trekkie_

it's actually even easier to make it into a weapon, if you get it functional. all one would need is probably a handheld sized ship, fly it out into space a bit, then back toward earth like a rocket, releasing a blast of its radiation in the general direction of say, a city block or a country.

I would assume that the drive is flawed to begin with, because the collisions along the way will probably pass through the bubble and hit you. You may be bending space, but it's still like ramming a brick wall into a car, along with other side effects like trapping the radiation inside the bubble with you. It may be possible to create some kind of space bending pattern to disperse the particles around you rather than into you. But people also think too big. There's no reason why we can't for example, stop and go rapidly to discharge build ups if that was indeed the case. You also would be able to use such a drive for slower cruising speeds and other maneuvers too. People seem to forget this fact.

Any thoughts? Predictions, Impacts, and Comparisons to other countries welcome.

All this talk of 2 stages.....and people seem to forget the space shuttle was a 2 stage craft. The first stage wasn't exactly reusable, but they did recollect the materials and remanufactured them, which was a decent savings since the metals were pretty much still purified and of generally the same mass. Much better than having to remanufacture them from new raw materials.

That's why a large vehicle with all the tools to base build and a live-in crew cabin would be the optimal choice. And with nuclear power, there would be no issue of running it, since it would run for years, capable of building bases the whole time, or wherever is needed, while still being able to house a crew for the entire duration. So you could build two bases on two opposite ends of the moon without having to worry about traveling back and forth, if you wanted....while also exploring and doing science. Of course, you could create automated base building robots, but if they needed maintenance, you'd have to go through the trouble of getting to them for human repair. With humans on site, you can make optimal decisions and repairs on the fly, again, while still being able to do science. definitely a lot easier to land one object on the moon rather than two, not to mention there would be weight savings, since a separate base and builder rover (which would need to be manned to some extent, even if only sometimes), would offer overall weight savings in the long run. to have automated base building robots, you'd need at least 3 objects sent to the moon; a live-in base, a rover to get around, and the base building robots. obviously, the larger the bot, the quicker things get done, and a crew cabin would be a good weight offset too, so you could easily put a large set of tools on the front, from drills to shovels, and lift a lot more weight without having to add more dead weight. since solar flares hit the moon all the time, it would be best to be able to have a roving base that you could simply park under something or in a crater or man made cavern, at least until you could build a decent underground base. Any permanent base on the moon would have to be buried to some extent, to protect from radiation and erosion. moon dust is highly corrosive, able to erode away stuff like air tight seals. and while there isn't wind on the moon, solar flares and magnetics kick up tons of moon dust. I once made a real-time video of a solar flare hitting the moon, and you could literally see it with the naked eye, kicking up hundreds of tons of moon dust across the whole sun-facing surface of the moon, tens of miles high or more. and this happens regularly.

a lot of people that think they have synesthesia, don't actually have it. example: sound > shape. Well just about anyone can close their eyes, listen to some music, and imagine something like what you would see with a sound visualization plugin. REAL synesthesia has basically ONE reaction to something, involuntarily. So if the same of something doesn't trigger the same color/visual/etc over and over involuntarily, it's not synesthesia. So if you were to say listen to a song, close your eyes and see visuals, those visuals would be EXACTLY the same EVERY time you heard the song.

I suspect all negative matter and energy, if exists, are long since pushed to the outer reaches of the universe...if there is such a thing as the outer reaches of the universe. sort of like a surfactant does to particles in water. The only place we could find some, would be rare places where it would be trapped because its surrounded on all sides by matter since its inception, which would effectively bottle it up. but that's a tall order, because the mass of its surroundings would have to be equal from all directions otherwise there would be an imbalance, allowing it to push and escape. and that matter would also have to be quite dense. I'm not sure if it's even possible since if there is a mass differential, it will be shifted out of the center of the sphere, and then due to its new position, there would be an even greater imbalance in the mass surrounding it. this would be true regardless of how dense or thick the matter surrounding it is. so the only way to trap negative particles, would be to literally encase it in the absolute center of a 100% perfect sphere at the instance of its creation, or a very powerful magnetic field.

The main idea for a starter moon base is a large moving vehicle capable of housing several people. This way, you don't have to land a base and a rover to get around, since your base is your rover. This also cuts time by not having to drive back and forth between bases. That base, could even be utilized to help build other permanent bases out of moon materials, gather resources, etc. A moving base would also have the benefit of being able to avoid some incoming threats, and any re-supply landings won't have to be so precise since the base could move to the landing site. The only drawback is you would need some decent radiation shielding, but if it is only a precursor to a main larger base, it wouldn't be as much of an issue for the short term. the perfect permanent starter moon base would be a tall underground cylinder with just a hatch opening at the surface. the deeper it goes, the safer you are. from there you may even be able to excavate caverns under the surface and expand the base. that also has the added benefit of being able to gather deeper samples. as for powering a moon base, I think nuclear power would be the best option. would last for years without much issue. solar panels are ok, but they might be prone to erosion and getting dusty and they will need to be replaced periodically. we could possibly extract energy from the moon too, but we'd need a power source we could rely on 100%, so nuclear is the best bet. Solar panels could be used as supplemental energy or had on hand for emergencies.

Even if non DNA life exists, it would still be a natural property of the physics of the universe, given the right conditions.

I expect alien life to be similar in functions to earth life (even if they don't physically resemble earth life), especially if it is based near the same environment. That doesn't necessarily mean earth life of today, because a lot of things have long since died out that you could consider to be alien, and their evolutionary paths never bore any fruit for one reason or another. What we do know, is that earth life has developed naturally, under the physics of the universe. So it's safe to assume those same physics can cause similar life to appear elsewhere. Now, there are a lot of catches, such as life forming with a different base than carbon. But we already have found non carbon based life forms on earth, and they are still similar to the rest of life on earth in how they operate. Even non-DNA based life could still follow the same basic processes. I'm not sure how else life could develop and reproduce in any different methods than earth life follows, even if it's based on a different process with different bases. the only way of reproducing that life on earth doesn't already do, is for some organism to inject a third party organism and mutates its genetics to either recreate itself or create a new type of organism. But obviously, you'd need a third party organism to begin with....and you won't have that if you're the first form of life developing. You could argue that things like virus's already do basically that, but technically virus's aren't alive. Anything else, and it'd either be a poof-into-existence reproduction (seemingly impossible) or a mechanical reproduction. It may be possible that there is life that essentially mechanically 3d prints itself naturally to reproduce on a large scale....but technically, life on earth already does that on a small scale.

Life exists because things like DNA synthesis is a natural property of the physics of the universe, under the right conditions at the right time that is. The idea that the universe somehow leans toward creating life to increase entropy, is flawed in every way. That almost gives the impression that the universe would literally be making decisions and acting accordingly. Just think about the impact of life on earth even to just our own solar system.....it's basically zero effect, over hundreds of millions of years. Meanwhile, during that same period of time, 'natural' entropy having nothing to do with life, dwarfs any entropy caused as a result of life.

I think a separate satellite based power transfer system would probably be better if weight savings was a concern. There's actually a lot of bloat when it comes to weight anyways though. For example, the shuttle reaches nowhere near all its structural limits...which means that's mass that is serving no purpose other than 'just in case' or for longevity. It costs what....$10,000 to put a pound of mass into earth orbit.....and we've probably put more than a pound worth of things like alcohol in orbit, adding unnecessary costs. There's also some waste in general when it comes to fuel. No booster or first stage is actually 100% empty when it's done with its task, with the reasoning being better safe than sorry. You don't want to end up on 'E' short of your target. Paying a little more to make sure a whole mission doesn't fail, pays for itself in the long run. That's especially true since most space programs are government funded, and failure after failure would probably shake the confidence of tax payers.....and they'd be less likely to get funding.

What you think is stretched and compressed time, is gravity (and possibly space by proxy) acting upon the interactions of energy and matter. Time doesn't necessarily have to be tangible for actions to occur in the universe. Rather, time is just a concept derived from observing those actions.

I think determining the size of one should be based on a factor of the average human height. Basically though, the smallest size possible that allows comfortable gravity simulation, but the further away from the center of the spin the better, to a point anyways. Ideally, 100% of earths gravity should always be the aim, but 80-90% would probably be a good compromise. RPM would be based on the size of the rotating structure and its distance from the center, so it's not a fixed number.

even without a frame of reference, stuff still moves. just like light doesn't cease to exist just because you close your eyes. and I would deem the entire video to be relevant to anyone interested in why the universe may not be expanding at all.