Why?
What makes science theory become reality is funding. No Bucks = No Buck Rogers, and spending money on Star Trek esque fantasy should be left to Star Trek esque SF writers... Scientists should stick with science...
So let's keep all our money here on Earth? Dump the space program for example? Sure.... and if we had always thought that way, the moon would have a red flag on it, and people in the gulf coast wouldn't have known they were about to have a hurricane turn their home into shredded wheat. This guy working at his computer isn't keeping someone else from looking to solve the Bird flu problem.
I'm all for space exploration, but I don't think that Governments take the need for funding seriously enough... It was because of funding that the USA got to the moon first, although Russia did have a lot of firsts to boast of as well. First man in space, first woman in space, first orbital space station (Salyut), first EVA... When Jim Lovell peformed the first LOI, that turned the tables in terms of lunar exploration, but NASA took a hell of a gamble with this... Neil Armstrong landing on the moon obviously was the nail in the coffin, and the Russians gave up after that, because there was no point in paying exhorbitant amounts of money to come second in a race that was over...
Hell, most people are so disinterested in Space Exploration that they couldn't even tell you anything about the later missions without looking up the NET. Skylab was another magnificent achievement that hardly anyone knows anything about now... Before this, we never really had any reasonable data on the Sun... Most people operate under misconceptions that the first words said on the moon were "tranquility base here the eagle has landed." In actual fact they were "Engine Arm Off, Command Override off, 413 (to tell the AGS that the LEM was grounded) is in."
I don't much care wether the flags planted on the moon are red with a gold sickle and stars or red white and blue stripes. As long as someone is exploring space, I'm all for it and all power to them...
What I meant by that remark was that I see no profit or reason to waste money trying to break the laws of physics... There's real science to be investigated, but most people are far more interested in phasers and beam transporters and warp fields than they are in Pete Conrads pin point landing 200 yards from Surveyor 3 in Apollo 12...
You've got a point, and you obviously know your subject. I just think, as I said, that someone trying to push the envelope (obviously just my opinion of what he's doing. You're entitled to your own) a bit and trying to do something that someone else thinks is impossible is a good thing. Oh sure, he could be working on more immediate concerns, but I don't think that he's slowing progress too much. As for which flag sits on the moon, well, a flag is a piece of cloth. But I tend to think that the Soviets would have been more apt to militarize the whole thing. I mean, we put our own flag there, but at the same time, would the Soviets had said "We come in peace for all mankind"? Anyway, that whole thing is academic. Until I get that flux capacitor perfected, noone can go back and change anything anyway... 
You do know your subject pretty well, as I said.
HaHa.. If you get the old flux capacitor working, you've got to make sure you find a stylish motor car to put it in...
I've been fascinated with Apollo since I was four years old... I think it's the most amazing thing mankind has done since discovering fire! I've poured over all the mission transcripts, scoured the NET for photo, audio and video footage and technical schematics of the spacecraft and computers... I've got this great simulator
http://www.eaglelander3d.com of the LEM which is really just fantastic, and flght tested for realism by Gene Cernan, CDR Apollo 17!!! Passing through certain altitudes triggers recordings of the Commander and Lunar Module pilot to say the words they said at the time, so you really get a feel from the landing through their eyes. As you land the intrepid on the Ocean of Storms, Alan Bean actually shouts the read outs on the instrument pannels to you, and his "There it (the surveyor probe) is! Oh My God! Right down the Middle of the Road!"
Oddly enough, and this is something that a lot of people are surprised at, one of the main reasons the USA got there first was that in the end they were more willing to take risks than the Russians. Apollo 8 was only the second manned test flight of the Saturn V and they immediately went for Lunar Orbit. The British had a huge radio dish at the time, I think the only one available to the Russians capable of tracking an object to the moon, and used to press the Russians on when they were going to send a man up there. "When we can be 100% sure we'll get him back" was the response. In fairness too, the Russians were beset by several mishaps that seem pretty much to have been down to bad luck, and refusal to listen to expert advice on the part of the people in charge. No surprises there...
I do agree with the idea of pushing the envelope, but I guess I'm a doubting Thomas when it comes to ideas like faster than light travel and time travel. I do think the thread about terraforming Mars is interesting though. Although it would be a technological hurdle and a half, I don't see any physical laws against that one...
Topic: Van Den Broek's alcubierre metric variant warp space configuration (Read 48860 times)