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PainterofCrap posted:The biggest barrier to space/Moon colonization is the lack of gravity and the effect on the human body, specifically calcium loss. Humans simply cannot survive in a low-gravity environment for very long and still return to a gravity environment. This is false, we only have data on 1g and 0g. A manned mission to mars would involve 500 day at martian g and a 0g travel time that has already been exceeded by astronauts on the ISS. The only obstacles to a manned returned mars mission are political. In any case centrifugal g is also a solved problem, you just have a tether between the ship and the spent upper stage booster and spin them.
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Dec 8, 2011 05:48
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froglet posted:Not trying to be a hysterical anti-nuclear person, but a few scientists have argued that if everyone uses nuclear the waste heat could warm up the atmosphere much like CO2 is now. The article also acknowledges there may be problems with current renewable technologies (particularly large-scale wind power installations). This is a bit silly, we would need to be using at least two orders of magnitude(!) more energy than we are now according to that article for there to be any appreciable warming from waste heat. That's comparable to the advancement from a pre-industrial society to now, those future humans have nothing to worry about.
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Feb 20, 2012 16:11
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4liters posted:It doesn't help when the media continues to give people like this a chance to air their views That newspaper (Border Mail) is from my home town, theres a running joke in the letters section about daylight savings ruining peoples curtains and drying up rivers. There are a lot of sceptics writing in though, with such gems as 'CO2 is plant food' and so on.
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Mar 20, 2012 05:15
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Nocturtle posted:As a VERY rough estimate supplying baseline power with mainly renewable sources would cost 4-5 times more than a nuclear system. This includes the cost of energy storage systems required to deal with the uneven production from renewable sources as well as modifications to the electrical grid. At what cost-multiple does renewable energy become viable, does it have to be exactly equal with nuclear in cost? Considering energy is 9% of the US GDP a five-fold increase in cost is not really viable. That book also doesn't deal with the intermittency aspect of renewables, Mackay basically leaves that as a problem that needs to be solved for his models to work. Also the cost of grid level storage is a complete unknown. Even in California there can be periods of 2 weeks with non-stop lower than average solar insolation - how do you store that much electricity?
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May 24, 2012 11:53
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