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Comment Re:rocket up and down video (Score 5, Informative) 167

The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=2Ivr6JF1K-8

This rocket (the Grasshopper RLV) is just a test article. It's a mass simulation of the first stage of a Falcon 9, which has been launched to orbit successfully 5 times in a row. The idea is to test and prove the re-usability concept on the Grasshopper RLV before adapting it to the first stage of the Falcon 9. They've only done small hops so far, but the plan is to continue launching the Grasshopper RLV with more and more fuel until it can replicate the trajectory of the Falcon 9's first stage and safely return, at which point they'd be ready to begin adapting the Falcon 9 first stage for a safe return and landing.

Comment Re:Nice work ... (Score 5, Insightful) 89

It's really a misnomer to call the space shuttle reusable. "Rebuildability" is more like it. The things had to spend months after each flight being torn apart and having every part inspected over and over and a big chunk of them replaced.
The key to economic space flight is full and rapid reusability. Payload launchers need to become as reusable as passenger aeroplanes for space flight to become routine.

Comment nope (Score 1) 59

Just another powerpoint rocket from Putinist Russia. Like Kliper, Parom, MAKS, Rus', etc, it'll never make it into production and service as long as the official policy towards Russian rocket scientists is "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

Comment Re:Obvious Answer (Score 2) 604

How thick are you? Pretty much all of Asimov's works dealt with how ambiguous and incomplete the three laws were and how many horrible failure modes fall well within the domain of an intelligent machine following them to the letter. That was a warning not to oversimplify AI and machine ethics in general, not a blueprint.

Comment Re:What's the half-life of non-aging humans? (Score 1) 813

For today's safety standards, yes. Once we recognise the fact that 150 thousand people ceasing to exist every day is, in effect, worse than any war or genocide we've ever witnessed and decide to do something about it, people just might live safer lives after realising practical immortality is within their grasp.

Take extreme sports as an example. I've weighed the utility of living another 80 odd years against the probability of hitting the ground at terminal velocity, and decided I should try parachuting. If several million/billion objective years of my mind running perhaps thousands of times faster than today were at stake? Not a chance.

Comment Re:Three answers (Score 1) 813

Serious answer: Long enough to see the last star in the observable universe burn out.

Half-serious answer: Forever, if it turns out to be physically possible.

Pure comedy answer: There's nothing comedic about ceasing to exist. I'd very much like to postpone it as far into the future as possible.

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