Re: starship-design: Hi, from a newbie

[Toxicroach <toxicroach@swbell.net>]

That's precisly my point.  If and when we finally build a long term
spaceship, the computers are going to be so intergal to the ship as to be
indistinguishable.  They will not have autonomous computers like PC's... the
whole thing will be intergrated as to be a mash of small computers.  I'm not
a design experyt, but I think it would be wise to design the system to have
a flaw-tolerant system, by which I mean that there won't be a single
computer processor, or even a bank of them, that handles the mission
critical stuff.  All the processors, even the ones for the coffee maker,
would be able to pitch in and help. If some proccesors were to drop out (by
being flawed, damaged, sabotaged, or whatever) then the other chips could
pick up the slack. After all, one chip weighs about the same as another---
why not put as powerful a chip as possible in each position, and then make
an almost failsafe system.   After all, a dispersed system is far more hard
to seriously damage, and the computing power needed by the crew for consumer
needs is likely going to be neglible compared to the processing power of top
of the line mil spec chips that would be used in a spacecraft like that,
even for resource hogging stuff like games and audio-visual things.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>
Cc: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu <starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu>
Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 5:37 AM
Subject: Re: starship-design: Hi, from a newbie


>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