91–100 of 133 posts
Martian sunset at 1:50 is based on an actual photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_rover#mediaviewer/File:Ma... See also gallery here: http://www.erikwernquist.com/wanderers/gallery.html
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It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
You seem to not realize those are problems for us, human virus, and not the planet problems. Those so called problems are natures way of trying to balance things. If you cut hunger and make a breakthrough in healthcare you will immediately accelerate population growth, and in effect accelerate pollution and energy use. Earth is unsustainable in the long run. No one is willing to accept euthanasia, birth limits, basic…
Pedantry aside, factors that contribute to Terra's apparent lack of long term sustainability are easy to spot, and there are plenty of options to try before having to resort to birth limits, euthanasia etc.
Insufficient reproductive education, lack of birth control, local scarcity through international inequality (i.e. exploitation), patterns of use and consumption, low food production efficiency, pollution from energy usage (non-alternative forms) and population density/distribution are all things that can be altered, upon which the constraints of viability rests.
Of course, none of these would be particularly easy to change, but I suspect many of us would find attempting to do so preferable to the alternatives.
Wow; that was incredible. I wish it were three hours long. That dude floating in that debris belt (ring of Saturn?) -- that looked a bit dangerous. Hopefully he had a force field around him. There's so much out there, just waiting for us to get off our duffs and explore. We have much of the technology; if we could just stop spending trillions on machines of war and instead spend it on machines of exploration....
You should really go see interstellar, I saw it last night and it is probably the closest thing to a 3hr version of that short video that exists. They are both really fantastic films. I would also add that interstellar is worth seeing in IMAX if you can.
----- arguably the movie is already spoilt, but spoilers -----
And seriously, NASA couldn't find astronauts apart from a farmer?
Someone falls into a black hole and SURVIVES.
Is given the power by 5 dimensional light beings to alter time?
The list could go on.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is apparently being made into a TV series now. This guy must work on the visuals for that. He gets it; he really, really gets it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
This is fundamentally a question of the balance between our efforts focused on the long-term vs those focused on the short-term. Space exploration offers significant benefits long-term but generally provides no immediate pay-off next quarter. I'm personally baffled by the desire to focus all our resources on the short-term. The questions of the long-term future of humankind and our place in the universe, make the imm…
Really? What about all the inventions discovered during the space race...The biggest impact inventions being integrated circuits, satellite communications and GPS, but there were so many others like Corningware[1], Tempur foam [2], LEDs, Freeze Drying Technology, etc [3] that one could argue provided many short term benefits and enabled discoveries of countless others.
[1] http://www.corning.com/about_us/inside_corning/did_you_know/...
Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
We already collaborate for the exploration of the solar system, via robotic probes and giant telescopes. That's good enough. Colonization is an all different matter, and a weird one if you ask me. Earth is the largest place with a solid ground in the Solar system, and it's by far the most hospitable. Settling on an other planet like mars would cost an insane amount of money[1] and would at best double the available real estate for our species. It's not so sure it would be worth it, especially considering that a lot of people would end up having contributed for something that other people will benefit from.
Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
Queenie: "Sorry. We've got poverty and people who are hungry here, you'll have to wait."
(400 years later)
Descendant of that Explorer: "Can we go now?"
Queenie: "Sorry, still haven't solved that poverty stuff. Go do some farming or something."
----
A lot of the "poverty and hunger stuff" is caused by corruption and unworkable politics and ideologies. Another big factor is simple human nature. "The poor will be with us always." It's a wicked problem that will probably never go away. We shouldn't use it as an excuse. (I would be quite happy trading military and secret-police spending, which is basically out of control).
Oh, we can try to address poverty. But putting everything else on hold doesn't make sense. A rising tide floats all boats; more resources and better technology will help everyone, at least a little.
[I'm actually not a big fan of manned exploration any more; it's expensive, and robots can do way better than we can, for the foreseeable future. Oh, putting men on other planets has undeniable poetry and significance, but if you want to do science or mining or whatever, you're better off with metal than monkeys].
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You seem to not realize those are problems for us, human virus, and not the planet problems. Those so called problems are natures way of trying to balance things. If you cut hunger and make a breakthrough in healthcare you will immediately accelerate population growth, and in effect accelerate pollution and energy use. Earth is unsustainable in the long run. No one is willing to accept euthanasia, birth limits, basic…
To learn more about population growth and the many misconceptions around it, I'd recommend watching something from Prof. Hans Rosling. Here are a few things: http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-p...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is fundamentally a question of the balance between our efforts focused on the long-term vs those focused on the short-term. Space exploration offers significant benefits long-term but generally provides no immediate pay-off next quarter. I'm personally baffled by the desire to focus all our resources on the short-term. The questions of the long-term future of humankind and our place in the universe, make the imm…
>Space exploration offers significant benefits long-term but generally provides no immediate pay-off next quarter. Really? What about all the inventions discovered during the space race...The biggest impact inventions being integrated circuits, satellite communications and GPS, but there were so many others like Corningware[1], Tempur foam [2], LEDs, Freeze Drying Technology, etc [3] that one could argue provided man…
The only reliable way to argue for space exploration is by explaining how important the long-term benefits are.