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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Since the scientific community is responsible for the orbiting junkyard perhaps they should assume responsibility for its cleanup.
responsible in what way?
the scientific community was involved in the development of rocketry that lead to the orbiting junkyard, but you, the polity, voted in governments that funded both the military and civilian programs that launched that junk (along with some pretty good nuggets).
most of the science projects that fly in Earth orbit are de-orbitted after they complete their mission, so the scientific community has a good track record of keeping it clean.
the scientific community will be involved in finding a way to clean up the mess too, they are already an integral, important part of "space situational awareness." But think about what went into launching the satellites so important to your daily life, rick... without covering the externalities of how much the actual costs of a launch are, including the waste parts disposal (currently not charged).
it always seems to be the same message from you rick, you like to get, but you don't want to pay...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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it's not a military problem...
...it's the typical human problem where we seem to throw things out without realizing the consequences.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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HFCS
Feb 5, 2016 - 10:57am PT
60 Minutes not long ago did a piece on space junk and what it means to orbiting astronauts and stations - particularly if we pollute our orbit space (exponentially) with debris from satellite killers and other star wars weaponry. The prospect was very disheartening. Let's hope we can get / keep our act together and always prevent this from happening.
It was clear from the piece that the military (U.s., China) was actively engaged in anti-satellite counter measures r&d.
ok, I guess I totally misunderstood your post...
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Come on Ed lighten up. Just pulling your leg. I pay plenty of taxes willingly, even enthusiastically when I see it going to good causes like the space exploration programs as they used to be, or into actual r&d.
That picture illustrates the junk problem quite
well HFCS.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Talk about space junk- asteroid 2013 TX 68 could pass as close as 11,000 miles from Earth on March 5. It's orbit is highly uncertain though, according to Nasa.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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...it's the typical human problem
no it's not the typical, human problem.. could be the root of your argument though?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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HFCS: Healyje, I get your points (I think) and generally agree; and yet none of them keep us from creating and developing these "self-sustaining" artificial environments on our neighbors, eg, the moon and Mars, I don't think.
There are no 'self-sustaining artificial environments' and attempts at them to date have been abject failures due to a lack of understanding of the basic ecological cycles involved. The most interesting of these efforts is the work currently being done by the MELiSSA consortium (Ecosystem in a box).
I get the fact that we're nine-tenths non human dna, that our matrix is comprised of "alien" cells, etc.. So?
We only exist because of a fine balance between our human and non-human cells. This balance can be hard to maintain in modern societies with less-than-robust microbiomes / immune systems let alone attempt to maintain that balance in extended isolation or in the face of a foreign ecology. It's a basic design issue and is not 'fixable'.
I'd like to see us become a multiplanet species. I think it is totally within our technological capabilities.
It's not a technological problem, hence there are no technological 'solutions' to what I'm talking about. Again, it's an evolutionary problem and evolution is the reason why, when you try to put these two words together: 'multiplanet' and 'species', you end up with an oxymoron if you understand what that second word entails, means and implies.
Maybe try thinking of it as a 'tuning' problem - we, and all the other species on Earth, our exquisitely 'tuned' to our environments and ecologies. Or, another way of looking at it is, all complex organisms are inescapably local. As Dingus said, if you want to colonize other planets then better to do it bottom-up and send a smorgasbord of sporable or dehydratable species such as bacteria, fungi and tardigrades and wait a billion years or so.
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WBraun
climber
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"self-sustaining artificial environment."
Yes the insane scientist always want to play God by synthesizing what's already there naturally.
Since they have no real clue how the natural world really exists and is run they want to modify it and make it better because they keep fuking it up.
A nice natural self sustaining environment already exists.
Instead the mad gross materially infected modern scientists continually fuks it up ....
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WBraun
climber
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I'll be here while you happily live in your synthetic artificial world drooling on Mars.
You fuked this planet now you're crying to leave and go to Mars.
Get in your mechanical tube and launch yourself into your crazy artificial world so this planet can once again heal itself ....
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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He was Not an early bird to see the limits of his earlier prediction:
Gordon Moore in 2015 foresaw that the rate of progress would reach saturation
This slowing down is happening in more than computers. But
Rick Summers could easily spew a likely opposing belief:
"Soon we will see autos that get 1000 mpg". [his reason & evidence?] "Physics is in it's infancy."
??Crazy arguments
And More pours out of his head: if we reduce the friction enough, the energy in a gallon of gas can easily propel us 2000 miles.
And HFCS: wouldn't the 1000 mpg car be a case of pushing the envelope?
This thread is a lot of Science Fiction meeting some Friction!
And we see healyje spewing out his beliefs that humans are only suited to live on Earth as if his self conjured axioms of life were proven facts. Got any documentation for all this spewing?
And Now: We transmit our voice at the speed of light and soon we will be cruising near the speed of light.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Dingus' zeal for cynicism perfectly illustrates the loss of vision that has gripped the nation's of the west. It's much easier for us to cower with heads between legs kissing our sorry asses goodbye than to embrace the huge risks,difficulties, and commit of resources necessary for the advancement of the species. Oh well, wagons east to follow the Chinese century of accomplishment.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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...than to embrace the huge risks,difficulties, and commit of resources necessary for the advancement of the species.
interesting words, rick, but perhaps you can explain what the phrase "advancement of the species" means?
It seems quite clear that different part of that species believes in different forms of advancement, and all are pursuing their own agenda to that end.
It also seems that many of the challenges to the species exist because of the species, caused by the species and its behavior that has resulted in remaking the planet itself, an activity that has happened largely in the absence of any knowledge, and actually resistant to any such knowledge that would limit those activities.
What challenges does the species face? Who is judging the whether or not we're advanced and how quickly we should be advancing? How do we decide what resources to commit to what challenges?
I don't totally agree with Dingus, but it is important to be able to address the basic assumptions we bring to a discussion like this thread has evolved to, from the possibility of Earth-like planets in our home galaxy to the idea of humans colonizing those worlds.
If you subscribe to the notion that an all out R&D program should be engaged to colonize Mars, you have to balance the use of the resources against all the other things those resources could be used for... and if the notion is that Mars would be a "life boat" hedge against the collapse of the Earth's ability to sustain humans, why not spend the resources on understanding Earth and mitigating against any activities that would cause the collapse.
I have been inspired by human space flight, as I have been by human exploration in general. There are still many things to explore on Earth, but even as we do the exploration, doing it in such a way to preserve it seems so much more sane. Increasingly, we deploy remotely so as to lessen the effects we inevitably have when we tramp into a place.
The Nevada Test Site is an interesting lesson, you have not experienced that as the visits are limited, and that is the key. In spite of the fact that the site has been visited by the truly awesome force of nuclear explosives, those insults have largely disappeared. More importantly, keeping people off the site has preserved it. Humans it seems are more destructive than actually nuking the place.
As a species, as perhaps any species would, we exploit our environment for our own good. As a species we've been particularly adept in this, and the idea that this geological era is now termed the Anthropocene bears witness to our species' ubiquitous presence and the profound changes that presence has caused... to the point of changing the actual geological signal of our presence. It will be written in the very rock.
With that in mind, a very different sort of "advancement" might be proposed, one that takes us from our biological predilections to a more refined view of coexistence, and a recognition of our role in the workings of Earth's ecology. This sort of advancement is much more difficult than proposing some "Manhattan Project" crash program of R&D against some crisis. It is an advancement that displaces us from being the central concern on Earth to recognizing our part in a balanced system.
I am not so cynical as I am unconvinced that humans can to what is necessary to achieve this balance. And the consequences for not doing it seem to be severe. To waste resources on a plan to prepare for those consequences by "abandoning ship" seems to have already given in.
Odd to say that about you.
Not only that, but the prospect of "abandoning ship" in a vast ocean devoid of any favorable landfall seems not only ill fated, but bordering on insane delusion, a desperate act with little chance of succeeding. In my humble opinion.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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ED said if the notion is that Mars would be a "life boat" hedge against the collapse of the Earth's ability to sustain humans, why not spend the resources on understanding Earth and mitigating against any activities that would cause the collapse.
This is the point that pretty much shreds Hawkins. No matter how bad earth gets it will always be easier to live here than Mars.
Lifeboat is a dumb concept. Unless we find and then develop some technology that can travel to a planet much more like earth than Mars. Ie somewhere out there among the other stars.
The point of going to Mars is not for economic benefit or species survival. Its the intangibles, massive global inspiration, world team building and a collective identity that reduces the impulse of war...and if lucky, the hard to predict "who knows what but maybe tangibles" that make Mars a worthy goal. Doable..yes, I'm sure.. Real experts..people like Scott Kelly seem to be convinced it is doable. Actually worth it??.. tough to say for sure.
I do think we waste way more resources on much less valuable endeavors unfortunately.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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How many environmental organizations do you belong to Ed? Please name them, then refresh our memories of your job description with D.O.D. (your function a few years back anyway). You worked at Mud Lake and are rightly proud of the conservation of capital you showed in the construction of the Scroungeatron, or whatever you call it I don't remember exactly. Now you point out the short order resiliency of Earth to the absolute most destructive forces inside the atom to be unleashed by man , excluding the prescense of the individual viral components of mankind of course. But have you ever ventured out onto the Playa of Mud Lake Ed? If you had, you would not be proclaiming the pristine nature of the reserve.
Anyway I'm weaving around coherence here. What I'm getting at is the conflicted nature of your practice and beliefs. You know that there are billions of habitable planets in our galaxy alone, you know that the first step to eventual visitation by our species is colonization of our system, you know that the technologies required are, or soon will be with enough effort, available, you know that the long term viability of our expansionist species requires leaving the planet of our birth, but you are conflicted by this environmental Earth First narrative that surrounds you.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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And we see healyje spewing out his beliefs that humans are only suited to live on Earth as if his self conjured axioms of life were proven facts. Got any documentation for all this spewing?
Sure, it's all pretty much basic biology, genetics and evolution - which part aren't you getting?
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