05:56:33 PM
I mean, how long do we have to get it right before the planet becomes inhospitable due to the sun's expansion? About a billion years, minimum?
A billion years. We only started using sharp rocks what, three million years ago?
If we can somehow just not kill ourselves off, I think odds are whatever our descendants have evolved into can make it into space by then, if we really want to.
To avoid killing ourselves off, we're going to need to do something about our population.
Interesting note: At the world's first "Earth Summit", 30 years back, nobody was even allowed to SAY the word "population" because it might offend people religiously.
This species is a dead end. Intelligence seems to be a fatal mutation.
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Rises in temperature tend to fling back into ice ages, and we have already demonstrated that - as a species - we can survive those.
And then it's just another 6,000 years or so before we figure out how to build cities again. Rinse, repeat.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:00:09 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 05:56:33 PM
I mean, how long do we have to get it right before the planet becomes inhospitable due to the sun's expansion? About a billion years, minimum?
A billion years. We only started using sharp rocks what, three million years ago?
If we can somehow just not kill ourselves off, I think odds are whatever our descendants have evolved into can make it into space by then, if we really want to.
To avoid killing ourselves off, we're going to need to do something about our population.
Interesting note: At the world's first "Earth Summit", 30 years back, nobody was even allowed to SAY the word "population" because it might offend people religiously.
This species is a dead end. Intelligence seems to be a fatal mutation.
I hope this species isn't a dead end. I mean, we're still monkeys, and we act like it, but I hope we're still a viable link on the evolutionary chain, to be eventually replaced by descendants who are more cooperative and less competitive. If we evolved into a more cooperative species with some foresight, we'd feed and educate people instead of burning villages to steal oil, and instead of having famine-riddled continents full of dying babies we'd have well-fed people who read and use contraceptives.
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Well then, we should stop doing things that increase the earth's temperature.
lol.
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 06:07:38 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:00:09 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 05:56:33 PM
I mean, how long do we have to get it right before the planet becomes inhospitable due to the sun's expansion? About a billion years, minimum?
A billion years. We only started using sharp rocks what, three million years ago?
If we can somehow just not kill ourselves off, I think odds are whatever our descendants have evolved into can make it into space by then, if we really want to.
To avoid killing ourselves off, we're going to need to do something about our population.
Interesting note: At the world's first "Earth Summit", 30 years back, nobody was even allowed to SAY the word "population" because it might offend people religiously.
This species is a dead end. Intelligence seems to be a fatal mutation.
I hope this species isn't a dead end. I mean, we're still monkeys, and we act like it, but I hope we're still a viable link on the evolutionary chain, to be eventually replaced by descendants who are more cooperative and less competitive. If we evolved into a more cooperative species with some foresight, we'd feed and educate people instead of burning villages to steal oil, and instead of having famine-riddled continents full of dying babies we'd have well-fed people who read and use contraceptives.
You can actually see a change, interestingly enough.
We were just going over this with HR at work (we do weird shit for classes).
People born before 1945 ("Traditionalists") tend to value authority for its own sake (oook!).
People born from 46-65 ("Boomers") tend to value loyalty.
People born from 66-85 (Gen X) tend to value competence.
People born from 86-forward (Gen Y) tend to value relationships and talent.
Gradual improvement.
Also, the birth RATE is slowing down, which is good, but we still have more than 7 Bn monkeys, which is bad. Could go either way.
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 06:08:56 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Well then, we should stop doing things that increase the earth's temperature.
lol.
That's what I keep trying to tell them. BUT GLOBAL WARMING WILL MEAN WE WONT HAVE TO GO TO SPAIN FOR SUMMER THOUGH, LOL!
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:21:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 06:08:56 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Well then, we should stop doing things that increase the earth's temperature.
lol.
That's what I keep trying to tell them. BUT GLOBAL WARMING WILL MEAN WE WONT HAVE TO GO TO SPAIN FOR SUMMER THOUGH, LOL!
England cannot be allowed to thaw. Just saying. The world is already a dystopian nightmare as it is.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:03:49 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Rises in temperature tend to fling back into ice ages, and we have already demonstrated that - as a species - we can survive those.
And then it's just another 6,000 years or so before we figure out how to build cities again. Rinse, repeat.
I think after 4 degrees it can be become a self-sustaining process, unfortunately. Desertification right up into the arctic circle.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:23:28 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:21:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 06:08:56 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Well then, we should stop doing things that increase the earth's temperature.
lol.
That's what I keep trying to tell them. BUT GLOBAL WARMING WILL MEAN WE WONT HAVE TO GO TO SPAIN FOR SUMMER THOUGH, LOL!
England cannot be allowed to thaw. Just saying. The world is already a dystopian nightmare as it is.
On the other hand, Spain
would be spared the onslaught of English tourists in the summer. I can see them backing this plan.
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:24:31 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:03:49 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Rises in temperature tend to fling back into ice ages, and we have already demonstrated that - as a species - we can survive those.
And then it's just another 6,000 years or so before we figure out how to build cities again. Rinse, repeat.
I think after 4 degrees it can be become a self-sustaining process, unfortunately. Desertification right up into the arctic circle.
I'll have to look that up. More heat means more evaporation, which means more reflected sunlight, or some such thing.
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:25:19 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:23:28 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:21:14 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 06:08:56 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Well then, we should stop doing things that increase the earth's temperature.
lol.
That's what I keep trying to tell them. BUT GLOBAL WARMING WILL MEAN WE WONT HAVE TO GO TO SPAIN FOR SUMMER THOUGH, LOL!
England cannot be allowed to thaw. Just saying. The world is already a dystopian nightmare as it is.
On the other hand, Spain would be spared the onslaught of English tourists in the summer. I can see them backing this plan.
Look, it's bad enough that the Welsh and Scots run around unregulated. If you people start spontaneously generating in the river Fleet, Spain will have far worse things to worry about than people running around in sweater vests, looking for a packet of "crisps".
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:25:31 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:24:31 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:03:49 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Rises in temperature tend to fling back into ice ages, and we have already demonstrated that - as a species - we can survive those.
And then it's just another 6,000 years or so before we figure out how to build cities again. Rinse, repeat.
I think after 4 degrees it can be become a self-sustaining process, unfortunately. Desertification right up into the arctic circle.
I'll have to look that up. More heat means more evaporation, which means more reflected sunlight, or some such thing.
Yeah. You can see that now, with the increased rainfall in the UK over the past two decades. And the government's plans here are projecting even larger amounts of rainfall for the next century.
But there is a tipping point for heat, and past that...things get nasty. Feedback loops utterly wreck the environment. I believe it is somewhere between 4-6 degrees, though of course there is a lot of debate on where the exact point is.
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:27:51 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:25:31 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:24:31 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:03:49 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 05, 2011, 06:01:48 PM
Anything more than a four degree rise in temperature, and we're going to have serious problems surviving as a species in large and sophisticated enough societies to undertake space travel.
That's my concern.
Rises in temperature tend to fling back into ice ages, and we have already demonstrated that - as a species - we can survive those.
And then it's just another 6,000 years or so before we figure out how to build cities again. Rinse, repeat.
I think after 4 degrees it can be become a self-sustaining process, unfortunately. Desertification right up into the arctic circle.
I'll have to look that up. More heat means more evaporation, which means more reflected sunlight, or some such thing.
Yeah. You can see that now, with the increased rainfall in the UK over the past two decades. And the government's plans here are projecting even larger amounts of rainfall for the next century.
But there is a tipping point for heat, and past that...things get nasty. Feedback loops utterly wreck the environment. I believe it is somewhere between 4-6 degrees, though of course there is a lot of debate on where the exact point is.
No argument with that. The question is whether it CAN get that hot, without the reflectivity thing throwing things back to the other extreme.
It's still raining in Arizona, incidentally. The monsoon should have ended a month and a half ago.
Is probably right, but this is 4-6 degrees in a climate. And climate is defined as the average yearly values in a large region over the course of 30 years. I remember the 30 years thing, quite sure about that I learned it in highschool.
That's the entire thing about "climate change", climate is only measured over long periods.
Anyway, with such a broad average, indeed a rise of 4-6 degrees is quite a big deal. And I think they're talking a global rise in temperature too.
So yeah that would be bad. The question is, how easy do we get there?
(btw a 4 degree rise in C or K equals a 7.2 rise in F)
There is some irony in the massive consumption of resources and extensive burning of fossil fuels in order to get us off the planet before we exhaust our resources and fuck the climate by burning fossil fuels.
I don't think we should be trusted with space travel until we stop that.
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 07:14:26 PM
There is some irony in the massive consumption of resources and extensive burning of fossil fuels in order to get us off the planet before we exhaust our resources and fuck the climate by burning fossil fuels.
I don't think we should be trusted with space travel until we stop that.
Yeah, well, we may be "borrowing the planet from our children", but I notice there's
no collateral.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 07:16:44 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 07:14:26 PM
There is some irony in the massive consumption of resources and extensive burning of fossil fuels in order to get us off the planet before we exhaust our resources and fuck the climate by burning fossil fuels.
I don't think we should be trusted with space travel until we stop that.
Yeah, well, we may be "borrowing the planet from our children", but I notice there's no collateral.
:horrormirth: :monkeydance:
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 06:07:38 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 05, 2011, 06:00:09 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 05, 2011, 05:56:33 PM
I mean, how long do we have to get it right before the planet becomes inhospitable due to the sun's expansion? About a billion years, minimum?
A billion years. We only started using sharp rocks what, three million years ago?
If we can somehow just not kill ourselves off, I think odds are whatever our descendants have evolved into can make it into space by then, if we really want to.
To avoid killing ourselves off, we're going to need to do something about our population.
Interesting note: At the world's first "Earth Summit", 30 years back, nobody was even allowed to SAY the word "population" because it might offend people religiously.
This species is a dead end. Intelligence seems to be a fatal mutation.
I hope this species isn't a dead end. I mean, we're still monkeys, and we act like it, but I hope we're still a viable link on the evolutionary chain, to be eventually replaced by descendants who are more cooperative and less competitive. If we evolved into a more cooperative species with some foresight, we'd feed and educate people instead of burning villages to steal oil, and instead of having famine-riddled continents full of dying babies we'd have well-fed people who read and use contraceptives.
Also, all of the unicorns would come back and poop rainbows everywhere. It would all be so pretty!
Bump for use elsewhere.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2011, 07:25:09 PM
It occurs to me that my grandchildren will never believe that we were once a space-faring nation. I am old enough to remember the last moon landing, and of course the advent of re-useable spacecraft. I am old enough to remember Skylab and Mir. My children have heard of these things, but it's not really real to them.
I think what actually killed the space program was a guy named Chuck Yeager. He was a hero pilot in WWII, a test pilot, and the first man to break the sound barrier. You have to remember that aeronautics were galloping ahead at this point, and we went from propeller planes to spacecraft in the blink of an eye...My great grandmother remembered the first flight at Kitty Hawk, and she lived to see the space shuttle flights become a routine thing.
So, anyway, Chuck Yeager was approached by the government to be the first man in space. He publicly laughed at the idea, referring to astronauts as "Spam in a can." While the public remained enthralled with the space race, the idea of astronauts went from "HOLY SHIT, WE'RE GOING TO THE STARS" to "We have to beat the Russians to the moon." After we beat the Russians, everything else was an afterthought, a resented and continually shrinking line item on the annual budget. Eventually, and recently, even that went away.
Little known fact: We no longer have the capability to get to the moon, even if we wanted to (much less the asteroid belt or anything else that might be actually useful). The plans and schematics for Apollo were thrown away under Reagan's "Clean Desk" rule...And we no longer have the engineers with the nuts & bolts experience to reverse engineer it in any reasonable amount of time.
I am not pleased by the notion of living in an empire in decline, and I am not pleased by a population that threw away the stars so they could "spend the money more wisely" (translation: We need 12 aircraft carriers, in case the ghost of Tojo attacks us while we're not looking). Mostly, though, I am not pleased by Chuck Yeager, who chose to kill space travel as an adventure, and given the chance, I will shit on his grave.
Okay for now,
Dok
:eek:
Why did that even shock me? Fuck. :x