[trip]

All nations have lost sight. What happen to space missions ? why is there sooooo little money being used for space exploration. We landed on the moon 36 years ago. In 36 years the best we can do is have a public company create a plane that only intends to fly billionaires' into space for 60 seconds. what a joke.

Earth is in a very fragile state !

WAKE UP WORLD !

If we all don't get off this planet soon, we're all going to DIE !

[sideus]

[brapper]

indeed.

[Chuckit]

We've already got the framework in place. As you observed, we've already developed a method to evacuate the world's billionaires, and they're the only ones who really matter anyway.

[Randman]

The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years or so. We've been around for about 10,000 and involved in industry for about 200?
The Earth will be here long after we're gone. It's survived global floods, ice ages, volcanoes, meteor, a collision with Mars (which made the Moon), pole reversals, etc.

The Earth isn't going away. We are.

[andreas_g4]

Originally Posted by Randman

The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years or so. We've been around for about 10,000 and involved in industry for about 200?
The Earth will be here long after we're gone. It's survived global floods, ice ages, volcanoes, meteor, a collision with Mars (which made the Moon), pole reversals, etc.

The Earth isn't going away. We are.

The Mars thing you don't mean for real, do you?

[brapper]

I'm excited for out upcoming pole reversal

[brapper]

Originally Posted by andreas_g4

The Mars thing you don't mean for real, do you?

it's a common theory...

[andreas_g4]

Originally Posted by brapper

it's a common theory...

AKAIK a common therory is that a meteor collision, a huge one, led to Moon formation. I never read anything that implicates Mars. Since I read all that stuff "offline" in Nature, Scientific American etc, I can't provide links, but I'm pretty sure about this.

I just recall that the therories postulate that the object must have had approx. Mars' size, maybe that's what you meant.

[Randman]

There are a theory or two that the Earth and Mars did collide at some time, probably early in the formation of the solar system, maybe when they were proto-planets, maybe when they were they larger. Still, something, a comet or asteroid or planet collided with the Earth at some time, forming the moon.

[trip]

Originally Posted by Randman

The Earth isn't going away. We are.

Exactly, with all these lunitics (including Bush) with nuclear bombs we're all toast.
Sooner or later someones going to push the big red button and BOOM -
goodbye human race.

We need to spread out away from earth and all the friggin Nazi's.

I know - I'm having strange day, but I just saw Star Wars 3 and it's making me think.

[Randman]

The nuclear bomb has been around for more than 60 years. And so far, it's only been used twice and those were more than 60 years ago.
Things are a helluva lot safer now than during the middle of the Cold War. Or the 1950s when duck and cover tests and personal fallout shelters were all the rage.
You're more likely to die from cancer caused from that cell phone attached to your ear than any nuclear weapon.

[effgee]

Originally Posted by Randman

... The Earth isn't going away. We are.

Speak for yourself - I'm not going anywhere (just yet, that is.)

[ManOfSteal]

I went to the Moon last night, it was no fun.

[f1000]

Originally Posted by Randman

There are a theory or two that the Earth and Mars did collide at some time, probably early in the formation of the solar system, maybe when they were proto-planets, maybe when they were they larger. Still, something, a comet or asteroid or planet collided with the Earth at some time, forming the moon.

I doubt that Earth and Mars have ever collided. One or both of the planets would have had to have had a highly elliptical orbit for such an event to happen. More importantly, the current orbits of the Earth and Mars don't reflect such a cataclysmic event.

From what I've read, a Mars sized proto-planet collided with the Earth. The light silicate outer layers of the proto-planet were spattered into a ring around the Earth while the heavy core of the proto-planet merged with that of our planet. The ring of silicate debris eventually coalesced into the Moon.

[andreas_g4]

Originally Posted by ManOfSteal

I went to the Moon last night, it was no fun.

Maybe your post count is six times higher on the moon, too. Then you cound instantly retire once again... Did you check it out?

[ManOfSteal]

Originally Posted by andreas_g4

Maybe your post count is six times higher on the moon, too. Then you cound instantly retire once again... Did you check it out?

Yeah, the atmosphere held my post count at -10,000! Damn them.

[Kilbey]

We explored about 3% of the ocean and you want to waste money in a dead vacuum of space? I'd rather my money were not wasted.

[Luca Rescigno]

Randman: Mars-sized, not Mars itself.

trip: Excellent idea! You go first, the rest of humanity will catch up later

[Kerrigan]

At least in space, I can download Kingdom of Heaven and not have to worry about being sued.

[Gee4orce]

Originally Posted by Randman

The nuclear bomb has been around for more than 60 years. And so far, it's only been used twice and those were more than 60 years ago.
Things are a helluva lot safer now than during the middle of the Cold War. Or the 1950s when duck and cover tests and personal fallout shelters were all the rage.
You're more likely to die from cancer caused from that cell phone attached to your ear than any nuclear weapon.

...unfortunately that's not true. Back in the Cold War the nations with the Nukes were sensible enough not to use them. But the cat is out of the basket now, the can of worms has been opened. You cannot un-invent nuclear weapons. Sooner or later, North Korea or Iran or some other rogue state run by a madman will develop and use nuclear weapons. This is not 'probability', it's a certainty.

...but long before that happens we have bigger problems to deal with. The planet is seriously f*cked, and we have to act NOW to slow the decline, if only to buy us some more time.

[f1000]

Originally Posted by ManOfSteal

Yeah, the atmosphere held my post count at -10,000! Damn them.

In space, no one can hear you +1.

[bstone]

Originally Posted by Randman

The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years or so. We've been around for about 10,000 and involved in industry for about 200?
The Earth will be here long after we're gone. It's survived global floods, ice ages, volcanoes, meteor, a collision with Mars (which made the Moon), pole reversals, etc.

The Earth isn't going away. We are.

The problem is, Randman, we may very well screw up the delicate equilibrium that the Earth relies upon. There is a good chance that once that is screwed up, the Earth will plunge into Forever Winter with no natural means to restore itself.

[Randman]

You're assuming that humans can have an impact on the Earth. We're a mild irritation at best. If we really started being destructive, I'm sure the ecosphere would fight back. The Earth has been dealing with far more than our 200 hundred years of heavy industry. 200 years of man-made stuff vs 4.5 billion years of cosmic and internal forces at work. If anything, it's presumptuous to assume we can have that can of impact.

Basically, ecology is a selfish pursuit. Ecologists don't care about the world around them, they want a clean and safe place to live for them any offspring. Thousands of species become extinct on their own every minute of every day. And in a few thousand of years, we'll be gone and we won't leave much behind.

[bstone]

Originally Posted by Randman

You're assuming that humans can have an impact on the Earth. We're a mild irritation at best. If we really started being destructive, I'm sure the ecosphere would fight back. The Earth has been dealing with far more than our 200 hundred years of heavy industry. 200 years of man-made stuff vs 4.5 billion years of cosmic and internal forces at work. If anything, it's presumptuous to assume we can have that can of impact.

Basically, ecology is a selfish pursuit. Ecologists don't care about the world around them, they want a clean and safe place to live for them any offspring. Thousands of species become extinct on their own every minute of every day. And in a few thousand of years, we'll be gone and we won't leave much behind.

Randman, humans HAVE been having an effect on the Earth. One needs only to view the samples of CO2 levels taken from glaciers and compare those levels with the ones today. The results are very scary. Mankind is not inflicting natural phenomena onto the Earth, rather we have the power to destroy the Earth entirely. I am not sure, however, if we have the power to preserve the Earth.

Ecology is hardly selfish. It's as much about as trying to provide a clean and safe environment for us and our kids as it is the love and desire to keep Earth living.

[Randman]

It's the arrogance of man to assume we can destroy the planet. Oh, we might cause some problems but the Earth will heal itself and continue on, just as it always has. We might kill ourselves and we might not be able to save ourselves from folly and hubris. But I'd take the planet in a knock-down any day of the week.

That said, I do believe in recycling and taking care of the environment as much as I can. But not because of the planet is in danger because it's not.

[shabbasuraj]

Space is a waste of time and money.

Flame away...

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by trip

Exactly, with all these lunitics (including Bush) with nuclear bombs we're all toast.
Sooner or later someones going to push the big red button and BOOM -
goodbye human race.

We need to spread out away from earth and all the friggin Nazi's.

I know - I'm having strange day, but I just saw Star Wars 3 and it's making me think.

No. We need to stay right HERE so, if we do go crazy and annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons, the mentality that makes that type of behavior possible dies out with the dropping of the bombs.

[d.fine]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

As you observed, we've already developed a method to evacuate the world's billionaires, and they're the only ones who really matter anyway.

If they have to leave the planet cause its dying what good is their money? They'll be floatin' in space with their billions, then what? Go to the exchange office on Mars and get Martian currency?

[bstone]

Originally Posted by Randman

It's the arrogance of man to assume we can destroy the planet. Oh, we might cause some problems but the Earth will heal itself and continue on, just as it always has. We might kill ourselves and we might not be able to save ourselves from folly and hubris. But I'd take the planet in a knock-down any day of the week.

That said, I do believe in recycling and taking care of the environment as much as I can. But not because of the planet is in danger because it's not.

Randman, not entirely true. Sure the Earth can and has bounced back from really amazing things. But what if there is a nuclear holocaust? We can easily burn out the atmosphere and literally kill the Earth. The only reason why Earth can sustain life is due to the delicate equilibrium which it is able to balance- unlike any other planets.

[Randman]

Nuclear holocaust? Like the nuclear winters caused by colliding meteors that were likely partially responsible for some of the major mass extinctions? Those?

[bstone]

Originally Posted by Randman

Nuclear holocaust? Like the nuclear winters caused by colliding meteors that were likely partially responsible for some of the major mass extinctions? Those?

Yes, only that we are capable of producing a senario which can be many thousands of times more powerful than one lucky strike of an asteroid. That would most certainly be fatal to the Earth.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by bstone

Yes, only that we are capable of producing a senario which can be many thousands of times more powerful than one lucky strike of an asteroid. That would most certainly be fatal to the Earth.

Do you have ANY idea of the amount of energy released in a meteoroid or asteroid collision? On the order of hundred of millions, if not billions, of kilotons of energy. To get an equivalent effect from nuclear weapons would require detonating every nuclear weapon on the planet at one time in one location.

This would blow a huge hole in the atmosphere but not necessarily burn off the entire atmosphere. And even if a large portion of the atmosphere did burn away in a global nuclear cataclysm some life would still survive. There are lots of simple organisms that could thrive/survive via photosynthesis alone.

[Randman]

And even if that happened, the Earth would survive. It would cleanse itself and the water would become clean again and the air as well and some form of life would likely continue and evolve and thrive.

[Luca Rescigno]

I'm with Randman here. Yes, I do believe that environmental conservation is important, but I agree that it's basically a way to protect ourselves and make life better for humans. It didn't really take that long for the earth to recover after the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Maybe a couple million years at most, which is nothing in geological time. We should protect the environment so it can continue to provide us with natural resources, fertile farmland, and of course the beauty of nature.

And yeah, large meteorites are way more powerful than nuclear weapons. I found a site about a medium-sized meteorite that exploded over Siberia in 1908. The rock was somewhere between 30 and 60 meters in diameter, and traveling between 10 and 20 km/s. That's damn fast. Anyway, the guy who runs the site calculated that it released as much energy upon exploding as 60 A-bombs, or about as much as a very large hydrogen bomb. And that's for a smallish meteorite as well! Just imagine how much more energy would be released by a meteorite several kilometers across, like the one that killed the dinosaurs. If you take one of equal density but with 100x the diameter, it would have about four million times as much mass (4/3 * 3.14 * 100^3), resulting in an explosion four million times as powerful. In other words, four million hydrogen bombs or 240 million atomic bombs.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

I'm with Randman here. Yes, I do believe that environmental conservation is important, but I agree that it's basically a way to protect ourselves and make life better for humans. It didn't really take that long for the earth to recover after the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Maybe a couple million years at most, which is nothing in geological time. We should protect the environment so it can continue to provide us with natural resources, fertile farmland, and of course the beauty of nature.

And yeah, large meteorites are way more powerful than nuclear weapons. I found a site about a medium-sized meteorite that exploded over Siberia in 1908. The rock was somewhere between 30 and 60 meters in diameter, and traveling between 10 and 20 km/s. That's damn fast. Anyway, the guy who runs the site calculated that it released as much energy upon exploding as 60 A-bombs, or about as much as a very large hydrogen bomb. And that's for a smallish meteorite as well! Just imagine how much more energy would be released by a meteorite several kilometers across, like the one that killed the dinosaurs. If you take one of equal density but with 100x the diameter, it would have about four million times as much mass (4/3 * 3.14 * 100^3), resulting in an explosion four million times as powerful. In other words, four million hydrogen bombs or 240 million atomic bombs.

Ahh, the Tunguska incident. That is really scary. Luckily it hit in an isolated, un-inhabited (at least by humans) area of the planet. Imagine something like that coming down in any city on the planet. The devastation would be horrific.

All the time and energy we put into killing one another on this planet could be wiped out in a matter of minutes by an indifferent celestial object moving through its courses in the cosmos. As often as they disgust me, THAT thought encourages me to look a little more charitably on my fellow citizens.

[meelk]

Peak oil will lead to a decline in pollution and population both, I wouldnt worry about the earth. Theres always something to knock humanity around a little bit and keep us from over extending ourselves. Black Plague anyone? AIDS anyone?

[iNub]

Holocaust schmolocaust. Have you heard about the single celled organisms that inhabit the intensely radioactive uranium fuel rods in nuclear reactors? What about those ones that thrive in the superheated gases of a geyser? Or the ones that live in the thousands-of-tons-PSI pressures at the bottom of the ocean?

The amount of energy released by a nuclear explosion pales in comparison to the amount of energy released by a meteorite collision. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions, combined, partially destroyed 19.7 square kilometers. That's the combined destruction. They were rated at 15 and 22 kilotons, respectively.

For reference, the impact that created the Barringer crater in Arizona, is approximated at 20 to 40 MEGAtons. They can't build a bomb that big. Also realize that Meteor Crater is, by comparison, a small crater. The meteorite itself, measured by the Journalistic ANSI* standard, was only about half the size of a rail car. Not much bigger than any nukes we make today.

I'm not advocating irresponsibility, because I'd like the human race to at least reach the point of civilization. Just a healthy reality check for all you people that think we need to coddle the toughest and most robust system ever made.


*You can laugh now.

[bstone]

Originally Posted by iNub

Holocaust schmolocaust. Have you heard about the single celled organisms that inhabit the intensely radioactive uranium fuel rods in nuclear reactors? What about those ones that thrive in the superheated gases of a geyser? Or the ones that live in the thousands-of-tons-PSI pressures at the bottom of the ocean?

Yes, all of this I know. In fact more recent theories of evolution indicate that life may have very well come from those super heated, underwater geysers. They are very cool as they are FAR from sunlight yet sustain tons of life. Been doing it for a billion years and will continue to.

My contention is that humanity may well have the ability to permanently destroy the delicate equilibrium which Earth uses in order to be able to sustain life in the first place. If such an Equilibrium is destroyed then no "bouncing back" can occur. This equilbrium is what allows for oxygen gas to be in existance on Earth- if it's sudddenly gone then we have a problem.

I am interested in reading about the unicellular organisms on the fuel rods. Can you supply a link? It's most interesting.

[iNub]

I can't find a link to the nuclear reactor organisms, but I may also have been mistaken. It could be in the cooling water. But I'm sure it was on the fuel rod itself. For now, just pretend I didn't say that until I have proof.

Edit: Ah-HA! Kapow!
Kazam! (section 4)

Not much linkage, but some. And now you have a genus, so you can google it.

[iLikebeer]

Originally Posted by iNub

Holocaust schmolocaust. Have you heard about the single celled organisms that inhabit the intensely radioactive uranium fuel rods in nuclear reactors? What about those ones that thrive in the superheated gases of a geyser? Or the ones that live in the thousands-of-tons-PSI pressures at the bottom of the ocean?

The amount of energy released by a nuclear explosion pales in comparison to the amount of energy released by a meteorite collision. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions, combined, partially destroyed 19.7 square kilometers. That's the combined destruction. They were rated at 15 and 22 kilotons, respectively.

For reference, the impact that created the Barringer crater in Arizona, is approximated at 20 to 40 MEGAtons. They can't build a bomb that big. Also realize that Meteor Crater is, by comparison, a small crater. The meteorite itself, measured by the Journalistic ANSI* standard, was only about half the size of a rail car. Not much bigger than any nukes we make today.

I'm not advocating irresponsibility, because I'd like the human race to at least reach the point of civilization. Just a healthy reality check for all you people that think we need to coddle the toughest and most robust system ever made.


*You can laugh now.

Here's a better pic of that crater. It's pretty big, but much larger have hit before. Nuclear weapons won't cause earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or even a hole in the crust. We might be able to destroy the earth's ability to sustain human life, but someday something else will come along. The earth will still get hit by comets and other space objects, bringing more oxygen, water, and whatever else they hold.