[ot] Mars colonization
- Thread starter tleilaxu
- Start date
Celebrim
Legend
Prior to 9-11, things were reaching the point that if we cut defence spending any further we'd have to demilitarize. I'm not say that is a bad thing, just wanting to point out that defence spending was at its lowest level since before WWII. Besides, if you do cut defence spending, and now is not the time I think because we are streched pretty thin, the money has to go to some other form of engineering research like space exploration or in the long term or economy is sunk. However, if you did slash the defence budget I _gaurantee_ the money would go to lining politicians pockets and paying for votes - which is were something like 60% of the budget goes already.
There aren't many things that I think a government has to spend money on, and they are defence, education, and science. And those three things are heavily interrelated. Everything else is just the electorate reapportioning income from one person to another according to the prevailing mood and whims of those currently with the political power.
However, this is probably getting to political... Maybe we should concentrate on pizza delivery on Mars.
There aren't many things that I think a government has to spend money on, and they are defence, education, and science. And those three things are heavily interrelated. Everything else is just the electorate reapportioning income from one person to another according to the prevailing mood and whims of those currently with the political power.
However, this is probably getting to political... Maybe we should concentrate on pizza delivery on Mars.
s/LaSH
First Post
Space exploration is political, Celebrim. At least until the space venture companies start running fleets, it's governments that put the rockets together. A certain amount of political discussion is essential to any discussion of space exploration.
Of course, my country's so tiny it could never put a rocket into space with Earth's current technological paradigm. All we've given the world in the past century is an aeroplane in 1902*, the first guy to split the atom, and a few niche-market films like Lord Of The Rings. (*It took forty years for the US government to admit the Wright Brothers built a working plane before their guy. How long before New Zealand gets some credit?)
Now for the IMPORTANT BIT:
I read in today's paper that the Russian space program is planning to send a probe to Phobos and return with soil samples by 2007. Americans! Write your congressman and complain how your country is weak! WEAK! The Russians will inherit the stars!
(And in the rest of the world, I believe we say 'write TO your congressman' or 'congressperson'. I will be smug now and continue to spell words with too many letters, like aeroplane.)
Of course, my country's so tiny it could never put a rocket into space with Earth's current technological paradigm. All we've given the world in the past century is an aeroplane in 1902*, the first guy to split the atom, and a few niche-market films like Lord Of The Rings. (*It took forty years for the US government to admit the Wright Brothers built a working plane before their guy. How long before New Zealand gets some credit?)
Now for the IMPORTANT BIT:
I read in today's paper that the Russian space program is planning to send a probe to Phobos and return with soil samples by 2007. Americans! Write your congressman and complain how your country is weak! WEAK! The Russians will inherit the stars!
(And in the rest of the world, I believe we say 'write TO your congressman' or 'congressperson'. I will be smug now and continue to spell words with too many letters, like aeroplane.)
Zappo
Explorer
Not so; latest research proves otherwise (then again, I'm afraid it's Italian research, so we might have one of those Wright brothers cases s/LaSH hinted at...). I'd give a link, but it was actually an article on a newspaper; I don't remember what references it had and tracking it down would be too much hassle for the purpose of backing a message board post.tleilaxu said:
Well, at least there are no doubts on pizza.
tleilaxu
First Post
yet another tangent
HISTORY OF PASTA
The long history of pasta is told in many different versions. The once commonly held belief that Marco Polo first brought pasta to Italy from China in 1298 has been proven false by a better documented story. The first written documentation of pasta in mainland Europe came from the city archives of Genoa. Written in 1279, a listing of the assets of a dead man's estate included a basket full of macaroni. Because it was listed in his possessions, we assume that the pasta was considered a durable item and therefore must have been dried.
Printed references to foods that seem to be a form of pasta have been found in Europe dating back to the Ninth century, and in the Middle East back as far back as the Fourth century. The vagary of written records arises from the fact that pasta was traditionally a food of the commoners, most of whom couldn't write in ancient times. Also, the two essential ingredients in pasta, flour and water, were used to make many other foods, including bread and porridge. Whatever the origin of this staple food, the notion that fresh pasta is somehow more authentic is apparently false, as the history of dry pasta is well documented.
The term pasta, however, does not have such a long history. Many of the oldest references to this boiled flour-and-water product refer to it as macaroni, regardless of whether the pasta was tubular or not. The word macaroni is still used by many Italians when speaking about pasta in any of its many shapes. Pasta in Italy traditionally referred to a dough or a paste. In the United States, pasta became the preferred term after World War II. Today, the word pasta is a universal term for this basic yet glorious food.
Italians have an innate knack for matching the multitude of different pasta shapes with appropriate sauces. This talent is not so universal and we Americans are just beginning to learn such pairings as we become more familiar with the world of pasta.
http://www.igourmet.com/library/pasta/st_pastahistory.asp
Whenever I mention that I write on the history of food, someone is bound to ask "When was pasta invented?" For Europe, that's a tricky question to answer. For China, though, we have a pretty good idea: about 300 BC. We have it on the authority of Shu Hsi, an official editor of ancient texts and one of the most learned men of China. A pasta enthusiast, in about 300 AD he composed a poem "A Rhapsody on Pasta." Although today we don't think of poems as culinary reference works, they were back then. Shu Hsi's rhapsody was effectively a pasta encyclopedia.
The Chinese cuisine of 300 BC was not one of rice and fish and stir fries. That did not emerge until well over a millennium later. Instead the Chinese dined on rich stews of meat and vegetables accompanied by fluffy grains of millet that they had steamed over the stew. They had little use for the foreign cereal, wheat, which many centuries earlier had been brought to China by travelers from the west. For them, it was food for the miserably poor or as a last resort when stores were running low. For us, who relish wheat bread and pasta, and relegate tiny, round millet seeds to the birds, this seems strange. We have to remember, though, that the Chinese steamed or boiled wheat berries just like they steamed or boiled millet. Whereas this makes millet light and flavorful (it was the forerunner of polenta in Italy, after all, and is still worth trying), wheat berries stay chewy and slightly bitter.
What changed this was the grindstone. Around the 3rd century BC, when the RomanEmpire began trading with the Chinese Han Empire in China, merchants and nomads carried the grindstone from oasis to oasis along the Silk Roads. For the first time, the Chinese began grinding wheat into flour instead of cooking it whole. They mixed the flour with water to make a dough. Instead of slapping the dough on a hot surface or into a beehive oven to make flat bread sand leavened breads, as had been done in the Middle East and Mediterranean for millennia, they continued steaming and boiling. They made noodles, dumplings, thin pancakes, stuffed buns, and steamed breads, calling them all `ping.' Ping, of course, was equivalent to our pasta, and it was as delicious as boiled wheat had been dull. Wheat hop scotched over millet in the social scale and became the grain of the Emperor and his court.
http://www.cheftalk.com/HTML/Education/past_articles/china_noodle.html
CONCLUSION: 9th century vs. 3rd century BC; CHINA WINS!
HISTORY OF PASTA
The long history of pasta is told in many different versions. The once commonly held belief that Marco Polo first brought pasta to Italy from China in 1298 has been proven false by a better documented story. The first written documentation of pasta in mainland Europe came from the city archives of Genoa. Written in 1279, a listing of the assets of a dead man's estate included a basket full of macaroni. Because it was listed in his possessions, we assume that the pasta was considered a durable item and therefore must have been dried.
Printed references to foods that seem to be a form of pasta have been found in Europe dating back to the Ninth century, and in the Middle East back as far back as the Fourth century. The vagary of written records arises from the fact that pasta was traditionally a food of the commoners, most of whom couldn't write in ancient times. Also, the two essential ingredients in pasta, flour and water, were used to make many other foods, including bread and porridge. Whatever the origin of this staple food, the notion that fresh pasta is somehow more authentic is apparently false, as the history of dry pasta is well documented.
The term pasta, however, does not have such a long history. Many of the oldest references to this boiled flour-and-water product refer to it as macaroni, regardless of whether the pasta was tubular or not. The word macaroni is still used by many Italians when speaking about pasta in any of its many shapes. Pasta in Italy traditionally referred to a dough or a paste. In the United States, pasta became the preferred term after World War II. Today, the word pasta is a universal term for this basic yet glorious food.
Italians have an innate knack for matching the multitude of different pasta shapes with appropriate sauces. This talent is not so universal and we Americans are just beginning to learn such pairings as we become more familiar with the world of pasta.
http://www.igourmet.com/library/pasta/st_pastahistory.asp
Whenever I mention that I write on the history of food, someone is bound to ask "When was pasta invented?" For Europe, that's a tricky question to answer. For China, though, we have a pretty good idea: about 300 BC. We have it on the authority of Shu Hsi, an official editor of ancient texts and one of the most learned men of China. A pasta enthusiast, in about 300 AD he composed a poem "A Rhapsody on Pasta." Although today we don't think of poems as culinary reference works, they were back then. Shu Hsi's rhapsody was effectively a pasta encyclopedia.
The Chinese cuisine of 300 BC was not one of rice and fish and stir fries. That did not emerge until well over a millennium later. Instead the Chinese dined on rich stews of meat and vegetables accompanied by fluffy grains of millet that they had steamed over the stew. They had little use for the foreign cereal, wheat, which many centuries earlier had been brought to China by travelers from the west. For them, it was food for the miserably poor or as a last resort when stores were running low. For us, who relish wheat bread and pasta, and relegate tiny, round millet seeds to the birds, this seems strange. We have to remember, though, that the Chinese steamed or boiled wheat berries just like they steamed or boiled millet. Whereas this makes millet light and flavorful (it was the forerunner of polenta in Italy, after all, and is still worth trying), wheat berries stay chewy and slightly bitter.
What changed this was the grindstone. Around the 3rd century BC, when the RomanEmpire began trading with the Chinese Han Empire in China, merchants and nomads carried the grindstone from oasis to oasis along the Silk Roads. For the first time, the Chinese began grinding wheat into flour instead of cooking it whole. They mixed the flour with water to make a dough. Instead of slapping the dough on a hot surface or into a beehive oven to make flat bread sand leavened breads, as had been done in the Middle East and Mediterranean for millennia, they continued steaming and boiling. They made noodles, dumplings, thin pancakes, stuffed buns, and steamed breads, calling them all `ping.' Ping, of course, was equivalent to our pasta, and it was as delicious as boiled wheat had been dull. Wheat hop scotched over millet in the social scale and became the grain of the Emperor and his court.
http://www.cheftalk.com/HTML/Education/past_articles/china_noodle.html
CONCLUSION: 9th century vs. 3rd century BC; CHINA WINS!
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