Comments on: Buzz kill

By: Bad Move Buzz, Science Fiction DOES NOT Make Space Boring | My Life in Bits and Bytes

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:45:21 +0000

[...] agree with my fellow space bloggers, such as Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, who points out that Buzz has his argument totally wrong. In fact, it is the precise opposite. [...]

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:37:51 +0000

Sturgeon’s Law

By: tim

tim — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:23:02 +0000

Counterpoint for Buzz: Paul Allen. He financed the first privately-funded human spaceflight, and he’s a huge scifi buff.

Buzz should know better – he’s been to Paul Allen’s Science Fiction Museum here in Seattle, and he was at the SpaceShipOne first flight.

By: quasidog

quasidog — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:22:41 +0000

This is all about point of view.

By: James Davis Nicoll

James Davis Nicoll — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:51:05 +0000

That Space:1999 idea sounds a little like something I once toyed with:

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/71718.html

In my version, they could turn the inertialess drive on and off and steer to some extent but because the leading edge would be polished smooth due to interactions with the interstellar medium, they have to wait until the Moon is oriented so that a part of the Moon that they don’t care about is pointed in the direction they want to do.

I hereby admit my version probably violates all kinds of conservation laws.

By: Elwood Herring

Elwood Herring — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:04:50 +0000

Gary 7: regarding flying cars, the idea had no chance of ever getting off the ground (pardon the pun) even if the cars themselves were cheap and efficient. The problem until now has always been sky management. You can’t simply let every loon who currently owns a driving licence take control of a potential guided missile. No, there has to be a solid failsafe infrastructure in place first, namely computer control of all vehicles via an accurate GPS system, which will keep all air traffic safe from collision from other vehicles, buildings and pedestrians. This is now just about possible, but it still requires a great deal of planning and financing.

Once we have all that, then maybe – maybe…

By: Michael L

Michael L — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:57:16 +0000

Gary, Moller recently stated that one of these things was going into production and would be available in 2010 I think. But, he’s been stating that for years. Personally, I wouldn’t touch one of those things with a ten foot pole! It’s bad enough that we have people driving our freeways text messaging, talking on the phone, surfing the net, and eating a cheeseburger all at the same time. Can you imagine what would happen if these people were flying around over our heads in these things?

Personally, I don’t see the point. I don’t think flying cars will ever catch on. ( How many times have those been someone’s famous last words!) Seriously, we don’t have the infrastructure. It would cause us to overhaul every major city, and how would you determine traffic routes? People would be flying all over the place?