The Top Three Reasons for Humans in Space 732
An anonymous reader writes "Why humans in space? The Space Review has the top three reasons: 3. To work. 2. To live. 1. To survive. 'To work' means doing stuff in space: research, explore, visit, etc. 'To live' means to have humans/life beyond Earth in colonies/settlements. 'To survive' means that putting humans/life beyond Earth is a very Good Thing in case a very Bad Thing happens to humans/life on Earth."
Re:NASA's Missing the Mark (Score:5, Informative)
That is the job for NOAA [noaa.gov] (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration).
Re:NASA's Missing the Mark (Score:3, Informative)
dwindling rescources available (Score:0, Informative)
Let's start with limiting the resources used by the biggest user, the US federal government.
Limit what it does and you greatly reduce the amount of energy/resources used.
Space.com's top 10 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:1. To survive. ... ? (Score:1, Informative)
Oh, wait.
Re:There are no "other planets" (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, you might then say 'that money could better be spent on making the earth better'. Sounds great, but thats not where money diverted from space research goes.
Plus, fixing earth won't help if a Bad Thing (tm) happens to earth that we can't help.
But yeah, I we governments would take cleaning up the earth seriously though. At the rate we're screwing up earth I doubt we'll have a self sustaining environment ready in time.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Survive? (Score:2, Informative)
-- Dave
Note to people saying "never do this on /." (Score:3, Informative)
Shut up. You are wrong. We are not all liberals. We are not all conservatives. We aren't all atheists, and we don't all believe in God. There is no moderator's conspiracy, get over it. Sometimes moderators or other posters won't agree with you. Get over it.
Here's some hints on how to get along:
Treat other people with respect, especially when you don't agree with them.
If you are going on a rant let us know so we can take what you say in context, and so we know that you know the difference between a rant and a reasoned argument. Same goes with sarcasm.
If you are taking a stand, back it up with some researched links so we can check it out for ourselves.
Treat everyone as if they are intelligent human beings capable of forming their own opinions, especially if you think the opposite of them.
I know discussing ideas and opinions in this way is not nearly as much fun as beating the dead high horse you rode in on, but it does go a long way to actually getting your point across, which last time I checked is the actual purpose of communication as opposed to exhibitionist mental masturbation.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, I have. A good three-hour puddle-jumper flight North-by-Northwest from Red Lake, Ontario. We spent a week just a few miles North of "nowhere" and a little East of "whothefuckknows."
Apart from the "ozone hole", it's lovely in the summer time. Great fishing, pretty country, lots of trees, and like Mars in almost no way whatsoever. Also, they've got those neat little two-dollar coins which are almost the exact right ammount to tip your waitress if you buy breakfast in a cheap diner on your way up there.
I certainly didn't feel much like a space explorer as I took a nap in the Lund fishing boat on a quiet lake as eagles flew by.
The point of the Antarctica analogy is that it's not only cold, barren, and inhospitable all year round, but it's also very, very remote. Once you get a few hundred miles inland, you are out of radio contact with pretty much everybody, and emergency help can be a matter of a days away... longer if it's too stormy for flying.
Living on a Mars colony would be like living at Ice Station Zebra, except you would be even more cut off from the rest of civilization, because at times the Earth can be up to about 15-20 light-minutes away. Need your appendix taken out? You better have a facility there for it, and you better not happen to be the only doctor they sent to take care of such things, or you are screwed.
Oh yeah... and there's no water, and you can't breathe outside. Sounds like a real party, huh?
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Informative)
Now, we shouldn't go around destroying other life forms we find, but turning sterile environments into healthy biospheres can't be bad thing, whether or not life is rare.
Re: Sea Life (Score:1, Informative)
Now a full 20% of marine species are approaching extinction and upwards of 80% of fishing stocks are depleted worldwide. It turns out that most life in the ocean is closely linked to geochemical cycles that involve continental sediments or are confined to continental margins. Even those that survive can be made unusable for food (due to bioaccumulation of pollutants such as Mercury).
Coral reefs, which form the largest marine ecosystems in terms of species are extremely vulnerable, primarily from sedimentation, pollution, and global warming with the vast majority of coral reefs now under tremendous pressures and in substantial decline worldwide (even the Great Barrier Reef in Australia the single largest protected ecosystem on the planet is in decline and may likely be lost within a few hundred years at current rates of decline even without a nuclear exchange. Heavy sedimentation from nuclear fallout would probably lead to about 70-80% extinction rates in marine habitats. One must remember that the bulk of extinctions in the fossil record are of marine species preserved in sedimentary formations. Also the vast open oceans are relatively impoverished of species and biomass as nutrients are severely limited. In a sense they are the marine equivalents of deserts.
The best thing to do is to tell your grandchildren to hold on to their asses and not to worry as George Bush and his team of environmental crusaders is riding to the rescue! Its called faith based environmentalism. You just pray like hell that every thing will be ok, while expanding the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and perturbing natural habitats as quickly as possible for financial reward (pioneers and other well-connected contributors only, sorry).