Knight Otu
First Post
ConcreteBuddha said:
I'm not sure if I like your idea of comfort...
(OT) Possible extra-solar planet
- Thread starter William Ronald
- Start date
I'm not sure if I like your idea of comfort...
ConcreteBuddha
First Post
Jürgen Hubert said:
More than enough time for staying in orbit, or even on the moon for a holiday...
I was talking more like Mars. Your five weeks isn't gonna cut it buddy...
Anyway, do you have 100 million dollars to spend for a ticket? Can I borrow some to buy the BoVD?
Oh and not to scare you or anything, but don't rockets have a horrible malfunction rate?
"Comfort" was a mud shack 4,000 years ago. Let's see how our descendents will define the word.
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Zappo
Explorer
He wasn't talking in a right-now-and-here sense. More like, in a few years' time. I can easily see the prices dropping and safety greatly increasing - that's just a matter of market and refining the technology. Mind ya, I *don't* think it will be "cheap" in the close future, but it could become affordable by a reasonably wealthy person as a once-in-a-lifetime trip. OTOH, I can't see travel times decreasing significantly, unless there's some unexpected physics discovery.ConcreteBuddha said:I was talking more like Mars. Your five weeks isn't gonna cut it buddy...
Anyway, do you have 100 million dollars to spend for a ticket? Can I borrow some to buy the BoVD?
Oh and not to scare you or anything, but don't rockets have a horrible malfunction rate?
Weird. It could turn out that the era we're living in is the most comfortable one."Comfort" was a mud shack 4,000 years ago. Let's see how our descendents will define the word.
...nah, I'm still of the opinion that growth will stop, that we'll never have more than 8-10 billions, 12 top, people on Earth, and that comfort will just keep increasing thanks to technology.
Lurks-no-More
First Post
s/LaSH said:
Human is as human does. I'd think old-fashioned, energy-inefficient humans will be slowly phased out in favor of new and improved humans (who may or may not look like us or even be organical).
But yeah, the first interstellar traveler from Earth is certainly not going to be like us.
As for the colonisation of space: it's the matter of energy available. Give us fusion power, or at least proper orbital solar plants, and it becomes much easier.
Buttercup
Princess of Florin
Jürgen Hubert said:
Well, yes. But 'old age' for many 3rd world countries is substantially lower than it is for the west. There's another factor too. Women in those countries don't have cheap and easy access to birth control, and even if they did, they don't have independent decision making power like western women do. Give them those things, and the birth rate will drop quickly. Of course, culturally based behaviors are the hardest to change, so I doubt any of this will happen soon.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
ConcreteBuddha said:
Then use that year-long sabbatical.
I like to use Transhuman Space for these occasions, as it is probably the most realistic SF-RPG as far as these issues are concerned. A "typical" trip to Mars with a Meizi-class spacecraft would take about 18 days (how much depends on how close Mars and Earth are to each other - I'll use the January 1st 2100 distance, which is 0.88 Astronomical Units).
Sounds quite reasonable to me.
Anyway, do you have 100 million dollars to spend for a ticket? Can I borrow some to buy the BoVD?
Again according to Transhuman Space, a ticket to GEO would cost $49,000, the ticket from GEO to Mars would cost $5,280, and the ticket down to Mars would cost $22,000, for a total of $76,280 for a one-way trip and $152,560 for a two-way trip.
This is rather expensive, but affordable for the upper classes - the average European, or the more well-off American might earn about $10,000 per month.
And by the time I hit 124, I plan to have an impressive investment portfolio, so I should easily be able to afford it...
2100-era fusion drives are generally assumed to be quite reliable.
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ConcreteBuddha
First Post
Zappo said:
1) Life always expands into every available niche.
2) Science creates new niches.
Hence why the population will not even out until science is unable to create new niches. Do you see the progress of science slowing down, let alone halting? If anything, science speeds up the higher the population.
In order for the population to reach a limit, all scientific advance would have to halt, and all current technology would have to be the pinnacle of human creativity and expansionism. Then, the current level would have to remain in equilibrium for the rest of time.
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In other words, I disagree.
ConcreteBuddha
First Post
Jürgen Hubert said:
According to the DMG, page 218, if I had 720 lbs. of gold, I could buy a magical headband that could improve my memory, increase my learning capacity, and allow me to reason with the capability of a supercomputer.
Sounds quite reasonable to me.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
ConcreteBuddha said:According to the DMG, page 218, if I had 720 lbs. of gold, I could buy a magical headband that could improve my memory, increase my learning capacity, and allow me to reason with the capability of a supercomputer.
Sounds quite reasonable to me.
Unlike Transhuman Space, the DMG makes no claims about scientific accuracy...
ConcreteBuddha
First Post
Jürgen Hubert said:
Unlike the DMG, Transhuman space makes no claims about magical accuracy. Or do you not believe in magic?
