PV Gap

Nellie Said:

Would you prefer to live in space or on a planet?

We Answered:

A planet with a blanket from radiation. In space you are usually fairly exposed and the long term effects of cosmic ray exposure are unknown, but no doubt quite devastating seeing as how they are more ionising than UV or X-rays. Also you're muscles atrophy in zero gravity (because you aren't using them very much). I don't think that a space-house would work logistically for these reasons.

Considering your sales pitch:
Okay, assuming that what O'Neill has proposed is completely possible theoretically, instead consider the logistics and engineering involved here, theory and practice are two rather unfriendly counterparts. For instance: the international space station which is miles less impressive than the O'Neill cylinder, cost 100 billion US dollars and has taken 30 years to get to where it is now. To not sound too much a like a pessimistic fart, considering the fact that technological development is exponential in many fields these days, I can imagine things will become easier and more feasible to do in the future (how much so, well I'm still pessimistic ;-) ). If however you want me to give up on my knowledge of practicalities for a second I'd say I'd rather plant my feet on a planet and vacation in that big old sphere.

Thanks for the link by the way, it is an interesting concept.

Jackie Said:

Philosophical question about Space...(long read)?

We Answered:

Since we're just playing with imaginary possibilities here, imagine what type of creature human beings would evolve into if life "IN SPACE" actually lasted for thousands of years. Our bones would become unnecessary and so would evolve into cartilage. We wouldn't need feet, but another set of hands to manipulate controls, so opposable great toes would return to our feet. We wouldn't need upright stature, so we would evolve into more squat round shapes which make it easier for the heart to pump blood in weightlessness. We wouldn't need any pigment, so everyone, including those who started this journey as blacks, would become whiter and whiter until all such human space voyagers looked like albinos. Hair would become useless and so we'd become even more hairless than we now are.

So, we'd have fat round squishy bodies that were very white, hairless, and smooth. Our arms and legs would be of equal length and both would have hands on their ends. Our male genitalia would become smaller but female genitalia would become larger due to the increasing girth of fat round babies. Well....you can carry this forward yourselves.....

But there is another problem: "mission creep." We know from vast experience that colonies of humans which lose contact and control from a home base develop their own internal dominance hierarchies over time. A ship's crew will become a microcosm of society and its leader will become the representative of all earthly and possibly "divine" power. Changes to the original mission are inevitable at this point and become increasingly unpredictable with time. Sooo...while short missions, such as to the moon or mars are still controllable, long missions taking thousands of years will not be controllable from Earth.

Knowing of this tendency toward "mission creep," our Earthly leaders will only be able to send out human colonists into space as a tree drops its seeds...with no foreknowledge where they will fall or what the conditions of their survival will be. Therefore, any truly intelligent approach to space colonization will simply recruit, train, and equip human teams to leave the Earth, never to return and to make the best they can of their future. Many of these teams will be lost in space, but maybe, one or two will find habitable planets somewhere. That's the best we can hope for, I suspect.

Joseph Said:

Space theme for term project?

We Answered:

Start small. Get bigger in sequence. Use analogies for size.

Look no further than "Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?" by Robert E. Wells. A brilliantly thought-out, visually clever guide to size. Beginning with a blue whale's flukes ("the 'flipper' parts of the tail, all by themselves bigger than most of Earth's creatures"), he compares the relative sizes of Mount Everest (20 giant jars filled with 100 blue whales each), the earth, the sun, the Milky Way, all the way to the entire universe.

Kids LOVE this book. It is just what you need.

Vera Said:

here's my epcot idea?

We Answered:

Pretty good, except that you need to keep the Land pavilion because it is where Soarin' is. You could remove the boat ride in the land and the Timon and Pumbaa environmental movie for the coaster. Scrap the Stich's Great Escape for kids idea. Nobody even likes the original. Also, try thinking of another ride to replace the Three Caballeros because that ride is really boring and needs to be removed badly. It's a Small World needs to stay in Magic Kingdom. Try doing something to Journey Into Imagination With Figment because that ride is not very popular. Everything else is great!

Leon Said:

if tomorrow, NASA announced a mission to deep space and needed 1000 volunteers for the ship, would you go?

We Answered:

if my kids were grown....in a heartbeat

Mattie Said:

Need help with an 80's tv show title about space?

We Answered:

Its called StarGazer the host is Jack Horkheimer (not sure if I spelled that right) its still on PBS late at night around midnight or 1 oclock in the morning

Nelson Said:

Escaping Earths gravity with a rail gun like device?

We Answered:

Sure in theory that could work, but do you know how difficult that would be to make. If you talking like hundreds of years in the future, then sure it's possible but currently we have a lot of problems with rail guns (like the components get hot so quickly that they break after a few shots and then need to be replaced). This is a book so go for it, because it is possible (anything is possible) but at the moment we definitely don't have the technology to do that. You could also try ideas involving solar power, nuclear reactors on the space ships themselves (like nuclear submarines), or just really large and more efficient rockets. If this is the future, they should have more fuel efficient and powerful rockets right? If they can make a huge rail gun to launch a space ship, they should be able to build better rockets. Well good luck with the novel.