Kelly Weinersmith > Quotes

“YOU PROMISED ME MARS COLONIES, AND ALL I GOT WAS ALL OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE INDEXED AND AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE ON EARTH FOR FREE.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“The cheapest orbit available is LEO (Low Earth Orbit). People often think that "orbit" means there's no gravity. This is incorrect. In fact, the International Space Station (which is in LEO right now) is usually around 250 miles high and experiences about 90% of the gravity you experience on Earth. So why do the astronauts float around like there's no gravity? Although they are pulled toward the Earth all the time, they always "miss" it. Think of it like this: Imagine you fire a cannonball from the top of a tower. If you fire it softly, the ball will go a little ways then fall to the ground. If you fire it incredibly fast, it will just fly off into space. But between falling right down and going off into space, there are a lot of intermediate regimes. For a given height, there is some speed that is slow enough that it can't leave Earth, but fast enough that you'll never plop to the ground. If you were ridong that cannonball, you'd be falling, because gravity is tugging you down. At the same time, because you're going so fast, you'd be able to see Earth's curve. As you move from a point on the globe in a straight line, Earth curves down and away from you, increasing your distance from the surface. At this particular speed, you have two balanced effects: Gravity wants you down low, but your speed keeps you up high. So you just keep going around and around. You "orbit.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Or perhaps you’re familiar with ethanol, which is a chemical that can be metabolized into poor life choices.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Space is looking more promising every day. There's no political corruption on Mars, no war on the Moon, no juvenile jokes on Uranus.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“The Moon isn't just sort of a gray Sahara without air. Its surface is made of jagged, electrically charged microscopic glass and stone, which clings to pressure suits and landing vehicles. Nor is Mars just an off-world Death Valley—its soil is laden with toxic chemicals, and its thin carbonic atmosphere whips up worldwide dust storms that blot out the Sun for weeks at a time. And those are the good places to land.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“In a room full of animals, the gorilla may not be the wisest, but you probably want to know what’s on its mind.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“If you think about it, a room is just a box that keeps nature out and Internet in.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Why stop at seven margaritas when you can just print a new liver?”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“A quotation used in 99.9999 percent of all books about space settlement comes from rocketry founding father Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who wrote in a 1911 article, “The earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot forever live in the cradle.” Perhaps. But we should remember that what emerges from a cradle is not a full-grown adult, but a toddler—lacking in knowledge, very excited, and prone to self-destruction. If we do plan to leave this place, better to do so as an adult. Let’s spend the awkward years learning and then strike out for new vistas.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“That said, if we could build giant megalasers, there might be an additional bonus for rocketry. One group at Brown recently suggested that a powerful laser could be used to reduce air drag by as much as 95%. Imagine this: As you are being laser-blasted up, a second laser is being fired into the region ahead of you. This makes the air ahead of you less dense, so there’s less to bump into. Now your astronauts might get a little antsy, since they’re flying at well past the speed of sound with ultrapowerful lasers before and behind them, but you could solve this problem by just calling them cowards.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“The ability to create an object that fits nicely into an envelope, but which can then hop up and walk across the room, has applications ranging from military and security to creating a Dear John letter that gives the recipient a rude gesture.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“When hydrogen isotopes fuse, they become a different element—helium. This may seem weird, but it’s no weirder than how two pieces of bread make a new thing called a sandwich.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Although it’s hard to predict the future, it seems to us that if we’re so good at robotics and ecology that we can build a permanent bubble world for 1 million people on a distant oceanless planet, well, surely we can clean some carbon dioxide out of the air on Earth.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“We aren’t saying you should give up on the hope for a life off-world—that’s too pretty a dream to part with. What we are saying is that if you do want that dream, you have to see the challenges as they are—real, profound, and present at every level from molecules to sociology.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“Laziness [is] the mother of invention”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“When you put that liquid helium on the conductor, the wobble energy in the copper atoms is transferred to the helium atoms, which then fly away. Now your copper atoms are less wobbly and your electrons experience a lot less resistance. The colder they get, the easier it is for electrons to flow.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Dr. Noah Smith, economics columnist for Bloomberg View, tells us, “The real danger of the ‘rise of the robots’ is not that they’ll take all our jobs, but that they’ll cause continually increasing inequality.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Our impression talking to nongeeks is that while they realize space sucks, they have underestimated the scale of suckitude.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“If AR is ubiquitous, your perception of reality is hackable. And so are the perceptions of people and groups around you.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Did you know the first woman to step foot in a space station was “gifted” an apron and asked if she’d handle cooking and cleaning for the rest of her mission?”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“Idyllic views of the future always seem to come with the hidden assumption that human nature will change. That somehow, the flaws of mankind will just melt away amongst the awesomeness of living among the stars. People will abandon mundane flaws like booze and drugs, and also everyone will be super-efficient like some kind of environmentalist’s dream. But that’s never been the case as we march forward, so I don’t see why it would happen in the future.—Andy Weir, world famous sci-fi author who also writes really insightful commentary in books about booze in space”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“This sort of thing sometimes causes people undue distress, as in the recent MIT Technology Review cover, featuring moonwalker Buzz Aldrin with the headline “YOU PROMISED ME MARS COLONIES. INSTEAD I GOT FACEBOOK.” But, in fairness, a Mars colony would cost a few trillion dollars, while Facebook is free. And, it’s worth noting that the choice of Facebook is a bit crafty. Imagine if they’d picked Wikipedia: “YOU PROMISED ME MARS COLONIES, AND ALL I GOT WAS ALL OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE INDEXED AND AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE ON EARTH FOR FREE.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“Nature, red in tooth and claw, culls the inferior babies.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“In the following pages, we learn about spider bots on the Moon, baby making on Martian roller coasters, the number of humans needed to represent a viable breeding population, and also some weird stuff.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“The Miller Lab is just beginning to explore this technique, and it’ll be some time before we live in a world of plentiful livers with nice juicy veins. But it’s an important step toward a better tomorrow, where our children can drink twelve beers every night and only worry about the damage done to their friends and family.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Improve and/or Ruin Everything

“There’s no political corruption on Mars, no war on the Moon, no juvenile jokes on Uranus.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“C’est la vie dans l’espace.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“One fact of human psychology we found even in old polar exploration diaries was a deep concern with celebrations and with food. Crews on those monotonous trips often celebrated whatever holidays they could lay their hands on as an excuse to bring some novelty into the world.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“Bob has no title to Moon land. He’s just a guy saying stuff.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

“[Moonsylvania] was the cleverest state name we could come up with. Alternatives included North Dacrater, South Caroluna, and most regrettably, Regolithithippi.”
― Kelly Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?