Stargate525

Actually... we're still using steam power. It's fancier, but the basic principle hasn't changed in almost two hundred years. There HAS to be a better way than just using coal to make water really hot. Unfortunately for those multi-billion dollar corporations, it probably won't use any of their existing equipment. Or coal.

http://earthdesk.blogs.pace.edu/files/2013/07/collision_2011_US_electricity_generation_by_source.png That's really not surprising. The plural of anecdote isn't data, by the by.

Because we all know a disaster's impact on the climate is only measured in human life. 9/11 was CLEARLY more dangerous to the atmosphere than all of these eruptions combined... There are few deaths because people have largely learned that a) living next to an active volcano is really stupid, running when said volcano starts rumbling is generally a good idea, and c) a lot of these are in remote areas where no one lives (because, you know, VOLCANO). Twenty eruptions in the past fifteen years rating a 4 or higher on the VEI (you know, the thing that the US Geological Survey uses to measure these things). TWENTY. IN FIFTEEN YEARS. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it. Unless you're only capable of measuring numbers in batches of 150 years, then... about 100, although our record-keeping on worldwide volcanic phenomenon sort of breaks down around the 1880s. 4 or higher on the VEI. The description of these eruptions is 'cataclysmic,' involves an ejecta plume around 10km in height, and has ejected .... into the upper atmosphere. The one that shut down all of Europe's air travel back in 2010? The one that ejected 250 million cubic meters of ash and junk? That's an average 4.0. I'm sorry that I can't get you exact measurements of all 100 of these guys' outputs; they just refuse to fill out their carbon footprint paperwork whenever we send them. How inconsiderate. US Geological Survey, historical reports, and searching of free academic articles on the internet begun via wikipedia. I'm not writing a dissertation, I don't really feel I need to be more in-depth than that.

Hahahahaa.... Try twenty in the past FIFTEEN years. And those are just the big ones, which together have killed over 400 people. Try again, sir.

You are aware that there are a number of desert plans which die from too much water, and not all animal life considers comfortable what WE consider comfortable. And by your argument... nuclear waste will affect biodiversity, more than likely in a positvie way by increasing beneficial mutation at the genetic level. It could be positive if they keep the waste at about three percent of ground coverage, biology will adapt. Any way the needs of the many outway the needs of the few. If carbon emmisions aren't cut these at-risk areas are doomed, so you are looking at trouble anyway. Unshielded nuclear for everyone! Biology will adapt! It's not like screwing a biodome we personally find difficult to inhabit could POSSIBLY have bad repuscussions, right?!

That's because most people hear 'desert' and think of the Atacama or the Sahara, which are largely lifeless. Unfortunately, those deserts also have the problem of being about as far away from the most hungry electric grids as it is possible to get, and in areas of pretty low infrastructure. Whereas the ones that are much closer to civilization are TEAMING with biodiversity, making the idea of 'turning these thousands of square miles into solar panels' about at ecologically sound as doing it to a forest or grassland.

I've always hated the idea that we're inherently warmongering. We aren't nearly as territorial as some other species on this planet, and ARE social creatures. I can easily see alien species which ruthlessly exterminate any perceived threat to their territory who see us as suicidally pacifistic for even attempting communications or diplomacy.

Or they have, but we weren't looking at the time. Honestly, would a probe zooming through on its way to somewhere else be noticed in 538AD?

You can't go just by 'number of astonauts,' when some of these people have spent solid months in space. If you go by man-hours, 1 death per 40k man hours is actually pretty decent. Not a clue. And no reason to do it in one go. Could have done a pair of Soyuz launches. But I'm not NASA, so my opinion's not the best.

Why bring the shuttle down? Instead of taking supplies UP, why didn't they bring SEATS up? Leave Columbia up there for a dedicated repair mission, and just grab the crew?

You're entitled to your opinion, provided that you can back it up with objective evidence. Why, specifically, is Ridley Scott a crap director in this? DIRECTING, mind you, not visual effects or set design or script.

Right... Because the director of the original Alien movie has no idea how space works... And the movie takes place in 2037-47, so as for the Z-1, that twenty-year old piece of prototype... 'don't show me the past!!'

Dude, the director was RIDLEY SCOTT. He knew what he was doing... And the reason they used those launches was because they were REAL launches. They didn't want to CGI a massive stack when they had perfectly good real footage to use, even if they weren't as big as they needed to be. And as for the space suit... You simply cannot have a movie take place where you can't see the actor's face 70-80% of the time. Quit your bitching, even NASA is admitting the movie's pretty damned close.

Isn't that the other way around?

I kid you not, that got the biggest laugh in the theater when I went and saw this! xD

Okay, yea, it contains every possible combination... But there's no practical use. You can't find anything unless you're looking for it, and its 99% gibberish nonsense.

And good luck cooling your speaker wires to 6 Kelvin...

This. I remember reading an article about processor chip design that stated we're starting to run into physics as the barrier to our improvement of a CPU; you can't make the circuits any closer together because there's no way to stop the current from jumping, there's no way to mitigate the heat generated, etc. I also saw an interesting perspective that we're ALREADY in the singularity, which started with the telegraph. Massive technological advancement and near-instant worldwide communication, everything since then has been refinement of the basic concept.

considering that two lightyears is nearly halfway to Alpha Centauri, when does it stop being a distant planet of our solar system and start being a rogue traveler we've currently got in the neighborhood?

There's no landing gear on the dippercraft... and I assume all the science is in that pod with Bob. Poor Tedus...

I bet we would have if the natives had managed to send a scout ship over first.

I imagine that teeny globs of water evaporate and are taken care of by the HVAC before it can become a problem.

There's a way to separate them, I think it has something to do with the poles of the electrode. But you're missing a pretty vital component; scuba tanks aren't oxygen tanks, they're AIR tanks. Pure oxygen is extremely toxic. So you'd either be attaching this to a rebreather mechanism (in which case your limit is the rebreather's ability to scrub CO2) or will have to truck down a tank of nitrogen to balance your oxygen generation.

I just really want another conspiracy at the Watergate, so they have to call it Watergategate.