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#1 Re: Not So Free Chat » Justify your existance » 2005-08-17 23:44:37

Tell us all why you have a right to a market share of resources.

Hmm, let's see. Well, I was born into an unbelievably wealthy and privilaged country for one thing. I suppose that doesn't give me a right to resources, but it does make it very easy for me to obtain them, for what that's worth. Perhaps more relevantly, I can think critically, feel emotions, and create informed opinions on complex subjects, as well as touch-type at 55 wpm. That may not justify my existence, but it would make me a target for SETI if I didn't have a genome with 99.9999% commonality with every other human on or off Earth.

I am also proficient in the Jitterbug, Macarana, and Electric Slide. If nothing else does, I'm sure that will make you tolerate my existence here.

#2 Re: Human missions » International Space Agency (ISA) » 2005-08-13 00:42:03

Who's back? Is this a recurring troll at work? :shock:

#3 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-08-12 23:52:00

Alrighty then. I guess someone was feeling argumentative.

Your theory falls flat in the face of experience and evidence. You are rationalizing the use of study aids in one instance but not in another, when the only difference is a qualitative bias on your own part.

My theory falls flat in the face of some rather odd and misapplied evidence. The fact that the first computers were the size of buildings and could only do the most rudimentary mathematical operations means nothing when a modern computer with orders of magnitude more computational power can be concealed within a Hallmark card. The fact that a few autistic individuals are exceptionally good at esoteric math applications means nothing when the vast majority of the human race is fantastically bad at doing these operations. Deep Blue faced off against Gary Kasprov more than ten years ago; since then supercomputers have advanced by leaps and bounds and can be programed to be, for all intents and purposes, impossible to beat at Chess by any human opponent.

Saying that computers have no capabilities beyond ordinary human mental faculties (as you appear to imply) is not factually correct. Would you mind calculating pi to a thousand decimal places? You could probably do it, if given several hours of painstaking mental math work, but my graphing calculator can do the same operation in a fraction of a second. Just because a human brain is capable of performing a certain task does not mean that it's necessarily feasible from a practical standpoint. There is a very good reason why engineers use CFD software to acertain the flight characteristics of a new design. Computing the same numbers through mental math would take a ludicrously large interval of time. There are certain tasks for which computers are simply better-suited for than people; that's what the evidence seems to suggest.

For certain other tasks, however, there's no beating the human brain. By nature we are exquisitely good pattern-finders, and are wonderful at making causal links and rationally working through problems (at least, when we feel like it). This is why, no matter how advanced computers become there will still be no substitute for real, warm, living, breathing human beings when the task involves exploration or discovery.

Just to be argumentative, how do you know they don't do these things but express them in ways we cannot fathom, or are unable to act upon their "feelings" due to a lack of capability bequeathed by their creators?

Umm, what? Uh, yeah, I suppose that could be the case. It could also be the case that the universe was created three seconds ago by a team of multi-deminsional space kangaroos with all of your memories intact, so you only think you've been alive longer. Both theories are plausible, but neither actually deserve any credence. So far there is nothing at all that indicates that computers have the ability to think or feel beyond their programing. Considering that people design computers, you'd think we'd be pretty knowldegable about their inner workings, so it's safe to say that your compy won't feel hurt if abandon it for the new and improved iteration. I assume that you're not actually being serious, but there are real reasons why we know that computers aren't haunted with mystical spirits or any other kind of mumbo-jumbo.

What?! Dude, look over the next hill. Grades do not mean as much as you might think. Yeah, they are important in an immediate sense, but long term, your GPA will not mean a lick in 20 years.

What would you suggest I focus on, then? There are very real, very good reasons to focus on grades for someone in my position. You'd think we'd be arguing this the other way around, with me begging to ditch classes and throw caution into the wind and you pleading with me to think of my future. Weird, huh? Just making another good-natured poke in the eye, of course. wink

If you want to use a thersaurus, fine by me. However, I'm not going to, and now you know my reasoning behind my decision. I didn't just wake up one morning and think Hey, wouldn't it be fun to rationalize reasons why not to use a thersaurus!? The reasons justify the actions in my humble opinion.

Odd, the apropos used the be merely the thread of complete and utter friovolity. Now it's become the thread of complete and utter friovolity, plus very serious, heated debate. Now that's a combination you don't see every day. Brave new world indeedy. big_smile

#4 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Falcon 1 & Falcon 9 » 2005-08-12 22:47:02

New article from space.com:http://space.com/missionlaunches/050812 … sland.html

It's too early to say that Spacex has succeeded, but their prospects are certainly a great deal brighter than they've ever been for an alt.space company. No major technical obstacles seem to stand in the way of a September or October launch for the Falcon I. If Spacex is able to pull this launch off and a few others on a regular schedule they'll likely be flooded with orders shortly thereafter. Considering that the company has obtained six customers and a $100 million contract from the Air Force before launching a single payload, there could be a highly lucrative market in store for them if they can fullfill their goal of providing cheap, reliable access to LEO.

As the article mentions, however, Spacex is far from being home free. In addition to the fact that the company still has not demonstrated the Falcon I's reliability, they're apparently being asked to leave their present infrastructure at Vandenburg. Unlike the legions of start-up alt.spacers that have either folded completely or faded into obscurity, however, Spacex appears to have real staying power. Their future, while still uncertain, is starting to look brighter overall.

#5 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-08-09 23:08:06

Isn't this the equivalent of suggesting that use of a calculator to do advanced math is cheating, and people should be required to do their math in their heads?

A thesaurus (or a lexicon, or a word list, or a phrase book) , like a calculator, like a dictionary, like your study notes, are merely tools that enable the individual to operate more efficiently.

IMHO, the use of these aids takes nothing away from other people, so I see little point in belaboring the use of such tools by other individuals. But that is just me.

Of course, maybe I have it wrong, and short people shouldn't use ladders. They'll never grow taller using ladders.  tongue

I suppose you could say that, but I'm not sure it's a completely perfect analogy. Unfortunately, our minds aren't really built to process logarithms, or complex math, or calculate pi to an obscene number of decimal places. There are certain tasks that machines will always do better than humans, menial tasks that involve many constants and few variables. The instant any variables become involved, however, and all bets are off; that's where the good old-fashioned human brain really shines. You can do whatever you want, but I would never utilize a word that I don't fully understand (well, most of the time), which unfortunately many people tend to do when given ample access to a thersaurus. They may be synonyms, but there is a very real difference between words like "debacle" and "fiasco" and "mistake." Subtle nuances are everything in good writing, that's why I won't touch a thersaurus.

However, I fully realize that this is going to stop absolutely no one from using a thersaurus, and I understand why. It's a tool that can help its user obtain better grades, recognition from peers, what have you. The whole idea seems unsettling to me, though, it's another thing I'm weird about. Not that I have any problem with ladders, though. Ladders are our friends. smile

Of course, the human brain can do a myriad other tasks that artifical computers are bad at. Exploring, feeling emotions, falling in love, and dreaming new technology come to mind. Plus you can shove a human brain in an MRI machine and expect it to come out unscathed. And of course, they're the only supercomputers that can be made with unskilled labor anywhere in the world. IMHO, Arthur C. Clarke got it wrong. These aren't the waning days of carbon-based intelligence, on the contrary, the golden age of the spacecraft-building apes is just begining, no cyborgs required. We'll keep building robots, of course, but as supplements, not replacements.

#6 Re: Human missions » Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars? » 2005-08-09 22:41:03

Toilet paper?  You think that's what's keeping us from colonizing mars? 

I guess if you just ignore the facts then everything seems so easy.  A child's view of the world. 

So what if your first 100 colonists suffocate from lack of oxygen in less than a year and the next 100 die of starvation because plants just don't grow very well in mars regolith because it completely lacks any organic nutrients. 

It's the price you pay to achieve Star Trek.

A small successful group will lead to colonization much more quickly than a large one that struggles to survive.

If you are really serious about this then solve the problems in my previous post, not to mention the many more problems-like cost. 

How about this, tackle just one of them.  How are you going to provide oxygen for your 100 colonists?

My point was not that a lack of ambient toilet paper will prevent a Mars colony from being feasible. My point was that there are a plethora of everyday items that we take for granted to such an extent that it's difficult to realize just how many items are required for everyday life at the standards of most developed countries. I don't doubt that the early western settlers got by with less equipment, but in many ways they had far more than Martian colonists can ever hope to have readily availible to them. American settlers had 100 kilometers of plentiful, sheilding, life-giving atmosphere over their heads, Martians will have no such luxury. Obtaining water was as simple as bringing a bucket to the local stream or well and filling up. On Mars, the same task will be far more difficult and more labor intensive. Martian colonists will be forced to live their entire lives either within the confines of a pressurized hab or inside a space suit. There will be no going outside for fresh air, cool dips in a river, and not much in the way of privacy. Human factors, while an issue, is by no means a showstopper for a two-year jaunt on the red planet, it is perhaps one of the biggest problems with colonizing the planet, however.

No public or governmnet in the world will tolerate a colonization effort that leaves the first hundred participants dead, that should be obvious. Had Apollo 13 not turned out as well as it did, it probably would have been the end of the program. As it happened, the final three Apollo missions were cancelled in large part because of the debacle. Failure quite literally is not an option. To tell you the truth, most people honestly could not care less about whether or not we achieve Star Trek, within their lifetimes or not. The vast majority of the general public is far more interested in what the price of gas will be in a year and when they can expect US troops to leave Iraq. These people, normal people, would be shocked at a program that kills so many of its colonists, and would start to wonder why it's being done in the first place. After not finding a satisfactory reason, they promptly withdraw their support. Overestimating the public's support of space exploration and development is a surefire way to kill any hopes of advancing either cause.

If anyone is ignoring the facts here, it's not me. I want to see a permanent, sustainable colony on the red planet as badly as all of you, I'm not just playing flame-weilding troll. There are serious, show-stopping issues that currently exist that have to be solved before colonization of Mars will become feasible. A two-way mission that brings 4-6 people to the surface of Mars for a year and a half and then returns to Earth will need all the resources needed to maintain human life in deep space for about three years, plus the ability to manufacture fuel for the return trip in-situ. A one-way colony mission will require every single resource needed to support humans permanently in deep space, or the ability to manufacture such resources on Mars. That will be far more difficult. Think about it: a simple sample-and-return mission can afford not to close all the life support gaps. They can bring frozen food and simply dump waste overboard to simplify things. A permanent colony will need to have every single loop in the life support problem closed. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, food, waste, water, it all needs to cycle around just as it does on Earth, but with zero help from the planet. That is simply not going to be feasilbe for the first mission.

Even under ideal circumstances, I'm afraid I disagree with the notion that a one-way mission would be better. One of the biggest selling points of a manned Mars mission is that it would allow scientists to study hand-picked pristine-quality Mars rocks with the best scientific equipment the Milky Way has to offer. If the rocks stay on Mars, what's the point? A huge chunk of the mission's value is lost. Overall, I stand by my vote; two-way missions first, later followed by permanent colonists. I guaruntee you that's how it will be accomplished.

#7 Re: Human missions » Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars? » 2005-08-06 22:52:53

The logistical problems entailed by a two-way scientific mission are trivial in comparison to those of a one-way colonizatoin mission. Besides, I highly doubt that any government would be willing to support a mission that offered no return for the daring astronauts involved, most of the general public would view that as being downright unethical. Realistically, we can't expect this to happen, at least, not at first.

#8 Re: Not So Free Chat » What Are You Doing? » 2005-08-06 22:48:52

There are no athiests in heaven.  It's not punishment.  It's their choice.

Now that's interesting. Didn't you just spend a good deal of bandwith telling us that entry to Heaven is about living a good, altruistic life, and not about at who's house you happen to worship? If someone doesn't believe in God but lives the way that God wishes us to live, does he/she gain access to Heaven? It's a valid question. It's entirely possible for an individual to live a good life (or at least, the kind of life advocated by the teachings of the various religious organizations) without believing in God. To me, living well is essential, but blind belief is not. I would prefer to believe in the truth, whatever that happens to be.

I don't think you fully understand where I'm coming from. I'm not seeing the action and grand plan of God in every photon that strikes my cornea. I don't see that and then cover my eyes and try to ignore it, I fundamentally don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about in the first place. Where is this overwhelming evidence of God at work? This is not a question of me seeing the light and then trying my darndest to ignore it, this is a matter of me sitting here with my eyes open looking for the light, wondering if it exists. Please don't tell me that I'm choosing not to understand, I most definately am  not.

As for the question of materialism, I frankly don't see what it has to do with religion. Why does religion even need to be brought up when discussing materialism. Why can't we just say "Obviously this is a problem, why don't we all try to avoid it and not be greedy pigs?" There are many very good, logical, secular reasons to follow most of the teachings you'll find in the various Holy Texts. We don't need to fight character flaws with dogma, I personally think that logic is a much more effective tool. Once again, though, I may just be totally wrong.

#9 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-08-06 22:26:27

Keeping a weblog is an interesting and effective way guage the inner qualities of one's peers. I suppose the idea behind a blog is that the reverse is true, that over time the blog keeper will bare the deepest contents of his or her mind for all the online world to see, but ever since I started keeping one back in June I've noticed that more often than not the reverse is true. Despite the fact that it's been online for nearly two months, my blog (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=VonBraunGuy) has recieved very few comments, but those that have been made have been highly enlightening.

I seem to recall hearing once that people often project their inner faults onto others when insulting them. I never really took much stock into that philosophy, but it seems to be exactly what's happened here. About two weeks ago I posted an entry that managed to enrage a few of my classmates (without even trying :? ). Near the end of one detractor's very lengthy critique of myself as a human being, he mentions that I spend excessively amounts of time belittling others' intelligence (I paraphraze of course, the original wasn't really in complete sentence form). I find that ironic in that he states that line after a long period of doing exactly what he accuses me of. Usually I love people, but they do get on my nerves sometimes (certain people anyway).

Recently the topic of thersaurus usage came up in a chatroom. I make it a point never to use a thersaurus under virtually any circumstances. It's practically become taboo nowadays. In my humble, very personal opinion thersauruses almost always do more harm than good. IMHO, if you couldn't actually think of the word in question, how can it possibly fit in with the rest of the prose at hand? Personally, I think that thersaurus use borders on outright cheating, and really ought to be discouraged. In addition, the more you use a thersaurus, the more dependent you become. It's simply bad all around.Then again, this is probably just me once again.

I just had to take an hour out of my day to teach one of the execs how to rip music on his friggin' workstation. Yep, that's a productive use of time.

I once tried to explain the concept of radioactive decay to an English teacher (during lunch of course). It nearly got me thrown out of the room. Oddly enough this was the same person who nearly gave me a 100% on a highly esoteric paper about Kelly Johnson. Generally, the more productive your intentions, the less likely they are to succeed, except under highly specific circumstances.

Lately I wrote an entry at the previously-mentioned weblog that I am in no way qualified to write on Magnetic Resonance Imagery. I'm not quite sure why writing about generally poorly-understood topics like that is so fun; maybe it's because no one would ever be willing to talk about it in an ordinary conversation. The curse of knowing very much about science and technology is that you realize how extraordinary the universe is, and virtually no one cares. It's a bit like reading the greatest novel ever written and then being unable to discuss it with anyone. Oh, well, that's why we have weblogs and New Mars, I suppose. 8)

#10 Re: Human missions » Mission One: a one way ticket to Mars? » 2005-08-06 01:21:49

I hate to be the pessimist here, but there is no way in the world that the first mission to Mars will entail starting a colony on the red planet. It's easy to get so excited about the prospect of colonization that we sometimes forget just how staggeringly difficult such an operation will be. Think about everything that you need to be alive, not just the essentials that are usually discussed, like food and oxygen and water, but all the little prosaic items like toilet paper, toothbrushes, and tissues. A two-year there-and-back mission can slip by the bare minimum a few hardy well-trained astronauts need to survive for a relatively small time out in the wilderness. Even that will be a logistical nightmare, but imagine what would be needed for a colonization mission. Not only would the crew need to pack everything needed to survive, they'd need everything to live a decent life as well, well beyond the scope of anything possible in the near future.

If the right steps are taken, and the right people in power stay the course, I have no doubt that some day there will be humans born and raised on the red planet. It is unreasonable and a little bit childish to expect that to happen right off the bat, however. We need to take things one step at a time, just enjoy where we are right now. Otherwise, you're just setting yourself up for some big, inevitable dissappointments.

Hopefully that wasn't too depressing. You may now continue daydreaming about living on Mars. wink

#11 Re: Human missions » The Cost of Going to Mars - A cost estimate of Colonization » 2005-08-03 17:31:09

If/when we finally get around to colonizing Mars, this cost estimate is a great example of why it will not be done this way. $200 million billion is well beyond what is economically feasible for every government on Earth combined, even if amoritized over a century. Moreover, I seriously doubt that this plan would be viable from a logistical standpoint either. I'm usually one of the last people to say that a plan is impossible, but I'm pretty confident that sending 10 million colonists to Mars over the course of a century is quite undoable with anything even resembling today's technology. Think about what this would require; more than 200,000 people would need to be sent each launch window. Fewer than 500 astronauts and cosmonauts have been beyond Earth's atmosphere over the last 44 years, and none of them have ventured beyond cislunar space. Sending 200 times this number to an alien planet every single year for a century will not be physically possible for quite some time.

Humanity's first colony on another planet will have to be a much different, more austure venture. How many people are really needed for a permanent, self-sustaining colony? It's likely the same number as the lower limit of people needed for a healthy gene pool, perhaps 100-1,000 colonists. The most that any individual government or consortium of governments will be willing to spend is probably $5 billion a year for about 20 years, so $100 billion becomes our price cap. There's no way on Earth the UN will launch a program such as this; a Mars colony will have to be a mostly one-nation effort. Assuming that travel to the red planet can become relatively routine, it may be possilbe to start a colony on such a basis.

The trick here is to make the colony as self-sufficient as possible as soon as possible. While everything imported from Earth will have an exorbitant price tag and shipping fee, all items produced in situ are practically free, at least, those back on Earth don't have to pay for them. Thus, the best way to save money is to minimize the number of launches required to make the colony completely self-sufficient. Once the colony is independent, no further support launches will be neccessary. According to The Case for Mars, a heavy-lift SDV with an NTR upper stage could potentially launch 24 colonists one-way to the red planet, assuming no technological breakthroughs (scramjets, cyclers, etc.). In other words, ten flights minimum will be required for crew transport. Assuming two such missions can be launched each window of opportunity, it would take roughly ten years to transport the colonists to their destination.

Here's my proposal for a bare-minimum Mars colonization program. Over ten years, ten heavy-lift NTR cargo shipments are made to a site determined by previous manned scouting missions near a ready supply of water and perhaps geothermal energy. The cargo flights would include items such as greenhouses, chemical processing equipment, drilling equipment, a nuclear reactor, and inflatable habitation modules. The following ten flights are devoted to sending the first colonists, who will assemble the base and scramble to expand it as much as possible with local resources. In order to create living space without imported resources, underground tunnels could be built, or perhaps caves could be uitilized. Eventually, greenhouses and new hab modules could be created with plastics produced locally.

Granted, this is at the absolute lower limit of possible colony arcitectures, but it is also entirely possible without any technological breakthroughs. Unfortunately, I don't think that we can ask much more out of the initial colony, at least if we want to see it happen within the next century. I doubt that space exploration will ever recieve much more funding than it is currently in real dollars, so it is unrealistic to expect countries to spend trillions of dollars on an effort that will bring them very few practical benefits. As fun as fantastical sci-fi-like colonies are to imagine, humanity's first self-sufficient outpost outside of Earth will probably have much more humble origins.

#12 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-07-18 23:28:43

You make fun of mu splling?  :laugh:  You're not even trying!

Really, it's not my fault I type so poorly. When I was little, I was involved in a heavy industrial accident that sheared off my fingers. I have six good fingers between two hands. After the accident, I lay there unconscious, being exposed to toxic chemicals. As a result, my hand eye coordination was affected.

Just last week I learned how to grab the ball again.

Between the fingers and the brain damage, I'm lucky to be able to put a sentence together.

As for my comment on your intelligence, it was merely a fun poke in the eye. I was not serious in any way (lack of tone in the written word leads to these kinds of misunderstandings).

I made the comment about being west coast because you are from Arizona. Arizona isn't really well known for their trains or subways, just like the rest of the west coast. My comment was merely pointing out the cultural difference that was showing by your statements related to your experience on the subway

Anyway, I was just joking with ya, don't take it so seriously.

Like this: What did you think of all those british women?  big_smile

I know, I know. This is at least the second time here that I've actually gotten the joke, and made my response sarcastic enough so as to convince the other party that I took them seriously. Don't worry, I fully understood what you meant; internet communication limitations just got the best of me once more. I have got to stop doing that.

I seriously need to post something relevant around here some day.

#13 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-07-17 00:31:32

Rule number one: You are not allowed to shamelesslyself-promote.
Rule number one, sub-secton A: You may allow another to promote you.

All offenders are subject to ridicule.

Time for the punishment: Mad Grad, you are so smart. What do subway trains run on? Hint: Benji Franklin flew a kite and.... what?

Subway trains routinely stop in the middle of nowhere because they have to either wait for power to continue, of wait for the line to clear up ahead (usually the latter).

You are so West Coast. Without the multi-cultural ocean.  tongue   big_smile

Glad you had a safe trip.

Oh, come on, you're the one who keeps bringing that "I'm so smart" line of pointless rambling up repeatedly. The only time I mention goofy factoids like my class rank is when irate members with attitude problems and/or atrocious grammar start calling me names. I make a point not to name-call other members, but sometimes they really do get on my nerves. The point here is: thanks for the kind words on my intellectual capability, but I honestly couldn't care less about how big my ego is. Hence I haven't inflated the thing in ages, I'm not even sure where it is anymore. Probably in one of those old piles full of Popular Sciences and chemistry notes I have in my room.

I know what makes the wheels on the train go round and round. When they stop going round it's almost assuredly for some prosaic reason such as power variations or to give the train ahead more space. Bomb threats where the last thing on my mind at the time I was in said Underground car. To tell you the truth, I was much more concerned with where we were going after dinner (house of Parliament and photo-op across the Thames incidentally). Likewise I find it a little comical when people worry about terrorism when they get on an airplane. I'd love to say to these poeple: "You do know that the odds of this plane being hijacked are about as good as you or me winning the lottery tomorrow, right? Stop complaining and drink you're coke." Really, most people don't know the first thing about handling risks.

West Coast? Multi-cultural ocean? Someone has some 'splainin' to do.

Something that I find perpetually fascinating about astronautics in general is the enormous breadth of the field. There is so much involved in space science, exploration, and commerce that the number of sub-fields is staggering. From manned suborbital spaceflight to interplanetary probes to telescopes that peer into the begining of time and take notes on what it looked like there's always something new to learn and explore. Unfortunately, a side-effect of this is that individuals who become deeply involved in one sub-field often lose most of their understanding of the rest of the picture.

On the final flight of the journey, from Philadelphia to Phoenix, I had the good fortune to run into a genuine real-life rocket scientist from Lockheed Martin. At least, he told me he was one, but then again he also told me that he worked for Martin Marietta, so I suppose you have to take it all with a teeny grain of salt (I later got him to clarify who he worked for). To his credit, he was extremely knowledgible in his field, sattelites, but knew virtually nothing outside of that. When I mentioned how well the Mars rovers were doing, he seemed perplexed that they were still functioning. It appeared that he had never heard of Spacex before, even though he told me he had just spent a good amount of time at Vandenburg, where they would have been right next door. I could tell he felt out of his element talking about these areas, so I steared the conversation back towards more comfortable terrain.

It's great to become very knowledgable about the minutae, but you have to keep it all in perspective. I try to keep the big picture in mind as much as possible, hopefully I'll still be able to do this later on as well.

#14 Re: Not So Free Chat » What Are You Doing? » 2005-07-16 23:59:48

Yeah, sorry, that last post was a little bit over-the-top. Ultimately beliefs don't really affect very much by themselves, but I want to believe whatever is correct. My beliefs won't change the way I live (I already try to be as good and truthful as possible), but I want to know what's correct and what's not. It's just a matter of inate curiosity, I suppose.

Dook, I'm curious as to what your own beliefs are. You mention that all religions tell us to do good. That's excellent, I'm all for that. However, what exactly does doing good have to do with our relationships with God? I try to be a good person merely for the purpose of making the world a little bit of a better place. Do we need a higher calling than that? When I say that I hope you're right I'm not referring to your views that God is loving and accepts everyone regardless of their actions. I hope that you're correct in that a diety exists in the form of which you speak and that there is in fact an afterlife. I'm willing to accept a worldview to the contrary, under the condition that it is the correct one, but I would greatly prefer it if your worldview is the right one.

In all of your statements you are making a great assumption, that God exists and is actively working in some way in all religions. Have you ever wondered if this is not the case? Religion does not conflict with science at all in my opinion, but that fact does not confirm the existance of God. Just because something could exist (life on Mars, extraterrestrial intelligence in the galaxy, a monster under my bed, for examples) does not necessarily mean it does. Please don't take any of this as an insult on your opinions, I'm just trying to discuss this very touchy subject as logically and consistently as possible.

Don't worry about me, I do choose truth (at least I think I do). I try to live my life with the highest degree of veracity possible, and this has led me to question this whole subject. My question for you, Dook, is not "Am I being a good person?" but rather, "Why do you believe what you believe?" Why do you think you will be rewarded for your actions in life later on? Please don't take that the wrong way, I want to know, and I think that's a valid question.

Commodore, probably not, but what the hey? You never know...

#15 Re: Human missions » Long duration Human space missions - Can we survive them? » 2005-07-16 23:27:46

Here is the trouble, there is no longer a big Space goal like the days of the Moon landings and the Space race began when Soviet-Sputnik and Russian Yuri went into Space but died when Americans landed on the Moon with Apollo and Russia's industry fell down with the collapse of the Soviet Empire. American astronauts when onto the Moon, since Apollo no human has been back, and to add insult to injury, there's American people who are tryingtell us that it was all a hoax.How much will Mars cost, some say $200 billion over the next 10 years, others say 500 $ billion over 20 years.

NASA is working harder towards a crystal-clear goal right now than it has been any time in the past 36 years. The VSE has survived for a year and a half now, and is picking up more momentum by the day. Nearly every review of the NASA's current objectives (return to the Moon, maybe later to Mars) has given it their resounding approval. Real progress is happening towards our return to the Moon, progress that will become more visible as time goes by. Most important, NASA's budget is gently inflating with hardly a peep of protest out of Congress. NASA most definately has a goal in front of them, and is making headway towards it.

Going to Mars will cost nowhere near $200 billion, let alone $500 billion, or the absurd $600 billion price tag of Bush-I's SEI. Under the ideal best-case scenareo, $20 billion over the next ten years could take us to the red planet. More realistically, such a project will cost between $60 and $80 billion, depending on how efficiently NASA can utilize its resources and how extensive a mission they desire. A Mars mission is technologically and politically doable, the only major obstacle I see to its exection would be too great a focus on the Moon. As long as we can avoid having the CEV becoming a "Lunar shuttle" of sorts, it can be done.

There's no point in looking at the reliability of unmanned missions to try to figure out the odds of a successful manned mission. During the 1960s the Surveyor and Ranger robotic probes sent to the Moon had a horrific failure rate, and yet every Apollo mission came back safe and sound. The extra precautions taken to ensure the safety of the crew, not to mention the adaptability of real, live humans, greatly increases the odds of success of a manned mission over an equivalent robotic excursion. It will always be safer and cheaper to launch unmanned missions than their manned counterparts, and the sciece return brought by robotic missions will always be laughably pathetic compared to that of human versions.

Going to Mars will not be an easy venture, but it is well within our technological capabilities. We went to the Moon in an era when a computer the size of a room had less computational power than a hand-held calculator. Missions to Mars are absoltuely feasible, and shouldn't turn out to be that expensive either.

#16 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-07-15 17:40:29

Things that I learned in Great Britain:

*The Underground may be fun, but use it cautiously. You could end up going to Wimbledon or Liverpool by accident if you're not careful.
*One CD with 16 songs may not last for the duration of a ten-day trip.
*Despite being grossly underpowered, European cars are a whole lot better looking than American cars.
*It actually doesn't take very long to get used to seeing cars driving on the left. Seeing "Way out" signs rather than "Exit" signs, however...
*Navigating one mile of downtown London on the Underground without getting lost does not make you an expert at the system, but it does give you a nice warm feeling inside.
*When flying over the North Atlantic, be prepared to see other planes pull up alongside yours once or twice (this one caught me completely off guard).
*Deep-fried Mars bars are really hard to find, even in Scotland.
*British fish n' chips are awesome!

It was strange hearing about the recent terrorist attacks on the Tubes in London, knowing that I'd actually been there. The deadliest of the bombings, on the Piccadilly line, went off on a stretch of track we must have covered about four times. There's a remote possibility that while in London, I was actually on the train that was destroyed in the attack. Kind of a weird feeling. My deepest condolances go out to all those affected by these attacks.

I remember at one point our group was on an Underground train when it suddenly stopped in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. For about 20 seconds it was as though there was no universe outside the car; there were no sounds and with the florescant lamps inside the car you couldn't see anything outside of it. Then it just started up again as if nothing had happened. This whole time the native Londoners simply sat around reading newspapers and listening to their iPods, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I assumed that there was just a technical problem with the line, and I'm still certain that's what caused the delay. Nothing could have been farther from anyone's mind than bombs wired to our subway car. Which, of course, is perfectly fine, an attack like this will never occur again in London. We just have to accept that there's an infintesimal chance of terrorist attacks occuring at any given location, and get one with our lives.

I could go on about what else happened while I was romping through England and Scotland, but I'm not really in the mood for shameless self-promotion right now. Are there any rules for what exactly can be posted in the Aprops? If not, maybe we should make some up for fun. tongue

#17 Re: Not So Free Chat » What Are You Doing? » 2005-07-15 00:08:55

I believe that God is absolutely compassionate.  You can sin your entire life and honestly repent the day before you die and I believe you will be accepted. 

Charitable?  Sociable?  No, I believe God does not interfere with our choices, good or bad.

Those who try to sell God (you have to pay to go to church) to others follow a very old standard of traditions.  I would argue that the those traditions have actually replaced God.  Those people think that because they go to church every Sunday that they are closer to God and somehow qualified to judge others but a busy person who sacrifices their time to help out a stranger has them beat. 

I don't think that you have to believe in God...but I will still try to get you to come around.  Also why would an agnostic be good?  Whats the point?  You can lie/cheat/steal your way through life without fear, except from the law.  I would say that if you choose to help someone in need when it does not benefit you (it may actually cost you something-time, money...) and there are no repercussions to you, well, something is causing you to choose good.  Maybe it's your conscience?  And just maybe your conscience is your soul trying to tell you something?

Well, Dook, I sure hope that you're right. The trouble is, how do I know that you're right? Can you offer me (or any of us New Martians for that matter) any reason to believe in your religious ideologies? It ought to be a simple question, but I've never asked it to a highly religious person without having them drop every line in the book to avoid it. Does religion have a foundation? You tout belief, belief, faith, belief, but is there any reason behind it? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I just want to know.

Sometimes I feel as though it's a deep character flaw that keeps my mind open to religion. I scoff at ufologists, astrologers, and those basket-cases who claim NASA has tried to cover up evidence of life on Mars, but are religious advocates any different? Please, don't get angry, I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. I think that's a legitimate question. Both astrologers and evangelicals claim that you simply wouldn't understand what they know, that you simply must suspend all disbelief and accept their word as fact, no questions asked. And yet we deride one group as being a pseudoscientific diversion from the real world and hail the other as being the path to salvation. Is that right?

I suppose it is the right thing to keep an open mind on this subject, but I seriously wonder about these issues. It bugs me, on a very deep, spiritual level. I agree, the more one understands about science the more one realizes how miraculous the universe is and the more wondrous every tiny event in life becomes, but is that a good reason to believe in God?  The more I think about it, the more I keep thinking that we really could have gotten to where we are now without any divine intervention. That of course doesn't rule out the existance of God by a long-shot, but it does make me wonder.

More than anything else, I would love to believe in God. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination for me at all to imagine that he/she/it really exists, but it's the "why?" that's the kicker. Dook, have you ever really asked yourself if God exists? Have you ever recieved a satisfactory answer? If you have, please let me know, because this issue is bugging the living crap out of me. Even now, I remain cautiously optimistic that there is a God, but I always wonder if I'm not just succumbing to my desire to have such a belief.

Nothing could be less irrelevant in my opinion than whether or not God exists. If we could cleanly resolve the issue one way or the other it would be a revelation greater than anything I could imagine. Unfortunately, I'm doubtful that that will ever happen. Is God really out there or is he just a figmant of our collective imagination? I don't know. I hate the Nichze-esque argument that God either exists or doesn't based on whether or not we believe in him. Can you will a tree to exist or disappear? I for one can't, I'm almost positive that you can't do that with God either.

Whether or not God exists, I suppose I wouldn't really live my life any differently. I might pray more often if I were more confident in God's existance, but that would be about it. I make an effort to live each day to the fullest and do as much good as possible; I wouldn't change that based on a resolution to this question. But I still want to know, you know? Gosh, I feel like one of those SETI scientists I'm always heckling. They have no reason to believe that they'll ever pick up a signal and, IMHO, they don't have a snowball's chance on Venus of doing so. Likewise, I keep my mind open to religion and talk at length to die-hard supporters of the ideology, and yet I wonder how this is any better. I'm quite certain that asking these questions does not make me a bad person, and I will defend that to the ends of the Earth, but there are people who get to me sometimes who try to make me think otherwise.

If nothing else, this is a fun subject to discuss since I get a chance to arm-wave aimlessly and have people listen. Usually I try to cut down on arm-waving as much as possible, but with religion it's tough to make any argument that  doesn't involve sketchy support. Makes you wonder... :;):

Astrology, the true religion!

Oh, I hope not. yikes

#18 Re: Not So Free Chat » Which is Right? » 2005-07-14 23:34:06

Hmm, this is a tricky subject. Right can make might, but that doesn't necessarily occur. However, Might does not make right under any circumstances.

IMHO, on almost any issue there is a definate right and wrong side. Sometimes finding the side that is "right" (that is, the side that brings the most benefit to the universe as a whole) is more difficult than others, and it's never a question of black or white. It's a matter of finding which side is the lighter shade of gray. The "right" argument may be accompanied by "might" (the ability to bring about change in politics, society, etc.), or it may not. Regardless of the amount of might supporting right, the correctness of the right argument does not change. You can have the most powerful military in the world supporting your cause or merely yourself, in either case, the rightness of your side is completely unchanged.

Likewise, might does not bring about rightness. The two entities are entirely independant of each other, thus the more powerful side of a debate may or may not be the right one. A well-paid highly-trained lobbyist may have a wealth of might in congress, but whether or not s/he is lobbying for the right side depends on the side, not his/her skills. If arguing for increased funding for NASA, I would venture to say that the lobbyist is both mighty and right; if arguing for the destruction of all manned spaceflight in the United States, IMHO, the lobbyist is mighty but wrong. Neither might makes right nor does right automatically make might.

That's the first thing I've posted here in more than a month, and I really hope it wasn't just a bunch of gibbrish.

#19 Re: Human missions » Russia proposes 2015 human mission - That's a little more like it! » 2005-07-14 23:16:02

*All these paper missions.

I'll believe there's been a manned mission to Mars when I see it.

Unfortunately, I have to agree here. It seems like every month now Russia announces a new plan for a mission to Mars, yet none of these paper plans have been backed up with any actual development. I find it very unprofessional of the Russian Space Agency to continue to posture in this way without actually doing anything other than ferrying crews to the ISS twice a year. Yes, they have a limited budget, but before you complain about NASA's fixation on the shuttle, consider how synonymous Soyuz has become with the RSA. In the past 38 years Russia has never seroiusly attempted to launch any manned mission beyond LEO or even on anything other than Soyuz. IMHO NASA has a much brighter future than the RSA.

#20 Re: Human missions » Russia:  Mars Station Model - ...to be displayed » 2005-06-11 17:49:11

I find it odd that Russia touts models like this one when their space agency doesn't seem to have any real long-term plans beyond the ISS. A few weeks ago Putin went so far as to mention that long-term exploration plans should not be a priority for Russia.

NASA is often accused of being myopic but at least they have some clear roadmap to follow. It doesn't seem like anyone in the Russian Space Agency has any concrete plans beyond ferrying to and from LEO via Soyuz.

#21 Re: Human missions » How to blanket the Moon - with recon-sats » 2005-06-11 17:43:23

Will PGMs really be valuable enough to support lunar mining? Keep in mind that it's awfully expensive to ship large amounts of material between Earth and the Moon, and rather infrastructure-intensive. Even if you highly automate operations it will be extremely expensive to start the first permanent base on lunar regolith.

I'm all for colonizing the Moon (if possible), but I'm skeptical if there's such a short-term solution to the bugetary problems.

#22 Re: Human missions » Shuttle derived revival - Space.com » 2005-06-11 17:40:11

I'm very emotionally devided about the prospect of Shuttle C.

I think there's some use in a shuttle-derived launch vehicle, and I don't consider it the impossibility that many seem to think it is. 

Unfortunately, it would probably just end up yoked to the international space station.  :bars2:

Why would shuttle C wind up yoked to the ISS? As far as I can tell the two projects have no relation to each other at all. We don't have to worry about an SDV being tied to the hip to the ISS the same way the shuttle is.

The primary obstacle to SDV's usefulness is how efficiently the shuttle army can be disbanded or reassigned. At least half of the shuttle ground support can probably go, if not more. However, there are still the managerial questions of whether the politicians will allow so many engineers to loose their jobs or be reassigned and if Griffin will be willing to make the tough choices necessary. I'm confident that he can do this, but it will require a major break from NASA's paradigm of reflexively protecting the shuttle army from any harm. NASA is not terribly great at breaking long-standing paradigms.

#23 Re: Not So Free Chat » Apropos of Nothing *4* » 2005-06-02 23:54:20

Well this is post 1000 for me.

You get another gold star.  big_smile

Great, and here I am with a mere four stars. Maybe I should lurk less, post more. Nah, like that's gonna happen. Sorry for disturbing everyone.

#24 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Falcon 1 & Falcon 9 » 2005-06-01 15:23:23

Musk can't launch till he gets the green light from USAF, which wants to launch a Titan carrying a military sat. After the Titan launch, Musk can then launch.

Provided the Falcon truly is ready to go as soon as the last Titan clears the area. If the Kestrel hasn't been flight qualified yet there's no telling what kinds of pre-flight work still needs to be done before launch, and if it can all be done on time for an August/September launch window. I'm optimistic that we may be very close to the Falcon I's first launch here, but there's still a very good chance that there will be further delays.

#25 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Falcon 1 & Falcon 9 » 2005-05-31 21:34:51

Apparently if Spacex hasn't expressly stated that any development has occured with the Falcon I, we should assume that it hasn't happened yet. Their behavior keeps seeming nuttier by the minute (where in the net is my update!?), but there is real progress happening. I would say that the odds are better than 50/50 that Spacex will launch by August or so, and the odds are quite good that they'll launch before the end of the year. It could be worse. Most alt. space companies simply sit around doing nothing.

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