Phoenix Digs For Clues On Mars (APOD 15 Jun 2008)

[orin stepanek]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080615.html

While Phoenix is digging, scooping, baking, sniffing, zapping, dissolving, and magnifying bits of Mars; I believe I see a red dust cloud on the horizon. Could it be that another dust storm is brewing? Hopefully not; but I'm sure that the Phoenix can weather such a possible storm.
Orin

[orin stepanek]

The best thing about Phoenix and all of these probes is that we can travel to Mars is a matter of minutes; where as it takes months to get there. It is said a picture is worth a thousand words.-- How true. Even though the experiments are worthy of the expense of the probe; so are the wonderful photos. The knowledge of the universe man has learned over the last 50 years totally swamps everything since Adam and Eve.
Orin

[emc]

The knowledge of the universe man has learned over the last 50 years totally swamps everything since Adam and Eve.

hi Orin, You bring up an interesting point... Have you thought about how we have gone from horse and buggy to interplanetary travel in about 100 years?

Interstellar travel is the next great accomplishment, but it seems even more far fetched today than it did when I was reading my childhood comic books. But why do we dream of flying across the galaxy??? Is it a cruel trick that we play on ourselves??? Is this ever going to become a reality???

What if we can't leave home to travel very far and for any length of time... what if earth is all we will ever have??? Doesn't our planetary exploration provide a new and vibrant appreciation for "home"??? and having good neighbors that talk back in a friendly manner!

[orin stepanek]

Hi Ed! I don't know where to start. It's a big debate that has been discussed in other posts. Yes; we need to take care of our planet; whether we can go to other worlds or not. If man can achieve speeds that make this possible or not may not deter man from trying.
I think first we must try to find out if there are any hospitable worlds before we attempt to go there. Then a long trip may be planned by some adventurous pioneers may try. It would take a huge ship self sustaining ship. It may take many generations of on board life to get there. Those who started the journey would most likely never alive at the arrival; but rather several generations of their offspring. So you have to teach and work and live all for the common cause of finding a new home. Then there is the terrible possibility that the new planet may not be what studies have thought it to be. Our pioneers may become lost in space.
Meanwhile technology may indeed find a means of travel that could get there at a much shorter time. Indeed the next 100 years may be more than we can comprehend.
We had a pretty interesting discussion going in the Cafe about speed. It got carried away at times but was a lot of fun.
Orin

[Arramon]

Just over a few low-lying hills outside of where I live there are plains and plains of open land... fields... trees... rivers. With hardly a whisper of human habitats. Seems there are plenty of places left to live without being crammed together, if where you want to live isn't within some flood, fire or earthquake prone area.

To live on another world: our imagination just keeps getting the better of us. Its not satisfying enough to know that we have a PERFECT planet for us to live the remaining years of our existence (half-century, many centuries, millenia!). But if this IS the only place, how could the many many future generations survive if they stay? The Earth is perfect in its creation, yet limited in its resources we devour. A cataclysm could shake the world, rearrange techtonic plates, destroy green, human and animal life alike, and the survivors would have next to nothing to consume to survive.

But then, this is all we've known. For centuries, humans have only breathed the air of this world (or from oxygen canisters while in orbit or circling the moon). But if we could someday find a means to start the cycle of life on a new world, there could be much hope for generations of humans 1000 years from now.

And with humans taking such large strides when it comes to technology and knowledge, than can all be washed away (or flooded, or covered in ash, or frozen), so that all of what was learned would be lost, and the survivors would need to start once more in the beginning steps of trying to understand and overcome. Our technology of today wasn't the first. And the engineering capabilities of our ancient past is staggering. Only a mere 2000-3000 years later, we finally have electricity and the means to use it. We know what the stars are, we can pick out an asteroid and know that its not a comet. We can see the faintest blobs in celestial images and realize they are remnants of first-born galaxies.

If the learning curve was continued without interruption for the last 3000 years, man would be more advanced than we could ever imagine today. But, for some reason, the knowledge gained over centuries and centuries either fade from planetary disasters or are kept hidden by the powers that be, creating a continual relearning process that makes the accomplishments of those before us harder to build upon.

I'm just hoping that there isn't a time soon that our own present-day accomplishments will be wiped out, and man of tomorrow must relearn what was created within just the last 500 years all over again.

At the rate technology is advancing now, in 100 years, our planet may not even look the same. Or it may stay the same, and we'll all be wondering why the same resources, roads, medicines, credit and entertainment agencies (etc etc) are still being used.

We need to go from horse and carriage, to car, to flying machine... or submersible. =b

But by accepting the same old story from our leaders, about how terrible things are going, and why its so hard to help the billions in need when its easier to just make billions of dollars and become rich, our entire population of earth as a whole and community of voices will never move beyond what we're told to a point where we tell whats to be done.

[emc]

... We had a pretty interesting discussion...[ ]... It got carried away at times but was a lot of fun.

This Asterisk is great fun! I didn't know what fun it would be when I first started writing with folks here.

I expect you pretty well summerized the discussion you referred to in your reply to me.

I am sure a lot of people share the same stardream and would be willing to leave Earth given a reasonable goal.

Man dreamed of flying long before it became a reality. Looking back now, it is easy to see the progression from dream to jumbo jet.

Maybe our childrens childrens children... will look back from the stars with a similar perspective. Hope is to dream... to dream, hope.

[orin stepanek]

Every since I was a boy and read a comic about Bugs Bunny flying a spaceship I got interested in science fiction; and now a lot of that stuff has come to pass. Forbidden Planet was one of my favorites.

Right now we are just looking and digging on other worlds; but in the future I think we will be spreading mankind out and into the universe. I think that will be; however, long after my time. In the meantime I am happy to watch it happen. I can't wait for New Horizons to get to Pluto. I hope there is some surprises there.
Orin

[Arramon]

Is our generation the first to see human beings in space? Hard to tell with no concrete evidence about the most advanced technology used by the ancients. I'm sure some surprises lurk for future archealogists who might find secrets to these ancient contraptions that could have lifted Man beyond the skies of Earth. They may not have known about the vacuum of space and how you can't breathe in it, but they may have at least TRIED to get off of this world (those old stories of a Chinese emperor trying to use a bunch of rockets to lift his throne into space, so funny when Myth Busters tried to emulate that event using soda bottles).

I also wouldn't put it past mankind of a different era from this planet to have already left, and had colonized elsewhere long ago. Maybe we're just the remnants of an advanced civilization that left behind those it couldn't take when some catastrophic event happened. Who knows if this race of humans long gone have been paying close attention to the 'children' of yore make their way into the beginnings of our own space era.

And being in space for so long, would we be looking at evolution from radiation? mutations? Would humans produce, grow and mature differently in space than they would on earth? Especially over vast periods of time, say 100+ years in space. Would each succesive generation have genes that mutated alittle further than the previous generation, and those mutations wouldn't be that noticeable unless you compared the human of the future with that of the past side by side to see what may changed, evolved, been added or removed from our species (or any other species for that matter).

Another thing that interests me about living in space: are there forms of life here on Earth (that survive in the harshest environments) that are able to adapt to the conditions within the vacuum of space? Have we tried to place any organisms in space yet? Not within little test tubes or whatever within the ISS, but directly in the vacuum of space? If so, what were the outcomes?

Would living on the surface of the Moon be similar to living in space onboard the ISS or other type of space craft? Or does the limited gravity (and whatever else encapsulates the Moon) have an affect on the radiation streaming from the Sun?

questions questions questions... =b

[astrolabe]

Hello orin stepanek,

Forbidden Planet IS my favorite!!!!!! Great FX for the era, monsters from the Id no less.

[apodman]

monsters from the Id no less.

Don't worry. They can't get through 26 inches of solid Krel metal. Or can they?

[orin stepanek]

monsters from the Id no less.

Don't worry. They can't get through 26 inches of solid Krel metal. Or can they?

The Id was pretty powerful. They were lucky to get off of the planet.

I liked a lot of old sifi. Another favorite was The Day The World Stood Still.

Orin

[jesusfreak16]

the first star trek series was pretty cool
(i'm a bit off-topic)

[BMAONE23]

monsters from the Id no less.

Don't worry. They can't get through 26 inches of solid Krel metal. Or can they?

The Id was pretty powerful. They were lucky to get off of the planet.

I liked a lot of old sifi. Another favorite was The Day The World Stood Still.

Orin

I only hope the remake does justice to the original
http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/08/27/ ... ll-remake/
http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/06/24/ ... iscovered/

[Arramon]

not another remake....... *cringes*

[orin stepanek]

not another remake....... *cringes*

That's OK; I got the old one recorded on a dvd when they showed it on TV.

Orin

[henk21cm]

G'day Arramon,

You had questions, like Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues. A different kind of questions.

And being in space for so long, would we be looking at evolution from radiation? mutations? Would humans produce, grow and mature differently in space than they would on earth? Especially over vast periods of time, say 100+ years in space. Would each succesive generation have genes that mutated alittle further than the previous generation, and those mutations wouldn't be that noticeable unless you compared the human of the future with that of the past side by side to see what may changed, evolved, been added or removed from our species (or any other species for that matter).

Human evolution is a process that take quite a long time. A Canadian physics professor of Japanese parents told once that the pace of evolution is very slow. It takes AFAIR hundreds maybe thousands of generations to produce a significant change in the genome pool. Usually a cataclismic event can change the genome pool drastically. Mitochondric DNA shows evidence that the human race nearly became extinct about 75ka ago. The moment in time possibly coincidented with the eruption of mt. Toba on Sumatra, although the latter statement is not scientifically prooven. Another support for the cataclism theory is the very high level of achromatism on the atoll of Pingelap. An achromat has no colour sensitive cells, just light sensitive cells. On average 25 ppm of the population is achromat. On Pingelap, after a tidal wave or storm surge, 10% of the remaining population is achromat, since these people could find their way in the darkness of night, without light, whereas the non-achromats mainly perished. [Source: Oliver Sacks]

So if you want changes in the generations born in space, you will have to wait either a long time or there must be a distinct discriminator, why a specific combination of genes is in a huge advantage to produce more successful children with respect to all other generations. Cosmic rays could change the DNA structure and create mutations. Remember that most mutations are lethal or produce infertile parents. A larger threat for generations born in space is inbreeding. Since the amount of people on board a space ship is limited, after a few generations everybody is uncle or cousin of each other. The same process occurs in isolated small communities.

Another thing that interests me about living in space: are there forms of life here on Earth (that survive in the harshest environments) that are able to adapt to the conditions within the vacuum of space? Have we tried to place any organisms in space yet? Not within little test tubes or whatever within the ISS, but directly in the vacuum of space? If so, what were the outcomes?

There was a link (the one that changed into a 404 over night) which reported that bacteria were not completely removed from an early lunar probe. Three years later these bacteria, discovered by Apollo astronauts, were still live-potent, in process of being a living organism. In vacuo, at harsh temperatures. The most extreme example are the bacteria that live in the hot smokers at the mid-atlantic ridge. Temperatures of more than the critical temperature of water and high pressures.

Or does the limited gravity (and whatever else encapsulates the Moon) have an affect on the radiation streaming from the Sun?

Limited gravity does not noticebly effect the visual radiation of the sun. The absense of a magnetic field is the main lethal factor, since the solar wind is not deflected from the surface. Absense of an atmosphere, is the final killer, since charged particles can not interact with the atoms or molecules of the atmosphere, thus creating Aurora. (Neither borealis, nor australis, more everywhere).

[bystander]

You had questions, like Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues. A different kind of questions.

A Question of Balance? "Why do we never get an answer when we're knocking at the door?"

[astrolabe]

Hello bystander,

Hoo boy! Here I go again, sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong. But after reading the lyric I realized that, not only does the lyric answer it's own question philosophically, it's probably impolite to be knocking at any door with the expectation of some kind of answer about anything. The expectation to me would be a setup for disappointment unless, first, the door is opened. So, primarily, maybe focusing on the knocking would be in the proper order and help to insure that the door one is at is, in fact, the door one want's before blurting out a question. One is only happy when the answer given is the one one wants anyway.

[bystander]

How do you get them to answer the door if you don't knock? I'm just saying...

[astrolabe]

Hello bystander,

i'm definitely off topic here but, good point! The lyric suggested to me, and I"m very familiar with the MB's, not so much answering the door but answering a question. So you are correct in that answering a knock by opening the door is one way of looking at this. That's why ambiguity in some song lyrics can reach a broader audience.