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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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All this reminds me of Nero's fiddling.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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All this reminds me of Nero's fiddling.
Yep.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2016 - 01:08pm PT
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Blue Origin is keeping their pedal to the metal, as well as SpaceX.
They successfully carried out their passenger capsule abort test this morning.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
I watched this live earlier this morning, but found an edited and abbreviated form for posting here.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 17, 2016 - 11:29am PT
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Visiting Mars is one thing. Living there, forever, is another.
No water. No oxygen. No magnetic field to protect you from radiation. No atmosphere to protect you from UV radiation. You would have to live underground. One good solar flare would give you cancer.
There is probably permafrost..frozen groundwater. You could mine that, but recycling every molecule of water, and a way to create O2 from CO2 would be necessary. Plants are good at that. I'm not sure if we've figured out a way to convert CO2 to O2 yet, mechanically.
Topographically low areas with porous rocks are the most likely areas to find ground water. You could mine it and then recycle it. Still, it would be very difficult to colonize Mars. What would be the point? Earth, even at its worst, is far more attractive. When you think of Mars, think of Antarctica, but without the water ice and oxygen.
The Moon is more hostile, but it is only 4 days away. Sending supplies would be much easier. You still have the radiation problem on the Moon.
The moons that have oceans, such as Europa and Enceladus would be just as difficult. Europa is no good because of Jupiter's radiation. Titan has atmospheric pressure similar to Earth's, but it is super cold, and has an exotic hydrocarbon atmosphere and ocean. Staying warm is easier than staying cool, though. Radioactive materials are already being used to generate electricity on the most distant probes. They also create warmth. A reactor would be a necessary bit of equipment.
The best way to spread life is Panspermia. Send a million little spacecraft with a 25 gram selection of hardy unicellular life to every close star system. The package is tiny, so the vehicles could also be small. A few pounds or so. It will take thousands of years to cross even the closest interstellar distances, so the little craft would need to have minimal thrust and computing power. As they approached a system, they would need to find the planets and rendezvous with them. It could be done with current technology, probably.
Have them crash land on every known planet, and seed life throughout our closest stellar neighbors.
After that, let evolution do its thing.
Unless we can figure out how to travel near the speed of light, even our closest neighbors would be generations away. Sending humans isn't practical. Seeding life would be, however.
If there was a way to send human embryos, and have equipment to raise them, that might be a method. Not much life support is necessary, but protection from radiation over time would be a huge problem. Even thick shielding allows some radiation penetration. Over thousands of years, DNA would have to survive a lot of high energy radiation.
It would be difficult to survive without other life, though. We eat living things, you know. If we were to live forever on another planet, we would have to bring along many, many, species with us.
Cool to think about.
That leads to an ethical question, though. Is it OK to send life which might kill other life on a planet? Even on our cleanest landers, we are sending traces of life along.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 17, 2016 - 01:11pm PT
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^^^ Yes
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Captain...or Skully
climber
Boise, ID
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Oct 17, 2016 - 02:34pm PT
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I think it makes more sense to establish an orbital habitat at L5 and go elsewhere from there.
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Oct 17, 2016 - 03:23pm PT
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As soon as children no longer starve to death on this planet, we can explore space travel in good conscience.
That's always been my opinion. Even as a child.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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+1 pud
isn't this what bacteria does?
it tries to expand to another host before it completely kills off its current host?
we haven't figured out how to collectively and with any real sustainability live together on this earth...
why would we risk fUcking another one up, when we're still in such organizational infancy on this one?
don't get me wrong, as an abstraction it is as interesting as anything... and in more time for sure...
in the mean time, we have [as always imesho] far more pressing problems that we should be putting our collective energies towards solving.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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isn't this what bacteria does? it tries to expand to another host before it completely kills off its current host?
These aren't infectious bacteria being discussed, they're our symbiont gut bacteria. They have wide-ranging influence on all sorts of things relating to your well-being and even some behavior and you wouldn't be alive without them.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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healyje: sorry wasn't referring to your article. was talking about our, as a human species, acting like bacteria looking for a new host/earth, rather than sorting out the challenges we still haven't successfully figured out a way to handle on this host/earth.
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Reeotch
climber
4 Corners Area
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Here is my own response to an assignment I gave to my students. The question was, "Why is biology important". My response swerved off into this very subject:
"Respect Life"
Biology is the study of life, and in spite of numerous claims of UFO sightings and alien abductions, the Earth is still the only known place in the universe where life exists. At this point scientists agree that finding life elsewhere is probable. The most likely scenario is that we will discover evidence for some form of unicellular, prokaryotic life on a moon of Jupiter or Saturn, or even on a meteorite that falls to earth. However, the chances of encountering other "intelligent" life are much, much less. Why do people automatically assume that UFOs are actually alien spacecraft visiting us from star systems many light years away from Earth? That's a pretty big leap, is it not?
"What is that thing?"
"I don't know, it must be from Alpha Centuari."
More likely it's from China, or our own top secret space program. There is a huge difference between some single-celled bacteria, and organisms intelligent enough to have mastered interstellar travel.
The Earth is special. Even if there is life elsewhere in the universe, which there probably is, the odds of a planet developing "intelligent" life must be incredibly, infinitesimally, small. Therefore, the Earth is special. The Earth is special because it has life, it has intelligent life, and we're not just talking about humans. The Earth and all the life on it is special, sacred even. Although we humans often like to pretend that we are somehow set apart from the Earth and all the rest of life on it, the truth is we are part if it. Not apart, but a part; a part of a larger living ecosystem. We totally depend on it. Totally.
Those who entertain the idea that humanity will be saved from extinction by colonizing the Moon, Mars or some other off-world alternate, are surely living in a science fiction fantasy (unless they know something I don't . . . ). We need to get it through our heads that we are, in fact, totally dependent on the Earth for our very survival, for the foreseeable future. Therefore, once again, the Earth and all the life on it is special, incredibly important; we can't live without it; it is sacred.
So, why is biology important? Because life is important. What other reason is required? We should do our best to learn as much as we can about life. We should do our best to protect life, and the conditions that promote life. This is why unnecessary killing is wrong. What other reason is needed? It should be obvious, by now, to any thinking person, that we have a duty to protect all life on this planet simply because this is the only place in the universe where we know that not only life exists, but intelligent life exists. No other reason is required. It makes perfect logical sense. This is my position: Respect Life!
Mars may be an interesting project, but it will never be an alternative "home".
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