I second this! Project Hail Mary.
I genuinely think the audiobook is the best version of this book. There are things that work best in audio, I’ll avoid spoilers and leave it at that.
It’s the same reader that does the bobiverse books, and they’re pretty great.
It’s an impressive record, it’ll be hard to beat.
But then, they’re going to have to beat it somehow if they ever want starship to be human rated. There’s no crew escape system on that thing… So yeah.
None … I understand how video games work. You play them.
About 129 species of birds have become extinct since 1500,[1] and the rate of extinction seems to be increasing.
I don’t think he stomped on all of them…
Fuck birds. They had their chance 65 million years ago.
Plus they keep pooping on my car.
but maybe what we truly need is a universal software level architecture that can be used on various different CPU architectures providing maximum flexibility.
I think that’s called Java.
This is probably correct.
I mean, that’s all chip architectures are, so yes.
To that we say… Go fuck yourself?
I say just keep killing justices till they change it. I am condoning this.
Biden should pick her up as a running mate. So she’ll just automatically be president if Biden dies. You’ll see conservatives doing their level best to ensure Biden is in the best of health.
But, I don’t think space is going to be the thing that forces them, I think it will be some kind of major collapse.
Yeah, well I can’t predict the future, so of course I can’t say for sure. But I sure hope that we get to living in space before there’s some major collapse. I would like to see society not fall apart spectacularly. I guess that’s why I’m so hyped for reusable rockets, it’s a possible path to sustainability that doesn’t require a collapse, and that’s the future I want.
I think the best way to achieve sustainability is probably through simplification, rather than relying on technology of ever increasing complexity. … but simplify where possible
Well I mean, that’s what we’re doing right now, but it clearly isn’t enough. “Simplify where possible” is a good thought, but all too often people decide, no, it’s not possible right now. Given a choice, people tend to take the easier path, not the more responsible path. That’s the benefit of living in space, it takes that choice away
And if you want people to significantly simplify, well that’s a real uphill battle, especially if it’s more economical in the short term to do something else. I’m not saying that it’s wrong, but it’s an approach we’ve been trying since the 80s, and individuals, companies and governments all naturally push back against it.
Besides, even before we had all the tech we do now, we still couldn’t live sustainably. We hunted the mammoth and the giant ground sloths to extinction. We’ve been over fishing and over logging since we can remember. New need to figure out how to live sustainably, it never came naturally.
Again, I’m not against it, necessarily, but I think preserving this planet’s biosphere should absolutely be considered the priority. After all, the Earth is the only human supporting habitat known to exist in the universe.
I agree completely. But I’m also of the opinion that living in space is how we’ll develop those technologies we need to survive on earth, maybe it’s the only way.
The problem is that while we could develop those technologies on earth, we aren’t, not fast enough. But living in space would force us to develop those technologies, and that’s what we need. Solar power is a great example, photovoltaics were a very niche form of power generation, hardly utilized at all. But it was necessary in spacecrafts, it was the only thing that made sense (well, sometimes nuclear made sense too, but not my point). As a result, a lot of solar research and development was done by NASA and other contractors for the space program, and now we have panels in our roofs today. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and here’s why: bringing things to space is expensive, so it’s better to reuse, recycle, repurpose and repair whenever possible. Long term facilities in space will naturally want to reduce costs to a minimum whenever possible, and that means learning how to operate in a way that reuses and repurposes waste, rather than discarding it. All the CO2 generated, that can be reprocessed into useful carbon and vital oxygen. But it won’t stop there, we’ll want to repurpose every bit of waste we possibly can, creating totally closed-loop environments, the absolute pinnacle of sustainability.
And of course one of the great things about a closed loop environment is that it doesn’t pollute, it hardly effects the environment around it at all. And even with reusable rockets, anything we can build in space, will still be cheaper to build here on earth. And once we know how to live in a closed loop because space forced us to, we’ll have everything we need to do it here on earth because we want to.
Also we’ll be able to travel the solar system, so that’s super cool. Space is cool.
Well I don’t know what to tell you. Feel free to dream bigger?
A reusable rocket? It represents entering a new phase of humanity.
It’s a much more significant leap into space than the moon landing, because it greatly improves our access to space. If this thing works, if we end up with a working reusable rocket, it doesn’t just mean more satellites, or more astronauts, it means you and I can start going to space in our lifetime. It means people will start having jobs in space. It means we can finally start reaching out in a real way.
Somehow the Ferangi would manage to sell them photon torpedoes. They’d still fire at anyone who approached their island .
While I see the sarcasm, that statement is really pretty accurate. I mean, this rocket is probably the most important thing humans are doing right now. I can’t think of a higher priority project.
All without a single advancement in the technology, apparently.
What do you mean by that?
I would say there have been a great many advancements in technology. I mean, that’s what all these improvements are, right?
C’est la vie? Are you serious? Have you been in the US this last 20 years?
This country is too racist and too sexist for Harris to win… It’ll never happen, no matter how much money is pumped into her campaign, you can’t change the nature of the country, it’ll never happen.
I say this as a minority myself, this country sucks and it merely tolerates people who aren’t white men. Putting Harris on the Democratic ticket is a huge tactical error, I hate that fact, but it’s true.
If you want Harris to be president, reelect Biden and wait for him to resign due to health.