It really was 40 years ago...

What about planning permission and the damp course?

 

heh.

Platy was at the school about 10 years before me, though I think he
also escaped the clutches of Pogo Brown.

 

and in that case, to the stars we send a tiny little spaceship with
people in it running in a simulation. Certainly beats sending "Canned
Primates"[1] across interstellar distances.

[1] tm Charlie Stross.

 

Suggesting you and Platy are equally attractive as sexual partners is not
really a great thing to have on your CV.

 

This one's a keeper. One of my more nutty[1] mates srsly believes that
Homo Sapiens were seeded by an advanced civilisation which has a base on
Planet X [2].

The next time I am drunk and argumentative enough, I shall throw these
numbers at him. In the past, I have only queried the energy that is
needed for interstellar travel without using any back-of-a-fag-packet
numbers.


[1] Don't ask, OK? You name it he believes it.
[2] <http://xfacts.com/x2.htm> (Rupert to Douglas Adams fans).

 

What's the official attitude to Klingons these days?
I've not kept up with things since Uhura left.

 

I have no idea. They probably own Federation football teams and ransom
them with oil and gas supplies from time-to-time.

 

You're not joking?

I take it that's one he made earlier.

 

Apperently the Aussies are going to ban climbing on Uhura, but have you
seen her lately?

 

To be fair, that's all that's required of most religionists.

 

I suppose it was for the same reason as dropping a second atomic bomb
in Japan in that they did it because they could.

Apart from the fact that the wankers really did drop a second bomb but
they never landed on the moon...

 

Phil Launchbury posted:

Our last, best hope...

 

How about harvesting resources from the solar system? Helium 3 from
the moon for energy, (if they can make it work) for example.

 

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:00:34 +0200, Phil Launchbury

[...]

The problem is that we don't. We just don't have the technology and
know-how to build a trans-atlantic highway. We have some theoretical
ideas how it could be done, but it would require researching and
developing the _technology_.

Like anybody from here would go on a starship to Alpha Centauri.
Face it, it's a long time to go without a bike. ;->

Exajoules of energy is simply something we don't have currently lying
around. And we don't have the tech for manipulating such energies in
a small, conveniently starship-scaled package. We have some vague
pie-in-the-sky ideas for high power-density drives, and some working
low-power density drives which are currently not good even for
intersystem travel, and without researching and testing the technology
in actual space - which is pretty expensive - we won't know what
works and what doesn't.

At relativistic speeds ice is about as much protection against dust
as cotton jeans are a protection against road rash. When going 300 km/h
on an autobahn. The ideas trotted about involve giant magnetic fields
and
ionisation of matter before the starship with big fuckoff lasers. Which is
two other technologies that we don't have yet.

If you have to pay scientists, that means you don't have the technology.
If you have the technology, no scientists are needed, just some engineers.


[...]

OK, we seem to have a major terminological misunderstanding here. What you
describe
as "technology" I tend to label "scientific theories". Technology is
something that
is working and does not require research. In case of Orion or Daedalus,
lots of
research. (For example, Daedalus requires a working microfusion drive and
an
operational technology of He3 mining from gas giants)

Leslie

 

In my day, we called him "Pogle".

 

Actually private industry does a very great deal of what NASA "does".

 

You're among friends. You can tell us. Did he touch you in special
places?

 

<sigh>



I simply cannot understand why this is a topic of conversation.

 

Somewhere on the utube is a video of the mockup using a small model
and conventional expolosives, well worth a look. For me, I'd think
twice about sitting on top of a Soyuz which is a controlled explosion,
let alone driven by uncontrolled explosions...not even considering the
nuclear variety yet.

 

took them to the woods, did he?