From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sun Dec 19 1999 - 12:30:48 MST
In a message dated 12/19/99 12:07:17 PM Central Standard Time,
bradbury@www.aeiveos.com writes:
> Ok, group, we have a creative bunch out there. Lets come up with the
> "7 Nanomed Era Flirtations with Death"
> If you survive all 7, you win a free trip to the Mars colony.
Some suggestions:
1. Reentry Surfing. Definitely at the top of my list. Since I was a kid,
I've imagined all sorts of minimalist approaches to getting a single human
being from LEO to the surface. These have ranged from tiny little one-person
reentry gliders (imagine a lifting body the size of a single bed) to the most
daring, a "stand-on-it" surfboard, steered solely by shifting body position.
Imagine my delight when I discovered that some folks had actually put some
real engineering thought into this basic notion:
http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~mwade/craftfam/rescue.htm
Reentry Surfing might be coupled with:
2. Extreme Skydiving. You're not a member of the club unless your float
starts in a pressure suit.
3. Extreme Survivalism. I'd had this idea before I read Vinge's description
of it in "Across Realtime"; engaging in traditional outdoor recreation with
nothing but your know-how (and perhaps, in the "Augmented" class, some
internal body mods). This "sport" would basically consist of doing things
the old fashioned way, with no help from external technological aids dating
from after the Neolithic period. Extreme Survivalists might engage in an
around-the-world trek using only things you can make from naturally-occurring
materials, or a Cape Buffalo hunt using no metal, or climbing Everest with
only hand-made tools.
4. Real Combat. Accurate recreations of traditional means of warfare. No
quarter asked or given. Sort of a nano-Fight Club.
5. Extreme SCUBA. Forget Nitrox. We're talking Marianas Trench here. A
favorite pastime of Extreme Divers might be Ocean Rodeo, in which
participants ride whales on 1,000 meter soundings.
That leaves two more . . .
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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