THE ERA OF TRUMP

[TheReal_ND]

I did my We-Need-To-Explore-Space pitch to some Dem Millennials the other day, and they were like, "no." I knew the Black component of the Party was anti-NASA but these were White, college educated. (No engineers though. Not a lot of Dem engineers.)

I have mixed feelings about space exploration. A moon colony is possibly economically viable and perhaps even a mars colony if a rotating beltway of cars were used in conjunction with the sling shot effect like this
http://www.sciencealert.com/meet-the-sp ... n-two-days

On the whole though just landing on Mars just to say we did seems frivolous. I think space exploration is crucial but perhaps we've nearly reached the limit of rocket technology.

[Martin Hash]

Dude: imagination, inspiration & adventure. (Talk about being cucked?)

[Alexander PhiAlipson]

We'll never get anywhere without the help of some back women doing all the hard work while remaining in the shadows.

[KerningChameleon]

I did my We-Need-To-Explore-Space pitch to some Dem Millennials the other day, and they were like, "no." I knew the Black component of the Party was anti-NASA but these were White, college educated. (No engineers though. Not a lot of Dem engineers.)

I have mixed feelings about space exploration. A moon colony is possibly economically viable and perhaps even a mars colony if a rotating beltway of cars were used in conjunction with the sling shot effect like this
http://www.sciencealert.com/meet-the-sp ... n-two-days

On the whole though just landing on Mars just to say we did seems frivolous. I think space exploration is crucial but perhaps we've nearly reached the limit of rocket technology.

Dude: imagination, inspiration & adventure. (Talk about being cucked?)

I'm inclined to agree with nuke on this one. Space colonial fiction is fun, but here in the real world we have hard limits called "the laws of physics". A lot of innovation in the past century or two was the result of finding new laws to exploit in our favor. Problem is, we need new laws of physics to make stuff like FTL and other such hand-wavy tech a possibility. And to find new ones now we'd have to discover exotic sub-sub-atomic particle shit and disprove the Standard Model. Despite whatever minor hiccups you may have read about, stuff like the LHC's findings have more or less been in line with what has been hypothesized regarding the SM's parameters. It actually would have been more optimistic if strong evidence for the existence of the Higgs Boson particle and its field weren't found, since that would invalidate a large assumption in the SM and make exotic phenomena more likely.

I mean, it's not completely hopeless: we did discover that weird ass time crystal shit. But a cursory examination of the articles seems to suggest that could be relevant for data storage technology development, not rocket propulsion. And even if it's physically possible to get human ass to mars (which with the sheer amount of time you'd need to spend in radioactive and micro-meteor rich space, I strongly question), we also have to solve the single biggest logistics problem humans have ever encountered in the real world. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I am saying it may not be necessarily feasible. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to get asteroid capture and mining going: all those metallic and rare earth resources with none of the messy pollution externalities? Yes please! But even the hardest to mine deposits on earth are still cheaper, easier, faster, safer and higher ROI than trying the same thing on an asteroid (unless we're talking at the bottom of the Marianas Trench or something). There's a reason the current "commercial space" ventures look more like vanity pet projects than serious business ventures.

Maybe that's final of the Great Filters: the aliens haven't visited because they're constrained to their own solar backyards too due to physical, logistic, and economic limitations.

Also, more cynically, NASA is mostly easy pork for quite a few Republican districts. As I understand it, the manufacture, assembly, testing, monitoring, and launching of NASA's equipment takes place more in Republican controlled districts than blue ones. It's the reason they have no problem salami slicing their budget when making "budget cuts!!!1!1!" but will never consider actually killing the program. Also, space programs (science and military in focus) are an easy source of national pride... and rocketry research and testing, heh. That's why, when he was taking a hatchet to so many "non-essential" government problems, Donald seemed to treat NASA like fine china. Guess you could call it the GOP sacred cow.

[Speaker to Animals]

If we mined just one rock -- Eros 433 -- we would collect more precious and rare metals than are available in the entire crust of planet Earth.

The Spanish Empire discovering the Americas and extracting all the gold available in Mesoamerica and the Andean regions was HUGE. It was a disruptive event that flooded Spain with massive amounts of gold and silver.

That was chicken shit compared to what would happen if we mined that one fucking rock.

[KerningChameleon]

If we mined just one rock -- Eros 433 -- we would collect more precious and rare metals than are available in the entire crust of planet Earth.

The Spanish Empire discovering the Americas and extracting all the gold available in Mesoamerica and the Andean regions was HUGE. It was a disruptive event that flooded Spain with massive amounts of gold and silver.

That was chicken shit compared to what would happen if we mined that one fucking rock.

I'm not the one you have to sell on this, I know that's all 100% true. But I'm not the one knocking around hundreds of billions of dollars, looking at the numbers, and thinking a modest expansion on some of my cobalt mines would be a more efficient use of my money than some "damn fool space cowboy fantasy". The SpaceXs are the abnormalities in the economic picture, not the rule. Short-term immediate payoff will almost always trump long-term profit seeking in these big corporations.

[Martin Hash]

Maybe Space cuckhood isn't just Dems?

[Speaker to Animals]

If we mined just one rock -- Eros 433 -- we would collect more precious and rare metals than are available in the entire crust of planet Earth.

The Spanish Empire discovering the Americas and extracting all the gold available in Mesoamerica and the Andean regions was HUGE. It was a disruptive event that flooded Spain with massive amounts of gold and silver.

That was chicken shit compared to what would happen if we mined that one fucking rock.

I'm not the one you have to sell on this, I know that's all 100% true. But I'm not the one knocking around hundreds of billions of dollars, looking at the numbers, and thinking a modest expansion on some of my cobalt mines would be a more efficient use of my money than some "damn fool space cowboy fantasy". The SpaceXs are the abnormalities in the economic picture, not the rule. Short-term immediate payoff will almost always trump long-term profit seeking in these big corporations.

A lot of people don't want to hear this, but the only viable way to get the fuck off warworld and develop space is via a fascistic alignment of corporations under the aegis of the American government. You have to use the resources and technologies available from all our high-tech corporations. They have to be organized and unified under one direction. You have to combine the capital of these corporations with the American treasury to bootstrap the economic development of space. From there, it should be able to fund itself to the detriment of the rest of the nations of the world as we slowly trickle in vast quantities of valuable resources, flooding markets, and almost overnight rendering entire national treasuries worthless as we flood gold and other precious metal markets to pay off our national debt.


Fascism in the past sucked. But I don't see how to solve this as Americans without doing something like that. China is going to do it similarly with their state-controlled quasi-capitalism organized under the aegis of the communist party.

He who mines that shit first wins.

[The Conservative]

Does anyone know when Dems lost their interest in Space exploration and why?

Yes. It was a while ago when it was decided our goals should be equality of all people before going to space.

I got a better idea, those that don't think they are being treated properly can go to the moon or Mars, then they can try their communist manifesto up there and see how well it works out... We will bail them out with life-giving products when they realize they screwed the pooch.

[BjornP]

A lot of people don't want to hear this, but the only viable way to get the fuck off warworld and develop space is via a fascistic alignment of corporations under the aegis of the American government. You have to use the resources and technologies available from all our high-tech corporations. They have to be organized and unified under one direction. You have to combine the capital of these corporations with the American treasury to bootstrap the economic development of space. From there, it should be able to fund itself to the detriment of the rest of the nations of the world as we slowly trickle in vast quantities of valuable resources, flooding markets, and almost overnight rendering entire national treasuries worthless as we flood gold and other precious metal markets to pay off our national debt.

Fascism in the past sucked. But I don't see how to solve this as Americans without doing something like that. China is going to do it similarly with their state-controlled quasi-capitalism organized under the aegis of the communist party.

He who mines that shit first wins.

And the US would "need" a "Benign Fascistic" government to do that? That's how you got to the Moon, is it? And you really want to take your lessons on how to organize your society from... China?

If US companies currently see no profit motive in going into the asteroid mining business, does your ideal Super-Government simply direct them to do so?