Re: Barack Obama Pits Space Explorers Against School Children

On 4 Dec, 16:09, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 07:58:47 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away, Ian
Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:





Just because they're designed by scientists only means
trouble, not a paradise.

They won't be designed by scientists. They will be designed by
engineers and architects.

With the rigid military like
environments too small for democratic or market forces
to play out. And the emotional and psychological stress
of isolation, and I bet long tours of duty. I would think that
colonies would be rife with conflict and difficult as
possible to sustain.

I'm picturing a job somewhat like ..oh.. spending all day
underwater welding, for the military. So there's no
money, no fun and no place to go except back to work.
Great view, but otherwise a living hell.

Why do people seem to fantasize so much about
colonies?

Because they don't think about them as stupidly as you do.

An engineer who is any good works things out. 90% of the world's
population lives on 10% of the land surface. It takes far less mass to
support a desert with SSP than it does to build an O'Neill colony.
This is obvious to any engineer. You are clearly not an engineer.

That doesn't seem so clear to the many people who have hired me to do
engineering.

I reckon you would have called Brunel looney had you lived in the 19th
century.

Yes, you reckon lots of nutty things.

You seem to lack any kind of scientific understanding.

I only "seem" that way to loons.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

This is exactly what I mean. In this group we work by insult and not
analysis. Analysis shows pretty conclusively that watering deserts
using SSP for desalination releases far more land per ton in GEO than
an O'Neill space station ever could. You cannot get away from that
fact.

You are a typical Republical. I am a pedarist. Mc Cain had an affair
with a black woman. That is the only way you can argue.

I asked a perfectly reasonable question. If I was in a scientific lab
I would be expected to learn anything that was relevant. If I was in
Google translate I would be expected to learn Arabic. If I was a
politician though I would simply be expected to know how to smear. You
don't have to be an expert on the Middle East to make decisions about
it. You smear and then get into a goddam mess. Perhaps it was
rhetorical as you claim. If that is so the point is taken and it
speaks volumes, both about you, the shrub, Iraq and the Rebublican
party in general.


- Ian Parker

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