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by jiggawatts
1029 days ago
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He had me convinced until the list at the end. A lot of people confuse the different types of “impossible”: there is “impossible within NASA due to cultural/political reasons” versus “impossible because physical reality won’t allow it.” However, the general point made by the author is valid. Back at University I studied computer science, physics, and did a bunch of “small” courses in other fields. Very quickly I realised that wherever the cutting edge was in computing itself, the progress of digitisation of everything else was about two to three decades behind. Right now you can do amazing things by, say, 3D printing metal parts. That’s still rare in industry but is basically a superpower. You can use just about any alloy to make almost any shape! Part counts and labour can both be reduced enormously. I’ve never seen a 3D printed metal part in real life. I’ve flown on a plane with a printed part in its landing gear, but that’s it. The future is here, it’s just not very evenly distributed. |
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I don't say his calculations/estimations are wrong, but Mars not having magnetic field always seemed to me a no go for terraforming.
Even if at the end of the blog post, there is a comment linking an article on Nasa thinking of putting a magnet on L1 of Mars to protect it from solar winds : https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmo..., I don't buy it.