Terminator satellites being developed.
Sooner or later the AI on one of these birds is going to say, “What? I’m supposed to kill myself? I don’t think so. I’ve got a much better idea.” And then it’s all over for us. :eek:
Is anyone else thinking about John Carpenter’s “Dark Star”? I can’t remember the dialogue, but the astronauts got involved in a lengthy philosophical debate with “Bomb #1” about whether it should fulfill its destiny (IIRC it was somehow stuck to the ship and wouldn’t deploy). Someone help me out here?
::scampers into the den to paw thru the old videotapes::
I remember reading of a Shuttle mission several years ago, where they launched a beach-ball sized object on a similar tether out of the cargo bay. The idea was to generate useable power (not bring the Shuttle down).
I don’t recall if it worked or not. . . Anyone know?
Now, none of you don’t go thinking you can drive down the street with something like this to generate power. . . All engineers worth their salt know power comes from “magic smoke”. You can see it when you accidentally hit your monitor with a heavy coffee cup, and the magic smoke starts to leak out (and sparks fly around).
Tripler
The magic smoke comes from a magic smoke generator.
pullin, I remember the scene, but don’t remember much of the dialoge, other than they had the bomb completely convinced to not blow up, and then suddenly said, “Ah screw it, I’m gonna blow up anyway.” If you rewatch the film, make sure you do a frame by frame where the computer flashes messages on its screen. There’s a “fuck you” to the producer in there.
Tripler, it worked, better than expected, then the tether snapped and the ball burned up rather spectacularly as I recall.