Malinatar
Lord Nagafen Raider
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The Astronomy Thread
- Thread starter Araxen
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meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Some good ones there, Hyperion is one of my favorites not listed:
APOD text about Hyperion:
What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? Nobody knows. To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon again last week and took an image of unprecedented detail. That image, shown above in false color, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and a generally odd surface. The slight differences in color likely show differences in surface composition. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark material. Inspection of the image shows bright features indicating that the dark material might be only tens of meters thick in some places. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.
APOD text about Hyperion:
What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? Nobody knows. To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon again last week and took an image of unprecedented detail. That image, shown above in false color, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and a generally odd surface. The slight differences in color likely show differences in surface composition. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark material. Inspection of the image shows bright features indicating that the dark material might be only tens of meters thick in some places. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.
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I think pride is an important factor to consider when discussing the idea of being the first country to put a man on Mars. Personally, I'd rather see a competition like that over fighting over resources or focusing on regional conflicts. A distraction may be necessary to help keep our nations from destroying each other.
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iannis
Musty Nester
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Yeah, me too. But realistically pride is for poor people.
Cash dollars is how rich people keep score.
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Dandain
Trakanon Raider
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Dandain
Trakanon Raider
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I think space legislation is a pretty weak set of rules when written under the current organization of humanity (governments/rights/armies). The necessary technology to explore and use the stars is more or less precursor technology for being powerful enough to also be able to cause some serious catastrophic events on the Earth or any planet for that matter.
Its hard for me to rationalize a place where the idea that two Space Super powers would still keep annihilation on the table. To engage in such a large scale level of intentional war is to potentially make space unusable. To survive in space and to use it, the margin for error is so unbelievably small that its incredible that our knowledge of the natural world has reached the precision that this kind of thing is possible. But it begs the question, what events could disrupt the capacity for this precision?
For example. The future personal space ship business must have some of the strictest quality control imaginable. There is little room for much of modern day human societal flaws. Bribery, Corruption, or even material theft like in the case of the recent set of Russian engines who had some percentage of their most important alloys/metals stolen, are not possible states of being while using space. Ruining anything that is space worthy is on magnitudes of infinity easier than building the same thing. We also have never had an open space war, and we are still at the point where tracking space debris is a serious issue. Its not a very difficulty strategy to make space unusable by littering it with sufficiently energetic debris.
So lets imagine a totalitarian space empire where all control of space is in some centralized super Dear Leader style situation. Now lets assume that the controlled people will be used in space and on other planets as labor. But now it begs the question why would a space empire use humans as laborers, We're only passable on very specific planet types. Why wouldn't this space empire use robots? Well now who the fuck is left to be enslaved by the empire except for the robots? So how is it a totalitarian if every human that's living is part of the in group?
So I guess that's my question, I don't think humanity persists in a stable state in space without literally having the equivalent of an Intergalactic Bill of Rights, Free Speech, Etc. The entire infrastructure can come crashing down with one wave of coordinated sabotaging actions. Space terrorism seems far more effective than its terrestrial counterparts.
Edit
At least not through this near term transition to the stars if you will. Maybe some thousands of years in the future some faction of space humans would want to do all out war with some other planet, but I still don't understand the motivation. It can't possibly be resources that would drive them at that time.
Its hard for me to rationalize a place where the idea that two Space Super powers would still keep annihilation on the table. To engage in such a large scale level of intentional war is to potentially make space unusable. To survive in space and to use it, the margin for error is so unbelievably small that its incredible that our knowledge of the natural world has reached the precision that this kind of thing is possible. But it begs the question, what events could disrupt the capacity for this precision?
For example. The future personal space ship business must have some of the strictest quality control imaginable. There is little room for much of modern day human societal flaws. Bribery, Corruption, or even material theft like in the case of the recent set of Russian engines who had some percentage of their most important alloys/metals stolen, are not possible states of being while using space. Ruining anything that is space worthy is on magnitudes of infinity easier than building the same thing. We also have never had an open space war, and we are still at the point where tracking space debris is a serious issue. Its not a very difficulty strategy to make space unusable by littering it with sufficiently energetic debris.
So lets imagine a totalitarian space empire where all control of space is in some centralized super Dear Leader style situation. Now lets assume that the controlled people will be used in space and on other planets as labor. But now it begs the question why would a space empire use humans as laborers, We're only passable on very specific planet types. Why wouldn't this space empire use robots? Well now who the fuck is left to be enslaved by the empire except for the robots? So how is it a totalitarian if every human that's living is part of the in group?
So I guess that's my question, I don't think humanity persists in a stable state in space without literally having the equivalent of an Intergalactic Bill of Rights, Free Speech, Etc. The entire infrastructure can come crashing down with one wave of coordinated sabotaging actions. Space terrorism seems far more effective than its terrestrial counterparts.
Edit
At least not through this near term transition to the stars if you will. Maybe some thousands of years in the future some faction of space humans would want to do all out war with some other planet, but I still don't understand the motivation. It can't possibly be resources that would drive them at that time.
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Brad2770
Avatar of War Slayer
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These are worth a listen:
A World Before Fire: The Terrestrial Anomaly
A World Before Fire: The Human Flame
A World Before Fire: The Terrestrial Anomaly
A World Before Fire: The Human Flame
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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And that's why some people think a space "nation" will probably be a terrifying (to us) totalitarian state that not only monitors you 25/25 (because without days, you can probably switch to a more "natural" circadian cycle), but will take measures so that your behavior doesn't even fall out of the line. Because the state can't run the slightest risk that you are even going to go insane (let alone terrorist).
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Siddar
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Space will be developed by corporations. Governments on earth will enable them. There will be a lot of economic cooperation between corporations in space regardless of nationality.
The countries that can enable the corporate exploration of space will do so. Those that cant will bitch about sharing the wealth of space with humanity fairly. They will be ignored by the countries that are able to exploit space.
The reasons are simple getting large scale infrastructure in space will require vast sums of money and it's best done through a self sustaining economic model. No country can compete with self supporting capitalist model in space.
You also wont see large territorial claims in space only small ones of around ten square miles as mining sites. So you wont see large claims on territory that will both avoid conflict with other space fairing powers and placate some of concerns of non space fairing powers as well.
The countries that can enable the corporate exploration of space will do so. Those that cant will bitch about sharing the wealth of space with humanity fairly. They will be ignored by the countries that are able to exploit space.
The reasons are simple getting large scale infrastructure in space will require vast sums of money and it's best done through a self sustaining economic model. No country can compete with self supporting capitalist model in space.
You also wont see large territorial claims in space only small ones of around ten square miles as mining sites. So you wont see large claims on territory that will both avoid conflict with other space fairing powers and placate some of concerns of non space fairing powers as well.
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khorum
Murder Apologist
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We won't make it bro. Sorry.
Civilizations behave under the same thermoeconomic and power-law distribution systems that govern the rest of the universe. Societies are compelled towards the redistribution of resources that mirror energy transfer under the first and second laws of thermodynamics. That redistributive force is called Entropy in physical systems, it's called Complexity in information theory and in Cliodynamics it's essentially understood as Socialism. That "economic justice" the SJWs devote themselves and sacrifice cute freshman girls to is a god as ancient as the universe itself: they worship Death.
We were able to get as far as we have because for a brief time (the late 50s thru the late 60s) less than 7% of the world' population (the USA) influenced or controlled almost 85% of the world's capital and industrial resources and in that short, shining moment, our ambition was turned towards the stars. Those conditions are vanishingly rare. Societies allowing its most dynamic quantile to monopolize their national resources towards an unified external ambition usually happens only at times of extreme crisis like wars. That's as true for mitochondria as it is for ant colonies and Venezuelans.
There's a dawning horror that we might be able to answer the Fermi Paradox by simply looking at the cliometrics of the last few millenia of human history: It's entirely likely that alien civilizations are consumed by the sociological impulse to redistribute resources to fulfill their planet's MALTHUSIAN EQUILIBRIUM and eventually all their planetary resources become dedicated to sustain guaranteed equity; leaving no political will or resources to leave the planet.
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iannis
Musty Nester
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Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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