Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 423 of total 423 in this topic |
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 24, 2015 - 09:30am PT
|
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/24/nasa-estimates-1-billion-earths-in-our-galaxy-alone/
NOT controversial enough? OK.
Not satisfied with making America a global laughing stock, pacifist-in-chief Barack Crosby Stills & Nash Hussein Obama now seems determined to show the entire universe that we’re a nation of wimps.
What the heck am I talking about? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. A day has passed since NASA researchers announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet some 1,400 light years away and our president has yet to launch a full-scale invasion.
Obama hasn’t even acknowledged this new foreign menace, which NASA is calling Kepler-452b. I guess he wants to wait around for the Kepler-452bians to show up on our doorstep so he can bow down to them and give them our guns.
If a distant planet orbiting a sun-like star at a distance that may or may not make it amenable to life had been discovered when Ronald Reagan was president, we would’ve already had a fleet of spacecraft on its way to nuke the alien pants off of those 452bian bastards.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-kepler-earth-20150724-story.html
|
|
skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 09:40am PT
|
Not satisfied with making America a global laughing stock, pacifist-in-chief Barack Crosby Stills & Nash Hussein Obama now seems determined to show the entire universe that we’re a nation of wimps.
What the heck am I talking about? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. A day has passed since NASA researchers announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet some 1,400 light years away and our president has yet to launch a full-scale invasion.
Obama hasn’t even acknowledged this new foreign menace, which NASA is calling Kepler-452b. I guess he wants to wait around for the Kepler-452bians to show up on our doorstep so he can bow down to them and give them our guns.
If a distant planet orbiting a sun-like star at a distance that may or may not make it amenable to life had been discovered when Ronald Reagan was president, we would’ve already had a fleet of spacecraft on its way to nuke the alien pants off of those 452bian bastards.
Ahhhhhhhhh, errrrrrrr, hmmmmmmmm. All righty then. Who came up with THAT jem?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 10:18am PT
|
Who came up with THAT jem?
The guy works for the Chicago Tribune who want $$ to look at it more than once on the link posted above.
|
|
skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 10:50am PT
|
Well, I got the Chicago Tribune part from the link. But when I clicked, I got all sorts of pop-ups from the "Trib". So, Zbrown, I bailed. ;) Couldn't really tell if it was tongue in cheek or not.
I am supportive of our exploration in space and will continue to be so in a general sense. I also believe supporting NASA is critical in this. But this estimate is basically a feel good educated guesstimate; Perhaps for press release?
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 10:54am PT
|
My friends at JPL thank y'all for supporting them in their geek country club for navel gazing.
It's a pity Homeboy Industries can't get some gubmint financial love for meaningful change.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 11:30am PT
|
skcreidc
Pretty sure it was a joke to drag traffic to the Tribune site to try to sell everybody something. I futzed around and I think this is all of the rest of it.
But, no, we’re stuck with Mr. Community Organizer, fresh off denying Americans their god-given right to bomb Iran. He’s all, “Let’s use diplomacy. Maybe we shouldn’t just immediately bomb the crap out of places we don’t fully understand. Maybe there are other factors that need to be considered.”
Blah blah blah. He’s probably going to send Secretary of State John Kerry on a 1,400-light-year space-bike ride and ask him to reach some kind of “deal” with the Kepler-452bians. Like that’s gonna work.
This race of people that may or not exist isn’t going to listen to diplomacy. They’ll only understand one thing – force. American force.
Consider Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, commenting recently on the nuclear deal the U.S. and other world powers reached with Iran, one that sharply limits Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon in exchange for the easing of harsh economic sanctions. Walker said he would tear up that deal and have his Reagan action figure pretend to pee on it, all while being ready, if necessary, to take military action against Iran on his first day in office.
Now that’s an American solution to a potential threat. You stomp it, then you stomp it again, then you stomp on the thing you used for stomping just for good measure
Now that’s an American solution to a potential threat. You stomp it, then you stomp it again, then you stomp on the thing you used for stomping just for good measure.
That’s the kind of clear, decisive, poorly thought out, stubborn, irrational and reckless behavior that made this country great.
And that’s the kind of response we need to this new extraterrestrial threat.
In a statement from NASA, Jon Jenkins, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b, said: “We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment. It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”
Any logical person would read Jenkins’ comments and conclude that America is facing an existential threat from an untrustworthy foreign entity that does not share our values or respect our way of life and must be destroyed at all costs. It’s clear as day.
I’m hopeful the Republican presidential candidates will call out Obama for projecting weakness to distant planets that may or may not contain life forms that could quite possibly but by no means definitely want to enslave and/or kill us.
We need a leader who recognizes there’s no “victory” in “diplomacy,” a leader unafraid to launch an invasion, regardless of facts.
Without one, there’s a good chance that 1,400 light years from now we’ll all be speaking Kepler-452ese.
Bleep blorp.
cComments
Hopefully this planet got rid of all the mental illness called "liberalism". This is a planet where everyone pulls their own weight. Everyone contributes. Slackers and the lazy are made aware of their failings and taught to get in line. Those with legitimate illness are taken care of....
GORDY CLOWNBOTTOM
AT 1:10 PM JULY 24, 2015
ADD A COMMENTSEE ALL COMMENTS
5
rhuppke@tribpub.com
|
|
skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 11:40am PT
|
Hahaha, oh jeeze. Thanks for posting the whole thing. I should just tatoo "sucker" across my forehead so I can remind myself every time I look into the mirror.
|
|
gt rider
Trad climber
moscow, idaho
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 01:25pm PT
|
Awesome political satire! loved it!
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 01:38pm PT
|
PNAS 110 19273–19278 (2015), doi: 10.1073/pnas.1319909110
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/48/19273.full
Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars
Erik A. Petiguraa, Andrew W. Howard, and Geoffrey W. Marcy
Abstract:
Determining whether Earth-like planets are common or rare looms as a touchstone in the question of life in the universe. We searched for Earth-size planets that cross in front of their host stars by examining the brightness measurements of 42,000 stars from National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kepler mission. We found 603 planets, including 10 that are Earth size (1-2R⊕) and receive comparable levels of stellar energy to that of Earth (0.25-4F⊕). We account for Kepler’s imperfect detectability of such planets by injecting synthetic planet–caused dimmings into the Kepler brightness measurements and recording the fraction detected. We find that 11 ± 4% of Sun-like stars harbor an Earth-size planet receiving between one and four times the stellar intensity as Earth. We also find that the occurrence of Earth-size planets is constant with increasing orbital period (P), within equal intervals of logP up to ∼200 d. Extrapolating, one finds 5.7 (+2.7, -2.2)% of Sun-like stars harbor an Earth-size planet with orbital periods of 200–400 d.
|
|
SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 01:47pm PT
|
That's almost as many people we have on our earth!
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 02:33pm PT
|
There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy between Natalie Batalha's calculations and the those of Petiguraa et al.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 03:26pm PT
|
http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.04175
Terrestrial Planet Occurrence Rates for the Kepler GK Dwarf Sample
Christopher J. Burke, Jessie L. Christiansen, F. Mullally, Shawn Seader, Daniel Huber, Jason F. Rowe, Jeffrey L. Coughlin, Susan E. Thompson, Joseph Catanzarite, Bruce D. Clarke, Timothy D. Morton, Douglas A. Caldwell, Stephen T. Bryson, Michael R. Haas, Natalie M. Batalha, Jon M. Jenkins, Peter Tenenbaum, Joseph D. Twicken, Jie Li, Elisa Quintana, Thomas Barclay, Christopher E. Henze, William J. Borucki, Steve B. Howell, Martin Still
We measure planet occurrence rates using the planet candidates discovered by the Q1-Q16 Kepler pipeline search. This study examines planet occurrence rates for the Kepler GK dwarf target sample for planet radii, 0.75< Rp< 2.5 Rearth, and orbital periods, 50<Porb< 300 days, with an emphasis on a thorough exploration and identification of the most important sources of systematic uncertainties. Integrating over this parameter space, we measure an occurrence rate of F=0.77 planets per star, with an allowed range of 0.3< F< 1.9. The allowed range takes into account both statistical and systematic uncertainties, and values of F beyond the allowed range are significantly in disagreement with our analysis. We generally find higher planet occurrence rates and a steeper increase in planet occurrence rates towards small planets than previous studies of the Kepler GK dwarf sample. Through extrapolation, we find that the one year orbital period terrestrial planet occurrence rate, zeta_1=0.1, with an allowed range of 0.01< zeta_1< 2, where zeta_1 is defined as the number of planets per star within 20% of the Rp and Porb of Earth. For G dwarf hosts, the zeta_1 parameter space is a subset of the larger eta_earth parameter space, thus zeta_1 places a lower limit on eta_earth for G dwarf hosts. From our analysis, we identify the leading sources of systematics impacting Kepler occurrence rate determinations as: reliability of the planet candidate sample, planet radii, pipeline completeness, and stellar parameters.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 03:33pm PT
|
http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.05097
Measuring Transit Signal Recovery in the Kepler Pipeline II: Detection Efficiency as Calculated in One Year of Data
Jessie L. Christiansen, Bruce D. Clarke, Christopher J. Burke, Shawn Seader, Jon M. Jenkins, Joseph D. Twicken, Jeffrey C. Smith, Natalie M. Batalha, Michael R. Haas, Susan E. Thompson, Jennifer R. Campbell, Anima Sabale, Akm Kamal Uddin
The Kepler planet sample can only be used to reconstruct the underlying planet occurrence rate if the detection efficiency of the Kepler pipeline is known, here we present the results of a second experiment aimed at characterising this detection efficiency. We inject simulated transiting planet signals into the pixel data of ~10,000 targets, spanning one year of observations, and process the pixels as normal. We compare the set of detections made by the pipeline with the expectation from the set of simulated planets, and construct a sensitivity curve of signal recovery as a function of the signal-to-noise of the simulated transit signal train. The sensitivity curve does not meet the hypothetical maximum detection efficiency, however it is not as pessimistic as some of the published estimates of the detection efficiency. For the FGK stars in our sample, the sensitivity curve is well fit by a gamma function with the coefficients a = 4.35 and b = 1.05. We also find that the pipeline algorithms recover the depths and periods of the injected signals with very high fidelity, especially for periods longer than 10 days. We perform a simplified occurrence rate calculation using the measured detection efficiency compared to previous assumptions of the detection efficiency found in the literature to demonstrate the systematic error introduced into the resulting occurrence rates. The discrepancies in the calculated occurrence rates may go some way towards reconciling some of the inconsistencies found in the literature.
|
|
cleo
Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 03:39pm PT
|
If you really want your mind blown, spend some time thinking about the Fermi Paradox. Based on the 1 billion earths and assuming that 1% have life and 1% have intelligent life -> 100,000 civilizations in our galaxy (most of which are older than us!)
The Fermi Paradox is otherwise known as... Where Is Everybody?
And there are some interesting and wacky hypotheses!
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
|
|
k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 04:10pm PT
|
Manned suicide mission to Mars? NO!
But Dingus, what about this:
"We are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history," said Stephen Hawking.
Discussing the Earth's most troubling concerns in an email interview with The Canadian Press, Hawking described space exploration as humankind's most urgent mission. Predicting a planet soon made uninhabitable, he says that our only chance of long-term survival as a species is to “spread out into space.”
"Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million,” he wrote.
He also thinks that space exploration should involve people, rather than just robots.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 05:04pm PT
|
Well Dingus.. evidence currently suggests a 100% rate of intelligent life on planets like earth.
Depending how you define intelligent life anyway..hehe
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 05:07pm PT
|
NASA makes wild guesses and doesn't know sh!t but everyone believes everything they say even when they make up bullsh!t like this .....
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 07:04pm PT
|
Doc Hartouni's posts would tend to confirm what hB (Herr Braun) was saying above. However, I have only read the abstracts, so I may have to, as they say walk this one back, or walk a (billion) miles in his shoes.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 07:15pm PT
|
yeah!
NASA doesn't know sh!t
they lied about the moon landing
stoopid gross materialists
someone has been sucking on their tailpipe too long
|
|
SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 07:24pm PT
|
I guess I can't be included in the 'intelligent life' category. . .
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 08:05pm PT
|
http://lithops.as.arizona.edu/~jill/EPO/Stars/drake.html
there are of order 100 billion stars in our galaxy,
10% of those stars in are "sun like"
1/5 have planets that are "earth like"
so
100/10/5 = 2 billion earth like planets in our galaxy
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 08:09pm PT
|
Let me see if I got it. The NASA estimate could be off by a billion? Should hB get an honorary degree? Or at least an honorarium? :)
|
|
Studly
Trad climber
WA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 08:10pm PT
|
Yes, in either direction?! Maybe earth is the only planet with life. Seems doubtful.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 24, 2015 - 08:15pm PT
|
I"m kind of wondering whether Obama will take the bait and commission a feasibility study.
DMT:
.0000000000001%
Could you translate that into light years or bud lites for us laymenz?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 08:36pm PT
|
The NASA estimate could be off by a billion?
did you read the abstract?
plus or minus half a billion...
|
|
cleo
Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 08:44pm PT
|
I've never understood this 1% assumption, there is nothing to support it.
Actually, if you click the link on the Fermi Paradox, THAT EXACT SCENARIO (that there aren't other civilizations or life, and the several reasons why that may be) is one of the many hypotheses that is discussed. And it's interesting!
(Just food for thought is all)
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 08:49pm PT
|
I'm willing to bet we find a signal from extraterrestrial life in the next 40 years. I would say the only reason we don't is if we don't seriously look for it. Which we aren't yet.
Ie serious effort with state of the art instruments and the best personnel given proper resources.
Not the crap receivers we have been using with no chance of detecting anything but a deliberate ridiculously powerful signal.
Basically we have never looked for the types of signals we humans put out with anything that could actually sense them at reasonable interstellar distances. Not at all surprising that we havn't yet found them..
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that once we actually do we find 100's of signal location very quickly... kinda like what happened when we put kepler up there and actually looked for planets with the right tool.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 08:56pm PT
|
At the rate things are going earth will be broadcasting for less than 100 years out of five billion. Pretty small time window. A blip at best. One part in ten million. If we do hear anything we will know they are a hell of a lot smarter than us.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 09:06pm PT
|
I really don't think anything will stop the human race until it evolves into something superior to itself. Oh we very well may destroy civilization any day. But the human race is not so easy to eradicate. We are one tough smart adaptable organism capable of subsisting on nearly every environment on the planet. I would expect whoever is left to fairly quickly get back to broadcasting withing a couple hundred years..and perhaps never lose it completely.
I also would not be surprised if life on other planets evolved organs that use radio frequency for communication and sensing the environment around themselves. I'm generally surprised life on earth doesn't do this more.
|
|
MisterE
Gym climber
Being In Sierra Happy Of Place
|
|
|
Jul 24, 2015 - 10:46pm PT
|
That basically equates to many trillions of idiots, right?
|
|
clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 07:51am PT
|
I wonder how good the bakeries are in the intergalactic empire?
|
|
clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 07:56am PT
|
Intelligent life gathered early this morning on our planet.
Certainly more alert after a pastry and a good cup of local java.
|
|
clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 08:07am PT
|
Funding is being allocated for the Goldilocks Mission to find which planet is just right.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 09:08am PT
|
Didn't Donald Rumsfeld adequately address this years ago?
|
|
Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 09:38am PT
|
Conquistadors, stay home. And stay the f*#k off Mars. It might have life and killing it would be inexcusable. Utterly inexcusable.
You think the elites really give two shits about another species? They barely care about ours!
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2015 - 09:45am PT
|
From Hartouni "Drake" link:
http://tinyurl.com/Hartouni-link
We start with the total number of stars in the Milky Way.
200,000,000,000
Two hundred billion stars in the Milky Way.
What fraction of these stars are yellow stars like the Sun? Let's estimate that 10% of the stars in the Milky Way are like the Sun. Then we multiply 200,000,000,000 by 0.1 to give us the number of Sun-like stars-like stars in the Milky Way. The rest of the stars are probably too hot or too cold to have Earth-like planets.
200,000,000,000 x 0.10 = 20,000,000,000
Twenty billion stars in the Milky Way like our Sun.
How many planets does each solar system have which can support life?
In our solar system, we know that the Earth has life, and that Mars and Titan, one of the moons of Jupiter, may have once had conditions to support life. So let's say that the typical solar system has 2 planets which can support life. We multiply the number of Sun-like planets by 2, to get the total number of planets in the Milky Way orbiting stars like our Sun.
20,000,000,000 x 2 = 40,000,000,000
Forty billion planets like Earth orbiting stars like the Sun in the Milky Way.
How many planets have INTELLIGENT life which might try to contact us?
The best we can do is guess. What do you think? A planet might have life-forms, but only simple ones like bacteria, or only primitive ones like reptiles. Complex life like humans might evolve on a planet, but they may decide never to send a message.
On Earth, we have been capable of sending messages to other civilizations only for the last 50 years or so. The age of the Earth is 4.5 billion years. So one guess is 50/4.5 billion. So let's multiplly by 50 and divide by 4.5 billion.
40,000,000,000 x 50 = 2000,000,000,000
2000,000,000,000/4,500,000,000 = 444
444 intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way, capable of sending messages to Earth.
However, the famous physicist Enrico Fermi, when he heard about this calculation, asked
"If there are alien civilizations in the Universe, why haven't they visited Earth?"
|
|
Norton
Social climber
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 09:57am PT
|
"If there are alien civilizations in the Universe, why haven't they visited Earth?"
odd question
because its the same reason earth has not visited alien civiiizations
the distances are just too damn far apart
and it is very probable that no matter how advanced that problem will never be solved, ever
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2015 - 10:05am PT
|
As long as we're guessing, let's guess that 1/2 of the intelligent life is more intelligent and/or more prolific transportation designers than earthlings (and similarly 1/2 aren't).
Make up your own assessment of how much smarter and/or design-adept.
Calculate the probability that one of the smarter group should have arrived at Earth by now.
Then, if these intelligentsia are truly that smart, how long would they hang around?
|
|
elcap-pics
Big Wall climber
Crestline CA
|
|
|
Jul 25, 2015 - 10:14am PT
|
Simple physics... C = speed limit. Distances to other stars are way too far for humans to go anywhere but here in our own solar system. Do the math! Where can we go in our solar system that we can live on? No where. We can visit but not stay... especially in any numbers. We need to be better stewards of our home planet...Our salvation is not in space ... it is at home.
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
|
|
Lemme see if I get this correct:
1 billion earths/galaxy x 6 billion idiots/earth =
6,000,000,000,000,000 morons in this galaxy alone
|
|
Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
WBraun's right about NASSA. I heard Neal and Buzz had to get out and ask for directions about three times.
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
we are alone
|
|
StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
|
|
Wow, are they all slowly destroying their planets too?
|
|
the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
|
|
We DO need to be better stewards of our home planet. We're not living anywhere else for many hundreds or thousands of years, if at all.
But Mars can be 68 degrees F on the equator and there's water there. We may see extended human visitation there in the next hundred years.
There are proposals out there to travel at 10% of the speed of light. If that can be achieved that puts MANY planets within traveling distance of a human lifetime. If we can do long term sleep that further eases the journey.
Like I said in the other thread if we find other planets with life, someone WILL volunteer to settle it, even if it means they will never come back. To be the first human to settle another planet. Some people will sacrifice everything for that. Some people are willing to make a one way trip to Mars right now.
I'm not too concerned with DMTs Avatar scenario. I think for every thousand or million planets that support life there may be one with intelligent life. So we'd colonize a planet with just plant life or simple animal life. It would be really interesting to see if life used the same building blocks and DNA or if it was totally different. When you look at the fossil record and look at evolution it just seems there were hundreds or thousands of special circumstances that led to humans. I'd guess it VERY rare for all that to happen, i.e. goldilocks planet, life starts, intelligent life forms.
And hopefully thousands of years from now humanity would be more compassionate and not destroy other planets.
|
|
HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
|
|
We may see extended human visitation there in the next hundred years. Assuming our descendants aren't too busy trying to keep this planet cool enough for the survival of the species we depend upon for our own existence.
Water now proven on Mars.
Jupiter's moon Europa, possibly also Callisto
Saturn's rings, moons Encedalus, Tethys (almost entirely made of water ice), Dione and Rhea
Uranus- traces of water ice, plenty of ice of other Hydrogen compounds including methane
Possibly Neptune's core.
And now we come, amazingly, to Pluto, mostly made of water ice. It's moon Charon is ice.
The Kuiper belt has about 70K icy bodies.
The Oort cloud has millions.
Water possibly on our own Moon at the poles, Mercury in deep crevasses.
Only Venus appears left out of the water bearing planets.
Educational even if it's a little sophomoric.
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/i-see-ice/en/#/review/i-see-ice/page_01.html?r=true
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
I've never understood this 1% assumption, there is nothing to support it.
How about a .0000000000001% chance of life and a .0000000000001% chance of intelligent life?
DMT
That's still being very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, generous.
|
|
JC Marin
Trad climber
CA
|
|
Q: Is there intelligent life on other planets?
A: Why would the other planets be any different than this one?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
here's a paper estimating the probability of "complex" and "intelligent" life...
http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/ajw/Reprints/watson_astrobiology_preprint.pdf
Implications of an Anthropic Model of Evolution for Emergence of Complex Life and Intelligence
ANDREW J. WATSON
ABSTRACT
Structurally complex life and intelligence evolved late on Earth; models for the evolution of global temperature suggest that, due to the increasing solar luminosity, the future life span of the (eukaryote) biosphere will be “only” about another billion years, a short time compared to the 4 Ga since life began. A simple stochastic model (Carter, 1983) suggests that this timing might be governed by the necessity to pass a small number, n, of very difficult evolutionary steps, with n 10 and a best guess of n 4, in order for intelligent observers like ourselves to evolve. Here I extend the model analysis to derive probability distributions for each step. Past steps should tend to be evenly spaced through Earth’s history, and this is consistent with identification of the steps with some of the major transitions in the evolution of life on Earth. A complementary approach, identifying the critical steps with major reorganizations in Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, suggests that the Archean-Proterozoic and Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transitions might be identified with critical steps. The success of the model lends support to a “Rare Earth” hypothesis (Ward and Brownlee, 2000): structurally complex life is separated from prokaryotes by several very unlikely steps and, hence, will be much less common than prokaryotes. Intelligence is one further unlikely step, so it is much less common still.
|
|
Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
|
|
The earth is flat. Nothing else anywhere.
No one could ever survive a trip across the ocean you'd fall off the edge.
Space is too vast, you can't go faster than the speed of light, etc. etc.
|
|
Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
|
|
One Billion Earth like planets, we are going to need them.
Where else can we overpopulate?
What would Jesus do?
Jesus ain't got nothin' to do with it.
Sorry...
I haven't finished eating my crab flakes this morning.
Colonizing Mars really is a worthy endeavor though, money not wasted, like on wars. Stepping foot on, exploring, and surviving the missions to the nearby God of War (a scant 100 million miles, give or take) would require our species to step it up a notch. Casualties and failures would be part of the deal, much like space exploration has proven to be so far.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
Ah, is this what we need to save the planet from the Human Species?
Dingus Milktoast Gym climber Maestro, Ecosystem Ministry, Fatcrackistan
Jul 25, 2015 - 09:42am PT
. . . .
Many in my generation grew up reading conquistador science fiction, conquer this, battle that, crush kill destroy!!!! All in the name of peace and democracy you understand.
We need to grow out of that stupid attitude. These worlds are not our oysters. Knowledge is one thing. Going to one of them even with a machine, entirely another.
Some Russian dude just donated a cool hundred million dollars to SETI, last week, 10 mil a year for 10 years, to buy radio telescope time, etc. Now that sort of exploration is spot on, imo.
DMT
jstan
climber Jul 24, 2015 - 08:56pm PT
At the rate things are going earth will be broadcasting for less than 100 years out of five billion. Pretty small time window. A blip at best. One part in ten million. If we do hear anything we will know they are a hell of a lot smarter than us.
|
|
Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
|
|
Mining, gutting, poisoning, and otherwise despoiling a planet in order garner the resources to to get to the next planet, it's a tradition. How else do you think the ancient Venutians got here?
The Kepleroidians might have a thing or two to learn from us.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2016 - 08:32am PT
|
Is this all just useless wheel spinning then?
|
|
Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
|
|
World Peace?
Those that can't do get promoted, it's the American way.
Send the politicians into the cold dark of space as envoys to alien races to teach what we know...that everyone loves to be told what to do, what to think, what will happen to you if you don't believe them.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2016 - 09:11am PT
|
Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. While most traditional science deals with supposedly predictable phenomena like gravity, electricity, or chemical reactions, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear things that are effectively impossible to predict or control, like turbulence, weather, the stock market, our brain states, and so on. These phenomena are often described by fractal mathematics, which captures the infinite complexity of nature. Many natural objects exhibit fractal properties, including landscapes, clouds, trees, organs, rivers etc, and many of the systems in which we live exhibit complex, chaotic behavior. Recognizing the chaotic, fractal nature of our world can give us new insight, power, and wisdom.
...
The Butterfly Effect: This effect grants the power to cause a hurricane in China to a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico. It may take a very long time, but the connection is real. If the butterfly had not flapped its wings at just the right point in space/time, the hurricane would not have happened. A more rigorous way to express this is that small changes in the initial conditions lead to drastic changes in the results. Our lives are an ongoing demonstration of this principle. Who knows what the long-term effects of teaching millions of kids about chaos and fractals will be?
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
I sense a manifest destiny on a cosmic scale.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
Our dreams outrace our abilities EVERY TIME.
But maybe if we all work TOGETHER, we can someday hope to catch them.
Nice thought, Jack Handy, BUT:
Deep space exploration is quite beyond our frail bodies' capabilities, unless one chooses to buy into the elongation of our bodies' natural lives by letting us go to sleep for the bulk of the journey to a new solar system; which is crap from the get-go and you know it cuz bodies age as they sleep and no amount of chemicals like they put into Twinkies to preserve them is gonna help.
So we end up with news headlines hundreds of years down the line, that read:
"Dried-up human cadavers due to begin orbiting of EXT-123."
And just WHO is it that gets selected to go for this deep-space ride? Will it be young married couples, or inmates from death row, or orphans only, or members of the banned camp?
Forget all that militaristic crap, like in Avatar. They spent more on that movie's special effects and computer fakery than it would cost to outfit an entire jingoistic fleet. Nobody's gonna OK that kind of expense when we can just let Cameron keep on rollin' his cameras. Cuz WE DON'T REALLY GIVEASH#T ABOUT OTHER CIVILIZATIONS. We barely care enough to keep our own staggering along.
Let's see the gov't fake a military strike at such a vast remove. THAT would be a good subject for a movie, as well. "The Faking of Journey to EXT-123." Rated G.
I vote that we stay home and clean up our act.
LOVE THAT BUTTERFLY!
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
"If there are alien civilizations in the Universe, why haven't they visited Earth?"
You think Werner is from Earth?
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
YES, Ghost, Born of Womb and stirred gently, with a sick but true sense of self and a karmic 'wunderkind' of sorts.
His Life Mastery of life and his Better half Too,
both saved my life or stuck my body parts back on my head where they belonged.
If they or he were an alien he would have a-fixed my ear to my left ass-cheek as that is where aliens believe it belongs.
Merry on the other hand may be from across some pond: She danced by me and said;
" he is not holding your rope at all, don't fall our you will surly die"
and then danced up and away @ Bishop's terraces(5.7) circa 1986 or 7
I Knew this and was fine.
I had given him the second line to feed out I was not on belay
HeY Lady....
She was like a dream Gorgeous, tanned, and floating past me in cutoff jean shorts. . .
A Vision
truly
Werner is a lucky duck
If we could go, . . . we would have gone already.
If we went to the moon already we would , Humanity would, be there too.
That we have a Junk camp orbiting in space seems to prove the limits of what is possible.
why are we not camping on the moon ?
It seems like the moon would make a good experimental laboratory?
|
|
HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
|
|
you can't go faster than the speed of light Well actually this is true. At least given what we know now. And if not true then our understanding of the universe is inside out.
Which is of course a remote possibility.
I vote that we stay home and clean up our act. Wisdom from the mouse.
As for how long it would take to reach and live for an extended time on the nearest habitable planet?
Mars..... unlikely in my lifetime but the probability of sometime in the next 50 years approaches 1. In My Not So Humble Opinion
How long to reach the nearest habitable planet outside our solar system?
Let's find it first.
Unless they, having evolved beyond warfare, have put all their energies into social engineering and scientific knowledge and exploration. And find us first.
Having previously acquired some knowledge of human history they may decide we are in fact sub-human and deserve enslavement and promptly put us to work in virtual chains. Those unfit to work can be bred for food and eaten. Much like cattle.
Or, having studied us from afar, they decide we really aren't worth the bother and bypass us on their way to the next inhabited galaxy. Why would they detour to an island of loonies before going to the nearest planet inhabited by intelligent beings?
Or quite possibly we will have raised the atmospheric temperature sufficiently to make Earth uninhabitable for ourselves and extinguished human "civilization" as we know it.
Long before we've achieved the technology to escape to the next nearest long term habitable planet.
It's all possible.
==
G.O.D. damned funny! and a fine tribute.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
UGH! ,EDIT)
MAY be we are just here to provide another . . ? species, body parts.
To be harvested and used to further Their continuing exploration , population, space travel, Like a filling station along the way where they can pick up a spare Appendix or Brain Stem or what ever?
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Assuming humans survive the lunacy of the rabid enviros, so called progressives, globalists, and the oddball dictators without conscience and dreams of world domination and subjugation, and the far more real dangers of errant celestial objects, mammoth CME's, gamma ray bursts from nearby supernova, super volcanoes, hitherto unseen virus's of species destroying lethality, etc etc, we will continue to flourish until necessity of resources pushes us off planet. In this hypothetical future the level of technology will be as indistinguishable from magic as first contact between recent moderns and previously undiscovered Amazonian bushman tribes. The universe is our oyster until we run into those more ravenous than us.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
"...we will continue to flourish until necessity of resources pushes us off planet. In this hypothetical future the level of technology will be as indistinguishable from magic as first contact between recent moderns and previously undiscovered Amazonian bushman tribes. The universe is our oyster."
technology is not divorced from science, so some basic constraints on the technology have important consequences for using "unlimited technological advance" as a policy for deciding on how to manage limited Earth resources.
in particular, measuring the energy required for any form of space travel is a good place to start, and if you are looking for some metric, it is the tradeoff of the economic investment in particular space-travel technologies and the cost of routine space flight vs. the economic gain from the activity (and the time period over which that gain is accrued).
on every robotic space flight the total mass of the instrument being flown is ruthlessly accounted for as that mass requires a well known and very limited amount of launcher energy. a major innovation in solar system space travel was the use of the inner planets to scatter off of and gain energy (converting an infinitesimal fraction of the planet's kinetic energy into a finite and large change in the kinetic energy of the spacecraft). this is an unexpected innovation which enabled the exploration of the outer planets, but it is not clear how it can be used in human space exploration.
travel near the speed-of-light has well defined energy requirements. "warping" space-time has a set of energy requirements that are well defined. these physical requirements lead to specifications and the specifications are what technologists have to meet in order to realize the goal of extra-solar-system travel. but the fundamental laws of physics may limit space travel to the effective light-travel-time between two places in space, thus preserving causality (which seems to be necessary in our universe). it's a big galaxy, and space travel to most of it is probably limited to one way travel even if we could solve the energy requirements.
betting that future technologies will cure all the world's ills is just that, a bet, and so far it is not a bet that can be made with any surety. this is especially true when justifying current bad-practice on the basis of an unknown-future-technological fix that will undo all the negative effects.
not only that, but the exponential increase in the number of humans outpaces the implementations of technologies developed to provide resources for those humans. the only aspect of technology that keeps pace is the number of technologists... that alone is not sufficient to provide exponential technology growth (though it might have given us a false impression of that growth in the past).
|
|
Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
|
|
The Fet said:
There are proposals out there to travel at 10% of the speed of light. If that can be achieved that puts MANY planets within traveling distance of a human lifetime. If we can do long term sleep that further eases the journey.
That is not quite true (depending on what you think "MANY" means). There are 14 stars within 10 light years of the Earth. Sirius B is a white dwarf and probably should not be counted, Luhman 16A and B and Wise 0855-0714 are very, very cool stars and probably don't count. So the number is 10 stars we could reach in 100 years or less. You don't get much of a time dilation advantage at only 0.1c.
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
There are proposals out there to travel at 10% of the speed of light. If that can be achieved that puts MANY planets within traveling distance of a human lifetime. If we can do long term sleep that further eases the journey.
What is usually never sufficiently appreciated, even in the speculation that typically accompanies science fiction, is the degree to which human biology is fundamentally yoked to the environment of Earth. When the various limitations of long distance space flight are conjectured one never hears about the biological limitations ,which are nearly in the same degree monumentally insurmountable as those surrounding some of the physics.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
Don't hold your breath that we're gonna find life on any one of a billion earths.
Even if all of the amino acids necessary to build proteins are already present and stable, the odds of one of the simplest proteins in plants and animals (iso-1-cytochrome c) forming by chance is 1 in 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (75 zeros).
In other words, we're gonna need to find a LOT more planets if we hope to even find a simple protein. Not to mention that proteins are a long way from self-replicating life forms, so we better find a buttload of planets if we want some interstellar friends!
 In case you're curious, you can read more about that crazy number here: Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 255, 257.
On another note, some mathematicians estimate that anything with a probability of less that 1 in 1(with 150 zeros) will not occur, and Yockey's number is within that parameter, so......maybe we can find a protein?
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
NASA also estimates 2.5 billion, billion idiots.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
Mars..... unlikely in my lifetime but the probability of sometime in the next 50 years approaches 1. In My Not So Humble Opinion
Because we have demonstrated so much commitment to interplanetary travel since we sent or last man to the moon 44 years ago...We spent 20 billion for that, which translates to 100 billion today, or 8 billion per person. That's the current nasa budget for everything.
Mars is about 1,000 times further at its closest approach.
What's our budget on the Mars mission?
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/NASA-finally-talks-Mars-budget-and-it-s-not-6562388.php
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
Ed I'm with you based on what we know so far.
However we have recently begun to accumulate evidence suggesting that we have not even observed most of the universe right around us and the laws that govern it.
I'm guessing that if we ever do get to know this universe it will be far different than we expect or are likely to imagine. Considering that has often been the case when we have discovered something. Also I expect we will find the new knowledge has practical applications that will be impressive.
I don't think society is likely to screw up bad enough to wipe out the whole race. Most of it..probably..
all of it?.. not likely. It will either be something cataclysmic as described by Rick or just the passage of time and evolution that ends the human race.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
There you go again Eddie. Why would you want to shackle the race with the constraints of the primitive understanding of 20th and early 21st century physics. What are absolutes today may well yield to deeper insights and practices of tomorrow.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 03:58am PT
|
rick summer,
too often we only think of the soup-products of this Big Bang --- with its constraints of matter and energy we are bound to live with -- this Universe.
A more likely scenario ? Many Big Bangs have happened. They are truly in the Elsewhere unless you can Astral Travel. I mean Big Bang Travel.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 06:39am PT
|
Whatever Dingus. We are far from a perfect understanding of the physical world. We still don't have an adequate understanding of ourselves as a species. The basis of our science, theology,the very reference point in which our reality is anchored seems to be inadequate or illusory. We are primitives still unaware of the extent of that which is known as unknown.
Another thing that seems to be prevalent in people's thoughts here is the notion that we have exceeded what is natural and the world is suffering or dying from our unnatural practices. I find that odd given we are step on the evolutionary path of life on earth. Life is a force equal, or near equal, in the shaping of this planet. Perhaps the DNA has a deep master plan and our activities are what is dictated in the shaping of the necessities of life in the future and the natural evolution of earth. Perhaps even a necessity of a master plan for expansion beyond earth. The evolution of new worlds. Manifest destiny of a cosmic scale.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 08:04am PT
|
Another thing that seems to be prevalent in people's thoughts here is the notion that we have exceeded what is natural and the world is suffering or dying from our unnatural practices. I find that odd given we are step on the evolutionary path of life on earth.
I would agree that humans cannot do anything unatural. Natural seems to be a word without any real meaning.
However I would suggest we can and are doing things detrimental to our own well being.
Back on topic.
Permanent thriving self sustaining settlement of other planets or moons..let alone other star systems is pretty far off if ever it seems to me.
|
|
Srbphoto
climber
Kennewick wa
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 08:19am PT
|
6,000,000,000,000,000 morons in this galaxy alone
It is 5,999,999,999,999,999,999.
I am not an idiot!
Moose
He said morons! HAHAHAHAHA
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 01:41pm PT
|
I would agree that humans cannot do anything unatural. Natural seems to be a word without any real meaning.
Pfffffftttt! Nature has been natural for the past 4 bill yrs on earth. Natural should be considered a very slow methodical progression in the expanse of nature. Man has realized with reason that he can progress nature with the implementation of more heat or cooling. This speeding up/down of the progression, is NOT natural. Before man animals prolly could've continued in their lineage infinitely. Man with his reasoning method has put to death thousands of species and has put in jeapordy earths survivability. With this in mind mans inclination is to "beat street" and head to a new planet. Ha.
God has shown us His creating capabilities with a 4 billion yr long track record. He granted man reason, and said "let's see what you can do".
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 01:57pm PT
|
Well, historically after every mass extinction comes the next great speciation.
We're just helping out the future species by opening up a few niches :)
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 02:02pm PT
|
Natural history does predict we will become extict...
It's just a question of how soon and how.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 02:03pm PT
|
So by your definition Humans are "unatural" that is a concept difficult for me to agree with. It allows people to somehow think we have some "magical property" that protects us from the laws of the universe. That we are somehow radically different from the rest of the universe.
We are not.
Before man animals prolly could've continued in their lineage infinitely
They will anyway. Man will as well for quite a long time I suspect.
Man with his reasoning method has put to death thousands of species
Yes. As have a few other events in Earths history.
has put in jeapordy earths survivability
Huh?!..the rock itself is doing just fine. The life on it is stressed a fair bit but much will still go on..different and for a time with much less variety. Eventually those species remaining will once again evolve into multitudes of new interesting species.
I don't think humans even have the power to accidentally destroy their own race. Civilization yes, very likely..all of us everywhere..no.
Sadly I will agree that we have, and will continue to decimate a vast variety of other species for however long this civilization lasts.
Unless we develop many so far unimaginable clean techs.
Life will go on however.
These can be fun conversations with the right people.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 02:49pm PT
|
So by your definition Humans are "unatural" that is a concept difficult for me to agree with. It allows people to somehow think we have some "magical property" that protects us from the laws of the universe. That we are somehow radically different from the rest of the universe.
I didn't say we were unnatural. Just that we're able to do the unnatural. Like flying. Like creating steel. Like creating plastic. Etc. This is how we are radically different than the natural nature universe we have observed anyway
Eventually those species remaining will once again evolve into multitudes of new interesting species.
All the species we've witnessed thus far have all been brought about by a natural progression. It shall be interesting to see what kind of species appear with all the new added kinds o resources to the natural environment, like blacktop, cement, plastic, rubber, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, etc, etc.
Yes. As have a few other events in Earths history.
Awe, but we countinue to do it knowingly turning a blind eye as to not interrupt our pleasures.
We have secured a magical position within the universe, it s called free will.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 10:12pm PT
|
we know a lot, but we don't know everything, that is certainly true...
for instance, we don't know that just letting anything happen will work out ok in the end... and especially if what we do know is telling us that it's highly likely.
Rick, your faith that the future will find the solution to whatever self serving behavior you wish to adopt doesn't make a convincing argument.
as far as calculating probabilities, that's what the paper I linked up thread attempted to do... it is more a top down sort of calculation, we don't really know how to do the bottom up calculation... but it isn't as bad as some have posted, e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/science/genetic-flip-helped-organisms-go-from-one-cell-to-many.html
this is a story on the paper:
http://elifesciences.org/content/5/e10147
Evolution of an ancient protein function involved in organized multicellularity in animals
Douglas P Anderson, Dustin S Whitney, Victor Hanson-Smith, Arielle Woznica, William Campodonico-Burnett, Brian F Volkman, Nicole King, Kenneth E Prehoda, Joseph W Thornton
Abstract
To form and maintain organized tissues, multicellular organisms orient their mitotic spindles relative to neighboring cells. A molecular complex scaffolded by the GK protein-interaction domain (GKPID) mediates spindle orientation in diverse animal taxa by linking microtubule motor proteins to a marker protein on the cell cortex localized by external cues. Here we illuminate how this complex evolved and commandeered control of spindle orientation from a more ancient mechanism. The complex was assembled through a series of molecular exploitation events, one of which – the evolution of GKPID’s capacity to bind the cortical marker protein – can be recapitulated by reintroducing a single historical substitution into the reconstructed ancestral GKPID. This change revealed and repurposed an ancient molecular surface that previously had a radically different function. We show how the physical simplicity of this binding interface enabled the evolution of a new protein function now essential to the biological complexity of many animals.
the question being considered in this a part of the "Step 6" in the paper by Watson Implications of an Anthropic Model of Evolution for Emergence of Complex Life and Intelligence I linked above. It would seem that many of these "impossible" steps aren't so impossible after all...
Such a paper would not be possible to write outside of the context provided by evolution. The hypothesis of the paper, the methods of identifying a candidate "ancient molecule" and the manipulation of the molecule to find a likely, pre-existing role, are all consequences of the theory of evolution and its explanation of life on planet Earth.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 10:52pm PT
|
Those spindle fibers have always fascinated me! I read somewhere that spindle fibers hitting their mark is like a scale model of hitting a dime from a mile out with a bullet. And it happens every second!
If life got a foothold on another planet I can see it developing into complex, intelligent life (the focus of the majority of research).
The probabilities I posted about above referred to the initial foothold for life. Even the simplest forms of life are insanely complex, yet they had to have a beginning.
Variations of the "crystal theory" seem to be the current direction of things. For example:
Biochemical evolution III: Polymerization on organophilic silica-rich surfaces, crystal–chemical modeling, formation of first cells, and geological clues
Abstract
Catalysis at organophilic silica-rich surfaces of zeolites and feldspars might generate replicating biopolymers from simple chemicals supplied by meteorites, volcanic gases, and other geological sources. Crystal–chemical modeling yielded packings for amino acids neatly encapsulated in 10-ring channels of the molecular sieve silicalite-ZSM-5-(mutinaite). Calculation of binding and activation energies for catalytic assembly into polymers is progressing for a chemical composition with one catalytic Al–OH site per 25 neutral Si tetrahedral sites. Internal channel intersections and external terminations provide special stereochemical features suitable for complex organic species. Polymer migration along nano/micrometer channels of ancient weathered feldspars, plus exploitation of phosphorus and various transition metals in entrapped apatite and other microminerals, might have generated complexes of replicating catalytic biomolecules, leading to primitive cellular organisms. The first cell wall might have been an internal mineral surface, from which the cell developed a protective biological cap emerging into a nutrient-rich “soup.” Ultimately, the biological cap might have expanded into a complete cell wall, allowing mobility and colonization of energy-rich challenging environments. Electron microscopy of honeycomb channels inside weathered feldspars of the Shap granite (northwest England) has revealed modern bacteria, perhaps indicative of Archean ones. All known early rocks were metamorphosed too highly during geologic time to permit simple survival of large-pore zeolites, honeycombed feldspar, and encapsulated species. Possible microscopic clues to the proposed mineral adsorbents/catalysts are discussed for planning of systematic study of black cherts from weakly metamorphosed Archaean sediments. (I added the bold)
------------------------------------
I've read a couple books on this. Still feels like grasping at biochemical straws and I don't think we've figured out a mechanism for the origin of life with reasonable probabilities. Not to mention that the minute probabilities of thousands of different biochemical steps happening in the correct place and time compound the problem.
Basically, The only reason I believe there's life on earth is because I can see it and I can't fathom it happening twice.
Lots of empty planets, I think... Maybe we can change that once we figure out how to bend a few dimensions.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 11:25pm PT
|
Your a great resource Ed, but what gives you the idea we have the ability to let or not let our activities as a race happen? Are we now gods? When did this transformation occur? As far as I can tell the path of events are forward only, not subject to repeat to correct errors, and our interactions with our multitudes, the various political systems, the environment, are all together vastly to complex for prediction or self determinism beyond a very short period of time ahead. The ability for planned evolution of the whole of ourselves and the earth around us is a very long ways off in the future.
Colonizing Mars seems within reach though. We have the technology for inner solar system human transport. We have the technology to excavate underground habitats and power them, we have the bioengineering capabilities to condition the native dirt for crops humans can metabolize. The planet has enough water for consumption, crop production, and synthesis of fuels. We could conceivably be self sustaining after a critical mass of colonists with accompanying machinery for resource extraction, processing and manufacturing are in place.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 11:37pm PT
|
Matt Damon already figured it out.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 10, 2016 - 11:39pm PT
|
Yeah, that was a good movie with some good science. Much like Zubrin's ideas. We need to go underground though.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 12:20am PT
|
at what cost Rick?
and for what benefit?
Columbus had a business plan, after all... and he sold it to the Spanish Crown which were his venture capitalists...
give me an idea why colonizing Mars is cost effective?
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:07am PT
|
ED,
i like this:
give me an idea why colonizing Mars is cost effective?
Rick, DNA will never rule the universe, too narrow of a working temperature range.
as for Pipe Dreams: Mr Peabody's coal company has hauled it away.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:32am PT
|
Only stupid people would pick Mars.
It's the lower planetary system and totally inauspicious.
Send the fools there by their mechanical means.
They're clueless with their mechanical propulsion systems for traveling.
It's done by sound vibrations and not by mechanical means which they haven't even heard of yet.
It proves even more and more how clueless modern materialistic caveman science is ......
|
|
brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 10:36am PT
|
Only stupid people would pick Mars.
It's the lower planetary system and totally inauspicious.
Send the fools there by their mechanical means.
They're clueless with their mechanical propulsion systems for traveling.
It's done by sound vibrations and not by mechanical means which they haven't even heard of yet.
It proves even more and more how clueless modern materialistic caveman science is ......
Yep.... American crankloons.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 10:42am PT
|
I'm not sorry in the slightest about being a materialist crankloon Werner. We are stuck in this material world for the duration of our life cycles. Might as well have an exploration project that can unite our race with a shared vision. You, well your welcome to vibrate your way their ahead of the colonists arrival. Quack quack.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 01:20pm PT
|
"How could colonizing Mars be cost effective" Ed asks. Well, with it's 1/3 of Earth's gravity well to escape from it is a perfect base for mining of the asteroid belt for everything from water, methane, metals. The planet itself is undoubtedly abundant in industrial metals and fuels for spacecraft to mine the asteroids. The economic benefit will eventually exceed Columbus' proposal by orders of magnitude. Besides that why have all our eggs in one basket, for survivability of the species dispersal makes sense. Add in the shared vision of exploration of new frontiers tendency to unite mankind and it makes lots of sense imo.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 04:20pm PT
|
Cleanup yet own shet pile at home DMT before you condemn others. Spoken like a true hypocrit.
|
|
jonnyrig
climber
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 04:30pm PT
|
Given the current state of technology, the most feasible way I can envision preserving the human genome would be sending freeze-dried DNA packets into outer space (toward other solar systems, not just this one). I'm sure you'd have no problem finding male donors (who would not doubt boast about launching one into space); but I'm not so sure women would participate so easily.
|
|
HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 06:04pm PT
|
DNA may be a complex molecule but it's made of only 5 very common elements.
Hydrogen - Oxygen (water), Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus
Put in (symbolic) pot. Bring to suitable temperature. Mix (thermal currents) for a long time. Millions or billions of years.
The Universe has time. Lots of time.
Will the soup create DNA?
Given the odds (and time) it's highly likely that DNA already exists outside Earth.
Somewhere. Has it "learned" how to self-replicate? Of course. It's "what DNA does".
Has it evolved into life as we know it? Now that's the question. It's all a matter of opportunity, time and chance.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/09/water-is-flowing-on-mars/407662/
You will note this doesn't actually require being on a planet. An asteroid or even dust cloud will do.
A related problem: Now that water has been verified on Mars, NASA is very concerned that the early Martian probes were not sufficiently cleansed of Earth proteins and traces of DNA. We in fact may have introduced our own life onto Mars. Confounding the question: if we find life on Mars where did it originate?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/did-humans-contaminate-mars/407731/
“We know there’s life on Mars because we sent it there,” said John Grunsfeld, a science director at NASA, during a press conference with reporters on Monday.
This was Grunsfeld being funny, a little.........
|
|
Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 06:08pm PT
|
I'm very skeptical of all this speculation
It's "more likely" that zero life exists outside Earth
Is there any evidence of life outside earth???? NO
(not counting us bringing life to Mars or whatever)
BUTTTTTTTTTTTTttt
We should investigate every aspect of these other planets for
science
and I hope to be proven wrong, but doubt it will ever happen
|
|
Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 06:27pm PT
|
Another Prediction!!!
No mining on other planets or the Moon will ever happen
The cost is Insane, we still haven't got a single Human collected rock off Mars. For good reason! It's too expensive.
And as others have noted, the exposure to Cosmic Radiation while in space will be almost impossible to block.
So the conclusion is: Just forget about it.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 06:30pm PT
|
Yeah the whole mining thing always seemed like a ridiculous concept. A scam idea for suckers.
Name a material with enough value to make even looking for it out there worthwhile.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 11, 2016 - 06:33pm PT
|
I had kind of put this one to bed in my mind. Good to see it evolving and devolving simultaneously.
I'm gonna open it up on the iPhone and re-read it. Why?
It's too time consuming to fire off responses via iPhone.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 06:40pm PT
|
^^^^flatearthers
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 06:41pm PT
|
True enough in many cases. However at least on earth it sometimes is not. I don't see how the same could be said for off earth mining.
Almost all the hard goods we use day to day come from mining and most of the energy. (drilling is a type of mining I would suppose)
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:01pm PT
|
Mars will be the central processing and manufacturing area. The 22nd century China if you will. Concentrated ores will be launched from the mining operations on asteroids with rail guns to either mars orbit or in ballistic containers with parachutes to Mars surface . Processed goods can be launched via the same rail gun method to earth or any other outpost in sol's system.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:06pm PT
|
such a romantic, Rick... but there's a road I go down every day to work, Tesla Rd.
In the quaint, and practical manner of 19th century road names, Tesla Rd. heads out of Livermore to the town of Tesla, up in the hills to the east of Livermore. The town is abandoned over a century ago, but was the site of the first coal mine in California...
http://www.teslacoalmines.org/Tesla.html
It's odd that they couldn't make it financially viable, of course there were no roads in and out of the area, and the rail came close by but not into the canyon. And that little bit of difficulty made the coal mined there costly, more than shipping it on schooner, around the Horn from Czechoslovakia. Imported coal was easier to get than overcoming the logistics of moving Tesla's coal from the hills that are now an easy bike ride to get to...
The raw materials were sitting there, and they were valuable to the people of the San Francisco Bay area, and various captains of industry tried to make it work... but for the economics of something as banal as moving the coal out of those rugged hills...
I cannot think of one mineral that you could extract on Mars that wouldn't be much much less expensive to extract on the Earth. And aside from running out of minerals on the Earth (which I believe you have indicated is an absurd premise from past discussions we've had, in which you stated your belief in the infinite bounty here on Earth) there doesn't seem like much of a reason to get if from Mars.
You can't even get coal to market from the Livermore Hills to the Bay Area.
|
|
Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:13pm PT
|
If they found a Diamond Mine on the Moon
that had Huge flawless diamonds just sitting there and the Astronauts could fill buckets of them,
and they sent 1000s of lbs of them back to earth
The cost of those diamonds would be 1000s times the cost of regular diamonds
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:19pm PT
|
In the 22nd century Mars will gain independence from Earth. No war will be fought over it's rejection of it's colonial status because as Ed points out it is simply to expensive. The Martian population will grow in leaps and bounds and, never abandoning their frontier spirit, will quickly colonize the rest of Sol's system. The first interstellar ships will be launched from Titan or Europa sometime in the 23rd century. By this time Earth will be populated with nothing but can't do crybaby losers with their thumbs up their butts.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:21pm PT
|
....will their Mom's ask the Earthlings to send snacks?
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:24pm PT
|
Certainly space mining for local consumption by settlers will be critical to the success of settling.. but trade with other planets? Hard to imagine something worth it.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:30pm PT
|
Necessity is the mother fooker of invention. With the abandonment of Earth and it's loser population Mars will be manufacturing central. Considering it's low gravity, freight will be exponentially cheaper to deliver from there over export from Earth. And the Bundy's will still be in Malheur supported by the kindness of tourists throwing snacks to the oddballs that managed a multi generational protest.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:40pm PT
|
Name a material with enough value to make even looking for it out there worthwhile.
Antimatter. $300 trillion per gram. pretty Big Bang for the buck.
Taaffeite, a gem mineral, $20,000 per gram. pretty purple color.
Tritium, $30,000 per gram. Exit lights use it.
Californium 252 $300,000 per gram. Produced in the lab or supernovae. Used in detectors. The largest ammount ever produced is 10 milligrams.
Diamonds. $65,000 per gram. Bling.
Painite, another gem, $300,000 per gram. Also purple.
All of these make Rhino horn, plutonium, platinum, gold, LSD, and crack cocaine seem like chump change.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 07:56pm PT
|
It's entertainment, or should be seen as such Moose. Certainly better than wandering around in paranoia expecting the sky to fall, or the pissing matches and endless name calling on the political threads...although that can sometime be fun to.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:06pm PT
|
Agreed Moose. Though let me add, vision is a prospect of the frontier(s). To the rest of you prophets of doom: Put away your angst for a moment in time and instead of reasoning why it can't be done theorize over how it can be done.
|
|
Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:08pm PT
|
I have a specimen of Painite, several carats
The rarest gemstone according to some
I do want a crystal of Taaffeite, so rare, so desirable
I collect rare minerals, so have many of the rest
no anti-matter or tritium
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:11pm PT
|
we only have so many hours to live and then we are dead...
choose your dreams wisely
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:20pm PT
|
Craig, we'll sling shot you a huge and perfect specimen from the belt. But wear protective gear as you open the asbestos capsule.
|
|
Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:22pm PT
|
I won't hold my breath rick
But get this!!
I have a chunk of the Russian Chelyabinsk meteor
the one that blew up over Russia a couple years ago
and this new info about some tektites I have being from the Moon!!
So much great stuff here on the earth, why go anywhere else.
You know what's scary? Being in outer space in a tin can.
|
|
clifff
Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:35pm PT
|
By using the same type of gravity assists that are used to speed space probes to the outer solar system; planets can be moved. Mars and Venus could be moved into Earth's orbit (there's plenty of room with 580 million miles of orbit). And when the Sun heats up, all 3 planets could be moved further out.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14983-moving-the-earth-a-planetary-survival-guide/
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:43pm PT
|
So much great stuff here on the earth, why go anywhere else
+1
But you know, it's a bureaucratic way of leveraging more funds.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:51pm PT
|
Without a vision (even not very realistic) we are as good as dead.
This is what all old people start realizing. That is atleast the ones that don't know there is a plan.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 08:56pm PT
|
Certainly space mining for local consumption by settlers will be critical to the success of settling..
Oh no doubt, and they'll certainly find the ingredient to cure cancer. SO WE'LL HAVE TO GO.,HA
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 11, 2016 - 09:23pm PT
|
We have to first decide that we are not just exploring the red planet, but rather colonizing it. This dictates maximum efficiency in every payload we send there. For example; after a number of robotic scouting missions to identify the wettest of the orbitally located wet areas the machines should converge at the chosen location for future surface transport/prospecting. The first habitat mission could be a nuclear powered tunneling machine. The tunnel length should be long enough to isolate the reactor from habitation zones. The tunneling equipment could be designed for disassembly and reassembly into airlock, habitat structure, and the all important electrolysis apparatus to produce fuel and oxygen for combining with other Martian atmospheric components into breathable air. The nuclear reactor should be sized to provide ample power for all operations.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 02:09am PT
|
I think the nuclear reactor is harder than at first glance. An ordinary reactor would require lots of heavy shielding or fry the electronics on a robotic mission. No way it would fly with humans on board.
Right now what we send into space Are Peltier thermopiles surrounding a chunk of Plutonium 238, which mostly emits just alpha particles that are easy to shield. Aluminum foil will do it. Even skin will stop Apha particles. Breathing them in though, is pretty bad.
Trouble is, there's only a couple hundred pounds of it in the World as a byproduct of refining pu 239 for bombs. We have maybe 90 pounds ( 2/3 reserved for spy missions) and the Russians have the rest, mostly from re-refining their scrapped warheads. There aren't reactors currently in use that make plutonium. And most of what we have is already spoken for for future missions. We bought some from the Russians for the 11 pound pile on the curiosity rover.
http://www.popsci.com/nasa-can-make-3-more-nuclear-batteries-and-thats-it
And making the stuff is messy. We have $100 million committed to researching making more in Idaho or Savannah by cleaner methods, but it's not like the Halcyon days at Hanford. I probably should have put it on the list of expensive stuff worth leaving the planet for.
Also, the energy density of those batteries isn't very high. The Curiosity rover 11 lb. pile only produces 125 watts.
Solar might be a better option on Mars even with long nights in winter.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 04:25am PT
|
Even skin will stop Apha particles.
Sounds harmless? The thickness of a skin layer is much much thicker than the thickness of a single skin cell wall membrane where the momentum of the alpha particle would be reduced and molecules destroyed.
Even skin will stop Apha particles. A neat non sense way to look at what the actual mechanics of what collisions are about.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 09:27am PT
|
Pu238 is the fuel for deep space flight... though it has a finite decay time...
the triple alpha decay is easy on electronics.
And Dingus is a bit off base on his fear of alpha induced damage on skin... shielding the alphas is pretty effective and straight forward, they loose a lot of energy thanks to Z=2... but it is true you don't want that radionuclide up against lung or gut tissue.
Dingus could review the studies of "energy loss of charged particles" and report back...
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 09:38am PT
|
Did not seem to hurt Tom Frost. He lugged one of those reactors up Nanda Devi.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 09:54am PT
|
Remember when some people thought the earth was flat?
Remember when Barry Marshall got laughed off the stage for saying ulcers were influenced by bacteria, not just stress, and then went on to win the nobel prize?
Remember when people thought if you went faster than 30mph you would explode?
Remember when doctors thought draining blood was helpful and cleaning things with water was harmful?
Sometimes scientists are the least imaginative group because we won't acknowledge how much we don't know.
I bet the future will look way different than we expect! Maybe we'll be doing FAs on asteroids on our way to another galaxy!
BUT, I still don't think we'll ever find any life out there. Maybe that will make mining the crap out of everything a little less offensive, DMT?
DNA may be a complex molecule but it's made of only 5 very common elements.
Hydrogen - Oxygen (water), Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus
Put in (symbolic) pot. Bring to suitable temperature. Mix (thermal currents) for a long time. Millions or billions of years.
The Universe has time. Lots of time.
Will the soup create DNA?
Given the odds (and time) it's highly likely that DNA already exists outside Earth.
Somewhere. Has it "learned" how to self-replicate? Of course. It's "what DNA does".
Has it evolved into life as we know it? Now that's the question. It's all a matter of opportunity, time and chance.
The universe has lots of time to break down those ingredients. Current researchers have basically all admitted that DNA can't form, or do anything useful if formed, in the "primordial soup." That leads them to hypothesize that perhaps RNA was first. Same problem. Now they hypothesize that possibly RNPs were first (see Cech, T. R. 2009. Crawling Out of the RNA World. Cell. 136 (4): 599-602.). Same problem, especially when considered with the probabilities I posted earlier of a simple protein forming (1 in 1 with 75 zeros).
Most are now on the crystal theory bandwagon referred to in my latest post. Eventually the likelihood of that will settle in and they'll start looking for something else.
In other words, we lucked out that there's life on earth and you're more likely to win that $1.4 billion powerball about a million times in a row than to find life anywhere else.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 09:56am PT
|
Pu238 is the fuel for deep space flight... though it has a finite decay time...
Good point. The half life is something like 88 years, and a pile will produce less energy over time. The Pu 238 on Voyager is expected to stop producing useful energy in about 2025, so if it will turn into V-Jer, it will have to start soon.
The 125 watts on Curiosity will be down to 100 watts in about 14 years from landing.
And one of those chunks isn't totally benign. It's refined to about 85% Pu 238 with most of the rest being 239. The 238 is excellent shielding for the 239 present, but I wouldn't sleep with it for warmth. They do shield it with a graphite jacket. The first element Pu 238 breaks down into is U 234.
I don't wear my dad's radium dial watch, either.
We did sent a reactor into space in 1965 (SNAP 10A) it lasted 43 days before component failure caused it to go dead.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 10:41am PT
|
Those plutonium reactors for use in space are not very efficient though. (like the one Tom Frost helped the CIA try to instal) Just simple direct heat transfer systems.
Need a much better reactor for colonization. Hotter I would think. Something more like what is in our nuclear subs perhaps. But then it gets pretty heavy..which causes significant issues for space travel.
Interesting problems.
Someone mentioned life in the universe.. Hard to imagine we are a singularity. Wanna talk about winning a lottery? that's just ridiculous.
Even if I cannot fathom how Ribosomes and tRNA happened or what it's precursor would have been.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 10:57am PT
|
Those plutonium reactors for use in space are not very efficient though. (like the one Tom Frost helped the CIA try to instal) Just simple direct heat transfer systems.
The computed energy available is currently about .54 watts per gram. There is an effort to quadruple that with better semiconductors. And the energy decreases at .787% per year.
Here are some units the Soviets had in the Arctic to power lighthouses.
Energy in space is for sure one of the biggest problems. I wish those guys in Utah would get cold fusion off the ground...
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 11:33am PT
|
Someone mentioned life in the universe.. Hard to imagine we are a singularity. Wanna talk about winning a lottery? that's just ridiculous.
Why? So many people seem to think there's life elsewhere but few want to really consider the likelihood.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 11:46am PT
|
I seem to recall this question/discussion regarding planets around other stars and do black holes exist? Glad I have been around long enough to see a few of these things answered.
With a little investment in better radio receivers we just might get the life thing answered in my lifetime. I would be much more shocked if there is not than if there is.
Of course no one knows..it's just speculation. Unless you want to invest seriously in getting the question answered.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 12:03pm PT
|
Why? So many people seem to think there's life elsewhere but few want to really consider the likelihood.
Limpingcrab, I read your probability of life post with particular interest
can you expand some more on how life on earth started/differs in comparison ?
habitable zone.....
|
|
jonnyrig
climber
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 02:00pm PT
|
If there is life off earth, and if it has developed at a similar pace as us, then we are all still in the relative dark ages when it comes to space travel and communications. To effectively communicate anything with an alien race either they would have to have broadcast a few hundred years ago, or our technology would need improvement. Either way, we,d either terrify them or be their future target. Maybe both.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 04:53pm PT
|
Ed,
I am not actually talking about thick skin, but hinting at the cell membrane of one celled animals. Are you going to say no effect here with alpha particles hitting their cell wall membrane? A skin layer, maybe a thousand times thicker?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 06:54pm PT
|
do the math Dingus...
how thick is skin (this includes stuff that isn't living anymore)?
and what is the range of a 5.6 MeV alpha particle (the maximum energy)?
it's about 40 microns... the epidermis of a thin-skinned person is about 100 to 150 microns...
so those alphas are pretty much gone before they get to any live cells...
|
|
rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 07:06pm PT
|
No let's spend our time calculating the likelihood of life on other planets using whatever Incompletely incomplete information we have and then convince ourselves that really our conclusions are spot on because you know we have all of this information and what better use might we make of our time given this incomplete information which we're sure is just really almost complete information right? so we'd better spend our time contemplating that rather than Donald's wacky facial expressions, I mean, shouldn't we? Yes definitely, it is so, and when we look around at we humans, that's we do. Or not.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 07:45pm PT
|
We live around a typical star with, and as we are finding out, a pretty typical planetary makeup. So why do some of you think yourselves and the evolution of life on earth are so damn special?
|
|
jonnyrig
climber
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 07:48pm PT
|
No let's spend our time calculating the likelihood of life on other planets using whatever Incompletely incomplete information we have and then convince ourselves that really our conclusions are spot on because you know we have all of this information and what better use might we make of our time given this incomplete information which we're sure is just really almost complete information right? so we'd better spend our time contemplating that rather than Donald's wacky facial expressions, I mean, shouldn't we? Yes definitely, it is so, and when we look around at we humans, that's we do. Or not.
As opposed to posting on the internet?
If we are the pinnacle of life in the universe, well.... sh#t.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 08:02pm PT
|
Ed,
I am not actually talking about thick skin, but hinting at the cell membrane of one celled animals. Are you going to say no effect here with alpha particles hitting their cell wall membrane? A skin layer, maybe a thousand times thicker?
I'm pretty sure we won't be overly concerned about single cell animals, except perhaps to keep them in check on a Mars Colony. And anyway, just putting the pile outside solves that issue. The one on Curiosity is a separate box attached to the vehicle. The Apollo 14 mission just dumped it on the ground. They have to be placed where they can dump their heat for the peltier effect to work. Eventually the Alpha particles attract electrons and become Helium. That's how Rutherford proved what they were.
|
|
Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 08:58pm PT
|
Hi Rick:
We live around a typical star with, and as we are finding out, a pretty typical planetary makeup. So why do some of you think yourselves and the evolution of life on earth are so damn special?
I agree with your sentiment here completely, but just to be accurate, with all the planet systems we have discovered in the last 10 years, it is clear that the Solar System is not even close to typical. This is one of the reasons we were slow to discover extra-solar planets. We were looking for solar system analogues.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 09:12pm PT
|
Limpingcrab, I read your probability of life post with particular interest
can you expand some more on how life on earth started/differs in comparison ?
I wish I knew. I try to keep up on the subject and it's a cycle of one group mathematically and chemically disproving the previous hypothesis in favor of their own, only to be disproven by the next. In the words of one of my undergrad evolution professors, "the beginning of life is a fascinating topic because there are so many contradictions in the research." One way of saying that it's so unlikely that we haven't even gotten close to figuring out how it could happen, much less taking it for granted that it happened elsewhere.
With a little investment in better radio receivers we just might get the life thing answered in my lifetime. I would be much more shocked if there is not than if there is.
It might be wise to consider the odds of life developing elsewhere before we invest millions/billions in trying to detect it.
We live around a typical star with, and as we are finding out, a pretty typical planetary makeup. So why do some of you think yourselves and the evolution of life on earth are so damn special?
If I won the lottery a million times in a row I would think that was pretty special and I wouldn't necessarily expect to meet other people with the same experience.
I just think with the info we have now it would be wise to spend time/money solving problems on earth or looking into space travel and resources rather than banking on finding life elsewhere. It's math, though ambiguous, still based on math. Might be wrong, I often am, but from what I've learned in my short time I think we'll need many more than a billion planets to have any hope of finding life.
PS: reading what you guys write about the physics of space travel and energy is fascinating. I started out hoping to be a physicist and wish I had the mind and time to also follow that topic closely. Keep it going!
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 12, 2016 - 09:24pm PT
|
Mike, it is extremely difficult to detect planets the size of earth with the present state of equipment. However, as of 2016 500 of the nearly 1300 stars with detected planets are multi planet systems.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 13, 2016 - 12:23am PT
|
Rick, you do know that Mike Bolte is an astronomer by profession, and not "just" an astronomer...
he is well aware of the planet finding capability at the current state-of-the-art, and of what is on the drawing boards... and everything in between...
you might listen to what he says...
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 13, 2016 - 03:49am PT
|
Ed,
zero in fellow.
specifically, a cell wall membrane, nothing here to do with how thick a skin cell is. There are no dead skin layers on the cell wall membrane of single cell animals.
|
|
Larry Nelson
Social climber
|
|
|
Jan 13, 2016 - 06:55am PT
|
I've been enjoying this discussion for some time. Thanks to Ed Hartouni and all of his great posts. Truly a valuable ST resource.
So we have lots of time to figure out how to travel beyond our solar system, but it won't happen soon.
Who's out there? Who knows? I am agnostic.
In the near term we need to think cost/benefit, and manned exploration really lowers the bang for the buck.
I used to subscribe to Rick Sumner's ideas on mining the solar system, but the revolution in nano-technology is changing my perception. They have finally fabricated nano-structures strong enough to consider for the space elevator.
There yet may be an economical way to mine, but that is beyond our lifetimes.
I also think that manufacturing in a gravity free environment is a viable future.
Perfect ball bearings, chemical compounds, etc.
As far as travel to the nearest stars?
Technology we can barely dream of will no doubt play a part. Maybe even Werner's sound vibrations.
So in the Grand Unification theory, we still don't know squat about gravity.
This story, or rumor, just came out on detecting gravity waves. Good stuff.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/12/gravitation-waves-signal-rumoured-science
Some background on the LIGO
https://www.advancedligo.mit.edu/
A good PBS background
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2014/11/theres-more-than-one-way-to-hunt-for-gravitational-waves/
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 13, 2016 - 08:40am PT
|
Thanks Ed. Please excuse me Mike, I was just going off a few articles I read. Please continue.
Come on Larry, where's the enthusiasm? The delay in the exploration and utilization of the systems vast resources seems to me to be a result of attutude. In this information age the populace has made a collective, unconscious turn inward. We need to wake up the pioneering spirit again for true satisfaction and realization of potential. Otherwise we stagnate, sicken and die.
|
|
Larry Nelson
Social climber
|
|
|
Jan 13, 2016 - 02:44pm PT
|
Hey Rick,
LOL, yeah I do like pioneering spirits.
Travel beyond the solar system probably won't be human.
Working our own solar system is in our relatively near future.
A space elevator may be an important first step in that future...although there are still many technical and engineering unknowns in the elevator.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Jan 13, 2016 - 04:20pm PT
|
My understanding of how Kepler works, is it's measuring dimming of stellar light cause by the passage of planets between the star and the Kepler satellite. It's called the occultation method. This works only due to fortuitous orientation of the planetary orbit, as most of the planets are simply not observed due to unfavorable geometry of their orbits. Add in the small sector of sky being monitored by this satellite observatory, and the enormity of the galaxy and stars with planetary systems becomes mind boggling.
Frankly, I'd rather see my tax dollars being spent this way instead of more smart bombs.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 07:10am PT
|
Good to know there are groups of people dedicated to brainstorming exploration at the edge of possibility. I had no idea that such velocities could be achieved using gravity assist slingshots combined with the extra kick of conventional rocketry. When I was young I always heard of fusion ram jets and light sails. Of course if you physics guys actually crack the secrets of gravity perhaps some loopholes could be realized there.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 08:17am PT
|
time travel to the past, which is what superluminal space craft engage in, is probably not likely... it violates causality, and causality seems to be fundamental... there is a future, a now and a past which are well defined, always.
without knowing the details, you might posit that no matter what you do (e.g. "warp" space-time), you cannot go from point A to point B faster than the speed-of-light.
if that is true, that doesn't rule out the possibility that we could survive very long voyage. the dilation of time which a moving body experiences prolongs it's lifetime as we observe it... a muon is a particle very much like a heavy electron. it experiences radioactive decay to an electron in a lifetime of 2.2 microseconds. The speed of light is 984 feet per microsecond so you'd expect the muon to travel only about 2200 feet, yet muons produced in the upper atmosphere easily make it to the surface, because of special relativity... their clocks appear to slow down to us.
so if you can get close to the speed of light, the time in the "rest frame" of the universe seems to slow down. Say you want to slow your clock down by a factor of 10... you'd need to be going at 99.5% of the speed-of-light...
just how you do this is open to question... and those 10 years are 100 years back on Earth, so a return trip takes you to a place that you don't really know... but you'd be able to go out roughly 99.5 light years and back in 20 years of your time, but 200 years of Earth time.
this opens the question, in such a future, of visits from "extra terrestrials" who actually left the Earth and return in a future that forgot about them...
Now all you have to figure out is how to accelerate and decelerate to speeds near the speed-of-light... gravity assist might be an answer but how to make the very deep "gravitational wells" required?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 09:16am PT
|
Yes, I can hear the standard 23rd century voyagers farewell now: may your days be long and gravity always well before you.
As far as violation of physical laws and causality goes: no matter what mathematical and intellectual gymnastics one engages in; our understanding is woefully insufficient to explain our reference points basis of all thoughts processes necessary to justify a beginning and direction to time and space. IMO physics is in infancy still with a very long life ahead. Just my ignorant (mis)understanding of course.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 09:43am PT
|
Thru yogic sound vibration mantra one can travel to anywhere in the cosmos instantly.
Modern cave men science is always clueless and does everything wrong .....
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 09:55am PT
|
The science of "Physics as We Know It" is still in a relative infancy, with true beginnings with the experiments of Galileo in the late 1500s. Newton really set things on the correct course by mathematically formulating what is now called Analytical Mechanics; i.e. "A body in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force." His breakthoughs in Optics were phenomenal and led to the science of Spectroscopy. Physics is really the science of measurement, but no one in the beginning could ever conceive of the sheer magnitude of the universe as we currently understand it So...in just 500 years we have progressed to just the tip of the iceberg of understanding the true nature of the Cosmos.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 10:09am PT
|
.in just 500 years we have progressed
That 'we' is western gross materialistic science only which is very poor crude cave man science using stone age tools ...
The intelligent class have been doing science for billions of years ....
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 10:17am PT
|
Yeah HFCS. Didn't view it, but some of Ed's recent posts referencing pop science articles were like somebody stole his identity.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2016 - 12:21pm PT
|
I'll post this here since the religious thread has been taken over by, well... the supernaturalists.
Rick, when you post of causality, space travel, evolution and a hopeful future based on our species getting its act together (granted, not guaranteed) you are speaking my passions.
Regarding causality, the illusion of free will and pop science or pop philos videos, you might enjoy this one, if you haven't already, when you got the time. Sam Harris is always worth the return on investment....
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 07:34am PT
|
no matter what mathematical and intellectual gymnastics one engages in
Rick, and you are doing even less than what you have suggested in the above quote, as for using the tools of physics to enhance your understanding.
Get a clue: Do you Understand the tool/idea of Entropy? The likely hood of the exact same particle arrangement for the universe at some future time/space configuration is about identically zero. Furthermore, what would keep track of this arrangement -- a lot of information for the map.
It seems you are just engaging in the "what if" question since you are using the "anything is possible" type thinking. Generally speaking, if any processes are[currently] possible they are already happening on some scale some where, now.
A thought problem 4 U: Can a shaft both be rotating both forward and backward at the same time? If your answer is yes, you likely have no understanding of calculus, the root tool of physics.
But, You might try to understand what is the nature of Becoming. That is how do thing come about?
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 07:59am PT
|
Please explain further Dingus. How is it that our understanding of what we take to be the physical world is more understood than that of an infant's understanding of human society around it?
My point referenced in your post above is that our basis of understanding, that which is our human world and original reference point, is incomplete if not totally insufficient, or even the wrong road to understanding of the deepest layers and widest expanses of the cosmos around us. Much now considered impossible will become reality as our understanding of nature matures.
Anyway, this is going a little off topic. There are billions of world's out there, many millions just as capable as earth to sustain life. We are finding them, we will soon begin to determine the extent of life. We will detect advanced civilizations. We must explore and settle ,first our solar system, then others.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 08:05am PT
|
Can a shaft both be rotating both forward and backward at the same time?
Seems like it does. Turn a shaft clockwise, then look directly at each end. One end is turning clockwise, the other counterclockwise.
Same goes with our planet. The northern hemisphere turns clockwise, while the southern is turning counterclockwise.
You tell me?
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 08:11am PT
|
bluecolor,
you are taking a different measurement when you look at the other end. You rotated your coordinate system 180 degrees for the second measurement. If you employ the right hand rule for the rotation vector you would get the same vector looking at either end.
Remember all measurements are local.
In other words you used a different coordinate system location. And that is part of what understanding calculus is about.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 08:13am PT
|
Rick,
In order for something to become that conversion process [change] to make it happen needs a pathway for it to happen. If no pathway exists there can be no becoming for such an event.
e.g. Until the soup of the big bang cooled enough DNA could not exist.
A babies brain changes as it grows -- it becomes an adult brain not = a babies brain.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 09:00am PT
|
Rick,
there is second phase of understanding calculus. It is how integration works.
To get any sum [idea of a total] we need to know rate or density and some bounding values.
You simply assert that there are billions & billions ....
How big is the Universe? Bounding values?
At what density are the specific items occurring? Real earth like planets.
Behind his mask, even Werner know this stuff.
I am done with non sense for now and the idea that physics is stupid ...
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 09:03am PT
|
Your expression of your thoughts sounds to me like garble Dingus. Probably a processing mess on my side. Or maybe not.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 10:05am PT
|
A babies brain changes as it grows -- it becomes an adult brain not = a babies brain.
"Remember, all measurements are local."
Not trying to be a smartazz or anything, but?
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 10:52am PT
|
bluecolor
Problem?? I don't see one.
Apply a transform matrix if you switch locales.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2016 - 01:11pm PT
|
Dingus garble interpreter:
I'm not the one asserting billions and billions of planets (the phrase billions and billions was popularized by Sagan in his Cosmos series) . That estimate is made by Nasa-see the op and contents of thread Dingus. Density of planets? See contents of thread, but they seem to be typically present around a good percentage of stars, of which their are hundreds of billions in our galaxy alone.
As far as estimating the size and age of the known universe; that estimate has changed in my adult lifetime from roughly 3-20 billion years depending on different studies based on different methods from using the Hubble constant to the current observations of CMB by the Planck satellite. The current size estimate is 92 billion light years across. All estimates are made by models using the best observationally backed assumptions. Therein lies a problem, perhaps.
What I am asserting, besides an abundance of life throughout the universe, is that physics is still in infancy; meaning much more is yet to be learned than is currently known and just like the ancients cosmology controlled by a panoply of God's seems primitive to us, our cosmology will seem primitive to diviners of nature in the future.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2016 - 06:45pm PT
|
Big doings out there. ASASSN-15lh
Scientists stunned by brightest-ever supernova
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/01/15/scientists-stunned-by-brightest-ever-supernova.html
If that is enough to astound you, its explosion at its peak intensity was 570 billion times the brightness of the Sun. At that rate, its luminosity level is approximately 20 times the entire output of the 100 billion stars comprising our Milky Way galaxy.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 02:11pm PT
|
The last two posts contain two of my very favorite essays ever written. Read by their author, a man who significantly formed my view of the world and how to think as a child.
Thankyou Carl Sagan.
"It will not be we who reach the stars..but a species much like us..with fewer of our weaknesses and more of our strengths." ------
Evidence currently suggests the possibility of a 100% rate of intelligent life occurring on planets like earth.
Depending how you define intelligent life anyway..hehe
I'll admit the sample size it a bit small for significant conclusions.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 02:25pm PT
|
The gross materialists have no fund of knowledge how other planets intelligent life communicates.
The just sit on earth and think everyone else has to be like us.
Then they build a stooopid radio telescope thinking everyone else in the universe will communicate just like us cavemen.
No one answered on their stoopid gross material listening machine.
They use far more advance methods unknown to the fool gross materialists cavemen ......
|
|
rlf
Trad climber
Josh, CA
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 03:05pm PT
|
I have to agree with you Werner. The other problem that nobody gets is if anything we are beaming signals out to distant galaxies, millions of light years away. Exactly when were they expecting any kind of answer in return?
Moronic waste of money. Stare at the cosmos all you please, but spending huge amounts of cash looking ET is stupid. Thinking anything else is just as stupid.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 03:22pm PT
|
I have to agree with you Werner.
Congrats, rlf, you're now in the WB camp.
(I'll try not to forget.)
The other problem that nobody gets is if anything we are beaming signals out to distant galaxies, millions of light years away. Exactly when were they expecting any kind of answer in return?
Tell me, genius, has it ever occurred to you the ETIs - if they're out there - don't have to "answer"? Instead, genius, they could just be broadcasting on their own, one way. Say, for instance, they could be broadcasting an Encyclopedia Galactica. Or beta... galactic beta... in our direction for surviving our so-called "technological adolescence." So receiving THAT wouldn't be worth the ROI?
Who YOU voting for WB Camp member rlf? Trump?
WBC members:
11. rlf
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 03:54pm PT
|
There is NO intelligent life on Super Topo. Well--maybe a few random geniuses, and a carload of idiots.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 04:14pm PT
|
How so, BDC?
Let's hear your thoughts.
For instance, couldn't we pick up on some useful beta from an ETI? even from our own galactic neighborhood? even as early as tomorrow? if they were out there and we were lucky? and wouldn't our listening efforts amount to just a minuscule fraction of some of our other national expenditures?
Isn't it true that our Arecibo could pick up a signal from an imaginary Arecibo twin as far away as 15,000 light-years (if memory serves and I think it does)? Sure seems that could be a useful pick-up to me.
How many star systems do we have within 15k? I can't remember. But it's a lot. Right? Most importantly, because we don't hear anything (the Fermi Paradox) well, it seems to me that's useful info as well. Imo.
Consider how much we pay for national defense. Compare that to how much this nation spends on space activities. It's pretty sad and disappointing in my book.
I'd love to wake up tomorrow to the news that SETI's heard something, that reams of knowledge from another intelligence have been received and much of it already decoded, that they have DNA and a genetic code like we do and that we are related by panspermia or some such. I ask how cool would that be?
Eyes open.
.....
So who funds the SETI search now?
http://www.seti.org/faq#obs7
If an extraterrestrial civilization has a SETI project similar to our own, could they detect signals from Earth?
In general, no. Most earthly transmissions are too weak to be found by equipment similar to ours at the distance of even the nearest star. But there are some important exceptions. High-powered radars and the Arecibo broadcast of 1974 (which lasted for only three minutes) could be detected at distances of tens to hundreds of light-years with a setup similar to our best SETI experiments.
tens to hundreds of light-years...
Hence, the Fermi paradox.
|
|
Spiny Norman
Social climber
Boring, Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 05:05pm PT
|
The inverse-square rule is a bitch.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 05:22pm PT
|
They been communicating all along since time memorable.
The modern gross materialistic so called science men have devolved into cavemen and are never tuned to the right frequencies.
Thus they exhibit poor fund of knowledge meltdowns and never hear and always miss the frequencies that are beyond their foolish puffed up gross materialistic senses .....
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 05:33pm PT
|
The other problem that nobody gets is if anything we are beaming signals out to distant galaxies, millions of light years away. Exactly when were they expecting any kind of answer in return?
Well, we've been beaming out signals for about a century. In a couple years intelligent life 100 light years away should be getting Amos and Andy. In another few years it will be Pinky Lee and I love Lucy. 100 years from today they'll be getting the live stream from pig man at Malheur.
They'll be encrypting and switching frequencies so we don't find them and holding their breaths for 100 years hoping it wasn't too late.
|
|
crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 07:41pm PT
|
never hear and always miss the frequencies that are beyond their foolish puffed up gross materialistic senses .....
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 09:05pm PT
|
Werner is possibly correct considering most of the universe is composed of stuff we have not yet managed to observe except by its effect on galaxy density and the rate of universal expansion.
Considering that we are still learning about the fundamental properties of normal matter and energy which comprises apparently less than half the actual universe ..we may find out that there are beings coexisting right alongside us that we simply don't know how to see. (ok that is a stretch but vaguely possible)
The coolest discovery in my lifetime is that not only do we not know everything in physics..we apparently haven't managed to make the most basic observations of over half the universe. Very exciting stuff ..almost certainly there will be history changing discoveries ahead..it is very possible and perhaps likely that technologies as or more powerful and history altering as say chemistry, electricity or nuclear physics are in the future.
Doubt this!? How could it not be something ridiculously powerful if it is continuously accelerating all visible (and dark) mass in the universe? What is the chemistry or physics of dark matter? Do you really think this stuff will be something less complex than normal matter?
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jan 31, 2016 - 11:11pm PT
|
Werner is possibly correct considering... Doubt this?
Here, climbski2, let Neil deGrasse Tyson shed some light on the subject...
What Science Is, and How and Why It Works
"If you cherry-pick scientific truths to serve cultural, economic, religious or political objectives, you undermine the foundations of an informed democracy."
http://www.facebook.com/notes/neil-degrasse-tyson/what-science-is-and-how-and-why-it-works/10153892230401613
"Objective truths exist outside of your perception of reality, such as the value of pi; E= m c 2; Earth's rate of rotation; and that carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases. These statements can be verified by anybody, at any time, and at any place. And they are true, whether or not you believe in them." -Neil de Grasse Tyson
(1) Do NOT be so open minded your brains fall out.
(2) Do NOT be an enabler for those in the WB Club.
"Once an objective truth is established by these methods, it is not later found to be false. We will not be revisiting the question of whether Earth is round; whether the sun is hot; whether humans and chimps share more than 98 percent identical DNA; or whether the air we breathe is 78 percent nitrogen." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
http://www.startalkradio.net/show/the-value-of-science-with-brian-cox/
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
That Werner knows if he is correct was not the subject of my statement. However the very real possibility exists that he is correct.
Right now our understanding of the universe tells us that we don't even begin to understand over half of it, can't even observe half of it that is apparently right where we are..not light years away. Yet you wish to suggest that it is unlikely that humans can develop technology to travel the stars? Or at the very least listen and identify other possible civilizations?
Currently we absolutely know that there are major discoveries still to be made in physics. History suggests that major discoveries lead to major technologies. Very likely changes as different and history changing as electronics was versus mechanics.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
Yet you wish to suggest that...
Oh is that what I suggest? lol
"the very real possibility exists that he is correct" -cs2
Why don't you be specific and tell us what that is.
Is it (1) or (2) or (3)?
(1) They been communicating all along since time memorable.
(2) The modern gross materialistic so called science men have devolved into cavemen and are never tuned to the right frequencies.
(3) Thus they exhibit poor fund of knowledge meltdowns and never hear and always miss the frequencies that are beyond their foolish puffed up gross materialistic senses .....
With all due respect, you sure know how to (1) step in it and (2) make it worse.
In my estimation, you're the site's poster child of the regressive left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_left
"Show me the evidence."
.....
"Yet you wish to suggest that it is unlikely that {a} humans can develop technology to travel the stars? Or {b} at the very least listen and identify other possible civilizations?" -cs2
{b} I'm a SETI supporter. Do you read? lol
{a} Was this even discussed? lol
Forget it, waste of time,
you're now in the WB Camp.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2016 - 09:15am PT
|
I was thinking (this may be the problem), that aren't there a whole boatload of things that now "exist", which were never (well at least hardly ever) even conceived of a ways back.
Herr Braun points this out. He doesn't have to be able to describe them in detail.
Anyway what would constitute a proof.
I was told back in the 1970's (by extremely smart and knowledgeable hi-tech gurus that there would come a time when no new software would be released without a "proof of correctness".
Hmmmmmmmmmm ... This was the pre-Microsoft era.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
Sure, zBrown, but how does this support WB's truth-claims in any way? He makes sh#t up left and right and disses science at every opportunity. To a fan of science like me it's pretty repugnant and tedious after the thousandth time.
And then he flips the script and accuses the science types - many of whom have grown up in science and science edu - of making sh#t up. Classic.
He's a player. He's a troll. Fine. But it happens to be in an area of human interest of which I'm a big fan. So he gets no sympathy, not from me.
In my book, he's the equivalent of rock chipper and litterer in Yosemite when it comes to science. He may be Yosemite's best rescuer (who wouldn't be?) and maintenance man but he's a clown, a buffoon, on these issues.
"Werner is by several yardsticks the most solid person posting here, though you might need to know him beyond this thread to realize that." -an enabler
Uh-huh.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 1, 2016 - 09:50am PT
|
hfcs
I think you're taking him too seriously. I like science. He and I get along.
However, the first part of the post is the part that stands independently of hB, the ST or SETI.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
Exactly when were they expecting any kind of answer in return?
Moronic waste of money. Stare at the cosmos all you please, but spending huge amounts of cash looking ET is stupid. Thinking anything else is just as stupid.
Not expecting an answer in return, but if a signal is detected it is a sign that other intelligent life in the universe had reached a level of technology that included communication using electromagnetic radiation. That would be quite a discovery.
As far as a waste of money, you'll be happy to know that the US gov't. doesn't have much skin in the game... as Congresses in the past have shared your view... however, from a scientific standpoint, it is felt that this discovery is very likely. So it might be that you can feel smug, when the discovery is announced, that none of your tax dollars went to support it.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
However the very real possibility exists that he is correct.
how you arrive at this is mystifying. There is little possibility that Werner is correct. There is little possibility that you or I are correct when predicting what will come to be in the distant future of science. And the "we know nothing so anything is possible" line of argument is a fallacy. Everything is not possible.
Right now our understanding of the universe tells us that we don't even begin to understand over half of it, can't even observe half of it that is apparently right where we are..not light years away. Yet you wish to suggest that it is unlikely that humans can develop technology to travel the stars? Or at the very least listen and identify other possible civilizations?
Just how do we come to this understanding? We have identified a better cosmology that includes two additional components, the Dark Matter which explains the morphology of collections of stars and the Dark Energy which explains the changes in the rate of expansion. We'll look for these things, but the very fact that they were not noticed until the relatively recently means they don't have a big effect on our day-to-day activities. Presuming that they can be harnessed to "make the impossible possible" is a leap of fate sure to spill you into the abyss.
Currently we absolutely know that there are major discoveries still to be made in physics. History suggests that major discoveries lead to major technologies. Very likely changes as different and history changing as electronics was versus mechanics.
That there are discoveries to be made, major or minor, is a weak prediction. It is not at all clear what history has to do with anything... you can, once again, have faith that technology will "advance" with major scientific discoveries, but you would be a lot better off describing this connection. So far, no one has.
For instance, the major discovery of "dynamical symmetry breaking" that essentially led to the hypothesis of the Higgs Boson, recently confirmed, has been around since the 1970s. It has also been around in "solid state physics" earlier. That's 40 years (going on 50) and there has yet to be a major technology associated with it.
Techno-optimism is based on very little evidence of any cause-and-effect connection with scientific discovery. In my opinion, it has more to do with the size of the human population.
|
|
Larry Nelson
Social climber
|
|
Faster than the speed of light? (yeah, doesn't translate to spaceships)
OK I admit this is pop science for most smart folks that post on this thread, but it's a good refresher for the rest of us.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
Thanks Ed for bringing this to a bit more of a serious discussion.
Being that I do enjoy Werners style I was going along with it trollishly. My statement that Werner might be correct is more an admittance that many thing might be true since we have not seen or know everything. Not that I was agreeing. I did not consider it point for point as to which parts of what he said have any chance at all of being true or are certainly contradicted by known fact.
So mostly I was jumping on the troll bus.
However I am a type of Techno/humanity optimist. Not the type that thinks whatever problem we paint ourselves into we will somehow get bailed out by incredible new technologies. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if the only thing that bails out humanity is that we are very hardy and adaptable organisms and have a fair chance of some of us surviving the worst we can do to our environment.
That there are discoveries to be made, major or minor, is a weak prediction. It is not at all clear what history has to do with anything... you can, once again, have faith that technology will "advance" with major scientific discoveries, but you would be a lot better off describing this connection. So far, no one has.
My tech optimism and optimism that there are whole areas of knowledge we have not imagined yet just comes from the history of exploration and discovery. Yes not all knowledge is practical. But some perhaps most is.
The pattern in history seems really clear to me. Research and exploration lead to discovery which leads to new technology. Generally true. I'm not sure there is much of a good argument against this other than I suppose it is possible that we may run out of things to do and things to learn before time ends. I suppose its possible that we are close to running out. I wonder if there is a mathematical way of setting up that question so one could determine what the probability that there are no major scientific/technological breakthrough to be made is. I don't know how to do it.. game theory mebbe?. Not sure the answer would mean anything anyway.
Wasn't there a fairly recent discovery about electron spin and how to control it that has led directly to our ability to store data incredibly more densely? I think it had some application in electronic beer coolers as well. Seems like a minor discovery overall but with pretty solid impact.
---------------
You made a really good point here that I had considered
We'll look for these things,(dark matter dark energy) but the very fact that they were not noticed until the relatively recently means they don't have a big effect on our day-to-day activities.
Yet somehow this stuff seems to accelerate whole galaxies away from each other. Might be some application eventually but you may be correct. Maybe it will never be useful.
Sorry I trolled ya a bit HFCS. Now if I said Werner "is" correct..vs saying he "could be" correct..you might have a better point.
|
|
Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
|
|
I was told back in the 1970's (by extremely smart and knowledgeable hi-tech gurus that there would come a time when no new software would be released without a "proof of correctness".
I take credit for that pipe dream. When I was a college kid in the 60's I sent IBM a list of corrections to the Fortran manuals they sent along with the mainframe the college received.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
I am a huge fan of SETI. But I'm not sure we have or are using the proper technology to go about it in a way that is likely to produce positive results even if there many civilizations out there.
I would want our receivers to be capable of detecting our own civilization at say a few thousand light years. That should give us a decent sample size. I would want to be able to detect a civilization technically similar us in our normal mode of broadcast not just if we are deliberately blasting from Aricibo.
My understanding (could be wrong) is that no one is anywhere near this level of sensitivity or attempting to engineer it right now. If that is true I think we are probably wasting time and money and will require being ridiculously lucky to find anything.
Then there is the difficulty of recognizing digital signals which seem more likely to be used by most civilizations most of their broadcast life.
Speaking of Aricibo.. Just took these pics a few months ago when I visited the William E. Gordon Radio Telescope. Since I was close I had to spend some time there.
|
|
Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
|
|
Everything suggests that Hawking is absolutely right when it comes to his prediction of man's survivability - or at least civilized living - on this planet. And I give it less than 100 years. But unless someone can come up with a means of faster-than-light travel, seems to me that the chance of colonizing space is somewhere between zero and none. But what do I know...?
Hartouni - what's your take on colonizing other planets?
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
Hi Wayne. i simply do not measure up to Mr H.s exceptional grasp of physics but I wouldnt mind taking a swing at the question and at Hawkins concern that Humans will go extinct if they stay here.
Faster than light does not seem to be the issue. Accelerating quickly to near speed of light would be more than adequate with time contraction. For example if one were to come close enough to the speed of light you could cross the the whole universe in days or for that matter less than a second
https://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/q917.html
It requires an insane(highly technical term) amount of energy to get something with mass to travel that fast. An insurmountable hurdle it seems at the moment. For ship sized things anyway.
Regarding Hawkins..I would say it is reasonably likely that we will destroy our civilization due to unregulated population growth. However I do think we will leave behind a ton of accessible knowledge for the survivors to build on. Hopefully they manage to keep reading and some modern language alive long enough to access the info. perhaps they or their children will learn from our mistakes and not lose too much of our accumulated knowledge.
A few more beers tells me ...It may take more than one or two tries at civilization before Humans get it right but I would be a little surprised if we don't figure it out eventually. 100 years or 10,000 .. somewhere in that range. I am pretty sure the species or its progeny will exist that long.
I lived for a time with Eskimos on the Bering sea in the 70's. Humans are incredibly adaptive clever and hardy. So I just have a hard time thinking up something we can do that no group anywhere on the planet could survive. I do think people will endure for quite some time.
I hope Ed will post up soon. I look forward to being humbled and learning something.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
This is one of the best current threads. The speculations are inspirational, mostly. The only thing that excites my imagination more than detection of ETI is colonization of another planet in our system. Many of us are of similar late middle age; a top off of the most exciting time in human history to live would be for us to see these things before our last breaths.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
I have begun following this thread now it's taken on some serious questions and speculation.
I simply am along for the ride, however.
Is it possible that this speeding up of the various bodies is a portent of the end of time?
One dimension down, but space times three is still there but with no one to appreciate it. This is mostly all new and eye-opening to me because I did not take physics in HS and developed no active interest, consequently.
It's not blowing my mind, but making me think out of the box (or is it a tesseract?) I've been existing in all my life concerning phenomena such as is being discussed here.
Please carry on while I lurk and observe and try to learn something about a difficult topic.
Thanks to all conCERNed.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Moose and I went back and forth on this on the 'Falcon 9' thread. My position is there's no leaving the Earth for evolutionary reasons which constrain to this planet. Even if there were a means to instantly travel to 'similar' planets elsewhere we could not survive them.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
Are you an Elon Musk fan?
I am.
"Musk thinks it's vital for mankind to create a self-sustaining city on Mars to protect against human extinction, and also to inspire people."
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-says-spacex-will-send-people-mars-2025-n506891
Keeping the dream alive.
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.
I get the fact that we're nine-tenths non human dna, that our matrix is comprised of "alien" cells, etc.. So?
I'd like to see us become a multiplanet species. I think it is totally within our technological capabilities.
Frankly, I don't get the dissers and debbie downers here and elsewhere who show no interest for these kinds of endeavors. Whether it's SETI and First Contact or a self-sustaining colonization off-earth (even if it's only a couple HAVs). But, yes, people are different.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 2, 2016 - 08:01am PT
|
Bringing It All Back Home (for a few minutes)
 posts
2,226,878 x ave number of words per post =
a big number, right
I guessed that 'mausoleum' would not be among them.
My intuition failed me.
However "mausoleum at halicarnassus" does not appear.
Go figure or don't.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
climbski2, I agree...
It may take more than one or two tries at civilization before humans {or perhaps their descendant species?} get it right...-cs2
Seems to be suggested, imo, given the way robust ecologies generally work out.
"In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option, I'm gonna have to science the sh#t out of this."
Mark Watney
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
It all comes down to the energy required to move mass from the surface of the Earth to the planet of your desire...
in this day and age, the best rocket propellent is liquid hydrogen with a very high specific energy, 141 mega joules per kilogram. It isn't very compact, so the vehicles employing it are large, think Saturn 5 size...
...with all it's might, the Space Shuttle was only capable of taking payloads into Low Earth Orbit...
I don't think that the cryo plant required to liquify hydrogen is inexpensive, and handling the stuff is a real issue (hydrogen-oxygen mixtures from 2% to 98% are explosive).
Enough stuff has to be lifted to the new world to be able to overcome the local hostile environment for a time until the local resources can provide a sustainable presence. This might suggest Venus as a better bet than Mars... but it is all such a stretch.
These are all essentially technological issues, which require innovation supported by research and development programs. What drives this is uncertain. No one is worried about any impending crisis that would suggest we leave planet Earth. No commercial venture can support a viable extraterrestrial presence. Oddly, the ISS provides an economic incentive for private commercial ventures to supply it... but the ISS has no purpose other than to learn how humans can stay in space for long period of time... short compared to a trip to even our closest planetary neighbors.
Right now the incentive for space travel is space travel itself... I don't think that can be maintained into the indefinite future.
A propos that, things on the ISS break and have to be repaired... not a new issue as anyone who sails in the ocean can tell you, the boat starts to break immediately. Large crews on the early voyages were required so that the boats could be constantly repaired, a necessity for survival. Single handed transoceanic travel took 400 years to develop, largely due to the improvement in ship building that allowed few enough repairs that a single person could manage.
The ISS benefits from being in LEO, so it can be supplied from the ground. In the sailing analogy, it doesn't venture far from land... Apollo 13 is a case study of launching off on a voyage dominated by orbital dynamics with enough propellent to alter the orbital trajectories, but far short of overcoming the daunting energy issues of shortening the travel time from the Moon back to Earth. That voyage was epic and nearly ended in tragedy. But it was relatively short.
Going to Venus or Mars will be a lot more difficult, will likely require human sacrifice in the learning-to-do-it phase, and is short on justification.
The sentiments regarding the "Final Frontier" are easy to subscribe to when you are eating TV dinners on the sofa and watching some funky Burbank melodrama... we all know what it is like to be cowering under a boulder high in the mountains avoiding getting soaked by ice cold water and trying to avoid the terrifying randomness of the blue bolts striking about us. While less dramatic events can kill you quite quickly in the vacuum of space.
Flinging yourself in a ballistic trajectory on a two year voyage with little ability to alter that path and keeping it all together to enjoy the heroic tribute on your return is quite another thing.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
It all comes down to the energy required to move mass from the surface of the Earth to the planet of your desire...
Gross materially yes, although this is the crude modern caveman method.
But moving the subtle material energy is not like that although still material energy.
Superior even then is the living entity transmigrating in it's spiritual form thru mantra .....
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
[Everything suggests] that Hawking is absolutely right when it comes to his prediction of man's survivability
Hawking has a very narrow band of expertise. Anyone who would believe he is an expert in the area of Armageddon must not understand the nature of expertise nor the nature of Armageddon.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
^^^
If I had to sit in a powered wheelchair and be taken care of every day by others..I might think mankind is a bit more fragile than it perhaps is.
However I have been very fortunate to experience more of the opposite spectrum of human existence. Humans tend to survive colonize and breed in just about every ecological niche on this planet.. on land anyway.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
Werner has yet to speak on this:
... nor the nature of Armageddon
I think Armageddon is his area of expertise?
"...the material world will dissolve into the unmanifest god-all-one-world except stupie Americorns will be on Mad a Desh Express hoping to ride at at the speed of Av-corns that hit Newton on the Head some years ago."
We all could learn something from HIM.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Until Werner builds or projects the idiot proof vibrating transmigration machine for the masses we'll be using conventional rockets for propulsion from a geostationary base to the inner planets. Now the trick is to get supplies, fuel, and components for ships and habitats to the way station at low cost. How's the state of technology progressing for the space elevator?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
I think it is entirely reasonable for Musk to pursue his interests. He has the resources and provides the incentive to try to get onto another planet.
His timetable assumes "success" which is also a reasonable assumption when starting a very questionable activity. And he will learn a lot about the problem. But his optimism is not sufficient for a successful realization of his goals.
The early colonizers of the Americas came to a place with vast resources which were exploited to support the colonies. Foremost water and food. Each succeeding wave of colonization came in contact with the preceding ones, and learned from them the local knowledge.
Walking across the Bearing Straight following game is not equivalent to shooting yourself into space to arrive at an entirely hostile world with none of the necessary requirements for human life.
Maybe you could imagine being the first humans to voyage out into the Pacific Ocean to explore that vastness and colonize the atolls that dot it... but even then you'd have rainwater, and fish, and some deep knowledge of voyaging on the ocean.
Colonizing an entirely foreign planet is stuff we have only a meager fictional literature on, and it is a bit of hubris to declare we'll figure it all out in a decade. We haven't gotten humans back to the Moon since late 1972, more than forty years ago.
A reminder that the Space Shuttle was intended to lift supplies to some permanent space settlement, and cost roughly $1B per launch, and only into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), was never viable, in terms of being a space age equivalent to an 18-wheeler. While it did lift some components to the International Space Station (ISS) the majority of that lift was done by the Russian Proton rocket, which can lift 23 tonnes into LEO. The Saturn 5 could lift 118 tonnes into LEO at a cost of roughly $200 M, compared to the Shuttle's 24 tonne lift...
How many tonnes of stuff do you have to get to Mars or to Venus before you can create a self-sustaining colony there?
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
I appreciate your points, Ed.
The last few months in particular I've been focusing on the "constraints" that govern our species and its powers and freedoms in the natural environment - esp those substantiated and defined by science as revealer and messenger - in relation to what we might call our spiritual growth (or flourishing and well-being).
Your last couple posts reflect some of this.
Still...
"Sign me up."
Evolutionary civilization by increments.
A walk on Mars would be another (let's see if I can get this right) small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind.
It would be a huge inspiration. I would think. For umpteen millions. For all believers, like me, in positive sum (human) civilization.
EXTRA
It's not always about personal heroic achievement (edit: "tribute"), I don't think, either. It wouldn't be for me, I don't think. But I'm over 50 yo (closer to 60 now) so motivation circuitry arguably corrupted?
"Flinging yourself in a ballistic trajectory on a two year voyage with little ability to alter that path..."
Yeah, baby!
As long as I got (1) something of an exercise wheel and (2) a telescope (reflector, 8" min) and 3) youtube and (4) last but not least a woman for the other things.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
I find myself in agreement with HFCS, regarding Mars.
More fundamental to me as a (now retired) scientist is the ongoing search for life. In that regard, a sophisticated probe to the 2nd moon of Jupiter, Europa, would have precedence over anything going to Venus; the structure of Europa is in large part, water beneath a very thick icy surface. NASA has gone with the proposition to "follow the water." On Europa, water is plentiful. Recent studies have shown that water is also available on Mars, which was flowing with the stuff some 500,000 years in the past. I would propose that the NASA budget be increased enormously, at the expense of bringing in more "refugees." Whoops--that's political, and this is a science based thread. I won't go there any more. At one point, the cost of going to Mars was estimated to $500 Billion, but that involved the German Plan of taking everything along, including return trip fuel and oxidizers. The Mars Direct concept has reduced that figure by perhaps an order of magnitude before calculations changes based on value of the currency over the intervening time. OK, let's assume mars for $100 Billion, with the expense spread out over the life of said project? Five to 7 years to design and build the hardware? Two years for the trip there? A prolonged stay on the surface of the planet, then a return to Earth? Spread that budgetary estimate over 10 to 15 years, and the cost is pretty paltry. A special probe to Europa? That could easily be built with the existing NASA budget spread over time.
Let's go, all gravity-impaired Earthlings!!
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
BDC,
$500B for Mars, that about $1400 per USA person or will the rich pay for it next election?
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Thanks Moose. Makes for interesting reading in my unusually long layover in Seattle.
Escaping Earths gravity well and the peril in returning payloads is prohibitive with conventional rocketry. There is a discussion of the state of tech at www.extremetech.com if you Google space elevator. This will happen, eventually.
And no, I can't support the pessimists here that harp on that mankind is its own worst enemy and is likely to destroy itself long before it could establish it's evil, virulent seed upon other worlds. Also that earth based life is not viable off planet.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
2
Tom, Big Wall climber! San Luis Obispo CA, Jan 20, 2016 - 09:09pm PT
The Spaceship Moon Theory claims that the moon, as an alien UFO parked in orbit around the Earth .... is a hollowed-out artificial structure containing an underground base serving also as the interior of a gigantic UFO spaceship.
Yeah? Where'd they get that much Shot-Crete? And how'd they keep the water from out-gassing as the heat of reaction was liberated?
I ain't buyin' your Mouse Moon Theory, pal.
It don't add up.
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
Trying to hear what the status, the real plausibility of space exploration by manned vehicle
Or some sort of projection or propelled unit is still seemingly theory.
I said it else where, and Tom schooled me, but I'm gonna say it again.
If man could - occupy, live and use the moon
our closest, potential base for space exploration
Someone, the USA, China , Russia,
would have revisited and colonized the moon already
zB your welcome,
but since I started, the post count dropped? From 297 back to 257?
( I think or I could be wrong )
|
|
Larry Nelson
Social climber
|
|
Technology will not only change our culture on Earth, technology will save mankind.
I agree with Rick that a space elevator, if it can be successful, will be essential to the development of our Solar System in the long term.
Thanks for the space elevator link Rick.
Gravity free manufacturing in geostationary orbits.
The concept of following the water and going to Mars and Europa is intriguing.
This manned development of our Solar System will be the frontier for the next century or two.
Exciting times we live in, and future generations will carry on.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
Good stuff here. Fun reading.
Even the merest baby steps would be huge. Eg: Mark Watney and friends on Mars for a couple months stay in a 1,000 ft2 hab. It would be so inspirational. Even just the achievement alone, in itself.
I think it's going to happen.
About the other stuff, I don't know.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
When the DOD is willing to spend $325 Million per copy on the F 35 fighter (worthless), and were ordering something like 850 of them, then it doesn't make the price of a trip to Mars seem so outlandish. The F 35 is only "wanted" by the Marine Corps for the ability to engage in VTOL maneuvers. Otherwise, it's a POS airplane. The movie The Martian incorporated some very interesting concepts, such as gradual acceleration from Earth orbit in a reusable deep space spaceship (suggested by Buzz Aldrin), and the concept of generation of the MAV (Mars ascent vehicle) fuel from the Martian atmosphere. What's really expensive is considering all the hardware developed as "throwaways. If we are gonna' do this , we need to plan on a sustainable presence on the Red Planet. Then--next step--Europa.
Edit; just researched price of the F 35 program: $1.3 Trillion.!!!!!!
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2016 - 06:24pm PT
|
How Much Does it Cost to Create a Single Nuclear Weapon?
Food for thought or bombs for peace? Not a simple answer.
What does all this add up to? Assuming the DOE and DOD plans move forward, and the United States makes further modest reductions in its deployed and reserve arsenal (to a total of 3,000 weapons) the United States will spend some $250 billion on new nuclear warheads and delivery systems in the next few decades. That's roughly equal to 30 years of federal funding for Head Start programs for kids at 2012 enrollment levels.
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/ask/2013/nuclear-weapon-cost.html#.VrQHUPkrKM8
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
$1.5 trillion / 35 year = $42.5B / yr << $500B for yearly trip to Mar.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
How's the state of technology progressing for the space elevator?
. there are no known materials that have been manufactured that meet the requirements
. elevator power is an issue
. space junk in low earth orbit is bad enough to be an important constraint, and this is only getting worse
aside from that, no problem.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Right. Doesn't sound like much more of a feat than negotiating an LA freeway during rush hour in a tin and plastic EV.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
space junk is a big problem, the stuff is moving fast, in random directions, and is growing exponentially...
estimates indicate a hit a week for the space-elevator...
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
A False Analogous Supposition?
We got a man on the Moon; surely we can get a city on Mars!
ED,
the group you are presenting useful constraints to just cannot grasp the hard details. We are fortunate to have a Congress that can understand the constrains of space travel and make appropriate budgets. Fear drives defence budgets and the realization of uselessness stops lunatic space voyages.
And here we see minds that again and again ignore the hard details. A stupid bunch of people? But I sleep peacefully knowing they couldn't successfully lobby the dumbest Congress to appropriate 10 cents on a Mars trip. Why? They cannot address the hard details.
Yeah, living on Mars sounds really neat! Every time you go outside to play you don a space suit for the rest of your days. Yes, climbers it is really suited to what we do in the outside. I'd rather grab some handholds with finger tips.
Long live Buckaroo Bonzai -- he figured it out.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
With age goes the elasticity of thought necessary to solve the problems of entry to the new frontiers. Fortunately humans, at least the non metro sexual and non LGBT communities, still are fruitful in producing the fresh new minds that see opportunity beyond the trivialities of yesterday's problems. It's sad to see once bright minds calcify and wither away, but scientific frontiers advance one funeral at a time.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
Yes, yes, Dingus, we (I) get all that.
But if you want to go all extreme and contrarian and scary re 21st century high tech (abuses, etc) be sure not to leave out psychotropic pharmaceutical tech.
S.C.A.R.Y.
Up there with Virtual Reality Immersion, it's my own personal favorite (answer) to the Fermi Paradox. I mean, if I had to place a bet re "Where is everybody?"
.....
Rick, I may have missed it on the political threads: Are you a Trump supporter, just curious.
.....
In other words, as soon as a high-tech-capable species anywhere in the galaxy figures out "mind is what brain does" this "technological adolescent" tinkers with it, figures out which buttons to push, which pins to apply a voltage to, which drugs to inject where - and then they eagerly lose themselves under a VR helmet in pure imaginable heroinesque ecstasy until it's... well... time to die.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
it is easy to get lost in the stereotypical story of the lone genius overcoming the entreaties of their slouching colleagues to achieve that singularly brilliant solution to the "impossible" problem.
However, if you look past the rosy glow of the space-elevator public pronouncements, the people hard at work scoping out the requirements are dealing with a number of details which each present daunting technical and political challenges.
The space-junk I referred to is a real problem to all space faring activities. If you are old enough you remember the back roads of California (and much of the west) littered with the rusting frames of abandoned vehicles. Imagine that floating in orbit, and not standing still, but moving with speeds of tens of thousands mile per hour. This stuff presently careens around the Earth, abandoned stages of satellite launches, old satellites no longer used, who knows what else... on top of that, add the "natural" bombardment of stuff moving with hyper-velocity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
As stuff is dumped on this "road side" it doesn't just sit there and rust, it is moving around and in a random sort of way collides with other stuff, making more stuff... smaller, but equally capable of doing kinetic mayhem.
This is an exponentiating problem... and as we launch more we make more stuff to make more stuff...
Space, (or at least near space), is the final technology junk yard. To clean it up will require the support of the international community, both the political and the commercial interests that now govern space policy. Complicating the political issues are national security concerns, space being the ultimate "high ground," though by treaty being used only for "passive" military activities. Cleaning up this mess will cost real money.
In this literal cloud of high velocity, high kinetic energy, swirling around in ever arbitrary orbits, managing the orbital intersection (aka collisions) with a fixed cable of truly unimaginable length has to be a part of the "risk management" for the project.
I like the idea of a space-elevator, it's actually a very old idea having been around for over 100 years... modern technological work on materials has given some hope to the eventual practical realization, but there are many very hard problems to overcome, and they aren't so easy to solve.
I'm not saying they can't be solved, it is possible that something else might come along as a better solution.
You can read about the physics of the space elevator here:
http://users.wpi.edu/~paravind/Publications/PKASpace%20Elevators.pdf
there are many interesting topics in physics, engineering, material science, computational science to engage in while mulling the idea. Those of you with the odd combination of being romantics and pragmatists will tire at the endlessness of the details.
But the devil is in the details... and the ride up to heaven, if heaven is a floor button on the elevator's panel, is not going to be available anytime soon.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
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.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
well I am the atheist in a dirty job... what else you got?
We... lol.
You and alllllllllll the friends you've made on ST hahahahahaha.
DMT
See you in hell, dmt.
Be sure to bring allllll YOUR friends. lol
hahahahahaha.....
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
...particularly if we pollute our orbit space (exponentially) with debris from satellite killers and other star wars weaponry.
you don't get it... independent of the intentional satellite killer activities, all this junk will collide with all that junk on its own, pure random chance, making even more junk...
it's not because of the military operations, it's because we just like to throw stuff out our "car windows"
the Cosmos-Iridium encounter was random... and a real wake-up call.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
you don't get it... independent of the intentional satellite killer activities
I don't get it?
I thought I did.
Particularly your points.
e.g., independent of the intentional satellite killer activities
sheesh,
time for the gym.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Since the scientific community is responsible for the orbiting junkyard perhaps they should assume responsibility for its cleanup. There is a common politically initiated answer for behavioral modification-it's called taxation. So let's account for the true social cost of this orbiting junkyard and levy the prorated taxation rate basis per scientist for it's cleanup.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
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...
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
it's not a military problem...
...it's the typical human problem where we seem to throw things out without realizing the consequences.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
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...
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
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.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
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.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
...it's the typical human problem
no it's not the typical, human problem.. could be the root of your argument though?
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
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.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
"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 ....
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
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 ....
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
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.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
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.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
...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.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
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.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
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.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
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?
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
healyje,
you can gather all the studies you want as to how we interact within this environment--Strawman arguments to the point of space travel because they[your axioms] do not disprove that we can live otherwise. You need studies to show that we can not live away from earth [even with whatever makeup adaptions we might invent] to have much of a point.
Space travel is obviously not likely to be like living in Oregon.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
rick S,
Dingus' zeal for cynicism perfectly illustrates the loss of vision that has gripped the nation's of the west.
Some of us don't have our vision focused on the stars but our visions do exist and are focused on what are the real threats and what are the feasible solutions -- some very locally. We do not take the mere lip service of the Scott Kellys or the Steven Hawkings as factual but ask how would they know such and such when we know such and such otherwise. It all begins with the willingness to think critically of the thoughts of those around us that spew. Everyone has problems and often propose some solution. With limited resources -- a fact as it is -- we need priorities as to why such and such a course of action has the better payoff. There is not much of a payoff for manned space travel. We have far more urgent issues.
And there yu have it. Thinking this way is defacto a loss of vision. I am not looking at the stars [astrology?] for a solution.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
Moosedrool,
our nation is polarized.
Nothing new. It always has been even during wars we still had bleary eyed democrats and ignorant republicans fighting for the fronts seats while using any of the political scams possible.
Polarizations will never end because we fight for the group we are with by behavioral instincts. Well, maybe some retro virus therapy could change our brains so we do not feel such and such a way when such and such arize?
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
Rick S,
if the trip were 10 cents I would fund the whole thing.
|
|
Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
|
|
When our Martian Colonies revolt, the French will be there to help them. Hail Freedonia!
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
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).
I belong to no environmental organizations, unless you consider AAAS and APS to be. I am recently a member of the Biological Field Studies Association which manages the Cleary Reserve for use by biologists primarily for teaching. This is an organization my wife has been involved in for a very long time.
I never worked for the DoD, only for the DOE as a contractor (as is the lot of work at the National Labs). My activities span a very wide range from arcane basic physics to quite practical stuff pertinent to national security. I am a physicist and contribute as I can to many matters of importance to the lab program. Most recently I am working on the National Ignition Facility studying inertial confinement fusion.
The composition of those who do work in national security should be as broad as possible to benefit from the wider perspective. The national security benefits because of that breadth.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
You need studies to show that we can not live away from earth [even with whatever makeup adaptions we might invent] to have much of a point.
It's not a matter of 'studies', but of common sense if you understand the biology involved.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
healyje,
It's not a matter of 'studies', but of common sense if you understand the biology involved.
It seems like you have no understanding of necessary conditions vs. sufficient conditions with regard to offering up your common sense babble that would simply nail space travel as impossible.
Please tell us the necessary conditions for life that exists here on Earth exclusively and whose conditions could not be created in some way sufficient for some forms of Earth life to live elsewhere. An answer would seem easy with all that common sense you spew.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
We're not talking about 'some forms of Earth life', we're talking homo sapiens and in that context the answer is easy - the conditions behind your knee, in your armpit, your mouth, lungs and the conditions in your gut.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
healyje,
we're talking homo sapiens and in that context the answer is easy - the conditions behind your knee, in your armpit, your mouth, lungs and the conditions in your gut.
Yes, were are talking homo sapiens. So to choose one, what conditions are necessary for the armpits that are found only on Earth and cannot be provided in any manner while on a space mission? So far you have told me a lot locations on the body but not the specific function that would be missing and why it cannot be surrogated.
Could you present some evidence/research that there is no way to duplicate such a process while in space that the human armpit needs or otherwise it degenerates and dies? What happens when what you call the necessary conditions do not prevail in the armpit?
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Your body only functions and retains a healthy immune system throughout and on your body due to the balance between human and non-human cells. Both of those cell types are finely tuned to this planet. How well tuned? The bacteria colonizing your armpit and my armpit are more similar than the bacteria colonizing your armpit and those in the back of your knee. That well tuned. The non-human cells which influence your immune system are exposed to all manner of other non-human cells from the environment and establish an equilibrium that depends on the ecology here on this planet.
Again, any closed-loop ecology will lack sufficient scale to accommodate the requisite ecological 'infrastructure' necessary to maintain the equilibrium at work in and on your body. An interstellar space ship in 45 years would look a lot like loading your fridge up with food, unplugging it and coming back 45 days later. It isn't rocket science and no rocket science can 'solve' the problem.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
healyje,
that was well presented. thank you.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
Rick S,
there you have it from healyje. when yu bs tards return from Mars you'll be a moldy looking bunch.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
I call bullshit on mr. Healyj. Bacteria has been present on this planet for billions of years and are incredibly adaptive and resilient. They thrive on and throughout our bodies and all habitats we have been able to impose on them. They'll continue their prescense in us an around us in any extraterrestrial environment that we are capable of surviving, be it a bubble above or a cavern beneath.
Ed, I could have sworn you mentioned affiliation with the Sierra Club, had a role in tending our nuke stockpile, and wrote articles warning us that some routes (or even most) and earthly environs should be off limits lest we disturb the delicate lichen's or other micro ecologies. This, less than 3 years ago.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
You'll never make it to other planets without a passport.
Without a passport all you'll see is barren dust.
The master of the Universe is in full control of all the material planets including you puny little arrogant earthlings who think they're so smart.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
The masters have infused all corners of the universe with life. Go, vibrate your way there, observe for yourself, and report the obvious back to us oh Smoking Duck.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
I already said there's life in the entire cosmic manifestation but earthlings like Healy said can not inhabit other planets in their earthling material bodies.
One must transmigrate their spiritual soul from their earth body into the body of their chosen planet life forms .....
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
What do you think this IT revolution is leading up to?
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
My recollection about the streaks seen seasonally on Mars, now attributed to the presence of water, are thought to be extremely high in salts in order to retain fluidity at the nighttime temperatures. If there is a source of liquid water high in minerals, that is a potential environment for bacterial growth. On earth, Halobacterium Halobium requires extremely high dissolved salts for survival.
Another interesting book I was called upon to review by Amazon, Life Beyond Earth, by Athena Coustenis and Therese Encrenaz, is a detailed and non-trivial treatment of the subject. Both authors are affiliated with Laboratorie d'Etudes Spatiales et d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique, Paris Observatory, France.
The first 2/3 of the book, I felt, was excellent in approach; only when the chemistry arose was I somewhat disappointed in their commentary. Only when the authors descended into raw speculation on other forms of chemistry-based life forms did I shake my head; liquid methane based life could be hypothecated on paper, but would be totally impractical as various "metabolic reactions" would proceed at an abysmally slow rate for the systems to potentially evolve in the entire future lifetime of the known universe.
Treatment of the "habitable zone," and NASA's "follow the water" approach was handled adequately.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
The gross materialists fail at everything they do .....
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Bacteria has been present on this planet for billions of years and are incredibly adaptive and resilient. They thrive on and throughout our bodies and all habitats we have been able to impose on them.
Yes, they are, and you can't really 'impose' on them. You can, however, impose on the balance they live in in concert with our bodies, but they'll always trend towards some kind of equilibrium, it just might not be an equilibrium that's good for your immune system or you.
They'll continue their presence in us an around us in any extraterrestrial environment that we are capable of surviving, be it a bubble above or a cavern beneath.
This is where you go astray. They, and we, only survive together and you have it backwards - we only survive if they do and do so in a manner which will sustain an immune system.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
You ever change your kids dirty diaper, eh Werner? I'll tell you what: that is gross material, but like your kid, you embrace it and learn to love the nitty gritty of your path in this plain of existence. There is no one true path, but many.
What percentage of our bodies, h20 excluded, is composed of virals, bacteria, junk DNA, and the wastes expelled by the aforementioned Healy? My point is, of course we are composed of the full earthly evolutionary line, particularly the most ancient and adaptive. These ancient materials building blocks are plentiful throughout our solar system. The system is the local neighborhood and we are tightly related.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
Ed, I could have sworn you mentioned affiliation with the Sierra Club,
you are wrong, never mentioned such an affiliation, and never had an affiliation... I did learn to rock climb taking a class from the RCS of the Riverside Chapter of the SC... and I have a lot of friends who are members...
had a role in tending our nuke stockpile,
certainly the primary mission LLNL is national security, and my work associated with the lab spans nearly the entire breadth of that mission space...
and wrote articles warning us that some routes (or even most) and earthly environs should be off limits lest we disturb the delicate lichen's or other micro ecologies. This, less than 3 years ago.
Given your reading comprehension, and the fact that you are quick to make an assumption based on your gut feelings, I might see how you could have concluded that (did you read the article?). But what I said was that we actually know very little about cliff ecosystems, and that when we go up there we have no idea what the consequences of our journeys are... that's basically it. Given that we assume we are making a balance in our incursions between what we want to do (put up a new route) and what we loose (taking out plants, soil, etc) we might be fooling ourselves that we can even make the calculation... that is at least what I feel. And so I am torn by the horns of this particular dilemma.
I'm sure you have no such qualms.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
No I don't. I've only had to "clean" one little bush and trundle one rock on the 20-25 new routes I've put up in the last few years. Of course, it's the desert and the ecologies are so few and my eyesight so poor they bother me not. You should try it out there with us. I promise, solid rock, clean rock, no conflict between desire to climb and disturbance of fragile ecologies-again as far as my poor eyesight can discern.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
...again as far as my poor eyesight can discern.
that's the point, you don't know... and it isn't just your eyesight. There is an ecology out there, because it doesn't resemble the gardens of Versailles doesn't mean the considerations of your impact are irrelevant.
In some ways, they are more relevant the less we know about the ecosystems.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Now your talking microscopic. Can you twist yourself into tighter knots. Hell, are we going into the subatomic zoo next to protect the quarks.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Now your talking DMT.
As far as disturbing the ecologies on the rock out there; come see for yourself. I think you'll agree we are impacting little to nothing. Some of cleanest rock I've seen this side of the glacial polish.
God willing, Bob and I will be new routing this weekend and with John perhaps monday.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
There is another concept that has gained some credence in astronomical circles: the question of Panspermia, the idea that the basic building blocks of life are everywhere. Possibly transported to Earth along with the water from cometary impacts (that's where all the oceans came from). Comets are primarily water; the Japanese comet probe brought back evidence of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in the cores. PAHs don't just "form out of randomness;" the process of synthesis and reactions required are relatively simple, given a simple benzene ring, along with long-chain fatty acids as starting materials. But--long chain fatty acids can be manufactured by LIFE FORMS, including bacteria. The presence of PAHs is evidence that some life exists elsewhere (everywhere?). This has been a great topic for discussion at our local Astronomy club (Central Wyoming Astronomical Society).
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
bdc, thanks for the incentive to wiki polynuclear in PAHs. Wasn't familiar with it, else forgot. Yes, panspermia is interesting hypothesis.
The only thing I can figure re healyje's argument is he must have a different definition of "self-sustaining artificial environment". Of course there are different ways of measuring and defining that.
Scott Kelly's been orbiting in an artificial environment for pretty much a year now, one that by many measures is "self-sustaining". The original interest was putting a man on Mars. A bump up from a man on the moon. That's all. As a first step. A baby step.
If it's an environment a few humans can live in for a couple years, eg the Hermes to Mars and back, then it should also be an environment whatever any essential microbes can live in as well.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
The first 2/3 of the book, I felt, was excellent in approach; only when the chemistry arose was I somewhat disappointed in their commentary. Only when the authors descended into raw speculation on other forms of chemistry-based life forms did I shake my head. Totally agree and often note this problem. The chemistry of abiogenesis is what I often try to get people to think about (as I did earlier in this thread) but it's one that people just brush over because nobody has figured out how it could be remotely possible. "Meh, it could probably happen, let's spend money to figure out where!"
PAHs don't just "form out of randomness;" That's fun to discuss how that could have gotten on asteroids. I'm no astronomer but from a biological point of view I'd agree with the cometary impacts hypothesis. I mean, how else!?
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Scott Kelly's been orbiting in an artificial environment for pretty much a year now, one that by many measures is "self-sustaining". The original interest was putting a man on Mars. A bump up from a man on the moon. That's all. As a first step. A baby step.
ISS is certainly a sealed environment, but one which is aggressively replenished from the ground. There is nothing self-sustaining about it as new supplies go up and the garbage and waste come down (or burn up on reentry). They do a pretty good job of recycling fluids, however. But the ISS is just overhead in low-earth orbit so we can resupply it easily. Here's a link to a short blurb on some of the microbiological profiling happening with the ISS: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/international-space-station-home-potentially-dangerous-bacteria
And your house is an 'artificial environment', I'm talking about what are known as closed-cycle, closed-loop, or closed ecological systems. Any form of long-term space travel or planetary colonization would ultimately fit the definition in that it's either going to be a long time or never between replenishments. In reality they are fiendishly difficult to even attempt and the link I posted earlier to the MELiSSA project / Loop is worth catching if you're interested in the topic. Again, the problem is mostly one of scale - establishing (and sustaining) a 'minimum viable ecology' in very small spaces.
You often hear the among those who follow such things that the Earth is the only true closed-loop system we know of.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
Intelligent design?
Moose Lol, stick some biological-looking molecules on an asteroid just to screw with people.
Intelligent Design s like 'joker's wild' in Crazy 8's. Its the lazy man's way out of The Big Question. Every time its gets a little bit tough to tease out a solution its all... I've spent close to 15 years trying to find the hard man's way out, but everyone takes one of two easy ways. 1) We know it happened because there's life, someone else will eventually figure out how. 2) Intelligent design.
"I believe the impossible because I refuse to believe the alternative."
Anyway, that's a topic for another thread. I just like to discuss how life can originate because I want to learn more and it's a fun topic that nobody ever wants to discuss :( That's why I brought it up earlier when we were talking about the possiblity of life on the "other earths" and stopped by after it came up here again from brokedownclimber.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
"The Earth is the only closed loop system".
Hardly, the whole system is an open billiard parlor. Just look at the Moon, Mars, and just under Earth's active surface. The galaxy slowly rotates, solar systems entertwine to share their nebulous parts, the galaxies collide, life always on the move. Doesn't really matter if it was on purpose or accident, it slowing colonizes the void with or without intelligence.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
There problem is that they lived in an artificial closed loop. For relatively short in system travel there problems would not be the travelers problem. For the colonists of Mars their closed loop problem would be alleviated by processing the local resources. So the whole experiment is non applicable to anything but true closed loops of an interstellar voyage. And even then it wouldn't apply to a crew in hibernation mode.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
hibernation mode?
what is that?
I think you're discounting a very important attempt to create a closed ecosystem... Mars has no ecosystem.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Your quite certain of that Ed? I wouldn't be without visiting and extensive excacations.
At any rate, do I have to repeat myself again. You bring your own ecosystem and augment your supplies by what you process off the land, air, and what appears to be significant aquafiers of the mostly solid kind.
Hibernation: an unconscious state of greatly reduced metabolism with cellular degradation retarded.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
There problem is that they lived in an artificial closed loop.
Exactly.
For relatively short in system travel.
Last I checked there was nothing short about travel to Mars other than in comparison to interstellar travel.
You bring your own ecosystem...
Except you don't, and that is the problem. This is similar to the problem of how do you bring enough equipment and supplies to cover all the bases necessary for establishing a minimum viable capability for sustaining resource utilization on Mars. It's that scale problem again, whether you're talking ecosystems or infrastructure.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
As for the Earth being a "closed biosystem," all the water on the planet was brought here by cometary impacts in millennia past. We are continuously being bombarded, on a daily basis, by micrometeorites, and sometimes they reach the surface without being consumed by entry heat. There are huge meteorites in museums, and the interiors of these can be further analyzed. Mostly, they are Iron meteorites, containing lots of Nickel.
My primary reason for sending an expedition to Mars, is although we have sophisticated robotic laboratories being built, most experiments don't give true answers; they simply give rise to more questions. I know this firsthand, having worked in chemistry R & D laboratories most of my adult life. No matter how sophisticated we build the robotics, nothing beats the good old "Mark I Eyeball" directly on the scene.
Even the evidence of past bacterial or protozoan life forms on Mars would be HUGE! Ditto, checking out the subsurface oceans on Europa for bacteria, fungi, protozoans, etc. would, to me, be worth a lot of our national treasure...
|
|
Gary
Social climber
Where in the hell is Major Kong?
|
|
Water now proven on Mars.
Jupiter's moon Europa, possibly also Callisto
All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
I consider it an impossibility that simple life doesn't exist on Mars. Subsurface, with scattered seasonal surface eruptions. The big question is the extent of complexity it once developed to.
To explore those possibilities and to develop technologies for transit to and successful colonization of; I for one would be willing to pay increased taxes for the R&D beyond the usual reach of private industry who seem to be the sector that has picked up the mantle of human extra terrestrial exploration and development.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
rick-
I agree with you for the most part; I'd probably use one of my Scientific Weasel Words rather than "impossible;" I'd go with improbable or highly unlikely. ;>)
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
I consider it an impossibility that simple life doesn't exist on Mars.
Why?
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
As for the Earth being a "closed biosystem," all the water on the planet was brought here by cometary impacts in millennia past. We are continuously being bombarded, on a daily basis, by micrometeorites, and sometimes they reach the surface without being consumed by entry heat. There are huge meteorites in museums, and the interiors of these can be further analyzed. Mostly, they are Iron meteorites, containing lots of Nickel.
Clearly, but the point they are making is that Earth, and planets in general, are as close to working 'closed-loop' systems that we currently know of.
My primary reason for sending an expedition to Mars, is although we have sophisticated robotic laboratories being built, most experiments don't give true answers; they simply give rise to more questions. I know this firsthand, having worked in chemistry R & D laboratories most of my adult life. No matter how sophisticated we build the robotics, nothing beats the good old "Mark I Eyeball" directly on the scene.
No doubt, but at what cost? Experiments to date haven't been robust, direct tests for life, I'm guessing that's about to change in the next generation or two of planetary robotics.
Even the evidence of past bacterial or protozoan life forms on Mars would be HUGE! Ditto, checking out the subsurface oceans on Europa for bacteria, fungi, protozoans, etc. would, to me, be worth a lot of our national treasure...
I agree. I personally think life is unavoidable and common as snot and it would certainly be nice to have some proof of that conjecture within our local system. It would also be nice to have some DNA to evaluate the whole panspermia concept given I think that's also a viable and more realistic way to 'colonize' other planets and planetary systems.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
As for the Earth being a "closed biosystem," all the water on the planet was brought here by cometary impacts in millennia past.
While this is a favored hypothesis, it is not confirmed... and by "closed ecosystem" I believe that what is meant is that no extraterrestrial life is involved in the Earth's ecosystem.
Obviously, the energy provided by the Sun is necessary and external to the Earth's ecosystem. Also, the Earth's magnetic field is a major part of making the planet habitable.
And water is an essential ingredient which seems to have been around in some quantities from very early on, independent of the ecosystem (probably prerequisite to life).
Life on Mars? there seems to be no sign of it. If you look at Earth, probably the biggest signature is the oxygen in the atmosphere. The fact that atmospheres are in chemical disequilibrium is potentially the most likely means we'll have to see if life exists on planets circling around distant stars. Lovelock's 1965 paper "Basis for Life Detection Experiments" explored this in detail.
The paper is a generalization of the task Lovelock undertook for NASA to help design a set of experiments for the Viking landings. The experiment "B2 Atmospheric analysis. Search for the presence of compounds in the planet's atmosphere which are incompatible with a long-term basis. For example, oxygen and hydrocarbons co-exist in the Earth's atmosphere."
This is why the observation of methane in the Martian atmosphere elicited such interest. Of course, as Lovelock states, it alone is not a signature of life... that would require the existence of oxygen too, of which there is not much. The idea being that life could keep producing these things away from the nature chemical equilibrium state.
The devil's in the details, and in the intervening 50 years a lot has been learned. An interesting updating of the atmospheric gas signatures can be found here:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.08249.pdf
Krissansen-Totton, Joshua, David S. Bergsman, and David C. Catling. "On detecting biospheres from chemical thermodynamic disequilibrium in planetary atmospheres." Astrobiology 16.1 (2016): 39-67.
You can see the available Gibbs energy for the Earth is an order of magnitude larger than for Mars (and Mars is explained in the paper).
That energy corresponds to the N₂-O₂-H₂O(l) disequilibrium (due to life). This corresponds to 0.7 TW (terrawatts) of biological activity.
Interestingly, human energy production is roughly 20 TW, and most of this is exploiting the historic biological activity stored in hydrocarbon reserves. So maybe this points to a possible signature of "intelligent life" on distant planets... additional disequilibrium affects of prodigious energy consumption.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
Although there are a lot of "plusses" involved for robotics, especially for Mars, the question that keeps popping into my thoughts is getting an adequate range of samples from a given mission. The robotic laboratory has certain apparatus designed to do only a limited number of tests, and that therefore, requires sample collection. Drawing any real conclusion regarding life on Mars, past or present, requires covering a huge range geographically. Since robotic laboratories are anything but very mobile, it seems to require a much more sophisticated sample collection method to validate the entire planet. Having pre-selected Mars landing sites is like shooting craps or playing roulette; maybe you win, but probably lose, especially collecting samples close by the robolab. My conclusion, no matter how expensive and "dangerous" it may be, a human presence is a necessity logically. The whole big burrito of the Mars expedition would be ~ 5% of the F 35 fighter boondoggle. I rest my case.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
Ed-
Your comments are always valuable and well-received by me; I had the caveat of looking for evidence of PAST life on Mars, since most astonomers now conclude that water was once plentiful on the planet and there was a substantial atmosphere--now mostly lost. Yes, the magnetic argument is still valid; it's just my curiosity that drives me towards a manned mission. I'm drawn to it, just as most of us here on the Taco are drawn to rock faces.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
I think developing the robotic exploration technology has a lot more positives in the long run. We do much remote sensing on the Earth to great benefit. It is perhaps the only chance we have of collecting the data of the entire Earth ecosystem.
I don't doubt that we could send humans to Mars, though it will not be easy, and it will not be without tragedy. But I wonder if it isn't all the better to continue refining and advancing the robots. There are many frontiers in science where we humans do not (and cannot) actually visit... our instruments do the work experiencing those worlds, and we interpret what the instruments experience.
When our instruments fall short, we design new ones better able to carry on the research.
Beyond Mars and perhaps Venus, it is not at all clear that we can overcome the challenges of deeper human explorations into the solar system. But certainly, our robotic explorers will go. Those same technologies have many terrestrial applications. I don't see an imperative to go to Mars at this time. And technologies get better, perhaps there will be a good solution in the future. I don't much care if they are Chinese astronauts landing on Mars, it would be glorious if the astronauts had no nations to affiliate to...
...but we can do more with less resources and have a broader outcome with the 'bots.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Seems like it would be as difficult for humans as robots to pull off a planet-wide survey of Mars. Humans can't travel too far from their base I would suspect and can't stay out long whereas the rovers seem to go for an extended period and reasonable [local] distances with little limitation on their working hours. I get the fun part of going, just not sure the cost and risk is justified relative to robotic missions which you can run a lot on the same budget as a single manned mission.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
For the time being, we need to keep on developing robotics not only for Mars, but further afield--especially Europa, which is by no stretch of the imagination--inhospitable for human presence. Drilling through maybe 300 meters of ice to get aqueous samples would definitely be "challenging." Europa has a different aura of challenge from Mars, one strictly amenable to a robotic solution.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
I personally think life is unavoidable and common as snot
Why?
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
Many of the robotic explorations have had spectacular success; the Voyagers, Viking, opportunity, spirit, to name a few. But what is the purpose of these missions if not to pave the way for boots on the ground? Blood, sweat and tears, yes. All human advance worth doing has had its price in human life.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
Why?
We're here so the possibility must exist. And in existing that means it's more of a statistical exercise than anything else to guess how much life exists in the universe at any given time. I would guess we're talking 'Goldilocks Zones' for galaxies, within galaxies and down to individual stars. Probably a rare occurrence, but even in saying 'rare' I would think there would be on the order of tens or hundreds of billions of planets with life in the universe at any given time.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 12:20am PT
|
Anthropic principal arguments are fraught with bias, but they provide some framework for making estimates...
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2660470&msg=2748443#msg2748443
the paper I linked earlier had this to say as it was concluding:
"The recognition that Earth’s biosphere is in its old age, such that the critical-step model allows a larger number of these events, resolves this problem and suggests that a re-examination of evolution on Earth in light of the model may be worthwhile. According to the analysis described here, the difficult steps that have paced evolution at the longest timescale have occurred at ~1 Ga intervals. This suggests that the penultimate step before the origin of observers (ourselves) on Earth was around the time of the late Proterozoic and may have been the differentiation of the eukaryotic kingdoms of plants, animals, and fungi. To reach that point, several previous difficult steps were passed; so complex life may be a rare phenomenon and observers rarer still. On the other hand, the rapid establishment of life on Earth after its formation may indicate that simple microbial life is relatively common. These conclusions lend some theoretical support to the Rare Earth hypothesis of Ward and Brownlee (2000)."
It is thought that life on Earth was established before the Last Great Bombardment and, at that time, was extinguished, only to come back relatively quickly. As the authors say, microbial life may be common in the universe, and "intelligent" life rarer, but it is a big place, the universe, so even if "rare" there are likely to be many planets with "intelligent" life. Unlikely that they figured out how to find the other rare "intelligent" life.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 08:29am PT
|
The carbon/liquid water/goldilocks zone parameters are all there by sheer necessity. Life is by necessity, chemical based, and there are several excellent reasons to include carbon, water, and within a specific temperature range. Let's examine these components in reverse order, with temperature being first. Reactions are required to proceed at measurable rates for them to have any possible significance in a "living system;" this was one of my objections to the Coustenis/Encrenaz book I mentioned in an earlier post, when they went off on some life forms in liquid methane; reaction rates at cryogenic temperatures would proceed so slowly that they become immeasurable on any realistic time scale. On the other hand, temperatures too high generally lead to molecular decomposition of complex systems.
Water: all complex reactions require a matrix in which to proceed, mostly referred to as a solvent. Water is quite unusual in the number of different compounds that it can "solvate," or dissolve. It has a range in which it is liquid; at zero Celsius, water freezes and becomes ice; at 100 degrees Celsius, it becomes water vapor (steam). Other solvents with possible characteristics to dissolve many other compounds include liquid ammonia (too cold), Dimethylformamide (virtually NO natural occurrence known), and a handful of other cryogenic compounds or elements. Water is hence the winner by a large margin. Plentiful (it's basically the substance of comets), great solvent properties, and chemically non-aggressive.
Carbon: Carbon is tetravalent and capable of several forms of Carbon-Carbon bonding: Sigma bonds (single covalent bond), and pi bonds (multiple bonds). Allows for an almost infinite number of complex molecules to hypothetically exist. Carbon, along with Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, compose the great bulk of molecules we have found in living systems. Other elements have been proposed to do things similarly (Silicon) to carbon,but in my professional opinion, highly unlikely; there has been a great deal of effort in laboratories to build Silicon based molecules similar in structure and function to those Carbon based compounds. Generally, this has been a total flop.
So--NASA is looking at all the right things: carbon based/water based/Goldilocks zone.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 08:35am PT
|
We're here so the possibility must exist. And in existing that means it's more of a statistical exercise than anything else to guess how much life exists in the universe at any given time. I agree, my point is more that I think we're an extremely improbable anomaly more than evidence that there is life elsewhere worth looking for.
For example, a statistical exercise. There are an estimated 10^80 particles in the universe which can interact an estimated 10^45 times per second with roughly 10^25 seconds since the beginning of the universe. This gives a possibility of 10^150 "chances" for something to happen since the beginning of the universe. It's the Law of Small Probability and the reason statisticians say that anything with a probability smaller than this is impossible.
For the most basic cell you need 60,000 proteins with 100 different configurations. The probability of this happening, even with all the right conditions with all the right ingredients, has been calculated to be 1 in 10^4,478,296.
I would not count on something with that probability happening elsewhere.
the paper I linked earlier had this to say as it was concluding:
Ed, lots of papers talk about when and where life originated, but I would like to know how. This would provide more info about how likely it is to happen again somewhere.
Do the christians have it right, the earth is unique in all the cosmos, humans are the chosen ones and that's that?
DMT, I'm not sure why you keep bringing up religion stuff? We're talking about finding life outside of earth. People take it for granted, I look into the mechanisms and probabilities and so I do not think it is money well spent.
I guess that life is pervasive as well but probably in a lot more forms and chemical systems than we imagine. The carbon/liquid water goldilocks think seems so earth-centric to me. Probably true, it's hard to imagine other chemical systems but they must be there? They would likely follow the same chemical laws, I would think. Maybe not...
There's a reason panspermia is growing in popularity; people are realizing that it's just really unlikely for life to appear as we know it under early earth conditions.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 08:46am PT
|
I was always taught that life forms were always improbable, but since they are antientropic, they are in a constant battle with statistical probabilities.
I buy into the panspermia concept; this is one of the better problems to address with robotic space probes, by sampling several comets to bring back large samples for Earthbound experimentation. Since comets are primarily "dirty snowballs," we don't even need to dissolve sample in the laboratory.
Added in edit: comets all originate out in the Kuiper belt, the leftovers from solar system formation. We look at comets, find evidence of life in some form (past or present), and we then know where we came from.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:07am PT
|
Looking for evidence of the panspermia theory seems like a logical reason to do a little more space digging.
Though life forming elsewhere and then getting here only seems to add another improbable step to the process. If we find evidence then we still have to figure out how it started elsewhere. That sounds like a pain in the butt! :)
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:22am PT
|
"For the most basic cell you need 60,000 proteins with 100 different configurations. The probability of this happening, even with all the right conditions with all the right ingredients, has been calculated to be 1 in 10^4,478,296." -LimpingChristian
(Assuming probability calculation is even correct) notice this isn't taking into account cumulative effects of ns over evolutionary time. This is the single step, monkey typing at a keyboard to produce Hamlet nonsense creationists trot out.
Suggests "Climbing Mt Improbable, by Dawkins. He purposely covers this over and over in baby steps for the evolutionarily challenged.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:36am PT
|
For the most basic cell you need 60,000 proteins with 100 different configurations. The probability of this happening, even with all the right conditions with all the right ingredients, has been calculated to be 1 in 10^4,478,296.
how do you do the calculation? It is not true that the configurations are unconstrained, not all (in fact most) of the configurations are unphysical. But I suspect that the calculation you point to (without reference) ignores that.
As far as calculating the probabilities, you didn't read the paper I linked... which tries to at least bound the issues. In particular, the hypothesis of major evolutionary steps being involved might be an interesting hypothesis, in the one case that it considers (human life on Earth) the probability is low but not impossibly low.
The hard work of understanding the hypothesis and finding tests for it, and separating it from the one test case (which also acts as a bias, but an avoidable one at this stage of our observations) is a work in progress.
As the paper "On detecting biospheres from chemical thermodynamic disequilibrium in planetary atmospheres" points out, "...life typically exploits environmental free energy gradients..." which is probably a key way to think about abiogenesis. Certainly having a solvent like water in abundance provides a place for these gradients to form. Chemosynthesis might be a better starting point and more inline with early Earth environments.
So the questions of life then revolve around how the energy extracting reactions like the classic
12H₂S + 6CO₂ → C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6H₂O + 12S
get to be self sustaining. In particular, the reuse of C₆H₁₂O₆ to power additional reactions.
Self sustaining chemical reactions occur in these free-energy gradient environments without life, but life provides a place for these to occur independent of the "outside" environment... that's an interesting problem.
But without a solution (yet) calculations regarding the improbability of it happening are not possible. You don't know what you are calculating.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:39am PT
|
"For the most basic cell you need 60,000 proteins with 100 different configurations. The probability of this happening, even with all the right conditions with all the right ingredients, has been calculated to be 1 in 10^4,478,296." -LimpingChristian
Notice this isn't taking into account cumulative effects of ns over evolutionary time. This is the single step, monkey typing at a keyboard to produce Hamlet nonsense creationists trot out.
Suggests "Climbing Mt Improbable, by Dawkins. He covers this over and over in baby steps for the evolutionarily challenged.
First, not sure why people keep bringing up religion or associating me with it?
Second, natural selection required reproduction and the origin if this is what I'm most interested in as it pertains to the likelihood of finding extraterrestrial life.
Third, that book details how natural selection can lead to complex structures. No argument there, but it doesn't detail the origin of life. Again, people seem to brush over that first step and in getting my MS and BS in Ecology & Evolution I'm still fascinated by finding an answer.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:47am PT
|
"...the origin if this is what I'm most interested in... that book details how natural selection can lead to complex structures. No argument there, but it doesn't detail the origin of life..."
You seem confused. If the subject is biogenesis, then why are you referencing a probability associated with thousands of proteins let alone 60K of different configs? If the subject is biogenesis then you should be thinking in terms of a crude molecular replicator (or crude molecular replication) which might not be assoc with protein at all and how that might materialize. Maybe a 3-d printer?
Are you an apostate now? Several times in the past at this site you mentioned youre a Christian of the evangelical and /or fundamentalist stripe. No? That's the reason for the allusion to religion.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:50am PT
|
Ed, the reference comes from a combination of:
Dembski, William A. (1998) The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 5,209,210.
and
Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 255, 257.
and
Morowitz, H. J. (1966) "The Minimum Size of Cells" in Principles of Biomolecular Organization, eds. G.E.W. Wostenholme and M. O'Connor, London: J.A. Churchill, pp. 446-459.
Chemosynthesis, or more specifically, the Silica Crystal Theory, seems to be the top candidate, as it can sort of self replicate. That's the part that will open up more accurate calculations and tests, how did abiotic components first self replicate? Could that happen elsewhere? Everything beyond that is relatively easy to answer if people brush of the original question.
Edit: This^^^^^ HFCS
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:54am PT
|
cmon you gotta do better than this ONE guy...
"Professor Hubert P. Yockey (b. April 15, 1916), PhD is a physicist and information theorist. He worked under Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, and at the University of California, Berkeley.
He has studied the application of information theory to problems in biology and published his conclusions in the Journal of Theoretical Biology from 1974 onwards. He is very critical of the primordial soup theory of the origin of life, and believes that "the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Yockey
(I looked him up the last time you referenced him, too.)
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 09:58am PT
|
HFCS-
In the early days of computers, when asked to do simple area integrations, they used the Monte Carlo type integration method. I.e., hit-or miss, inside the area or outside the area.
I have problems given that type of approach, as you described "the monkey typing Hamlet." Possibly the simplest thing that could be called a "life form is a virus," which is far simpler than the single cell organism. Maybe we all need to agree on just what DOES constitute life, by listing what a living organism must do to be considered "living?"
(1) Capable of replicating itself.
(2) Draw energy/nutrients from it's environment.
(3) Metabolize and produce waste products differing from nutrients.
Anything else?
OK, we then look at elemental abundances in the universe. Mostly Hydrogen; the higher atomic weight elements are generated from Hydrogen fusion in the stars. Carbon is right after Helium in natural abundance, followed by Oxygen, and then Nitrogen.
The famous Urey-Miller experiments demonstrated the process of creating amino acids (building blocks of proteins) from the elements, C,O,H, and N. No miracles required. Just UV light, and electrical discharges. There have been a few experiments since the time of Urey-Miller looking for nucleic acids, but I haven't been keeping up with research since retirement 6 years ago. If we get nucleic acids, amino acids, we can then think about peptide formation, and we're on the way to protein synthesis.
What I'm getting at, is a lack of randomness; statistics are not strictly applicable to origins of life. Intelligent design? Impossible to say either yea or nay.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 10:00am PT
|
Are you an apostate now? Several times in the past at this site you mentioned youre a Christian of the evangelical and /or fundamentalist stripe. No? That's the reason for the allusion to religion. I just don't see how it's relevant here. I have no problem with discovering the means to abiogenesis and someone believing in God.
Anyway, I wish I could remember the most recent book I read about silica crystals as the origin of self replication. It was a good one but still didn't answer the question. Pretty much concluded with, "crystals could self replicate and eventually somehow made RNA."
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 10:09am PT
|
(1) Capable of replicating itself.
(2) Draw energy/nutrients from it's environment.
(3) Metabolize and produce waste products differing from nutrients.
Anything else?
Technically, the definition of life doesn't include your #3 but also includes,
3) Maintain organization
4) Respond to stimuli
5) Adapt as a population over time
But you're right, simple stats aren't the best way to figure out the likelihood, but a decent little example.
Viruses can't self replicate so they're borderline and wouldn't be a good model from which to develop a mechanism for abiogensis.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 10:11am PT
|
Not to get too far off on this tangent, I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people want to spend a lot of time and money looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. Since we haven't come close to figuring out a mechanism for life starting in nice earth-like conditions, how can we expect that it happened multiple times across the universe?
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 10:38am PT
|
quest for life is in part a quest for 'god'
You people are stupid, and you continuously prove it.
There's no quest for life.
It's already there perfectly.
All you have to do is study yourself.
Instead you fools study the machine and never study yourself.
Because the illusion is so strong you think you are the machine.
You're like the fool who studies the automobile and never studies the driver ......
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 10:44am PT
|
The calculations have already been made Ed. The probability is 100%.
A major announcement coming tomorrow about black holes and observations of and characteristics of gravitational waves.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 10:57am PT
|
The Urey-Miller experiment attempted to simulate early conditions on Earth, and used spark discharge, Ultraviolet irradiation in a quartz vessel over a period of time. Analysis of the residues detected Glycine, Alanine, and if my memory doesn't fail me, Serine and Leucine. The concept of optical isomers was never addressed, but all life forms on Earth exhibit an L-isomeric configuration (possibly formed on a crystal surface, since there are right-handed and Left handed crystals).
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 12:05pm PT
|
The Miller-Urey experiment took place in a medium that is no longer believed to me similar to early earth atmosphere. Even if it was accurate, the amount of oxygen used in their experiment, when combined with the heat energy, would have destroyed any amino acids created without a "trap" to protect them. Thankfully it has been taken out of some of the newer college textbooks but for whatever reason it's still in high school textbooks.
One of many dead-ends. It's crazy that life even got a foothold here and it's poor evidence for life being "common" in the universe.
I do think a lot of good comes from space exploration, and probably more if we divert funds away from the hunt for life.
I mean, after all, NASA did develop technology used in:
Artificial limbs
Baby formula
Cell-phone cameras
Computer mouse
Cordless tools
Ear thermometer
Firefighter gear
Freeze-dried food
Golf clubs
Long-distance communication
Invisible braces
MRI and CAT scans
Memory foam
Safer highways
Solar panels
Shoe insoles
Ski boots
Adjustable smoke detector
Water filters
UV-blocking sunglasses
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 10, 2016 - 12:25pm PT
|
Your comments re: Urey-Miller are probably valid about the assumed composition of the atmosphere. That being granted, it DID demonstrate the feasibility of ab initio synthesis of a biologically important set of compounds, complete with the absence of any miracles. I've been a fan of the Urey-Miller ever since I had the opportunity of meeting Harold Urey back in 1969 as a grad student.
My immediate reaction to that situation would be "give me back a laboratory, and I'll do it the 'right way'!" It was a time of relatively simple and crude experiments, but definitely exciting. Has their Nobel award been since rescinded?
P.S. Re: comment that U-M was a "dead end." Not so; it would seem to me the underlying concept is worth pursuing, with several parallel reaction systems containing powdered quartz dust, one each with the opposite handedness crystals, and a third control with a non optically active form of some crystalline powder. Just the observation that conditions did NOT truly mimic the presumed environment does not invalidate the concept.
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2016 - 07:57am PT
|
Gravitational waves: discovery hailed as breakthrough of the century
Apparently someone was scanning through the photographic archives (whose I'm not at liberty to say and discovered this)
Using the world’s most sophisticated detector, the project scientists listened for just 20 thousandths of a second as two giant black holes, one 35 times times the mass of the sun, the other slightly smaller, circled around each other.
This device is not available on Ebay.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/gravitational-waves-discovery-hailed-as-breakthrough-of-the-century
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 08:03am PT
|
Here's an excellent write-up by none other than Martin Rees...
Gravitational waves: Einstein was right - and this announcement is the scientific highlight of the decade
http://tinyurl.com/jmc9a85
Maybe Ed can weigh in regarding the validity and value of this.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 08:22am PT
|
The BICEPS telescope at the south pole thought that they had found evidence for gravity waves. Big announcement, all that.
Then the Planck Satellite (ESA) showed that their assumption about the impact of cosmic dust was way off. It nullified the BICEP results.
Kip Thorne, who wrote a great book on the topic of relativity was behind the two LIGO interferometers. You can read about it on wiki.
They didn't find gravity waves, however they recently upped the sensitivity of the two observatories significantly. So there is still hope.
|
|
skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 09:33am PT
|
So the bottom like is the Earth is like a big mac? Over a billion made...
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 09:52am PT
|
Ed, maybe you could comment on how last year's BICEPS dustup relates to today's announcement.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 10:09am PT
|
Yes Ed. Please dicipher this announcement and let us know it's implications.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 08:51pm PT
|
the BICEP dustup certainly informs the process the LIGO collaboration would have taken before releasing their results.
BICEP had to use data from the Planck collaboration... remember that BICEP measures the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), Plank measured the tiny fluctuations of the CMB and this information is necessary for interpreting the BICEP data.
For whatever reason, the BICEP collaboration couldn't get the Planck collaboration to release its data, so they went old versions of the data...
this was a big mistake, and it is possible that the BICEP collaboration felt that their competitors might have also been onto the observation, and wanted to publish first establishing priority for the discovery.
The LIGO collaboration took its time to investigate the observation. They were prepared to take their time having been in the game for a long time (decades) and had established a number or protocols for investigating the candidate signals. The signal was first detected on September 14 of last year, and the manuscript was sent to Phys Rev Lett on January 21, 2016, 4 months of work to prepare the manuscript, checking the results, etc... it would have been a really intense time for the collaboration.
The manuscript review took roughly 2 weeks, which is a very short time, but indicates that the collaboration did a very complete job describing their analysis (which shows in the paper) and met all of the criteria for the reviewers to approve, and the editors to decide to publish. The reviewers and the editors were all well aware of the BICEP2 result... and the aftermath.
In contrast, the BICEP2 manuscript took 2 and a half months to review, including revisions required in the review process. In the abstract we find the line:
However, these models are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal.
in the section discussing the dust we find:
The main uncertainty in foreground modeling is currently the lack of a polarized dust map. (This will be alleviated soon by the next Planck data release.)
They should have waited.
you can re-read the BICEP2 paper here:
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.241101#fulltext
I'll respond to the science question on Moose's thread.
The two experiments, BICEP2 and LIGO are looking at two very different phenomena. LIGO was built to directly observe gravitational waves. BICEP2 was built to see the fluctuations due to gravitational waves on the pre-inflationary universe. It is a very indirect way of informing about gravitational waves... but important for establishing the gravity was around at that time (some theories of gravity imply it emerges from other interactions, ask Largo to ask his car-pool).
What is common to both these experiments is that they represent important discoveries with very deep implications. When the stakes are high, humans act like humans whether or not they are scientists.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 11, 2016 - 09:21pm PT
|
this thread is interesting in its own right, without the superlative announcement of the observation of gravitational waves.
The probability calculations that limpingcrab offers aren't very compelling to me, but there is a good reason, and I'll illustrate it with an example that was evoked by the GW announcement.
Prior to the 1920s we have this beautiful work of Einstein on relativity, the beautiful work on quantum mechanics inspired by a number of physicists, but perhaps lead by Bohr. It was an amazing time when things which had long been a puzzle started to become understood.
But it is fair to say that in that time, one still did not know how one of the most familiar everyday experience could be explained, I'm talking about the Sun. Estimates of what powered the Sun based on science understood prior to the 1920s is simply not possible. Imagine estimating the probability that the Sun could provide so much energy for so long. Your estimate using that science would be zero... nothing known then could explain it.
It took the realization that Einstein's famous E=mc² for physicists to get on the right track, but even then the neutron had to be discovered, nuclei described and nuclear reactions measured to come up with what is our current understanding.
Even this was in question until the recent (within the last 20 years) discovery of neutrino oscillations explained why there were fewer neutrinos (generated by those nuclear reactions) than expected (by a large amount).
We have in the last 60 or 70 years, developed quite an exquisite model of how the Sun produces that wonderful light that warms our faces at sunrise. Before that, it was a total mystery, beyond our ability to calculate.
I see the issue with abiogenesis in exactly the same light, we can do the calculations and come up with some numbers, but we do not know the science that is required, yet, to do a sensible calculation. Saying we "don't know" is not an admission that "anything is possible," it is not an admission that science "cannot explain" the phenomenon, it is simply recognizing that we don't yet know.
I'm a sunny optimist that we'll figure it out, and when we do, the numbers won't look at all that daunting.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
|
Back to the discussion of what constitutes life. I don't believe response to stimulus is required. You'll have to excuse me on several items, since the last time I studied anything about viruses is now over 50 years ago. What viruses CAN do is self-assemble from components. I'm trying to recall what I learned in my /Special Advanced Topics course in Biochemistry at CU in Boulder my last undergraduate semester.
I'm with Ed, in being less than impressed by the probability calculations.
Moosedrool; Re: Panspermia. Life didn't necessarily begin in cometary matter, it simply is a vehicle of transfer from one solar system to another.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 07:14pm PT
|
Carl Sagan,
Pale Blue Dot
“The future possibilities of space-travel,” wrote the philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1959,
which are now left mainly to unfounded fantasy, could be more soberly treated without ceasing to be interesting and could show to even the most adventurous of the young that a world without war need not be a world without adventurous and hazardous glory. To this kind of contest there is no limit. Each victory is only a prelude to another, and no boundaries can be set to rational hope.
In the long run, these — more than any of the “practical” justifications considered earlier — may be the reasons we will go to Mars and other worlds.
Chapter 16,
Scaling Heaven
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 07:22pm PT
|
Seems esp suitable to this thread. A bit more Sagan...
"We had an expansive run in the ’60s and ’70s. You might have thought, as I did then, that our species would be on Mars before the century was over. But instead, we’ve pulled inward. Robots aside, we’ve backed off from the planets and the stars. I keep asking myself: Is it a failure of nerve or a sign of maturity?"
A failure of nerve?
A sign of maturity?
Finally,
"There were many possible historical paths. Our particular causality skein has brought us to a modest and rudimentary, although in many respects heroic, series of explorations. But it is far inferior to what might have been—and what may one day be."
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 07:27pm PT
|
F*#kin' scientists man, like don't they have real lives? I mean, if there are gravity waves, like who cares about all that "can they replicate this data" sh#t. The important thing is...
Where are they breaking?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 08:06pm PT
|
Albert don't surf...
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 08:09pm PT
|
I see the issue with abiogenesis in exactly the same light, we can do the calculations and come up with some numbers, but we do not know the science that is required, yet, to do a sensible calculation. Saying we "don't know" is not an admission that "anything is possible," it is not an admission that science "cannot explain" the phenomenon, it is simply recognizing that we don't yet know.
I'm a sunny optimist that we'll figure it out, and when we do, the numbers won't look at all that daunting.
Totally agree that the stats stuff isn't necessarily telling, but it may be for several abiogenisis mechanism hypotheses (muller-urey sort of stuff), and it's kinda nuts that people actually calculate how many ways molecules can bump into each other!
I'm with Ed, in being less than impressed by the probability calculations.
Again, I'm not stuck on it.
Pretend there are no stats. Either way there have been enough hypotheses disproven by scientists promoting another that it is pretty obvious something very unique had to happen for abiotic materials to turn into living things. Based solely on current information I'm not even a tiny bit optimistic that it will turn out to be something so simple and common that it has happened many times across the universe. Wishful thinking and optimism might help people believe otherwise, but it is without evidence that they do so.
PS: Science is still young and I'm ok if everything I've studied turns out to be wrong. I too think it would be awesome if there were aliens, but I'm not going to bet anything on it, including a bunch of government funding that could go elsewhere.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 08:18pm PT
|
...but it is without evidence that they do so.
not entirely, one proposes ideas, hypothesizes, and tests... fail, fail better... eventually the essentials are teased out.
I think the more impressive "evidence" is the recurrence of life after the Last Great Bombardment. There is evidence the planet had life prior to that period, which was extinguished during the LGB, and returned after... the LGB sterilized the planet (boiling all the water).
In that particular interpretation, life was gone, then it came back... so it would seem that it's "not such a big deal."
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 08:28pm PT
|
I have given some thought about something of an updated and more advance Urey-Miller experiment. A reactor with an internal UV source housed in a quartz well, an spark discharge system internally, and containing more than just ammonia, methane, oxygen, traces of water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide; should add finely powdered quartz crystals, and hydrogen sulfide; maybe even include a micro ozone generator. Run that sucker at all the presumed different temperatures, and many different combinations and concentrations hypothesized at the early Earth atmospheric composition. My bet is there would be an even more encouraging result for an outcome. Look not only for amino acids, but polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and nucleic acids. Ozone is one of the outcomes from UV irradiation of O2.
One of the things I've done professionally over 50 years is making synthetic amino acids, and my reaction gemisch incorporates many elements of known synthetic pathways, just not under conditions to have a predicted outcome.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 09:04pm PT
|
As presented by Reid Gower for NASA...
I don't know the year, it didn't say, but it conveys a sense of things.
Is this the right mix of values?
Who can say?
|
|
zBrown
Ice climber
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2016 - 09:15pm PT
|
this thread is interesting in its own right, without the superlative announcement of the observation of gravitational waves.
It is both entertaining and informative (thanks mainly to Dr. Hartouni).
Thanks Mister ... er ... Sorry ... Doctor Ed.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 12, 2016 - 10:11pm PT
|
Here's a very interesting presentation by Dr. Robert Zubrin, to an audience at Ames laboratory, Moffett Filed, CA in 2014.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
I watched this last night, and it really impressed me with the different approach than the "official one."
Realistically, a Mars Program is well within our present capability. I'm certain I would rather see some of the money being thrown at the F 35 fighter ($1.4 Trillion) be diverted to a much more peaceful undertaking. Zubrin estimates this could be done for ~ $50 Billion, and NOT the earlier $480 Billion mentioned back in 1990.
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 03:46am PT
|
Broke Down,
Again the $1.4 trillion is over 35 years and may not actually come about to that much spending on that plane. Congress can vote to stop funding anytime and use it on a newer plane. But for your lack of number comparisons skills $1.4 trillion / 35 years = $40 billion/year. You must be a Republican to throw numbers around to the likes of what you present?
the equalizing factor is called cost over runs. So the low dreamed of $50 billion inches towards $500 billion.
the only time somethings gets cheaper is when we buy it from Shina.
Shina to get one year $25 billion deal with USA to put White Boy on Mars.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 06:23am PT
|
I've been following Zubrin's ideas for years. Unfortunately his lonely voice of reason isn't heard over the babbles of the earth firsters cowering under the doom scenario du jour.
Yeah Dingus if we want something done its time to look to China. It's there century. They have the will and cohesion of vision the west has lost. They just sustained nuclear fusion in their Tokomak reactor for 102 seconds. They are beginning to rollout commercial grade Gen 4 fission reactors. It's their lead going into the future.
For you frustrated young women out there tired of slackers and the high rate of queer American youths- also head east. The one child policy of China's past has produced as excess of males unable to procure mates.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 07:10am PT
|
Politically, I can't stand either major party as presently constituted. I consider myself a Libertarian/Constitutionalist/Independent. I've opposed the F 35 project as failed attempt to build a "one size fits all" aircraft that doesn't actually fulfill any of the roles assigned. The Marines have foisted the VTOL capability on the other services, at the expense of making a good basic design overweight and underpowered. I just used the F 35 as a horrible example of military procurement gone terribly wrong. I believe we could start by putting an additional $10 Billion a year into NASA, and an equal amount into the private sector for 5 years with a mission-directed mandate to get us to Mars with a sustainable base by 2026. As Zubrin commented, a return to the Moon could be a spinoff.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 09:49am PT
|
Let's do a reverse process analysis of this problem. Most astronomers concur with the hypothesis that all the water presently on the Earth came here through cometary impacts later in solar system formation. Early and primitive life forms could have been carried along with huge amounts of water; the number of comets required to build the oceans is HUGE. The Kuiper belt of "cosmic building blocks" most likely contains debris from other planetary systems long since destroyed, including water in the form of ice. The numbers keep changing, but take ~ 4.5 Billion years as the age of our solar system, as opposed to ~ 10-12 Billion years as the age of the known universe from the Big Bang, and there have been lots of now vanished planetary systems, destroyed through novae, collisions...whatever. Their debris constituting the interstellar "junk" for new planetary system formation. First generation stars are composed of mostly Hydrogen, Helium, and lower atomic weight elements: Lithium, Boron, etc. Only after the first generation stars go Nova and new stellar systems incorporate some of these elements do we begin seeing Iron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Sulfur, etc. Only when higher generation stars develop solar systems is there a possibility of "life." So...in spite of Limping Crab's statistical analysis, that's a long enough time for an awful lot to happen.
We need to discuss this through an alcoholic haze at CoR this June!
|
|
Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 11:31am PT
|
Drive by blind posting
[Click to View YouTube Video]
So cool when it fits soo we'll
Carry on,
Oh again , that nagging question....
Why aren't there any humans on the moon?
A major space station. A Platform for reaching to the stars ?
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 07:06pm PT
|
I think the more impressive "evidence" is the recurrence of life after the Last Great Bombardment. There is evidence the planet had life prior to that period, which was extinguished during the LGB, and returned after... the LGB sterilized the planet (boiling all the water).
In that particular interpretation, life was gone, then it came back... so it would seem that it's "not such a big deal."
Evidence strongly suggests that life started before the LGB and survived a few kilometers down in the earth's crust, where we can still find microbes today (I can provide some papers if anyone wants). Under most scenarios it is unlikely that the LGB heated the planet enough to extinguish that life. Oleg Abramov at the USGS astrogeology center ran models on this stuff and has info available.
The big question is whether or not there was life before the impact that created the moon, because that had more than enough juice to roast all living things on earth. Interestingly, this is a question that Mars can help us with. Mars did not experience any moon-forming impacts like earth did so some scientists want to dig a few km into Mars to look for signs of thermophile bacteria. (I still doubt we'll find any:)
Then the comet would have to land on a planet that has the right conditions for that life to propagate. How likely is that?
Moose, I agree, and would add that panspermia has followers because of how seemingly impossible it was for life to start on earth. Hence, it's probably really rare! But, in the words of Abramov from an old interview I read and just rediscovered while trying to remember his name, “That’s still a big open question,” said Abramov. “We just don’t know if what happened on earth was unique or, given the right conditions, life starts easily.”
I hope I'm wrong, but my personal opinion is that it was unique. I'll probably keep it that way until there is any evidence to the contrary.
Edit to ask: Will someone please explain why you disagree and suspect life to be scattered across the universe? Sorry, I just don't get it.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 07:28pm PT
|
I've stated my thoughts on Panspermia, but what tests can we think of for confirmation, should we find "life" elsewhere--in a recognizable form? There are a couple thing which are possible: optical activity of classes of compounds, both amino acids (proteins) and carbohydrates. All living forms of life we know of on Earth are L-amino acid based, and D-carbohydrate based. If we find a life form which exhibits the same optical rotatory properties as our L & D configurations, that's supportive of the Panspermia concept but not conclusive; it's a necessity, but not a sufficiency. There are actually four combinations possible: L & D as we have on Earth, then the possibilities of L & L, D & L, then D & D. So--if we find another life form elsewhere with one of the other isomeric configuration pairs, it definitely argues AGAINST Panspermia.
Just for those not technically aware of what I'm talking about: L stands for Levorotatory, and D stands for Dextrorotatory. It takes a device known as a Polarimeter to do these measurements.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 07:49pm PT
|
bdc, tfpu the zubrin video, I'm half way through, hope to get the rest tonight. It's very good, apparently he delivers an inspiring subspeech toward the end. I look forward to it.
Folks here by and large don't know about enantiomers. No sense playing to an audience you don't have?
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 08:01pm PT
|
HFCS-
Yeah--I try to simplify the concept as much as possible, but you're right. I'm not much of a statistician, though. I'm curious as to how many "samples," that's to say, different new life forms discovered to get a 95 % confidence level that Panspermia would be validated?
My strong suit was always experimental design and execution.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 09:02pm PT
|
Could you answer those questions first, before we speculate some more?
1. Did life start in one place?
1a. Was it a a comet or a bigger body?
2. Was it cellular, or just a precursor of life (DNA, RNA, peptides, something else)?
3. How did/does it propagate? Be specific, please.
1. Maybe. Maybe not.
1a. That's a definte possibility.
2. Yes.
3. ST rules prevent us from talking about this here.
Moose: I thought your questions excellent and that they deserved an answer.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 09:20pm PT
|
Life was never ever started.
It was always already there.
Only the material machines to put life into where started because they are fools number one and want to lord it over and be independent.
Thus the were given this material creation to suffer in.
They spend every waking moment in illusion fighting off suffering and trying to enjoy.
Now they are suffering so badly from their foolish past karmic actions they think going to other planets will help.
Stoopid gross materialists can't get no respect ......
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 09:52pm PT
|
Moose really got right down to the nitty gritty questions, didn't he?
The easy way out is to simply feign ignorance, which is actually the REAL answer.
The concept of Panspermia is life creation took place once and was then spread throughout the galaxy by debris from the source planet being destroyed. I personally think it would arise on a planetary surface and not a comet. Temperature and basic components both lacking.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 13, 2016 - 10:25pm PT
|
Will someone please explain why you disagree and suspect life to be scattered across the universe? Sorry, I just don't get it.
there is a concept called "naturalness" in physics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalness_(physics);
in the case of life, if it is highly unlikely, then we wouldn't be here. For us to be here in that case would require a degree of "fine tuning" that is improbable (or perhaps impossible) in a physical system.
so given that we are here, life cannot be so uncommon that our existence is improbable.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 08:13am PT
|
Moose-
I neglected to address one of your questions, re: was it first by synthesis of components (amino acids, DNA, RNA, Peptides, etc.) or did "living organisms spontaneously arise?"My take is it had to be synthesis of the building blocks first. Amino acids, then peptides and nucleic acids. Thus, the importance of Urey-Miller type experiments. I'm wondering about the true composition of the "junk" in the Urey-Miller reactor, and whether they had the thought to look for any diketopiperazines? Diketopiperazine itself is another "easy candidate" for formation from the starting components utilized, and partial hydrolysis (rupture of one bond internally) leads to glycyl-glycine. Ta Da! Dipeptide.
I sure wish I weren't retired without access to a laboratory, at times! I may need to resurrect my ancient laptop with my Chemdraw Program, to make a few illustrations for others to follow my thoughts here.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 08:40am PT
|
I just did a Google search on the Urey-Miller experiment, and the above comment (Limpingcrab) that "the results have been discredited." That appears to be a creationist wishful thinking, wet dream. Apparently, re-analysis of the original Miller samples using newer instrumentation than that available in the 1950s, when the experiments were carried out, has revealed even more amino acids and other complex organic compounds than reported. Redesign of the experiments with lower oxygen levels and introduction of Sulfur or Sulfur compounds (note one of my earlier posts suggesting this!), has yielded even more encouraging results. For me to further comment on this topic professionally, I need to get some of the original papers and subsequent journal articles. The idea now involves oceanic volcanic vents as possible sources of the reactions leading to life. Stand by for a later update!
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 08:42am PT
|
Life comes from life and never comes from matter .......
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 09:48am PT
|
Moose-
That's a fair summary of the basics.
Back to the Urey-Miller experiments. The major group crowing that the Urey-Miller experiment has been "discredited" are generally extreme creationists. Nothing has been discredited, other than perhaps the incorrect choice of presumed conditions. The experiment is still under investigation by none other than Distinguished Professor Jeffrey L. Bada at UCSD. Considering the original experiments were done in 1952, the analytical tools available were primitive. Bada also was given Miller's original sample vials from the experiments, which under re-analysis by modern instrumentation, revealed 30 different compounds synthesized, instead of the 13 different amino acids found by Miller. Bada is tossing in some Sulfur to the mixture. I haven't progressed beyond the following report: http://www.chemheritage.org/about/news-and-press/chf-in-the-media/2010-7-1-weapos;re-history-back-to-the-future.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 10:10am PT
|
Here's the four min clip from the Robert Zubrin piece bdc posted in response to 'Why?'
He had me at hello.
Actually he had me at the science, the challenge and at 1492...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://youtube/yRVEd1q2cS4
"They will remember what we do to make their civilization possible." R. Zubrin
In the words of our beloved Jeb...
Please clap.
We go to Mars (1) for the science, (2) for the challenge, (3) for the future.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 10:16am PT
|
BITD, when the Urey-Miller experiments were done (1952), Watson and Crick had not yet published the papers on the Double Helix, and very little thought was given to Nucleic Acid chemistry. The analytical tools were just not available then, either. But you are indeed correct, in that strands of RNA are fundamental to this chemistry. So...we're back to a chicken or the egg situation, as to which came first. Amino acid chemistry is considerably easier to do than nucleic acid work, so the amino acid studies came first. Having viable strands of RNA are the key to replication, one of the major keys--if not the main key--to origins of life.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 11:15am PT
|
We go to Mars (1) for the science, (2) for the challenge, (3) for the future.
there is better science to be done without sending a person... I think it is disingenuous to continue to make that particular claim. The science boards that advise NASA all believe that and the record of science on manned space flights supports the case that little science (outside of human physiological response to space flight) has been accomplished that couldn't have been done, much better, on an unmanned mission (challenge to proponents: name one).
The ISS is pretty much a disaster for science, imagine Pig Pen circling in LEO... plus all the vibrations, the heating, the maneuvering, etc... basically the science packages are in a compromised setting to accommodate the humans.
manned spaceflight is all about (2) above...
Columbus did not sail to do science. He sailed for economic gain, and was supported by the possibility of political gain. The US space program was launched mainly for political gain.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 11:35am PT
|
I would agree with Ed on one of his above points: the ISS has been an enormous waste to NASA's (and our) money. The description as a "floating Pig Pen" is probably correct. Hell, I know it's correct; nothing of any scientific value has come from it. But...I DO know that a robotic golfer could not have done any better than Al Shepard at hitting a golf ball on the lunar surface...
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 11:47am PT
|
Interesting to contemplate the history of life on planet Earth...
teasing evidence of the earliest possible indication, read this article:
Potentially biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon
"We report ¹²C/¹³C of graphite preserved in 4.1-Ga zircon. Its complete encasement in crack-free, undisturbed zircon demonstrates that it is not contamination from more recent geologic processes. Its ¹²C-rich isotopic signature may be evidence for the origin of life on Earth by 4.1 Ga."
Interestingly, another way of dating early life is through genomic clocks...
A genomic timescale of prokaryote evolution: insights into the origin of methanogenesis, phototrophy, and the colonization of land
"Discussion
Origin of life on Earth
Neither the time for the origin of life, nor the divergence of archaebacteria and eubacteria, was estimated directly in this study. Nonetheless, one divergence within archaebacteria was estimated to be as old as 4.11 Ga (Node P), suggesting even earlier dates for the last common ancestor of living organisms and the origin of life. This is in agreement with previous molecular clock analyses using mostly different data sets and methodology [28,30]. A Hadean (4.5–4.0 Ga) origin for life on Earth is also consistent with the early establishment of a hydrosphere [31,53]."
and this interesting paper setting the scene for the history:
The habitat and nature of early life
Immediately after the Moon-forming impact, a rock vapour atmosphere would have formed. As this cooled it would have formed an optically thick layer of dust in the high atmosphere. After about 2,000 years, a rind would have begun to form on the magma ocean of the mantle, and for perhaps 2 million years surface temperatures lingered near 100°C, with a steam greenhouse, before beginning to cool. Bombardment on a lesser scale was ongoing, but gradually decaying. Until about 3.8 Gyr, the Earth would have suffered frequent massive meteorite impacts, some sufficiently large to heat the oceans to greater than 110°C, or even to the ~300° C needed to convert the whole ocean to steam. Impacting bodies of a diameter of 500 km or more would have been capable of vaporizing the ocean; bodies of 200 km could have heated it above 100°C. Impacts would have ejected huge quantities of debris, made of basalt or komatiite (a magnesium-rich lava). Planets are active, and the Earth’s ocean is not simply an unchanging puddle. Seawater chemistry would have been controlled by volcanism and by reaction with this debris, such that it is improbable that a long-lived global ‘primeval soup’ could have collected from impacts of organic-rich meteorites and comets.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 03:46pm PT
|
Re: The Habitat and Early Nature of Life.
Sounds very erudite, but is also a bit simplistic. The huge amount of water brought by cometary impacts would result in a lot faster cooling than is implied in the referenced paper. Comets are thought of as 'dirty snowballs," but at cryogenic temperatures in their cores. This means I'm "throwing some cold water" on the paper. The research being done at UCSD is strong on the thermal vents in the oceans as possible sites of the necessary abiotic chemical synthesis of pre-biotic molecules.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 04:46pm PT
|
"challenge to proponents: name one" -ed
Imagine the science we could do and what we could learn if we had a couple guys on Mars growing potatoes, corn, tomatoes, zucchini and rhubarb?
C'mon, where's your imagination today? Did you watch the Zubrin clip? How about the movie, The Martian? That film there is an excellent model that points the way to lots of potential Martian science.
And how about just the continuing science, inclu research and development, of humanity in a martian environment?
How many years of science of humanity in a martian environment do we have right now? Zero.
Why not wait till H sapiens has at least TEN years of science of humanity in a martian environment before dissing the prospects?
Think about it: no way could today's robots grow potatoes on Mars better - and no way could they conduct science on those potatoes growing on Mars better - than a couple guys (preferably a guy and girl, imo) living out of a hab.
and I'm not even a botanist.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 04:57pm PT
|
One has to remember---Ed's a physicist, which is all about numbers. There's around 1.4x10^18 metric tons of water on the Earth, which is indeed a small percentage of the Earth's total mass, but comets have undoubtedly brought a lot more in the early stages which simply vaporized and escaped earth's gravity. Also, the mantle is only a few hundred miles thick with a still molten core. So...that puts my argument to bed on that issue. Enough water arrived with potentially organic precursors to life, or indeed, with bacteria spores present.
I'm in agreement with HFCS about the biological experiments on Mars, and running a deep drill rig s Zubrin suggested, is a lot more than a robotic system could ever hope to do, at least not under the weight restrictions of interplanetary travel. Knowing the number of guys I do in the oil patch, if robotics could work, they'd be doing it here instead of on Mars!
|
|
Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 07:58pm PT
|
Durn't it self generate from the magma something?
Before we get all spacey whyn't we get down to earth?
Gross or not, might as well get some livin and lovin and laughin. R something.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 08:06pm PT
|
^^^^^^^^^^+++++++1
Bill Nye mediates.
Ha! isn't Bill a children's mediator?
"You double NASA's budget and you do it all." -Tyson
Ha! Ha! it's always the bottom line isn't it??
"Lawrence Krauss is very smart man. He can see before the Big Bang and yet he doesn't want to spend money on human space travel?"
i shouldn't even have to punch the keys,,, Ha! Ha! Ha!
All these guy's are lobbyist first, scientist second.....humanist eighth?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 08:17pm PT
|
The Wiki is a good place to start...
The origin of water on Earth, or the reason that there is clearly more liquid water on the Earth than on the other rocky planets of the Solar System, is not completely understood. There exist numerous more or less mutually compatible hypotheses as to how water may have accumulated on the Earth's surface over the past 4.6 billion years in sufficient quantity to form oceans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth
and as far as comets, "...That the Earth's water originated purely from comets is implausible..."
any references to papers would be a good contribution...
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 08:24pm PT
|
ah, the JWST, a robotic satellite which is designed to be repaired by robots... and beam the results down to us waiting on planet Earth. No humans required.
that way, it doesn't have to fly in the junk-bands accessible to the Space Shuttle (as was required for the Hubble).
Most botanists I know (and I know quite a few) would be welcome to get a tiny bit more research funding attention for their Earthbound studies and would certainly consider a space mission to be irrelevant to the important questions of botany and sure to spend many more times the total amount currently spent on botanical studies.
As far as studying plant growth on Mars? the only reason to do it is for the human space mission there, no science is served by doing it. You can easily simulate everything on the Martian surface on Earth...
and BDC, I rolled my eyes when I read: "...and running a deep drill rig..., is a lot more than a robotic system could ever hope to do, at least not under the weight restrictions of interplanetary travel..." the weight required to launch a human would more than compensate the weight of a robotic launch.
Knowing the number of guys I do in the oil patch, if robotics could work, they'd be doing it here instead of on Mars!
my point exactly, why the development of robotic systems benefits activities on Earth... they don't do it because the R&D isn't justifiable under the current securities laws... the R&D has to be something that the stockholders benefit from, quarter by quarter. The USG is the perfect place to do this...
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 09:05pm PT
|
What I'm talking about is a self contained robotic drill system is really implausible . It might--probably would work--for a while. The tools need changing, drill rod sometimes gets bent and jams, or cracks. Under totally ideal conditions, sure a drill rig could do the job. Zubrin mentions drilling a long way down, and that would requite a helluva lot more rod than could be incorporated into a robotic system. Sure, a robotic system might handle a 30 meter deep hole, and then what?
Doing robotics implies we know everything about the system we are investigating, w/r to the local soil properties. Does a robotic system "know" how to evaluate a possible paleontological sample? Controlling systems remotely when there's a signal transmission time of 10 minutes really doesn't cut it.
From the Wiki reference, Comets heads the list of extraterrestrial sources, followed by trans Neptunian objects and water rich meteoroids.
I also never stated that the water on Earth arrived purely from cometary impact.
In general, the Wiki article is pretty inconclusive. My source of the cometary info was from a lecture I heard at the local Astronomy club meeting presented by the Professor of Astronomy at SUNY, Binghamton. It's been too long for me to recall his name, but we met earlier at the Planetarium and had a one-on-one for about 2 hours on the chemical composition of comets.
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 09:49pm PT
|
And soon, Ed, with development and maturation of AI wedded to tomorrow's super computers, there will be no need for scientists of biogenic origin. Too wasteful and inefficient when all science can be done with tireless, flawless, robot computers.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 14, 2016 - 09:52pm PT
|
If we had the interests and passions of romulans or vulcans we'd already be on Mars. Searching for life in suspect water fields. And growing potatoes.
But we're human.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2016 - 08:54am PT
|
The origin of life is an interesting topic. The answer is, we don't know. Except for Werner.
As Ed pointed out, there is good evidence that life began VERY early in the Earth's history. Basically as soon as everything cooled down and liquid water was available. Then came the Late Heavy Bombardment, and after that we have really good information that life either survived the bombardment or began again relatively quickly.
Now. The problem is that we have a sample size of one. There is only one planet that we know has life. So a lot of it is inference.
Life began so quickly that it seems like it was easy. I've talked this over with the OU evolution professor, who lives next door to me, many times. My question to him was, If it was so easy for life to begin, then why has it not originated many times after life began. His answer was that all life has a certain chemistry, and it points to one origin. So perhaps on other planets with liquid water, it might be difficult for life to begin.
The other thing to keep in mind is this: Life began at least 3.5 billion years ago. Perhaps a only 500 million years after the creation of the planet. The gig is that for 3 BILLION years, life was simple and unicellular. Soft tissue fossils such as bacteria leave lousy fossils, so we look at things like stromatolites, which leave very obvious trace fossils.
So, complex multicellular life began in the Cambrian, only 540 million years ago. Life evolved and spread for 3 billion years until complex life showed up only half a billion years ago. If you assume that a bacteria divides 3 times each day, then that is 9 billion generations of evolution until complex life showed up. So it looks like complex life is difficult to form. After the Cambrian Explosion, life took off, and the rock record is filled with fossils. Some of the organisms still survive today, even the 3.5 billion year old stromatolites survive today, little changed.
If you have ever studied the topic of intelligent life in the Universe, you will be familiar with the Drake Equation, which has so many variables that it is almost worthless. Still, we can pin down a few of the variables, such as planets in the Goldilocks zone, where we know life on Earth would be able to survive.
So it appears that life is easy to begin. How exactly, we don't know, but we have ideas. The thing that appears to be difficult is complex life. Perhaps 999 out of 1000 earth-like planets have simple unicellular life. How many have complex life? We know that it took billions of generations of evolution for complex life to appear (the majority of Earth's history), so perhaps it is very difficult for complex life to begin.
That is part of my field, geology. We look at evidence. The biologists then play with that evidence, but the evidence is there, it is well-dated, and the history of life on Earth is fairly well understood. Certainly not completely, though. The origin question remains as one of the questions.
The idea of Panspermia is interesting. We are close to having the ability to create a huge number of mini-vehicles that could carry a package containing a number of types of simple life, that could then travel for tens of thousands of years to seed other earth-like planets, which hopefully we will be able to image with the James Webb telescope, which will be a Hubble on steroids. The vehicles don't need to be big. They could be very small, but if we decided to seed the universe, we aren't that far from having the technology. Certain micro organisms could survive the VERY long trip.
It just takes the will. It brings up a number of questions, though. Is it ethical to seed a planet with simple life? What if it already exists, and what we send displaces existing life on that planet?
Tech-wise, we could do it, though. The payload only needs to be an ounce of bacteria. It is possible that an intelligent species did the same thing to Earth, but that is a wild conjecture. We just don't know how life began.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2016 - 09:23am PT
|
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Excellent post, Base!
I'm opposed to sending out Earth bacteria to "seed" other planets; strictly on an ethical basis.
I'll admit to being something of a geological ignoramus, and since I know little (actually, next to nothing) about doing geological field work, will ask stupid question: judging from the numbers stated by Dr. Zubrin re: water on Mars for 4 Billion years, in the You Tube clips posted here, is looking for fossil evidence of earlier on Mars a realistic pursuit?
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2016 - 05:29pm PT
|
haha... haha... haha...
Since posting I've learned neither Romulans nor Vulcans eat potatoes.
.....
Speaking of robotic, hey BASE, how's that chaos-causation relationship study going? Eager to hear if that escape (from causal det) notion/belief you were pushing was diminished or buttressed by your reading of Chaos by Gleick. Did you finish it? Let us (i.e., in partic, Moose and Me) know, eh? Remember last summer you were pretty passionate if not preachy about it all - pretty ensconced you were - citing turbulence, the subtlety of initial conditions, chaotic process (providing something of escape), etc.
You think there's a micro-part (micro-lever, micro-button, micro-whatever) deep in a cell or nerve axon or dendrite that just kind of floats freely, unconstrained by any underlying physics or chem? Is it just one cell in the entire body of the organism you think? Or perhaps just one atom or molecule given some kind of special exemption from physics and chemistry in a neurotransmitter vesicular membrane (perhaps a special connection to the mysterious dark matter or dark energy)? What say you now, today?
If (1) chaos is indeed in some way the "escape" from causal deterministic process and if (2) we modeled this chaos as a component in a system (think system diagram) then how would/could this component feed (forward or back) onto a thought or feeling or decision-making moment as input - and of course necessarily in a controlled and meaningful kind of way for it to be useful- to provide us the freedom of volition so many of us think we have or want?
We've all heard the term, "God particle". Catchy. Colorful. Arguably it has its place in these conversations. So let's adopt a similar term for sake of this exchange: "ghost part" or "ghost atom" or "ghost lever" that frees the living thing, in particular, the human body or human mind or human thought or human decision, from causal deterministic process. Where is it you think? Did Gleick or your reading of Gleick shed any light on this mystery?
You know my position already.
It's causation all the way down.
We are automata.
"What are we, robots?!"
It's true: We are robots. But the rest of the truth: We are exquisitely complex, highly sophisticated bio-organic robots tens of millions of years in the making under the supreme evolutionary guidance of Mother Nature. That makes all the difference!
Have a good one, fellow automaton!
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2016 - 06:55pm PT
|
I'm in total agreement with HFCS, but I totally, and I mean totally appreciate Base104's investment in this problem space.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 15, 2016 - 07:20pm PT
|
Good to hear, eeyonkee.
Anyone who takes the time to work through these difficult (if not destabilizing, lol) subjects is a good egg in my book.
Mars here we come!
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2016 - 09:39pm PT
|
Don't hold your breath ;)
|
|
tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 09:08am PT
|
some more views of the honeybee robotics drill rig...
http://www.honeybeerobotics.com/about-us/mars/
Deep planetary drills offer a wealth of information to planetary geologists searching for clues to the formation of our Solar System, and to astrobiologists seeking evidence for life beyond Earth. The Planetary Deep Drill is designed to support these science objectives by collecting powder that can be delivered to on-site analysis tools, such as instruments to detect organic materials. It can also contain embedded sensors for in-situ analysis. Such instruments can include microscopy imaging systems, temperature and salinity sensors, Raman Spectroscopy instruments, and luminescence probes for detection of organic compounds.
The Planetary Deep Drill is a wire-line system that can drill hundreds or even thousands of feet deep. An umbilical suspends the system and provides both power and data, so unlike traditional drills that are limited by the length of a drill bit, the Planetary Deep Drill is limited only by the length of the tether. The four-meter Planetary Deep Drill contains all of the motors, electronics and sensors required to operate the drill. The system uses a highly efficient rotary percussive drilling technology, which enables the drill to conserve valuable energy. It can operate on a little as 250 Watts, less than many consumer battery-powered drills.
This system is designed primarily to drill through water-ice at low temperatures, such as conditions at the Mars polar caps, Europa, or Enceladus. By exploring these environments, scientists can hunt for potential signs of life in extreme environments while gaining insight into planetary formation.
Here's there astroid water sampling device
ASTEROID WATER EXTRACTOR
Water is essential to human spaceflight missions. It is an immensely valuable resource to sustain astronauts, and as a building block for rocket fuel or other valuable compounds. Autonomously harvesting water from asteroids, however, is a nontrivial process for space mining technology.
Designed for a mission to water-rich asteroids, Honeybee Robotics’ Asteroid Water Extractor drills and acquires icy soil samples, extracts the water for later use, and disposes dry soil to prepare for another round of sample collection. The architecture enables each drill to generate significant down-force in the absence of gravity. The system could be used as a pre-mining surveying technology or as a mining platform on its own.
We designed the Asteroid Water Extractor to be resilient, with multiple systems integrated into spacecraft lander legs provide higher processing volume and system redundancy. The system provides a combination of low mass and strength to drill into tough icy and mineral composites that can be as hard as concrete.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 09:24am PT
|
and robots don't need no stinkin' PPE
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 09:29am PT
|
The system uses a highly efficient rotary percussive drilling technology, which enables the drill to conserve valuable energy. It can operate on a little as 250 Watts, less than many consumer battery-powered drills.
Hopefully this technology trickles down to Bosch or Milwaukee or someone!
|
|
tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 09:52am PT
|
and robots don't need no stinkin' PPE
|
|
Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
|
limpingcrab,
you seem quite amazed at:
The system uses a highly efficient rotary percussive drilling technology, which enables the drill to conserve valuable energy. It can operate on a little as 250 Watts, less than many consumer battery-powered drills.
And does the fine print mean anything? water-Ice.
This system is designed primarily to drill through water-ice at low temperatures
Hopefully this technology trickles down to Bosch or Milwaukee or someone!
250 watts/ 18v = 13.88 amp for Makita drilling water-ice easy as toast. Been around for some time--rotary percussion. Neat claim by NASA to an already existing old invention. Looks like plagiarism to me.
Further more look at that big Shop Vac which appears to be part of rig? 120v x 10amp = 1200 watts.
Critical Observation?
Get this for your mathematical perspicaciousness. .....as little as 250 watts...// is a lower bound. This happens when it is free spinning? This bit of data is essentially useless. pun intended.........
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 04:41pm PT
|
As Dingus McGee just pointed out--the robotic drill rig is suitable for drilling through ICE. Yep. Perfect for Europa, but what good is a mere hole if it doesn't get through the complete ice layer? The ice layer on Europa is estimated to be up to several kilometers thick. Granted, this system probably won't bend a drill rod or get stuck IN ICE.
|
|
limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 07:14pm PT
|
Dang, I was hoping they had something special :(
|
|
tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2016 - 08:40pm PT
|
This is a better reference that describes the specific design requirements, development, and testing of the RANCOR Rotary-Percussive Coring System for Mars including performance coring through different rock materials from soft sediment to basalt.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20150004063.pdf
Note weight 2.8 kg
Keep in mind here that the objective is to search for organic biomarkers at the northern latitudes of Mars by drilling to at least 1 m depth below the surface and transferring sample to life-detection instruments.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 11:06am PT
|
some leisure reading of last week's Science (I get the print version so I can read it anywhere anytime without falling into a preference selection bias) had a very interesting piece in their "Insights" section.
Reading it I recalled the table from the article I linked in this post:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2660470&msg=2764589#msg2764589
the table enumerated a set of step to get to intelligent life (or actually any life with sufficiently complex attributes, as the author points out the same calculation is valid if you want to know the probability of evolving a large, soft snouted animal like an elephant)...
The major steps:
1. Replicating molecules to populations of molecules
2. Unlinked replicators to chromosomes RNA as gene and enzyme to DNA and protein (genetic code)
3. Prokaryotes to eukaryotes
4. Asexual clones to sexual populations
5. Protists to animals, plants, and fungi (cell differentiation)
6. Solitary individuals to colonies (non-reproductive castes)
7. Primate societies to human societies (language)
and then goes on to estimate the probability of each step to obtain the probability of human-like intelligence.
These calculations are fraught with unknowns, and many of them are significant... the article in Science hints at two of these, though...
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6274/659.short
Pathogen to powerhouse
Steven G. Ball, Debashish Bhattacharya, Andreas P. M. Weber
Summary
Mitochondria and plastids are essential for harnessing energy in eukaryotic cells. They are believed to have formed through primary endosymbioses, in which bacterial symbionts were converted into energy-producing organelles. Primary endosymbiosis is extremely rare: Only one other case is known, in the amoeba Paulinella (1). This rarity is usually attributed to the many innovations that are required for organelles to be integrated into the cellular machinery (2). However, the first challenges for an endosymbiont are to avoid being digested by the host and to replicate in its novel environment. Recent studies provide clues to how the precursors to mitochondria and the plastid overcame these challenges.
the bottom line is a real change of thought for me in terms of evolution... which I have thought of in terms of individuals instead of in terms of ecology... and in this case we turn our human bias on its head by realizing that what we consider "bad," a pathogen, might result in something "good," like the origin of the Eukaryota, step 3 in the table... and of the transition from protists to animals and plants, step 5...
the basic idea is that the competition among these very early single cell life included the action of pathogenesis, that one cell can infect another... if successful, that cell endures, reproduces and provides the genetic traits to the line of cells it reproduces...
so it is hypothesized that in this war of disease, which we as humans view pejoratively, resulted in an endosymbiotic relationship... which survives in us as our mitochondria...
this knowledge comes to us by learning just how the genetic information is stored, modified and evolves, and in our every increasing "decoding" of life's genetic material... allowing us to infer what happened and when it happened...
anyway it's a great read (for those of you who can get behind the paywall, or down to your local library to read the article)
you can read a more complex set of papers for free if you do the Google Scholar search:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22SG+Ball%22+%22D+Bhattacharya%22+%22APM+Weber%22&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
which finds a set of related research reports....
so maybe we are learning just how to do the calculation after all...
|
|
rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 11:37am PT
|
And for those not near the library or willing to pay past the wall-what is the probability of extraterrestrial evolution to, or beyond, our current state in this system?.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 01:43pm PT
|
that't the problem with making an argument based on the "anthropic principle"
we can't calculate the probability rick asks for...
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 04:40pm PT
|
It is probable that much of Mars's water is now tied up in permafrost. The atmospheric pressure is so low that frozen water sublimates, and it is present only at the poles, I believe, in small amounts. That might be what the drilling is about.
If you look at the vast deposits of porous media on Mars, I would guess that you would hit permafrost at relatively shallow depths. A hundred meters or so, but that is just a guess. The volume would be immense. Recovery as liquid water would be very difficult.
This has been published, but I don't have the citation at hand. It was just something that popped into my head only to realize that it had been explored before. I read about it a few years ago. There are a number of papers on the topic.
I've seen permafrost. Even in unconsolidated sediments, it behaves exactly like a slightly plastic concrete. It is tough stuff.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 05:59pm PT
|
"the bottom line is a real change of thought for me in terms of evolution..."
Curious, Ed, if you had known about mitochondrion origin theory in eukaryotic evolution before?
Just wondering is all. Please remember, fwiw, I don't consider us adversaries but team players in a positive sum environment (ecology, lol).
Thanks for posting up.
.....
Lynn Margulis, former wife of late Carl Sagan...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis
PS
This is pretty cool from above link, as it somewhat applies to my own work, I never tire of hearing them...
"Your research is crap, do not bother to apply again"
"her formative paper, "On the Origin of Mitosing Cells," appeared in 1967 after being rejected by about fifteen journals."
I wish I had time to read her biography.
I didn't know this either...
"President Bill Clinton presented her the National Medal of Science in 1999."
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 06:44pm PT
|
Curious, Ed, if you had known about mitochondrion origin theory in eukaryotic evolution before?
from what I know, there are many details that have to be worked out... the pronouncement that evolution solves all the problems isn't very interesting to me... what is interesting is figuring out how life evolved, how these steps happened.
To me, the article is a very interesting twist... if you knew all about it before, good for you.
Lynn Margulis taught at UMass when I taught there... I am very aware of her work. In science, details matter, the recent Science paper helped me see some of the details. So I wrote about it here, as it is pertinent to the discussion of the likelihood of life I posted previously.
I was also, well aware of her receiving the National Medal of Science, Jim Cronin and Leo Kadanoff were awarded it in 1999 also, and I had met Kadanoff in the mid-1990s, Cronin I had met in the 1980s (I worked with a then former student of his)...
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 06:54pm PT
|
It is probable that much of Mars's water is now tied up in permafrost. The atmospheric pressure is so low that frozen water sublimates, and it is present only at the poles, I believe, in small amounts. That might be what the drilling is about.
Base, maybe Mars is now like Earth was 4Bil yrs ago, right before life percolated up. i'd think you want to get over there and drill baby drill!
Who know's, maybe Man can "Determine" how a planet "Evolutionizes"?
i'd bet a cheeseburger "Fruity" would love to get over there first and determine only "Reasoning" cells would prosper..
Peace
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 06:58pm PT
|
Okay, thanks, I was just curious for context.
No I certainly didn't know "all about it" but I grew up with it in my biology, biochem and mol bio studies.
It is an idea, or system of ideas, that certainly helps flesh out the so-called Evolutionary Epic for those interested in that. I have always been.
Thanks for the reply.
PS
It occurs to me that perhaps at the time (1999) I learned of her recognition and medal by Clinton as well, but because of age and time so long ago and since being bombarded by new info to digest nowadays every single day there is a very good chance I just completely forgot the fact. In any case, good on Lynn Margulis.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 07:07pm PT
|
My question is: does anyone know whether Mars still has a molten core? I know the planet has no magnetic fields, but a molten core is something I haven't seen in print anywhere. This raised the question in my mind about a hot deep biosphere.
I've seen the photos from satellite imaging of the putative "water streaks," but the explanation of a high salt content didn't really satisfy me. The Molality would need to be extremely high, but low temperatures discourage dissolution of solutes (salts).
|
|
tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 11:07pm PT
|
This thread has encouraged me to do a bit of reading and I came across these papers...
Curiosity’s Mission of Exploration at Gale Crater, Mars
John P. Grotzinger, Joy A. Crisp, Ashwin R. Vasavada, and the MSL Science Team
http://www.geo.brown.edu/research/Milliken/GEOL0810_files/Elements_2015_Grotzinger.pdf
The 154 km diameter crater was targeted for exploration by the Mars Science Laboratory rover because it contains a thick sequence of sedimentary rocks including fluvio-lacustrine deposits that contain hydrous clay minerals indicating ancient aqueous environments and where prior investigations identified evidence of organic carbon.
On Mars, the term soil implies no biogenic component, as it does on Earth. It includes surficial deposits such as windblown dust and sand that may locally form small drifts or dunes, in addition to fragmented bedrock.
One of the surprising findings is the detection of ancient organics preserved in fine-grained sediments in the form of chlorobenzene.
On Earth, a planet teeming with microbial life, it’s difficult to identify hydrocarbons in rocks that are billions of years old. The discovery of organics depends on three processes: (1) enrichment in the primary environ- ment, usually by reduction of background sediment, which allows any organics to preferentially accumulate; (2) minimization of the effects of oxidative diagenesis during the conversion of sediment to rock (lithification); and (3) minimization of the thermal decomposition of organic molecules during burial. On a planet without plate tectonics and with a lithosphere that is thicker than Earth’s, thus reducing geothermal gradients, Mars is a better planet for reducing the risk of thermal degradation during burial. However, with its much thinner atmosphere, Mars poses a far greater risk of degradation by radiolysis once rocks are exposed at the surface (Farley et al. 2014; Mahaffy et al. 2015). Nevertheless, the point is that just as explorers of carbon in ancient rocks on Earth must optimize their chances of success, so must our robots on Mars.
RE the internal structure of Mars
http://planetary-science.org/mars-research/internal-structure-of-mars/
Like Earth, this planet has undergone differentiation, resulting in a dense, metallic core region overlaid by less dense materials. Current models of the planet’s interior imply a core region about 1,794 km (1,115 mi) ± 65 km (40 mi) in radius, consisting primarily of iron and nickel with about 16–17% sulfur. This iron sulfide core is partially fluid, and has twice the concentration of the lighter elements that exist at Earth’s core. The core is surrounded by a silicate mantle that formed many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet, but now appears to be dormant. Besides silicon and oxygen, the most abundant elements in the Martian crust are iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. The average thickness of the planet’s crust is about 50 km (31 mi), with a maximum thickness of 125 km (78 mi). Earth’s crust, averaging 40 km (25 mi), is only one third as thick as Mars’s crust, relative to the sizes of the two planets. The InSight lander planned for 2016 will use a seismometer to better constrain the models of the interior.
And there's this paper on the..
Structural analysis of the Valles Marineris fault zone: Possible evidence for large-scale strike-slip faulting on Mars
An Yin*
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES AND INSTITUTE FOR PLANETS AND EXOPLANETS (iPLEX), UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1567, USA, AND
STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY GROUP, CHINA UNIVERSITY OF GEOSCIENCES (BEIJING), BEIJING 100083, CHINA
LITHOSPHERE; v. 4; no. 4; p. 286–330. | Published online 4 June 2012.
According to Yin's work, Mars is tectonically active, at least, in the Valles Marineris region (the longest canyon in the solar system) which appears to be a large scale left-lateral, strike slip fault.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2016 - 11:16pm PT
|
So many steps along the way seem incomprehensively complex and unlikely. The step in life on earth that blows me away the most...by far is RNA Polymerase. SO complex it makes DNA look like a basic hydrogen atom. Yet absolutely critical to life as we know it. DNA seems useless without it. WTH was life before it?
Yet these things and steps happened... A billion years is also an incomprehensibly long time. Sure you can do the math.. but the reality of it? Yeah it's big.. and time can allow incredible things... and whatever life was before RNA Polymerase .. the process of natural selection is super speedy compared to a billion years.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 03:04am PT
|
the pronouncement that evolution solves all the problems isn't very interesting to me... what is interesting is figuring out how life evolved, how these steps happened.
Well, I would expect nothing less from a physicist or chemist - understanding the how is fundamental to what you do. Biology in this respect is a pretty messy and complex space at all scales and the root physical 'how' of it often isn't the driving imperative. Those are certainly fundamental and very interesting questions but, in the face of how little we know about biology, I think it is just a much more distant priority compared with the challenges associated with basic survival in today's world. I think in general the question of how life started doesn't impact the field of biology in quite the same way as the question of how the universe began impacts physics.
And hell, we have a tough enough time just sorting out 'easy' questions like human origins in very recent time frames let alone tracking back the ancient roots of endosymbiosis. Thank goodness human evolution reached a point where we can broach low earth orbits which has led to more funding for astrobiology, expanded studies of extremophiles and increased focus for the questions surrounding the origin of life.
Also, if you compare what happened in the field of genetics in the mid-to-later 20th century to what happened in physics in a comparable time frame in the 19th century, I'd say you physicists have about a hundred year head start on biologists.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 08:23am PT
|
From the above, that Mars has sedimentary rocks: it will take an experienced field paleontologist to do some potential "fossil hunting." The presence of "organic matter" has a different meaning to an organic chemist than it does to the majority of population. Organic--to a chemist, simply means Carbon containing, or Carbon based molecules.
That Mars is presumed to have a still molten core suggests the potential for life in various vents or fumaroles. The more we learn, the less we really know...
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 08:38am PT
|
I think in general the question of how life started doesn't impact the field of biology in quite the same way as the question of how the universe began impacts physics.
An interesting impression on the fields, but perhaps it needs a bit more expanding. At the onset let me say I have no idea how the origin of life will affect biological thinking, but if physics is a guide, my guess is that it will be significant.
One has to look at physical cosmology in view of its history. Hubble's realization that nebula were galaxies greatly expanded the physical universe. Einstein's cosmological constant, put into the General Relativity to keep the universe static, was abandoned once Hubble observed that all the galaxies were receding, implying an expanding universe.
The cause of the expansion was unknown, and various theories were proposed. Fred Hoyle had his favorite, and pejoratively named a competing theory "the big bang." The Big Bang Theory predicted the temperature of the cosmic photon background, which was discovered in 1964, this background now cooled to low temperatures is visible in the microwave part of the the spectrum, thus the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). That an the abundances of the light elements in the universe, most of which were produced in the early big bang era, were the mainstay of physical cosmology.
We used to snark that factor of two uncertainties in the exponent were quality physical cosmology measurements.
Several long threads started to weave together, "precision" cosmology measuring the variations of CMB across the sky, the very much refined measurements of Supernova recession velocities, the observation of gravitationally lensed background objects, vastly improved measurements of the "rotation curves" of all sorts of collections of objects across the cosmological scales, and the realization of theorists that our best modern theories should result in a finite cosmological constant brought us the realization of great importance to physics:
most of the mass of the universe, 98%, is made up of stuff we cannot see directly, and the remaining is what "the visible universe" is made of...
Cosmology was a side show in physics until the 1990s, an interesting pastime by a small group of physicists. Today, nearly everything of importance we will do in the next 20 years will be focused on understanding that "dark" stuff, the Dark Matter and Dark Energy, of which we have very little understanding except from cosmology. It forms the subject of great importance to understanding what the universe is.
This is so important that a field like High Energy Physics (HEP), in which I trained and worked as an experimentalists at the many accelerator laboratories around the world, will become a field in which the experimentalists will be observational cosmologists, trying to tease the answers to the most important questions in HEP out of what we can see in the universe.
The major difference between Biology and Physics is the role theory plays in the research. Biology is changing, for the better, with the increased specialization... and the opportunity for doing theory viewed from physicists making the transition to biologists, theoretical biologists.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 10:09am PT
|
theoretical biologists
Definitely! But as I said, you guys do have a significant leg up on biology. The fact that there are now lots of multi-disciplinary teams with cross-overs from physics to biology and vice-versa really helps as does the development of a capability for modeling in the form of computational biology.
|
|
Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 12:23pm PT
|
Healyje-
The field most helpful in doing that sort of crossover is Physical Biochemistry! That was actually my discipline in Graduate School, and my resulting Doctorate, as well. Sadly, for these discussions here, I haven't worked in the field for--a LONG time. My actual career was in specialized organic synthesis with an emphasis on peptides and non-naturally occurring amino acids; also did MAJOR work on the manufacture and development of solid-phase supports ( "resins" )for multistep organic synthesis, ala Merrifield Resin. I played something of a role in the development of Fuzeon manufacture by Roche.
That said, I can still read much of what is written these days and comprehend. The degree of specialization these days makes one's own work visible only down through a drinking straw.
Earlier in this discussion thread, I reveled in the discussion of the Urey-Miller experiment. The mere fact that work of this type--"Cosmochemistry"--was done in the early 1950s with archaic instrumentation boggles one's mind. The guy I worked for at UCSC as a postdoc would be the kind of scientist needed in this discussion, as well as some of our colleagues: Harry Noller-discoverer of the S 30 Ribosome, and Edward Dratz, one of the guiding lights in chemistry of vision (my field).
|
|
brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 01:05pm PT
|
Einstein's cosmological constant, put into the General Relativity to keep the universe static, was abandoned once Hubble observed that all the galaxies were receding, implying an expanding universe.
Not all...... ;)
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Feb 22, 2016 - 02:09pm PT
|
Cosmology has a rich history of leaps through the years. The origin of life question hasn't done more than bump the needle a little.
We know a lot about cells, how they work, and their functions, as well as how they replicate, for those which do. We really are nigh totally in the dark about the origin question.
Some day, someone will ignore their advisor and venture off to discover something, though.
|
|
| Messages 1 - 423 of total 423 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!