Subject:
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Re: And now for something completely different...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:01:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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620 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
<snip>
>
> Lets try to go all the way back to the beginning. Dave K started a thread
> asking a hypothetical about whether a person would want to know if an
> asteroid was coming. Some people responded to that question but mostly we've
> got off track.
Very true
"http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/02/28/asteriod.alert/index.html
Would you want to know if a giant 'planet killer' asteroid was heading
straight for earth?
Tough question for me. If I knew, I'd probably quit my job and spend my
last few days with those I love and doing my own thing. That is, if there
was no hope at all.
If we could pull off a scientifically implausable thing like they did in
'Armageddon' or 'Deep Impact', then I'd support the effort as best I could,
probably jsut by keeping civility and peace.
Anyway, thoughts? Opinions?
Dave K
"
That said, I also piped in when the thread took this original tangent by
saying something like my SO and I always get into "a discussion" when this
topic pipes up--me saying that NASA, or other agencies, should have more
support, whereas she says the money is best spent on serving issues 'on planet'.
On this we do not agree...
I say that, philosophically, space is the "next step" in humanity's
"evolution"--to prevent that step from happening because it's too hard or
too costly (financially or loss of lives), really is short-sighted--on this
I agree with Larry. His interpretation is "raging against the machine
(space program, technology, whatever) is luddite". Harsh? Maybe, but
pretty much "call 'em as he sees 'em".
>
> We're off track because I said if we had a proper industrial infrastructure
> it wouldn't be nearly as worrisome a problem, at which point you jumped in
> with a whole bunch of "we have too many problems on earth, it's too
> expensive to do that, the current ISS is expensive"... luddite ranting.
>
> You're the one asserting how much it costs. You need to show that the costs
> that NASA have incurred up to now are relevant to a private enterprise
> industrial infrastructure, if you want to convince me that building
> industrial infrastructure (out of native lunar/cometary/asteroidal
> materials, except for the initial bootstrap) is a bad idea from a cost basis.
>
> You haven't done that. And further, the thread is way off the rails to boot,
> I expect Dave K meant it to be more of a fun/philosophical thread.
'Twas suppose to be, to get us away from name calling and ranting...but
alas, I'm the most guilty of that (next to my tangents, of course...)
If, for a concrete example, any space program said, "We need volunteers for
a Mars Mission..." I'd be the first to sign up. If they said that it's a
one-way trip but they would provide whatever infrastructure we would need to
start and maintain a colony (i.e. we wouldn't die due to running out of
stuff), but we could not get back to earth, I still woudn't remove my name
from the sign-up sheet.
What, living on Mars? Are you kidding me? Of course I would go. In a
heartbeat.
I'd do research for sure, to make sure it's not a 'suicide mission'--that I
understood the science behind the infrastructure, adn that I was confident
in the agency sending us to Mars.
<snip>
> More generally than the cost question, I gave you a number of examples of
> how such short sighted thinking turned out to be wrong in the past. You
> chose to focus on one, Columbus, claiming that what he did was bad. I
> answered that and asked for alternatives but you haven't replied there either.
I think that regardless of the intentions of the original sailors and/or
gov't that sent them, and regardless of the historical issues between what
happened in 1492 right up to yesterday, can anyone say *today*, whilst
sitting in their nice cozy home in Peoria, tell me that the
exploration/expansionist was wrong.
If it wasn't Columbus, it would have been someone else. Who knows what
historical consequences may have happened? Is like sci-fi and fiddling with
the space/time continuum--what if AH was never born? Can we say that no one
else would have been worse? Sure we'd like to think that no one could have
been a bigger villian in history, but we can't guarantee that.
Talking about "what if...?" is fine in the realm of philisophy and
hypothetical scenarios, but the decisions we make and the path we follow are
here and now and are based in reality, based on history that
happened--Columbus 'discovered' the new world--he was following his greed,
maybe, but he was also following a deeply imbedded human trait of curiosity
and exploration, a human trait that hasn't diminished one bit since then--we
go to the depths of the seas, we climb the peaks of the mountains--why
should we put the stop on stepping into space?
> Why don't you just drop the whole thing?
K, dropped ;)
Dave K
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