PC: "2001" technological level by 2001?

[TranscendentalMedication]

This may border on ASB territory, but would it be possible to have a level of technology resembling the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" by the year 2001? I realize that we actually have a great deal of the technology presented in the film that simply differs in appearance, I'm mostly concerned with the space travel/colonization aspects.

Bonus points if the P.O.D. is around/after 1968.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by TranscendentalMedication

This may border on ASB territory, but would it be possible to have a level of technology resembling the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" by the year 2001? I realize that we actually have a great deal of the technology presented in the film that simply differs in appearance, I'm mostly concerned with the space travel/colonization aspects.

Bonus points if the P.O.D. is around/after 1968.

We were seriously o nthe way, all it would have taken was for us to NOT quit.

If we had just kept the spending at "Apollo program" levels from 1969 to 1999 that would have done the job.

The thing is that the tech level in that film really wasn't that spectacular in hindsight and as you point out we have some of it right now.

[NothingNow]

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

We were seriously o nthe way, all it would have taken was for us to NOT quit.

If we had just kept the spending at "Apollo program" levels from 1969 to 1999 that would have done the job.

The thing is that the tech level in that film really wasn't that spectacular in hindsight and as you point out we have some of it right now.

We have the vast majority of it, aside from the Space capabilities and the ability to put humans into hibernation.
And HAL, but really, you could easily get away with not having a sophisticated AI on such a mission, indeed, a Macintosh 128K, (introduced in 1984) or Apple Lisa (introduced 1983) would be overkill for 90% of the mission's needs, while pretty much everything else (mostly needed to keep the crew sane on such a long trip) could be easily handled by a laserdisc player, a tv and a bunch of Tabletop RPG books.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by NothingNow

We have the vast majority of it, aside from the Space capabilities and the ability to put humans into hibernation.
And HAL, but really, you could easily get away with not having a sophisticated AI on such a mission, indeed, a Macintosh 128K, (introduced in 1984) or Apple Lisa (introduced 1983) would be overkill for 90% of the mission's needs, while pretty much everything else (mostly needed to keep the crew sane on such a long trip) could be easily handled by a laserdisc player, a tv and a bunch of Tabletop RPG books.

That's fair enough, the only thing they needed an A.I. for was so it could flip out and kill everybody.

As you point out al lthe real functions can be handled by tech we had 20 years ago.

After all, it isn't as if the computer needs to KNOW what is' doing, is it?

[NothingNow]

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

After all, it isn't as if the computer needs to KNOW what is' doing, is it?

Nope. It just needs to crunch some numbers, and that's it. It's also why one of the most advanced processors currently in use in space is a radiation hardened derivative of the IBM PowerPC 750, (the RAD750) better known as the PowerPC G3 (since pretty much everything else is massive overkill.) Incidentally, it was first released for sale in 2001 (but could be accelerated with more funding,) so if you wanted to, you could bring a Blueberry iBook G3 with you, helping to make the long annoying voyage a little better, since you now had porn and could bring some music along with you on a trip, while still having fairly up to date style.

And before you ask, no, iPods only came out in October 2001, so they're a no-go, but maybe on later missions, but an Apple MessagePad 2100 (discontinued in 1998 IOTL) could work just as well, and has a couple of PCMCIA type II Slots, so you could expand things fairly easily, including using IEEE 1394-1995 cards, which at the time would've been top of the line, and ideal for networking systems aboard ship, but not as good as IEEE 1394a, which is a bit more power efficient.

And of course, Ziggy Stardust would be among the albums included in such a mission.

EDIT:Along with Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, and maybe some Kraftwerk, along with Daft Punk (let's face it, Discovery is an awesome album for a space mission.)

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by NothingNow

Nope. It just needs to crunch some numbers, and that's it. It's also why one of the most advanced processors currently in use in space is a radiation hardened derivative of the IBM PowerPC 750, (the RAD750) better known as the PowerPC G3 (since pretty much everything else is massive overkill.) Incidentally, it was first released for sale in 2001 (but could be accelerated with more funding,) so if you wanted to, you could bring a Blueberry iBook G3 with you, helping to make the long annoying voyage a little better, since you now had porn and could bring some music along with you on a trip, while still having fairly up to date style.

And before you ask, no, iPods only came out in October 2001, so they're a no-go, but maybe on later missions, but an Apple MessagePad 2100 (discontinued in 1998 IOTL) could work just as well, and has a couple of PCMCIA type II Slots, so you could expand things fairly easily, including using IEEE 1394-1995 cards, which at the time would've been top of the line, and ideal for networking systems aboard ship, but not as good as IEEE 1394a, which is a bit more power efficient.

And of course, Ziggy Stardust would be among the albums included in such a mission.

EDIT:Along with Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, and maybe some Kraftwerk, along with Daft Punk (let's face it, Discovery is an awesome album for a space mission.)

Also "Albeido" by Jean Michelle Jarre.

[grdja83]

Have a miracle of human cooperation and end the war in Vietnam in '68 or '69. Somehow.

Getting HAL is actually cheaper than the space stuff. Its just one breakthrough, once we still don't have today and don't know is it even possible and how. You need two things. Real working and powerful electro-optic circuits. Say that in early '80es due to usual "Omg we can't push silicon further, Moore's law is doomed" and DARPA knowing to look ahead you get a huge government investment push to go beyond silicon and you end up with eletro optics somehow. Maybe add in space based zero gee labs providing some crucial breakthrough. There's the hardware.

For the AI part. Just like the book said. Have Minski and his team succeed major time and get self replicating neural networks that can learn in any situation and avoid all ANN traps IRL ANN systems are limited by.

Its a mathematical leap of genius that may or may not be possible. It could have maybe happened in 1980. and we could IRL happen to wait for it for next 100 years. Mathematics can be deceptive at times. Always remember "I have a truly marvelous proof of this conjecture, sadly the margins of this book are too narrow for me to write it down".

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by grdja83

Have a miracle of human cooperation and end the war in Vietnam in '68 or '69. Somehow.

Getting HAL is actually cheaper than the space stuff. Its just one breakthrough, once we still don't have today and don't know is it even possible and how. You need two things. Real working and powerful electro-optic circuits. Say that in early '80es due to usual "Omg we can't push silicon further, Moore's law is doomed" and DARPA knowing to look ahead you get a huge government investment push to go beyond silicon and you end up with eletro optics somehow. Maybe add in space based zero gee labs providing some crucial breakthrough. There's the hardware.

For the AI part. Just like the book said. Have Minski and his team succeed major time and get self replicating neural networks that can learn in any situation and avoid all ANN traps IRL ANN systems are limited by.

Its a mathematical leap of genius that may or may not be possible. It could have maybe happened in 1980. and we could IRL happen to wait for it for next 100 years. Mathematics can be deceptive at times. Always remember "I have a truly marvelous proof of this conjecture, sadly the margins of this book are too narrow for me to write it down".

Actually the only thing we need anAI for on the discovery mission is to go nuts for dramatic reasons and kill most of the crew. practically, a comp we had in the 90's could do the job.

[Faralis]

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

Actually the only thing we need anAI for on the discovery mission is to go nuts for dramatic reasons and kill most of the crew. practically, a comp we had in the 90's could do the job.

But, but ...


Dave, what are you doing?

[NothingNow]

Originally Posted by grdja83

Getting HAL is actually cheaper than the space stuff. Its just one breakthrough, once we still don't have today and don't know is it even possible and how. You need two things. Real working and powerful electro-optic circuits. Say that in early '80es due to usual "Omg we can't push silicon further, Moore's law is doomed" and DARPA knowing to look ahead you get a huge government investment push to go beyond silicon and you end up with eletro optics somehow. Maybe add in space based zero gee labs providing some crucial breakthrough. There's the hardware.

No it isn't. Electro-optical circuts require a hell of a lot more materials science knowledge than we had back in the 1980's, nor was there the fabricating capability to take advantage of such a system available (so it'd literally be technology just sitting on a shelf until the 90's.) Nor would it be fast or powerful enough to support anything, since realistically, the most powerful computer anybody would even consider sending on such a mission is at most in the 2 GFLOPS range, like a Cray-2.

Originally Posted by grdja83

For the AI part. Just like the book said. Have Minski and his team succeed major time and get self replicating neural networks that can learn in any situation and avoid all ANN traps IRL ANN systems are limited by.

Its a mathematical leap of genius that may or may not be possible. It could have maybe happened in 1980. and we could IRL happen to wait for it for next 100 years. Mathematics can be deceptive at times. Always remember "I have a truly marvelous proof of this conjecture, sadly the margins of this book are too narrow for me to write it down".

It's A) a useless piece of hardware for the mission, and B) the theories used in 2001 are very wrong, and rely on a set of assumptions regarding cognition that have no resemblance to what we know actually happens, and just leads down the path of Chinese Rooms and other parlor tricks, not a real AI.

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

Actually the only thing we need anAI for on the discovery mission is to go nuts for dramatic reasons and kill most of the crew. practically, a comp we had in the 90's could do the job.

Actually, a guy with a slide rule and a sheet of paper could do everything pretty easily, but he weighs more.

[RazeByFire]

They had SSTO Airliners to the Moon, IIRC. Love to see how that could happen by 2001 when we don't have it today.

[Faralis]

Originally Posted by RazeByFire

They had SSTO Airliners to the Moon, IIRC. Love to see how that could happen by 2001 when we don't have it today.

Nope they had SSTO Airliners to a Space Station orbiting Earth ... the tech today could probably exist if there was a little interest on it.

Also IIRC we only see the last art of the voyage so it could be perfectly a 2 stage launch like the Virgin SpaceShipOne, so it could be already done ...

[M79]

Westmoreland get permission to take the fight to North Vietnam in the days after Tet and we truly bomb them into submission. We support the corrupt SV regime but avoid lots of American dead. The Great Society is abandoned along with the massive wealth transfer in years after while the space program is boosted significantly. Russian rocket scientists collaborate following the death of Korolev and are allowed to pursue a more safe alternative to the N-1, Russia lands on the moon in 1972 and the US responds with a manned mission to Mars but is narrowly beaten by Russia in 1978. Permanent bases on the Moon and Mars are established shortly thereafter along with expeditions to find resources in the Asteroid Belt, the stagflation of the post-Vietnam era OTL is avoided with overall tech actually increased slightly such that 2001 has OTL tech 2004-5. Instead of HAL the mission to Jupiter uses supercomputers which might be difficult for average people to imagine in OTL while the astronauts play Grand Theft Auto III and Castlevania Symphony of the Night et al. for two years each way. Maybe a VASMIR system makes the trip only 8 months each way, or maybe we devise space tech beyond current visions in the process.

[Brady Kj]

Is a 1978 Mars mission plausible, even with abandoning the Great Society?

[NothingNow]

Originally Posted by Faralis

Nope they had SSTO Airliners to a Space Station orbiting Earth ... the tech today could probably exist if there was a little interest on it.

So, something like the Reaction Engines SABRE? Pretty much the only reason no-one developed the pre-cooler before now was that no-one really wanted a cheap SSTO system.

Originally Posted by Brady Kj

Is a 1978 Mars mission plausible, even with abandoning the Great Society?

Nope. You just have a bunch of dead astronauts in a can, while Great Society cut the poverty rate in half. It's the better investment.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by M79

Westmoreland get permission to take the fight to North Vietnam in the days after Tet and we truly bomb them into submission. We support the corrupt SV regime but avoid lots of American dead. The Great Society is abandoned along with the massive wealth transfer in years after while the space program is boosted significantly. Russian rocket scientists collaborate following the death of Korolev and are allowed to pursue a more safe alternative to the N-1, Russia lands on the moon in 1972 and the US responds with a manned mission to Mars but is narrowly beaten by Russia in 1978. Permanent bases on the Moon and Mars are established shortly thereafter along with expeditions to find resources in the Asteroid Belt, the stagflation of the post-Vietnam era OTL is avoided with overall tech actually increased slightly such that 2001 has OTL tech 2004-5. Instead of HAL the mission to Jupiter uses supercomputers which might be difficult for average people to imagine in OTL while the astronauts play Grand Theft Auto III and Castlevania Symphony of the Night et al. for two years each way. Maybe a VASMIR system makes the trip only 8 months each way, or maybe we devise space tech beyond current visions in the process.

M79, your post is riddled with so many misaprehensions about the 60's and 70's it is not even funny, let's take them one by one,

First, the war in VIetnam was unwinnable neither Saigon nor Washington had the slightest idea what they were doing or who they were fighting, or even why. In Washington the war was run by whiz kids and ad men who had no idea how to fight a genuine war and in Saigon the South Vietnamese governemnt, was so corrupt and fecklessly stupid that they were practically a collection of Sacha Baren Cohen charecters.

Winning that war, was just not going to happen.

Regarding the "Great society' and the alleged "Massive transfer of wealth" I hate to break it to you, friend but guns cost more than butter, they always have and they always will blaming the social programs for the reccesions and lack of money for NASA while at the same time urdging a massive ramp up of an unwinnable war, betrays a drastic ignorance of the reality that guns cost more than butter, and they always have and always will.

Third, the biggest opponents of space exploration and space development were, are and always will be conservative bean counters who did not and never would understand the future applications of the technology.

We waged an unwinnable war that cost us bilions of dollars per year for ten years at the cost of 56 thousand American lives on behalf of a wildly incompatent kleptocracy that Washington had no clue how to fight, and you have the temerity to blame the lack of a massive space boom on the reletive pittance that was spent on social programs?

Really now, dear fellow.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by NothingNow

So, something like the Reaction Engines SABRE? Pretty much the only reason no-one developed the pre-cooler before now was that no-one really wanted a cheap SSTO system.



Nope. You just have a bunch of dead astronauts in a can, while Great Society cut the poverty rate in half. It's the better investment.

Indeed it is, education and living standards go up, and this lifts social standards and technological standards and everything else with it.

It's called practicing an enlightened self interest.

Or as the Holy Bible says, "Cast thee loaves upon the waters, and they will return a hundred fold to the shore."

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by NothingNow

No it isn't. Electro-optical circuts require a hell of a lot more materials science knowledge than we had back in the 1980's, nor was there the fabricating capability to take advantage of such a system available (so it'd literally be technology just sitting on a shelf until the 90's.) Nor would it be fast or powerful enough to support anything, since realistically, the most powerful computer anybody would even consider sending on such a mission is at most in the 2 GFLOPS range, like a Cray-2.


It's A) a useless piece of hardware for the mission, and B) the theories used in 2001 are very wrong, and rely on a set of assumptions regarding cognition that have no resemblance to what we know actually happens, and just leads down the path of Chinese Rooms and other parlor tricks, not a real AI.



Actually, a guy with a slide rule and a sheet of paper could do everything pretty easily, but he weighs more.

Yeah, but the 90's era Computer can do deveral hundred different things at once while "Captain Rogers" makes notes about the neat space things.

[NothingNow]

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

Indeed it is, education and living standards go up, and this lifts social standards and technological standards and everything else with it.

It's called practicing an enlightened self interest.

Or as the Holy Bible says, "Cast thee loaves upon the waters, and they will return a hundred fold to the shore."

well, it's also a massively better investment than sending folks to Mars in a space capsule with radiation shielding that isn't really good enough for a long trip, (but worked well enough for a couple of weeks above the Van Allen Belts.) You'd have to seriously develop a completely different system of radiation shielding to make it work, while remaining light enough to be easily launched on extant rockets, and you'd need to build the whole ship in space, since you'd have to cary several months of supplies with you, and stage supplies along the way as well.

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

Yeah, but the 90's era Computer can do deveral hundred different things at once while "Captain Rogers" makes notes about the neat space things.

But you don't necessarily want it to hundreds of things at once, and a computer can't be an XO.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by NothingNow

well, it's also a massively better investment than sending folks to Mars in a space capsule with radiation shielding that isn't really good enough for a long trip, (but worked well enough for a couple of weeks above the Van Allen Belts.) You'd have to seriously develop a completely different system of radiation shielding to make it work, while remaining light enough to be easily launched on extant rockets, and you'd need to build the whole ship in space, since you'd have to cary several months of supplies with you, and stage supplies along the way as well.



But you don't necessarily want it to hundreds of things at once, and a computer can't be an XO.

Both fair points, switch me if they aren't.

As to the second, the comp doesn HAVE to do a hundred things at once, but would it be nice if the capability was there?

Better to have and not need and all, especially since by oh, say, 1995, the capability existed and for a negligable wieght penalty.