Hmm - but it's not the human brain doing it. It's <handwave><handwave><magic>.

-- mmm, no, I'd say that in the text it's rather obviously a physical effect mediated through brain circuitry, in the context of the books. The whole 'tone' is quite naturalistic-SFnal, whatever the marketing.

...If NASA'd stuck with the Saturn series derivatives ...

You can't beat German design.

Presumably they will; if the human brain (which is after all a material object) can do it, then a mechanical analogue should be more effective and much cheaper.

Hmm - but it's not the human brain doing it. It's <handwave><handwave><magic>.

I just had this vision of somebody coming up with a way for the human brain to do it - and the first test subjects falling dead as their skulls suddenly emptied...

Incidentally, Charlie deserves the good press he's getting for the "Family Trade" books. Really first-rate writing, IMHO.

Of course, he's going to have to do some real gymnastics in subsequent books, if the method of cross-temporal travel gets more widely available and costs fall. Presumably they will; if the human brain (which is after all a material object) can do it, then a mechanical analogue should be more effective and much cheaper.

One of the things _that_ would do is make the old-fashioned type of outright, blatant colonialism cost-effective again... in fact, it would make it more profitable than anything since the initial Cortez-Pizzaro gold rush, or at least the Clive-Hastings let's-loot-Bengal-bare period. I'll be interested to see how he avoids this.

(Developments in weapons and CIC technology may do that anywhat, but that's another story.)

I'm working on an alternate history right now in which we discover that Mars and Venus are habitable in the late 1950's. And in fact are inhabited, by humans (it's all an alien terraforming project). This has Age-of-Exploration implications too, tho' interplanetary distances impose limits.

Automobiles kill 30,000 people here yearly

Migod - and Bush hasn't bombed Detroit yet?

In a message dated 6/13/2005 9:52:38 AM Mountain Standard Time, qtopic+15-cysSFgyrHZf@quicktopic.com writes:

Steve, actually I'd characterise the Space Shuttle as a ghastly
design abomination that set manned space travel in the west back a generation.


-- you won't catch me defending NASA. I'm just not particularly shocked or put off by accidents.

Steve, actually I'd characterise the Space Shuttle as a ghastly design abomination that set manned space travel in the west back a generation. If NASA'd stuck with the Saturn series derivatives (and worked on, for example, the reusable first stage and extended upper stage designs) they'd have gotten a working system that scaled all the way from low-orbit space taxi up to putting a nuclear craft in Mars orbit -- with launch failure modes that don't kill the passengers. (The Russians were working along these lines when they ran out of money.) Even sticking with Titan/Gemini/MOL/DynaSoar/Lunar Gemini would have been an improvement.

The safety phobia thing gripping NASA is, I suspect, the product of the wrong ship doing the wrong job and operated by the wrong organization. It's like expecting the Air Force to operate a freight railroad using SUVs to pull the wagons.

Thanks, Yaaf! (Looks neat so far. Am still bolting together the detailed proposal for the next two books in the series ...)

If anyone's interested, I just saw what looks like cover art for Charlie's upcoming "The Clan Corporate" on http://www.paulyoull.com/PAGES/New4.htm.

(Based on the current discussion, I'm pretty sure I'm posting this in the wrong place, but damned if I can figure out where else to put it? Whatever.)

Railroads forced by ndeoluddite Vatican to maintain extremely low speed, in alternate history where Spanish Armada beats English Navy: Pavanne, Keith Roberts, 1968.

I went to Robert Fulton Elementary School in Brooklyn Heights, New York, with a lineal descendant of Robert Fulton.

"From the shoreline of the Hudson River, spectators witnessed a shocking sight. There in the river was a mechanical monster spewing flames and smoke. It was Mr. Fulton's Folly."

"Robert Fulton's first steamboat ushered in a new era of transportation and industrialization. The North River Steamboat of Clermont, later simply referred to as Clermont, was named after the early Dutch name for the Hudson River. Clermont was also the hometown of Fulton's partner and financier, Robert Livingston, prominent New York lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and former minister to France."

"Although often incorrectly credited with the invention of the steamboat, Robert Fulton did substantially improve on the work of many. Fulton's contribution was to cobble together and enhance previously invented components such the steam engine, boiler, and paddle wheel. The result: an engineering triumph - the first commercially successful steamboat. Although steam engines had powered textile mills since the late 1700s, the idea that a boat could be successfully propelled by anything but the wind met with the usual bone-headed skepticism that often greets technological innovation. Many believed Fulton's steamboat contrivance would simply blow up."

"Accompanying Fulton on that maiden voyage of the Clermont in August 1807, were forty stylishly dressed passengers, mostly friends and relatives of Livingston who had persuaded them to go on a little jaunt from New York to Albany. Later Fulton recalled, 'My friends were silent, sad and weary. I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my efforts.' [Research assistance by Ann H. Johnson. The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.]

Okay, so the Clermont blows up, New York bans such experimentation, Robert Livingston's widow persuades France to also ban the technology...

>If that bunch (and their lawyers) had been around 200 >years ago, steamboats and railways would have been
>crushed in their cradle.

That's interesting. Has anybody based an alternate history on such an idea?

It's an interesting exercise in cultural history to trace the growth of the idea that it's possible to have a failure-free environment, and that someone is culpably to blame every time something goes wrong.

If that bunch (and their lawyers) had been around 200 years ago, steamboats and railways would have been crushed in their cradle.

In a message dated 6/12/2005 9:11:56 PM Mountain Standard Time, qtopic+15-cysSFgyrHZf@quicktopic.com writes:

And the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia weren't completely safe, but were "good enough for government work".


-- yup; and, of course, _nothing_ is completely safe. Automobiles kill 30,000 people here yearly but I see little angst about it. The quest for complete safety is a fool's game; risk is part of life and eventually we all die.
Any highly-stressed experimental machine like the shuttle is going to fail sometimes; it's a cost of doing business. You orrect errors as well as possible, shrug, get on with things. Sh** happens.

In a message dated 6/12/2005 9:11:56 PM Mountain Standard Time, qtopic+15-cysSFgyrHZf@quicktopic.com writes:

As a 2-time elected Town Councilman


-- was there some meaning concealed in that message?

Right. The USA didn't win the war in Vietnam, but came enough for government work. And the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia weren't completely safe, but were "good enough for government work". As a 2-time elected Town Councilman, in an East Coast state and a West Coast state, I only 50% believe in Democracy.

In a message dated 6/11/2005 11:55:19 AM Mountain Standard Time, qtopic+15-cysSFgyrHZf@quicktopic.com writes:

Elections cannot, mathematically, be universally "fair" in any
case.


-- they're a compromise, but as the saying goes, "good enough for government work".