That is only 'where we need to be' if one can show valid business models that have profit in excess of expenses and fixed costs. Perhaps. But what if a commercial entity lands a rover on the moon that deploys a giant advertisement banner? The UN says its no one's land... It seems to me a space station at some Lagrange point would be more useful if there was something deeper that needed logistics, such as asteroid belt mining, or a Mars base. I would rather picture an O'Neill cylinder instead of Von Braun's wheel. The big wheel has obvious problems which has led to the kind of stations we have today. for example, the ISS has enormous area of solar panels. Where are the solar panels or power generation of the Wheel? The O'Neill requires millions of tons of construction material which would imply the PREVIOUS existence of a mining/railgun operation on the Moon. That's doable but copper is a rare element on the Moon as far as we know today, so electrical conductors of that scale and magnitude are a bit iffy. There are "high temperature" superconductors which are only a few degrees different than temps at lunar night, someone might figure out how to manufacture those locally. BACK TO THE ARTICLE. It says ... The Von Braun rotating space station will be the first commercial space construction project in history. It will be serviced by the SpaceX Starship and be designed to accommodate national space agency laboratories, billionaires who want to own property in space, and space tourists.For >30 years, the soviets with Soyuz have reliably, repeatedly been doing people into space. So there's zero new with that, and any space station doesn't need SpaceX. The two concepts don't link. |
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That is only 'where we need to be' if one can show valid business models that have profit in excess of expenses and fixed costs. I didn't mean that we need to be in space. I meant that if we are going to space in a big way - whether or not we need to be there - the above (or something similar) is where we need to be next. Are you trying to take all the fun and excitement out of life? Why not spend some of our wealth going to space? Not that I am against cleaning up this world, or against helping the poor or impoverished with out wealth.  The human race going in the directions of profit is not any different than plants going in the direction of sunlight, co2 and water. |
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.....The social cost would also probably be high though not as high as Europeans are going to pay. Heard one town in Colorado made it NOT illegal to defecate in public coz these people are pooping everywhere and they'll run out of prison space if they catch them all.
Mexican and South American immigrants are not the type of people that do that sort of stuff. Yes in Europe that may be true of your new North African immigrant hordes, but not here. Never. .... LOL, then that wall is just for show. Why jump over a wall if you can just walk around it.  Because they don't want to walk two miles in that dirt. And they know that once on the other side, it's 30 miles to the next town and 25 miles after that is the interior border check. |
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That is only 'where we need to be' if one can show valid business models that have profit in excess of expenses and fixed costs. |
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NASA now appears to want a Moon base, and they will want cargo and people delivered from/to regularly. I think SpaceX has a chance to make more profit doing that before venturing further. And they can take the time to refine their vehicle and ship doing those Moon missions before Mars.
NASA has really good designs for spacecraft that are Moon capable, both the transit and the lander etc. They exist. Some missions to the Moon are plausible. Mostly when you see these PR releases from NASA, you kind of have to understand how to read them. NASA is always fishing, throwing out ideas, trying to see what will interest the people and politicians and secure funding. However, last year Trump asked them to send the spacecraft with a couple guys out around the moon and back. They're on board with that, and this is really a huge thing. Money's always a problem with NASA, though. Politically it's very simple. Republicans are pro-space, Democrats are against space. After Trump gets a second term, you'll likely see some really cool stuff. SpaceX is certain to be involved, but they will not be the only player. Tourism is possible to the Moon as a business venture. Three to six months of training and two to four weeks on the Moon. It'd be expensive but possible. |
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Not from the US either so this might be a stupid question but: no Michelle Obama ?
I don't think politics was Michelle Obama's choice and I also don't think that as a mom, she would choose to put her children back there again. She wrote a well received book that I may get on Audible :-). ..... ....ghost written, you mean. Go back to her college thesis if you want to see her writing, or don't bother, just take my word for it it is quite tedious and boring. |
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....you WILL have schools poor students can't afford to go. yes or no?
We ALWAYS HAVE HAD such schools... I recall considering Harvard and rejecting making an app because of the cost. Cool. So you're ok for a system where your education don't depend on your abilities but on your parents wealth. Please tell me again how capitalism is great at making the most out of human abilities?  So now you are against private colleges? Except for a select few situations, I'm unable to connect any dots between capitalism and colleges. You are showing complete ignorance of how these systems work in the West. |
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I'm not familiar with the border part of the US but since I've seen border checkpoints and fences in movies and such, I'm assuming that there is some preexisting "wall". How much of the border with Mexico have at least a fence?
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I'd guess less than 10% had a serious wall, 90% nothing or maybe a simple wire fence or a 100 year old ranch fence. Some of those areas are very rough. One town I've been to, there's this nice 25' high fence made of 6x6 rectangular steel tubing on the border. But you look off in the distance, maybe a mile down you can see where it ends.... |
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SO you give a link to an article claiming a Harvard study proves tons of things about how illegal vote. Their source link is broken. Then I go to the CCES site and try to find such study by myself and find nothing but a raw data tab. .... here in the USA news stories about illegals voting are fairly common. These matters are investigated both at the state and federal level. Usually it's state compilations of fraud that are pretty accurate. |
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Someone blamed "the media" for those threats. No one has cited a single threat to those kids that was made by the media. Its the same logic as saying Trump was responsible for bombs at CNN.
The propaganda techniques of inciting violence by the media are well understood and this is a textbook example. As you should know, those techniques having been a major crutch of those who believe like you do. |
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Then your problem isn't the fraud but the voting system which is so stupid even a 5 years old would understand it's not a good one.
I mean you litteraly ask for people to just come in, sign a piece of paper then vote and you complain about frauds?? xD
The good thing though is that frauds are probably both ways.
Yes, our voting system is that stupid. It largely works for the benefit of Democrats, who are continually working to keep it that stupid. |
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They barely let citizens of color vote and TECSHARE thinks undocumented immigrants can just walk in and vote.
That's just another bald faced lie and you know it. And yes in many places they can do just walk in and vote. |
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Just FYI Mexican is not a race, it is a nationality. Or perhaps you want to tell me I am racist against Canadians again? The race of the individuals illegally crossing is irrelevant.
True, but there are "races" within Mexico. Get down to Meridia, pretty much Indian no hispanic influence seen. Not that our Canadian friend would have a clue of course... He probably thinks they are "brown people." |
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....you WILL have schools poor students can't afford to go. yes or no?
We ALWAYS HAVE HAD such schools... I recall considering Harvard and rejecting making an app because of the cost. Numerous other schools, too. And housing cost was a big part of it. duh.... The real problems with colleges are quite different than this piece of fake news, incidentally. It has to do with the way total college costs have zoomed out of sight, while, our friends in government made sure that the students could go on into debt accordingly. Feeding the monster. And the unlimited debt has encouraged colleges to increase costs. More reason for government funded tuition. Right, we should fix a problem created by government with .... more government. |
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....you WILL have schools poor students can't afford to go. yes or no?
We ALWAYS HAVE HAD such schools... I recall considering Harvard and rejecting making an app because of the cost. Numerous other schools, too. And housing cost was a big part of it. duh.... The real problems with colleges are quite different than this piece of fake news, incidentally. It has to do with the way total college costs have zoomed out of sight, while, our friends in government made sure that the students could go on into debt accordingly. Feeding the monster. And the unlimited debt has encouraged colleges to increase costs. |
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you have a link?
this guy is so disgusting....
MacAffee is very imperfect man, but he is brilliant and there is much to learn from him. How to live your life like you want - the main lesson from McAfee  His conceptualizations of the current drift of crypto, politics and computer security is dead on. |
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....USC is in south los angeles "south central" and that "ghetto" still costs well over 1100 for a 1 bedroom. ....
How about that. Ghettos are getting expensive too! And all those whining students that think they deserve to live in Hollywood! ....somehow I can't buy this victim mentality, sorry.... |
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Aren't Saudi oil money fueiling all parties in USA?
To an extent, but the firm anti-nuclear stand over decades of the American left not being rooted in any rational basis, one should look elsewhere for it's causation. |
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The majority of immigrants just fly in apparently. ...
The majority of immigrants of the type we are discussing come over the southern border and have never had a passport in their life. The are recently some refugees, such as from Syria, who also do not have passports, or even identity cards. Right. You know, I wonder if making labor-residencies more mainstream would help. America has lost a certain edge by not having a low-cost manufacturing/production sector. In Florida, (and many other places), farms are allowed to hire masses of immigrants at below minimum wage salaries and in exchange host and feed them. However this practice is much more limited than it could be. These farms, as I understand, lack transparency are full of unethical practices. I wonder just how difficult it would be to scale-up this system, regulate it, and provide a safety zone where they could work, get an education, and (they or their children) could fully immigrate after many years. Could this even work without inadvertently creating a caste system? What would be a controllable number of non-U.S. citizens? millions? 10s of millions? It is basically indentured servitude in practice, but actually, as long as they are not abused... It seems like a better idea than leaving good people stranded or letting immigration be such a free-for-all. You think very clearly. In a practical sense, there is no problem with the USA issuing "Work Visas" that do not lead to citizenship. Unfortunately, "nothing is what it seems." The entire dispute over immigration and allegation immigration in the USA is over the Democrat's desire to have more immigrants quickly become citizens because they believe these will largely be Democratic voters. It has nothing then to do with the welfare of the people, or the best interests of the country, only the power interest of a selfish political group. |
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