Space exploration

[dms1972]

As someone who grew up watching and enjoying the original Star Trek, Space 1999, the Martian Chronicles, Capricorn One and other sci fi TV shows, and was thrilled with real life manned rocket launches, from before my time like the Apollo launches, then read more recently the CS Lewis Cosmic Trilogy. I still find I cannot help admiring the early attempts for example to reach the moon, in terms of what calculations must have been involved, and the courage of the astronauts.

Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy in its first two parts, are cautionary tales in this regard, as the third part is a fictional working out of his short non-fiction work The Abolition of Man, so too in a lesser known essay called Religion and Rocketry he reflects on some of his earlier fictional musings in Out of the Silent Planet, and Perelandra.

On the one hand Lewis inveighs in mythic style against the the greed and hubris of Devine and Weston as they set forth for a second trip to Mars, this time abducting an old school pal, now Prof. called Ransom, for their own ends when they get there. But for Lewis the two antagonists have broken a celestial law, by going beyond the moon into the sphere of Mars, which as it happens, is not just inhabited by rational creatures but also ruled by a tutelary spirit. The result is a later in trilogy unexpected bringing of powers of deep heaven to Earth, and that basically means the antagonists get more than they bargained for.

Ok thats a very brief summary of Out of the Silent Planet.

In his later essay Lewis points out that sci-fi aside, we don't know if there are rational creatures anywhere except on Earth, and we do not know whether we shall ever know. He asks if there are and they have souls, then are they also, like us, fallen?

I am not aware if there are any other writer's besides Lewis to broach these sorts of questions, and that before the 1960s.

In AC Clarke's 2010 , the Discovery and its paranoid Mainframe HAL (apparently it got stuck in a H mobius loop when told to lie) is reactivated and the joint Soviet / American crew get excited that something is moving slowly on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa (by the way does our moon have a name?) The sequence when they send down a probe to film, is incredibly tense and in IMO its worth watching the film for this one scene - I won't spoil it.

Lewis thought the vast distances of space might be a kind of quarantine zone, to prevent spiritual infection from spreading.

In any case what do you think about exploration of the heavens. Is it too costly, how should it be funded? Is it breaking limits put on us by God? Personally I don't object to probes and such. And as I said the courage of the astronauts only draws my admiration - particularly the early missions.

 

[Ancient of Days]

I think when people are starving here on earth that they should not be throwing billions of dollars into the sky. Lets fix the problems here first, then go out exploring...

 

[Radagast]

I also love Lewis.

The moon is called "the moon." Sometimes "Luna." Even more rarely, "Selene."

 

[Radagast]

I think when people are starving here on earth that they should not be throwing billions of dollars into the sky. Lets fix the problems here first, then go out exploring...

Well, so far the space industry and all those satellites have helped with the other problems.

 

[Ancient of Days]

People need food and shelter.

 

[Radagast]

And, believe it or not, satellites help with the growing of food.

 

[High Fidelity]

People need food and shelter.

World hunger could be eradicated for a yearly sum equivalent to 15 days of U.S. defence spending.

It's not that we can't, it's that we won't. Broadly speaking, people simply don't care about things that don't affect them directly or indirectly.

The money is there; the will is not.

 

[cloudyday2]

World hunger could be eradicated for a yearly sum equivalent to 15 days of U.S. defence spending.

It's not that we can't, it's that we won't. Broadly speaking, people simply don't care about things that don't affect them directly or indirectly.

The money is there; the will is not.

I was watching a video that somebody posted which said that world hunger has already been greatly diminished through the efforts of the UN and various groups. I believe it mentioned birth control, vaccinations, etc. being very helpful.

Another factor in starvation is usually war. Often the armies steal the food that is donated, the farms are abandoned, and there are refugees.

The right sort of defense spending might help reduce starvation and poverty by reducing warfare. Historically the US has been the main supporter of international institutions meant to stabilize the post-WW2 world. I guess the American public has never been very enthusiastic about that job, and now we are too weak.

 

[cloudyday2]

I think we need to eliminate manned exploration, because unmanned can do more for less expense. It would be great if we can find microbes on another planet to see how the DNA compares to Earth DNA.

 

[Radagast]

World hunger could be eradicated for a yearly sum equivalent to 15 days of U.S. defence spending.

Not quite.

1. Wars cause hunger, and military spending is needed to stop wars.
2. Bad socialist governments cause hunger (Mao, Stalin, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc., etc.).
3. Lack of economic development causes hunger.
4. Bad information causes hunger, when people plant the wrong crops for the climate/terrain (and satellites help with this).
5. Even food donation can cause hunger, if it is done in a way which damages local agriculture.

 

[dms1972]

To cloudyday

Well yes I agree with you that unmanned is less costly and fewer risks humanly speaking. Personally I think it should be funded by business, or sponsorship, not governments, if it can be transparently done.

But as regards extra-terestrial DNA and the likelihood of 'pan-spermia' - it would be interesting to compare DNA but it would not tell us much, because they won't find anything conclusive. Pop science says human DNA is supposedly 50% shared with a banana! Well if you take a raw sequence, disregard chromasomal location, nearby genes, methylation, and a number of other factors that contribute to what a DNA sequence actually does, you can find maybe 25% similarity I read on a Snopes thread, and similiarity can be defined in a couple of ways.

However comparisons that indicate relatedness are much more complex than simply stating we share n% with this or that.

On the other hand the Bible says in Genesis Chapter 2:7 - God made Adam from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

I take that to mean this planet earth.

Why would life need to originate on another planet?


Why did God make man out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7)?

 

[dms1972]

Not quite.

1. Wars cause hunger, and military spending is needed to stop wars.
2. Bad socialist governments cause hunger (Mao, Stalin, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc., etc.).
3. Lack of economic development causes hunger.
4. Bad information causes hunger, when people plant the wrong crops for the climate/terrain (and satellites help with this).
5. Even food donation can cause hunger, if it is done in a way which damages local agriculture.

I agree with 2-5 but point one military spending is for what purpose, how does it stop wars?

 

[Radagast]

I agree with 2-5 but point one military spending is for what purpose, how does it stop wars?

The threat of US involvement in many cases stops wars from happening. Hence the phrase "Pax Americana."

 

[dms1972]

And, believe it or not, satellites help with the growing of food.

Can you tell us how they help and to what degree they help with the growing of food? I don't think we should have to just believe or not, that is to say if they do help in some way?

 

[dms1972]

The threat of US involvement in many cases stops wars from happening. Hence the phrase "Pax Americana."

Yes, well under the Marshall plan the US gave $14 Billion (= about 140 Billion today) to help rebuild the economy of Europe, after WW2. But the Pax Americana in its 20th century usage signifies mainly the peace between the great powers. Isn't much of the problem in famine afflicted countries exasperated by internal strife, which prevents aid getting distributed?

By the way SANSA - South African Space Science Centre monitor the weather for the whole of the continent of Africa, which I only just read about, so I suppose that is one way satelites help with food production.

 

[Radagast]

Can you tell us how they help and to what degree they help with the growing of food?

Satellite data provides information on soil moisture, climate, etc. and helps farmers to choose the best crops to plant, given the current and expected future conditions.

In less well-developed countries, it informs government campaigns on crop-planting choices.

 

[Radagast]

Isn't much of the problem in famine afflicted countries exasperated by internal strife, which prevents aid getting distributed?

Indeed. But in many places (especially in Asia) American or other Western influences have prevented, or shortened the length of, armed conflicts.

 

[Dawnhammer]

Hence the phrase "Pax Americana."

Another phrase springs to mind

Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

As for space exploration ; robotics is naturally cheaper and more efficient but it doesn’t fire our imagination and aspirations the way manned missions do.

Bit like watching robots breaking world records at hundred meter sprint ; or Spartans replaced by automatic sentry turret at Thermopylae mowing down the Persian hordes.

We need the human element in these endeavours.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Every year, storms & pests do more than $100 billion damage to crops in the US alone. I would guess that the figure exceeds $1 trillion / year worldwide.

In theory, space farms could grow 24/7/365 under idealized conditions without fear of storms or pests. Wouldn't even need insecticides.

Once they were up & running, bringing food back down would be as easy as landing a space shuttle or X-37B (with a full cargo bay) which I presume is not the expensive part.

Space would be great for solar power & agriculture.

But you would need to use far more than mere chemical propulsion to orbit millions of tons -- a space-city's worth -- of material. In theory, people could agree to use Nuclear Pulse Propulsion vehicles, from a neutral launch site like Antarctica, which might be sufficiently isolated, geographically as well as by circumpolar currents of air & ocean, to contain any fallout which did result. Launching from a site near Earth's magnetic (south) pole would also allow charged particles to escape without entering Earth's Van Allen radiation belts.

First generation designs could orbit 2 million tons in one launch. That's equivalent to 2000 Space-X launching years, all the way "from the Apostles to present".

15 minutes to the 41st century.

 

[Radagast]

In theory, people could agree to use Nuclear Pulse Propulsion vehicles, from a neutral launch site like Antarctica

I hope you're kidding.

Also, Antarctica is not "isolated," and people who live in the Southern Hemisphere (along with everybody who loves penguins) would object to such a plan.