Re: starship-design: Hi, from a newbie

[Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>]

Toxicroach wrote:
> 
> Here's my previous post.
> 
> I think you're shooting very very low on the number of computers--- both of
> you.  I think computers would be so common
> as to not even be really noticed--- they would be beneath the horizon of the
> crews conscious thought. 

<snip>
I have two and 1/2 working computers here. 486,P150, and a 12/24 bit
computer I am building. I use instant coffee and my 
micro-wave is 100% mechanical - the way I like it. Hi-low-defrost
buttons,
rotary timer. Why because it is easy to use. Lets not forget hidden
computers
in TV's,Computer displays,VCR's and DVD's and Audio stuff. This is
consumer
electronics but not mission critical stuff.

Here is a nice (but fictional) computer display of say critical
information.
http://www.peachprincess.com/Merchant2/full/yessir.jpg
While this image is from a forth coming Adult game, I has a nice
feel to it for a console.
BTW http://www.peachprincess.com has some nice Adult games 
if you are over 18.

>  I believe this will be the driving motive behind
> any  interplanetary colonization--- the desire to
> escape the tyranny and bullshit of the old earth.  The great mass of people
> who  will be willing to uproot their lives and go
> millions of miles to someplace they most likely will never come back from
> will  not be the intellectual elite (for the most part),
> or the middle class.  The people who have nice, cushy lives will not want to
> go.  People trapped in the ghettos, or
> refugees from whatever new Taliban's that arise in the coming centuries, the
> religious weirdoes (UFO cults, the Hare
> Krishna perhaps, Southern Baptists :-), the outcasts, misfits, and science
> fiction fans will be the ones who fill out the ranks
> of colonization.  Or, in other words, mostly people who may or may not have
> a  high school education.
> Of course, there are certain technological advances that will be necessary
> for  mass colonization (and thus any sort of real
> colonization), the chief one being a way to get huge numbers of people to
> Mars  in under a year.

Thank GOD I got my Mars real-estate before the rush. :)
I agree. The problem is nobody wants to develop affordable
transportation.
Well I want to but $50 a month space cash just will not cut it.
I expect near space ( moon - earth orbit - L5 ) then Mars.
I favor a solar-plasma drive to MARS.
For the cost of fuel $10 ( methane/O2? ) is what it takes to
put a 1 lb into orbit is my guess. Assuming a factor of 5x for operating
costs
that peanuts compared to the cost of $200,000+ a lb now days.

>  Maybe real nuclear
> rockets, antimatter, laser propelled transports, who knows... but something
> that makes mass transport in space possible
> will be necessary, IMHO.  Most of a true colonization effort will not be
> flying  around in shuttlecraft--- it will be hard, very
> hard work, even with the assistance of robots and computers and all the high
> tech.  Some technical education will
> perhaps be required--- perhaps done one the way to Mars, or before.  People
> will have specific roles they are trained for,
> but it will not have to be a full understanding of all the issues involved,
> anymore than the computer on those cars that
> adjust for rainy weather has to understand meteorology to do it's job.

I agree. But who wants to get their hands dirty? Not the suits with the
$$$.

-- 
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html