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There's a whole host of "impossible" things that have been achieved: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect

There's a whole host of "impossible" things that have been achieved: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions In 1957 Lee de Forest, father of the vacuum tube, deemed all space travel impossible - six months later, Sputnik orbited Earth. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KXhfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=my8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=3288,6595098&dq=all-that-constitutes-a-wild-dream-worthy-of-jules-verne&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KXhfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=my8M... Steam trains were deemed impossible, because people's heads would fall off at that speed. Finally: No Wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

yen223 10y ago
There's also a whole host of "impossible" things that haven't been achieved - time travel, faster-than-light travel, heck, even lunar colonization. Sometimes, you just have to wonder whether it's even possible to break our current understanding of physics.
- peckrob 10y ago
  > lunar colonization. The other things are impossible or might as well be, at least based on our current understanding of physics. The reason lunar colonization hasn't happened is not because it is impossible but because there's just no compelling reason for us to colonize the Moon yet. Nothing is preventing us from doing it other than not having a good reason to expend the capital and do the engineering work. If we find something on the Moon that we need and can't get on Earth, we'll colonize the Moon. Really, the only somewhat good reasons I've heard for doing it at all is as a test run for more ambitious things like Mars. Otherwise, the Moon is just a dead, almost completely airless worldlet that is not really all that interesting beyond scientific exploration.
  - thatsamoon 10y ago
    The moon is extremely interesting because it is seismically dead. Its core has cooled and solidified. This means we can create with existing technology all sorts of useful industrial structures hidden away below 500 miles of basalt. From that perspective, the moon offers a relatively cheap insurance policy for humanity. The moon could house hundreds of billions of humans, immense defensive weapon systems, and in uninteresting enough resource wise to be passed over by anyone else out there
    - peckrob 10y ago
      0. The Moon is not "seismically dead." 1. The Moon has not cooled and solidified. 2. We do not have existing technology to create massive underground Moon factories. It would be unbelievably difficult, even on Earth, to drill 500 miles into basalt, let alone doing so in mostly vacuum. This is not an unsolvable problem, mind you, but probably more difficult than you are thinking and definitely more difficult than burying some prefabricated modules beneath a few meters of lunar regolith. 3. There are about 7.3 billion humans alive right now. We have no (current) need to put hundreds of billions of humans anywhere. And the Moon could not support such a population even under the absolute best colonization schemes unless we genetically engineer humans to be smaller and use fewer resources. Again, not impossible, but not possible with current technology and may not be morally correct even if it was possible. 4. Why would we need weapons systems on the Moon? We currently have treaties against militarizing outer space. You're not seriously proposing that as a defense against alien invasion are you? If extraterrestrial life exists and possesses the technology to cross interstellar space and is belligerent, something tells me they would not have any problems defeating us even if we did bury ourselves under the Moon. Again, the Moon is simply not very interesting beyond a trial run for more complex colonization schemes for a place like Mars. If we do find some reason to colonize the Moon, we could do so fairly easily - probably within 10-25 years. IMHO, the biggest problem we would face is just getting stuff there to support people. I am very sympathetic to the insurance argument, but for different reasons. An asteroid/comet collision is much more likely to trigger the need for that than any alien invasion. But even then, depending on the size of the impact object, being on the Moon may not do us much good if the impact kicks up enough debris. But what you are proposing is pretty far beyond what we are currently capable of. Not impossible but certainly not easy or likely within the next century. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(natural_phenomenon)#Moonquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(natural_phenomenon)#Moo... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_structure_of_the_Moon#Core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_structure_of_the_Moon... [3] http://www.census.gov/popclock/ http://www.census.gov/popclock/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
      - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
        > We currently have treaties against militarizing outer space Note that the United States is effectively repealing its obligations under the OST [1]. It was a silly assumption to begin with. Where value be it will be gotten from. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2262/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2262...

yen223 10y ago

There's also a whole host of "impossible" things that haven't been achieved - time travel, faster-than-light travel, heck, even lunar colonization. Sometimes, you just have to wonder whether it's even possible to break our current understanding of physics.

peckrob 10y ago
> lunar colonization. The other things are impossible or might as well be, at least based on our current understanding of physics. The reason lunar colonization hasn't happened is not because it is impossible but because there's just no compelling reason for us to colonize the Moon yet. Nothing is preventing us from doing it other than not having a good reason to expend the capital and do the engineering work. If we find something on the Moon that we need and can't get on Earth, we'll colonize the Moon. Really, the only somewhat good reasons I've heard for doing it at all is as a test run for more ambitious things like Mars. Otherwise, the Moon is just a dead, almost completely airless worldlet that is not really all that interesting beyond scientific exploration.
- thatsamoon 10y ago
  The moon is extremely interesting because it is seismically dead. Its core has cooled and solidified. This means we can create with existing technology all sorts of useful industrial structures hidden away below 500 miles of basalt. From that perspective, the moon offers a relatively cheap insurance policy for humanity. The moon could house hundreds of billions of humans, immense defensive weapon systems, and in uninteresting enough resource wise to be passed over by anyone else out there
  - peckrob 10y ago
    0. The Moon is not "seismically dead." 1. The Moon has not cooled and solidified. 2. We do not have existing technology to create massive underground Moon factories. It would be unbelievably difficult, even on Earth, to drill 500 miles into basalt, let alone doing so in mostly vacuum. This is not an unsolvable problem, mind you, but probably more difficult than you are thinking and definitely more difficult than burying some prefabricated modules beneath a few meters of lunar regolith. 3. There are about 7.3 billion humans alive right now. We have no (current) need to put hundreds of billions of humans anywhere. And the Moon could not support such a population even under the absolute best colonization schemes unless we genetically engineer humans to be smaller and use fewer resources. Again, not impossible, but not possible with current technology and may not be morally correct even if it was possible. 4. Why would we need weapons systems on the Moon? We currently have treaties against militarizing outer space. You're not seriously proposing that as a defense against alien invasion are you? If extraterrestrial life exists and possesses the technology to cross interstellar space and is belligerent, something tells me they would not have any problems defeating us even if we did bury ourselves under the Moon. Again, the Moon is simply not very interesting beyond a trial run for more complex colonization schemes for a place like Mars. If we do find some reason to colonize the Moon, we could do so fairly easily - probably within 10-25 years. IMHO, the biggest problem we would face is just getting stuff there to support people. I am very sympathetic to the insurance argument, but for different reasons. An asteroid/comet collision is much more likely to trigger the need for that than any alien invasion. But even then, depending on the size of the impact object, being on the Moon may not do us much good if the impact kicks up enough debris. But what you are proposing is pretty far beyond what we are currently capable of. Not impossible but certainly not easy or likely within the next century. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(natural_phenomenon)#Moonquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(natural_phenomenon)#Moo... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_structure_of_the_Moon#Core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_structure_of_the_Moon... [3] http://www.census.gov/popclock/ http://www.census.gov/popclock/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      > We currently have treaties against militarizing outer space Note that the United States is effectively repealing its obligations under the OST [1]. It was a silly assumption to begin with. Where value be it will be gotten from. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2262/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2262...