• We Won't Have Enough Power For Interstellar Travel Until At Least 2211
    176 replies, posted
[QUOTE=goon165;27296638]Well hello mister negativity. [editline]9th January 2011[/editline] you never know, massive breakthroughs in the Life extension field could be just around the corner.[/QUOTE] life extension would probably lead to more overpopulation than we already have
This is kinda why I decided I want to work on nuclear power plants when I'm older. Now, I doubt if I'll do something revolutionary, but every little helps.
[QUOTE=Noth;27295958]The deepest parts of our oceans? Got a source on this?[/QUOTE] Dude, it's called the Marianis trench, and it's well documented, I think James Cameron went down in one of the submersibles :v:
[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;27297003]life extension would probably lead to more overpopulation than we already have[/QUOTE] yeah you don't know what you're talking about
[QUOTE=Explosions;27296309]I love how 90% of people in this thread ignore the evidence. It's amazing how many astrophiles we have here.[/QUOTE] What evidence? this is that guy assuming that it's a trip starting from earth going direct to a target correct? Set up a station for construction in orbit and suddenly that energy required drops a fair bit, after all we ain't fighting gravity much anymore.
[QUOTE=goon165;27296638]Well hello mister negativity.[/QUOTE] Lol [QUOTE=bravehat;27297775]What evidence? this is that guy assuming that it's a trip starting from earth going direct to a target correct? Set up a station for construction in orbit and suddenly that energy required drops a fair bit, after all we ain't fighting gravity much anymore.[/QUOTE] You're using the same energy whether you refuel or not.
...not really dude, you set up a construction station in orbit and you can save energy on welding since the metal will fuse on it's own thanks to the awesomeness of space, less fuel is required if you transport the ship in pieces from teh surface of the earth to the station since it is lower mass pieces. Fuck you could maybe even dredge the sands of the moon for materials and use that, again saving money from mining on earth and transporting it up to space, and the technology to dredge the sands already exists and was created by NASA and is intended to be used on Mars missions in the future, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to transfer that over to a Moon shipyard either.
a few quotes for everyone [quote=Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943]'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers'[/quote] [quote=Popular mechanics, 1949]'While a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 10000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.' [/quote] [quote=Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957]'I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year' [/quote] [quote=Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems division of IBM, commenting on the microchip, 1968]'But what... is it good for?' [/quote] [quote=Ken Olson, Present, Chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977]'There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in the home' [/quote] [quote=Bill Gates, 1981]'640K should be enough for anybody'[/quote]
Haha dai, reminds me of what Steve Jobs said in an interview in 2003. He said tablets were impractical and not of much use. He went on to say how the only viable way to have good tablets were if some breakthrough in fold-able screen technology came about. Just look how 4 years completely changed everything. iPhone was released in 2007, and iPad in 2010. Technological predictions pretty much always overestimate.
Good thing we will be able to have invented something that will increase our life span by 2020... right? right..?
This assumes no major breakthroughs are made, which I find highly unlikely.
[QUOTE=Edthefirst;27298194]Haha dai, reminds me of what Steve Jobs said in an interview in 2003. He said tablets were impractical and not of much use. He went on to say how the only viable way to have good tablets were if some breakthrough in fold-able screen technology came about. Just look how 4 years completely changed everything. iPhone was released in 2007, and iPad in 2010. Technological predictions pretty much always overestimate.[/QUOTE] But he's right, tablets aren't off much use, he just jumped on an idea that would make a lot of money.
[QUOTE=Edthefirst;27298194]Haha dai, reminds me of what Steve Jobs said in an interview in 2003. He said tablets were impractical and not of much use. He went on to say how the only viable way to have good tablets were if some breakthrough in fold-able screen technology came about. Just look how 4 years completely changed everything. iPhone was released in 2007, and iPad in 2010. Technological predictions pretty much always overestimate.[/QUOTE] Steve jobs did an interview where he said that his company and all companies should steal patents if they need to because intellectual property should be free. Then he sues everyone at the tip of a hat 15 years later.
Well it's a lot sooner than on 2500 or something. Besides, this is the time of evolving "on earth" teach. We should really enjoy that. We will see holograms and 1400-2500 meter high skyscrapers. We will see the next gen Internet. We will see robotics and maybe even AI. And on this subject, mass commercial space travel to orbit, most likely to the moon too. (Scramjets ftw etc..) So much cool scifi shit is becoming reality on every day and no one notices because the news papers only tell about the sky falling down. Oh yeah, we got radio signals to go faster than light on 2007.
Fusion reactors will be a viable source of power in 30 years or less, give it another 30 on top of that and the massive as hell ones we currently have will be downsized and put in cars, the large ones can generate in the gigawatt range by then. If you build a ship around one of the big ones in orbit, you can use upgraded, massive VASIMIR plasma rockets running on raw plasma directly from the reactor core and use hydrogen ramscoops and compressed, stored hydrogen. Shit, by then we might have a way to create hydrogen from pure evergy collected from solar panels to fuel the reactors, so, by the way i see it, it's gonna be like computers. we have ones in cellphones that are more powerful than fullsized ones from the 90's.
[QUOTE=SergeantDead;27295777]something like that[/QUOTE]He also said that we'll never make a 32 bit operating system.
There are probably trans-dimensional gates on the ocean floor (coughR'lyehcough), which could take us places beyond our universe that we can't even imagine.
[QUOTE=Upgrade123;27298693]There are probably trans-dimensional gates on the ocean floor (coughR'lyehcough), which could take us places beyond our universe that we can't even imagine.[/QUOTE] But all water would be gone if that was true
[QUOTE=zombini;27298643]Fusion reactors will be a viable source of power in 30 years or less, give it another 30 on top of that and the massive as hell ones we currently have will be downsized and put in cars, the large ones can generate in the gigawatt range by then. If you build a ship around one of the big ones in orbit, you can use upgraded, massive VASIMIR plasma rockets running on raw plasma directly from the reactor core and use hydrogen ramscoops and compressed, stored hydrogen. Shit, by then we might have a way to create hydrogen from pure evergy collected from solar panels to fuel the reactors, so, by the way i see it, it's gonna be like computers. we have ones in cellphones that are more powerful than fullsized ones from the 90's.[/QUOTE] All I read there was " I have a grand vision of the future and it will so totally work" None of those things will happen, not a single one, not for at least 100 years, that is ridiculously advanced technology, we don't even have worthwhile fusion reactors now never mind getting them and miniaturising them in 30 years. And draining fuel from the reactor is a terrible idea, we should use them to power panels that when electrified eject particles, and use the ever increasing momentum to launch the ship. Also Bussard Ramjets are a bad idea cause they assume you'll be able to scoop a substantial amount of hydrogen from the vaccuum in a decent amount of time, again forgetting that to make it worthwhile and capture at a decent rate you have to be going pretty damn fast already, rendering em useless. I say we go to jupiters moons and harvest them oil oceans, crack the compounds, crack water for oxygen and burn em, use the pressures generated by the gases to push the ship. An added bonus is we have Dieselpunk spaceships too :monocle:
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;27298252]Steve jobs did an interview where he said that his company and all companies should steal patents if they need to because intellectual property should be free. Then he sues everyone at the tip of a hat 15 years later.[/QUOTE] Be kind and tell people to be kind, and everyone will push you along your journey to the top. Once there, close the doors so no one can get in. A pretty standard business practice if you ask me.
Oh well, we'll come up with something awesome by then.
I'd hate to be one of those people on the ship. Leave everyone I knew, disconnected from earth completely. Basically a life prison sentence with no contact.
[QUOTE=power-mad;27299383]I'd hate to be one of those people on the ship. Leave everyone I knew, disconnected from earth completely. Basically a life prison sentence with no contact.[/QUOTE] If a ship is sent on a long journey like that, they will send more than one person dude, they want to team to get their alive and sane.
This is like applying Moore's Law to energy production and saying "Here I know because the chart says so". In the sixties they made a chart showing the exponential growth of propulsion systems and how that would give us interstellar travel by 2000. Man these threads always grow to several pages before I walk in and clear shit up :colbert:
Freeze me then have a note saying "wake me up at 2210".
[QUOTE=bravehat;27299394]If a ship is sent on a long journey like that, they will send more than one person dude, they want to team to get their alive and sane.[/QUOTE] it would be a dream, you're basically in the same situation as 'last man on earth' and will take home every lady from the space bar on an adventure of manly population in the name of science, survival, and boning chicks where no one's boned before
[QUOTE=daijitsu;27299429]it would be a dream, you're basically in the same situation as 'last man on earth' and will take home every lady from the space bar on an adventure of manly population in the name of science, survival, and boning chicks where no one's boned before[/QUOTE] On the downside you'd end up schizo after the journey that will take well over a few years :v:
[QUOTE=bravehat;27299394]If a ship is sent on a long journey like that, they will send more than one person dude, they want to team to get their alive and sane.[/QUOTE] Maybe as a scientist all your friends are scientists, I'm only friends with semi scientist really. Just with the internet today, a crew of 500 sounds small.
[QUOTE=power-mad;27299470]Maybe as a scientist all your friends are scientists, I'm only friends with semi scientist really. Just with the internet today, a crew of 500 sounds small.[/QUOTE] Is it just my sleep deprived brain or did this make no sense to anyone else, at least in relation to the topic. 500 people is a small community, there's enough people there to keep each other more than sane.
[QUOTE=Esteam;27295370]We've been to the moon once. We've been to the bottom of the sea countless times.[/QUOTE] I slammed my face into my wall because of these sentences
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