MKI

Why not both ;D

I was one of those people looking forward for an SLS/Artemis LEGO set, and was surprised when such wasn't actually going to be released. But a LEGO crew onboard is still pretty freaken cool.

Hello, Pluto is no longer considered a planet according to the International Astronomical Union, instead its a dwarf planet. Also I'm not sure if I ever heard of the term "intern planets". I've heard of them being declared the "inner planets", or "terrestrial planets", due to being the "inner" planets and the planets that have a rocky surface, rather than the gas giants that are out beyond Mars.

The small amount I looked into, was some specifics like "100% deforestation being stopped by 2030" in specific countries. Sounds good on paper, except I guess they said it would be stopped by 2020 last time? I personally didn't look much into it because I still think things are moving too slowly in the right direction.

I can easily fall into a loop of "infinite replies", but will try not to, unless we start talking about something else haha. I do think this all hinges on what we consider intelligence. Is it intelligent to burn your planet down as a species by doing stuff that obviously is not good for it? Probably not. At the same time there are probably other considerations we are just plainly missing, and either don't realize it as a society, or haven't actually understood yet. Overall, its hard to put the goal posts for what is intelligent or not since we only have really 1 data point out there, which is us. Having 1 giant (smog) cloud hanging over what we as a species have done (among a bunch of smaller ones hehe) can be used against it as a marker against intelligence, but we really have no idea beyond our current predicaments that no "intelligent society would ever be challenged with". Then there is always my favorite paradox, the Fermi Paradox. Maybe we can't find aliens because they burned too much coal and died before moving to renewables hahaha. Wont make that great of a sci-fi film, thats for sure XD

You can go the opposite direction and declare all forms of fossil fuel use, and industries are instantly banned, at which point modern society would collapse from a number of issues. So this obviously isn't feasible, so you'd have to make a sensible transition from fossil fuel use to cleaner energies. The problem is how to do that when huge portions of your economy and society are directly or indirectly affected by fossil fuel use. Sure there are those that ignore it, and we can try to just 100% blame them for all the troubles. However, even if you want to be as responsible as possible, from a position of power to the average citizen, its hard to make any kind of impact because society, and the economy run on fossil fuels. If your representing a state that gets most of its power through burning fossil fuels to meet energy demands, that support local companies/businesses through the gathering of coal/natural gas, powers everyone's home using that energy, and exporting it to increase everyone's wealth. Moving away from fossil fuels isn't exactly a choice, its difficult and complex political and economical work. The worst part of public office, is if people don't like what your doing, you just get replaced by someone who does something different, so your back to square one. Which goes back to "the people", from individual democratic voters, to powerful organizations and people in non-democratic systems (or just "lobbyist" in both) who are all there to push against such changes, and they have pre-existing investments and self-interests. These are the people that dictate the winds of change, and there is no direct incentive for them to change their ways, even if it means screwing up everything. Lobbyist don't get where they are at by doing the right thing, they do it by getting $ for someone. The average individual could also see the change as a direct threat to their pre-existing livelyhood from multiple sources, from news-sources, friends, families, co-workers, etc. The simplest thing is the price paid for inaction, or slow-action is cheaper than continuing the existing course. I'm sure this will eventually change in time for more and more people, but we aren't there year. Unfortunately that "age of change" where a majority of the right people do realize we are screwing stuff up, its beyond the period when we can make substantial change from occuring. If it took a global pandemic to barely put a dent in rising emissions rates, then we really have our work cut out for us. Its incredible that today's LA air is considered clean compared to what it was. Yet I still can't see the Hollywood sign from afar due to smog, nor are the freeways any less congested than before.

This isn't society taking on the problem, its what you said a group of people working together. The society I'm talking about is basically everything and everyone. You could just have a few really rich people/nations, send up Bruce Willis in a super space shuttle to blow an incoming asteroid. Society as a whole is largely unaffected. Even something like a large pandemic, requires parts of society to change a few behaviors that change over time, but again it only affects parts of human behavior in specific circumstances. I'd say the closest humanity has gotten close to the scale of cohesion required, is the 2 world wars. Where large portions of the private, and public sector, down to the individual make conscious decisions to support the war effort at a global scale. Its one thing to wear a mask, its another to realize watching TV uses energy that is made from burning fossil fuels, transported using fossil fuels, and powered using fossil fuels, all while you eat a TV dinner that contributes to climate change through cow farts. Its not so much people are "intelligent" about it, you can be incredible intelligent and know about these effects... the question is what can you do about it? A society can be incredibly intelligent about the issue and still have a difficult time fixing it. Especially when the problem isn't physical, far reaching, gradual and incredibly far reaching. Climate change will result in an extinction level event for animal species, not so much humans. Even the worse case scenario wont "end the Earth" akin to a giant asteroid impact. But it will be incredible difficult time for many, and for many animal species the end of the road. There will be more humans directly impacted by "wild weather", then there wont be. Also widespread birth defects aren't something I've heard being tied directly to climate change. Maybe as an indirect effect from some other thing. These also shouldn't be something passed down, unless its genetic.

A single human can handle and understand the situation easily if they are educated on the subject, but the same can't be said for society as a whole. Where even everyone understand it well enough, that doesn't mean you can change it quickly enough. The timelines and outcomes are vastly different. In one case you have a mass extinction event that does a lot of damage within hours, and end results that sticks around for decades. For climate change you have a mass extinction event that creeps slowly forward and sticks around for decades(?) Overtime more people will realize things are bad, and more will do something about. Again, that doesn't mean change will progress much faster, as society as a whole needs to shift, and that isn't easy. Take for example the chip shortages the US is seeing. Everyone in the economic chain sees and understands the broad problems of the issue. But that doesn't mean anyone can fix it, or really do much about it quickly enough. Ultimately I think a lot of people are concerned, but this again doesn't directly transfer to actions quickly enough to "catch up" to what is necessary. I firmly believe humanity will catch up with the issue, and eventually reverse the overall effects. But until then we will be playing "catch up" to the rising thermometer and be dealing with a large number of widespread disasters. In the mean time humanity is bound to essentially go through the grinder, until then.

To go in the opposite direction, and following the path of "the best part is no part" thinking. How far can you take a Starship with no tiling? Could point to point work with no tiling? Or what about just less tiling? Or what about a vastly simplified version of the transpirational cooling? I think if there is a "simple" way to vent fuel to the surface reliably, it might be better than fragile shielding, at least in the long run. As technically fuel isn't a "part".

There are actual concepts of catching Starship without using rockets at all? That seems more insane than propulsion landing. I think most risks associated with landing under rocket power can and will get ironed out I think its fine. If Falcon 9 boosters can do it under more strict requirements, Starship should be able to do the same.

I don't think Starship is suppose to land with any ground equipment support? Or have I been out of it where Starship is also planning to be caught (!!!)

All writers have an element of this, which is made very clear with the overall end of the series. (which I wont spoil ;D) I don't think the goal would be "perfection", but rather desperation. As some point some people somewhere will get fed up and do something beyond sticking to the norm. At that point humanity is too far gone as they are seeing 200+ years of it building up to really reverse the effects. But stress creates opportunities for those that would like to flirt with those ideas, and I'm sure there will be takers, as there always is. I do think right now conditions aren't anywhere near the extremes. Sure places catch on fire more often, things are a little hotter, and there seems to be more heat waves and weird weather. I'm thinking of the long term worse case scenarios, where large portions of the Earth are dealing with severe weather events affecting them 24/7. Something as extreme, but as simple as 1 really bad heat wave in a condense area with a failed power grid could kill millions. Such sorta scenarios aren't exactly totally fiction, they just haven't happened at that scale yet. Obviously I wouldn't want it to ever get that bad, but then I wont be around when it is that bad, if it were to get that bad. Hopefully by then we can go over and screw up Mars instead ;D

Earlier today I was thinking about a book I read months ago about how humanity goes into different "phases" when introduced to their ultimate demise. In the book it was essentially overwhelming alien annihilation beyond imagination. (slight spoilers for the Three Body series will follow) Essentially the phases go: "Yay aliens we aren't alone". To "Oh crap, they wanna fight, LETS GO" To "Wait... what is that, OH NO THEY ARE BASICALLY GODS WE HAVE NO CHANCE!" At that point, humanity essentially spirals into a tailspin of chaos, with a rough timeline of 400 years before the aliens show up and end humanity. There's hibernation technology that was originally outlawed, as people were scared too many people would use it to "travel to the future". However, after the news of future annihilation no one wants to do that, as everyone realizes right now is the best time to be alive, as the future is incredible bleak. People change their wills, stop having kids, and others prepare finances for their existing offspring to pass to their great-great-* grand children, who will meet their demise as they realize things are going to really suck. I think its rather far fetched people would think that far ahead, but if timelines where shorter I think real-world people would take things into account. The book is fiction, but such ideas got me thinking about all the stuff we have right now, just not existing in 150+ years. Obviously god-like alien annihilation is different than the worse affects of climate change, but it is gonna suck for a lot of people. In the book once the bleakness sets in, humanity essentially turns to authoritarianism to basically force humanity to prepare for that bleak future. It got me thinking of such stresses on humanity possibly leading toward such actions in the real world, at least at some scale. Its one thing to tell industries to stop screwing up the environment, its another to give power to a government, or entity to force them to stop. Its at least an intriguing and frightening idea that is a little to "real" for my liking and I honestly don't like thinking to much about such events transpiring in my lifetime...

I'd put the "skin is the fuel tank" design as one of the riskiest parts of the entire Starship design in general. All aspects of the mission essentially boil back down to this one risky design decision in terms of risk. At the same time, its the sort of decision that isn't really something worth dabbling over too much. As its not like adding another layer of something, or another surface would do much in most scenarios. If you have a burn through of your primary structure... having another layer probably wouldn't change the outcome much at the end of the day. The same is true for most things related to the integrity of the structure, and weight related to changing the structure overall. You could add more steel, but then weight becomes a problem. Either engineer through that weak point, or the entire concept probably wont work due to weight.

The other thing that hasn't been tested, is the impact of losing a tile on Starship. Losing a tile on the Shuttle was vastly more risky due to the nature of the Shuttles internal structure, as its was aluminum. The same can't be said for Starship due to its size (more surface area), and internal structure (steel), so losing tiles should be less risky overall. Losing a tile on the Shuttle in the wrong place could end the mission. I'm not sure what the "wrong" place would be for a missing tile on Starship. Possibly near the fins. I'm sure someone ran a simulation to know where the highest risk places are. Overall though, putting a thing and thing together where they don't fall off isn't exactly a super complex engineering challenge. Its striking a balance between doing it cheaply, easily, quickly and reliably that really needs to be testing "live" to find the kinks the process.

I keep track of what NASA does, but unlike a conglomerate of "startup space companies" all chasing SpaceX, NASA still does things pretty slow and steady. (Or in some cases horribly delayed) Looking forward to JWST actually getting off the pad (please dear god get off the pad!) as well

Elon Musk moonlighting as real life Iron Man confirmed.

I'm ABOUT to get and play Metroid Dread. Only been waiting 20 years for another 2D Metroid game can't wait! I was looking at getting this game, been holding off for a sale + time to actually play it.

I want to provide some accidental evidence I just ran into personally. For the last week of weather, my sunny So-Cal weather went from: - "cold" - yay fall is finally here - hot - er nevermind, lets turn on the AC. - desert weather rain storm- multiple Lightning strikes, crazy wind, heavy isolated rains - cold - again I'm not an old person, but the sorta weather I ran into is more of a desert environment I've seen in Arizona and Nevada. The multiple lightning strikes are totally new for this area in my memory. And the fact it took basically 1 day to go back to "its cold enough for a jacket" So-Cal weather isn't "normal" from my memory. Unfortunately, getting rain where I live doesn't really help the drought. With a few years we went from historical rainfall in the mountains, to historical drought.

I know the idea of feeling pain to be pleasurable for some people, but most people don't really like pain. I can't see that being a highly requested feature. This is Second Life through and through, or any other similar sandbox-like game. Just without the AI aspect, which again I don't want to touch on much because it turns into a rabbit whole. You can't just "add AI" and have it magically be whatever you imagine AI to be. Even the modern day internet is made up of a bunch of actors doing things, and not all those actors are actually human. From your operating system managing its fan speed, to your router directing packets to the right servers, to the software running on this page to mange event handlers. All that software isn't "smart", or "AI", but they make up an incredible complex system. You can even boil down what you'd think of as "modern AI", like Alexa, or Siri is just a system built out of a bunch of data to match patterns. We call it AI, but its still crazy stupid. In general, such a virtual world can't be hyper realistic because if its too realistic... why play it?

I think the topic of a "virtual world" and its impact on society, economically and social is a fun topic by itself. However now this thread is mixing in AI and bitcoin topics for some reason I think I'll just skip over those properties, since the original topic is interesting enough. There are some holes in the premise that need addressing. Like why would this game make murder feel like murder? I can't think of a single reason for such a feature, so having "crimes be like real crimes" doesn't make any sense either. Also no one would pay to play at that rate. You'd need to make it nearly free to get any sort of user-base. (hello second life) Without the "social world" aspect, its just a fancy video game and it would have minimal if not no impact on society as a whole. It's only if it's nearly or completely free, and highly accessible to a large group would such a technology actually take off and possibly affect society. Generally I think you end up with what is essentially the modern day internet, but more flashy. Ultimately however, such technologies would also follow the modern day internet in terms of problems. Anonymity can make people act completely different, positively and negatively. Stuff like "spending all your time in the pod" is already what many do, just its their phone, social media, video games. That's already "a thing", just without the pod itself. The changes to society wouldn't be much, only this technology would just change the way we currently do things to be even more evasive, but the end result is the same. People end up "plugged in".

Making humans multi-planetary is one hell of a mission statement. However, building bases on the Moon, and having long-term stays there is a fantastic/amazing accomplishment in itself. Hell building infrastructure on the Moon using Starships high turnaround time could make the ISS look likes child's play. "Frickin cool" indeed

IVA improvements, (like raster-prop-manager) to include external camera's is on my wish list. I give it a low chance of becoming a reality though, as it can be a mod, and doesn't add anything to the game outside of IVA mode. Unless of course there is a game mode where you can only fly from IVA mode, then it would be incredible cool.

I agree, The fun little messages for science are fun at first, but get tedious very fast. I personally would like to see this sort of game play feature get turned more into the "milestones" sorta achievements. Where me bringing science parts to a place automatically gets me some science. Such actions could still display the fun little message, but it occurs in the background so I still get some rewards for doing the mission, but don't have to deal with the hassle of clicking a buncha menus. The exception to this would be Kerbal related ground experiments. I think having them play golf do science is inspiring and hilarious at the same time.

I always used my head cannon reasoning. Jeb's arms have infinite stamina! There's a weird niche where the power used to apply control surfaces can't really come from anywhere but fixing that niche will result in either you lugging up a bunch of batteries for a glider, or forcing you to ignite engines to replenish your supplies. Suddenly your Shuttle replica is in a race against time to get to the ground before its batteries run out, or your just using battery cells and you end up with essentially the same craft, except with more parts you must have on your craft. I'd put this in the same bucket as SAS. Every craft has some form of SAS, because playing the game without it is just a huge pain. Sure adding it would make the game make more sense, and increase difficulty a bit. But the game is already pretty darn hard ;D