AFAIK, it belonged to Samuel Clemens. It came from whoever gave it to him in 1893. And I don't think the Enterprise crew put it there; Clemens dropped it there.
I hear the word Mannheim, I think of this.
Biggest sci-fi tech disappointment
- Thread starter AlboOfBorg
- Start date
AFAIK, it belonged to Samuel Clemens. It came from whoever gave it to him in 1893. And I don't think the Enterprise crew put it there; Clemens dropped it there.
I hear the word Mannheim, I think of this.
It was a bit complicated to follow, but I believe Clemens original watch was destroyed mid way through the story -- in the temporal explosion?. He found (as a replacement) the one onboard the Enterprise that was discovered in the cave in 24-C beside Data's head. At the end of the programme, he returned to 19-C (with the watch) and left it in the cave, where it would be found 500 years later. So it has no origin. Its existence follows a loop in time, and is infinitely old, and should therefore have decomposed and not exist in any time
As someone who's researched for a while the possibilities of mining Hydrogen (to help in extracting Oxygen from regolith) on the moon I can tell you that mining 3He is unlikely to ever be viable. You'd need to mine absolutely huge amounts of surface area to get sufficient amounts of 3He.
The amount of energy necessary for that is huge (0.01 parts per million of regolith is 3He).
Given the amount of investment/energy input necessary to set up the infrastructure to support such an endeavor, we'd be much better of spending that money on resources available right here on earth.
There aren't any appreciable side benefits of mining lunar regolith either. For mining ores asteroids are a much better choice due to the lower gravity well. The moon also doesn't have any significant ores. The content of regolith is (relatively) homogeneous.
^ So what did you learn about the hydrogen? Is it cheaper to mine from the moon or ship up from Earth?
The point of extracting hydrogen was to assist in the recovery of oxygen to be used in a lunar base.
One of the easiest ways to extract oxygen from regolith is to pass a lot of hydrogen through it then using electrolysis. Given the inevitable losses in the process, supplementing the hydrogen with sources on the moon would be very nice.
Unfortunately given the minute quantities of hydrogen present in a given regolith sample, we deemed that unlikely to be viable.
We didn't get to any solid conclusions in time (we were after all only a couple of physics students basically tasked with reviewing literature, not to conduct extensive studies on our own, no budget for that). The principal questions remaining was whether it would make more sense to ship up some hydrogen to assist in extraction instead of getting the oxygen from earth directly.
Actually, I remember one year I got a flu shot that didn't use needles. It used something along the lines of a vacuum to open the pours of the skin, and push the medicine into the capillaries. Not sure why it didn't catch on, I thought it was cool!
No. Clemens' watch was never destroyed. He just dropped it in the cave, and the crew later found it. It's not on any kind of time loop.
Well, I wouldn't say it hasn't caught on. The device has been in use for almost 50 years. I'd assume it's not very common because it's more costly and complex than a regular needle, and doesn't really have that much of an advantage to it in most situations.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
As long you brought it up ... the mining of asteroids thing seems to be something that by itself would drive a new space program. I remember during the Perot campaign hearing that there was a platinum source out there in the belt that would completely change the wealth system for our planet once some country went out and started tapping it. It's fine to have pens that write upside down as a result of NASA, but gigatons of rare ore is a spinoff everybody can appreciate, and it'd probably trickle down some too.
The fact that SALVAGE ONE hasn't happened might be as big a disappointment to me as no common use of rocket belts, now that I think about it.
Platinum is used as the catalyst in high quality fuel cells, and is largely the reason why they are expensive. So finding a rich source of platinum could help with future transportation what with our current dependence on oil. Combining the technology with decent solar power arrays to electrolyse sea water into hydrogen, that would be happy outcome in my opinion. Solar technology is improving.
Most residential properties could provide their own power needs if their roof tops were covered in solar cells. The cost is high, and the typical life expectancy of panels is 25 years. But at present time with current fuel prices, it is actually break even to invest in solar power. If fuel prices go up, (inevitably) you will be saving in the long term.
It might actually be better to build up your solar array slowly, say spend £1000 on a 1kWh/day system, which can adequately power your house lights -- lighting circuits on distribution boxes/fuseboxes are normally separate from wall outlets anyway, so it'd easy to install.
Next year, you might get another panel and run your TV on that, via a separate adapter.
Next year, you get a third panel and run your kettle on that.
And so on.
Actually, if you get more panels than you need, you can sell the excess electricity you produce back to your electricity supplier. It is done - and most companies are happy to buy it. So if the price rises above break even costs, you hedge your investment this way and can ensure yourself a long term profit.
It just takes guts to make that kind of initial outlay.
Most residential properties could provide their own power needs if their roof tops were covered in solar cells. The cost is high, and the typical life expectancy of panels is 25 years. But at present time with current fuel prices, it is actually break even to invest in solar power. If fuel prices go up, (inevitably) you will be saving in the long term.
It might actually be better to build up your solar array slowly, say spend £1000 on a 1kWh/day system, which can adequately power your house lights -- lighting circuits on distribution boxes/fuseboxes are normally separate from wall outlets anyway, so it'd easy to install.
Next year, you might get another panel and run your TV on that, via a separate adapter.
Next year, you get a third panel and run your kettle on that.
And so on.
Actually, if you get more panels than you need, you can sell the excess electricity you produce back to your electricity supplier. It is done - and most companies are happy to buy it. So if the price rises above break even costs, you hedge your investment this way and can ensure yourself a long term profit.
It just takes guts to make that kind of initial outlay.
Maybe our disappointment should be reversed, why didn't any writers foresee that one coming further in advance?
I'm thinking more about advances that were supposed to alleviate great suffering, vat grown meat as suggested above, cures to everything. Perhaps its not a disappointment, more of a case of being born too early to catch them.
Laser pistols, robot suits and other tech that doesn't seem feasible in any way or has been surpassed by other technology that renders it useless.
I don't think we have come very far in respect of what computers can actually do in the last few years. Certain applications like video editing and so on have become more advanced in recent years because the power exists, but what about some sci-fi predictions?
I after all do not have sentient car like that in Knight Rider, I cannot communicate effectively verbally with my computer as characters in a lot of sci-fi can, my computer does not learn things.
It would be useful if my PC could talk and learn for sure, but it can't yet.
I want EVERYTHING that was on the Johnny Quest TV show...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTOze30SCA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTOze30SCA
