Spacescifi

Suppose some company decided to build magnetic coil tubes that have a vacuum inside on earth? The idea is extremely fast overland travel, basically accelerate at 1g to 2g for an hour or a few or less, and wind up across the country faster than if you flew. Is this viable theoretically? I can't care about the ridiculous cost because I am a dreamer... not Elon. Elon would shed man tears over this lol.

That is excellent advice... yet hard to do when most of yourself is telling you not to do the responsible thing. Although not completely related, Agent Smith's quotes apply. "We are not here because we are free. Purpose created us. Purpose defines" And I would add, defines us. Without it just what are we anyway? No one wants to be a nobody who does not even matter... we all believe we matter and try to ensure that we do For a villain, Smith is definitely the only I have seen speak so eloquently about matters of great depth and substance. He was excellently written, since like a real program he had an obsession with purpose, since all IRL programs MUST have a purpose to be written in the first place. He cared about and I dare say even enjoyed the inevitable, since the one thing every program relies upon... and in Agent Smith's case craved... it's absolute certainty and inevitabilty. So in life I believe choosing a purpose matters most, then doing the have to's to ensure it, and after the want to's If one does not choose their purpose then either circumstance or others will choose it for them.... THAT is inevitable. There is no escaping it. Of course old age and death are part of that... like taxes, that's a circumstance compelled upon us that gives us purpose in order to avoid negative consequences. But I dare say that being proactive is far better to being reactive to circumstance, although we surely cannot be prepared for all possibilties, being prepared for likely ones is most wise.

Haha... I don't know if getting rid of ALL procrastination is a good thing per se... since sometimes taking time to de-stress is better than forging ahead when you are not in the best of moods. Like someone else once said, moderation is key. Extremes are to be avoided.

I recently deleted my emulator I had used to play old games, since I realized that it was eating more of time than it should, and more importantly, it was merely a form of procrastination for me. According to the internet procrastination occurs because: We procrastinate on tasks we find “difficult, unpleasant, aversive or just plain boring or stressful.” If a task feels especially overwhelming or provokes significant anxiety, it's often easiest to avoid it. Another reason people procrastinate, Sirois said, is because of low self-esteem. So in summary, because a task seems difficult, unpleasant, stressful, or just boring, we avoid it by doing something else first, saving the harder task for later... or never or until too late. Or we stay away from the task because we have low self esteem and do not wish to be faced with a hard task (basically a test) since we do not have much faith in ourselves anyway and do not wish to put it under further strain. Currently I am on a break from the emulator games, and I find I have more time. I know that when it comes to gaming, after I beat the game, I have little reason to keep playing it (especially with older games that used a different style of play that modern games do not use). If you have seen one ending you have seen them all, the only difference being the difficulty level based on which character you decide to play as. I think ultimately for myself anyway, sometimes the task I need to do scares me, or is stressful, so video games were and are an escape.... a kind of de-stresser, even though paradoxically trying to not get killed from lethal level traps in level design and hoards of enemies is also stressful while playing games. We cannot avoid all stress, nor should we, but we can manage it. I have read advice to the effect that if a task seems stressful but is necessary, then the best thing to do is to just break it up into smaller chunks and set aside time for each of them and check them off as you complete them. That is what I will attempt to do from now on. Because I feel much like the song in AJR's Bang. I am too young to lie here forever, but too old to try to be 'whatever' (at least the days of being able to do whatever because I have both the time and the energy are over).

The answer depends on how steep the reentty dive is as well as how chilled the balloon is. Why not use tungsten foil instead? Resists more heat.

Yes... but I am hinting that EVEN if we had the power we are still not off to the races as it were. The heavier an SSTO is, the more heat it's super duper power source will generate in the process of giving it lift. At some point you will break the hull from heat damage, so you simply cannot build however large you want with MHD unless yoy are using some other technology to assist it to make up for that. Rockets could fill that a role but at the cost of making the MHD virtually useless deadweight.

So a new video by this guy touts MHD and other plasma research as good enough today to manage an SSTO. I am skeptical, since otherwise someone WOULD have done it for money by now. I read elsewhere that the power required to lift a mere ton would require several gigawatts. MHD is more or less an ion aircraft, which requires turning air around the hull into plasma so that the air can be moved over the hull fast enough to generate lift. Questions: Assuming we had a compact multi-gigawatt power source to install on an MHD SSTO, how would the air plasma surrounding the SSTO even look? My guess? The hull would glow... from the heat, and the air near it also would, perhaps a broad hull width plume forming opposite the direction of acceleration. I presume even with the multi-gigawatt power source that is compact that we do not even have.... you would need a way of cooling the hull so it won't melt. Which means means using chilled tanks of propellant as heat sinks likely, likely to cool the hull itself too. Leading to a maximum weight where due to melting limits of hull/MHD, you can only build he SSTO so heavy or you will melt and crash it.... unless you start using propellant, but you're suppose to save that for high atmosphere and space travel... otherwise it defeats the whole point of MHD. EDIT: The comment in the video about tge MHD craft using it's own lasers to ionize the air around it I found amusingly ironic. Because doing that is a GREAT way to blind anybody at the launch site watching it lift off lol.

Interesting yet.... since realism is involved I will point out one thing. Low g humans, or rather those born in low g conditions will be ill suited for higher accelerations. What I am saying is that it won't so much matter if a spaceship can do a 4g acceleration burn if the humans on it were adapted to say... mars gravity. Low gravity humans would I think be restricted to slower accelerations by default, which means it would take them longer to get around the solar system than mark I humans from Earth. Remote controlled, drone, and robot spaceships by comparison would be the fastest spaceships known. An expanse type of scifi is interesting of course because human adventures go to weird environment of space. Yet when reality is applied it leads to the boring fact that humans are so ill suited for space that robots and drones would be prevail in space and humans would be secondary to them in importance for space travel. Because 1. Robots and drones do not require life support. 2. Do not require anywhere near as much fuel. 3. And can get from point A to point B much faster. I honestly think the only way humans would be more common in space than drones would be if speeds were equalized thanks to scifi inertial dampeners or some other scifi conceit. In other words, then humans could actually survive high g acceleration without injury or discomfort and accelerate as fast as drones, robots, or even missiles. Although doing so would be more fuel costly then going slower.

Physically yes, especially for anyone who had an abusive father as I had. But losing money via a scam? Strangers are far more likely to do that to you, since I would assume we know family well enough to see that trick coming a mile away.

A a hammerhead project orion SSTO. Uses inner rocket engines for VTOL, then flips in midair to use it's nuclear pusher plate to reach orbit. Landing is the same process but in reverse... namely nuclear pulse to deorbit and slow in midair for landing before finally flipping horizontal to slow for a rocket powered descent. How many times you can even do reentry depens on how much fuel you have... since the VTOL rockets have a smaller ISP compared to the nuclear bomb explosions hitting the pusher plate.

Inflatable water filled station walls. That's all I have to say. Giant water bed station FTW! It will be bouncy everywhere except where hard panels are needed.

The elephant in the room is how far away do you orbit the station? Farther than LEO: You won't have to re-boost the giant thing with rockets to keep it from deorbiting due to air friction nearly as often. On the other hand if problems occur help is that much farther away unless another station is nearby. LEO: Re-boosting on a regular basis is a must or you will crash back to earth. The more massive the station the more fuel will be required to reboost quickly... although it may also be possible to do it slowly over a month or months with some kind of advanced ion thrusters.

Makes sense considering how many generations they go through in a single year. When you are at loss for human level intelligence, raw reproduction numbers and adapting for poison immunity compensates. I would also add that some insects are clearly smart as they need to be gor what they are. I have seen roaches stick to the shadows and run away from light and especially from the big scary human who has yet to attack them but will soon.

It is known that animals and insects can adapt through successive generations to the mode of life that they live. It is the reason we can breed dogs and cats to look different and even act different from each other. During the summer in the USA, ants love to come inside the house where it is cooler. After fighting off massive invasions several times in my youth, I decided upon some trickery. I put ant traps OUTSIDE wherever I saw an ant trail. Results: Smaller invasions... or massive invasions in different areas they used to not go. I suppose because colonies decided to try another location. I also noticed strange larger bugs I had not seen before invading. I suppose if you wipe out the Alpha swarm that are ants hen something else will always fill the void even if less in quantity. I never seemed to notice ants adapting to the ant poison to become immune to it, so I am thankful for that..... although some ant traps worked faster than others. By the way, can insects become immune to insect poisons?

For what it is worth, I will add what I read online. Teflon is a known carcinogen, and basically using any sort of plastic that is heated during cooking will lead to it's fumes or worse leaching into your food. For the most part natural materials we have been using for millenia (metals and ceramics with few exceptions) are safer to use I actually used a ceramic pan which is more or less non-stick for cooking eggs and saute... granted they are easy to scratch and require occasional seasoning, but I kept mine stashed away where none of the careless ones could use it anyway

My instinct was telling me the same. I presume he wanted me to pretend to be him with his card... but I am not going to take the fall for some stranger! I don't even do that for those I know. Everyone should be responsible for their own self. That is what separates working adults from every other kind.

So I was leaving in the parking lot and a man approaches me and before he can finish his sentence I blurt out, "Lemme guess? Money?" He was wearing shorts and a tank top and carrying a plastic bag from the store. He replied, "Actually I wanna GIVE you money." Red flags appeared immediately for me. I do not trust anyone easily, especially strangers who approach me with offers. I told him I was OK while smiling, since I assumed his attempt at scamming me had failed spectacularly. As he was leaving he said his card had been maxed out and wanted me to go to the store for him. I have no idea what that means. What was the situation? Anyone care to explain? Yes I live in the USA.

Studies I have read about have shown that houseflies give up in zero g and start crawling around. Strangely bees get their bearings eventually and still fly around. The scifi scenario: Assuming personal gravity inhibting personal devices was a thing on Earth and mechanical insectoid wings were attached to them, how well could a person fly wearing it? For example, suppose a person wore a gravity inhibiting insectoid wing-pack. The wings are based on bees and as long as his arms. Would he fly fast or slow? My guess is slow initially because insectoid wings are too soft to push air hard. I think to reach faster speeds faster the wings would need to be harder perhaps? Or maybe bird wings would be better I dunno.... your thoughts?

The wikipedia article also showed both it's advantages and disadvantages.... the plasma gasification process. Advantages: Works in space, can process just about anything in space. Disadvantages: Large industrial upfront cost and investment. Also the machinery would require constant maintenence. This not at all like a car you can drive for months without taking it in for an oil change if you are processing stuff daily.

What Austin said is correct. I do not have KSP right now nor do I have the means or circumstances to reasonably play right now. But I would love to see proof of concept! Sink or swim.... only one way to find out if the idea is any good or an epic fail. It seems good... in my head at least lol. I was thinking that it would be the most uber SSTO ever. Thankfully kerbals are apparently immune to radiation.... unless there are realism mods for that too : (

I like your thinking. Basically it is like making a weakness a storytelling strength.... making what does impair them a legitimate point of interest to both the plot and character development. Scifi is all about going where we have not gone or done before right? After all the blind and the deaf always find ways to compensate. Compensation is a mark of intelligence, and the greater one can compensate against the odds against them I honestly think is the mark of high intelligence or at least a lot if experience.... maybe both. What if.... that is arguably the most important question that scifi is well qualified to answer in so many ways.

Only from scifi enthusiasts like yourself.... the only scifi books I read were mainly during my school years. My life growing up was... not good.... and access to such things was simply unknown due to how much of a control freak my father was. I could read it now of course as those years are history.

You do not. Koalas have two thumbs on each hand for climbing trees (literally two thumbs side by side and three fingers on a hand). But you and I don't do much climbing do we? It's ironic, since if you want to give scifi alien sapient species plausibility having manipulators that look like hands helps... because claws and tentacles cannot sew clothing or make clay bricks etc. A third arm with a special wrench like hand would be helpful... at least until tools were invented. And I suppose those who were cheap could stiill rely on their third special wrench arm.

I think it is a given that if a sapient species lacks proper manipulators, their technological progress would be seriously retarded. The human hand is a marvel. With it we write words, make art, give massages, and pick our noses. It is incredible how much we could not have done without hands.... for it is capable of both brute force and precision. Imagination is of course finite, and my mind tends to think that beyond adding on features to the human hand, it really cannot be rivalled or improved upon much that I can think of... unless you can. I seriously doubt something that did'nt even look like a human hand would be as efficient, but a hybrid of sorts... weird as it may look, may be the only real rival. I have seen odd fictional hands with two thumbs lol. Thoughts?

Scott Manley did it.... probably with mods. But no one to my knowledge has done anything like what I propose. It would be a first. Scott comes close, but my version would need no wings since although it is a belly lander it takes off VTOL.