U.S. opinion, the sequel (Golden Rainbow)

This will make it easier than scrolling halfway around the world to read and answer the original thread.

Zetetic, some brilliant analysis. I'm a bit of a science nerd myself, although I pursued a political science/history double major while at college (university to all you Euro folks).

Have to admit to a touch of ignorance with regard to the fusion thing, so I'm glad that Farmer and you were able to set me straight. The sun and other stars' operation is usually described to laymen as a continuous series of nuclear explosions. Which, though technically true I suppose, leads the layman to think of nuclear bombs and their devastating effects. So when the layman hears that fusion power is a miniature version of the sun, the first thought is "oh crap, what if something goes wrong?".

I try to follow all the advances being made in the various scientific fields, but must admit to being enamored with the pote

First about Zet with the yangze river thing. I WAS thinking of the three gorges dam.

JMR: http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010

The space elevator idea would decrease the cost of sending anything out to space exponentialy.That is the most expensive part of space exploration/exploitation: getting things INTO outer space. We still need to be able to come up with different types of drills/drill bits, more robust robots, the means to store/transport mass quantities of resources....ok, so maybe getting into space isn't the most expensive....but it IS a sizeable chunk.

And believe me, the environmentalists will come up with some crazy ideas to block exploiting the moon, and Venus. They'll say "but Venus is dead, you'll ruin Venus if you start life on that planet." LOL

I was always under the impression that it would take hundreds, if not thousands of years i

Re: Mining asteroids.

I believe a mining company did look into this. They worked out that we have the technology to do this easily, although not quickly. It would involve towing the asteroid into a near-Earth orbit and ferrying materials down.

It would also have been a relatively profitable means of extracting certain materials. At least, it would have been profitable until they looked at the effect of all that extra material hitting the international commodity market. They worked out that it would depress the price so much, they would have gone bankrupt.

Good point Zetetic. As you're a bonafide scientist type, what is your opinion on whether doing something of that nature would have a discernible effect on the gravitational forces vis a vis the moon and Earth?

Seems to me that the effect would be miniscule, but I frequently hear that everything is so finely tuned in that regard that even the smallest deviation could have negative effects. What say you?

MM, I'll have to dig the book out of my library. All I can remember right now is that it was written by Carl Sagan back in the 1960s. It's possible that new info received since then would change the scenario. I seem to recall a British inventor (Pike?) was trying for a patent back 5-10 years ago which was a container filled with a gelatinous substance, algae, and plant seeds, for the purposes of seeding Venus. Don't know what happened with that.

The algae Sagan talks about is one of the blue-green species,

I have to say, I am surprised that we think we can terraform Venus. My hunch would have been to go for Mars, but it seems I'm wrong (not too unusual!). I've probably had my opinions tainted by the Mars Trilogy (Kim Stanley Robinson). Definitely a must-read for anyone interested in terraforming other planets, as well as anyone interested in politics and political theory.

We do not have the capability to drag anything into a near-Earth orbit large enough to destabilise the Earth-Moon system. Even something as large as the Moon would not affect Earth's orbit (though it would disrupt the Moon enough to cause havoc on Earth, not to mention the complications caused to the tides).

Interestingly, there are a number of stable Lagrange Points that could support a fairly sizeable artificial satellite (be it an asteroid, or space-station) with minimal

Muchas gracias, Zetetic. That was my opinion, but good to hear it from someone more knowledgeable on the theoretical aspects.

MM was right about the difficulties involved with terraforming Venus. I was basing my thoughts on theories espoused by Carl Sagan and others back in the 1960s and 70s, before a more in-depth analysis of the conditions there showed a much higher temperature in the atmosphere, and greater toxicity. The temp he references is actually in centigrade I believe, which makes it even higher to those of us on this side of the pond.

I've read the trilogy by Robinson, it is outstanding.

I am also familiar with Lagrange Points. I just have to wonder whether the human psyche and tendency to claustrophobia would preclude any major interest in artificial colonies. The gravitational aspect is easily solved by "spinning" the satellite, but people have some primal need to see a "sky". Although the creatio

heh, I took three years of astronomy in HS, and both times in my first two years of college. I like science, I dabble a little bit in it. But that is not where my life career is going towards now. This is my last year of college before I become a high school teacher. For health and PE. studied a bit of American History as well, and pc programming, and astronomy, as I have mentioned. But my main subject area is health and PE! LOL, would like ot also be the baseball coach someday....


I'm hoping that I could land a job SOMEWHERE when I'm out of college.

I have already read those three books that Zet mentioned...Red Planet, Blue Planet, and Green Planet. Kinda lost interest halfway through the second book, but kind of pushed my way through. Man, that series had just about every subject area one could think of, while making it pretty entertaining to read. The author was a genius. I, too, recommend that series.

JMR: I had

Just a sidetrack comment since MM brought up the fact that he wants to be a high school teacher. To quote another thread on the forum: "ARE YOU CRAZY?" lol.

After my early retirement from the Postal Service I spent 3 years as a custodian at a local high school for the extra income, while I built up a "portfolio" for my writing career. Won't even begin to describe some of what I saw, other than one incident.

Part of my duties were to clean the auditorium. One night as I was running my broom down the aisles I caught a really nasty odor. Under one of the seats was a widemouth Gatorade bottle, and someone had actually crapped in it and put it under the seat! With the lid off, of course, so it would give off it's aroma. It wasn't much longer after that when I decided the time was right for moving on.

Continuing the slightly twisted tone of my contribution, my Health/PE teacher in high school's name was

Ah, I was thinking the so-called "peaceful uses of space" was more or less an unwritten code of ethics much like "freedom of the high seas" has been for centuries.

About being a high school teacher, I wont have to deal with nasty stuff like you did...that's the janitors job LOL.

The whole "leader" group thing...is that an actual theory of human nature? That's kinda scary if you think about.

Yeah, Anne Frank died at the age of 16 I think. The very last line she wrote, and I remember to this day, is that she still believes in the goodness of man kind. Her and I are of like mind I guess.

The last truly meaningful politician, IMHO, died in 1945, in the passing away of Franklyn D. Roosevelt. He was probably the only US president to have been mourned by almost everyone around the world

After 6 decades of life, Mr Morrison, those I have learned to trust the the least are those that want to "lead" others the most.

People are people. Demagogues are dangerous animals.

Your 60? Nice.

I actually don't care much for politics. I would rather just go on living my own life. I DO love a good debate though, was thinking of being a lawyer, but being a teacher is ever so much more noble.

Plus I get to feel like I have a lot of power! MUAHAHAHA.

Plus I get to feel like I have a lot of power! MUAHAHAHA.

Oh boy. America's edumakashun system won't know what's hit it!

Peaceful uses of space

I fear this will become as worthless as the paper it's written on in time.

Rather like the UN declaration that Antarctica cannot be claimed by any nation. It has been divided up by 7 nations (with two more reserving the right to claim territory in the future). Why? Minerals and oil. Exploration and extraction is currently forbidden, however the UN made the sad mistake of putting an expiry date on the treaty. When it lapses, it will become a free-for-all.

Peaceful uses of space are governed by the Outer Space Treaty signed and ratified by 98 states. It forbids weapons of mass destruction being based in orbit, or the establishment of military bases on celestial bodies.

hhmm, so what happens if a nation places a nuke launcher in space? Are all the other countries just going to have some sort of embargo? That would be pretty weak.

Just have to share this with you. If you recall my post about Britain's use of hydro-electric power to cope with a spike in demand at the end of certain TV soaps.

Just watched Britain From Above on BBC and they interviewed an engineer working for the National Grid (that supplies electricity here in the UK). He has a TV tuned to BBC1 waiting for the end of Eastenders next to his workstation so that he knows exactly when to turn up the supply.

Apparently this sudden spike in demand is unique to Britain - the combination of the end of a popular TV programme and the British addiction to tea (something like 600,000 kettles all go on within 5 minutes of each other). It's known as the TV Pickup and we also experience it at the end of important football matches. Such is the scale of demand that we often have to draw electricity across the Channel from France!

LMAO, that is hilarious!

Just a finishing touch on this thread. Had to laugh at Zetetic's revelation about "Eastenders" and electricity spikes.

We here in the U.S. have a similar phenomenon. It's known as the "Halftime flush", and it occurs at halftime of the Super Bowl, when all those American beer-guzzling "hooligans" rush to relieve themselves before running back to the tube to hope for a "wardrobe malfunction" during the halftime festivities.

I've heard about that one! Course that does not surprise me in the least.