zlacker

>>tablet+(OP)
Let's just imagine we're critiquing cars or planes in about 1910. They're so flawed. No one can say with certainty whether or how they will improve.

Side note of interest, from Wikipedia: "Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly" is an editorial published in the New York Times on October 9, 1903. The article incorrectly predicted it would take one to ten million years for humanity to develop an operating flying machine.

>>SKILNE+O21
Conversely, imagine we're someone talking about colonising the moon in 1969.

>>sudden+751
If we had funded that as much as we're currently funding AI I think it would have been a plausible goal. Keep in mind we cut more than half of NASA's budget after we first landed.

>>Dylan1+s91
I disagree.

>>sudden+ba1
The gap between spending multiple days somewhere and spending months somewhere isn't that big.

It was only six years to go from the first multi-person spacecraft and first spacewalk to the first space station.

>>Dylan1+3e1
>It was only six years to go from the first multi-person spacecraft and first spacewalk to the first space station.

Yeah that's my entire point, technological process doesn't have a constant rate of acceleration. Some advances are quickly made one after another and others lag and take a very long time.

>>sudden+kf1
How long do you think it would have taken to get a permanent moon presence if we kept up Apollo level funding indefinitely with that as the main goal? And since I only said "plausible", let's go with 80th-90th percentile best case scenario.

Even if technological progress stopped we could have launched enough parts to assemble a colony structure.

>>Dylan1+jh1
I'm not sure we would have one today. Maybe a token presence but definitely not the moon colony dreams of the 60s.

>>sudden+Oj1
A token colony is still a colony. If you meant a specific size I wish you had been more clear upfront.