As noted on Slashdot, it looks like the folks competing for the X-Prize to develop private, commerical space travel and launch vehicles are starting to have an effect. Now someone's starting to take the NASA project for inflatable space stations (which were surprisingly safe and cheap...even better than metal ones, as I recall) and apply it to low-cost space stations.
Reminds me of the novel Waldo, by Robert Heinlein, where the eponymous character lived in his own space station due to suffering from myasthenia gravis.
Of course, we'll have to have some standards on docking, etc. Affordable ones. I know the US and Russians have some standards on this (at least I hope so, otherwise how could the Soyuz and Progress capsules and the Shuttle all dock at the International Space Station? I think work on this started with the Apollo-Soyuz mission in the 1970's).
And we'll need some autonavigation/autodocking. 'Taint easy to dock with a big balloon in space! The Russians use autonav/autodock on their unmanned Progress resupply capsule to ISS and to their old Mir station (and perhaps older Salyuts?) So sounds like a way for the cash-strapped Russian economy to make some coin.
We may get the government pork barrel off the back of the space industry/program sooner than we think.
2004-06-16
2004-06-15
Why does Star Trek matter so much to some people?
Don't understand what we geeks see in Star Trek? Read this.
Because it, more than anything else I can think of (including the Bible), speaks to children and people of all ages about hope for the future. I've heard people (including an ex-President who died recently) say that without religion, there are no morals, etc.
To that I say - bull. I'm not a religious person, never have been. Oh, I attended Sunday School when I was small. But since then, not so much.
Although for some sad individuals, Star Trek (or the Bible, the Koran, or whatever) is the be-all and end-all and answer to every question (usually for folks incapable or afraid to use their minds and think), the rest of us see it as fiction, have fun with it, and recognize that it, too, speaks to us of important truths....without being nearly as divisive as religions have been in past centuries and millenium. Because it speaks to the FUTURE instead of the past, maybe.
Oh, the geeks "war" about whether Star Trek (or which particular Star Trek series), or Babylon 5 or Stargate or Farscape or whatever is the BETTER series, me I just enjoy 'em all. Farscape and Stargate don't get overly preachy about any sort of message (although they do show good moral tone). B5 and Star Treks are more overt about it. But these are wars of words. Of thought. Of Ideas and Ideals. Religion is examined by Stargate and B5 and Star Trek too, at times. Respectfully, but without bias. (I love the bit in a B5 episode where all the ambassadors of the various races are showing each other their religious or spiritual convictions.....the final scene is when the representative of Earth startrs to tell about ours...by introducing representatives of ALL the Earth religions he could find. The were all lined up in a row. It was a LONG line.)
Live long and prosper, y'all.
Because it, more than anything else I can think of (including the Bible), speaks to children and people of all ages about hope for the future. I've heard people (including an ex-President who died recently) say that without religion, there are no morals, etc.
To that I say - bull. I'm not a religious person, never have been. Oh, I attended Sunday School when I was small. But since then, not so much.
Although for some sad individuals, Star Trek (or the Bible, the Koran, or whatever) is the be-all and end-all and answer to every question (usually for folks incapable or afraid to use their minds and think), the rest of us see it as fiction, have fun with it, and recognize that it, too, speaks to us of important truths....without being nearly as divisive as religions have been in past centuries and millenium. Because it speaks to the FUTURE instead of the past, maybe.
Oh, the geeks "war" about whether Star Trek (or which particular Star Trek series), or Babylon 5 or Stargate or Farscape or whatever is the BETTER series, me I just enjoy 'em all. Farscape and Stargate don't get overly preachy about any sort of message (although they do show good moral tone). B5 and Star Treks are more overt about it. But these are wars of words. Of thought. Of Ideas and Ideals. Religion is examined by Stargate and B5 and Star Trek too, at times. Respectfully, but without bias. (I love the bit in a B5 episode where all the ambassadors of the various races are showing each other their religious or spiritual convictions.....the final scene is when the representative of Earth startrs to tell about ours...by introducing representatives of ALL the Earth religions he could find. The were all lined up in a row. It was a LONG line.)
Live long and prosper, y'all.
They Paved Paradise and Put In A Parking Lot, indeed
NASA and NOAA have determined that the amount of concrete-paved surface (and I assume this means asphalt and such too) in the USA is approximately the size of the state of Ohio.
That's more than the amount of wetlands in the USA. And still growing by 10,000 miles of road and one million new homes a year. And that's not counting other countries, either.
Wow. That's a lot of green plants lost. I wonder if they have information about the rate of growth.....because I'd kinda like to know how long it it going to be before the Earth looks like Coruscant from Star Wars, or Trantor from Isaac Asimov'e Foundation novels.
This brought to mind a new cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi", I've recently been listening too, by Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton. This is the song everyone probably remembers as "They Paved Paradise And Put In A Parking Lot"
Hey, the hippies and environmentalists warned us. We just haven't been listening...
That's more than the amount of wetlands in the USA. And still growing by 10,000 miles of road and one million new homes a year. And that's not counting other countries, either.
Wow. That's a lot of green plants lost. I wonder if they have information about the rate of growth.....because I'd kinda like to know how long it it going to be before the Earth looks like Coruscant from Star Wars, or Trantor from Isaac Asimov'e Foundation novels.
This brought to mind a new cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi", I've recently been listening too, by Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton. This is the song everyone probably remembers as "They Paved Paradise And Put In A Parking Lot"
Hey, the hippies and environmentalists warned us. We just haven't been listening...
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