I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…
As last module docks, China completes its space station
21–30 of 401 posts
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#22Quoted post unavailable.
Nationalism, any forms of it are evil. There is no "benign nationalism" that is just people being proud for their country or whatever. It all leads to sorrow and, ultimately, destruction. Paraphrasing Voltaire, we should squash it. It is not beneficial and people can absolutely "reach for the stars" in all senses of it without nationalism. The only thing nationalism, in any form, moderate or extreme, is good for is f…
Neoliberalism is clearly anti-nationalism, and it's been the dominant ideology for at least 3 decades. Neoliberalism seeks to eradicate borders, weaken states, and empower transnational corporations to privatize and exploit the resources of once-sovereign countries.
There's been a "war on nations" since WW2 and the rise of the superpowers, and only in the last decade has the tide started to turn.
A key fact is that Reagan was not a nationalist, he was an anti-nationalist that used purely performative, aesthetic nationalism to disguise neoliberal policies.
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#23I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#24Quoted post unavailable.
Nationalism, any forms of it are evil. There is no "benign nationalism" that is just people being proud for their country or whatever. It all leads to sorrow and, ultimately, destruction. Paraphrasing Voltaire, we should squash it. It is not beneficial and people can absolutely "reach for the stars" in all senses of it without nationalism. The only thing nationalism, in any form, moderate or extreme, is good for is f…
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#25Quoted post unavailable.
Nationalism, any forms of it are evil. There is no "benign nationalism" that is just people being proud for their country or whatever. It all leads to sorrow and, ultimately, destruction. Paraphrasing Voltaire, we should squash it. It is not beneficial and people can absolutely "reach for the stars" in all senses of it without nationalism. The only thing nationalism, in any form, moderate or extreme, is good for is f…
Nation A and Nation B go to war. Do you care who wins? If you don't care, there's something wrong with you. If you do care, people will accuse of being a nationalist.
At the end of the day we need to distinguish between racism and nationalism. Some nations are simply better places to live than others.
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#26Last week I stood outside my apartment and watched Tiangong fly across the sky[0]. What an incredible time to be alive. [0] https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
The page sits at "Loading" and the console shows "Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: navigator.geolocation is undefined".
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#27Quoted post unavailable.
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#28I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified c…
That requires a truly astounding amount of material. Unless the cost to place it in orbit gets within an order of magnitude of our current terrestrial freight, it's not happening. Best bet is to construct these things in orbit, with materials sourced in orbit. But now you have a chicken and egg problem - need to send an incredible amount of material (and people) in order to (potentially!) save in the future.
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you implying that Chinese nationalism prevents the collaboration? Look into why China is not part of ISS, despite its desire to join. Spoiler: the US has blocked it. It's a small miracle that Russia is part of ISS, not in small part because the US wanted to get cheap access to the Soviet Mir-based technology and expertise.
Quoted post unavailable.
Re: As last module docks, China completes its space station
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nationalism, any forms of it are evil. There is no "benign nationalism" that is just people being proud for their country or whatever. It all leads to sorrow and, ultimately, destruction. Paraphrasing Voltaire, we should squash it. It is not beneficial and people can absolutely "reach for the stars" in all senses of it without nationalism. The only thing nationalism, in any form, moderate or extreme, is good for is f…
> Unfortunately, we won't see anti-nationalism coming to the same level as atheism even in our lifetimes. Neoliberalism is clearly anti-nationalism, and it's been the dominant ideology for at least 3 decades. Neoliberalism seeks to eradicate borders, weaken states, and empower transnational corporations to privatize and exploit the resources of once-sovereign countries. There's been a "war on nations" since WW2 and t…