All that will come of ESB Hound's brand of zealotry will be a reverse Unabomber who will poison every plover/turtle grounds in sight and/or a new Congress to defund Fish/Wildlife/EPA...which I would rather not happen...as New York is making Alabama its new dumping ground. So I WANT regulation where it is needed. ESB should leave Elon alone...take a look at Alabama's pristine Perdido river...and leave Corexit Coast alone. Eco-zealots...like the new space zealots who hate on MSFC..are going to kill jobs and start fights that no one can win. I'm fed up with ideologs. For example...Scott and I differ on wage-price controls. But seeing the jab pushed...I say big pharma should do it at cost...farmland is being bought by outsiders...so bring on Kilo vs New London in that case. No more purist litmus tests. We go back and forth between Romney-esque let corporates rule to 'let's reg EVERYTHING to death. The Future needs centrists.
What became of the future?
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I suspect the answer to this is both leading off topic and if I answered it with what I REALLY think, I`d probably get banned.
Briefly, you can see this in microcosm in the UK aerospace sector, in the 50`s/60`s Britain was doing amazing stuff, loads of great projects (Concorde, Vulcan etc etc etc).
Today... I present you the NGTE, at one point possibly the most advanced powerplant test site on earth, capable of ground testing the Olympus at 2000mph simulated speed at altiude.... its due to be knocked down to build houses, or a carpark, or maybe a Wendys, I forget. (National Gas Turbine Establishment, aka "Pyestock")
I know the guy who ran this, Frank Armstrong, he said it was unviable because today you dont need huge test facilities like this... UNLESS. he said... you were to do a brand new and SERIOUS indigenous British high tech gas turbine powerplant programme, in which case you DO need it.
No doubt some parlimentary committee in 5 years will demand we make a new one at 10x the cost of revitalising NGTE (closed in 2000) due to the (now obvious) fact that China is actually doing a bit more than making bad plastic toys these days, and we cant laugh at them anymore. Now we`re the laughing stock (points at self)
Engineering in Britain has virtually zero public exposure, and kids are all told they`re going to be either a TikTok video star, the next Mylie Cyrus or write "Apps". This stuff has been (in Britain) in decline for... 40 years ?
I think the "err WTF happened?" is just seeing the results of that.
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When we talk about the future, it would be convenient not to make the same mistake as Thomas Malthus in ignoring the possibility that science created effective contraceptive methods or that of Karl Marx in ignoring the possibility that the concept of wealth could consist in the future in information and not in agricultural areas or that of Isoroku Yamamoto in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor ignoring the possibility that science created the atomic bomb or that of Ahmed Zaki Yamani ignoring in 1973 the possibility of fracking. Scientific advances can be delayed, but not a million lawyers will be able to stop them definitively, like bombers, there is always one that manages to penetrate.
ceccherini
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Quite an hazardous claim considering that all of the 3 major SST programs were governments initiatives. The regulatory impediment to SST circulation in US airspace curiosly only came after US manifactures had nothing to oppose the Concorde after the government stopped to fund the 2707. So actually it's a very clear and far from infrequent exemple of a private interest co-opt politics against government sponsored innovation. When a stable state has well founded agencies deputated to scientific and technical development that are indipendent of political influence the technological advances closely follow the theoretical possibilities of a given time even without immediate gains while private sponsored innovation tend to maximixe existing technlogy and short to mid terms gains. That is why once government programs in the US an EU resulted in the WWW, private development of IT tech boomed while in the same timeframe "hard" tech development stalled or slowed in coincidence with the the post cold war reduction of defence, and at large public, spending and SOEs number and power in western coutries. That is why we salute as a major achivement what the private companies are realizing in space even if it was fully possible 40 or 50 years ago had public spending, and the importance of science in it, not shrinken. Just look at the major industial sector in which state never had much direct influence, automotive: it took over one hundred years to start looking at serious alternative to the internal combustion energy and no product such as the mass produced car has so passively evolved incorporating regulations requirements and technology developed in other sectors.
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You mean you don't want to swap Pyestock for all this? https://www.hartlandlife.co.uk/
1500 homes
300 affordable homes
Early years / nursery for 120 pupils
Two form entry primary school
12,000 sq.ft community space
28 acres of open space delivered on site
8,000 sq.ft commercial space
70 acre Woodland Park as country park provision
Over 10km of different walking routes across the main site and country park
Target +37% Biodiversity Net Gain
"A real sense of community, a distinct identity and compatibility with its natural surroundings" and all the other marketing guff they churn out...
What, are you kidding? Electric and steam-powered cars were early competitors to the internal combustion engine.
Here's an electric car from 1895:
And a production electric car from 1888:
And there were a *lot* of steam-powered vehicle up to World War II:
The problem with steam and electricity wasn't that they weren't studied early on... it was that compared to internal combustion engines, they're heavy, expensive and provide poor performance. Which remains true today.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Their main problem was, that while there was quite a progress in ICE, there wasn't significant progress with battery storage for the first half of XX century. Electric cars could easily compete with ICE in 1900s. But in 1910s? ICE cars advanced significantly, while electrics stayed essentially the same. Limitation of batteries simply does not allow significant increase in performance.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Well, today at least ICE have little to no space for improvement. Standard ICE design pretty much refined to the point of diminishing returns; non-standard designs required too much investment and changes (most of automechanics would not be able to repair rotary engine, or something).
ceccherini
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That's exactly my point: not until massive government funding and regulation electric cars started to be mass produced even if their technology was available for a century. Ok, electric cars need a dedicated infrastucture but what about hybrids? They only came in the very late XX century. In their fundamental tech most cars show a very limited evolution from the Ford T and virtually none from the late '60 Fiat 128
What, are you kidding? Electric and steam-powered cars were early competitors to the internal combustion engine.
Here's an electric car from 1895:
And a production electric car from 1888:
And there were a *lot* of steam-powered vehicle up to World War II:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skG-YYGwoFI
The problem with steam and electricity wasn't that they weren't studied early on... it was that compared to internal combustion engines, they're heavy, expensive and provide poor performance. Which remains true today.
I think children need parents who will guide them towards productive lives and who will convince them that real people they can actually meet and interact with are the better alternative to fake, manufactured reality online. To show them by historical example that people can do amazing things. Things that not only make money but are helpful and useful to others. That is the future.
Oh sure, don't let them be ignorant of what others are doing, especially online. Optimism is good. Pessimism will get you nowhere.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Technology was not available in economically competitive way before late XX century.
martinbayer
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A cautionary tale for all sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car?
What, are you kidding? Electric and steam-powered cars were early competitors to the internal combustion engine.
Here's an electric car from 1895:
And a production electric car from 1888:
And there were a *lot* of steam-powered vehicle up to World War II:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skG-YYGwoFI
The problem with steam and electricity wasn't that they weren't studied early on... it was that compared to internal combustion engines, they're heavy, expensive and provide poor performance. Which remains true today.
A cautionary tale for all sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car?
What, are you kidding? Electric and steam-powered cars were early competitors to the internal combustion engine.
Here's an electric car from 1895:
And a production electric car from 1888:
And there were a *lot* of steam-powered vehicle up to World War II:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skG-YYGwoFI
The problem with steam and electricity wasn't that they weren't studied early on... it was that compared to internal combustion engines, they're heavy, expensive and provide poor performance. Which remains true today.
Cautionary? I don't think so. What is more important? Money or death? As one U.S. President said, we all live on the same planet and breathe the same air. It is worth noting that by 1953, the U.S. military decided that nuclear war was not possible. That the final effects would kill off both sides - as if there really are sides when all involved are human beings.
Another President made a false statement about America's addiction to oil. There was no addiction of any kind. We were offered no alternative. Now that electric cars are being built in greater and greater number and battery technology is moving forward, someone, somewhere let this happen. As far as I'm concerned, Elon Musk appeared as if out of nowhere.
ceccherini
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Sure, because a private mass producer make profits from economy of scale maximizing the use of proven technology. That's fine but not exactly the recipe for technical innovation. For constant, continous innovation you need both large economies of scale and the absence of a need of a short term return.
martinbayer
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I meant cautionary in the sense that no side (automotive and oil industries, federal government, CARB) came out smelling like roses in the throttling of this technology at that point in time.
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I know. I watched this happen. The 'established order of things' for the oil companies was to continue to sell more gasoline and oil products at that time and now. The electric car is partly limited by money flowing out of oil into other lucrative assets. Investors need time to make the transition.
We still live in Medieval times. The aristocracy has been given new technologies to work with. They no longer wear crowns or robes but can be identified by their billions and trillions of dollars of valuation. I would point out to my fellow Americans that while we don't have a portrait of the Queen on our paper money, like our neighbor, Canada, we do speak English. And, in the end, the banking interests, those whose only pursuit is profit, are chief in importance.
Dilandu
I'm dissatisfied, which means, I exist.
Nah, just because there weren't anything better available. You see, there was a great interest in more capable batteries - for example, from submariners - but before 1950s progress in alkaline batteries, there weren't anything better/affordable than lead-acid or nickel-iron batteries.
ceccherini
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That is a very narrow argument: hybrid engines didn't require any very capable or advanced battery, more advanced ICE cycles are totally unrelated to the battery technology etc. Still the cars mainly evolved because of the safety and environmental regulations and outside these remained virtually unchanged for 5 decades or changed strictly in package aspects
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shin_getter
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The 60s was a unique time for United States, the superpower defining culture for the era
There was unprecedented sense of social cohesion and reduced social class separation. There was also low levels status competitiveness.
The technology in question is also "safe" and merely better. Optimism was easy~
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Consider today, growing social disparity means new technology gets viewed by envy and hatred by those that can not see themselves being related to wealthy class that is first to benefit. Elon Musk propose hypersonic rocket travel and vacuum trains and instantly gets a big chunk of haters that will do everything to throw hate around.
New technological marvels of the era, like the rapid growth in genetic engineering and AI, is viewed with intense alarm. The recent covid event is actually a triumph of technology, both in the newly gained capability in "gain of function" viruses (regardless of whether it happened or not, the fact that it can not be rule out on technical grounds is very telling: it is now very doable) and the mass scale roll out of RNA technology. The recent improvement in AI result in responses of minimization and denial (it isn't happening) or catastrophic projections (humanity unlikely to survive a singularity event).
The development of aerospace also had eras of fear. The 30s was the start of practical passenger travel and inter-continental flights is projected to cut travel time by an order of magnitude. On the back drop of this there is Douhet forecasting the collapse of society and mass civilian casualties in air power driven wars. The forecast wasn't all wrong and the next war indeed inflicts horrors of war on civilians unlike wars of the previous era.
By the time of the 60s however, the danger of air power in war is in the category of "been there, done that", serious but survivable and not one to invest excessive fear of.
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In just about every other era, technology is viewed with suspicion. The luddies are of course famous, and so there the whole communist/anti-communist tension as a result of economic changes of industrialization. In just a generation down the road, the 80s cyberpunk vision of the future was pessimistic and in many ways, accurate to the point that one can link up some news item here at 2022 and add a bit of conspiracy and get a 80s cyberpunk story (just less cool, things are cooler in fiction).
Personally I think techno-utopianism is just plain wrong. When people stop being hungry and unhealthy, they naturally get into zero-sum status competition where material items can not ultimately upend. Technology is a side effect of status competition, and technology have very little capability in improving human happiness or the human condition, and some may dismiss it as "masculine bullshit~"
Thought like an outdated Terran that wants to waste planetary masses to build a garden, A GARDEN! A garden about totally pointless, uncool and unproductive Terran worship, when all the sane people commission engineered ecosystems with unique aesthetics that shows good taste. This is the same line of thinking that views the development of ocean crossing ship as a means of obtaining more farmland, FARMLAND!
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Which is to say, when terraforming is technically feasible, it is also largely pointless. You need first to gain the capability to have massive industrial capability in space before terraforming is feasible, and if you can have massive industrial capacity in space you don't need terraforming except for aesthetics. Now some terran may find terrestrial flora neat, some spacer that never set foot on earth and have completely different relationship with carbon-based self replicating nanomachine masses would have very different preferences.
Really, who have time to build gardens when you should disassemble planetary masses build laser grid with enough power output to vaporize relativistic kinetic kill vehicles for security purposes..... I'm sure at this point, some disgruntled radical movement that broke off into the oort cloud is totally seeking to destroy the inner solar system you know~~ Who has time to waste resources are pointless 'liberal' symbolism~~
I'm sure when the time comes, some discussion area somewhere will be rolling their eyes at the whole terraforming meme (if by some religion or life extension that there are actual powerful figures pushing for it) when proper military-industrial development is possible for the resources, just like this thread is a complaint that serious work is no longer being done because of crazy people.
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And on a personal level, I'd rather try to build a personal interstellar spaceship to get the **** out of what is likely a super overcrowded solar system. Assuming fertility or replication "recovers" (and it naturally does, natural selection is powerful) the solar system is likely to "quickly" grow to have trillions if not quadrillion (if electronic based sentience happens) of human level inhabitants (assuming "humans" survive) with minimum natural aging. If you think getting anything done with a HOA is a pain, imagine trying to get stupid numbers of immortals to cooperate on anything at all~ The inhabitants may view eras where lawsuits and environmental reviews merely took years with deep nostalgia~
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It was exciting.....for 5 minutes at best.
But the1 wonder/horror of industrialisation is, making things routine and boring.
It was exactly this which horrified a Spanish author as he watched English Longbow men slaughter a Muslim force in Spain with barrage after barrage of arrows.
It was the sheer boredom on their faces.
I think it was either Terry Pratchet or Douglas Adams who noted the secret super power of humans.
Taking things for granted and ignoring the wonders around them.
Still you don't survive if you're too busy going "wow all this stuff is amazing" and miss the Sabretooth Tiger about to pounce on you.
No horror, all wonder. If, for example, the amazement and thrill of watching a biplane made out of sticks and string remained unchanged... there'd be greatly reduced incentive to improve upon that biplane. You'd be happy with it forever. You'd probably never get around to jets and helicopters and reusable rockets and nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft and FTL starships.
If wonder remained, humanity would probably never have left the region of Tanzania, and the Toba eruption 70,000 years ago would have made us extinct. So, three cheers for the fading of wonder and the urge to find newer and better.
In my opinion the population explosion is entering its first phase of decline, with the passage of time until the elderly of the less evolved societies will prefer to be cared for in a welfare state hospital instead of by the children who have survived. They will understand that with the low infant mortality rate that twentieth-century science has achieved, it is not necessary to have as many children as possible, but to better educate a few.
There is a better model of society than the others (we all know which) and I believe that the general tendency of all peoples is to converge on it, despite the enormous social, religious and economic resistance of those who lived better exploiting slaves.
I also believe that people prefer the roof to the rain, the white walls to insects and the houses with water and electricity supply, if humanity continues to progress in that direction it will end up living in closed environments with controlled temperature and humidity.
There will always be dissidents who will prefer to be bitten by scorpions somewhere remote. They will be good settlers when we have FTL technology, someone has to die in the future colonized worlds before lawyers, mortgages and everything else arrives.
There is a better model of society than the others (we all know which) and I believe that the general tendency of all peoples is to converge on it, despite the enormous social, religious and economic resistance of those who lived better exploiting slaves.
I also believe that people prefer the roof to the rain, the white walls to insects and the houses with water and electricity supply, if humanity continues to progress in that direction it will end up living in closed environments with controlled temperature and humidity.
There will always be dissidents who will prefer to be bitten by scorpions somewhere remote. They will be good settlers when we have FTL technology, someone has to die in the future colonized worlds before lawyers, mortgages and everything else arrives.
The 1960s was unique in some ways but not in others. When Russia and the U.S. deployed ICBMs in 1958 and 1959 respectively, I was there. I knew my chances of survival after nuclear war were zero. However, me and my contemporaries had a great time growing up. We had excellent TV shows and those less good disappeared quickly. Not hard to do when you had 3, or 4, depending on where you lived, channels. At the end of the day, TV programming stopped. I watched as a beautiful aircraft flew through the air while a man read a beautiful tribute to flight and God. Social cohesion was greater. There were always a few radicals in the background but they exerted little influence. My life in an average house in an average neighborhood was average. We had enough of what we needed. We saved or did odd jobs to get what we wanted. As the 1960s drew to a close, the radicals began spreading radical ideas.
Terraforming is no big deal. The basic concepts are known. The primary obstacle is money. Can very large objects be built in space now? Yes, of course. Again the problem is money not a lack of technical knowledge. I have read that rare metals can be mined in space that are worth billions if not trillions of dollars.
Cyberpunk is fiction. Sure, electronic devices to improve limb function or to replace biological components would be worthwhile to have. However, being a hacker or cyberjacker requires a bit more skill.
A faster than light drive will be built. Just look at the time it took to go from the first powered aircraft flight to the first use of the atomic bomb in war: 1903 to 1945. That's 42 years.
The difference being, an atomic bomb is possible within the realm of established physics. An FTL propulsion system currently seems to *violate* physics. Maybe there's a workaround, maybe there's physics we don't know yet. But as currently understood, an FTL drive is as impossible as a married bachelor.
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I read over on Reddit under /Futurology that Professor Xi of the China State University has discovered the new element, "Handwavium" and it's going to allow arbitrarily large or small wormholes to be created. Hyperlight speed in our time.
I understand the limitations as they stand. However, in 1700, who would have believed me if I said you will see and hear people on a small box in your home? I think a workaround is possible.
In 1700, science was barely a thing, and actual understanding of how the universe worked was nearly nonexistent. But we've learned a *lot* since then. We may have learned enough to begin to have an understanding of what the limits are.
In the thirties everyone knew that it was not possible to build a bomber faster than fighters, but there was a guy named Geoffrey who didn't know and built the Mosquito.
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In the thirties everyone knew that it was not possible to build a bomber faster than fighters, but there was a guy named Geoffrey who didn't know and built the Mosquito.
Although Capt. de Havilland would have been the first to give credit to chief designer Ron Bishop and Director of Engineering, Charles Walker
In the thirties everyone knew that it was not possible to build a bomber faster than fighters, but there was a guy named Geoffrey who didn't know and built the Mosquito.
And in the thirties everyone knew that perpetual motion machines, free energy machines, time machines and honest career politicians were impossible, but there was... ummm... nothing to change that perception.
Some things just can't be done, no matter how hard you wish and hope and pray and all the other activities that don't actually accomplish anything or do any good.
It’s even worse than that. The whole bloody universe did an FTL jump during inflation…but won’t let us do it in small ships…which would seem easier. Same with anti/repulsive gravity that works at cosmic scales alone. The universe is vindictive.
Nature is a monster that tries to kill us from the first day of our lives and succeeds the last... but we live longer and longer.
jsport
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Experts Warn of "Quantum Apocalypse"
Experts are warning that quantum computers could eventually overpower conventional encryption methods, what they're dubbing the "quantum apocalypse."
futurism.com
jsport
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China May Steal Encrypted Data Now to Decrypt In Years to Come, Report Warns
Quantum computers promise to render today's encryption largely obsolete. A Booz Allen report says it's time to start managing the risks.
www.defenseone.com
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Banks Warned That Crypto Could Replace Dollar Within Five Years
"In a seismic shift, financial leaders increasingly see digital assets as the future."
futurism.com
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BRICS to set up remote-sensing satellite network
Beijing (XNA) Aug 19, 2021 - China will work with Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa to establish a network of remote-sensing satellites to help to deal with global challenges such as climate change, major disasters and env
www.spacedaily.com
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