In the best traditions of the old rec. I want to go completely off topic.
There has been a lot of talk recently about space tourism (even a fellow Bungayite expressed a desire to pay for a seat when it gets down to ten grand a ticket)I'd like to know who else thinks this is a valid use of planet Earth's dwindling resources. Do the super rich have the right to go on a 5 min jolly into space and screw the rest of us who will suffer the consequences of increased CO2 emissions and the global warming created by it. Is it not bad enough that people jet round the world on holidays to sit by a pool now companies like Virgin want us to spend huge amounts of money just to experience near weightlessness and look at the planet from orbit. Will you be able to see sea levels rising or poor people starving from up there.When an estimated 3billion people live on or below the poverty line and countless populations have no safe drinking water is this really a good use of resources human,enviromental or financial.I'm all in favour of space exploration and the scientific benefits gained from it but holidays in space for rich idiots to play oneupmanship back at the golf club when they return just makes me so angry.
There are a squillion things that are arguably "not a valid use of the Earth's resources". But if things aren't illegal, who's to stop people (rich or otherwise) spending their money on whatever they want? What are you arguing for? Banning space tourism? Taxing it heavily, and spending the tax on "valid uses"? A concentrated campaign of moral disapproval thereof?
And well done for starting a topic off-topic. (Semantic vertigo ahoy!)
God yes banning it. It has no advantages for society and would consume huge amounts of resources. A list of other things I would ban for the sake of future humanity would include non-sustainable logging, all commercial fishing,whaling,MacDonalds,fracking,open cast mining,cyanide leach heaps for copper mining,single hull oil tankers,manufactured pop bands,over grazing of fragile pastureland,first world countries exporting toxic wastes to third world countries,newspapers,sky television monopoly of broadcasting rights to cricket,gas guzzling super cars,chemical toilets at Bungay........
Roflcopter - - Parent #
The way I see it a lot of the third world countries are that way for a reason. Either because they keep up the same act that everybody knows dos't work like theocracies in the middle east or just failure to evolve in africa.
And atleast here in america, the "poor" got that why by their own hand. I dunno about the UK if ya'll have all the gangbangers,thugs,or 13 yr old kids hopped up on everything from meth to rat poison but thats most of the poor over here.
I don't do any of those things but I can't get a job and I earn less than $5000 a year. Some people just aren't dealt a fair hand.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Ahh... the "deserving poor"
We in the UK evolved past that in the 1800s, America has just failed to evolve past that attitude :P
Don't forget America hadn't evolved past being stone age hunter gatherers before European settlers using middle Eastern agriculture arrived 500 years ago.Also NEVER forget your country and mine got rich and successful of the backs of slaves from your "unevolved Africans" Who were doing fine until us westerners arrived and started exploiting them.
Even ignoring the ethics in your decision to 'ban' certain things, your list itself is clearly a regurgitated mis match about which you are either uninformed or simply leaving your head in the sand about.
I'll only talk about what I know about as that seems like the most honest way of doing things.
I've been away from a computer for a while but I saw a lot of posts on the edge and wanted a rant, so congratulations on being the recipient monte - hope I've not come across as too much of a dick.
Commercial fishing is not great. Whilst in Europe steps have been taken to try to fish more sustainably this may actually increase the speed at which other fish stocks around the world are over exploited. Where do you think the large Russian and Spanish factory ships go when their quotas run out. Many large popular fishes such as Pacific blue tuna are already believed to be under the critical population sizes needed to recover from extinction.
Many sources of Dirty fossil fuels are now becoming economically and politically viable as raising oil prices and fears over security of supply make them more attractive. They are not attractive when you consider that two thirds of the bitumen you mention is burned without any filtration or carbon capture to produce the other third which can then be burnt to produce your "cheap" energy.
Whilst the jury may be still out on fracking, the methane gas, best left underground, is a very powerful greenhouse gas many times worse than than C02 and the toxic chemicals pumped into the ground to propel the gas out could cause problems for water supplies for many years, leading to huge clean up costs in the future.
On a separate note about the bitumen it's actually a very interesting process. The trucks that drag the stuff from the mines have tyres that weigh tons and there are actually HUGE amounts of waste sulphur they're struggling to find uses for. Shell used to have 3 projects to try and exploit this: thiocrete (like concrete), thiogro (agrochem) and thiopave (roads). I've no idea whether any of these are still going but it definitely made for some interesting reading.
There shouldn't be any jury out on fracking. Let's leave ideas on that to science and industry and people that actually know what they're doing rather than fools in government who pretend to know what they're talking about. Just look at our drugs policy...
What you're saying about the dangers of methane as a greenhouse gas is also clearly not understood. Now, methane is a greenhouse gas and I don't debate that, same goes for CO2 (and water is an even bigger contributor if you want to get technical) but that isn't important. This greenhouse gas methane that's getting dug up is not being sent straight into the atmosphere. This stuff, like you say, is burnt just like all the other fossil fuels. It is the cleanest burning of them (though not the most efficient j/kg) and needs next to no processing (sometimes there is hydrogen sulphide in there or helium); certainly a lot less effort than most natural resources.Cheap fossil fuels provide cheap energy. Useful energy is one of the few things which has 'actual' value. The world's markets are based on mostly commodities like gold or resources in the ground that are made up variables with inflated values but energy is necessary and practical and should be exploited at every opportunity.
Tell me, is it more important that 100 generations from now your descendants are living in a geographically similar climate, or that 3 generations from now they're living in an economically bearable one?
I was actually thinking of the methane gas that escapes during extraction rather than the C02 created when it burns. I am generally against burning useful fuels such as natural gases in power stations as they would be far better used as cooking fuel in poor countries where they are chopping down the last of their forests for firewood. (see Haiti for a prime example although many other examples exist)Leaving energy extraction to science and industry rather than democratic forces (government) is a dangerous road which leads to massive enviromental damage, see many examples of nuclear power disasters or oil spillages or chemical leeks such as Bhopal. Our elected governments respond to public pressure on enviromental matters if enough people stand up and shout. Industry does not have a good record of responding to public pressure unless it comes in the form of boycotts which are not easy when it comes to things such as energy. Cheap energy is often expensive when you take into consideration clean up costs. Nuclear energy turns out to be very expensive when you add the cost of de-commisioning. Fracking has the potential to do long term damage to under ground aquifers which would be ruinously expensive to clean up if they became polluted.
For me its more important that in 100 generations time people are able to feed themselves,breath clean air,drink unpolluted water and live in a bio-diverse world without going to war over the last few resources.
For this to happen I believe we need to be living sustainably within three generations and the economies of the developed world must be brought round to accommodate this, bearable or not.
The short term answer to the energy crisis lies in reducing consumption rather than increasing production. Many have extolled the virtues of C02 free nuclear energy but at current rates of consumption all the worlds known supplies of Uranium will be exhausted within forty years leaving only Plutonium (even more dangerous)available as fuel.
It would be hard to use plutonium since it can only be manufactured from Uranium. And uranium is in no (near term) danger of running out. There's an estimated 16 million metric tons available, 230 year supply at current consumption rates (not a huge supply I'll grant you). It is thought that improvements in extraction technology will likely double the effect supply over time. After that, there is also thorium, which has potential to be a much cleaner fissible material, and is far more abundant than uranium.
Our sources seem to differ quite a lot. My source is a book called "Where we are now" and credits a study by the University of Augsburg. It actually says 59 years, However consumption is predicted to rise so even your more optimistic estimate would be reduced accordingly.
Thorium reactors look promising but they are in the early stages of development and face many difficulties including needing a rare uranium isotope as a start up fuel which at present can only be produced in a conventional reactor.Further research would certainly be preferable to manned space research.
Well who do you think carries out research into novel nuclear energy sources?
Most of the things we send out to space use nuclear fuel because of it's energy density. Naturally, the companies that build these things put extensive research into making their "power sources" more effective and efficient. The result of this is that we make breakthroughs in nuclear fuel. Maybe in a decade from now, someone at one of NASA or the ESA's contractors will develop a thorium power source for a mission to Mars, and this will be adapted for use in a power station.
Don't worry about uranium running out. If supplies ever did get low, then fuel would be recycled more. Most fuel has only a small amount of the fissile material used before it is considered waste (in fact, in the USA, it's illegal to re-use spent fuel. Crazy!). Uranium can be treated in various ways to get several goes from one lot of fuel. We probably only need a hundred years worth anyway, since one would hope by then fusion power would becoming widespread. Estimates I have seen range from around 200-300 years worth of uranium that is realistically accessible using current methods.
RegularJugular - - Parent #
Don't worry if we don't do something to correct the current corrupt banking system, within 3 generations it won't be economically bearable for anybody either way, apart from the current super-rich who will own all the lakes and aquifers and keep it shared unfairly.
was going to adapt the following Cree prophecy but on finding and re-reading it I decided it said it all far better than I could.
"Only after the last tree has been cut down,only after the last river has been poisoned,only after the last fish has been caught,only then will you find you cannot eat money." ...nuff said.
Fracking IS bad, because things do go wrong and water supplies do get contaminated, rules and regulations can't fix the water supply once it's buggered. Observers, regulators etc eventually get slack, companies want to save money and cut monitoring etc because "nothing has gone wrong yet". It simply is not worth the risk. There are lots of regulations for nuclear power plants too, but look at the problems with those, Fukishima being the latest. Oil drilling has lots of regulations too, the Gulf oil drill leak still happened.
Regulations are no guarantee of anything and some things are just not worth the risk. One day fresh clean water will be worth way more than oil/gas and people will look back at us and fracking and will not have kind thoughts.
Interestingly, Fukushima was a PR disaster (and occurred alongside a natural disaster), but wasn't anywhere near as bad as the media would let you believe. And fancy that, the media overexaggerating a story. Whoda thunk it.
Blog post from the WHO:
Linky
as I understand it, Fukishima would have been a lot safer and survived the earthquake/tsunami a lot better if it had been properly maintained etc Nuclear power is still not worth the risk as far as I'm concerned and they still don't know what to do with the waste anyway except stockpile it somewhere and hope it never leaks. We need clean renewable power sooner rather than later and to stop wringing every last drop of oil and gas out of the planet just because it's so expensive now that all the extreme methods are suddenly profitable.
All you are saying is that Fukushima was an unsafe plant, not that nuclear power is inherently unsafe.
Sure, there are improvements to be made. That is why research into such things is important. We are at the point now where coal power stations are about as good as they are ever going to be, because we have been improving them for so long. It would be foolish to write off nuclear power just because early plant designs are imperfect.
Fukishima was unsafe, if you consider a power plant being unable to survive a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, followed by a 15 meter tsunami, without leaking some radioactive materials to be unsafe. It was not maintained to the best standard, but I find it quite amazing that everyone seems to care so much about this disaster. The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami was massive and the injuries from the nuclear incident very minor in comparison.
Or in other words, if someone said to me there was going to be a radiation leak from a nearby nuclear plant, I'd pick up my valuables and leave. If someone said to me there was going to be a 15 meter tsunami or 9.0 magnitude earthquake, I wouldn't waste a single second picking up anything...
Earthquakes and tsunamis are impossible to stop however nuclear disasters are easily avoidable just don't build reactors. The long term damage from radiation is well documented and Japan will suffer the consequences long after the damage from the natural disasters has been cleared up.You may have more time to collect your valuables but it could be a lot longer before you could return.
Look, you want clean, efficient energy but there just isn't such a thing. Nuclear energy is the cleanest energy we have. It's not great but until we can run cars on Gatorade it'll have to do. And yes, they could be built better. There are skyscrapers built to withstand winds and earthquakes and it would just take different designs (such as floating reactors in the middle of the ocean) to rule out destruction by tsunami all together.
Plus, the wealthy governments could pay poor countries to build reactors in their countries. Everyone would benefit. Japan is a really bad place for a reactor. Period. 200 people per square inch. Yikes.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
"Nuclear energy is the cleanest energy we have" - because burying waste for millennia in the hope that it won't become problematic for any of the following hundreds of generations is the cleanest and most reliable method there is?
This is at the very heart of nuclear energy apologia - there are myriad reasons to support nuclear energy, and really the industry should have never lost the PR initiative, but fans of nuclear seem to be incapable of addressing the core problems in a critically objective way. Nuclear energy has great promise, compromised by great threats, but the pro camp seems to have fallen for the strategy of vigorously hymning everything it does well, whilst merely mumbling and looking elsewhere when thornier questions arise.
If you prefer we could shoot it off into space with all our other junk. I'm just saying that no energy is clean. Wind energy comes close but it doesn't create much power.
Human poop has been buried for millennia too. Let's face it; humans destroy stuff. It's only a matter of determining how to slow down the destruction of the planet, not stopping it outright.
Nicholas I have been avoiding replying to your daft statements because it feels a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.At the risk of clumsily mixing my metaphors I'm Gonna "take the bait"
I'n going to skip over "there is no clean energy" because we all agree with that however if as many resources had been invested in it as have been in the fields of atomic energy and fossil fuel extraction who knows what we would have come up with. There are many options to explore.
"Nuclear energy is the cleanest we have" has already been covered but "we could shoot it into space" would be like standing at the bottom of a well throwing out live hand grenades, sooner or later one is going to come back down and things will get messy.
"floating reactors in the middle of the ocean"... have you not heard the expression "worse things happen at sea"
"Wealthy governments could pay poor countries to build reactors in their countries" This has been covered under "first world countries not exporting toxic wastes to third world countries" but I would add to that the fact that plutonium is a very sought after material for terrorists and rouge states and generating it in poor and often at war countries would be irresponsible in the extreme.
Japan is a highly industrial country with little of it's own sources of energy.The last time they tried to become self sufficient in energy it involved a sneak attack on the 7th of December 1941 and didn't end well for them. Nuclear energy has not gone well for them either so maybe they are the ones to work on cleaner sources.
"200 people per square inch,yikes" I'll put this down to proof reading I'm not one to comment on this with my record.
"human poop has been buried for millennia too" of course it has,it's the best thing you can do with it.Certainly it's better than mixing it with formaldehyde in a posh trailer and paying someone else to deal with it. (see "banning chemical toilets at Bungay") I hope you weren't comparing it to nuclear waste disposal.
"it's only a mater of determining how to slow down the destruction of the planet not stopping it" If we could make sure the flight was full of people like you who have given up on Earth then maybe one way flights to Mars would be of benefit to mankind.
Now what would be the most enviromentaly sound thing to do with a barrel full of dead fish?
Did you create this thread just to show that you are the smart one or did you intend to start an intelligent conversation?
If I may disregard the insults in your post and skip to the real issue, what would you suggest as an alternative to burrying spent nuclear waste?
And just a side note, the satellites we've sent to other planets are very unlikely to ever return to Earth.
I started this thread for several reasons.Green issues are important to me and I have spent a lot of time learning,discussing and thinking about it over many years.Yes I did intend to start an intelligent debate and for the most part I think there has been one.I now regret my original statement "I'm all in favour of space exploration and the scientific benefits gained from it" thanks to some challenging questions from Orin and others. In future I will suggest that research funds should be allocated more towards Energy solutions and less towards military applications.I certainly didn't start it to make myself look smart.I will admit I have a confrontational debating style but I don't make personal attacks and I try to argue with the things people say not the people themselves. I'm suprised you feel insulted by me. Patronised sure,disregarded maybe but insulted no. I called your statements daft, I did not call you daft.I then addressed many of them and offered alternative perspectives which is in essence the definition of debate.If you were in any way offended by my sarcasm then to be completely honest I don't care.I realise I can come across as an argumentative dick but I would rather that than be thought of as apathetic,selfish or hypocritical on this important subject.
In also really curious... Are you irony impaired or do you really want to waste ammo on fish? What a wasteful action.
I am a satirist and you are an idealist. I'll explain. 200 people per square inch is an overstatement employed to convey my point of argument. There are better places to build a nuclear reactor than on the outskirts of a large city, the population of which exceeded 2 million at the time of the "disaster."*
There are 7 billion people on the planet and it takes vast resources (coal, water, gases, electricity, etc) to sustain such a vast amount of life. (Unless you'd have us all living in trailer parks with no running water).
Sorry to be the one to break it to you but we and the governments of the world only have so much to work with. Wishful thinking won't make any problem go away.
By the by, nukes have been intentionally detonated at sea. Yes a radiation leak would be devastating. I'm not arguing that. But building them in a tsunami danger area isn't great either. It's all about tactics and design.
Do you have something against cheap and relatively clean/efficient energy or just against a possible leak here and there that could EASILY be prevented by more training (Chernobyl) and better design and/or placement? (Fukashima)
*As mentioned by another poster, the severity of the disaster was enormously blown out of proportion.
Really no-one spotted "rouge states" I did of course mean rogue states.Opportunity for further ridicule missed luckily for me. I guess no-one reading this thread anymore.
I saw it, but read it as "red state" and thought you were talking American politics.
Maybe I was referring to the unsustainability of certain make ups especially those still produced from whale blubber.
No, what I am saying is that tough regulations do not guarantee safety and that the consequences of failures is simply not worth the risk. I was just using Fukishima as one of many examples of regulations failing to make things safe, even worse that they weren't followed properly. Nuclear power plants in earthquake prone Japan was a mad idea in the first place. I don't think it was a 9.0, but even then it was well off shore, not right beside Fukishima.
Again, my main point is, regulations guarantee nothing, let's spend money on improving clean renewable energy, better batteries, better transmission. Let's stop spending money on ever increasingly risky and extreme methods of getting dirty, non-renewable energy.
Media over exaggerating a story! That's almost as suprising as Governments and reactor owners covering up effects of radiation leaks.
I disagree. Compared to the number of flights of the airline industry the number of space flights will be tiny. Also, I'm not 100% on this, because I'm not a rocket scientist, but I thought that rocket boosters don't burn fossil fuels, they burn hydrogen and oxygen and the by-product is water vapour. Of course you have to produce the hydrogen in the first place, which probably uses fossil fuels but could also use renewable sources.
Also, surely this will help distribute the money of the super rich to everyone else. The money spent doesn't get used up or go into space, it stays on earth and gets spread around (eventually to the poor people), which helps the economy. It also provides jobs.
Also, space tourism is a stepping stone to advances in space flight in general. The population of earth is already too large and eventually this technology could help us spread out in the solar system and beyond. This can only be good for the earth. It seems likely now that this is more likely to happen from commercial ventures as governments are spending less on space exploration.
Little Paul - - Parent #
I'm pretty sure I read that the fuel used for the "space tourism" vehicles is rubber (I did read one source a while ago which claimed it was recycled car tyres, but I'm not so sure about that) and an accelerant.
https://www.treehugger.com/aviation/is-virgin-galactics-claim-to-be-green-reasonable-actually-sort-of.html makes for interesting reading.
I'm pretty amused by the idea of a pile of car tyres and an accelerant being fuel for space flight, rather than a bunch of kids getting up to mischief in a grubby field.
1. Even that article admits that it may be the greenest space flight yet.
2. The United States consumed a total of 6.87 billion barrels (18.83 million barrels per day) in 2011. (Source) Cutting the entire space program, grounding half the planes would STILL not make a dent in CO2. But preventing cows from farting might. (Source)
3. I'd like to point out that you believe everything you read on a website called "treehugger.com".
Little Paul - - Parent #
I said it was interesting, I didn't say I believed it all completely and uncritically :P
Numbers of Space flights may start out tiny but it is the aim of Virgin to reduce the cost of space flights so it becomes "affordable" for more and more people eventually being commonplace.The by-products of the hybrid rockets include CO2 (greenhouse gas) CO (toxic) and nitrogen(better used to replenish soils as a fertiliser) Passengers will have to use conventional jet airplanes to travel to the launch pad and cars to travel to and from the airports.
As for spreading the money around there is no guarantee that it will be profitable modern airlines rely on subsidies from their governments on the fuels they burn just to stop from going bankrupt.Even if they do make money it will be re-invested into the airlines to produce more planes not redistributed to poor nations around the world. As for creating jobs the hundreds of millions of dollars invested could create jobs such as replanting trees,cleaning up the spoils of filthy mining companies etc.All that will happen to the money which may be made is that it will end up in the pockets of already rich first world populations to fuel the out of control consumerism causing many of the planets problems.
As for spreading the Earths population into the solar system we already live on the only place suitable for habitation with air we can breath and natural resources we could exploit sustainably if we took the time and effort to do so.Sounds like you have already given up on Earth when in fact it is still not too late if only we could spend our resources more wisely
The earth is made from the same elements that can be found elsewhere in the universe. I believe that it has already been shown possible to live sustainably on Mars with current technology (using solar power to extract oxygen from frozen water). I think it's possible to solve the problems on earth while also exploring what else is out there.
Talking of which, this juggler has applied for a one way trip to Mars, along with 78,000 other people.
https://applicants.mars-one.com/profile/5169a305-8ce4-4df1-994d-62a82dd24154
Are you really suggesting that the future of mankind is best served by moving a few dozen people to Mars who will live in a sealed enviroment replicating the condition we already have hear on Earth.What happens to the 7 billion left behind. What happens to the people on Mars when they have exploited all of that planets resources do they move to another planet to start the process all over again.Besides which NASA has already failed to live on this planet in a sealed enviroment when they attempted to do it with the Biosphere 2 project.What I am arguing is that our best chance is to try and solve the problems on the planet we live on instead of investing huge resources traveling off it.
The Mars project is a step in space exploration, not a solution to the problems on earth. They won't use up resources on Mars, they recycle everything using the sun's power.
I'm not sure what resources you think space exploration will use up. Almost everything stays on earth and just gets redistributed.
Perhaps the advances in science made by space exploration and learning how to survive sustainably in harsh environments will help us learn how to use the earth's resources more sustainably.
Ok so how do they grow their food without using resources you need nutrients as well as sunlight to grow plants and recycling human waste would not be enough.what happens when you use up all the finite supplies of water.Where do the materials used to produce solar panels come from.How much energy does it take to smelt the metals used to produce the panels where do the rare Earth materials come from to make them work. How do you solve the problem that solar panels use more energy in their production than they create during their lifetime.How do you solve the problem of radiation coming from solar flares when you have delicate electronics which will be destroyed by it.We do not have the know how to solve these problems without exporting materials from Earth.
How does space exploration not use resources where do the materials used to build the spaceport come from what about the energy used to make the craft and the materials used in its construction.What about the fuels used to escape Earths gravity.They may not leave the planet but they change from useful materials into harmful byproducts.
I don't have the knowledge to answer all those questions, but I believe many of them have been answered by the Mars-One guys on their website and on a Q&A on Reddit (including the radiation issue). Water won't get used up, just like it doesn't get used up on earth.
So you are using the website of Mars One for unbiased information on solving the problems of traveling to and living on Mars.That's like asking the meat industry to produce a document on animal welfare or BP to study the effects of oil spillage in the Mexican gulf.
As for water on Earth not getting used up in a pure Physics sense it does not however safe to use water is polluted by industry and mining operations,water is salinised by poor agricultural techniques making it and the land unusable for food production and fresh water is running into the sea at a much faster rate due to deforestation (taking irreplacable topsoils with it)In parts of Australia the salinization problem is so severe they are seriously considering abandoning agriculture altogether and importing all their food instead.So while you are correct in saying water does not get used up usable water does. De-salinisation uses huge amounts of energy to produce potable water.All of these problems could lead to useful water on Mars being used up.
Surely de-salinisation is a simple case of using the sun's energy to evaporate the water. You don't need electrical energy for that.
I'm all in favour of space exploration and the scientific benefits gained from it but holidays in space for rich idiots to play oneupmanship back at the golf club when they return just makes me so angry.
I recall at least some of the companies behind space tourism starting up the venture so that rich idiots could fund scientific expeditions. They get their holiday, scientists tag along & do some work.
Can't believe you fell for that one Orin. What useful experiments could be made in a 7 minute flight.We already have the international space station for doing experiments under weightless conditions. That is pure spin to try to excuse this recreation for the over paid.
Nothing to fall for. Mark Shuttleworth paid $20m dollars (through Space Adventures in Virginia I think) & spent 8 days on the ISS & 'helped' with genome research while he was there.
Exactly. Spent 8 days on the already existing space station flew up on a filthy solid fuel rocket and held a test tube for a scientist.What was the total cost of that flight?What benefits came of it?How many villages in the third world could get clean drinking water for $20,000,000.
Total cost of the flight was $20m less than what it would have cost the taxpayers if he hadn't tagged along. Not knowing exactly what research was carried out I have no idea what benefits it may have, but then neither do most scientists at the time of pure research from what I gather. Do you think that is a good reason not to conduct research? How many people would benefit from a cure from aids (which was also being researched)?
You said you were all for scientific exploration. Does that mean you are happy with NASA's $17bn annual budget? If so why are you complaining about a private individual contributing $20m to the cause on top of whatever he may have already paid in taxes?
20 million dollars would distribute a hell of a lot of already existing medicines to aids victims and save countless lives in the countries where there is no money for them.17 billion dollars would go a long way to clearing up the pollution caused by multinational hardrock mining companies who shut down their operations when no longer profitable and file for bankruptcy when faced with the clean up costs which are often larger than the profits made. Instead of sending up a tourist a real scientist could have taken his place and maybe contributed to a cure for aids rather than a publicity stunt for the space tourism company taking his money.
There are plenty of problems back here on Earth that the worlds smartest people could be far better employed to solve. How far would that kind of money go into researching clean renewable energy for example.
So are you for or against scientific exploration of space?
You started off attacking space tourism because it wastes money & natural resources that could be better spent but you said you were for scientific research which uses (wastes?) considerably more. Are you against space travel in general or just space travel by rich people?
I'm against space travel for it's own sake ie tourism. I don't have manned space travel high in my priority for research funds.If you think the planet is bad now wait till the upcoming countries like China, India and Brazil with their huge populations start consuming like the first world does.That could double the rate of consumption without any further increase in population. Enviromental damage just gets more expensive to clear up the longer you leave it. Space travel can wait till we solve the energy,pollution,biodiversity and water problems.
So as long as they do some research along the way any type of space travel is fine regardless of how much money & resources are wasted?
For the record I am also against space tourism but am all for scientific space exploration.
Every other problem you cite is caused by overpopulation, until people address this one tackling other environmental & social problems are just kicking the can down the street.
No I am not saying spend what you like as far as research happens. In fact I am saying pretty much the opposite.Most research could now be done with unmanned vehicles much more cheaply and with less resources.Men are only really necessary to increase public interest so that space agencies such as NASA can get their huge budgets past congress.
The space industry has no moral highground from which they can validate their massive budgets. If we look to the origins of space exploration we soon find it started with Werner Von Braun's V1 rockets built by forced labour (many thousands died in the workcamps) to drop high explosives onto civilian populations.These rocket scientist were then quickly recruited by both superpowers, exhonorated of all war crimes and put to work building delivery systems for their atomic weapons. When the first cosmonaut flew into space this then accelerated the arms/space race to the point where the USA were devoting upto 400,000 of their finest brains and a large percentage of their GDP to score points against the USSR by getting a man to the moon and back.The future of space travel now lies with China who's enviromental and human rights record leave a lot to be desired.So all in all not much return unless you count M.A.D. and non-stick saucepans.
It's very easy to blame over populated countries for our problems. In fact most of the worlds resources are consumed by a small percentage of rich wasteful nations with stable or even falling populations(not allowing for immigration).Compare the carbon footprint of a subsistence farmer in Africa with that of a western space tourist.
pumpkineater23 - - Parent #
More work needs to go towards the new nanotube space elevator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
thegoheads - - Parent #
Maybe I'm cynical, but people are never going to agree on the tough issues. Too many people have too many different things to gain or lose from whatever, and fixing one problem always causes another...for someone. It saddens me to see people so upset over political issues that they really have no control over. My philosophy is to just be kind, honest, have a few cheap thrills and laugh with the human race as it slowly but surely fails itself. I only get upset over things that directly impact me and I have at least some control over, I don't have the time or energy to get upset about how f***ed up everything seems to be in the big picture. Selfish? Sure, I'll take it, I've been called worse :)
I respect the Earth itself quite a lot and think maybe it would be better off without humans. Not that they should migrate to space... Anyway, wastefulness of any kind is a bummer, so I guess I mostly agree with Monte.
*runs away*
RegularJugular - - Parent #
Nail, head, BAM, slammed into outer space...
I do believe your rational thinking felt like a breath of fresh air around some increasingly stale and unstable fumes.
Yet...
A more optimistic way of looking at it would be to think of all the problems man has solved on route to being the dominant life force on Earth. We have found many solutions in the past. Our advances in science, medicine,agriculture and understanding of our natural surroundings are at a point where many of our enviromental problems are understood and could be solved if resources were better used.Space travel is just an extreme example, as Void said there are squillions of ways in which resources are squandered.
I think it must be a moral duty to try and raise the living standards of the third world and the increase in consumption caused by that will quickly lead to the tipping point if we don't start using the knowledge and resources more responsibly.It may not collapse in my lifetime but certainly children growing up now are going to see many resources running out and living standards falling sharply.
like my school reports used to say "must try harder"
Little Paul - - Parent #
did they also say "argumentative" and "talks too much" :P
No-one seems to be touching on the main problem here - We need to satisfy already high, and growing, demand for electricity, without burning fossil fuels. Governments and particular rich individuals should be throwing money by the bucket load at controlled nuclear fusion. Until this is successful, governments should be relying far more on nuclear power via fission and the general public should be far less annoying about the building of fission plants.
People hoping into space is not a problem here. Anyway...
"What happens to the 7 billion left behind. What happens to the people on Mars when they have exploited all of that planets resources do they move to another planet to start the process all over again."
As for this, you assume that we will not become better at using resources. At the moment, we live near a star, which produces an incredible amount of energy. Once it becomes cost effective to harvest and use this energy* (solar panels are not cost effective), we will be in a far better position. One possible way this could happen is by putting solar panels in space, in which case space tourism, which would bring down the cost of space travel, could actually aid in our efforts to live sustainably.
*And obviously I don't mean the stored energy in fossil fuels...
ITER is a €15 billion research project for controlled nuclear fusion, funded by the world's major governments. Seems like governments are already throwing money at it - although maybe this is still not enough.
I agree with your points.
Compare that drop in the ocean to the insane amounts spent on space exploration over the last 50 years and maybe you can start to see that we could already have cold fusion.
So I'm assuming your work on cold fusion is coming on in leaps and bounds? Scientific progress is slow. Cold fusion is difficult.
Just because however-many-million dollars have been spent by organisations like NASA and the ESA, that doesn't mean that the only progress they have made has been in space exploration. The "end product" of research is often vastly separated from the original research. NASA have recently been looking into why certain animals (see: waterbears) are so resilient to extreme conditions, and the "end product" is likely to be a huge step forward in sun creams.
NASA have also made huge progress with water filtration, which would obviously have benefits in third world countries, or areas recently hit by natural disasters.
We're talking about fusion. Spending large amounts of money won't make cold fusion possible.
There are no shortages of places on Earth to harvest solar energy. Many in overgrazed and soil eroded parts of the world such as the Sahara and the Australian outback. These places however remote are much easier to access than space.Instead of inventing possible justifications for space travel try and come up with a list of benefits. I suspect after you come up with global communication satellites, GPS and the Hubble telescope you struggle to find many more.In fact monitoring the condition of weather systems and enviromental degradation is ironically ( insert definition for US citizens ) the best I can come up with.
The Sahara and Australian outback are not so good for solar energy for the following reasons:
-Weather effects/earthquakes could damage solar panels
-Power output is variable depending upon weather conditions (day/night or cloud/dust storms).
-Countries which use the most power do not rule the lands of the Sahara
Benefits I can see from putting them in space:
-Power output can be accurately measured and is totally dependable - Calculate the orbit and you know when you get power. No weather effects to block sunlight.
-You don't need to rule space to put some solar panels in it.
But the problems of space.
-Cost.
-How do you get the energy back to Earth efficiently?
All in all, I think space looks attractive. As for cold fusion... That's never going to happen. If atoms could fuse at low temperatures, it would already be happening. However I agree that 15 billion euros is almost an embarrassing figure to be the worldwide expenditure on a project, which may well significantly change the future of mankind for the better, and possibly be the single most important breakthrough this century.
Storage and transmission are among the biggest problems with solar farms in deserts ... however, space is an even bigger desert with way worse storage and transmission problems.
Granted desserts are harsh enviroments for energy production however far more harsh enviroments are already exploited for fossil fuel extraction ie Siberia, Alaska, deep sea platforms and so on. All of which pale into insignificance compared to the harsh enviroment of space. Not to mention the increasing problems of space junk in low orbit.
"desserts are harsh enviroments for energy production"
I dunno - there must be a fair few calories in a banoffee pie!
RegularJugular - - Parent #
Badum-tish!
Little Paul - - Parent #
It's easy to put fossil fuels in a container and transport them out of the desert and over to the other side of the planet or pump them down a pipeline or whatever.
It's decidedly difficult to do that with electricity. Transmission by cable is lossy (not to mention terrifically expensive given the availability of metals, and superconducting cables just aren't feasible at that scale yet), batteries have a shockingly (arf!) poor energy density compared to hydrocarbons and the best ones we've got at the moment are packed full of rare earth elements and heavy metals, super capacitors and nano technology you say? Give it 20 years and it's a possibility.
Using the electricity to crack water into hydrogen/oxygen and then transporting that and converting back to useful power seems like a good bet but is also rather inefficient, hazardous and cuts your potential pool of deserts down quite significantly (to those with a significant water supply)
Oh, and those solar panels/fuel cells/superconductors/carbon nanotech? Yeah, at least some of the advances in those are thanks to NASA.
Fossil fuels are "lossy" to transport too. Those massive tankers don't have sails, they burn very dirty low grade fuels. Non photovoltaic methods of solar energy such as the banks of mirrors powering steam turbines in Spain could afford to be lossy if they produced cleaner energy.I am aware there is no truly clean energy,those mirrors still have to be manufactured, but some are decidedly dirtier than others.
I have just looked up NASA's expenditure over the last 50 years. Total spend was $526,180,000,000 adjusted for inflation that rounds up to $790 billion.
Read this. It's a magazine produced by NASA that details spinoff technologies that NASA was originally responsible for.
I haven't found time to read the NASA mags yet so don't know what spin offs there have been but one would hope something bloody good has come from all that expenditure.It's not just the money either. For the last 50 years or more the best physics and chemistry brains from around the world have been sidetracked. Who knows what innovations they could have made to benefit mankind with those resources.Bring in to that the resources used in the heavily codependent arms industry and we could have had a much more optimistic future.
Whilst looking up the NASA budget I looked up the total estimated cost of WW2 to the USA as a comparison to help me get my head round the size of it. Turns out it was about $350 billion, adjusted for inflation it would make it a similar amount.I am not about to make an argument for more world wars despite the many medical,scientific and technological advances which came from it.It did however help me put it into perspective.
My original argument still stands,Space tourism is a waste of resources and space exploration is a very expensive luxury we cannot afford.Research in many other fields could have benefited Earth far more.
I could draw attention to the links between the "military industrial complex" controlling the political approval of military spending including NASA research,but that is getting too off off topic even for me.
I don't think we do need to satisfy increasing needs for electrical generation. I think we need to cut consumption in the first world and try to convince the developing nations not to make the same terrible mistakes we have made. Its going to be hard to convince them without accepting a fall in our own living standards as proof of our integrity.
I am very much assuming we are not getting better at using resources.There is a lot of short term vested interest in using up those resources which just increase in value as a product of basic supply and demand.We are investing the wealth of the planet into dodgy pension schemes leaving little profit for future generations.
Before someone else does:
https://xkcd.com/1232/
RegularJugular - - Parent #
Breaking News: A 'Straw Luddite' is burned down in tragic linguistic accident. Observers applauded his burning, 'We learned straw is a valuable source of fuel, if we could only harness the power of the 'Straw Luddite Mk I argument polarisation tool', we could perhaps power our planned mechanisation of the perpetual donkey-carrot interface' they drove off in their gold Hummers and jute Priuses and only stopped briefly to piss on the poor while browsing the internet...
Many years into the future this comment was extracted from a satirical black hole using trepannomorphic hindsight, long story short no-one cared...
which is not unusual after that type of surgery.
Excellent, are we talking about Luddites now? Can we talk about the Hundred years war next? Trebuchet anyone?
RegularJugular - - Parent #
I blame my sleep deprived brain for flippantly throwing-up that mess.
I would explain myself, but I'm going to devotedly hug my imaginary trebuchet with my deserved Dunce cap on and hope it doesn't haplessly misfire me into a pit of imaginary luddites, they smell...
So, that explaining I implied I wouldn't do:
I love debate and Monte's determination. My post does look like I crossed into muck-slinging or insanity & I might well have done: I'm not sure. I am sure it wasn't a personal attack, more questioning things like 'what makes people resolute?' and 'what are the most astute observations that can be gained from debates like these?', 'are some mindsets always going to hit the roof after just seeing a buzzword they think is repulsive?' albeit in almost the most indirect way possible.
/RJ still isn't sure which side he stands for, wishes he could stand for the Cree but would probably confuse them for high efficiency electrical illumination
To me the most hurtful part of your post was "long story short no one cared" The rest I found very funny.
I am having doubts myself about the validity of forum debate on weighty matters such as the future of the planet.Whilst I enjoy having the time to think before replies and the lack of interruptions that you get in a live discussion I find a lot of people have such entrenched ideas true debate becomes difficult.No matter how many times I state that I believe nuclear energy is neither cheap nor clean others will not be convinced and vise versa. I have in fact changed my opinion on atomic energy several times over the years,most recently after James Lovelock's public support for it.I am back in the anti camp again because,as many have mentioned,the waste problem still cancels out the benefits for me.
I regret the thread devoting so much time to this side topic but what can you do? On the other hand several informative posts on both sides of the space travel debate were written and maybe some people may have learned something (I have). I guess being accused of being a smart arse says more about the attitude towards education of the accuser than the smart arse. As Confucius said "he who comes to the fountain of knowledge with a full cup has nothing to learn"
Maybe next time I'll start a less controversial and more lighthearted thread such as "which are best cats or dogs?" however I was getting a little bored with "what's your favourite colour prop" type questions.
Anyway,Just before midnight I would like to say happy Independence day to all the US citizens out there or happy thanksgiving as we Brits say.
RegularJugular - - Parent #
To me the most hurtful part of your post was "long story short no one cared"
"It's best to assume you're not on the inside of a satirical black hole's event horizon or else you already can't escape." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Satirical Physics (Nth Edition)the validity of forum debate on weighty matters such as the future of the planet.
The future of the Planet is not at stake, our Planet will survive. We humans on a personal and global level won't, we may think we are in charge of nature for some time, we may enjoy it, but my own and every other human life will end. The best we can hope for is to evolve into something with improved global and personal social cognition as well as less impact on their environment for their own sake.
Also (online) forum debate is ALWAYS valid. No exceptions. *hides*atomic energy
I agree with you about nuclear fission power, also that 'side topic' was my favourite part of this thread. Fusion power though, that seems to have very few drawbacks apart from using up shitloads of time, material resources & money.Maybe next time I'll start a less controversial and more lighthearted thread such as "which are best cats or dogs?"
It's a trap!before midnight I would like to say happy Independence day to all the US citizens out there or happy thanksgiving as we Brits say.
Let us celebrate the Harvest and prepare for the oncoming winter? I mean I know us British are prone to strange idiosyncrasies but putting a Harvest festival in the middle of July does seem a bit excessive, even just to antagonise our elders and betters across the pond.
*Dear god of satirical physics - give me the strength accept what I cannot change, and the strength to change what I cannot accept. Amen.*
Only get one chance a year to use the thanksgiving joke.Nearly missed it only had 4 mins to spare.
Would really like to urge anyone interested in history and enviromental matters to read Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" It discuses the demise of ancient civilizations such as Easter Island,the Greenland Norse,the Mayan's and many others and draws parallels with our current problems of unsustainability.Jared Diamond is famous for Guns,germs and steel which got a Pulitzer prize. A lot of my current thinking is very much influenced by his writings.
You might find this week's Infinite Monkey Cage intesting. It's on space tourism.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc
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