/sci/ - Science & Math

Sadly, Project Orion will likely never happen due to concerns with detonating nukes out in the wild. Much disapproval.

>>3669956

....Huh? Are you in the wrong thread?

Space was always only be for rich people, or at least for the next 300 years. When some infrastructures finally turn to shit because the technology is there and the costs are lowered, it will be allowed to the middle class. Due to their shittiness, a few major scale accidents will happen, wiping out entire communities, but it doesn't matter because they're not rich people.
Also, who gives a shit about living in a fucking desert, except grey instead of yellow.

>>3669968
You said something about some rich person saying "Fuck it! I'm going!" Kinda like the virgin galactic people. But the best chance of going places is project orion. Which won't happen due to international bans on "weaponizing space" and such shit.

Most of the profitability in space exploration has nothing to do with space exploration. The research developed in the process of overcoming the obstacles of space exploration is highly applicable in many commercial fields.

Patents get drawn up, technology gets sold to the relevant commercial companies who make mattresses, shoes, helmets, gloves, HDMI cables, whatever.

When it gets to colonization, there's profitability in the expansion. People will immigrate to a terraformed mars, or whatever planet, and take on a sustainable life-role there, when the competition might be too heavy on Earth for skilled labor, or perhaps just when adventure beckons. Transportation between the two would be highly profitable-- I assume there would be satellite stations from which spacecrafts could cheaply take off while carrying a heavy load, such as precious minerals mined on the other colonies.

etc. etc. It all comes down to the privatization of the space industry and what financial investments drive the direction of their progress. Profit lies in areas that are necessary to explore, not in arbitrary places that serve no purpose to society.

>>3669985

No, yeah, I know. Partial test ban treaty of 1963. I just wat'd because an orion vessel isn't what you'd use to make trips to the moon.

>>3669948
I might say that greentext stuff. I wouldn't call myself a cynic. I'd call myself a humanist and say we have bigger fish to fry first, like energy independence ala LFTRs.

>>3669948

Mad Scientist.

I really wish youd spend your creativity in making lots of money instead of squandering it making make belief forts on the internet.

If warren buffet or bill gates had your mindset, we'd have some form of lunar colony by now.

=(

Please make lots of money and put us on the moon.

Insanely wealthy people like oil sultans and even business tycoons dont realize how much they are damaging humanity by not spending their money properly.

They think they are doing the world some good by being a philanthropist every now and then. They dont realize that if a better man had been in their position, humanity would have progressed so much more.

=(((((

>>3670008

Wealth does not exist in a single pool, meted out to projects as they merit it. We do not live under a Communist system. Wealth is owned by an enormous number of different interests and no one person has the authority to dictate to these interests where their money will be spent.

As a result, every project that's sufficiently compelling will attract funding accordingly, independent of any other projects going on at the same time. I happen to think there's funding enough for both alternative energy development and private space colonization, since in fact both are funded already and being pursued as we speak.

>>3670024

>Mad Scientist. I really wish youd spend your creativity in making lots of money instead of squandering it making make belief forts on the internet.

...Are you aware that I'm a member of a nonprofit organization constructing the first permanent undersea colony? I do their graphics, and will be one of 152 crew members performing an experiment aboard the prototype habitat in 2013. Pic related.

Dicking around on /sci/ doesn't interfere with that. I can pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time.

>If warren buffet or bill gates had your mindset, we'd have some form of lunar colony by now. =( Please make lots of money and put us on the moon.

SpaceX and Bigelow have that covered. I'm excited to see it happen but I'm not the right guy for the job. My future is in the ocean.

>>3670025
Except no. The US isn't spending billions on molten salt thorium research. China may be seriously, but no one else is.

There is no justification for huge investment in space travel and colonization. If there were that many people who gave a shit about it then it would be funded through voluntary contributions.

>BUT, BUT MY DREAMS OF SPACE. MY ROMANTIC LUST FOR GOING TO THE MOON! HOW DARE YOU DESTROY MY DREAMS

Nice appeal to emotion faggots.

>>3670047

How exactly are you involved in that project?

>>3669995
Oh. I was thinking bigger than moon/mars. I somehow doubt either of those will be the <rainbows> FUTURE </rainbows>

Astroid belt is probably our first stop on our extrasolar journey.

>>3670063

>appeal to emotion

those words dont work in the way you intend them to

>>3670047
>nonprofit
I spotted the problem.

Start driving for profits and your venture will be a self-reinforcing self-sustaining positive feedback loop instead of the stupid pipe dream it is now.

Start working harder for our great multinational corporations, corporations like Exxon-Mobil are very interested in naval/naval engineering for their oil rigs. Corporations are fucking awesome, they control the government so it's like a socialsit utopia or some shit if you love communism or "resource based economies". Also even though corporations abuse other people's property rights they love using their own property rights, so they're capitalist and authoritarian if you're right wing and interested in those areas. They're fucking awesome and you need them and they need you, start serving your corporate masters now!

>>3670065

>How exactly are you involved in that project?

I'm a crew member, same as the rest. I was recruited by the expeditions leader last year, and along with the rest of the crew I'll be performing my own experiment during a 48 hour stay aboard the Leviathan prototype habitat. (see pic, upper right)

I'm doing content for the new site until then, and preparing the experiment, which will involve a new type of underwater plant cultivation for oxygen production and CO2 removal.

>>3670081

How old are you and why are you posting on /sci/?

Also what was your college major?

>>3670078

>Start driving for profits and your venture will be a self-reinforcing self-sustaining positive feedback loop instead of the stupid pipe dream it is now.

Actually as of a few days ago our funding problems are over. I can't say who, but we were approached by two wealthy benefactors.

It's the same way those seasteading guys attracted that 1.2 million from Peter Thiel. It's how projects like this typically get paid for.

>>3670089

What's with the 20 questions? It's creepy.

>>3670090

Was it Virgin? Google?

>>3670090

Hm... I have a couple of queeries and ideas for you.

Do the laws of a country still apply under water?

Can you host servers for an anonymous forum there? Gambling etc?

Seems rather cramped living in those cylinders, you'd have to work from home / retire etc.

How about opening them up as hotels for short undersea vacations? Seems like you could make lots of money that way.

Have you considered a sea elevator? To shuttle people to and from the seabed and onto dry land, that way they could still go down to the shops to get some beer before it closes.

Wont it be pretty dark down there?

Even if you have glass portholes, how are you going to see anything?

>>3670090

Is that you?

>>3670096

Individuals, not corporations. That's all I know, and I couldn't tell you even if I had names. The bottom line is that about a week ago the expeditions leader was approached by the first benefactor, then more recently by the second, and since then we've been able to drop the fund raising efforts.

I gather the 2013 mission is easily paid for at this point, I don't know whether it's enough to cover the permanent 1atm Challenger Station but if so I'll pass the news on to you guys.

>>3670117

No, that's the expeditions leader. This is me, chillin' in the decompression chamber.

>>3670124

gosh. how do you do those tiny ms paint graphics with such a chubby hand.

anyway. are there any real scientists on your team? or are they all just engineers.i mean like, is the objective of all this research based (like studying the sea) or just purely to establish alternate housing?

why is your expedition leader not wearing pants....

reading this thread kind of makes a little part of me tingle inside

>>3670132

>gosh. how do you do those tiny ms paint graphics with such a chubby hand.

...What? You went looking for flaws and that's the best you could do?

>anyway. are there any real scientists on your team? or are they all just engineers. i mean like, is the objective of all this research based (like studying the sea) or just purely to establish alternate housing?

Plenty of scientists, lots of professional divers, lots of variety in general. But this is focusing too much on something that isn't the topic of the thread. Ask me questions like this next time there's a sea thread.

>why is your expedition leader not wearing pants....

He's in a prototype underwater habitat. He had to swim to get there. He's in swim trunks, bro.

Anyway, can we get back to the topic? SpaceX and Bigelow have both made it clear that their goal is to put human outposts on the moon and Mars. Both say it will occur before 2030, and SpaceX now has the launch vehicle necessary to make it a reality. Meanwhile Bigelow has the habitat modules needed, two of which are in orbit as we speak.

Exciting times if you ask me.

>>3670158

>thinks buying an operating system when it first comes out is a good idea

>thinks buying the first iproduct is a good idea

>mfw hidenburg in space

>>3670158

Bigelow has habitat modules in orbit? I didnt know that. I didnt actually know who they were until a moment ago.

But anyway, I read that SpaceX believes they can go to mars for less than half a billion dollars. Thats pretty cool. Seeing as SpaceX is a company, how did it generate revenue I wonder. Is it just living off donations?

>>3670090
So basically you make yachts for millionaires instead of becoming a millionaire yourself.

Stay classy nirvana fallacy worshippers.

>>3670162

What do you propose? Never doing anything because you might unfortunately be the first to do it?

>>3670172

wait until some other sap does it

wait until it runs smoothly

wait until all the obvious improvements have been made

>>3670181

Really? Is that really how you feel? You consider pioneers into originality "saps"?

>>3670170

No, not for millionaires. The NWE habitat modules comprising the Leviathan will be produced as a diver's hobby product for $35,000 each, or $50,000 fully loaded. 'Rent' aboard the permanent colony will be somewhere around $1100 per month, what you could expect to pay for a decent apartment in the city.

The blue frontier is for everyone.

Daily remember:

Peak Oil says no

>>3670166
>SpaceX believes they can go to mars for less than half a billion dollars

Remember that space x is run by elon musk, a well documented serial liar and egomaniac, and the falcon systems are only cheap because someone else did all the research and built all the infrastructure

>>3670195
If you've got $35,000 to throw away on a hobby, odds are you are a millionaire.

>>3670198

I don't see how peak oil can put a stop to this. It's an overblown problem in the first place, we're in the process of switching to post oil technologies as we speak and have been for several years now.

>>3670225

>If you've got $35,000 to throw away on a hobby, odds are you are a millionaire.

It's about what a nice car costs. Don't pretend only millionaires can afford it. It's the kind of thing we expect to be purchased by groups such as diving clubs, or colleges with marine science programs.

>>3670215

>and the falcon systems are only cheap because someone else did all the research and built all the infrastructure

And if in 2030 you're saying "SpaceX was only able to put a base on Mars because..." I won't care what comes after that, only that it got done.

>>3670166

>Seeing as SpaceX is a company, how did it generate revenue I wonder. Is it just living off donations?

Currently from Elon Musks money and NASA COTS program I think. But with the price per kg put into orbit they claim to have with Falcons (2300) I wouldnt worry about that. They will undercut all current competitors by more than half.

dumping Bigelow propaganda.

i would be so crushed if SpaceX turned out to be a fraud....

using genuinely plausible science to get investors hooked, and then the boss guy runs off with the deposit....

>>3670292

This is their most sensible proposal imo. We don't need space hospitals or space discos or most of the other stuff Bigelow has come up with, what we do need is a way to minimize the number of launches necessary to construct a reusable manned vessel for visits beyond low Earth orbit. If we can send up two inflatable habitats instead of six rigid capsules and get comparable elbow room, that's something.

>>3670233
>I don't see how peak oil can put a stop to this. It's an overblown problem in the first place

>entire society built on the concept of cheap to the point of being almost free energy
>current population only sustainable with massive amounts of oil powered farm machinery and oil produced fertiliser
>Personal transportation impossible for 99% of the world's population without oil
>Oil "substitutes"/replacement technologies cannot replace the enormous amount of practically free energy gained from oil, only viable for extremely small scale use
>your food is produced because of oil
>your transport is only possible due to oil
>the entire way you live is only possible due to oil
>the society built over the last century can only exist with oil
>space exploration is a pipe dream without oil
>without massive, ever increasing amounts of oil, human civilisation will slowly and painfully revert to the way it was before oil over a course of probably 250 years or so

>overblown problem in the first place

wow, you're an idiot. The collapse has already started, and if you can't see it. you're blind.
inb4
>hurr u haet mankind
>hurr you want peeple to die
>hurr no faith in syenc

It's called being realistic. You can huff and puff all you want, but it's not going to stop it happening. It doesn't matter how much you religiously believe in the myth of infinite progress and growth, you're still going to get fucked.

China will be the only ones with moon bases and space stations. and oh boy, won't that be swell? hot, humid, cramped and smelly with just enough people onboard to not completely overtask the lifesupport.

grorious futuah in spaasche!

>>3670307

>Oil "substitutes"/replacement technologies cannot replace the enormous amount of practically free energy gained from oil, only viable for extremely small scale use

>Implying when shit really starts to hit the fan, society wont fuck pseudoenvironmentalists and nuclear renaissance wont ensue. Cheap oil is the only thing currently holding real alternatives such as advanced nuclear at bay.

>>3670307

>>entire society built on the concept of cheap to the point of being almost free energy

And in the process of converting to alternatives.

>current population only sustainable with massive amounts of oil powered farm machinery and oil produced fertiliser

Modern farms (dairy farms in particular) are actually largely automated. Genetic engineering can reduce or negate the need for fertiliser and vertical farming can multiply the output per acre.

>Personal transportation impossible for 99% of the world's population without oil

Actually the most common form of transport in Chinese cities is now lowspeed electric bicycle dealies that use cheap lead acid batteries. Bad for the environment, but affordable.

>Oil "substitutes"/replacement technologies cannot replace the enormous amount of practically free energy gained from oil, only viable for extremely small scale use

It isn't practically free. We're not going to ignore the massive expenses involved in getting at oil. It's why the industry is so heavily subsidized. Solar panels aren't a practical alternative, but I'll wager you have no idea what a heliostat is or that it's a practical, low cost utility scale form of solar that runs uninterrupted overnight without batteries, has a higher output per acre than panels and is being pushed aggressively by Google.

>your food is produced because of oil

Are there no electric trains in your world?

>your transport is only possible due to oil

I don't own any gas powered vehicles. I have a converted electric car, electric motorbike and electric bicycle. All are charged from solar panels.

>the entire way you live is only possible due to oil

False. A large percentage, surely, but not 100%.

>the society built over the last century can only exist with oil

Luckily that society will have become a different one by the time oil has run out.

>space exploration is a pipe dream without oil

Not if the infrastructure used can be electrified.

>without massive, ever increasing amounts of oil, human civilisation will slowly and painfully revert to the way it was before oil over a course of probably 250 years or so

That was supposed to have happened already. Look up the predictions from the 1970s, last time there was an oil crisis. We were supposed to be fighting turf wars for potable water and resorting to cannibalism by the year 2000.

The future is brighter than you're capa

>>3670275

They're heading for the medical frigate

>>3670243
I'm going to say it now:

Space X will never have a base on Mars

Never

Never

Never

Never

Not only that, but the falcon systems are totally impossible without massive government subsidy in the form of infrastructure, personnel and money, the figures they give for kg/orbit are cooked to fuck and, here's the kicker: You know why NASA hasn't spent the last decade producing a space shuttle replacement to take over immediately? Because there is no point. There is no ISS replacement planned. There are no serious plans for going back to the moon. There are no serious plans for going to mars, Even the chinese and russians basically admit all the stuff they're doing isn't serious.
The ISS goes into fireball mode, latest possible, by the end of the decade. Humans being launched on the falcon is still several years away. Space x will take up the slack when there isn't a soyuz available for 3 to 5 years, and then get dropped because it will have no point.
The space age is over.

>China will be the only ones with moon bases and space stations.

i just read the other day that apple generates more revenue than the us govt.

since space travel consumes only a small fraction of the us budget, it is theoretically possible that some rich tycoon could feasably fund adventures into space.

like spacex.

fuck the 'communists.'

>>3670323

>nuclear renaissance ensues

>plant contracts given to the lowest bidder because of energy crisis

>or to favored companies with no-bid offers

>plant failures are unavoidable

>uranium becomes scarce

>wars

>more broken plants and now bombed out cities

>"Patrolling the mohave makes you wish for nuclear winter..."

If anything, I think it's short sighted to focus on space colonization. What's so special about humans, after all? We are just one species in the vast cosmos that is only notable because of our reasonably high capability for reason. It is reason that matters, about grasping a bigger understanding of the universe, not just expanding the habitat of our particular species of ape. Unmanned space exploration is exciting. The Hubble Space Telescope is exciting. The Large Hadron Collider is exciting. Sending humans back to the moon would also be quite exciting, but the universe is such a very big and wonderful place that we should not be distracted by the minor goal of moving from one pale dot to another.

>>3670314

>China
>space

dont make me lol. The whole china worship is greatly overblown. They only now recreated something USA and USSR did 50 years ago, even with designs stolen from Soyuz, and now they will be the only space power. lol

>>3670323
There is less than 30 years worth of uranium left. Well over 50% of the currently used nuclear fuel comes from the almost gone stockpile of decommissioned Russian nuclear warheads. Nuclear is about to become even more expensive, if you can imagine such a thing.
Cue liquid salt reactor fanboys shouting about their favourite non-viable joke technology

>>3670332

>Space X will never have a base on Mars

Yes, they will.

>There are no serious plans for going back to the moon. There are no serious plans for going to mars, Even the chinese and russians basically admit all the stuff they're doing isn't serious.

False. NASA hasn't been defunded entirely and the recent cut was relatively small. What do you think they do with the money we do give them? They work on making real the technologies they'll need for bases on other planets when we get an administration friendlier to space exploration.

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-colonies-powered-by-mini-nuclear-reactors-110830.html

I wish I could make people like you bet with your life that what you say is true, and that you'd be held accountable when you're wrong.

Space colonization is the next step to take for our survival as a species, but we've got like 5 billion years to accomplish that, all OP wants is it to happen in his lifetime.

>>3670352

>we've got like 5 billion years to accomplish that, all OP wants is it to happen in his lifetime.

If by committing suicide I could ensure that cities would be built on the moon and mars over the next ten years I would do so unhestitantly.

It isn't about *my* lifespan. It's about getting it done sooner rather than later. We don't necessarily have 5 billion years. There are a lot of factors involved in our survival. Sitting on our hands accomplishing nothing because we think we have all the time in the world is the dumbest thing possible.

>>3670341

Apparently rate and progress are new concepts to you.

I wont bother explaining further.

>>3670348
So your only rebuttal is a less than page long quasi serious internet article about possible future technology?

Thanks for proving my point.

>I wish I could make people like you bet with your life that what you say is true, and that you'd be held accountable when you're wrong.

Likewise. Because I've got an 100% chance of being right. It's like the best rigged poker game of all time.
Cold hard reason, fact and logic vs. starry eyed fanboy dreaming and parroting "what-if" opinion piece articles.
Spoiler: The first one always wins.

>>3670352

>we've got like 5 billion years to accomplish that

What a retarded thing to say. Take a look at Earth's track record - there is a hell of a lot less time than 5 billion years between massive ELEs.

>>3670361

>If by committing suicide I could ensure that cities would be built on the moon and mars over the next ten years I would do so unhestitantly.

When Obama had cut the funding for NASA, you could have gone over to washington, poured oil over yourself, and set yourself on fire in protest.

But you didnt.

Space ex is nice and all, but its not worth throwing your life away for- especially if you dont get to see it.

>>3670330

>I don't own any gas powered vehicles. I have a converted electric car, electric motorbike and electric bicycle. All are charged from solar panels.

And i bet that cost you quite a bit of money. remember that 86% of the world makes less money than a mcdonalds employee. Sure, we have the tech. but how do we spread it around like we have with the moped? especially with the cost of electric vehicles tied to the scarcity of their building materials.

>False. A large percentage, surely, but not 100%.

What percentage, then? Are you factoring all the things you buy, like clothes, groceries, toilet paper, basically anything that wasn't made in your town and had to be shipped there on a truck? god help you if you recycle. the amount of fuel it takes for all those trucks and the recycling center sets you back even further.

>Luckily that society will have become a different one by the time oil has run out.

Funny thing about life; sometimes when you wait until it's too late, it is too late.

>Not if the infrastructure used can be electrified.

Who is going to fund a nationwide or even a worldwide superconducting grid? and for what profit motive? like, how does the company make more money than the staggering cost to the earth's supply of rare metals not to mention the sheer monetary cost?

>That was supposed to have happened already. Look up the predictions from the 1970s, last time there was an oil crisis. We were supposed to be fighting turf wars for potable water and resorting to cannibalism by the year 2000.

We were supposed to have flying cars and interplanetary spaceships by now. see pic for token argument from authority.

>The future is brighter than you're capa

I hope so. But i don't think it's in our nature to really put effort into things that don't make our lives better right now. as a collective, we seem to have a reluctance to contribute to the greater good.

>>3670348
>bet with your life
how about just money? Life is a little extreme for an incorrect view on the status of space exploration.

>>3670361
You are aware that humans are going to become extinct at some point? Everything you do is pointless. Committing suicide to advance human progress is quite an amusing joke. I'm assuming you're not being serious, because if you are you are probably suffering from quite a serious amount of brain damage.
Judging from the time, I'm guessing you're a europoor as well, in which case substitute the brain damage for ignorance, lack of education and inbreeding

>>3670332

I agree about SpaceX not getting to Mars, because SpaceX is little more than the most expensive midlife crisis of all time.

The rest of your post is retarded, however. The Space Age isn't over, Space is the only place we have left to go. Hell, we're already there - Earth is just one natural spaceship among many, and pretty soon we'll need more than she alone can give us.

>>3670372

Shit, forgot ma pic.

>>3670376

>Space is the only place we have left to go

I think you might be forgetting something Pic related. But overall I agree on the importance of space colonization.

>>3670377

NDT never said that. must be a shoop.

>>3670375

>substitute the brain damage for ignorance, lack of education and inbreeding

Coming from an American? That's rich.

>>3670345
>>3670345

oh god not this green propaganda again..

The cost of nuclear fuel currently contributes cca 7% to the cost of electricity, at price 130/kg. There are vast amounts of dissolved uranium in the oceans, 800 times the land resources (cost of extraction from ocean is 300 per kg) - google seawater uranium extraction.

And with breeder reactors, amount of uranium and plutonium nuclear fuel will be enough for millions of years, even when it substitutes fossil fuels.

Not even talking about thorium, there is 4X more thorium than uranium on earth, and one tonne of thorium produces som much energy as 250 tonnes of uranium.

Also uranium/thorium space mining etc...

http://sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad11983cohen.pdf

>>3670376

It might be a mid life crisis, but too be fair. It has been profitable and grown every year for the past 4 or so years

>>3670383

Being in the sea is just like being on land but in a medium thicker than air. Thats not very exciting, and its nothing like space.

>>3670385

NDT Never said that... NDT was quoting Robert Traux

>>3670361
>>3670369
>What a retarded thing to say.
I said LIKE 5 billion years, I'm just going by when the sun is supposed to die, im not about to list everything that COULD happen between then and now.

I think you missed the point of my post, it will get done in time, what is the point in complaining trying to rush something you cant possibly affect.

>>3670391

I find it exciting simply because you are isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. You have to be self sufficient in even the most fundamental way.

THAT AND ALL THE SEA FOOD I CAN EAT>

>>3670372

>And i bet that cost you quite a bit of money.

No, not really. The moped did because it has lithium batteries. The battery pack for the car cost a few hundred bucks, as it's lead acid. Realistically when gas becomes unaffordable I think the most common vehicles on the road will be compact cars converted to electric, running on cheap lead batteries with around a 50 mile range. That's entirely doable and affordable for the majority, if not ideal or state of the art.

The point is, you asserted that transport for me is impossible without oil. You were wrong. Please concede that.

>What percentage, then?

No idea. But you claimed 100%. At this point I'm just getting you to back down from that so a sane conversation can be had on where to go from here.

>Who is going to fund a nationwide or even a worldwide superconducting grid?

The government. It already is doing exactly that.

>We were supposed to have flying cars and interplanetary spaceships by now. see pic for token argument from authority.

Flying cars exist. The Terrafugia isn't even outrageously priced for what it is. And we have spaceships, if not technically interplanetary ones, although we'll soon be able to make that claim as well.

>>3670375

>You are aware that humans are going to become extinct at some point?

Yes.

>Everything you do is pointless.

No, that doesn't follow.

>>3670397

Seafood fucking sucks

>>3670376
>Space is the only place we have left to go

It doesn't matter if it's the only place to go if you can't get there.
People on here talk about space as if giant spaceships with thousands of people on them are just around the corner, and not hundreds of years away, if ever. The money, energy and political will to get people into space only really existed in the 50's and 60's, and has slowly but surely been draining away since then. There is absolutely nothing going in even the most far fetched space programs other than what amounts to an incredibly expensive one-off camping trip. People do not care about space, and before you start screeching about everyone apart from you (being a genius with an IQ of 170 of course) and a handful of scientists being stupid, think about why they should. Spouting nonsense about manifold destiny, long term survival and the like means nothing to people who just want to get a job, eat, and have a family in increasingly hard times, and in the end, getting into space does not stop humans dying out eventually.

>>3670330
>I have a converted electric car, electric motorbike and electric bicycle. All are charged from solar panels.
Dude!

>>3670403

Yeah whatever. Me and my diet of 50% salmon disagree.

>>3670391

>Being in the sea is just like being on land but in a medium thicker than air. Thats not very exciting, and its nothing like space.

Well except for totally different forms of life and a stunningly exotic view. Meanwhile being on Mars is like being in the Utah desert only deadlier and more expensive. It's a frigid, barren, lifeless desert blasted with radiation. I don't find that exciting, just practical from a longterm survival standpoint.

If we're talking about which location is more desirable for longterm living, see the picture. It's hardly a contest.

>>3670337

>uranium becomes scarce

There is enough uranium and thorium to power humanity for millenia

http://www.oecd-nea.org/pub/newsletter/2002/20-2-Nuclear_fuel_resources.pdf

>plant failures are unavoidable

Modern and future plants are very safe. Plant failures will happen, but that will simply be the cost of civilisation just as pollution and emmisions are now.

Uranium is so cheap now that even if the cost increased by an order of magnitude, your electric bill would barely rise. Thorium is even cheaper. The availability of a resource increases exponentialy with increased mining investments.

We have not tapped this resource yet because there is no need to, fossil energy is still cheap and has less stigma. When peak oil comes and renewables prove to be insufficient, the same people that are now protesting against nuclear will beg for more plants.

>>3670397

Are you a kid?

Truth is: once it becomes commercially viable to live underwater, there will be a small period of sensationalism where the underwater housing market will boom. After maybe 30-40 years, this will all die down, and people would find it too much of a hassle. 1000 years later when all the worlds land gets overpopulated, people will RELUCTANTLY have to go and live under the water.

Yeh. Reluctantly. It sounds like a cool idea to us, but it would be nothing more than a hassle to future generations.

>>3670409

I find the Mars picture a lot more exciting than the ocean one, although Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef was an amazing experiance

>>3670408

I wish I could say it was for high minded reasons, but I just really enjoy the handling and acceleration, plus the sound the motor makes when under load. They're a LOT of fun to drive.

>>3670403

Seriously? Ono? Mahi mahi? Black tiger prawns? Some of the most delicious and sought after foods in the world come from the ocean. It's why we've begun farming underwater. Pic related.

>>3670337
Educate yourself on the molten salt thorium reactor. It's like current nuclear reactors, but better in every way. Safer, cheaper, less waste, waste is radioactive for much less time, comes with a free pony, etc.

>>3670432

tell me more about this pony...

>>3670402
>That's entirely doable and affordable for the majority, if not ideal or state of the art.

The problem is that there isn't enough energy being produced to power all those vehicles. A few people having electric cars is fine, but if there was a mass take up of them, as in more than 5%, the gird simply couldn't cope, especially not with the fast charging systems people are proposing, the load is too great. You'd have to completely replace the existing grid, and build more than twice the number of existing power stations - just to power cars for people to make trips which average less than 10 miles. It doesn't make economic sense, or any sense at all for that matter. It's unfortunate, but personal transportation in the style of the motor vehicle is very shortly to become a thing of the past for all but the very wealthy. Electric vehicles are not a solution. They're not even a stopgap. They're a short lived novelty.
When people harp on about things like electric cars, they always forget to ask, "is it up-scalable?" If you take a step back and look at the facts, the answer is pretty obvious.
Protip for the future? Get a low displacement motorbike and a bicycle, or you'll be walking or taking the tram.

>>3670437
>why are they so adorable

>>3670418

I'll take the badlands of Mars any day.

Undersea plants are creepy and disgusting, and the stuff that moves is even worse.

>>3670437
Get out.

>>3670402

>Realistically when gas becomes unaffordable I think the most common vehicles on the road will be compact cars converted to electric, running on cheap lead batteries with around a 50 mile range. That's entirely doable and affordable for the majority, if not ideal or state of the art.

So you're saying that every mother of two who is struggling on her own to pay the bills is somehow going to just buy a new car or even an expensive conversion? realistically?

>The point is, you asserted that transport for me is impossible without oil. You were wrong. Please concede that.

Woah, sorry for the confusion, but i just joined this thread. i should have made that obvious.

>The government. It already is doing exactly that.

Wait, which government? and it's global? what are they making the superconductors out of?

>Flying cars exist. The Terrafugia isn't even outrageously priced for what it is. And we have spaceships, if not technically interplanetary ones, although we'll soon be able to make that claim as well.

The terrafugia isn't a flying car, come on. it's just an ugly little plane that crumples up into a terrible looking car. it's not really practical for replacing the car or alleviating traffic as they still have to use airports. You know what people meant by flying cars, and it isn't that monstrosity.

>>3670424

>Yeh. Reluctantly. It sounds like a cool idea to us, but it would be nothing more than a hassle to future generations.

This is probably true. It can be affordable for ordinary people in large numbers, but only if it's ambient pressure, due to the cost difference between that and 1atm designs. The 'land' where it's possible to build large ambient settlements is largely within the US' EEZ. That's not a problem if they're simply extensions of US coastal communities but I imagine once people started to immigrate in greater numbers, we'd run out of the best subsea land for it (100-300 feet deep, near reefs or seamounts for food) and suddenly you've got the usual suspects diving up subsea land and resources. We'll live new places, but bring the old problems with us.

Ultimately in the near term I think there will be no more than a few hundred people living undersea for a long time. It will be for those who are powerfully attracted to the lifestyle, and that's a relatively small number.

Fascinating topic, but probably better for a sea thread.

>>3670447

>>3670441

Fcuk battery electric cars. Artificial petrol is the way to go.

http://www.manufacturingdigital.com/sectors/chemicals-plastics/uk-scientists-invent-artificial-petro
l

>>3670432

That's all well and good, but in a post chernobyl and fukushima world, how do you gain the public's trust that the safety claims are true? japan said their reactors were fine and safe too, and they're like, the most honest people ever because they stood in line for supplies.

>>3670447

Youre a small minded bigot.

You are the kind of person that Einstein loathed.

>>3670459
you phsyically shove their face into a running reactor

>>3670459
Because as safe as those reactors are, ours are safer. How do we tell that to the public? Dunno. I'm not the best people person.

The fact remains that molten salt reactors have about as much in common with traditional light water reactors as they do with natural gas plants. Seriously. A natural gas plant is more likely to kill someone than a molten salt reactor plant. They're that safe.

>>3670460

You're a grown man who watches a cartoon made for little girls.

You're the kind of person everybody loathes.

>>3670464
Also, Fukishima and Chernonyl, especially Fukushima, are entirely overrated. Seriously, no one even died due to Fukushima IIRC. That's an amazing safety record.

>>3670437
They're science-minded unicorn ponies mainly, like Twilight.

>>3670352
>Space colonization is the next step to take for our survival as a species

No it's fucking not, transhumanism is.

Who fucking cares about seeing big rocks in space?

God damn you people are stupid.

>>3670451

Flying cars havent got off because of safety and common sense, not technical reasons. I for one would run away from a country full of angsty teenagers with their new daddy-bought flying cars faster than you say "crash".

>>3670459

You dont. When the electricity and gas bills rise, people wont be able to afford anti-nuclear stances.

>>3670467

It takes a lot of radiation to kill instantly. wait a few decades and check the actuarial tables. be sure to count stillbirths.

But there is also the problem that the area around fukushima will probably not be habitable for quite some time. It scared germany enough to start scrapping their reactors, and germans are usually pretty stoic about shit like that.

You should become a better people person. People are humanity's worst enemy.

>>3670441

>The problem is that there isn't enough energy being produced to power all those vehicles. A few people having electric cars is fine, but if there was a mass take up of them, as in more than 5%, the gird simply couldn't cope, especially not with the fast charging systems people are proposing, the load is too great.

This is a myth. http://www.chron.com/business/article/Utilities-confident-grids-can-handle-electric-car-1703785.php

>You'd have to completely replace the existing grid, and build more than twice the number of existing power stations - just to power cars for people to make trips which average less than 10 miles.

Charging stations can be an outlet on a pole. It's not a big deal, and your figure for the number of additional stations is a lie. Utilities have suggested that even a single additional power plant per state would be sufficient. You're forgetting that most of the time there's a lot of capacity that simply goes unused.

>It doesn't make economic sense, or any sense at all for that matter.

Except it does, you're mistaken about the grid not being able to handle it, and we haven't any alternative in a post-oil world.

>>3670361

I genuinely don't understand your perspective. Who is this "we" you refer to? Why should I care about the survival of some particular genetic pattern just because I share it? If anything, I want human beings to go extinct in a blaze of transhumanist glory creating something even better. Instead focusing on trying to maintain the human species and securing real estate to that end is just silly.

>>3670478

>It scared germany enough to start scrapping their reactors, and germans are usually pretty stoic about shit like that.

Nope. Germany is a bastion of anti-nuclear sentiment.

>It's unfortunate, but personal transportation in the style of the motor vehicle is very shortly to become a thing of the past for all but the very wealthy.

False. Millions commute in China by way of low cost electric vehicles. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904334,00.html

>Electric vehicles are not a solution. They're not even a stopgap. They're a short lived novelty.

False. See above. And that's a worst case scenario.

>When people harp on about things like electric cars, they always forget to ask, "is it up-scalable?" If you take a step back and look at the facts, the answer is pretty obvious.

I agree. We've already upscaled it in the form of electric commuter trains and personal rapid transit. Electric cars were only ever intended for the personal auto segment of the transport equation. The more drive electric, the less gas we use, the more is available for the applications where it's actually necessary like long haul trucking and air travel.

>Protip for the future? Get a low displacement motorbike and a bicycle, or you'll be walking or taking the tram.

No thanks, you don't know what you're talking about. You'd be well advised to look into the principles of electric vehicles. It's easy enough to build your own.

>>3670478
>But there is also the problem that the area around fukushima will probably not be habitable for quite some time.
Citations please.

>>3670456

>Fcuk battery electric cars. Artificial petrol is the way to go.

That was tried under president Carter's SynFuels program. It turned out to be hugely more expensive in practice than on paper.

>>3670456
Interesting read, i better see that in the next 3 years then.

>>3670476

this. the whole antinuclear faggotry collapses once the average consumerist joe would have to choose between a nuclear plant or having unstable renewable electricity rationed for 8 hours a day for double the cost. People would beg for new nuclear plants to be built, even if they were Chernobyl specifications lol.

>>3670481

>I genuinely don't understand your perspective. Who is this "we" you refer to? Why should I care about the survival of some particular genetic pattern just because I share it? If anything, I want human beings to go extinct in a blaze of transhumanist glory creating something even better. Instead focusing on trying to maintain the human species and securing real estate to that end is just silly.

Kill yourself.

>>3670480

>Except it does, you're mistaken about the grid not being able to handle it, and we haven't any alternative in a post-oil world.

Then i guess some places are just fucked.

>>3670482
Germanfag here, absolutely agree. We're green as shit over here. This stuff was happening in Germany even before Fukushima, it was just accelerated by it.

>>3670494

>Then i guess some places are just fucked.

Until they do some renovating, yes. But that is hardly impossible.

>>3670484

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/27/us-japan-nuclear-uninhabitable-idUSTRE77Q17U20110827

>>3670494

where is that lol?

>>3670460
Was gunna retort but >>3670465 summed it up pretty well.

>>3670497

It's not impossible, but it's hard to convince people that the sky is falling before the oil crisis, and once it hits it'll be far too late to be able to construct new things in an orderly fashion.

>>3670502

Ho chi minh city.

>>3670492

The universe is too vast and glorious for artificial categories like nationality or species to divide us.

>>3670518

Kill yourself.

>>3670494
you must've missed this.
>>3670456

>>3670523

See: >>3670485

>>3670480
Right. That's a puff piece for a number of small interest groups.
I work for an energy consultancy. I've seen the figures. Fuck, I've got a live window open on my desktop showing current power consumption and the amount generated by each generation type and area. The grid isn't good enough. That is a fact. I categorically state that if anyway tells you different, they are lying to you.
The mistake laypeople make when looking at the stuff manufacturers and energy companies put out is they look at the kwh and think of them like a physical thing, like water or money. This is wrong. It doesn't matter how many kw, mw or gw a plant puts out, it's how the load on the grid is managed. And it is managed badly. The famous example of this is the UK. I'm not sure if it still happens there, but it used to be that every day, at a certain time, a large proportion of the country would sit down and watch a tv show, all at the same time, and then at the ad break they would all go and put the kettle on. Kettles are monsters. They use up an unbelievable amount of power. So it was, or still is maybe, that every single day the load on the grid was so great they'd have to bring on power stations pretty much PURPOSE BUILT FOR MAKING CUPS OF TEA just to stop mass brownouts. The grid in the US is almost constantly near max capacity. If we were like the britfags in our love of tea at a certain time, the grid would collapse.
That's for kettles.
Electric vehicles are a magnitude worse. The fast charging stations already put a noticeable strain on the grid, and there's less than 500 stage III fast chargers in the US. There are over 240 million vehicles in the country.
It is impossible to produce that much power if even 10 million were electric. We'd struggle even if fusion reactors existed.

>>3670540
cont.
Electric cars are a nonsense novelty. They use more energy overall than a pickup truck. They don't last as long. They are bad for the environment. They are bad for society at large. A large scale take up of EV's would be a disaster, with the current state of energy generation, and even with projected capacity for the next half century (The DOE does not really have a coherant policy. It's ridiculous. Energy is the most important issue for any country, and it's being managed by what appears to be a three ring circus)
The next thing people say is something about solar panels etc. The simple fact is, unless you only use your EV once a day for extremely short journeys and live in a consistently sunny area, you will not be able to produce the power your EV needs. To charge an EV, even an electric motorbike (Which are awesome btw, our firm has one for demo purposes) is beyond the remit of home generation, unless you have a field covered in solar or a private hydro station.

>>3670520

Why are you so hostile to the transhumanist?

Do you know what he's talking about? I assume the statement about wanting humanity to go extinct in a "blaze of transhumanist glory" he meant by transcending that which makes us human, not actually seeing people die.

I personally don't have a problem with that, I'd be more than happy to be made into something better than what I am. If anything, the resulting (I assume) indefinite lifespan would afford us all the time we need to ensure we expand into the cosmos, and that you are around to experience it.

May I ask, what exactly is your objection to that?

>>3670540

>I categorically state
>I
>categorically
>state

Stopped reading there.

Yeah, the biggest problem with colonizing the moon or ocean, even for the express purpose of mining or drilling for economic returns and not some token science experiments or housing (why?), are the charlatan utopian dreamer retards in charge. Get rid of faggots like Elon Musk, Mad Scientist and Inurdaes, hand over operations to a Weyland-Yutani like corporation and we're good to go.

how about you stick up the latest pic of the moon base so i can work on it? pretty please

Ctrl-F
"Helium 3"
No results
>mfw

>>3670545

>Why are you so hostile to the transhumanist?

It isn't transhumanism in particular. It's his disloyalty to his own species. It's disgusting. Like watching ants consume their own queen and then each other. The ultimate failure of any form of life is to neglect to protect the future of its kind.

If he means he'd prefer we persist in some other form then fine. I interpreted his post to mean that he'd prefer humans in general become extinct and that it doesn't matter to him if it's some other form of life that explores and colonizes the universe. I can't stomach that attitude. People like that shouldn't call themselves human.

>>3670332
I agree. There is no real business case for human spaceflight without a destination, and the ISS goes away after 2020.

Fortunately, SpaceX does not rely on human spaceflight to stay in business. If anything, the COTS and CCDev related projects are a distraction. The SpaceX competitive advantage is lowered launch cost due to vertical integration. SpaceX plans to make money launching standard comsats and with the Falcon Heavy, US military spysats.

>>3670556

>People like that shouldn't call themselves human.

That's the point, though. Improving ourselves to a point to which we can no longer be considered human.

My loyalty lies only with great minds, not the biological prisons they're trapped in.

>>3670549
Because you don't understand the English language?

>>3670556

I agree.

Ive seen lawrence Krauss speak at my university. And the excitement he has when he speaks about computers driving humans to extinction is the porbably his least attractive feature.

>>3670563
>My loyalty lies only with great minds

I bet they'd be thrilled to be associated with such a pompous internet genius

>>3670472
More to the point, why are we trying to send squishy meatbags into the hard vacuum of space?

The next frontier is the understanding and creation of machine intelligence, so that we can send our cybernetic children to explore the solar system.

>>3670598

>More to the point, why are we trying to send squishy meatbags into the hard vacuum of space?

Because currently those squishy meatbags have brains superior to anything we can build, and the logical endgame of artificial beings is something so close to a human being it's not even funny. Our entire bodies are, in a sense, comprised of nanomachines. Our eyes have astounding resolution and clarity cameras are just now catching up to. The bandwidth of our optic nerve is beyond anything we can replicate with machines.

The shortcoming in transhumanist reasoning is that they take for granted technology which doesn't exist yet and may not for centuries. I don't want to wait that long to go to Mars.

>>3670542
>EVs
>use more energy than a pickup truck

stopped reading at that blatant falsehood

>>3670567

What exactly did I do, other than step in for a guy who was being urged to commit suicide, without any hostility about it whatsoever?

I'm sure just about any mind would prefer association with myself or frankly just about anyone, over a senselessly rude shitstain such as you.

I'm sure you're really going places.

Transhumanism and space exploration aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they will probably complementary. As we spread into more hostile environments the ability to move into different hardware substrates suited to the environment would be very useful.

The future of interstellar travel might be humans becoming the ship itself.

>>3670540

>I work for an energy consultancy. I've seen the figures.

So have I. Here they are, courtesy of MIT: http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf

>The grid isn't good enough. That is a fact. I categorically state that if anyway tells you different, they are lying to you.

You're some random guy on the internet. I will not take your word over that of the actual utility companies involved. The study most widely cited comes straight from the Department of Energy. They are right. You are wrong.

>Electric cars are a nonsense novelty. They use more energy overall than a pickup truck.

No, they don't. Reference the MIT study and get back to me.

>They don't last as long.

Current lithium batteries last as long as the rated product lifespan for most gasoline vehicles. The fact that people drive them far longer than intended doesn't translate into a shortcoming for batteries.

>They are bad for the environment.

Your information is out of date. You're thinking of old battery chemistries based on toxic heavy metals. Lithium batteries are vastly less toxic and in some variants entirely nontoxic, (As they are made from a mineral salt rather than heavy metals) on top of which Lithium is a soft, sticky metal which can be extruded hydraulically rather than smelted, greatly reducing emissions.

In short everything you think you know about electric vehicles is wrong. Get your information from credible sources, not right wing talk radio.

In the future there will no longer be any Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

There will only be Homo.

>>3670652
Not that guy, but is my acrobat reader malfunctioning or something?

I opened that link and pic related.

>>3670671

Its OK here.

>>3670725
Thanks.

>>3669948

Humanity will never get off earth. We will go extinct.

The only parts of humanity that will ever 'survive' are robotic probes that we send out of our solarsystem.

It's simply not economically viable to escape earth's gravity well.

>>3669948
I just couldn't agree with you more OP. Great post.

>>3670766
Yes. It's definitely better to save your millions than it is for the species to survive.

If anything, USA has taught us this in the recent years.

>>3670332
I'm not arguing or disputing anything you're saying, but i feel extremely depressed after reading this ;_;

>>3670774

Let's not do anything about catastrophic climate change, it might harm the economy in the short-term!

>>3670332
>>3670332

Dude, the space age has been over for, what, 40 fucking years now.

>>3670766

>Humanity will never get off earth. We will go extinct.

But we've already been off earth.

>The only parts of humanity that will ever 'survive' are robotic probes that we send out of our solarsystem.

In the long run, that may be true. But we won't die here.

>It's simply not economically viable to escape earth's gravity well.

Then how are communications satellites financed?

>>3670920
Read, silly nublet.

>But we've already been off earth.

I'm talking about humanity as a species. Visiting a sattelite is not even in the same ballpark as a permenant second home for our species.

>The only parts of humanity that will ever 'survive' are robotic probes that we send out of our solarsystem.

>In the long run, that may be true. But we won't die here.

Fairly certain we will, if current global politics doesn't change, or unless we find a way to magic outselves out of our gravity well.

>Then how are communications satellites financed?

Communications satellites are not out of earth's gravity well, that's why most need fuel to keep them from burning up in our atmosphere. It's a whole different leap from low-earth orbit to actually escaping the gravity well with anything more than a couple of tons of mass.

>>3670937

>I'm talking about humanity as a species. Visiting a sattelite is not even in the same ballpark as a permenant second home for our species.

That I can agree with, but it isn't what you said. However you're acting as if it's impossible. Far from it. We had the technology to do it in the late sixties. It's a matter of funding. If NASA's funding were swapped with the military's, realistically, we could have a self sufficient lunar colony given about two decades worth of construction time.

>Fairly certain we will, if current global politics doesn't change, or unless we find a way to magic outselves out of our gravity well.

With the advent of private space travel, global politics isn't as much of a problem as it once was. We have multiple corporations with rockets capable of putting outposts on the moon and Mars and two openly determined to do so. In light of that, your pessimism is irrational.

>Communications satellites are not out of earth's gravity well, that's why most need fuel to keep them from burning up in our atmosphere. It's a whole different leap from low-earth orbit to actually escaping the gravity well with anything more than a couple of tons of mass.

The relevant point is that there exists a business case for building the rockets we need. So long as that's true, a company determined to do more visionary things with them will be able to, using the profits from sticking satellites into low Earth orbit.

The wealth exists to do what we're discussing. You have an unrealistic, exaggerated conception of the expense and difficulty involved. It could be accomplished rapidly with even relatively gentle adjustments to the budget. And if not through the government, then through private industry. It seems like impossible fantasy today but it will be taken for granted tomorrow, like anything else.

>>3670937

>It's a whole different leap from low-earth orbit to actually escaping the gravity well with anything more than a couple of tons of mass.

Nope.jpg
The biggest delta-v needed is from Earth to LEO. Get to LEO and you are halfway to anywhere.

>>3670983

Why can't they put a giant winch on the ISS and pull things from Suborbital to LEO?

Quit whining and being a bunch of pussies waiting for someone else to get you to space.

Does anyone else have a bad feeling about the Falcon Heavy? something about firing 27 rockets at once doesn't sit well with me

>>3670987

You mean like space tehter? Yes, that is another promising option to significantly lower launch costs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether

>>3671011

Well for me, firing few big rockets seems much more unreliable than firing 27 small. If one big rocket from your few fails, you are done. Falcon Heavy would still be able to achieve orbit even with multiple engine failures. Engines are also separated so even explosive failure of the engine wont damage the other engines.

>>3669969
>Space was always only be for rich people, or at least for the next 300 years.

computers will only be for rich people

flight will only be for rich people

cars will only be for rich people

I think it is possible for us to make interstellar space travela affordable to the unwashed masses, but you would have to invent a device that makes people hear your screams in space.

Nobody is going to want to invest that much money in space if you can't have screaming contests.

>>3670024
The problem with Bill Gates philanthropy is because he has been demonized for being so rich so he spends his money circumcising Africans, its just the lowest hanging fruit. He know it won't work, or he doesn't because he has been himself been brainwashed by elitists, he would do much better for Africa if he built some factories there.

>>3669948

I hope you're right and I think humanity should go into a mindset where we do nothing but invest our effort into deep sea and space exploration for the next 200 years. Imagine the success.

>>3670983
>>3670983
>>3670983

>Nope.jpg
>The biggest delta-v needed is from Earth to LEO. Get to LEO and you are halfway to anywhere.

Yeah.avi
You are missing the point, if you want to get from orbit to anywhere else in any reasonable timeframe you have to go at pretty high speeds.

That means you need the equipment, engines and fuel to accelerate, and double all that again to decelerate once you reach your destination.

And all of that currently has to escape earth's gravity well.

Which requires more fuel to accomplish that...

All this talk of space elevators etc are simply not even possible even using theoretical materials at their most efficient and optimal states.

>>3671076

They are. See any third-world beggers - living on less than a cent a day - flying their trans-atlantic flights while using their computers to research which sportscar they are going to buy?

>>3671430
All work and no play make Jack a Nicholson.

>>3671446

An average working class family own a computer and a car, and go on holiday by plane at least once every two years.

Sure, they don't own any top of the line stuff, but it's not like you have to be one of the richest kings in Europe to own a computer.

OPs post gave me the cancer

>>3671470

I'm in a working class family, and i have never been on a plane holiday in 24 years.

Fuck, i've never been on a holiday that wasn't to a relative's house.

:(

>>3671489

I'm from a working class shithole, and I've flown to Greece, Spain, and France. They were all short holidays at slightly rubbish hotels, but the point is that flight is not the preserve of multimillionaires just as space tourism will become more and more accessible over time.

>>3671076
I dont think that this faggot understands how much energy is needed to leave the atmospere

>>3671506
I dont think that this faggot understands how exponential growth of technological works

>>3671489
My last holiday I spent in my basement with a box of ramen and a case of beer. First time off in 3 years.

>>3671502

Oh, now orbit space tourism will go off, fairly cheap too. I'm not debating that. That's the same ballpark as weather satellites.

I'm saying the leap from LEO to making a permenant and growing second home for humanity is something that would require SO MUCH energy and coordination it may just never happen. We're dealing with humanity after all.

Unless we discover some stargates, or magical levitation beams that let us wizard materials to LEO and by extension a large orbital space-factory.

But that's fantasy, just like flying cars turned out to be.

>>3671514

Man walked on the moon in 1969. Exponential growth means we now are across the universe! Woo!

Oh wait, we haven't even been back to the fucking moon, let alone mars.

>>3669968
Project Orion, if Im not mistaken, centered around the idea of building a big-hueg spacecraft and then propelling it with nukes. The end.

>>3671538
You misunderstood aspie, it means that its much easier to land on the moon right now than it was the first time, and in another 50 years it'll be much easier to set up a moon colony than it is now.

>oil running out
There is always natural gas, but really I think it will come down to algae biofuels.

>>3671569
>>3671569

Actually, it's much harder. Pretty much all of the people that worked on those rockets and landers have long since retired or moved on. A completly new project will have to be built from scratch.

Newsflash: The rockets we use today are pretty much the exact same 50-fucking-year-old tech.

Add that to the fact that going back to the moon requires public support, which means something fucking new and exciting will have to be done, which means it's going to be much more expensive than the first time.

So yeah, you're full of shit.

>>3671538
No, that's because of bullshit politics.

We'd have had a permanent Moonbase by -79 and a mission to Mars by -85 IF von Braun's nuclear rocket had gotten funding.

>>3671594

>something new and exciting

Like, say, a Moonbase?

>>3671514
I dont think you understand that there is only so much energy that reaches this planet for our use, and that transporting and translating that energy for use in spacecraft is so ungodly inefficient it makes using the bones of apex predators seem like green technology.

I think you've all got your heads on a little backwards. Sure, we will EVENTUALLY have a greater presence in space, but not for, oh, say, the next 50 years (given the world economy, rising religious fundamentalism, and general defending of anything that does not yield a quantitative result). What your all missing is that space travel will never be like it looked in all your kiddy astronomy books, because if that were even possible we'd be doing it by now. Thats the very nature of technology; if it were possible and there was ANY reason to do it (relative to its cost by, say a factor of 10,000, which is to say your ROI would only need to be .0001) then it would have been at least attempted by now.

Honestly, what is the benefit of having a moon base? I know you can say that it would give us a greater understanding of a low-g environment etc. but that argument can be applied to setting up camp in any shitty location. The sad fact is, wit the current state of things, there IS no REAL reason to have a moon base. I want one as much as you, but its just not going to happen for a few more decades.

Now, what you all SHOULD be arguing, is that a moon base MAY be viable given a deen for delicious Helium 3 (science hipster moment: I was aware of the existance and uses of Helium 3 before the movie Moon came out). If we do discover how to harness fusion power (which, mind you, can, and is being done right here on the ground) then sure, space travel will take off for now. But assuming (unrealistically) that the next 20 or so years of space travel/habitation have to rely on only what we have now, yeah, Id say the industry will be as close to "dead" as it can get.

>>3671597

And guess what, it didn't. You can't just pretend lol politics doesn't /shouldn't count.

It's reality, deal with it.

>>3671616
>Sure, we will EVENTUALLY
Thats what we're all arguing. To say it will never happen, especially something as inevitable as space exploration, is ridiculous as far as time is concerned.

>>3671624
well, if you want to wax philosophical, EVERYTHING will happen eventually, but I think the people you are arguing with cant see (or dont care too, due to their low wage service job which does nothing to advance humanity) beyond their own lifetimes. So their definition of NEVER is not never-ever, its that they'll never see it, which is all that matters to the kind of people how would defund important scientific work on the basis of low ROI.

>>3671619
Doesn't counter my point. If NASA had been free to use the technology that was being developed, Discovery 1 would have visited Jupiter already.

Just because the technology isn't used doesn't mean it's non-existent.

To everyone saying "But we have no reason to go to space", consider this: China and India are expanding their space programs, and Russia's is gearing up to get back to its old heights.

Last one to Mars is a rotten egg.

>>3671634
what you're talking about is permutations and applications of existing technology. I am positing that space travel as you (and I frankly) would have it is not possible, on any scale, given the technology currently available. Sure we can live in tin cans, but its dangerous, and frankly a health hazard. I seriously doubt you could birth and raise ANY animal in the toilet-paper tubes we float around in now without causing a laundry list of health and developmental defects.

>>3671647
and first one to mars is going to be open for a bitchslap by a military power because they had to redirect their entire industrial sector to building the kind of fuck-huge craft that would be required for a returning mars mission.

>>3671633
Well...
Shit, you're right. I often try to look at things differently but its never occured to me that never means not in their lifetimes and thats all that matters, i give people the benefit of a doubt of not being that fucking retarded.

>>3671659

>Implying there will ever be war between major first world nations again.

>>3671624
Space exploration is by far the biggest project humanity will ever undertake. Crossing the pacific using only a pool noodle doesn't even compare to humanity getting to mars. Infact the pool noodle on the pacific is 2-3 orders of magnitude easier.

Now consider how long a serious colonisation project will have to run, and then consider how often economic collapse and political troubles cause delay, suspension, or complete fucking up of otherwise good projects.

Even IF humanity somehow decided 'lol let's forget our 200 million years of fucking shit up and suddenly work together' and then actually started the project, what are the chances that political pressure will fuck it up like the space shuttle?

Huh, I got in here before Inurdaes. That never happens.

Sup Mad Scientist?

Here are some reasons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

>>In 2004, the world production of iron ore exceeded a billion metric tons.[4] In comparison, a comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron-nickel ore,[5] or two to three times the annual production for 2004. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of nickel-iron, which could supply the 2004 world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also contain precious metals.

>> At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (1 mile) contains more than 20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals.[1]

Well, that's a good reason to go.

Why it is important:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UudHXl5A5L8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_F3pw5F_Pc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoW-gxakIU8

>> How much would YOU pay... for the universe?

Technologik:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ4KIB4GqEA

http://www.spacex.com/

Annnd that's a wrap.

Any questions?

>>3671666
did you ever go to public school? Did you ever meet the kind of party animal that was only concerned with their sensation and didnt want to live past 30? Thats the far end of the spectrum, but for most people who dont participate or even keep aware of the rate of human progress, when their life ends, their impact ends (as they have done nothing to add to the momentum of civilization, so, once they are dead there will be nothing in the historical zeitgeist to prove they ever existed.

You say that your data may help a discovery 50 years from now, and they see that as less than nothing, to them , thats like setting up a mousetrap on the bottom of the ocean saying it will catch small land mammals 100million years from now.

I understand why no human moon base have been constructed but not why nobody has set up a self-contauned ecosystems with lichen and the like to try and start the creation of a atmosphere for larger plant life.
It would be a long term project but if they started it now by the time humans are ready there would be oxygen supply and even a food source

>>3671633
I'm defining 'never' as the lifetime of civilisation as we know it.

I would consider it a fair statement to say from the perspective of a hunter-gatherer living in 2,000 BC that combustion engines will never happen. When multiple eons have to pass, civilisations rise and fall, and total shifts in culture occur - i think it's proper to say it's a completly different world.

I do not think humanity will establish a fully functional offworld colony in the next few hundred to few thousand years. If we ever DO it will be something like antartica bases, and that hardly even counts when you are after a second earth.

>>3671671
If it were to EVER happen within the conceivable future, that's when and why it could. If enough nations got in on the game, and had all their collective backs turned tinkering with their colossal space craft, you could easily break them by blowing up their craft close to launch, watching their country (which would have to unite WWII style to organize the resources and manpower required for such a feat) decompose as they loose faith in their pride, their government, and the future.

>>3671678

If the moon was made of solid gold bricks, it wouldn't be economically viable to bring them to earth even if you magic away the decrease in proce of gold that would ensue.

>>3671695

The universe is likely littered with the graves of single-world civilizations who made the prudent, economical decision never to go out into space, cataloged, analyzed and remembered by the few outliers who made the illogical decision.

>>3671687
you're ignoring several realities. first, to produce and store excess 02 (which I assume is your goal) you'd also need to have excess CO2 sitting around. Second, this establishment would no doubt have moving parts or working equipment, which could fatigue, fail, and with no humans around, fuck everything.

>>3671706
and if it was economically viable then the value of gold would drop dramatically.

>>3671706

Yet. With current tech. The idea is to develop a better way of doing it, as the price is all in travel.

Also? An economic system that cannot handle abundance needs to be changed or replaced.

>>3671714
I never liked that post, because it seems to imply that going into space DOESN'T make sense ( prudent, economical decision never to go out into space), and then contradicts itself by asserting that is IS a prudent economical decision.

What is REALLY the issue is how long-term you are willing to make your cost/benefit analysis. I can't abide arguments that hide the real issue.

>>3671714

Yes, it is. I'm all for the world peace, getting out of wars, live on renewable energy, let's all go to space while doing a song and dance.

But that doesn't really matter when you're dealing with people.

>>3671651
You are wrong.

Even at the end of the lunar program there were already three highly-developed designs for nuclear engines. Granted they only built a working model of one and that was an air-breather, but the fact is that all of them would have been possible to be built using 70's technology.

If it weren't for the aversion to nuclear power that uneducated people seem to contract from somewhere, we could have had nuclear rockets that could have lifted the whole shuttle fleet to orbit, with full tanks and SRB's attached. And still there'd have been payload capacity left over.

For some reason(possibly because the AF wanted the shuttle) even the cheap, non-nuclear SEA DRAGON superheavy lifter was scrapped after the designs had been judged viable. And even that would have been able to lift the whole ISS into orbit in one launch.

>>3671719
>Also? An economic system that cannot handle abundance needs to be changed or replaced.
>implying capitalism doesn't handle abundance
Oh dammit, are you one of the Resource-Based Economy people?

>>3671717
>even if you magic away the decrease in price* of gold that would ensue.

Please at least read the post you are replying to

>>3671734
i did but didn't understand
>proce

>>3671729

Your problem is you are dead set in giving those people who you lambast as idiots the same say in their government as those who actually know what the hell they are talking about.

>>3671731

I'm for whatever works. Practically, if bringing a bunch of cheap materials back from space readjusts market prices and it all stabilizes, great. For one thing electronics and other devices that use those materials will become a lot cheaper, likely making the next trip for more materials cheaper. So it's all good.

If the entire economic system collapses because of the influx of a bunch of resources, or we're in a situation where we would get less resources that we should purely for economic reasons, lowering efficiency, then we'll find a new economic system.

It's as simple as that.

>>3671717
Thats like saying we never should have developed efficient aluminum mining because the price would have dropped to pennies, from when it had cost more than gold.

>>3671748
>If the entire economic system collapses because of the influx of a bunch of resources, or we're in a situation where we would get less resources that we should purely for economic reasons, lowering efficiency, then we'll find a new economic system.
I just don't think this is the case.

>>3671748
>If the entire economic system collapses because of the influx of a bunch of resources, or we're in a situation where we would get less resources that we should purely for economic reasons, lowering efficiency, then we'll find a new economic system.
not the guy you were walking with, but I'd just like to interject here and say...

FUKKEN YES!!

>>3671752
I think he's just saying that value drops should be taken into account in the cost/benefit analysis.

If the price of gold WOULD drop massively, that should be taken into account as far as how valuable the entire endeavor is to society. If gold were the best shit ever and we couldn't ever have enough, then the price wouldn't go down no matter how much was available.

>>3671752
aluminium was once more precious than gold, but there is more aluminium ore than gold. It makes sense to find away to utilise it.
Golds value is through in rarity not the ability to mine it.

>>3671766
>>3671752

Basically this. Aluminum was worth more than platinum for a time, and gold's value is in it's rarity in the jewelry market, but it has scientific and technological uses too, and those would quickly become cheaper.

Like I said, if the system distends, but stays stable, it's cool.

When it starts failing, that's when we need to think about replacing it.

Hell, why do you think most countries tried to GTFO the gold standard, and everybody but the US wants a Global currency? (Especially China)

>>3671766
But gold is also extremely useful and there are certain applications that it's the only viable candidate for.

Plentiful gold would revolutionize certain areas in optics, mechanics, medicine and electronics.

>>3671784
If that's true, then gold would maintain a non-insignificant value even with a huge supply influx. It would take a few years for the price to stabilize, as the industrial uses take time to develop.

ITT: We have to become the borg in order to get into space.

if the moon was made of crude oil then it would be economically viable to go there.

>>3671833

If we can lick fusion, there is a dickton of Helium-3 there that could power us for centuries.

>>3671748
>If the entire economic system collapses because of the influx of a bunch of resources

It wouldn't collapse anything everything would just be cheaper. They would just sell enough minerals to make a profit as there wouldn't be enough demand for all of it. There is no reason anything would collapse.

>>3671907

In which case, we would have no problem. I have heard nay-sayers say that a huge depression would ensue from having a bunch of cheap resources flooded into the market, which tripped my WTF circuit.

>>3671781
>Hell, why do you think most countries tried to GTFO the gold standard

they didn't they all liked the gold standard that's why America had the reserve currency. We didn't get rid of the gold standard because it sucked we got rid of it because of money printing during the 60s. A global fiat currency is a great way for some central authority to tax the entire world from charging interest on money they print and lend.

>>3671919
It's just the old propaganda that scarcity-leeching people use. Not worth the energy used to post it.

If you don't worry about the economy down here how will the government ever steal enough money to fund your projects.

>>3671922

Acccctualy...

>>On September 19, 1931, the United Kingdom left the revised gold standard,[5] forced to suspend the gold bullion standard due to large outflows of gold across the Atlantic Ocean. The British benefited from the departure. They could now use monetary policy to stimulate the economy through the lowering of interest rates. Australia and New Zealand had already been forced off the gold standard by the same pressures connected with the Great Depression, and Canada quickly followed suit with the United Kingdom.

> The gold standard limited the flexibility of central banks' monetary policy by limiting their ability to expand the money supply, and thus their ability to lower interest rates. In the US, the Federal Reserve was required by law to have 40% gold backing of its Federal Reserve demand notes, and thus, could not expand the money supply beyond what was allowed by the gold reserves held in their vaults.

The gold standard was de-facto replaced by the US Dollar after WWII.

As to the global currency problem, you obviously just need oversight and accountability at the highest levels to prevent that kind of shit. Regular audits, public records, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard

>>3670481

Since when did transhumanists start thinking space exploration was some childish dream and uploading is any more realistic?

>>3670545

It's hard to tell whether he was referring to ending humanity in a metamorphosis to a posthuman civilization, or pretending an invisible AI would instantly be better than people and should kill/disassemble us all.

But seriously when did space exploration stop being an H+ goal?

Like deep sea exploration and space travel?

Combine the two, go to Europa!

>>3671965

I just assumed 481 was a cosmist, and was on the "create artilects that will kill us, they are more important than us" side rather than the "let everyone transcend their humanity and live eternally" side.

And space exploration sure as hell is still MY goal, thank you very much.

Where is Inurdaes anyways? He'd normally be on this thread like white on rice.

I'd be very disappointed with mankind that by the time we are exploring space we would still need raw materials for domestic products back on earth.

>>3671956
>de-facto replaced by the US Dollar after WWII.

No it wasn't laws were passed to collect all the gold but we remained under a somewhat gold standard, but the gold standard isn't what caused the depression it was the FED.

Nature has given us a good model for space settlement: primary succession of pioneer species. In harsh environments, like lava flows or receded glaciers, the first life to settle are pioneer species like lichen, bacteria, and eventually grasses and weeds. We need to come up with the technological equivalents, adapted to extraterrestrial environments like the moon, asteroids, and Mars. The tough nuts to crack are aboriginal resource extraction and replication. See NASA's research papers on self-replicating lunar factories for a taste of this direction.

This is one reason why I laugh at those who don't think biology is a science. Biology is the study of the most robust and tenacious self-replicating systems we know about. There are so many lessons to discover there, centuries of research which can be applied to engineered ecologies.