SunlitZelkova

Is the right answer to put aside differences and cooperate even if it’s not what one personally desires, or to strive for your personal desires even if they come into conflict with those of others? Is constantly changing your opinions based on interactions with others admirable, or a case of being at the whim of others’ ideas? The discussions on this forum in recent days have been my first introduction to these issues in philosophy/ethics/whatever category. More and more I’m seeing everything as relative; just a human construct. Things are what we make of them. There is no right or wrong but the rights and wrongs we (or one) decide(s) upon. Humanity is complex and I’m all for it. I had these thoughts while it was raining outside, so it counts as a shower thought, right?

Thank you for the correction!

This franchise changed my life too. I first learned about KSP2 in 2020. I had heard of KSP long ago (in like 2015 or 16) from a YouTuber called PhlyDaily. I had guinea pigs from 2015, but in 2020 one passed away, followed by another just weeks later. This hit me very hard. I did not have any human friends at the time, due to a combination of mental health issues and moving around due to my parent’s divorce. 2016 was the darkest year of my life so far perhaps. I was struggling immensely in school and in a few months would lose my the last of my human friends. I would sit on the couch with one of my pigs in the evenings, and he would look up to the ceiling a lot. I interpreted this as him wanting to go to the Moon. Also at this time I was interested in Soviet history. So through a combination of being enamored with the Soviet mass song “14 minutes to start” (the refrain of which is in my signature) and my pig’s desires, the seeds of a new interest in space travel were born. I had originally been interested in space during elementary school, but dropped it after my parents divorced. But the dark times continued. I was bitter, neglected to spend time with my pigs, and focused on war and conflict. Things changed in 2020. I lamented how I was never able to take all of my pigs to space (I planned to make a cardboard rocket and blast off with them to the “Moon” and let them run around on the surface). Now two of them never could. I became interested in spaceflight again at last. I revisited Wikipedia articles for the first time in nine years about rockets and missions. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be able to go to space myself, just as I “partook in combat” virtually through video games during my interest in historical wars. I recalled that rocket game, called “Kerbal” or something from that PhlyDaily video so long ago. I looked it up and lo and behold, not only was KSP thriving, a sequel was in the works called KSP2. I was blown away by the trailer. The dreams of my childhood, going to the Moon and then interstellar, returned to my mind. KSP1 seemed out of reach for my computer. KSP2 promised better graphics. I was hyped. I still ended up finding a work around to play KSP1 and learn the ropes in the meantime, but I remained highly excited about KSP2. To be honest, the (still rumored) death of KSP2 does not bother me much. It’s what happens to the franchise that does. After I bought KSP, I was able to go to orbit, land on the “Moon”, and I even attempted to go to “Mars” (I played stock and simply imagined it was the real solar system, because my computer couldn’t handle RSS). But it was something that seemed like magic, like stepping into a real life spaceflight simulator, compared to what I did in my elementary years: drawing rockets and then cutting them out and playing with them as toys. KSP fundamentally changed my life in that it gave me a positive hobby. So many video games involve some degree of violence, and yet this one is peaceful (although I did build an SA-2 Guideline replica once lol). As a result I was able to have a really good pandemic experience. The amount of time I spent playing dropped in 2022, as another of my pigs passed away, and I so strongly identified KSP with being with him, while also lacking coping skills to deal with his passing. But the interest in space exploration remained. Through all the ups and downs, I feel I have been a much happier person in 2020-2024 than I was in 2012-2019. KSP was a big part of that. I only played sandbox mode through these past four years. In 2024, simultaneous with starting college, I will be starting my first ever science save, with a goal of building a space program during my time as an undergraduate. What will happen now? At first glance it seems like it should be fine, but KSP social media accounts and even this forum moved very heavily into promoting KSP2 (as an example, the KSP2 section of the forum is above that of KSP, despite the game not even being finished, and the only creations showcased on Twitter now are all from KSP2). Will they make an about face and return to promoting KSP content? Will Private Division want to continue supporting KSP if it just makes people think about how they failed to deliver the second one, thus hurting their brand name and reputation? I certainly hope not. I voice my fears not to sow panic, but in search of solace.

Does anyone know if you can book a (cheaper than one way) two way international ticket, get there, and then cancel the return and get a refund? If you bought a fully refundable ticket. My dad is thinking of doing this for me this Summer. We’d fly United.

Mi-28. It’s pretty different from the Mi-24, perhaps resulting in some doctrine change on the use of attack helicopters?

My mom bought me that game for me when I was like 9 or 10 and we never played it. It’s still in her game closet, so we’ll need to try it out some time.

It would be so cool to know how this thing would have fitted into Soviet doctrine in Central Europe had the Pact not fell. It’s very different from the Mi-24.

It’s not. It’s smaller. Saturn V is about 1:110, and SLS is 1:160 I think.

The issue with what happened to me here over the past couple weeks is that it wasn’t an opinionated matter we argued over, it was- 1. The definition of something 2. History of something The first time, the guy had a weird definition of something that sounded like something else, so I looked up the dictionary definition to see if I was right. It didn’t match up and I pointed that out. Then he continually changed his own definition until he accused me of not discussing in good faith. Second time, I made stupid statements about something in history. I honestly did not know I was wrong. In fact, other people in the discussion later politely pointed out the flaws in my statements and I accepted I was incorrect and retracted my statement. But before then, this guy- the same guy as with the definition talk- simply says I’m “making walls of words” and again speaks of me “lacking good faith.” This isn’t public policy or favorite foods we’re talking about. If we can’t correct each other when we’re wrong and accept that we’ve been wrong when it comes to facts, how are we supposed to learn anything? Isn’t that what the internet is supposed to be about? For All Mankind had a clip of Tim Berners-Lee praising the then potential value of the internet in the 80s and he spoke of a “more informed electorate.” Obviously politics is politics and it can get nasty in its own right, but what about technical discussions? Discussions about the humanities? I think I’m getting back to my point I made in my long post about climate change. Everyone has armies of rhetoric and data on their side to defend their arguments, and criticism and differing data is “politicized” or has an ulterior motive. If I or others can’t or don’t want to correct or be corrected on facts when we’re wrong, what’s the point of even being here? Just hop in, see if we fit in the echo chamber, hop out if we don’t and then post tweets and occasional witty jokes from time to time? Isn’t a forum all about discussion? I’ve never expected people to change their opinions when I’m criticizing them. But if there’s a fact they’re talking about that’s incorrect, I have a hard time sitting by and letting them be wrong. I wouldn’t want someone on this forum to let me continually make inaccurate statements, and when I did that in the history discussion, I’m glad I was corrected. Considering most of the people who regularly post in the main section of the forum I visit- the Science & Spaceflight section- are also the same people who have espoused the climate change denial arguments I listed in my climate change post in this thread, perhaps I just need to recognize the people there are not who I thought they were when I joined this forum and read about the better forum movement and rules intended to make it a more positive place. The Lounge is cool though, so I’d still visit here. But I can get space news on Twitter and don’t really have any more technical questions to ask people over there, so if it’s just a place to report the news and make jokes from time to time- discussion, while legal, will lead to arguments if anything beyond supportive comments are made, even if someone is incorrect about something- what am I even doing there? I’m also now thinking about how I don’t even really follow much spaceflight news beyond what’s going on in China. I might as well just head over to Sino Defence Forum (where I’m much more conscious of what kind of people they are and how it’s important not to start arguments).

I feel like the reason the world is so divided is because no one has the modesty or backbone to conduct extended, intense debates/arguments. If we fail more than 2-3 times to convince someone of something, we don’t have a hard look at what we’re saying to see if it’s wrong, we accuse the opponent/target of being “brainwashed” or “lacking good faith.” Idk, maybe I’m spending too much time with the people on this forum who are mostly old enough to remember Apollo or STS-1 and need to interact more with my own generation.

Because Ice Age people actually might have had varied culture and not a monolithic way of thinking across Eurasia. Hence why I said within their group. The objective of all life is to survive, no? Would you say one’s desire for food and water is an opinion? I suppose it could be. The Wendat did have punishment mechanisms for things people agreed were bad, like murder. Instead of punishing individuals, the whole clan would have to pay tribute to the clan of the slain person, creating an incentive to prevent others from committing murder. Kandiaronk said this was more effective in preventing crime than European punishment of the individual, but we don’t really know for sure whether that was true or not. What the Wendat did not do was force people to do something they didn’t want to. No one was forced to participate in war against another tribe if they were not convinced it was the right course. I don’t think a decision requires punishment of those who don’t agree and cooperate. Sometimes decisions involve recruiting volunteers to execute them, in which case those who oppose go unpunished because they aren’t needed. Not the case. Pacific Northwest tribes were “peasants of the fish” in that they conducted mass harvesting and processing of salmon according to the right time in the season. The environment they lived in was unsuitable for HG lifestyle because the main trees were conifers. They raided each other for slaves because the leaders could not convince their own people to take up the intense labor needed for processing salmon. But the northern Californian peoples, who lived with access to similar abundance of salmon, consciously refused harvesting salmon and preferred the hunter gatherer way of life, because they valued work for the individual and did not believe in slavery, unlike the almost bourgeoise-like leaders of the Pacific Northwest peoples who showed off their immense wealth (and shared it) during potlatch. But the Pacific Northwest people never raided the northern Californian HGs, despite being in close proximity. (The northern Californian peoples actually did keep a small number of slaves, but the institution was frowned upon and those who owned them were ostracized)

It would be very interesting to know if Soviet space artists took notes on what their Western counterparts were doing, or if they both read Jules Verne as kids and ended up following the same (convergent) evolutionary path.

https://x.com/cnspaceflight/status/1783621625495318904?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A Shenzhou-18 has docked with Tiangong. There are now 13 people on orbit. Shenzhou-17’s crew will depart in 4 days.

What’s the likelihood they were killed lined up like that? Your images come from a European caricature of the native person. Both a Frenchman named Lahontan and the Jesuit missionaries who lived there spoke of how the Wendat did not use violence to force others (within their group) to do things they wanted them to. The AI is not going to want others to have arbitrary values like “righteousness” and what not. It’s just programmed to ensure the physical survival and expansion of the colony. This regulates basic needs and the functions of the colony. The colonists are free to decide how they want to spend their own free time. When I say “law” I mean public decisions, which the Wendat did make when deciding things like going to war or not. No one could force anyone to do anything. It was up to the persuasive powers of the person proposing the action to convince others to help. 18-25 villages over 35x56 km area, with a total population of 18-22k. Lands farmed extended up to 880km squared. http://www.1704.deerfield.history.museum/scenes/nsscenes/lifeways.do?title=Wendat#:~:text=Most of the villages%2C of,through their success in agriculture. These were not hunter-gatherers. Many tribes besides them cultivated maize and other crops. And yet, no money, no institutionalized trade, no authoritarian chief. Farmers did not force others to give them something in return for food, they gave it as they believed freedom was an important value, and you’re not free to do much besides gathering food if you’re hungry.

It sounds to me like it’s more than just checkouts, more like learning the ropes of space station operation. All that’s changed is the timeline is a little shorter. I guess they realized it wouldn’t take as long as originally envisioned.

Very good point!

I have the same dilemma with Star Wars sets lol.

I’m talking about the burials of people. https://www.donsmaps.com/tripleburial.html Not everyone was buried. So why these people? One possibility is some social organization beyond an egalitarian hunter-gatherer tribe existed. People actually argued all the time. Debate and persuasive powers were valued skills among the Wendat. They just didn’t force people “at gun point” to do things. At least not people of their own tribe. I don’t get your point with this, but it does make me wonder how a religious group would fare in trying to colonize Mars. Kinda like those Mormons in The Expanse who planned to fly interstellar. So would you say technology level defines what types of societal organization are feasible? I wasn’t trying to say different rules didn’t apply, just that the rules were varied. It makes me believe varied forms of societal organization are possible now, too. By the way, the Wendat, who had a unique form of society in which leaders existed but no one was required to follow them by “law,” only if they could persuade everyone through orating skills and debate, had a population of up to 30,000 when European settlers began to arrive. Obviously there was certainly strife, there was still crime and the Wendat went to war every now and then, but it worked as far as maintaining everyone’s basic needs went. I list this example not to say that such a form of government would be viable on Mars, but just to say that “tribes” are sometimes a lot bigger than they are imagined to be. I don’t think population size really affects what forms of government are feasible. At least when you’re under 50,000 people or so. I have no idea about millions, which the Mars colony could be expected to reach.

Ya know, one deleterious effect of these black and white, good vs evil sci-fi stories is it causes people to then view real world conflicts through the same lens, when the truth is much more complicated. It’s quite a shame. Archetypes also get used to simplify complex histories when the reality of the events is more complex too. I blame the format. For example, George Lucas had an interesting opportunity to make a different kind of war series with The Clone Wars TV show, as the conflict was hinted at being much more complex in the original prequel movies (Padme’s thoughts of how the Republic had become the thing they were fighting against, and the “heroes on both sides” line in the opening scrawl). Instead, the Separatists were turned into a pseudo Empire. Yet another black and white, easy to digest story. Partially because the target audience was children and having good guys that do bad things and bad guys that do good things would be too hard to understand, but I think it was also because the format of Star Wars has always been black and white, good vs. evil. At least Andor kind of got into how the Rebels had to get as dirty as their enemies to try and win.

The things I’ve heard about from either sci-fi sources or actual research papers are- 1. Making concrete out of regolith and paving the area around the base. 2. Using a sort of lawnmower type rover to suck up the regolith underneath and throw it on to base. This doesn’t actually apply to removal, I just heard you mention vacuum and thought there might be a way to repurpose it. The regolith would help protect the base from micrometeoroid strikes and radiation.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/nasa-artemis-space-launch-system-10341 To whoever in the Artemis thread was wishing for an SLS, here ya go. Smaller than the Saturn V, but it has the entire launch tower and crawler + separate Orion. A reasonable deal (for someone with a decent income in the US) if you ask me.

Does a document like this exist for L1 or L3? I know a few names were listed in Kamanin’s diaries. I always go with Rodina for the flyby and Znamya for the orbiter-lander combo in my alt histories.

The thing that made me even suggest that in the first place is Neuralink. Musk’s vision is to eventually modify humans to help them compete with AI. A human with such modifications could easily do all the tasks mentioned. Yeah, I take that back that slavery is a new invention. I would dispute that there were “tribes” followed by “states,” though. Take a look at Poverty Point and Sannai Maruyama, which predate agriculture but were places of large gatherings where something was probably exchanged (whether it be stories or beads we don’t know). Or the North American Calusa, which did not practice agriculture but coalesced with a king and court. There are the Nambikwara, who shifted between having a tyrannical ruler in the dry season who led them to nomadically forage and back to horticulture and anarchic village life in the rainy season. These guys were once seen as an example of Paleolithic life. There was no original state of human society. Now, aside from that, I don’t know what would work in an environment like Mars. We might have varied options on Earth, but in Mars there basically has to be one set form of command. Imagine trying to switch styles of governance on the ISS. I agree about the sci-fi take. Maybe there’s an aspiring author lurking here. Ah, but what of Göbekli Tepe, or the mammoth houses at Yudinovo? Mass gatherings occurred, as did extravagant burials of individuals like at Dolní Věstonice. These point to some form of social organization beyond families. This was actually not the case. People owned their own bow and arrows, and collections of beads, and certainly garments, but food was shared to those who needed it. There’s always self harm and hunger strikes. That’s why I suggest the AI managers. If a computer calculates stuff based on factors, what’s important and needs to be done is basically fact. It isn’t like humans making arbitrary decisions on what should be done.

I wish I could help out but it’s all clouds and rain here for the next week

What did you think of my proposal to have “Everyman an everything” and replace human managers with AI? I’m curious if you see any flaws. If you believe the root of what causes people to not want to work is different, I’d be interested to know too, and what you think it is. I’ve seen estimates of MVPs ranging from 14 people in total, equally divided among men and women, to 14,000 people with no effort made to separate genders. I have no idea how we’d test such a thing before going to Mars, so the colony would probably need to be as big as possible.