Re:How SpaceX lands Starship (sort of)
by geocrasher on Thursday May 13, 2021 @08:53PM
(#27149369)
Indeed! After I posted I remembered the book "How to Invent Everything" which takes the case of a time traveler stuck in the past with a guide to invent civilization from scratch. It's a cool read:
Looks interesting, thanks for the recommendation. Another one is "The Toaster Project", about how a guy made (well, sort of) a toaster from scratch:
Bootstrapping civilization is a bit of a sub-thread in the three Zones Of Thought books by Vernor Vinge. Definitely my favourite SciFi books
Re:How SpaceX lands Starship (sort of)
by generalizations on Friday May 14, 2021 @12:02AM
(#27150552)
I got bored in the second one when I realized there wasn't going to be any space travel, but otherwise I agree.
Assuming you mean Children Of The Sky (second as in sequel to the first one published), that one actually deals with this topic (bootstrapping technological advancement) maybe more than the other two.
I assume you didn't mean A Deepness In The Sky (second published, but almost stand-alone, super interesting dealing with practicalities of interstellar civilization in a universe with real speed limits) or A Fire Upon The Deep (second in-universe timeline)
Re:How SpaceX lands Starship (sort of)
by generalizations on Friday May 14, 2021 @12:15PM
(#27155909)
I can't keep the titles straight, but yeah, I think it was Children Of The Sky. I just remember the story wandered away from scifi into political intrigue and didn't really move on from that.
There was also a lot of discussion about bootstrapping technological advancement in the first book published, which was interesting.
Clickspring more or less did this with his antikythera mechanism build
Bootstrapping a working metal workshop from first principles would require you to re-run a substantial part of history including the re-invention of lost processes. You'll also likely get killed because quite a few of those processes are anything but safe. Our modern days materials science is very hard-won knowledge, and there aren't a whole lot of shortcuts on that route even if you have the knowledge itself.