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Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

buildtheenterprise.org

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Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#121

Post by mongol »

qq66 wrote: post #103
InclinedPlane wrote: post #8

I hate hate hate this idea. It's so very wrong headed. Yes, it'd certainly help bootstrap manned spaceflight. But I talked to someone who knows about these things and he told me a secret, no matter HOW you spend a trillion dollars on a space project you're going to do a hell of a lot to bootstrap spaceflight. We don't need this, it's silly, we should not be taking it seriously. We already have the technology and the…

SpaceX will not have 10 million people living on Mars in eighteen years, whether you gave them a contract for $1 trillion or $10 trillion or $100 quadrillion.

Exactly. The global economy is not structured to achieve that at any price.

Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#122

Post by tomjen3 »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #93
tomjen3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do there even exist a trillion dollar? I don't mean a trillion dollars worth of wealth, but a trillion dollar in currency (or even as deposits in banks)?

The Federal Reserve can answer your money-related question! Let's go to their website and look at H6, "Money Stock Measures" - http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/h6.htm According to this release, as of April 2012, the money supply measure M1 (currency + check-like thingies) consisted of $1707.9 billion, of which $1036.9 billion was actual circulating currency (not in vaults). So, yes. There is roughly…

Sorry. I had forgotten that it was the M3 they cancelled and not the M1.

Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#123

Post by ChuckMcM »

stcredzero wrote: post #76
ChuckMcM wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a huge fan of space I agree we need progress, but we can achieve that by no longer 'visiting' space and instead 'moving' there. I was talking with a JPL engineer about SpaceX and he said something which really knocked me for a loop. He said "We don't live in space, we camp there." And by example he suggested what if there was no food, fuel, or running water in Barstow California. Everyone would have to carry what…

Back in 1988, a Canadian scientist was commissioned by a 2nd world power to build a system that could be used for orbital launch 4 orders of magnitude cheaper per pound to orbit than what SpaceX can do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon It would have involved firing payloads out of a very large cannon, then firing a rocket onboard to circularize the orbit, so this is not for manned launch, but we should be…

Thanks for reminding me of that 'gun'. I was recently noodlingly around with the question "Can the Navy's rail gun launch projectiles into orbit?" [1] The production gun is expected to us 64 Megajoules. The challenge is that you have to impart all the energy you can before the projectile leaves the gun (because you then lose your source of acceleration) and drag (or air resistance) is proportional to the cube of the velocity. So the faster you try to make something go, the harder the air resists it moving.

Using the math from "Rocket Propulsion Elements" [2] it seems like for anything other than a needle shaped projectile it would not be practical.

[1] http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_railgun_test_0801...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutt... Pretty much everything there is to know about rockets that isn't classified.

Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#124

Post by DennisP »

gouranga wrote: post #66
drostie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a great comment from a talk by John Searle about the scariest way that this could happen. Imagine that you get just such an implant, and suddenly, you just feel woozy or tired, as if something is really going royally wrong, as if your consciousness is no longer really "in control." The Doctor starts the checkup and says "how do you feel?" and you internally think, "lousy! I need you to remove it, get it ou…

Society already does a good job of this without the need for technology or artificial intelligence. I'd genuinely rather spend my day chopping wood, picking fruit or fishing, but no, I'm chained to a desk in front of Visual Studio 2010 pumping out code to prop up the insurance industry. I still don't know why I do it. Something has taken me over and it's not artificially intelligent electronics.

We've been assimilated by a hive mind whose neural impulses are electronic banking transactions.

Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#125

Post by lotharbot »

gaius wrote: post #120
lotharbot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fantastic final post: "Sci fi fans taking on NASA engineers is too funny, but also a waste of time. We deal with real hardware here. Locked." Bingo. The project is to build a very poorly designed spacecraft to perform a mission it's not well suited to for a ridiculously large sum of money. If we're going to build a spacecraft to journey to Mars, we shouldn't force it to conform to a 1960s fantasy hull design.

To be fair, the shuttle is also a 60s design... So much for NASA engineers.

The shuttle proposal was from the late 60s, but the major design work was done in the 70s. Most importantly, the design work was done based on mission requirements, not based on a misguided desire to mimic fiction.

The requirements for a manned Moon or Mars mission are quite different from the requirements for an orbital mission or a TV show.

Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#126

Post by drostie »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #119
drostie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a great comment from a talk by John Searle about the scariest way that this could happen. Imagine that you get just such an implant, and suddenly, you just feel woozy or tired, as if something is really going royally wrong, as if your consciousness is no longer really "in control." The Doctor starts the checkup and says "how do you feel?" and you internally think, "lousy! I need you to remove it, get it ou…

The short sf story Learning to be Me by Greg Egan explores this scenario. Well worth a read.

You're right. Thank you for the suggested reading.

Re: Build the "USS Enterprise" in 20 years, for 1 trillion USD

#127

Post by rmc »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #13
rmc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The faster than speed of light thing'll be hard aswell.

No worries, we'll just reverse the phase polarity.

Make sure you reverse the polarity of the neutron stream, otherwise it won't work.
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