end of scifi?

Discussion in 'SciFi & Fantasy' started by Gifted, Jan 16, 2003.

?

fund fiction to reality

  1. unconditional yes

    5 vote(s)
    50.0%
  2. conditional yes(please specify)

    4 vote(s)
    40.0%
  3. no

    1 vote(s)
    10.0%
  1. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,113
    Would you invest money in a company whose goal is to research and develop things like mass space travel and such? Please discuss.
     
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  3. Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,326
    Hell yeah!!

    I'd give my right arm for someone to develop AG car's or something

    Edit to add - AG = Anti-Gravity
     
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  5. Pollux V Ra Bless America Registered Senior Member

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    6,495
    I'd give them whatever I could spare as long as they gave me a date as to when the product would be developed and its implications. If they convinced me sufficiently I'd probably become a shareholder rather than a donater.
     
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  7. Hoth Registered Senior Member

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    383
    I wouldn't throw away my money. I see no reason to expect it to be profitable, and if it's not profitable it won't be done on any consistent basis. What's the point in developing mass space travel when nobody will use it?

    If I just wanted research, I'd give the money to NASA and let it be spent on probes and the like.
     
  8. spacemanspiff czar of things Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    823
    I wish i could make like a bijillion dollars and give it all to SETI or something like that. maybe NASA.

    you can't measure the worth of a new technology solely in how much money it would make. Better space travel would be great. From here to Mars in three hours! maybe that's a strecth, but it would be cool.
     
  9. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,113
    Land. There are no doubt millions of people who would pay thousands to go to another planet where they can get a couple hundred acres that they can call there very own. Most likely it would be free land, and then they woudl want to come home every once in a while to see relatives, and vice versa. Not to mention the profits of space-based industries.

    I dont' think SETI will ever give practical results, no matter how much money you pour in. To find aliens, you have to go looking.
     
  10. Hoth Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    383
    I'll sell you a couple hundred acres of the moon for a few thousand dollars. Deal? Thanks. Now, it'll only cost you millions to get to it and millions more to keep yourself alive in the one little corner of it you have a building over. And you can stare out at your land and know that not even bacteria can trespass onto your property, since nothing can live.

    You may not have noticed, but there are no habitable planets other than this one within a reasonable distance. Even if you could travel near the speed of light, few people would throw away everything for a one way trip to a place they can't really know if they'll survive (and considering the time dilation it would have to be a one way trip).

    Come to think of it, in the future this may be a popular way to get rid of undersirables. Convince them that they're going to a great new habitable planet, send them out at the speed of light, and by the time they find out what kind of miserable hunk of rock they're coming to it'll have been 400 years on Earth and you won't need to worry about them. A highly expensive alternative to murder, but maybe a government or two would find it useful as a legal loophole.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2003
  11. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    2,113
    Shipping costs would be about the same as to move across the Atlantic. These are some of the technologies that would be developed.

    Again, these are some of the technologies that would be developed.
     
  12. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    2,113
    It might be practical to establish penal colonies on the moon and Mars. Put them in capsules to land, drop the required supplies(until they become self-sufficient), and let them build the domes themselves. You have to worry about them escaping for a good while.
     
  13. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,447
    I would, on the condition that I see exactly what is done with my money, so they're not just wasting it on ivory toilet seats or something.
     
  14. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,113
    I forgot to mention, now that I read Xelios's post, that while you woul dbe able to see what's being done, the time scale would be indefinite for some things. Alot of the early profits would be made by patents on ideas that have other, more immediate uses(velcro, microwaves...)
     
  15. Hoth Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    383
    The magic price reducer machine? I see no reason to expect such technology. According to that kind of logic, planes have been around long enough and developed enough that moving across the atlantic should be about 10 cents by now. Doesn't work that way... anyone who wants to take my money because they say "I'll make the price of fuel and the price of material needed to withstand re-entry suddenly drop to almost nothing" is bound to be a con-man. As well you still haven't solved the fact that no one sane would want to be stuck on the moon where they can never go outside except in a suit, either. You'd only get vacationers.
     
  16. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,113
    You would also have miners, and people to serve the various appetites of the miners and tourists. Aside from these, the only people who would go would be people forced to go, liek the penal colonists I mentioned.
     

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