Cosmochemistry and Human Exploration

[alexblackwell]

<b>Cosmochemistry and Human Exploration</b><br /><br />--- Cosmochemistry plays an important role in developing local resources on the Moon and Mars, essential to sustained human presence in space. <br /><br /><i><b>Written by G. Jeffrey Taylor</b></i><br />Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology<br />posted December 23, 2004

 

[Maddad]

When I first started reading your posts, I thought that you didn't really know much, but just pasted interesting looking stuff here to make it look as if you really were a knowledgable person. The reason was that you never included your own comments. Since then, a couple of years or so, I've come to realize that this is just your posting style; you really are a valuable knowledge resource for SDC.<br /><br />I'm curious though. Why is this your style?

 

[alexblackwell]

<i>When I first started reading your posts, I thought that you didn't really know much, but just pasted interesting looking stuff here to make it look as if you really were a knowledgable person. The reason was that you never included your own comments. Since then, a couple of years or so, I've come to realize that this is just your posting style; you really are a valuable knowledge resource for SDC.</i><br /><br />Thanks. I guess I'll take that as a backhanded compliment ;-)<br /><br /><i>I'm curious though. Why is this your style?</i><br /><br />I'm not sure I understand what you're driving at, but I'll give it a shot.<br /><br />As a rule, I generally participate in a particular thread (deeper than merely posting informative links) when my interest is piqued by some real in-depth, informed discussion <i>in an area that interests me</i>, which is why I post the links. There are some really informative postings on the Web, including here, but wading through the mountain of garbage and gibberish to try and find the nuggets of gold has grown increasingly tedious and, quite frankly, not really worth the investment in time.<br /><br />I've been participating in online discussion since the mid-1990s (<i>e.g</i>., the space-related USENET groups, other online forums, including one of my own on Yahoo!, etc.), so a lot of the discussion I see around the Web is, from my standpoint, unavoidably repetitive. Also, the exponential expansion of the Web has, unfortunately, also brought an exponential increase in the number of kooks. I hate to sound jaded but I got tired of "fighting the good fight" against ignorance a long time ago, so I leave a lot of the lunacy and ignorance for others to combat. I also grew tired of answering the same questions over and over long ago ("Mars. Isn't that a planet or something?"). <br /><br />If that's too pessimistic a view, so be it.

 

[robnissen]

I, for one, really appreciate the links you post here. I also appreciate your minimalist style, you generally say something when you have something interesting to say, but otherwise let the articles speak for themselves. I personally find your approach much better, than say Maddad who ranted and raved about the who-gives-a-f*ck orion project for 27 PAGES, not in an attempt to have a frank scientific discussion, but merely to convince himself that he had won an argument (which, personally, I think he failed at miserabley). I look forward to your future posts.

 

[newtonian]

Alex. Thank you for the link.<br /><br />Do you think man's future requires populating beyond earth?<br /><br />I don't know, personally.<br /><br />However, man is polluting- ruining - our earth and I don't think it is right to mess this planet up and then move on to other places to exploit.<br /><br />Of course, one can use resources without polluting - in fact, one can even improve the environment - as many plants and animals instinctively do here on earth.<br /><br />Sadly, human independent reasoning often goes in contradiction to the wise instincts of other less intelligent life forms on earth.<br /><br />I expect, therefore, that incorporation of other life forms would help our wise use of other planets.<br /><br />Various life forms can convert cosmochemistry to beneficial biochemistry.<br /><br />However, shouldn't we stop polluting earth first?