Airbus A340
ACCESS: Confidential
- Joined
- 1 August 2020
- Messages
- 55
- Reaction score
- 64
The true believers cannot handle the truth. "Technology" is different ways to use energy. That's it, that's what it is. No energy, no technology, at least not tech worth posting about on the internet. "Money" is a call on energy. "Investment" is putting off energy use today so you can use more energy in the future. What happens when the stored sunlight accumulated over millions of years starts to run out? The true believers will tell us that the conventional view on oil is incorrect and that oil is made by (insert magical process that has no relationship to reality whatsoever) and that humanity can continue business as usual. (As an aside, ask Exxon or Shell what scientific models they use to predict where to find oil. They say that oil was made by sea creatures that inhabited shallow seas long ago. Why don't the abiotic oil people go to Shell and offer their services?) The true believers have no ability whatsoever to look back and see what has happened to aerospace over the last 50 years and see that fossil fuel price increases made aerospace an industry that cannot afford its future. As long as the labor, steel, aluminum, glass, plastic, etc. were all cheap the USAF could afford the century series and all kinds of false starts that never made it into service. Now, look at the programs. SSTs died not because of "tree huggers" "libruls" "commies" or whatever. They died because higher bypass turbofans made SSTs uncompetitive. The techno-worshippers will blame tree huggers, liberals, etc. but reality is that there is no money. The money is a call on energy that is not there. Some true believers will say that fusion etc. can save us but that deus ex machina is too unbelievable. It's easier just to retreat into Sci Fi Fan Fantasyland and say that the tree huggers, liberals, the UN, and the government are lying and that there are oceans of oil right under our feet and if the commies would just let us tap it, we could afford all tech. Instead the pinkos want humanity to suffer so they block access to unlimited energy that humanity needs to realize all the techno dreams. My favorite thing to hear from the true believers is "A buddy of mine worked in the shale and he says there's more oil there than we could ever drill." I think that buddy if theirs is qualified to be head of the US department of Energy unless they do away with that department in January.
The true believers look at the sigmoidal growth curve on tech and deny the flattening part at the top. That part of the graph only exists because of (insert hated political party and/or group of people here). They think the high slope regions can continue forever if we all just BELIEVE. In the end, they blame people who do not BELIEVE in tech for tech failing. "Technology" is failing for the same reason that a vehicle fails when it runs out of gas or a lightbulb fails when the juice runs out. Why is oil running out? According to the true believers it's because some of us believe it is running out. If we just put our FAITH that there is enough oil the oil will be there. "Rain follows the plow." This time there is no Corps of Engineers or Bureau of Reclamation to bail out the people who have faith that growth is forever. No Bureau of Oil is going to build a pipeline to take the oil to the gas station so they can fill up their SUVs and pickup trucks.
The Mars mission is unaffordable in a world with:
1. Everything I posted above and in the post I made before.
2. One Cat 5 hurricane a year instead of one occurring every 5-10 years.
3. Land sliding into the ocean.
4. The ocean rising and taking land and what is on it.
5. Horrific wildfires that burn homes, farms, and businesses.
6. Every rebuild caused by disasters costing more every year because the lower grade ores, lower grade forests, and lower grade quarries require more and more energy each year to turn out the same or lower quality building materials.
The engineers and scientists are desperately needed to fix real problems that actually exists here on Earth. Instead the true believers want to build these:
1. NFTs.
2. Crypto
3. AI
4. Supersonic airliners
5. Small Modular Reactors to power 1-3.
6. Spaceships so we can either do Star Trek or Star Wars someday.
What happens when we have so many problems on Earth we cannot solve them? Spending colossal resources so that a handful of people can leave Earth and try to start over on an inferior planet seems like the dumbest possible answer.
Cue the "Well I choose to be an optimist." The optimists can explain to us where all the minerals and energy to keep doing "technology" are going to come from.
If we cared about the future we would be preparing for a very different future. It's not the future that people who post on fora like this read about when we were kids and that drove us to go into science, engineering, or programming. We need to use our skills to make that future the best it can be. Mars is a no. SSTs are a no. Aerospace planes and SSTOs are not going to happen.
Having said all that, the technical aspects of a Mars mission are still interesting.
The true believers look at the sigmoidal growth curve on tech and deny the flattening part at the top. That part of the graph only exists because of (insert hated political party and/or group of people here). They think the high slope regions can continue forever if we all just BELIEVE. In the end, they blame people who do not BELIEVE in tech for tech failing. "Technology" is failing for the same reason that a vehicle fails when it runs out of gas or a lightbulb fails when the juice runs out. Why is oil running out? According to the true believers it's because some of us believe it is running out. If we just put our FAITH that there is enough oil the oil will be there. "Rain follows the plow." This time there is no Corps of Engineers or Bureau of Reclamation to bail out the people who have faith that growth is forever. No Bureau of Oil is going to build a pipeline to take the oil to the gas station so they can fill up their SUVs and pickup trucks.
The Mars mission is unaffordable in a world with:
1. Everything I posted above and in the post I made before.
2. One Cat 5 hurricane a year instead of one occurring every 5-10 years.
3. Land sliding into the ocean.
4. The ocean rising and taking land and what is on it.
5. Horrific wildfires that burn homes, farms, and businesses.
6. Every rebuild caused by disasters costing more every year because the lower grade ores, lower grade forests, and lower grade quarries require more and more energy each year to turn out the same or lower quality building materials.
The engineers and scientists are desperately needed to fix real problems that actually exists here on Earth. Instead the true believers want to build these:
1. NFTs.
2. Crypto
3. AI
4. Supersonic airliners
5. Small Modular Reactors to power 1-3.
6. Spaceships so we can either do Star Trek or Star Wars someday.
What happens when we have so many problems on Earth we cannot solve them? Spending colossal resources so that a handful of people can leave Earth and try to start over on an inferior planet seems like the dumbest possible answer.
Cue the "Well I choose to be an optimist." The optimists can explain to us where all the minerals and energy to keep doing "technology" are going to come from.
If we cared about the future we would be preparing for a very different future. It's not the future that people who post on fora like this read about when we were kids and that drove us to go into science, engineering, or programming. We need to use our skills to make that future the best it can be. Mars is a no. SSTs are a no. Aerospace planes and SSTOs are not going to happen.
Having said all that, the technical aspects of a Mars mission are still interesting.
