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I love our planet. I love its trees, its mountains, its oceans, its big beautiful skies and its extraordinary diversity of life. What we have on this world is precious — it's worth cherishing and nurturing.
But that doesn't mean I think that travelling beyond this planet is a waste of time or resources; or that I think we should instead focus on getting our world right before venturing into space. That's just plain silly: did we fix Europe before embarking for the Far East and the Americas? Did we perfect an idyllic nomadic society before leaving the African plains? Waiting to get our 'house in order' will achieve nothing but guarantee the demise and eventual destruction of our planet, our ecosystem and our species. Going into space is one of the best things we can do to save our world, and ourselves.
It's in our nature to venture out: since the dawn of our species, we have explored, adapted and expanded. In doing so, we have become the most powerful creatures on Earth, capable of splitting the atom and affecting the climate. Like a teenager experiencing the first flushes of hormones, we have felt powerful and invincible — then slowly grown aware that our behaviour and newfound strength can harm others.
It's because of our extraordinary success, our ability to harness resources and bend them to our will, that we are encroaching on our neighbours. We live in a closed system — the planet Earth — but often behave recklessly as if its resources are limitless. In the past, we've overcome these constraints by expanding into new territories.
The solution is not to abandon modern industrial civilisation: we're not going to give up our cities or technologies. In fact, without the large-scale mechanisation of industry, transport and agriculture, we would be unable to feed our massive and growing population. Going 'back to nature' may sound romantic, but would consign billions to starvation.
The first thing to do is reduce our impact on the planet: make technologies more efficient and our cities, transport systems and industrial processes less damaging to ecosystems. We rely on the web of life to sustain us: we need bees to pollinate, trees to make oxygen and worms to aerate the soil, or we would swiftly perish.
And after that? Do we mandate population controls? Do we nominate an arbitrary age at which people need to 'retire', as in the dystopian fictional vision of Logan's Run? Because populations will continue to grow, especially as child mortality falls and science finds ways of extending human lives. The logical thing to do is to expand beyond Earth: to build colonies on Mars, floating habitats in Earth's Lagrange orbits, mines on the Moon and the asteroids, and expand deeper into our Solar System.
It may sound unappealing to some. But so was the prospect — just a few centuries ago — of a long and arduous journey across treacherous oceans in cramped conditions, only to arrive in a harsh and unforgiving wilderness where conditions were difficult and starvation was a real possibility. And yet, tens of thousands of people set off for Australia and North America, among many other places, in search of a new life. Thousands perished. And yet, more came.
We need to expand into space because Earth alone cannot sustain us. Space provides a pressure valve, but exploring it will also ensure our survival. Because one day, a massive calamity will befall our world — an asteroid strike, ice ages, supervolcanoes, solar bursts or nuclear war — and we may disappear, or our civilisation fall.
Some ask: so what if humans pass into history? It's not just a tragedy for us, but also one for nature. Without us, there is no one to witness its infinite beauty; no one to marvel at a sunset, revel in a view, or thrill to the breaking of a wave on a beach. As the late astronomer and author Carl Sagan once said, "we are a way for the universe to know itself".
But we also deserve to continue because we have created things greater than ourselves. Not only scientific and engineering knowledge, valuable as this is — we have also created new and beautiful ways to see the world through art, music, literature and performance.
Think of the plays of Shakespeare, the concertos of Bach, the philosophy of Confucius, the epic poetry of Virgil, the suiboku ink painting of Shubun, the fado laments of Amália Rodrigues, the morality tales of Javanese wayang kulit shadow puppetry, the Islamic calligraphy of the Diwani Al Jali style, the novels of Cervantes, the harvest bhangra dances of Pakistan, the rhythms of the didgeridoo, and anything by Leonardo da Vinci.
Even if the cosmos is brimming with other advanced civilisations, we still deserve to be here. Nature in its diversity has made us as we are: we too are children of the universe, and have something to contribute.
Wilson da Silva is the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmos, and the past president of the World Federation of Science Journalists.
The Matrix
As stated in The Matrix: "The human race is a virus". We NEED to expand in order to maintain our resources. That being said, I do believe that we have nothing but good intentions as The Human Race, and that we will become more peaceful in our goals.
Resources
There are two items we can not live without. Water and clean air.
Life can not exist without water. Keep in mind, heat evaporates water.
Pollution creates a barrior that keeps the heat generated from the rays from escaping, it increases our temperatures. More pollution, more heat. Temperatures will disrupt the natural balance of nature and it will self-destruct, in reverse.
Example: Timing of new life, birds for example, are born 2 weeks earlier. No, big deal? Well, their food source is still on time. TWO weeks later! So, you end up with a high death rate of birds. With no birds, more bugs. But it doesn't end there. Problems start stemming off both ends and we have a very bad chain reaction.
Granted, I know most things will take a long time to impact up, but some won't. Do you know how long it will take to destroy us with the lost of the bees? And they will not be the only loss we need to worry about. Nature is more delicate than people think.
And yes, I know we have a lot of other BIG problems right now, but this is not one we can ignore. We can turn it around too, if we make a stand. The ones most resistant are big corporations and people with resource guzzling toys.
But this problem is dangerous, as dangerous to your families as any terrorist in the world. You might want to sit back and think about it.
History Lesson
If our past history has taught us anything, it's that humans are blind to the key markers that exhibit themselves shortly before a civilization crumbles. Look at the Romans, look at the Incas; you get the point. The next collapse seems to be near. The warning signs are there. The difference this time will be that the collapse will be universal and maybe irreversible. Knowing that it was the effects of technology and over-population that caused the collapse, will future generations who survive be willing to trust technology again? Many of todays cultures shun technology as evil, as maybe they should. But the gears are in motion for our downfall, and believe me, the fall will be great. We've based our entire monetary and fiscal existence around the world on assets that don't exist except in computers. It's all a pipe dream that's slowly going up in smoke. When the US stock market collapses, it will take all the other ones around the world with it and the great industrialized nations of today will be worse off than most third world countries. We're living on borrowed money and borrowed time. So let's forget about the stars. We're never going to make it.
Eternal frontier is a yes.
We are right going threw a change Gobally, one we've learned that when we all pee in the Gobal swiming it start to strink. Only the old gaurd like the Oil companies and large coperation are still doing when they can. But as said by Bob Dylan "the times they are a changing". We are right now about 20 years into the Gobal change.
Any change socially takes about 60 years to come about we are seeing the slow death of big business to small quicker moving companies working together to make better products. The age of Oil is comming to an end Fusion Ractors are only a number of years. Wind and Solar are starting to come about as real renewable resouce. Forms of Hydroponic has shown that we can grow food, even in space, fast and healther than we have before. We are just starting this change in 40 to 50 years our would we be very different. Gas for car maybe Hydrogen but actual I think the new batteries out there will change that. The old Gaurd is fighting to keep control but it can not move like the new generation.
The internet is seeing to that. A new type of capitalism is starting to emerg from the vertual world of the internet. One that sees the worker as the idea man, his friends business the enginery and the other producer. Smaller companies of 200 to a 1000 will be running this world in 40 to 50 years not the multinationals. They can't compete with the new generation that see ownship as know longer the goal but act of creating and reaching for the stars is. We will get to the Mars and then the stars by seeing the impossible as many small groups working together to make the these dreams real. The US sould not be the ones to Mars on its own, they will be the leaders for they have the knowledge but the rest of the world will be there working hand in hand to this dream a reality. It must be this way. N0 man is an island nor a country a world of it's own. All of us must see earth as our birthplace but it will not and can not be our only home. Populations control to the level this world needs will lead to the death of mankind. We will have to move out into the stars and plants or we will die if only because we have no vision for the future. We need a green earth, we need fewer control freaks and we all see it G W Bush has shown the people of the US that if you act in fear from bullies you don't grow as a nation but choke on your fears and loss the freedoms that made the US the land of world envy. It is now a country looking under every rock in fear for the bad guy, instead of finding the bad guy and taking care of him without fear but with steely determination and rage, it was once known for. Japan felt the the price for lieing and in three years it got handed it's ass in Mushroom cloud. It's time to kill the bad guys and get them all and I mean all. I am a Canadain and people like G W Bush don't have what it takes lead a Country like the US. They need a Church Hill type.
A New Idea
Here's a new idea:
Instead of looking at humans and nature being opposing forces, we have to remember that humans are a part of nature themselves.
I know it's become harder to believe this in recent years because of the apparent damage that our species has done to our planet. How can humans, a product of nature, be so seemingly at odds with it?
Maybe we're not. One thing that life has always been good at is expanding. Life has taken hold wherever possible, on islands in the middle of the sea, in deserts, and in the far north and south of our planet. Life wants to expand. So wouldn't it make sense that life would want to expand beyond planet earth?
How would it do so? Humans are the answer. Every animal on earth fills a certain niche in the global ecosystem. But what is ours? Maybe it's our purpose to bring life to other planets. We couldn't survive without the plants and animals that give us oxygen and feed us. If we left for space we'd have to bring them with us. Remember that it isn't just humans that would benefit from space travel.
It's a view that I've been hearing more and more recently, and the more I hear it the more sense it makes. I just wanted to throw it into the debate to offer a fresh perspective and see what you guys think.
Global Warming
The following is a speech I gave at Toastmasters:
Global Warming – Revisited
Toastmaster Club # 111
Presented by: David Handwerk
February 7th, 2008
Did anyone here watch the story on the History Channel, on Sunday evening 01/27/2008, on Global Warming? It was sobering. There are not many of us who don’t believe Global Warming is real, although we may not agree on exactly what is causing it. Does it really matter if it is caused be Greenhouse gasses, increased solar radiation or by some other cause(s)? Well, maybe a little so that we can try to reverse it. However the results of Global Warming make it irreversible. Let me explain. The melting of the Tundra in Siberia, Alaska and Canada is releasing Methane from frozen hydrate in and under the ground and lakes. Methane is a Greenhouse gas 5 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide. Further Methane hydrates in the ocean, will boil off as the oceans warm. This, in my opinion is an irreversible, chain reaction that will increase Global Warming (whatever it’s initial cause), until all the frozen Methane is in the atmosphere. This chain reaction will speed up over the years; I guestimate a 60-foot sea-level rise in the next 100 years. Make no mistake, this is serious, and it may lead to the extinction of life on earth, other than a few Extremeophilic single cell lifeforms. This is just my estimate based on an average of what I have read, it could be much sooner, or later. So since nothing on heaven or earth can stop it, I recommend selling your beachfront home and buying in the mountains.
WAIT, did I say on heaven or earth? Lets look at it one more time from heaven. Global Warming occurs because sunlight from our slightly variable sun passes through 93,000,000 miles of space, then strikes the earth and is partially absorbed by the earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere. There doesn’t appear to be much we can do at the earth end, but might it be possible to attenuate some of the sunlight between the Sun and the Earth?
What do you think of this idea? We put up a partial reflector at the Sun-Earth-L1-Lagrange-Orbit (I’ll just call it
L-1). L-1 is a very stable location that stays between the earth and the Sun with very little effort. So what will it take to do this?
To accomplish this remediation (and to provide at least 2/3rds of Earth’s Energy needs) in the next 20 years, with my estimated Sea-level rise of 4 to 5 feet, we must do the following steps:
1. Realize that we will be able to resolve these problems from space, and to spread the word.
2. Quickly develop the political will to make this happen.
3. Increase the space budget by a factor of 11 or more, to $2B / year (about what the Iraq War costs).
4. Persuade other nations to join in this effort, (Perhaps we could remind them of the costs that sea-level rise will have on their nations) and begin updating our space program.
As money becomes available here is what NASA, or whoever runs the project should do:
A. Improve our launch capability tonnage by a factor of 1,000 while lowering the cost to orbit by a factor of 1,000. This could be done be adopting various Electromagnetic & Tether Launch Systems, in as little as 5 years.
B. Establish a dozen or two Lunar Colonies to “Strip Mine” lunar regolith from the Moon’s surface then to electromagnetically launching it in a stream of buckets to L-1 (as defined above).
C. Establish a dozen Solar Powered Space Factories at L-1, to process this dust and cause it to form a controllable cloud to attenuate the sunlight headed for Earth.
D. Allow commercial interests access to space to build Space Solar Power Satellites to provide at least 2/3rds of Earth’s Energy needs. The rest could be provided by on-earth Solar, Wind, Fusion, Geothermal, etc. (Access to low fixed cost supply of electricity could further persuade other nations to join in this effort.)
E. This needs to be studied and acted upon as quickly as possible. If we could get the entire system operational in 20 years, plus another year or so to cause actual reversal, sea-level rise may max out at only 4 – 5 feet. Cities could build dikes and the land loss may be acceptable.
The scientific and engineering effort is huge; we have a lot of work to do. This includes:
i. Quickly developing various ElectroMagnetic Launch Systems(EMLSs).
ii. Test the suitability and properties of lunar regolith for this purpose and design machinery to re-powder and disseminate the compacted lunar soil.
iii. Rapidly develop lunar colony and mining plans.
iv. Rapidly develop Solar Powered Space Factory plans.
v. Automate the entire project, as it may need to operate for decades or centuries.
This huge project has other benefits that may not be obvious. Very fast, very low cost transportation between points on earth and/or space destinations. The relocation of many polluting mining and manufacturing plants to space. The opening of vast energy sources, vast material resources and vast new land areas in space. Adventure, exploration, expansion, and colonization of the solar system and eventually the galaxy.
I for one think this project is extremely important and plan to spend my remaining life on its realization.
Thank you.
Dave Handwerk
Right
Yes, it is right to go into space. The only way to save the planet from us destroying it eventually.
I agree
I agree
Going in space
Didn't people already go to space. Your cosmos is right but you could also talk about the discovery on Mars by the rovers. Yes we could MAYBE save us and our world.
cosmos of space
Didn't people alredy go to space and the moon. Your cosmos is right and interesting but perhaps you could talk about the discovery on Mars. Which is very interesting.