Why the Moon, Mars and Beyond? It is a Matter of Surviving -

[Danny_Clay]

Well, I guess any thoughts I had on posting Part II of my column on Space.Com is moot. The welcome here has made it very clear anyone posting anything even slightly wavering from the prevailing liberal line of thought here is verboten.

I have learned my lesson. I have had success posting at other sites where both sides are allowed, I shall stick with them and tell any and all unless you are liberal to the core, keep away from Space.Com

 

[MeteorWayne]

Both sides are allowed in the appropriate forum. Your post in Missions and Launches had nothing to do with a mission or a launch, so was completely off topic. Another home had to be found. This is the one I chose, since it seemed most appropriate.

Meteor Wayne

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Hello DC- How ya doin'?

Don't worry about Piotr(PeterSatan), he jumps in almost any thread with the "Europe and China are great and the US stinks" baloney. He's a very young Polish communist, if he is to be believed.

I've been at SDC for about a year and a half now, and I can tell you that it's hardly a majority liberal hangout, especially in Open Forum and Politics. Since I've been here, there's been at least two threads each on gun control and the Second Amendment, as well as capital punishment; and I've found that the members who participated in those four threads were pretty much evenly split 'liberal' or 'conservative'.

Of course you do know that most Americans are camped out somewhere in the middle, right? I wouldn't go by what you see on Fox News or by what conservative pundits say. The Second Amendment ultimately guarantees the First Amendment, that's my view and a similar view is held by many here, from what I've gleaned.

But coming into a science based website and proclaiming in a general sweeping statement that human caused global warming is a hoax and based on crackpot psuedo-science is not going to garner too much respect even from some of the more politically conservative members here. (Many of them don't necessarily deny any human influence, just the degree and extent of that influence.)

But to me, and many others here, the politicization of the global warming issue is an affront because it should have remained in the scientific realm. (Most everybody here, left, right, or middle, is angry with Al Gore on the left and others on the right that have politicized the issue.) It's similar to people in the past that have politicized biological evolution.

Having said all that, I don't see how you can effectively communicate your message of the urgency of humanitys' need to establish a spacefaring civilization on the pretext of an imminent cosmic collision while at the same time bringing up, as it stands, hot button political issues like global warming, gun control, and of all things, abortion.

By bringing up abortion, of all things, and tying that in somehow with a suggested conspiracy of liberals who are anti-space exploration is kind of weird and makes you come across as a political propagandist. And saying that the collision of Shoemaker-Levy nine colliding and plunging into Jupiter 'proved' that space rocks and comets 'will land' is a bit pretentious. Anyone with a high school education should know that collisions are what form planetary systems in the first place.

Just looking at the Moon with the naked eye confirms that collisions occur, especially in the childhood of a solar system. But the fact that major collisions- in a mature and drastically calmed down system such as the one we inhabit in the present epoch- occur on time scales of 25 or more million years makes that reason for an impetus to push into space incongruous at best and outlandish at worst. Outlandish because of the statistical improbability of something that apocalyptic happening in the next 10,000 years.

Humans and our proto-ancestors have only been around for a few million years. And so it's not unreasonable that we won't go all out to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond based on a cataclysmic scenario that is highly unlikely to happen within 10,000 or even 1 million years.

 

[vladdrac]

Or a sly youth throwing a stone at a stubborn mules ass :lol:

 

[MeteorWayne]

DC, This remark is actually pretty hilarious:

"I have had success posting at other sites where both sides are allowed, I shall stick with them and tell any and all unless you are liberal to the core, keep away from Space.Com"

If you had spent any time reading SDC before posting, you would have realized that
A. Missions and Launches is for Missions and Launches

B A short perusal around the politics forum would have shown you it is one of more "conservative" places on the Interwebz . Not the most, but after all, Space.com is a SCIENCE forum, first and foremost :lol:

 

[a_lost_packet_]

Wayne, it was not a zillion postings I expected overnight, but the last thing I expected was to be told I could not post my own work. Granted, I am to blame as I did not, as you say, get the lay of the land before I jumped in with both feet.

Just a note: They are protecting your work and your rights as an author by enforcing a policy that does its best at avoiding copyright infringement and the abuse of Fair Use policies. It actually works in your favor. Not every post with a quoted article can be expected to be posted by the author.

I post elsewhere on many different sites and I was not looking for instant fame here at Space.Com. It just seemed to be the place to offer up my column on going to the moon, Mars and beyond.

You're in the right place.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

Well, I guess any thoughts I had on posting Part II of my column on Space.Com is moot. The welcome here has made it very clear anyone posting anything even slightly wavering from the prevailing liberal line of thought here is verboten.

I have learned my lesson. I have had success posting at other sites where both sides are allowed, I shall stick with them and tell any and all unless you are liberal to the core, keep away from Space.Com

Oh well, awfully touchy fellow, aren't you?

In regards to your article, in case you happen to breeze back by...

The possibility of life on Earth being snuffed out like a damp candle is one that we should pay close attention to. However, while we can imagine the worst case scenarios, imagination doesn't cost anything. You can go past imagination and draw up some pretty sound figures for probabilities if you have enough information. So, a pencil, paper, a slide-rule and a library pass will get you a good, roundabout SWAG on the longevity of current species here on Earth considering the possibilities for the next catastrophe. That comes to about 20 bucks, give or take and depending on how much you think your contribution to the public library is worth in tax dollars.

It costs significantly more to send your pencil, paper, library card and books into orbit and that is incomparable to the costs of beginning an exodus to space.

I agree that we must focus our efforts to ensure our survival. But, we simply haven't the means now to make significant headway in any rapid order. If a rock falls on us in the meantime, so be it. But, while we are busy trying to learn how to live and survive off planet Earth, we also have to keep living here while we do it. That means a significant portion of our resources are going to be necessarily dedicated towards staying alive right now. A small portion of that can be dedicated towards ensuring the future for mankind by exploring space. Thems the breaks. We're payin' our monies, we're takin' our chances. When we are finally able, we will make it off this rock. Until then, we're just going to have to keep our fingers crossed.

It'd be a bit better if, in future articles, you focused on the subject at hand instead of going off into the ether with Global Warming/et al. That's really distracting and just muddies the water and the message.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Hello DC- How ya doin'?

Don't worry about Piotr(PeterSatan), he jumps in almost any thread with the "Europe and China are great and the US stinks" baloney. He's a very young Polish communist, if he is to be believed.

I've been at SDC for about a year and a half now, and I can tell you that it's hardly a majority liberal hangout, especially in Open Forum and Politics. Since I've been here, there's been at least two threads each on gun control and the Second Amendment as well as capital punishment and I've found that the members who participated in those four threads were pretty much evenly split 'liberal' or 'conservative'.

Of course you do know that most Americans are camped out somewhere in the middle, right? I wouldn't go by what you see on Fox News or by what conservative pundits say. The Second Amendment ultimately guarantees the First Amendment, that's my view and a similar view is held by many here, from what I've gleaned.

But coming into a science based website and proclaiming in a general sweeping statement that human caused global warming is a hoax and based on crackpot psuedo-science is not going to garner too much respect even from some of the more politically conservative members here. (Many of them don't necessarily deny any human influence, just the degree and extent of that influence.)

But to me, and many others here, the politicization of the global warming issue is an affront because it should have remained in the scientific realm. (Most everybody here, left, right, or middle, is angry with Al Gore on the left and others on the right that have politicized the issue.) It's similar to people in the past that have politicized biological evolution.

Having said all that, I don't see how you can effectively communicate your message of the urgency of humanitys' need to establish a spacefaring civilization on the pretext of an imminent cosmic collision while at the same time bringing up, as it stands, hot button political issues like global warming, gun control, and of all things, abortion.

By bringing up abortion, of all things, and tying that in somehow with a suggested conspiracy of liberals who are anti-space exploration is kind of weird and makes you come across as a political propagandist. And saying that the collision of Shoemaker-Levy nine colliding and plunging into Jupiter 'proved' that space rocks and comets 'will land' is a bit pretentious. Anyone with a high school education should know that collisions are what form planetary systems in the first place.

Just looking at the Moon with the naked eye confirms that collisions occur, especially in the childhood of a solar system. But the fact that major collisions- in a mature and drastically calmed down system such as the one we inhabit in the present epoch- occur on time scales of 25 or more million years makes that reason for an impetus to push into space incongruous at best and outlandish at worst. Outlandish because of the statistical improbability of something that apocalyptic happening in the next 10,000 years.

Humans and our proto-ancestors have only been around for a few million years. And so it's not unreasonable that we won't go all out to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond based on a cataclysmic scenario that is highly unlikely to happen within 10,000 or even 1 million years.

DC- You did say at the end of your article that you were "looking forward to your comments and criticisms". Did you expect only positive criticism? (Not to be confused with constructive criticism, as constructive criticism can be both positive and negative.)

 

[brandbll]

Yeah all nice danny, but you have forgotten that China, European Union, Russia, India, Japan have their own space programs too. Actually the only who is going to be left here is you, if things would be going the same way. So yeah, you yanks, would be stuck on Earth while China and Europe will share mars and titan among themselves. Beat it, America was never and will never be the best.

Yes for Europe! Today Europe tomorrow Earth, then the universe!

PS. Abortion is a civil right. Anybody should have right to abortion.

LMAO!!! Oh yeah, Europe's the greatest! You've sent as many people to space in your own designed spacecraft as other great space exploring countries like Somalia, the Maldives, Madagascar, Greenland, and the Penguins that run Antartica. 'The greatest', LMAO!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[jimglenn]

I am mad the USA never made a cool flying torch like the Concorde!

We do have Burt Rutan, the only hope for cheap spaceflight left. American ingenuity will come back as soon

as globalization is cancelled. The early Russian rockets worked, but were dogs, too heavy, can't carry enough.

The USA invented the nuclear reactor, laser, IC chip, and we have the best medical care on the planet, just
a bit expensive at this point.

 

[MasterComposter]

Both sides are allowed in the appropriate forum. Your post in Missions and Launches had nothing to do with a mission or a launch, so was completely off topic. Another home had to be found. This is the one I chose, since it seemed most appropriate.

Meteor Wayne

I think you found the right home for this --- it belongs here in the cesspool.

 

[MasterComposter]

Well, I guess any thoughts I had on posting Part II of my column on Space.Com is moot. The welcome here has made it very clear anyone posting anything even slightly wavering from the prevailing liberal line of thought here is verboten.

I have learned my lesson. I have had success posting at other sites where both sides are allowed, I shall stick with them and tell any and all unless you are liberal to the core, keep away from Space.Com

I thought the article made a few good points about space exploration and how it is important for the long-term survival of the human species, but nothing we haven't all heard a thousand times before. That part I agree with, even though it is all old news.

But then the article mixed in a fair amount of off-topic Obama bashing, NASA bashing, anti-abortion, climate change denier, right-wing BS asides. It pretty much muddled the message and detracted from the article. I'd give the article a grade of D --- lack of originality, lack of focus. As a forum post it is fine, but an article by a "columnist?" I'm guessing the Woodward Report will accept just about any rant they can get for free.

Maybe part II will be better, but it doesn't look like we will be so lucky as to be treated to Part II. Seems like DC has gone off to troll other waters. Fair thee well, DC. And on your way out, don't let the door hit you in the aaaaaassssssssssssault rifle.

 

[MeteorWayne]

DC- You did say at the end of your article that you were "looking forward to your comments and criticisms". Did you expect only positive criticism? (Not to be confused with constructive criticism, as constructive criticism can be both positive and negative.)

:lol: Yes apparently only positive "criticisms" are acceptable to a "columnist"

That ain't the way things work here at SDC

Look, all the marbles have been scooped up, heading for "home"

 

[MeteorWayne]

Well, I guess any thoughts I had on posting Part II of my column on Space.Com is moot. The welcome here has made it very clear anyone posting anything even slightly wavering from the prevailing liberal line of thought here is verboten.

I have learned my lesson. I have had success posting at other sites where both sides are allowed, I shall stick with them and tell any and all unless you are liberal to the core, keep away from Space.Com

Would you care to show us where this is true? I checked out your ultra conservative "Woodward Report" site, whatever it is, and you have exactly one comment to your article. Not exactly a big winner in response

What other sites have you had success posting to? Please tell us where they are so we can be educated.

 

[MasterComposter]

You would think from hearing DC talk about himself he would at least be a big fish in a small pond, but after checking out the Woodward Report, it seems like its columnists are more like large ameobas in a small petri dish.

In any case, it seems like DC has made like an ameoba and split.

 

[MasterComposter]

Look, all the marbles have been scooped up, heading for "home"

Not all of them. Looks like he lost a few.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Well, I guess any thoughts I had on posting Part II of my column on Space.Com is moot. The welcome here has made it very clear anyone posting anything even slightly wavering from the prevailing liberal line of thought here is verboten.

I have learned my lesson. I have had success posting at other sites where both sides are allowed, I shall stick with them and tell any and all unless you are liberal to the core, keep away from Space.Com

Would you care to show us where this is true? I checked out your ultra conservative "Woodward Report" site, whatever it is, and you have exactly one comment to your article. Not exactly a big winner in response

What other sites have you had success posting to? Please tell us where they are so we can be educated.

And wow! Making that kind of judgement about a site as big as SDC after only ten or twelve members (including two moderators) commented. I won't mention any names, but there are at least a couple of regular posters who would most likely have totally agreed with him. (They know who they are.)

I'm still trying to understand how the issue of abortion got thrown into an "article" about plunging headlong into space! :lol:

 

[jimglenn]

Re: Why learn how to write? It is a Matter of Surviving -

Don't talk about MANkind, and He has to do this or dat. Not PC. You have to say human or sumthin

to pay homage to femalez.

Let us look at a sample of the "writing":


With its huge gravity well, Jupiter seems able to catch a commet or two, but otherwise the impacts have been less drastic. The eggheads study pock-marks on Moon, Mars, and Beyond, and have some estimates of impact rates. We can look up in the sky with our telescopes and count how much clutter is wheeling through space, and its size distribution.

So I'm wondering if a Woodward Report Scholar might include some probabilities and numerical likelihoods in an editorial, beyond 'maybe in the next hour'. Surely some research has been done that Joe Sixpack might be interested in?

Death From Above is actually a commonly mentioned motiviation for developing a space program on these forums. Another is Death by Drowning in our own Polution (global warming hoax?). Other themes that come to mind are profit, and my favorite: shear adventure.

*****************4 SYNTAX ERRORS DETECTED***********************.

commet
motiviation
Polution
shear

GET WITH THE FRIGGIN PROGRAM ALREDY. That should have been sheer............... :twisted:

I have to say I do not care for this statement, does know sound rite:

numerical likelihoods :?:

 

[TC_sc]

Why the Moon, Mars and Beyond? It is a Matter of Surviving - Part I
September 28, 2009
by DC Lee - A Woodward Report Columnist
from http://www.thewoodwardreport.com/

A good article and excellent points. I would love to read part 2. Keep posting and don't let the liberals here dissuade you. Liberals often use the tactic of changing the subject or attacking. You placed your article in the topic you thought most appropriate. SDC has the right to move it, which they did. Having it here in political gives us much more leeway to discuss the article.

Ignore the personal attacks. I have been attacked so much here I am beginning to feel like a masochist. Attack back and keep up the good fight.

If we let manned spaceflight fall to the wayside, then, when that asteroid does come we will be in jeopardy. We do currently have the technology to change the trajectory of a doomsday NEO, at least the smaller ones. We know enough about NEO not say 'if one hits," but to say "when one hits." Unless this planet just has dumb luck, it will be hit again, and with possible life ending results.

 

[TC_sc]

Re: Why learn how to write? It is a Matter of Surviving -

Don't talk about MANkind, and He has to do this or dat. Not PC. You have to say human or sumthin

to pay homage to femalez.

Let us look at a sample of the "writing":


With its huge gravity well, Jupiter seems able to catch a commet or two, but otherwise the impacts have been less drastic. The eggheads study pock-marks on Moon, Mars, and Beyond, and have some estimates of impact rates. We can look up in the sky with our telescopes and count how much clutter is wheeling through space, and its size distribution.

So I'm wondering if a Woodward Report Scholar might include some probabilities and numerical likelihoods in an editorial, beyond 'maybe in the next hour'. Surely some research has been done that Joe Sixpack might be interested in?

Death From Above is actually a commonly mentioned motiviation for developing a space program on these forums. Another is Death by Drowning in our own Polution (global warming hoax?). Other themes that come to mind are profit, and my favorite: shear adventure.

*****************4 SYNTAX ERRORS DETECTED***********************.

commet
motiviation
Polution
shear

GET WITH THE FRIGGIN PROGRAM ALREDY. That should have been sheer............... :twisted:

I have to say I do not care for this statement, does know sound rite:

numerical likelihoods :?:

I really hope you of all people aren't correcting grammar.

 

[vladdrac]

Think of the solar system as a giant roulette wheel. Either a deity has watched over us or we have been very lucky ( maybe benevolant et's?) It would be nice if we grew up, quit eating mother earth and stood on our own two feet. Reforestation: Restore the Giant Redwoods from Chicago to the California Coast!

 

[jimglenn]

That was not me, but this chick that lives here sometimes. :?

HEY VLAD, I think I am quitting hamburger, Ecoli paralyzed that girl. Trying pork chops this week. I is a good

Muslim! Ha ha.

 

[vladdrac]

Novory...eefshe hanks aut lang enuf ve vill corupt hair :lol:

 

[MasterComposter]

Re: Why learn how to write? It is a Matter of Surviving -

I really hope you of all people aren't correcting grammar.

Pointing out grammar errors in a forum post is silly. But grammar errors in a published article seems like fair game --- it goes to the credibiltiy of the writers, editors and publishers if they are printing that many errors in one piece.

 

[jimglenn]

Proper communication is a basic indicator of intelligence.

Yoiu mispeld CAPABILITY.

Well, there you go.. :lol: