78stonewobble

1. Conceivably... I still believe that our ability to mimick a brain via computer is somewhat overestimated. Personally my guess is. A: AI atleast equivalent to a human brain or fully "run" a human consciousness on a computer. 50 years away atleast. B: Brain interface that can augment a human. Ie. internet, database access or just a calculator in the brain... Might be possible within 50 years. C: An existing brain supported in a robot body... Might also be within 50 years. 2. While I could use some short term memory augmentation, I'd have to say no in general. A little concerned about security and privacy, somewhat concerned about the morality, not from the individuals perspective but from society's, but mostly... because it holds no interest for me. 3. No idea... too many factors to even hazard a guess. 4. Yeah pretty much, depending on what it is, but really... there's over 7 billion people in the world, for the cost of an expensive medical treatment here in the first world.... We could save countless lives in the third world. At some point people just have let go.... 5. Isn't that just picking the best person for the job? ... It might happen and legal steps might have to be taken. Not so worried though. If we can augment human brains and bodies on THAT level... Odds are we could design a computer program or simple robot, that can do the job and doesn't have to get paid. I'd be much more worried about, how humanity's gonna react when theres only jobs for ie. 10 percent of the population. 6. Love isn't rational and if it was... it'd be too boring to even bother with it. 7. Not a parent, but ... Life isn't everything. Life needs quality of life. If it means a lifetime, possibly in pain and social stigmatization, then maybe not. Depends on how good the solution is. 8. Do we really have to... There's plenty of people allready.

Though obviously organisations exists with that capability and presumably to do the equivalent with any technology we put in our bodies in the future. Why risk a spy's life, if you can gather intel from inside the body of unsuspecting people. However... As an ordinary citizen I'm not that worried, even with todays capabilities. I do believe that most members of the intelligence community are wholly uninterested in any of my online activities.

One could also argue that it is morally reprehensible to put others at risk via not vaccinating. I'm a big believer in personal freedoms, but not at the cost of others, potentially many others, freedoms and health. EDIT: I mean, normally if we deem a person to be of risk to other people. We lock them up or otherwise prevent them from being a risk to other people ie. really really shoddy doctors or close the restaurant of the non hand washing cook.

I think maybe the problem is... people trying to make it more than a rule of thumb, like the concept of Body Mass Index. It should seen as a general guideline to most people, that if you... ie. eat more sweets and/or frenchfries than anything else or drink massive amounts of soft drinks, containing sugar, then you might be heading for trouble. But offcourse it can't be used on everyone. People are different afterall. EDIT: Though I'm curious as to where they got the... 6-11 helpings of something from. Who the hell has the time and inclination to eat constantly

Yeah, I was remembering those as well. Is a shame they didn't make it...

Yeah, offcourse... but obviously you can't put in too many crossbeams in a cargo ship .

I'd think that a bigger problem would be whether there is anything interesting about Sedna that warrants a cheap mission, a thorough mission or a manned mission? Now... if Charon really was a mass relay then...

Well, stuff will stay unproven until you actually prove them. I do keep hoping for new technology actual trials.

I was about to mention hibernation instead of freezing. It would presumably still allow for quite the reduction in consumables.

You can see it in planes too, down ie. the midter aisle. I wonder though, just as a purely theoretical exercise, how much extra materials you would need to add to absolutely minimize flexing in a large ship like that.

This, I guess... We just don't really have a need for that yet. Potentially in the future if we begin production of things in space or mining, we would need larger bring back capability.

It would be some whale, if it can knock through the ice to "breath". ... Something with gills seem more likely. Though obviously the biological use of soundwaves would allways be usefull. Would be a brilliant example of convergent evolution (it is that right?). I agree though, europa seems the most likely place for current life elsewhere in the solarsystem and that makes it very very interesting. I'm having some doubts about our ability to explore though. I mean supposedly the ocean can be up to 100 km deep, can we even build anything that can explore the bottom of such depths (like supposed vents at the seafloor)? We've only had 4 dives to the mariana trench on earth and that's just circa 10,5 km.

Wouldn't the number of possibilities also "decrease", due to... well suppose a newly formed universe can end up with any number of physical laws... Once it ends with some... There are limits put in place on what can happen. Also, when a universe expands and cools it's particles have less energy leading to even less options? I just mean that in our universe, not everything "can" happen. Just because icecreams exist and I exist, doesn't necessarily mean that icecreams spontaniously appear in my hand ... Or that I spontaniously appear as an icecream in someones hand (... oddly though I rate the chance of this being someone somewheres sexual fantasy rather high... humanity disturbs me at times).

That and any amount of respect for our cultural heritage. New homes? Sure... Just don't destroy the old architecture with... well ... crap. Might as well build dedicated spp's ... Where they aren't eye sores. EDIT: And the article does not suggest any spraypainting of anything with solarcells. They are talking about using a spraypainting technique, in manufacturing part of a solarcell. It's really a discussion of manufacturing methods with cost and performance considerations.

Well using smaller craft, does have the advantage of adding range, between what you want to defend and what you want to attack. Ie. your space tanker / gasstation. Don't want that going up against the enemy. So you add distance by adding other things that can attack from futher away. Ie. a carrier... which then becomes rather valuable, so it needs attack craft of it's own to add distance between it and the enemy. Whether that leads to dogfighting I don't know.

Some places sure... But my parents would be ruining their classical 1930's house with any of it.

20,441 mio. cubik kilometers of liquid hydrogen... And it's relatively small planet *lol* ... oh god...

I think... that battleship style combat, with either missiles or massdrivers, will be more likely than dogfighting. I'm not too read up on explosions in space, but certainly they don't transfer energy too well, as compaired to in the atmosphere. I imagine that, if we ever get true "spaceships", that are manned, we will want to protect them on level with what they could potentially face. If it's only spacedust, then it doesn't need a lot, if it's "bullets in space", then we will add armor and if it's nuclear weapons or mass driver rounds at the equivalent of a nuclear weapon, then we will add alot of armor. Obviously you can dodge a mass driver round, but I don't really see humanity, going on another big spending spree regarding nuclear weapons, so perhaps massdriver weapons will be what we're stuck with or simply because they're cheaper in combat, if each ship can survive multiple on hull detonations. ... But overall I think spacecombat itself is unlikely, for any forseeable future (beyond a little anti satellite weaponry).

Well, I believe that space exploration and ie. astronomy needs to be a bit higher prioritised. Manned and unmanned. We need goals that force us to push the boundaries on what is possible, continually. The alternative is stagnation. Which includes manned space exploration. Ie. I firmly believe that trying to go to mars, is what develops the technologies to go to mars. I don't think leaning back and doing nothing, will magically give us those technologies. A few ps's: Even if global warming turns out to be a natural development of earths climate and only a mild thing at that. The earth is still heating up. Ie. the sun has increased it's luminosity continually by now 30 percent over 4,5 billion years and will continue to do so. Ok, the universe is probably going to end (or so we believe) at some point in the unimaginably far future. Which means there's no reason to have manned space exploration, say what?, if that's an argument theres no reason to get out of the bed tomorrow. You can equally use that argument on anything else we do.

Holy crap... I don't think I've heard Neil deGrasse Tyson that passionate before. Heck, I'd vote for him if I could. Coincidentally I think he's touching on something very very important, lacking in todays politicians. The ability to dream for something a little better and a little further away. Best exemplified by space programmes. To do something a little beyond worrying which economical screws to tighten or loosen dependent on party colour.

Are failure rates on SRB's really that high, when it comes down to it? You could argue that ie. the challenger accident, was not exactly a failure of the SRB's, but rather human mismanagement. SRB's can fail catastrophically and spectacularly, if not treated with the proper respect, but you could make that argument with liquid fuelled rockets as well.

Does raise the question, of what we could do with a decent sized factory just spitting things like that out.

Atleast it's class mates... not random strangers Could allways change your name to Samwise

Seems a bit optimistic... Money is very good, no doubt about it, but it isn't everything. I'd assume that you would need a large highly skilled workforce as well? Heck, you probably need machines to build the machines to build the machines that builds the rockets. If it's really... everything from the ground up.

Hmm, I must admit I've never experienced that, except when theres people around calling for another guy with the same name. ... Certain bouts with tinnitus tho, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to around ten minutes and twice I've had an inflamation of my balance nerve, lasting over a month each time -..-.