Picard's final statement seems straight out of Hume, who (if second-hand memory serves) felt that, as societies became wealthier, people would spend more of their time in contemplation.

Even so, I can't see getting around at least a unit of account: at some point, Starfleet will have to make a decision about commissioning a new space ship. To do that, they'll need to know what they could be doing with those resources if they didn't build a new ship. Thus, they'll need to know what it would cost them in foregone opportunities. To answer this, it's a convenient to have a single metric.

Yeah. Also one thing awesome about this is the atheletes often dress in whatever is comfortable for them, and will wear glasses that sometimes have sighting lenses. So couple that with the super-customized guns and you get great photos of shooters looking like the pirate captains of some future space ships - http://images.indianexpress.com/2016/07/prakash-nanjappa-759.jpg - Here is the current world champ with his amazing looking pistol- http://www.trbimg.com/img-57ab598f/turbine/la-sp-sn-shooting-oly-2016-rio-20160810/600 - 10 meter air rifle competition is similar, but they wear some protective gear - http://accurateshooter.net/pix/ginwin1601.jpg

I really wish companies in the Bay Area would focus their $$ on more responsibility in the face of immediate, local issues.

But hey... space ship, or whatever.

Obviously you haven't played with Space Engine. It's not much of a game, but I find myself lost in it for hours just exploring. The shots you see are made in-game, traveling at many thousand times the speed of light. Every star you see, you can literally travel to. It might have planets and moons in orbit which you can visit, or that "star" might even be an entirely new galaxy with billions more stars.

It does have a game mode with space ships, but I have never tried it. I just load it up from time to time, click a random star and go to it.

I hated its adventure parts, but loved the space ship fights.

I could forgive some stylistic changes, but this is just too much. It's so tropey it looks like they put no effort into it. I can just hear the Fast and Furious idiot: "Yeah it needs ninjas, lasers, motorcycles, a guy hanging on a cliff, and lots and lots of space ships yeah!"

They're like bio-mimetic alien space ships. One seems to be having warp field discontinuities though. Poor thing.

This review was better than I expected. BTW - who's the chick doing all that running - looks like that girl from "Felicia's Journey" with Bob Hoskins. BTW - Bob Hoskins is dead, but didn't hang himself like in Felicia's Journey. Can't be Evangaline Lilly cause she's an Elf. Maybe it's Dana Kirkpatrick - the chick race car driver. If it is she should get a line where they're escaping in some starwars space ship where she says: "Can't this thing go any faster? Who made this piece of crap?" Then the ship goes to light speed and she has an orgasm like Meg Ryan in "Sleepless in Sheattle."

Why are the space ships flying around in the atmosphere like there isn't any atmosphere? I know they can fly etc., through the air, but they're designed to be super maneuverable in space. Don't get me wrong, it looks cool and all, but that's why they didn't fly X-Wings at the Imperial Walkers in Episode V...

Slow down on the we need to panic soon or we are even too late for panic. The IPCC estimates through to the year 2100 do not show unmanageable changes. We can adapt to the temperature and sea level changes expected. More over, that is based on today's technology. We are talking nearly a hundred years in the future. 100 years ago cars, planes, refrigerators, spaces ships and nuclear weapons were all yet to be discovered or known to the public. Problems like putting a man on the moon or travelling the globe in hours seemed insurmountable then. They are done and a matter of course to us today.

Apologies, but with all due respect panic hardly seems called for over a temperature and sea level increase we can handle currently pending on us in a hundred years. Something tells me it'll give the people then with hundred years of advances more if a laugh than a burden.

Those aren't rockets they're fricken' space ships.

Well from the leaked photos and other bits released, Abrams certainly seems to be making an effort to return the grit and realism of the first by using less CG and more props and animatronics, etc. No more shiny space ships and obviously fake cg characters is a great start.

Yeah, if technology was designed to disable video capture so the police could domestically take liberties without any verification of their actions, I can see this being a major blow to civil liberties and social accountability.

If however, this is just a "movie theatres want this" type thing, then there's no real hype. Plus, the attempt to disable one feature in one brand in a phone, such as the iPhone, would do nothing at all to protect the corrupt officers. It just means no one will buy an iPhone.

But, this is also hype over a patent. No actual device has been made with this. And just because it is possible, doesn't mean someone is doing it. I mean, it IS possible for us to build a space ship to harvest asteroids or space elevators . . . but alas, we are sadly Earth bound for the time being.

If anything, this discussion is what leads to this technology not being implemented, but the irate and irrational discussion does nothing but hype fear that has no rational basis. Except, you know, the NSA really is wiretapping this. . . .

Um, well, if that's your only complaint . . Wings can actually be useful for a ship that does both atmosphere and space flight. Like the shuttle. It has wings. And it's a space ship . . . of sorts.

Let's see . . . Lasers. Yeah, we've already had lasers debunked as a weapon in space. Unless there's some breakthrough later on. But, that said, it wouldn't be visible as there's no atmosphere to reflect it back to us. It would be traveling at the speed of light.

Explosions would be limited to the amount of oxygen in the ship being destroyed. They wouldn't create sonic waves or sound, or cause the nearby camera to rattle.

Ships wouldn't fly in arcs. That's atmosphere. In space, a ship can turn 180° and still be going the same direction. Babylon 5 is a good example of newtonian physics in action while in space.

Humans wouldn't be flying small ships. It'd kill us. Literally. Unless we have inertial dampeners like in Star Trek, making those turns and twists would destroy our bodies. Just ask a pilot.

Lastly, anyone advanced enough to do FTL and navigate massive star clusters with pinpoint precision who DOESN'T have a targeting system that can predict a ships movements and then fire a at speed of light weapon and destroy it, well, failed somewhere.

Not to mention, we'd use missiles that would self-destruct. Fire a physical projectile at near speed of light velocities and it not hit it target? Well, you may have just fired a bullet that would take out your space base in 1,000 years. It's be fruitless, require tons of energy and end up killing yourself with your own bullet.

But I'm glad we focused on wings. The only thing that has a real legitimate use in space travel.

Looks bad. Really I thought it was a fan made EVE trailer. Also it kind of breaks a rule of good design, SPACE ships have no need for wings. Unless you have your engines mounted on them or they are carrying massive weapons, it just makes you a bigger target and there is no atmosphere in space.