A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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December 24, 2007Vinge what if no strong AIIn the course of writing one of his novels, Vinge's been thinking about the case of IF (unlikely, as he and I see it, but possible) IF strong AI turns out impossible. Also in that article, Vinge comes out against more manned space travel until we can contain its cost a bit. I think it's worth continuing manned space travel as a limited research activity just so we know which way is up when we can afford it for real. Engineering rewards the prepared. Posted by Jon Kay at December 24, 2007 03:10 AMComments
Engineering rewards the prepared. And cost reduction comes with economies of scope and scale. :-) And cost reduction comes with economies of scope and scale. :-) Yep. Makes you wonder what they were thinking with the Space Shuttle. "If we just make it very, very expensive and have a stupid design, we'll have tons of flights and it'll be very cheap at the end." Well, in part, I think NASA was hoping that by testing and experimenting, they could arrive at better solutions to be used in later designs. As far as lift-off problems, the booster design was not replaceable. In all cases, the limited quantity never would have lowered price in production costs. Not even the present size of Raptor orders would do that. In fact, as the limited number of orbitors aged, the up-keep becomes more expensive. I see NASA has taken a different course in designing the Mars Mission, but lets be fair; new concepts take lots of cash. I bet warp drive will cost trillions (in 2100 dollars...LOL). If the Airborne Laser ever reaches stated goals, the technology may well be worth the dollars. I wish we would spend the bucks however, on alternative energy. Posted by: Maxtrue at December 25, 2007 03:10 PM |
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