Science

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Why not just load it all into a few hundred rockets and launch them right into the sun?

Yeah, we could send the nuclear waste, and a whole truckload of carbon emitting fuel to the sun. Two birds with one stone, you might say.

[Mari]

ignoring all the waste you create when sending a rocket up... would it be safe to send stuff into the sun anyway? Wouldn't want the thing to im/explode on us!

[Grey_Wolf]

The cost is prohibitive - it costs 4000 dollars to send 2 pounds into space.

[Earniel]

Logistical impossibilities aside, if that transport gets to the sun in the first place, I'd say the toughest part of the whole things is over.

But what if the rocket doesn't even get cleared past the atmosphere? Then a giant dirty bomb with nuclear waste comes down back on our heads. That's probably what we deserve by then, but it won't be pretty either way.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf

The cost is prohibitive - it costs 4000 dollars to send 2 pounds into space.

Only because it is not a major industry. Cars would cost a fortune if we only made a handful every year.

Plus, nuclear waste storage costs aren't exactly small.

[The Gaffer]

Two words: Challenger, Columbia

[brownjenkins]

There's ways around those fears as well. Set up the launch sites in an area where a failure wouldn't be as catastrophic (i.e. the old nuclear testing sites in the midwest).

Remember, nuclear waste in a rocket does not make it a nuclear missle.

[BeardofPants]

Haven't any of you watched Space 1999? It'll only end in tears, people!

[Grey_Wolf]

Well then my original idea of burning the stuff with concentrated sunlight would be much better.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Logistical impossibilities aside, if that transport gets to the sun in the first place, I'd say the toughest part of the whole things is over.

But what if the rocket doesn't even get cleared past the atmosphere? Then a giant dirty bomb with nuclear waste comes down back on our heads. That's probably what we deserve by then, but it won't be pretty either way.

Wouldn't that just be a hilariously absurd way for humanity to go?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Wouldn't that just be a hilariously absurd way for humanity to go?

It wouldnt kill us off. It may not even kill anyone. The problem is it would be a huge nightmare of a clean up job probably stretching over a continent or two and/or an ocean or two. Once it was in ballistic orbit you couldnt as easily control where it came back to earth.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

It wouldnt kill us off. It may not even kill anyone. The problem is it would be a huge nightmare of a clean up job probably stretching over a continent or two and/or an ocean or two.

Depends how much you send up, I'd imagine.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Once it was in ballistic orbit you couldnt as easily control where it came back to earth.

They were talking about sending it to the sun. There was no plan of a return voyage to Earth.

[brownjenkins]

Lasers!

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I love that this is called "The Science thread."

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

They were talking about sending it to the sun. There was no plan of a return voyage to Earth.

Yeah but the point is IF it doesnt make it out of orbit... It comes down.

[Lief Erikson]

And you couldn't control its landfall as easily that way. Okay, I see what you're saying now.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

I love that this is called "The Science thread."

Yeah really .

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Lasers!

Lol.

[trolls' bane]

Originally Posted by Mari

One of my teachers once said he was against transplants of hearts etc. because that disrupts the natural balance. In nature the weakest die and the strongest survive. In our society we try to bend nature to our wills and that's why we have overpopulation of the planet pending.
Or so he said.
I think he has a point, but if it's my mother needing someone else's liver, I don't think I'll be able to see it his way.
Stemcell research is the same. They try to accomplish something that is not natural. I'm sure a lot of people can be helped if it works, but I'm not so sure if it's the right thing to do.

Haha! Wow...
I completely disagree with him. I think we are given the ability to exercise control over nature to use it to our advantage. The planet is overpopulated, sure, but that's only because we're not using our other powers over nature to combat it: we should immediately begin to build floating cities on the water, which isn't really as difficult as it may sound, and soon after the first is built (in the Pacific Ocean just west of the Galapagos Islands), the (first) Space Elevator should be built.
The only reason we are facing global crises is because of capitalism, which is obviously failing miserably, and a corporate frame-of-mind, which seeks profits over the good of the people as a whole. We need to colonize other planets and start society anew, and correctly, so Earth can follow these other planets' examples.

[BeardofPants]

You don't think these giant honkin' floating cities of yours are gonna have an impact on the existing eco-systems? Haven't we done enough damage breaking up natural cooridors & niches?

[trolls' bane]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

You don't think these giant honkin' floating cities of yours are gonna have an impact on the existing eco-systems? Haven't we done enough damage breaking up natural cooridors & niches?

Well, that's no problem to circumvent. We need more environmental engineers, and chemists and bioengineers, and we release life forms that counteract the damage we have done with "suicide genes" to prevent their spread.

And as for the floating cities, well, let's just say that they wouldn't need cars because they'd not be big enough, they'd have nearly unlimited resources that they'd mine without damaging the environment, courtesy of some new technology and an aweful lot of money (although, hopefully, money wouldn't be in use any longer, in favor of a fairer and more reliable alternative).

Not to say that the social and economic changes wouldn't be extremely difficult. We just need world leaders that put these big corporate criminals in prison when they commit crimes against humanity, combined with an international "super-union" solidarity movement, and we'd have the foundations. The next thing that would have to go underway (even long before abolishing currency) is vast funding of the sciences, in favor of military and the like.


The difficulties are extreme, as I said before. So what needs to be done is a colonization effort, of other planets in our solar system, where resources would have to be used communally and sparingly. Such a mindset would prevail at such locations, and so very "fair" societies would pop up of their own accord by being given a blank slate.
They would, however, have to remove a sense of connection with Earth in any way, a sort of super-nationalism that would drive them for independence.

Such events were played out in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, and probably reflect how such changes would begin in general. Much of my early thinking along such lines is rooted in fictional Bogdanovism anyway.

[BeardofPants]

What complete... idealistic pap. You didn't even answer my question re: disrupting ecosystems & breaking up natural corridors.