It really was 40 years ago...

Apropos nothing, There was a rather amusing interview on Saturday morning's 'Today' show
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lms6h#synopsis (1:18 if you want to 'listen again').
"Paola Antonelli, a senior curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York,
considers if there is a connection between the world of design and the idea of space travel."

Apparently NASA didn't use designers for anything other than the logo.
The equipment wasn't space-age enough and should have been more aerodynamic.
And more, too humorous to mention.

 

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:33:16 +0200, Phil Launchbury

[...]

Not really. Current technology is not up to reliably putting people on
Mars. Starships are right out.

Self-propelled starships require insane mass ratios, and external
propulsion
for starships (giant lasers or particle beams) has the slight p
olitical inconvenience of being a Humongous Ravening Death Beam at
interplanetary ranges. Which might be hard to pull off, politically. And
we don't really have the tech for it yet.

We'll probably get artificial intelligences and uploads before we get
interplanetary starships. (And thus interplanetary starships will probably
be small and crewed exclusively by sentient software :->)

Leslie

 

Which technology would that be?

 

Shurely for space travel you need a Major Tom Tom?

 

Really? I beg to differ. What isn't there at the moment is money - the
technology does exist and could be made to work. But it would cost
*vast* amounts of cash.

Ever heard of ion drives? Low thrust level but can run for a long, long
time.

Or even solar sails (for free boost) while in system and ion drives
once outside the solar system bow-shock.

Phil

 

Ion drives. Low-thrust, low fuel costs and run for long periods of
time.

Combine with solar sails.

Lets not even think about Project Orion..

Phil

 

What you really need is an Interstellar Overdrive.

And for some real information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel
"No current technology can propel a craft fast enough to reach other stars in under 50 years."

 

Yebbut only wimmin can drive ions, & they'd just get lost.

 

And no matter what splendiferous technology you come up with for the
propulsion, you can't reduce the energy demand.

 

Evan Davis: The designers were way ahead of the rocket people.

Oh, Jaysus.

 

Aren't kids supposed to believe what teachers tell them then?

 

*really* big
You may think it's a long way to the chemist's on the corner, but htat's
just peanuts compared to space. Listen.....

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

But it wouldn't be meant to make a difference to a group of people.
It'd be meant to make a difference to the species as a whole.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Ben

I can trace my (conscious) atheism to something a teacher told me when I
was about eight.

Not quite the effect she was after.... :^)

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

I have already made the greatest contribution to the fight against climate
change that I can make: I have decided not to breed. Now quit bugging me and
go and talk to the Catholics.

 

Only because certain governments seem to want to spend all their money
pissing around with tanks in godforsaken parts of the world because
their invisible best friend told them to.

I'll be very interested to see what private industry comes up with
over the next 50 years. I'll bet they'll surpass comfortably anything
NASA has done in the last 50. And I might actually get to go up
before I die.

 

Would it have to be pink?

Which is considerably different from "no current technology exists to
take us to the stars".

And my estimate seems to have been bang-on.. I suggested it would take
about 50 years!

Phil

 

That's all right - we'd program the computers before they left..

Phil

 

"Why it fizzled out".
Bear in mind that the networks weren't even covering Apollo 13 until the
accident. Their audience surveys indicated that Americans had become so
disinterested in the space program by that point they actually resented
live coverage taking place of their favourite soaps.

Personally, I'd have soaked up every morsel of coverage they threw my
way, but I wasn't in their demographic of ready-meal and washing powder
buyers.

So stick that in your pipe, matey.

 

Well yes. It doesn't help when their teacher is a moron and teaches
opinion as fact.

Phil

 

Well, the difference between your statement above and a true expert,
is that those of us in the latter camp would typically use
understatement. So, the answer should have been along the lines of:

"rather large"

See what I mean? I do admire your spunk, though, old bean.