No, you're right.
Further assuming that 10% of the spacecraft weight is the tether, we have a 0.1kg/km tether capable of holding 5000kg. Nothing like that exists.
Nuclear weapons are bad
Missile defense reduces the need for nuclear disarmament
Working rocket defense might be seen as strengthening missile defense
Therefore, working rocket defense it bad
Therefore, Iron Dome doesn't work
Soon we'll have marketers pitching space-gapped machines, so even the acoustics are blocked.
"Danger: Malware Ahead!
Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on maglaunch.com.
Content from www.sfdt.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss, and permanent file deletion. Learn more"
Its by far the biggest, but by no means the only major one.
For example, links with malware can bring down any launch vehicle, including the one you linked to, according to google.
Exactly.
For every step of aviation history there was an economic or military justification. Sometimes advances were carried out for national ego justification (e.g. the Concorde), but without economic justification, it could not be sustained and technology reverted a step back.
Space is in the same position. There is economic justification for commercial satellites, but no economic justification for the manned space program (or for the unmanned science and exploration program, but don't tell anyone). That is why we haven't been to the moon again and that is why the ISS will eventually be deorbited.
The problems of space travel are real. It takes huge amount of energy and labour to get something into orbit, and even more to get a human there and keep him alive. And what do you get in return? NOTHING.
It happens to be an infeasible one. Colonizing the bottom of the bottom of the ocean is easier by far.
And the mammals did?
The dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't adapt to a changing environment. With technology and science, we're a lot more adaptable than any other animal. In fact you can find us everywhere on earth, as well as in space.
You're perfectly correct. And in fact cars and oil are cheaper (and do more) than horses. On the other hand terrestrial mining is cheaper than asteroid mining, which is why that is what we're doing.
If you think we'll make plastic gadgets out of hydrocarbons from Titan, you're wrong. No matter how much we improve space technology, it will always be insanely expensive compared to sucking oil out of a well, manufacturing a bit of plastic out of it, and loading it onto a ship for transport.
You're called DirtyLiar, so probably a troll. I'll make this short.
Just off the top of my head, some of those technologies include:
Do you like computers, cell-phones, or palm-tops? Computers were a direct result of needing near instantaneous calculations using data that would be unknown until the moment it was going to be used. The invention of both the transistor, and the computer chip can be traced back to the need to make components as compact and light as possible. As was their subsequent miniaturization.
Computers were invented in WWII. Transistors were invented in 1947. Integrated circuits were invented in 1949, but not used on the Saturn V.
How about the convenience of microwave ovens,
Available since 1947.
or freeze dried food?
WWII tech. I'll stop now.
I notice you selectively focused on the WWII part.
Sure, because that's generated a lot more technology than the space race. If you want something comparable to WWII, try the cold war.
As for the space race tech, yes a lot of that stuff came out of technologies developed by way of that.
Teflon and... ? and are you sure it wouldn't have come out of other research?
As for the rest, you are just showing you are another person who can find all sorts of reasons for not doing something, but you just rationalize things more than most.
Doing something usually means not doing something else. The manned space program sucks enormous amounts of money that could have been much better spent elsewhere. Can you compare the science return from Hubble, the Voyagers, the various Mars probe up to Curiousity, the Jupiter and Saturn orbiters, the various earth and sun observers, to the ISS? Even to Apollo? Do you realize the cost difference between those programs?
Boeing, Apple, MS, Intel didn't come out of nothing. They came out of a bunch of people doing something they thought was really cool, and generally pointless until a point was found later.
They either did that on their own dime, or that of people who believed in them. That meant they did it not because it was cool, but because they thought they could make money out of it. They were right and they did. If a space station is worthwhile, found a company and build it.
Guy like Gates and Woz weren't thinking "next multibillion dollar software company." They were thinking build something cool and they will come. All the original airplane makers started because they like flying.
No, they saw a business opportunity. No doubt they did it out of love as well, but if it was just that, they wouldn't have grown into such huge businesses.
I'll stick to my point of view. I'm tired of people telling me all the things that can't be done or shouldn't be done because of a lack of foresight and imagination.
It's lack of funding, mostly. If you can convince someone that you have the imagination and ability to build a space station they'll shower you in cash and wait patiently until the return you've foreseen appears.
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. -- E. Hubbard