BLDGBLOG has an excellent in-depth interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, in which he discusses his attempts to redefine utopias, the ideological bankruptcy of primitivism, how rational design in architecture and technology is one of the crucial keys to surmounting the problems presented by our changing environment, and much more.
A brilliant interview with a brilliant thinker … and hosted on a brilliant blog. You may think you’re not really interested in architecture, but I think an exploration of BLDGBLOG‘s archive would prove you wrong. Go read. [Image from Wikipedia]
[tags]Kim Stanley Robinson, climate change, science fiction, interview[/tags]
That could be a disaster, much better to take that average cost of $450 million per shuttle launch and offer $450 billion to the first private company to launch someone to the space station by, say 2011.
Or better yet, for eye-catchiness, take the cost of 2 shuttle launches and round up slightly. $1 billion ought to turn heads, don’t you think?
Personally, I’d consider that a fair trade – I’m less scared of death itself than I am of dying, if you see what I mean. But is death itself unconquerable, or is it just the next hurdle in line?
Toshiba has announced a 200 kilowatt nuclear generator that can power a small block or large apartment building. At 20*6 feet large it can fit in a basement.
It’s designed, like pebble bed reactors, to not need mechanical parts to keep it safe.
This is a potentially disruptive piece of engineering. For one, it decentralizes power generation. It will allow power generation to be installed in remote locations throughout the world.
The Space Fellowship website notes that Russia is planning to set up an orbiting platform from which to stage manned missions to the moon and Mars.
“After 2020, Russia plans to create and put into orbit a near-Earth experimental manned complex to ensure transport operations to the Moon and Mars,” Anatoly Perminov said.
This has certain similarities to some original NASA lunar mission plans, which was to build up an infrastructure in orbit that would stage missions outwards, rather than launching the whole kit from the surface.
Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
BLDGBLOG has an excellent in-depth interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, in which he discusses his attempts to redefine utopias, the ideological bankruptcy of primitivism, how rational design in architecture and technology is one of the crucial keys to surmounting the problems presented by our changing environment, and much more. 