Best comment - "The space age hasn't begun yet."

The excitement of exploration that briefly drove the science and technology of the early 60's has gone into hibernation. The only place you feel it these days is in the new star trek movie.

I really want this to happen. But all those greenies will keep whining about fall out, which was calculated to be very low if Orion was launched correctly. You could easily launch the entire ISS in one go. You could launch whole Moon or Mars bases in one launch.

This site has some of the best info on Project Orion I have found:
http://nextbigfuture.com/search/label/Project%20Orion

Fallout and stupid cold war disarmaments are to blame! And some of those guys (From the book I read) believed they could engineer the fallout, well, out.

But they say that about all those tests they did that went wrong. Oh well, we can dream!

Very interesting. Now I know where Neal Stephenson found the propulsion technology for the antagonists in "Anathem"

I think it's too early in human development to actually go to space. We did go to the Moon and back and sent a robot to Mars with taxpayer money.

Society needs to become a lot more productive, with cost saving technologies that will allow voluntary funding for projects of this magnitude. The space age will fail if it is pursued by governments agencies.

When we find good economic reason to go to space, it will naturally become a worthwhile endeavor for private citizens and companies to profitably undertake.

Right now, NASA is, mostly, a waste of money. That statement will make more sense when the economy collapses.

The idea is that this project would make access to space with heavy payloads much cheaper and more productive. With this you could launch giant solar farms or asteroid mining stations that might actually be profitable because the launch costs weren't too high. Or what about a giant space hotel so tourism can take off. Like I said previous about the ISS, it's a huge project that takes up tons of money and launches, but could have been lifted in one go and be much bigger.

>> ^Memorare:
The excitement of exploration that briefly drove the science and technology of the early 60's has gone into hibernation. The only place you feel it these days is in the new star trek movie.


That is only because you don't know where to look. Projects such as Cassini/Huygens and the Mars Rovers are orders of magnitude more advanced than the moon landings. Just because the media find reality shows more worthy of attention nowadays doesn't mean the science and innovation has stopped.

>> ^gtjwkq:
I think it's too early in human development to actually go to space. We did go to the Moon and back and sent a robot to Mars with taxpayer money.
Society needs to become a lot more productive, with cost saving technologies that will allow voluntary funding for projects of this magnitude. The space age will fail if it is pursued by governments agencies.
When we find good economic reason to go to space, it will naturally become a worthwhile endeavor for private citizens and companies to profitably undertake.
Right now, NASA is, mostly, a waste of money. That statement will make more sense when the economy collapses.


Nah, I disagree.

its been estimiated that for every dollar the US government put in, they got a return of seven with all the space race technology spin offs. Whats the chances within 3m of you right now there are objects which have some off this technology imbued?

Plus there is never a time to not think of space, IMHO. It lifts the considerations of each individual into the realm of infinity where wars, resource scrabling and politics shrink into insignifigance. Space and more importantly, the sparking of the WORLD's collective imagination and hence cohesion.

I think there is something fatalistic to turn your back on space.


Thank god there is a plethora of commercial investors (Branson most notably) with the money and the foresight, and most importantly - WILL to move the stars closer.

VERY nice clip. Surprised to see Professor Freeman Dyson there. I just met the man just a days ago. We were both heading to the same place, and accompanied him to a talk near Harvard College. He was among a few other amazing speakers. They discussed the future of mankind, the search for exoplanets, detecting live elsewhere and the like.

I believe the technology being proposed for the "nuke-drive" isn't boom boom boom as shown, it's more like a constant roar, not unlike a Phalanx anti-missle cannon on US warships. Each explosion happening as the next is placed in position.

Sorry, but just reading the title of this video brings to mind something that Wile E. Coyote would fail at.

We need to figure out some way to get off this planet before the next asteroid hit. This is becoming a preoccupation of mine. When I sit in traffic I can't help but be distracted by the thought that none of this shit's gonna matter when the entire surface of the earth is on fire for a week.

We need to get started on the space elevator already.

even if you could get this technology to work,which is doubtful, it would take 100 years to get to the nearest star which is 4.25 light years away. and then ..so what? what will you do now? how will you communicate with earth? interstellar travel for people is probably not practical. it would be possible to send probes maybe..but why? to what end? for what purpose? populating our own star system is possible though.

Interesting to see Clarke promoting Project Orion when his space elevator concept is arguably more feasible. (RIP, Arthur)

>> ^robdot:
even if you could get this technology to work,which is doubtful, it would take 100 years to get to the nearest star which is 4.25 light years away. and then ..so what? what will you do now? how will you communicate with earth? interstellar travel for people is probably not practical. it would be possible to send probes maybe..but why? to what end? for what purpose? populating our own star system is possible though.


Going to a different solar system would be stupid if it were longer than 2 years. Technology would leapfrog you. 100 years, and you would arrive only to find out it's become a galactic Starbucks.

yep.

.. you guys gotta stop thinking about round trips.

>> ^Raaagh:

Nah, I disagree.
its been estimiated that for every dollar the US government put in, they got a return of seven with all the space race technology spin offs. Whats the chances within 3m of you right now there are objects which have some off this technology imbued?

Ever stop to think how much more money could be made if it wasn't inefficiently researched by NASA?

Space research should not be the role of government.

I think there is something fatalistic to turn your back on space.

I'm not turning my back on space, I'm turning my back on government pursuing it. The reason it seems necessary for govt to pursue it is cost, what I'm saying is: let costs go down (or technology advance) and that problem will solve itself.

Thank god there is a plethora of commercial investors (Branson most notably) with the money and the foresight, and most importantly - WILL to move the stars closer.

Agreed.

Still waiting for Orion to be funded. Would be a good use for all those nuclear weapons that are lying around decommissioned. You could launch an entire Moon base in one go.

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Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 1:10pm PDT - promote requested by cybrbeast.

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