78stonewobble

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 -..-.

Aaah, thank you for the reply. Well that does make it smarter allready. I haven't done alot of heatshield manufacturing, so what do I know. *lol*

Sorry, if this is a really stupid question. Thermal tiles again. Hmm, why not just "wrap" the spacecraft in a non reusable throwaway avcoat covering or cheap frame with that covering? Weight of an ablative heatshield? You can reuse the parts of the craft that are subjected to the relatively least stress and wouldn't have to overengineer parts that do have high stress.

So, why don't we have a good sample? We sample x-ray and gamma ray phenomena from all over the sky. Are our radio telescopes too narrow in focus to do all sky surveys (beyond aerecibo, which can't really be aimed much)? Or are these just too short in duration to aim even a quick response telescope their way?

Skidmarks!

In Denmark too, I kinda agree with rather wanting to hear the percentages, though they rarely "promise" things any longer than 24 hours ahead here. They usually do mention that 3-5 days ahead is only a prognosis. We do have pretty easy online access to their weather radars tho, which has prevented me getting soaked more than once and caused it even more, from trying to time it to the last minute before rain arrives .

Well newer processors also often include certain optimizations that make them faster per clock cycle. Not a big improvement, but if every refresh of processer and new type include a little 1-5 percent improvement, it does add up over the years.

I think, that you should make that comparison, between a mass produced Big Dumb Booster and a mass produced "super-heavy smart booster". Because if noone want's to do stuff in space, or pay for stuff in space, that requires mass production. Then we won't have either rocket mass produced. On the other hand, if people could and would pay for it. We could have a factory for either doing nothing, but spitting out rockets. Do you really believe the Big Dumb Booster concept will offer signicant advantages then? PS: Why is this thread a sticky?

Definately a place where the germans didn't do too well during the war. This might also work a bit counter to using an enigma today. The amount of only lightly private/secret information being exchanged is by orders of magnitude higher.

My point was more that, considering the computational power of modern computers, a layman would only need a suitable programme (which access to the internet affords) and x amount of time to break it. Back in the day it was quite a bit more difficult and gaining insights into the machine through intelligence and capturing examples we're high priorities.

Well I don't think it's near human intelligence, but there certainly is intelligence, with a sort of self awareness. As Linear said it: "I agree with the above poster, however i want to extend slightly. They are self aware, they want things from us, they will respond to things; however, critically, they dont think about WHY more than any other creature, i.e i am hungry, not "i'd love a banana over that orange, however can my human friend afford it? Does he have one? What does he want? Where does the bannana come from? Why dont i like the orange". "

It looks great ... but I'm rather firmly in the mass produced disposable rocket camp, until we have some even lighter weighing and stronger unobtanium, that can survive ie. a 1000 cycles of liftoff and reenty, with no problem what so ever.

No matter who, they could be the first to crawl a significant distance on the moon? Call guinness records!!!

Hmm... I don't have the greatest insight into cryptology, but couldn't an encryption scheme like this be easily broken by a layman, with a any suitable programme?

Eerily similar in my attempts to produce a duck in clay.

Somewhat cheaper. Yes, but will it be enough? Ie. If we want 6 days in space to "only" cost the same as the top end ferrari, then we will need a reduction in cost from the ISS numbers of 77 %. I don't think that's likely. I don't really believe in space tourism paving the way to space. It seems to be a small niche market, with little competition and unlikely to lower the cost of practical access to space.

Well it is basically a giant powered glider after all. How long does it take to get to full altitude, it's got a relatively small engine doesn't it?

They ate brains didn't they? If you stick to the meat of healthy people you should be fine. If you exclude the bleargh factor and all the other crap we might have in us.

Which monkey was it that also practice prostitution? Chimps?

I'm quite weary of genetically enhancing humanity too much in any specific direction. Our strength sofar has been adaptability. Also: Ewrgh... Technological singularities... Well, if we take "honey I've shrunk the kids" as a documentary maybe... Data processing, will allways take time, energy and physical space. There will allways be hard physical limits to how compact and how fast you can make it. Even for a machine. Ie. an android will allways be limited in processing capability compaired to a supercomputer. Smarter than humans? Sure... Infinitely smart? I think not... I still think it's more likely that we'll be able to create artificial animals -> humans ... before we can create a true machine intelligence.

I don't think we'd be much different to another predatory species, that became intelligent and developed down roughly the same technological lines. Maybe intelligent herbivores would be a little different?

Well, I don't know if it's actually worth it from a cost/benefit ratio with longterm permanent vs. shortterm disposable, but if the ISS's pricetag is any indication, combined with the servicing over the years then I think it will be a hard sells to stockholders (should it be a private spacestation) or voters. The wiki cites a cost of 7,5 million $ per day per person. So space tourism would need around ie. 2857 people capable and willing of paying atleast 52.500.000 $ ... Then comes profits... I don't see people jumping on that investment. Something needs to change...

It's all stuff needed, for a 50 year plus lifetime replacement for the ISS. Large component life time needs to be maximised, small components needs to be easily replaced and maintained and it needs to be as self sufficient as possible. Furthermore it will need to provide atleast the ability to expand itself into some kind of profitable space endeavour or be able to function as a base for building such things. Otherwise space- stations/exploration will be a bust forever. ... Regarding the last part. I completely agree... The space policy of the US have been quite a bit all over the place and large procurements like in the military has been... meh to say the least.

I meant more along the lines of ie: Maximising lifetime of the outer hull, so we don't have to replace modules too often. Making solar panels replaceable. Making sure that most parts and cabling are accessible from the inside for repair and replacement. Engineering the docking to allow for replacement of modules over longer timescales. What altitude and what onboard production is needed to save on resupply missions? That kinda stuff, because as you say nothing lasts forever... But if we're gonna replace the ISS, lets make it somewhat more futureproof and perhaps cheaper in the long run, so that there can be a long run.

I think it's mostly applicable to something like large scale truss structures or hull work. The robot plus printer I mean. So we can save on EVA's. Regarding the rest I still think the best manufacturing is probably a human with the right tools at his/her disposal. Atleast until we make a decent robotic counterpart to arms, hands, fingers, eyes and so on.