Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT 22-26 August 2011 (1996-2000)
questionablecontentfan:
--- Quote from: gangler on 30 Aug 2011, 13:58 ---
What I don't get is why an AI would want to look like a human. Soft, weak, bags of meat.
--- End quote ---
But ohhh so beautiful...in some cases.
Akima:
--- Quote from: Boradis on 30 Aug 2011, 13:47 ---Even if our economy was booming to the degree it was in the 50s/60s the reason we haven't gone back to the moon is right there in the design of the Saturn V. By my eyeball estimate it looks like 275 feet of fuel to send and return 10 feet of crew/cargo (I'm kind of handwaving over the LEM and Control Module).
--- End quote ---
I'm a numbers kind of girl, and the Saturn V had the capacity to lift 119000kg to Low Earth Orbit, or 4.9 times the Space Shuttle's capacity. Or to put it another way, you'd need five Shuttle launches to equal one Saturn V launch. I've found it pretty much impossible to find non-rubbery figures for the cost per launch of either Saturn V or Shuttle, so it is very hard to work out how the cost-to-orbit-per-kilogramme compares. There is a school of thought that argues that heavy lift capacity is actually a bad thing that would discourage space exploration in the long term, but I'm not so sure.
--- Quote from: Boradis on 26 Aug 2011, 14:41 ---Contrary to popular belief, NASA's budget isn't that large. It's been at or below one percent of total Federal expenditures (PDF file) since 1976. That doesn't help the public perception problem, but still.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton on 30 Aug 2011, 11:35 ---The thing is launching a single Saturn V which was, a DISPOSABLE rocket and launched 3 people in cramped conditions to the moon cost after inflation 1.11 Billion US Dollars.
--- End quote ---
Then US operations in Iraq and Afganistan cost something like ten Saturn V launches per month. It's all a matter of priorities.
Kugai:
Another factor in the turning away from the Lunar missions was what was going on in South-east Asia, and the events surrounding them. One wonders what might have happened had Kennedy not gotten murdered in Dallas and the events post that had not gone as they had.
Akima:
--- Quote from: Kugai on 30 Aug 2011, 17:20 ---Another factor in the turning away from the Lunar missions was what was going on in South-east Asia, and the events surrounding them. One wonders what might have happened had Kennedy not gotten murdered in Dallas and the events post that had not gone as they had.
--- End quote ---
Who know? But Kennedy was the president who said, after meeting Khrushchev in Vienna, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place", increased the number of US military personel in Vietnam from under 1000 to over 16000 before his death, and connived at the coup that toppled Ngo Dinh Diem, so probably not much would have been different. Kennedy was reluctant to commit US combat forces, resisting Robert McNamara's suggestion that six divisions be sent to Vietnam, but the coup pitched South Vietnam into chaos, reducing rather than enhancing its ability to resist, and had he lived St. Jack would have faced the same pressure that Johnson did to "raise or fold". I've never been able to buy into the "if Kennedy had lived, everything would have been different" school of US historical hagiography.
Method of Madness:
I think things would be pretty different if Kennedy had lived, but not that Kennedy. If RFK hadn't been assassinated, and went on to win the general election in 1968, I'm pretty sure that would've changed some things significantly.
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