Stats on building the Death Star for real.
http://dvice.com/archives/2012/02/it-would-cost-8.phpAlso had a humorous little conversation on how to create a utopia, which I will quote here:
John on Feb 20, 2012 03:28 PM
shouldn't waste our time on the Death Star. instead build a couple star destroyer type ships, launch them into orbit, and we immediately win the space race. Then take all the prisoners in america's jail, build a colony on mars (think botany bay, in space) and put them all there, and that way we can shut down all prisons. problem solved and we have more money to go around. turn those prisons and jails into malls and other things so that people can have jobs. and anytime anyone commits a crime, put them in a cryofreeze container, put them on a ship and send them to mars. sooner or later, people will realize crime means off world exile, and then crime will be no more. It won't be utopia, but we'll have an idealized society that more or less goes how we want. not to mention that no nation would want to start a war with us, since we could just blow them off the face of the earth with a shot or two from a ships cannon. along the way create some sort of fighter craft type ships, like Ties or X-wings, or something a bit more sturdier that can withstand more then one or two shots. eventually create a space station, and colonize other planets, like the moon, jupiter and others, continuing to cordon off Mars as a penal colony......Venus too, just because A) it's all stormy, and B) the gravity there is bad. Eventually other countries will ask to join the US in space, we will eventually become a space faring world. and who knows what's next. hopefully not something along the lines of Firefly or B5. Reply
RJP on Feb 20, 2012 04:08 PM
You're scary!
MikeofLA on Feb 20, 2012 05:44 PM
A few problems here: at what level crime do people get launched off planet? Murder, Rape, breaking and entering, drug charges, car theft? Considering the cost to launch anything into space, it would be cheaper to coat them in gold and throw them in the ocean.
When the threat of death isn't enough to deter people from breaking the law, I doubt a trip to mars would change that.
There are lot more problems, but I don't have the space to address them, except these last three.
The moon is not a planet.
We could never colonize Jupiter. It is a highly radioactive, high pressure gas giant with no discernible surface to colonize. Here's a tid bit about a probe we sent there
"An atmospheric probe was released from the spacecraft in July 1995, entering the planet's atmosphere on December 7. It parachuted through 150 km of the atmosphere, collected data for 57.6 minutes, and was crushed by the pressure to which it was subjected by that time (about 22 times Earth normal, at a temperature of 153 °C).[97] It would have melted thereafter, and possibly vaporized"
Venus is a lot more than just "all stormy". It rains sulfuric acid that eats through steel and also, it's gravity is nearly identical to earths, it's atmospheric pressure on the other hand is 92 times higher.
John on Feb 20, 2012 08:05 PM
Rape, Murder, Drug, terrorism, and any other high profile type charges, which would include child porn, traffiking, molestation, and other things, including religious things of that nature.
maybe, but make it clear that the situation on mars is that they are dependent on us, they have an entire planet that is theirs, but they will not have any supplies that will enable them to build ships or anything to get them off planet. we won't have guards there either, so no way of hostage situations. the ship simply parks in orbit, and drops them down on the planet....haven't figured out how...either we develop one way transporters or we drop them via tether. if they get sick, then they get sick, we'll make it clear that they'll have basic (and I MEAN BASIC) medical supplies. Men and women will be on the same planet, so if children are born, they'll be born in squalor, no access to technology or anything. we drop supplies once a month, including clothing, food, and basic necessities, nothing that is useful technological.
Dan on Feb 21, 2012 04:09 AM
So you wan to have a colony like red fraction?
feralfreak on Feb 21, 2012 06:51 AM
i like the way you are thinking on both your posts, but i have one suggestion, castration before exile, dont let them have the ability to have kids, because if they can, they will, and that means any short eyes sent there will have helpless victims, and if that can be avoided it must be, and on a lesser reason they will have a hard enough time just providing for themselves, they dont need babies to feed
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