Author Topic: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?  (Read 27545 times)

gablau

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #15 on: September 11, 2010, 06:24:23 PM »
In hundred years we will probably have got on Mars and even established a base there thats about as far as we will be I think.

I am even more pessimistic than you are. In the 1960's the imagination of the people were set on fire about "the space" (as was mine). In reality and in comparison, "nothing" dramatic happened since the Moon landing. The exploration and usage of the Earth orbit was a "given", considering the existing rocket technology. Going further is a totally different story. There is a good reason that after half a century we didn't go back to the Moon. Because there is nothing there to go back for. Deep inside don't we really know exactly the same about the Mars? And the Mars is still a "next door neighbor" considering the distances and the amount of time to get there (near half a year). Colonizing either the Moon or the Mars is a nice sci-fi issue, but extremely far from any sane reality. The laws of physics will remain the same for 50 or 100 years, or any amount of time. Even the Space Shuttle and/or the Apollo was an almost "super-human" achievement. As is the ISS. Which now have what.....six people aboard, and still not completely ready after more than a decade. And the big "achievement" was that they finally fixed the toilette.

All that just a couple of hundred miles from the surface of our planet. The nearest next solar system is over four light years away and we don't even know whether it has any planet around it. The light, as we know, travels 300,000 km/sec. The Apollo didn't reach 20 km/sec. No entity we are aware of anywhere outside of our planet have a totally non-hostile biological environment to human beings. I was (and still am) awed what took place in my lifetime regarding space research, but I am afraid that only thing went faster than the speed of light, was our hopes and imagination.

Moonwalker

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #16 on: September 20, 2010, 12:41:09 PM »
"nothing" dramatic happened since the Moon landing.

Technologically a lot did happen since then. The ASC technology (Apollo Spacecraft) was rather rudimentary compared to the technology of the Space Shuttle and ISS. We live in space continuously today.

There is a good reason that after half a century we didn't go back to the Moon. Because there is nothing there to go back for. Deep inside don't we really know exactly the same about the Mars?

No, we don't. Because from the geologically and astrophysically point of view, both, the Moon and Mars are top goals. We still don't know everything about the Moon, and less than ever about Mars.

And the Mars is still a "next door neighbor" considering the distances and the amount of time to get there (near half a year). Colonizing either the Moon or the Mars is a nice sci-fi issue, but extremely far from any sane reality.

In 1492, when Christopher Columbus discovered the North American continent (although he was not the first one), there were no motors, no cars, no airplanes, less than ever computers, heck, not even bikes. It took more than 500 years until average people were able to take a plane to fly from Europe to northern America in less than 8 hours. If you would have told people about it back then in 1492, be sure literally every person would have called you insane. Not to mention space flight or even a flight to the Moon. From a flat earth view and sailing ships, we've made it into space or low earth orbit by 28800 kilometers per hour. From Otto Lilienthal (http://www.glattpark.ch/grundlagen/infra_places/lilienth.jpg) it took nearly 100 years until we've had jet propulsion available. Space flight is only 50 years of age, and we already made it from Sputnik to the Moon manned over to a space station that houses twice as much as the Apollo spacecraft, well, continuously. Whilst the Shuttle is docked it houses more than 10 humans. Compared to Vostok and Mercury days, even to Apollo days, it's a giant leap only two and a half decades later (the last Apollo flight happened in 1975 and the ISS was being build on ground in the early and mid 1990's already).

Technological progess did never stop, nor slow. It is as fast as never before, especially computer technology. The difference just is that people are used to it meanwhile.

The laws of physics will remain the same for 50 or 100 years, or any amount of time.

Not inherently. In the early 1930's Albert Einstein for example was convinced that providing electricity by something like nuclear power (back then it was just a theory) is impossible because "you have to force atoms to do that". And, indeed, we forced them. He also was wrong about quantum physics (coincidences do exist indeed). Lord Kelvin, a British mathematician and physicist claimed in 1895 that "heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." Simon Newcomb, a Canadian mathematician and astronomer, said that "flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible." This was just 18 month before the Wright Brothers took off. Today we fly with aircraft made of metal, which are more than 400 tons of weight. And this with a speed of more than 800 kilometers per hour. Open up the graves of Lord Kelvin and Simon Newcomb to show them what's possible. But be sure they'll suffer a direct heart attack ;)

The nearest next solar system is over four light years away and we don't even know whether it has any planet around it.

Back in human history, foreign continents were unreachable, at least not within month, while the majority of humans thought that the earth must be a flat thing :)

The light, as we know, travels 300,000 km/sec. The Apollo didn't reach 20 km/sec.

Well, the first steam locomotives didn't even reach 50 km/h (0,014 km/s), and some scientists and doctors back then claimed the acceleration would be "too fast" for the human body...

By the way, in 1936 the New York Times wrote that "a rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." ;D And only 32 years later a rocket put three men within their spacecraft on a course to the Monn for the first time (Apollo 8).


Keep two things in mind:

1. The future is not foreseeable

2. Most predictions (except predictions of visionaries like Wernher von Braun etc.) about the possibility of technologies and about the future, were always pretty much wrong
« Last Edit: September 20, 2010, 12:51:20 PM by Moonwalker »

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #17 on: September 20, 2010, 12:52:24 PM »
Quote
And only 32 years later a rocket put three men within their spacecraft on a course to the Monn for the first time *(Apollo 8).

* Apollo 8
« Last Edit: September 20, 2010, 12:54:10 PM by Moonwalker »

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #18 on: September 20, 2010, 12:57:19 PM »
Well said Moonwalker.

IMHO, the only thing that can keep us from reaching even more achievements in space and beyond, is the obviously self-destructing nature of the human race, either by pollution or wars, or both.

Sorry for the clouds.

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Moonwalker

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #19 on: September 21, 2010, 11:07:11 AM »
Well said Moonwalker.

IMHO, the only thing that can keep us from reaching even more achievements in space and beyond, is the obviously self-destructing nature of the human race, either by pollution or wars, or both.

Sorry for the clouds.

It's not really that much dramatic. Imagine the horizon of European citizens but also American, Russian or Japanese citizens in summer 1945. I don't think that anybody thought about space flight during those days (not to mention commercial aviation, jet propulsion, supersonic flight etc.). Europe was literally done. The world had just witnessed the worst and biggest war of all times which ended even with usage of nuclear bombs. And only 12 years later Russia put Sputnik into orbit, followed by cosmonaut Gagarin and astronaut Shepard. The Moon was still very far away. But not even one ecade later and Apollo 8 was on it's way, during times when the world witnessed a cold war ;)

Yes, the biggest part of the world population is in a bad condition. I think only 20% of the world population can be called to be developed. But it doesn't stop us to fly to the Moon, build a big space station, design a passenger aircraft which can carry 800+ passengers and so on. Progress always continued. Compared to WWII, the developed world these days is facing peanuts. Even the biggest financial crisis didn't make us fall apart once again. The world has changed, and I think it became better rather than worse. People which are badly effected from pollution and war, as usual, are mostly people from third world and/or developing countries.

The only real issue I see in space flight is a lack of important and smart political decisions...
« Last Edit: September 21, 2010, 11:12:03 AM by Moonwalker »

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #20 on: September 21, 2010, 12:52:26 PM »
As much as I'd want to buy into your optimism, the picture is not as rose as you paint it Moonwalker, at least on the global influence of conflict and pollution part. But I don't want to digress: this is a SSMS forum after all :)

Humans may yet reach Mars (and we may even reach a fifth or even tenth version of SSMS, LOL), but what kind of home will they be leaving behind, or find when they return?

Everything is accelerated today: science, knowledge, discovery but also conflict and pollution. We should be careful that the later do not overcome the former.

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Moonwalker

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #21 on: September 23, 2010, 12:38:44 AM »
As much as I'd want to buy into your optimism, the picture is not as rose as you paint it Moonwalker, at least on the global influence of conflict and pollution part.

My picture actually isn't very rose but also not optimistic all along. Sorry for not saving bandwith but it's not explainable just by three sentences.

The earth never was and never will be a place of pur love and piece. Human nature is about love and war/greed because we are part of an animal world (and an insect as well as microorganism world) that just consists of the same attributes but with a different appearance and scale. Almost any form of life is driven by hunger and survival instinct. If other mammals, beside the human mammal species, would be equipped with brains which are able to create a consciousness and rational thought structure, they wouldn't act any different than we do. Because we are an example of what happens when mammals get a rational brain (which of course does not mean that everybody uses it rationally).

Compared to the hostile universe, the earth can be considered to be the Garden of Eden. But it's still not a perfect world, and it won't ever be. Regardless of starvation, greed, polllution and conflicts, our progress continues and doesn't prevent exploration to look for different places to live. Columbus discovered the northern American continent at a time when we had the plague, oppression and burning of a witches in Europe. We developed rocket technologies whilst up to 80 million humans lost their lifes during WWII. Back then the world population was about 2 billions and about 3 billions when we flew to the Moon during the Vietnam War. Today it's nearly 7 billions and the world still did not end, and it won't end.

Humans do learn a lot although it may not seem so at a first glance. Europe significantly changed during the last few hundred years, especially in the second half of the 20th century which influenced almost the entire human world. We learned politically, environmentally, socially and so on. Of course it's still a lot of work to be done. And we should not force developing countries to do it any faster than we did (especially China). If we look back in history and compare it with the present, the world didn't really become worse (although prophesies about the future always tell the most worst scenario, up until to day; caused by human fear). A lot of things that seem to be worse these days is made by media propaganda hugely. If you watch and read news 24 hours a day, you think the entire world is just bad, which is not the case. As German journalist Peter Scholl-Latour says (he literally has visited any country in his life, witnessed the Vietnam War etc...), everytime he visits a country or a region of conflicts, he needs about 2 days to acclimatize because of the nonsense published within our media compared to the different situation on site.

Humans may yet reach Mars (and we may even reach a fifth or even tenth version of SSMS, LOL), but what kind of home will they be leaving behind, or find when they return?

Just compare the Europe of the 15th Century (Columbus) and the Middle Ages with the Europe of today :) Who would want to go back seriously? ;) Or compare the 1960's (Apollo) with today politically. The Cold war is over and the enemy stereotype of evil Russia has gone. Today our enemy stereotype is evil China, once again created by media and politicians to fear whole nations. But luckily it doesn't work quite well anymore. People have got their on minds and the possibility of research via the internet.

Everything is accelerated today: science, knowledge, discovery but also conflict and pollution. We should be careful that the later do not overcome the former.

Yes. Whilst a lot of problems today are translocated actually. Parts of India, Africa, China and southern America are in ciritcal conditions without any doubt. But it does by far not mean the end of the world. There are a lot of places which are quite worthy living. Take Norway as an example. A wonderful landscape, only ~ 5 billions citizen, and about 98% of their electricity is comming from hydropower. Germany sadly still operates 17 nuclear power plants (compared to more than 50 in France) but the phase-out already is a done deal. They only argue about the date.

But I don't want to digress: this is a SSMS forum after all :)

Yes. Sorry that I already did digress hugely. After all, this game will keep running anyway once the Shuttle has been retired, and far beyond ;D

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #22 on: September 23, 2010, 04:13:16 AM »
Hey Moonwalker, just noticed: you've just posted your 600th message. This calls for a toast :)

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Moonwalker

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #23 on: September 23, 2010, 05:59:10 AM »
Hey Moonwalker, just noticed: you've just posted your 600th message. This calls for a toast :)

LOL :) I didn't even notice it. I guess I write too much...  ;D

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #24 on: September 23, 2010, 01:45:32 PM »
Write too much? You? That's just not possible!  ;D

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simking

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #25 on: October 09, 2010, 07:13:33 AM »
Optimistic group...I say we will be in WW3 or some other war Iran,Iraq,Afghanistan,Packastain,North Korea throw a stone pick one I say its some Muslim county see me in 100 years to collect payment. space may be the only escape
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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #26 on: December 03, 2010, 12:06:00 AM »
Well put it this way if a Simulation of the apollo missions came out with the same quality as SSM2007 would you buy it?  I willing to bet you would and I think it will be the same with the shuttle sim.

I have $75US set aside for just an eventuality. (Looks at Admin...intensely)

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #27 on: December 03, 2010, 12:30:26 AM »
Optimistic group...I say we will be in WW3 or some other war Iran,Iraq,Afghanistan,Pakistan,North Korea throw a stone pick one I say its some Muslim county see me in 100 years to collect payment. space may be the only escape

Sadly I agree with you. Wars make money and space waists it in the eyes of those in the Legislative and Executive branches of our government. Until something causes an fundamental shift in policy and direction, the US at least will not be returning to space. At least not anytime soon. I think my worst fear is coming true. The US is about to pull a Portugal...

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #28 on: December 03, 2010, 04:06:37 AM »
...
I have $75US set aside for just an eventuality. (Looks at Admin...intensely)

Nah, it will NOT cost anything near US$75, unless the US$ takes an unbearable dive - and I believe it won't!

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Moonwalker

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Re: will this game keep running after the retire shuttle?
« Reply #29 on: December 03, 2010, 04:21:48 AM »
Optimistic group...I say we will be in WW3 or some other war Iran,Iraq,Afghanistan,Pakistan,North Korea throw a stone pick one I say its some Muslim county see me in 100 years to collect payment. space may be the only escape

Sadly I agree with you. Wars make money and space waists it in the eyes of those in the Legislative and Executive branches of our government. Until something causes an fundamental shift in policy and direction, the US at least will not be returning to space. At least not anytime soon. I think my worst fear is coming true. The US is about to pull a Portugal...

The USA will continue to fly into space I think. But not as a big bloated NASA stand-alone program to cast just a few more footsteps and flags on the Moon once again. Space flight will look different in future. No big TV shows and job programs anymore but hopefully more true science and sustainability behind it.


"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."

Albert Einstein
« Last Edit: December 03, 2010, 04:26:57 AM by Moonwalker »