Moontanman

Sounds like a job for a 100 megaton nuke.

I am rather fond of Sabine, she cuts through the gobbledygook and makes her field understandable. As a bonus she sings, often about science.

Rods from god? Not to be confused with "The Rod of God Ministries" What I am seeing is that a huge well armed, well armored with both passive and aggressive defences, nuclear powered platform might be viable. It could also carry fuel in very well armored storage and even make fuel with electricity provided by it's reactors, to fuel surface ships to extend their range.

Is slower than light warp drive possible? Maybe we are passing up a possibility that would open up the solar system without the negative mass required to go faster than light? I couldn't find much on the idea but Sabine Hossenfelder mentions it in this video at about 02:30. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/abdf6e

Let me if I understand you, you are saying that kinetic impactors cannot be defended against in a reasonable way? Are such kinetic impactors as effective against a target that moves? How much more powerful would a laser defence have to be that what we already have to defend against such a weapon?

If the results Dr. Nolan got can be replicated it will be difficult to dismiss this out of hand. It is puzzling that they don't just warp into orbit and simply say "we're here" but alien motivations may not be similar to ours. On the other hand we do communicate with ants and they don't seem to recognize it.

I watched "The Phenomenon" last night, I have to say it was the best UFO documentary I've seen. It blowed my former fav out of the water and then some. It had lots of footage of people who ere involved back in the day and other footage I had never seen. I thought I'd pretty much seen them all but this one resets the bar. It really too bad it's not on youtube so we could go through it by timestamp, lots of interesting things to discuss! I would ask anything here who wants to discuss the UFO subject to watch this video, really great stuff and relatively unbiased, "just the Facts ma'am" (vague TV reference, Dragnet"

The Zimbabwe school kids report is puzzling for sure, I've read attempts to explain it as mass hysteria or school kids fantasies but such explanations would seem to fall short so far. The Tic Tac is puzzling but it has an air of some sort of military test more than extraordinary technology to me. The 1952 Washington, DC sighting is, I think, one of the most inexplicable sightings and it also showcases the dishonesty of the military at the time in how they tried to explain it way with things like temperature inversions when in fact it had multiple independent eyewitnesses, multiple independent radars, Air Force pilots, interaction with air force jets, commercial jets, and even had the president demanding to know what was above the white house. The Coyne sighting as it is known was seen by the crew of a military helicopter and people on the ground and remains inexplicable as well. The Japan Airlines sighting over Alaska is yet another interesting sighting and is still debated today as to the particulars. Considerable disagreement over how the government reacted, differing accounts of the sighting, and a supposed cover up make this one interesting but also confusing.

Here is where most of my problems with the status quo come in. There have been some private studies by scientists but since the two main ones I am aware of suggested there is something to study at least but were dismissed out of hand by many in the scientific community due to the conclusion. Not as far as I or others have been able to show due to the evidence or lack thereof. J. Allen Hynek is probably the most famous scientist who supported the idea of extraordinary technology from place else. He started out as a debunker for the USAF but ended up, if not a believer, at least thinking something extraordinary was going on. Some members of the science community pretty much poo pooed the entire idea out of hand which I always thought was somewhat less than scientific. Many scientists from this group participated in ridiculing anyone who suggested otherwise. One study, The Condon Report, is thought by some to be the definitive study on UFOs but others cite problems with the methodology of the people involved, see Low Memo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condon_Committee Low memo controversy[edit] In July 1967, James E. McDonald, a confirmed believer in the validity of UFO sightings, learned from a Committee member about a memo Low had written on August 9, 1966, in which he reassured two University of Colorado administrators that they could expect the study to demonstrate that UFO observations had no basis in reality.[15] McDonald, after locating a copy of the memo in the project's open files, wrote to Condon, quoting a few lines from it.[2] In response to the memo, on April 30, 1968, NICAP severed its ties with the Committee and Keyhoe circulated copies of Low's memo. Press coverage included an article in the May 1968 issue of Look, "Flying Saucer Fiasco", that presented interviews with Saunders and Levine, detailed the controversy, and described the project as a "$500,000 trick."[16] Condon responded that the article contained "falsehoods and misrepresentations."[17] Scientific and technical journals reported the controversy.[18] Representative J. Edward Roush said the Look article raised "grave doubts as to the scientific profundity and objectivity of the project."[19] He held a hearing dominated by critics of the Project.[20] Low resigned from the Project in May 1968.[21] Some later critics of the Committee's work saw little reason to make much of the memo. Committee member David Saunders wrote that "to present Low as a plotter or conspirator is unfair and hardly accurate."[22] Project investigator Roy Craig's later wrote that the memo did not trouble him because Condon had not known of the Low memo for eighteen months and it did not reflect his views.[23] Condon wrote in the Project's Final Report that the memo's description of the Project as emphasizing the "psychology and sociology" of those who report UFO sightings showed how completely Low misunderstood the Project when he wrote the memo.[24] There have been scientists who supported the idea of UFOs as extraordinary and others who do not. My own take on this is that a unbiased scientific study has yet to be done.

A man boarded an airplane and took his seat. As he settled in, he glanced Up and saw the most beautiful woman boarding the plane. He soon realized She was heading straight towards his seat. As fate would have it, she took The seat right beside his. Eager to strike up a conversation he blurted out, “Business trip or pleasure?” She turned, smiled and said, “Business. I’m going to the Annual Nymphomaniacs of America Convention in Boston." He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen Sitting next to him, and she was going to a meeting of nymphomaniacs! Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked, “What’s your Business at this convention?” “Lecturer,” she responded. “I use information that I have learned from my Personal experiences to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality.” “Really?” he said. “And what kind of myths are there?” “Well,” she explained, “one popular myth is that African-American men are The most well-endowed of all men, when in fact it is the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is That Frenchmen are the best lovers, when actually it is men of Mexican Descent who are the best. I have also discovered that the lover with Absolutely the best stamina is the Southern Redneck.” Suddenly the woman became a little uncomfortable and blushed.. “I’m Sorry,” she said, “I shouldn't really be discussing all of this with you. I don’t Even know your name.” “Tonto,” the man said, “Tonto Gonzales, but my friends call me Bubba".

Ok, point taken, how about "within the realm of possibilities"?

Yes, travel times are more likely to be in several tens of thousands of years at much slower speeds. This is the basis for my own dog and pony show about aliens and planets but once humans begin to live in artificial habitats planets will not longer be necessary or even desirable. Star travel via slow moving habitats would result in colonising things like asteroid belts and kuiper belt objects or, if it exists, oort clouds for raw materials. Planets would no longer be needed and would only be objects of study, a life bearing planet might be interesting enough to study but colonising a planet might be avoided for many reasons.

Depends on what you mean by a reasonable time, the slow boat idea is still viable, in fact near light speed velocities brings on problems with encountering dust and even atoms. The destruction and radiation brought on by such encounters could very well make near light speed travel problematic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_studies_of_UFOs Category/Case Quality All Excellent Good Doubtful Poor Astronomical 22% 24% 23% 19% 23% Aircraft 22% 19% 22% 25% 16% Balloon 15% 12% 17% 17% 13% Light phenomena 2.2% .9% 2.4% 2.9% 1.1% Birds 1.0% 0.9% 1.0% 1.2% 0.7% Clouds, dust, etc. 0.4% 0% 1.0% 0.4% 0% Psychological 2.0% 0% 0.5% 3.3% 3.3% Other 5% 5% 5% 5% 6% Insufficient information 9% 4% 4% 14% 21% Unknown origin 22% 33% 25% 13% 17% I'm not that sure near light speed travel has been suggested or assumed here so far. Thank you.

Any chance you have a link to that documentary?

Very much not cost effective for amphibious landing support. Anything that homes in on radar can be confused by radar jamming and in a time of attack ships can also go radar silent (as can awacs). ABM's do exist and a battleship sized platform, possibly nuclear powered could be fitted with things like railguns, Lasers and other power hungry systems and could be fitted on a large ship and used to defend the Carrier group. While these systems can be mounted on smaller vessels they do demand huge amounts of power and ABMs would need a large magazine to hold multiple missiles. No, the new guns do not depend on the length of the barrel, the shells are self propelled please see the links in the OP.

I would think as a platform for shore bombardment, air defence, ABM, and anti ship missiles.

Not an independent AI but AI supplemented humans are portrayed.

A taste of armageddon was a good episode, it did show that possibility for sure. A battleship was once supposed to be used for fighting other ships but that seldom happened, only once or twice in WW2. Mostly they were used for shore bombardment and in that role battleships excelled but long range weapons now require them to be too far offshore to really be a threat. A big gun that is accurate out to as much as 120 miles (some reports indicate it's more like 250) would put them further out of danger and not endanger aircraft pilots. Increased accuracy would make this a devastating weapon while new close in defense weapons would allow the battleship to survive in modern ship to shore and ship to ship battles.

I would say you could be correct, the newest aircraft carriers do seem to be going in a direction that needs fewer men. But I haven't seen any huge shift towards those technologies in war ships. Can you provide some information on that?

Could the advent of long rage ramjet powered artillery shells, Laser point defense, nuclear power, and light weight armor as used in aircraft carriers be used to bring back the battleship? New technologies would seem to indicate that a powerful battleship platform could again be an important part of the Navy, the idea of either redeploying old battleships and or redesigning the old battleships has been around a long time but vulnerability to air power and missiles has always stopped the idea from fruition. New technologies could turn that around. This development might be part of this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)

Anyone else read this book? Vernor Vinge does a great job making you believe in an apocalypse brought about by a private contractor working for Livermore Labs. A great read, I'll discuss his premise if anyone is interested.