Rocket Scientist: Making space pay and having fun doing it.
16 replies, posted
[url]http://wimp.com/rocketscientist/[/url]
I think it was here I read that NASA gets less money than the army gets to spend on air conditioning.
It is most certainly the likes of this man and his doings, and not NASA, that will help propel us into space and the future.
[QUOTE=Sastion;31181815]I think it was here I read that NASA gets less money than the army gets to spend on air conditioning.
It is most certainly the likes of this man and his doings, and not NASA, that will help propel us into space and the future.[/QUOTE]
There was some post I saw where the the defense budget for 2010 was 4 times larger than the entire space program budget for the past 40 years.
Woah, that speech moved me quite a bit - made me realize how much of a lazy fuck i am [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v427/Irob/emot-saddowns.gif[/img]
This gives me some hope that humanity may yet still reach the stars that we have gazed upon for thousands of years.
i like him but he is pretty misinformed about concepts of motivation and the idea that capitalism is the only way for space travel to be a success or whatever he was babbling about.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;31185790]i like him but he is pretty misinformed about concepts of motivation and the idea that capitalism is the only way for space travel to be a success or whatever he was babbling about.[/QUOTE]
His ideas seem spot-on. What alternative do you suggest?
TED Talks are awesome.
Every day I come on this site, look at the news, and I see reason and human freedom losing a battle against a new and burgeoning ignorance. I understand what this man is telling us.
These people, the ignorants, the backsliders, the people who want things to stay to their narrow-minded comfort zone...they will kill our new, human spirit if we don't fight back, now. They will tell us about their gods and bid us to keep to the static lifestyles we've always had. Never to question why we are as we are, never to ask if we can be more than human.
My own mother once told me she believed that excursion into space was pointless, because we need to solve the problems HERE first, as if to say the very answer to those and many other problems could NEVER lie in expanding our borders.
This is why I plead atheism to those who live in fear. This is why I ask people to question everything to find a reason beneath it all.
Why should polygamy be banned, other than for some weak argument about what someone MIGHT do with that freedom?
Why is marriage the concern of anyone outside of the people doing the marrying?
Why is it illegal for two consenting individuals of legal age to engage in sexual relations just because they're related?
Why should the law make exceptions for policies, just because a lot of people happen to believe the same unproven madness?
Why isn't an appeal to ban a scientific fact from the classrooms of the young generations laughed out of the courthouse?
The truth is, if there aren't any satisfactory answers to those questions, then they clearly have no reason to exist.
The time is now, and the battlefield is the mind. Greed will always be a hard thing to fight, but the masses CAN overcome their oppressors.
The first step is to face religion, and destroy it before it destroys us. Religion allows for patently ignorant thinking, and justifies horrors that any sane human being would reject unless they actually believed the most powerful and loving entity in the Universe wanted them.
How many things awful things would simply melt away, if the religious could no longer justify them by appealing to some chickenshit higher authority? How weak is your case against gays, even to you, if your best defense of your opinions equates to "it's icky; we should get rid of it"?
It's time to fuck shit up. Who's with me?
While I appreciate your enthusiasm... There's reasons some of those things are illegal. Do what you want with your relative, but having children should be illegal. When two people that are related have kids, the chance of birth defects goes through the roof.
[editline]18th July 2011[/editline]
While we're on the subject of atheism, I would be very greatful if someone dug up that 15 minute long video with that dude that sounds like richard dawkins talks about why religion is plaguing the world with fear, it ends with a montage of rockets taking off and shots of the universe set to Arcade Fire's 'Wake Up'.
To be totally honest, that video, especially the part where the rocket is taking off, was pretty emotionally moving moment for me. I was trying to decide what career I want to go into (Nanotech or Aerospace) and it's one of the things that pushed me over, and why I'm going to university in 2 months to study Aerospace Engineering. It's my dream to work for one of these private space companies that are now popping up.
[QUOTE=ChristopherB;31186350]His ideas seem spot-on. What alternative do you suggest?[/QUOTE]
without writing a wall of text, ill just say that currently that capitalism is actually holding space travel back. its not a motivator, we already know from several studies that its actually a demotivator. autonomy and equality are better motivators than anything in relation to the monetary system. current space travel projects are the human element squeezing through the screen door that is capitalism. we can break it, we just have to realize that there IS something better on the other side and this side of the screen door isnt the end all. capitalism isnt the end all. a capitalist or democratic social system in space is really something to fear, i dont know if any of you folks read the EVE lore but they really got it spot on. a few elites literally playing with billions of lives at a whim, dropping down mining outposts on their heads and killing many without any limiting morals or thought for the good of the society as a whole, as their minds have been altered to literally believe that money is the only good and objective in the world. this is self destructive as a species.
the question then is holding back in comparison to what. my answer would be the resource based economy model described by the venus project and referenced by the 2nd and 3rd zeitgeist movies. science applied to our economy and social paradigm.
[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;31188749]While I appreciate your enthusiasm... There's reasons some of those things are illegal. Do what you want with your relative, but having children should be illegal. When two people that are related have kids, the chance of birth defects goes through the roof.
[/quote]
This IS the age of birth control and abortions. I never said there were no risks. Sex is a risky business. I agree with you in as much as reproduction being out of the question. I'm not an especially big fan, but I realize that I'm no one to tell others what they can and can't do with their sexual organs.
[quote]While we're on the subject of atheism, I would be very greatful if someone dug up that 15 minute long video with that dude that sounds like richard dawkins talks about why religion is plaguing the world with fear, it ends with a montage of rockets taking off and shots of the universe set to Arcade Fire's 'Wake Up'.
To be totally honest, that video, especially the part where the rocket is taking off, was pretty emotionally moving moment for me. I was trying to decide what career I want to go into (Nanotech or Aerospace) and it's one of the things that pushed me over, and why I'm going to university in 2 months to study Aerospace Engineering. It's my dream to work for one of these private space companies that are now popping up.[/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk[/media]
Philehellen'es "Science Saved My Soul"
This guy and this video, among his dozens of others, was pretty much THE motivating factor that put me on the path to atheism. I was already vulnerable to questioning my previous beliefs, through a combination of incredulity at my supposed allies and the then recent death of my grandmother, who was "angry with God". Mostly it began with the rejection of God's standards for punishing good, harmless people for stupid, petty reasons. But that grew, to understand enough about logic, the Bible and the Universe to make my rejection of religion rock solid.
My mother and my teenage brother both know about my atheism, but not my father, mostly because he just lost his father and it feels cruel to strike while THAT iron is still hot. My brother reckons himself and my father wise, and passively aggressively believes I'm an idiot, but they don't understand what I've learned, how much I've bothered to question. They don't understand that if they were to enter an argument against my position, they would lose; while they've been sitting here, living off wishful thinking and anecdotal evidence, I've been training my mind specifically to be see though the pale incentives and empty threats, to the purpose behind them. I've been strengthening my arguments for the better part of a year, constantly learning from people like Philhellenes and his fellows, sealing whatever doubts my frightened religious mind could come up with, so that a patently religious mind wouldn't know what hit them in the intellectual ring.
I think the best thing of all, was that merely a month after becoming an Atheist, my best friend, a gay who lived under an oppressive Baptist home, also found his way to atheism. Cautious at first, naturally, but spurred on when I told him the same thing had happened to me, and provided him with much of the same material that helped me. No more than a month later, and he was making webcam videos about his transformation, and making grateful responses to Philhellenes himself. Having him as an ally through all of this has helped in ways I can hardly describe. On a desert isle in an ocean of ignorance, where the only living beings with the real answers are on the other side of a computer screen, having a good friend on that island with you makes a lot of difference.
Philhellene's videos are as poignant as they are eloquent, and deeply inspiring. Personally, one of my favorites of his is "Reasonably Certain", where he equates, amongst a soaring musical score, seeing the truth is like seeing the twist in "The Sixth Sense". I shiver every time he reaches a particular line:
"I turned to my girlfriend, mystery solved with my ever arrogant grin of victory.
'Why are you smiling...?' she asked. And I said...
'Because we're not watching the same movie'
And THAT...is atheism,"
beh, we have Kerbal Space Program
I think that humanity will just be so ignorant as to say that it will never happen, and will be too lazy do to anything about it, or the religious heretics will hold u back, saying something along the lines of their god gave this earth to us and not to leave it or some shit like that, leaving us in a slowly dying world.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;31189672]without writing a wall of text, ill just say that currently that capitalism is actually holding space travel back. its not a motivator, we already know from several studies that its actually a demotivator. autonomy and equality are better motivators than anything in relation to the monetary system. current space travel projects are the human element squeezing through the screen door that is capitalism. we can break it, we just have to realize that there IS something better on the other side and this side of the screen door isnt the end all. capitalism isnt the end all. a capitalist or democratic social system in space is really something to fear, i dont know if any of you folks read the EVE lore but they really got it spot on. a few elites literally playing with billions of lives at a whim, dropping down mining outposts on their heads and killing many without any limiting morals or thought for the good of the society as a whole, as their minds have been altered to literally believe that money is the only good and objective in the world. this is self destructive as a species.
the question then is holding back in comparison to what. my answer would be the resource based economy model described by the venus project and referenced by the 2nd and 3rd zeitgeist movies. science applied to our economy and social paradigm.[/QUOTE]
Your idealism is misplaced. Capitalism is the "human spirit" distilled into a corporeal form; the drive to compete, to better ones self, is what pushed us from the dark ages and led us to space. That desire will fuel our future progress; not the fairy-tales you would have us follow.
If you care to, please explain this "economy model".
[QUOTE=ChristopherB;31194971]Your idealism is misplaced. Capitalism is the "human spirit" distilled into a corporeal form; the drive to compete, to better ones self, is what pushed us from the dark ages and led us to space. That desire will fuel our future progress; not the fairy-tales you would have us follow.[/QUOTE]
of course, its been great that is has served us for so long. however, the human race continues to grow and in america at least we have been using the system for how many centuries now? Science needs to be applied to our economic and social(gov't) systems to find the best possible outcome. The specific thing we move to is debatable. Capitalism encourages vast amounts of waste and its just not working for us on a finite planet, and democracy cannot function to its fullest potential in a specialized society.
Its just rather silly to assume that what we have right now is "distilled human spirit" if what you mean by that is that this is end all. We must continue moving forward.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;31221460]of course, its been great that is has served us for so long. however, the human race continues to grow and in america at least we have been using the system for how many centuries now? Science needs to be applied to our economic and social(gov't) systems to find the best possible outcome. The specific thing we move to is debatable. Capitalism encourages vast amounts of waste and its just not working for us on a finite planet, and democracy cannot function to its fullest potential in a specialized society.
Its just rather silly to assume that what we have right now is "distilled human spirit" if what you mean by that is that this is end all. We must continue moving forward.[/QUOTE]
Capitalism is competition, and competition is the spirit that drives us; the product of millions of years of evolution. That competitive drive may entice some to abuse and cheat the system, but that alone doesn't warrant throwing the whole concept out.
The current market produces vast quantities of waste and tolerates such inefficiencies as there aren't any market pressures strong enough to discourage that kind of behavior. Inevitably a time will come when it becomes more profitable to recycle or reuse materials and not waste them; for now we have the resources to do otherwise.
Saying we need to "apply science to our economic and social systems" doesn't mean anything. Be specific. What is a "specialized society"?
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