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There are plenty of simple, well-made machines designed to work indefinitely -- e.g. doorknobs, window assemblies. Even simple, robust, well-maintained machiner
by Tloewald 13y ago
There are plenty of simple, well-made machines designed to work indefinitely -- e.g. doorknobs, window assemblies. Even simple, robust, well-maintained machinery tends not to last a very long time. There's a stone bench somewhere that Thomas Jefferson supposedly used to sit on that has become curved over time.
- kjs3 13y agoI live in a mostly original (at the time I purchased it) 1950s home, and I can assure you that doorknobs and window assemblies do not last indefinitely.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y agoAre you seriously going with "a stone bench" as your example of the durability of "robust well-maintained machinery".
- rm445 13y agoI'm pretty sure he's taking the opposite view, that (a) building elements have indefinite design lives but don't last that long, and (b) Even stonework doesn't endure indefinitely. I'm not sure I really agree with the second point in this context - stonework tends to endure. We have Norman cathedrals that are looking good at nearly a thousand years old, comparable to the timescales under discussion to spaceflight. More to the point, there's no reason to believe that the basic structural elements of, say, a hollowed nickel-iron asteroid wouldn't be durable enough for spaceflight.