October 13, 2019
“Once you’ve exploited the solar system, there’s nowhere left to go.”
Frankly, the idea that we puny humans could ever even begin to damage the solar system is laughable.
What would be more worrisome is who – or what – would be doing the work. Why hire people if you could make robots to do the work for you?
October 10, 2019
I have a vehicle in my novel called a “Hopper.”
Damn you, Musk! Must you steal ALL my ideas??
www.syfy.com/syfywire/amazing-video-spacex-starhopper-test-hop-to-a-height-of-150-meters
April 27, 2019
“It is time to venture beyond the known planets, on toward the stars.”
Yes, I agree, but I don’t see how any of the ideas in this article will help us achieve that goal. I think the problem is the reliance on conventional means of propulsion. Clearly some sort of bending of space/time is needed to leave the solar system faster than, say, a decade, let alone reach other star systems.
Dawn already used an ion engine (way too slow). The solar gravitational lens is neat but it won’t take us there physically. The “space-based laser” idea is funky but impractical.
Getting off Earth should help (Moon Base, Mars, somewhere else like Triton). Escaping our own planet’s gravity well takes way too much effort. But after that, it’s time to forget about rockets and start thinking of truly “wacked out” ideas.
For starters, Discover, how about dumping your absolutely awful page design? Yeesh, this page is hard to read.
— http://discovermagazine.com/2019/apr/new-technologies-could-let-us-explore-beyond-the-solar-system
April 16, 2019
The research is in early stages, but it invokes ideas like uploading brains to the cloud or hooking people up to a computer to track deep health metrics…
Hm. This sounds like an idea for a cool science fiction…
Ah.
April 4, 2019
The Chinese government uses facial recognition for large-scale surveillance in public CCTV cameras, both to catch criminals and monitor the behavior of all individuals with the intent of turning the data into a score. Seemingly harmless offenses like buying too many video games or jaywalking can lower your score. China uses that score for a sort of “social credit” system that determines whether the individual should be allowed to get a loan, buy a house or even much simpler things like board a plane or access the internet.
Yeah. That’s a real advantage for human rights and democracy. And when the hackers get involved, it’ll lead to an entirely new definition of the term “face lift.”
March 5, 2019
[A]n obvious obstacle to identifying our neighbors is the tendency to limit our imagination to what we already know. But this should not necessarily remain the case in the future.
Frankly, I think it’s high time that somebody invent the warp drive so that the Vulcans will finally notice us.
blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/are-we-really-the-smartest-kid-on-the-cosmic-block/
February 25, 2019
Seek and ye shall find!
Ah, a place to crash on Mars.
No, not a lander. A hotel.
I won’t mention the web site where this automated (probably Google) ad popped up.
But they often have extreme -ly interesting tech -nology information.
Just in time for spring break, too!
January 23, 2019
He described the concept as a “stainless-steel sandwich” that can “bleed water…fuel” through tiny holes on its surface to keep it cool as it enters the Martian atmosphere at breakneck speeds.
Not sure, but I don’t think there are a lot of people who want to travel to Mars inside a sandwich…
www.inverse.com/article/52605-starship-spacex-elon-musk-stainless-steel
December 24, 2018
Yes, climate change is real.
Yes, some of these five classic SF novels from Tor are really about pollution and not climate change per se.
Yes, that doesn’t really matter.
The Sheep Look Up is still the best of the bunch. And (not surprisingly) somewhat prophetic.
Le plus chose change…
(P.S. Happy Yuletide. Bwah ha ha…)
November 29, 2018
So WordPress tells me I started blogging here nine years ago today.
Really? I should have more far more posts by now 😅. What was that New Year’s resolution again?
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