Forget what this guy says. Virgin won't be the only ones trying this in the future. Other more visionary engineers and designers and industrialists will eventually try an approach that works. These assumptions always stem from our limited understanding of technology, and then some ambitious crazy person/people in a laboratory, or a workshop, will come up with something that blows our minds away and we move forward.
I think we'll always need to explore. If not, well we'll need to rely on the mentalists to retain knowledge for us while we fall into a Dark Age.
A catastrophic event in the next few thousand years sounds alarmist. The sun will blow up in 5 billion years, some other life-imperiling natural catastrophe will almost certainly happen before that, and could technically happen at any time. But the chances of it happening in the next few thousand years is as unlikely as our ability to respond to it with this kind of nascent technology.
I wonder how many years it would take to develop space exploration to the point where it could conceivably shuttle our species to another home if the Earth became a big hot mess? Given that space flight is only 50 years old, I wonder what the practical goals could be in 500 years (outposts on all planets?), 5,000 years (travel beyond solar system?) or 50,000 years (wormholes, universal wifi with happy meals, etc.)?
@frigg: Within 500 years (probably more like 100) we will have created AI that is smarter than us and getting smarter. At that point I think all bets are off.
@radarskiy: you wouldn't necessarily have to transport the whole population to save the species. You're also assuming birth rates will continue to accelerate. It's possible with dramatically longer life spans, birth rates will dramatically decrease.
what is 'cheap' supposed to mean? Airline travel isn't cheap and yet many people do it, mainly because they have to. We will have extensive space travel when we actually need it, when there is a military or economic purpose to it. Governments and corporations lack foresight beyond five years, so by the time we really need to send tons of cargo and hundreds of people up there ASAP we will be completely unprepared for it, in typical human fashion.
@bosskev: The problem is they share a hydraulic system. If you separate them, one will no longer be operational. Which one flies, and which one hangs lifeless in some Godforsaken museum somewhere... that is a decision no aeronautical engineer should ever have to make.
@Skunky: Sadly, this generation of spaceship cannot separate without grave consequences to the vessel left behind. Not sure we should be talking about it here... the Borg could already be among us, watching, and waiting.
The computer going out is exactly what I commented on yesterday as the reason for so many hardware controls on the NASA shuttle vs. relying on software controls.
Word is that the $200,000 that it costs to take a flight into space includes a week of training before you go. So a big facility like that is a good idea.
Rutan's original idea was to have the spaceport in a place like Key West or the Bahamas or Fiji. Bring the whole family while you are in training they are on the beach.
Because you KNOW that every wife on the planet is rolling her eyes at her hubby as soon as he mentions "space"
Just imagine something like 50 years from now or so when we look back and say "remember how these guys started?" Good times. Too bad nobody can afford it.
Are they really going to have enough people who can afford to fly on these things to make a big spaceport with gates necessary? I bet they'll probably only have like one or two flights per day at most.
@BEERxTaco: Yeah but what if I died 3 days after I won. Life is short. My point was that if I ever had a chance to go to space, even if it costed me everything I had (monetarily) I would totally do it without looking back.
@ceilingFANBOY: I'm sure Socrates and Plato knew how to appreciate a woman's figure. When it comes to space, everything is deep. No seriously I took astronomy in a planetarium for a semester and it was awesome.
05/05/09
I think we'll always need to explore. If not, well we'll need to rely on the mentalists to retain knowledge for us while we fall into a Dark Age.
05/05/09
I wonder how many years it would take to develop space exploration to the point where it could conceivably shuttle our species to another home if the Earth became a big hot mess? Given that space flight is only 50 years old, I wonder what the practical goals could be in 500 years (outposts on all planets?), 5,000 years (travel beyond solar system?) or 50,000 years (wormholes, universal wifi with happy meals, etc.)?
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@radarskiy: you wouldn't necessarily have to transport the whole population to save the species. You're also assuming birth rates will continue to accelerate. It's possible with dramatically longer life spans, birth rates will dramatically decrease.
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Airline travel isn't cheap and yet many people do it, mainly because they have to.
We will have extensive space travel when we actually need it, when there is a military or economic purpose to it. Governments and corporations lack foresight beyond five years, so by the time we really need to send tons of cargo and hundreds of people up there ASAP we will be completely unprepared for it, in typical human fashion.
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technology is the new magic.
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12/18/08
Rutan's original idea was to have the spaceport in a place like Key West or the Bahamas or Fiji. Bring the whole family while you are in training they are on the beach.
Because you KNOW that every wife on the planet is rolling her eyes at her hubby as soon as he mentions "space"
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