Slashdot Mirror
Domain: bio2.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to bio2.edu.
Comments · 14
-
Re:inherent scientific value?
Assuming there is some inherent benefit to going to the moon/mars/wherever, is it really necessary to send *HUMANS*? Could we not fund 10x as many unmanned missions and learn probably close to 10x as much?
To me, one of the unavoidable, if not essential, results of extended-duration human space flight, which could not be replicated by a couple of dozen unmanned flights on the same budget, is learning-by-doing just how complex the ecological requirements for maintaining a human-friendly environment really are. As an education in what our environment does for us, and how much it costs to maintain, this lesson should be "an inconvenient but hugely valuable truth" (to mis-quote a Terrestrial politician of recent noisiness).
In the 1990s a facility was established in Arizona (IIRC) to try to address this point, under the name of "Biosphere 2" (pointing out that all humans live on Biosphere 1, Terra) link here, Wikipedia article with much more information here. Despite considerable care and attention into it's design to be a self-contained biosphere, within days or weeks the system was oscillating severely as unexpected causes started to have their effects on the environment inside. So they opened the window. In space, no-one can hear you scream. Even if you do open the window.
Oh, by the way, Velcro was developed on Earth, for Earthly purposes, in consequence of a Swiss engineer finding plant-seed burrs in his dog's coat. See this site. Perhaps you're thinking of Teflon. Whose history is probably a lot more clouded than the popular "invented for the space race" version would suggest. [Searches] Indeed, a 1945 trademark would suggest a slight pre-dating of the space race too. -
Re:Top Five reasons why the space program should b
Space exploration is cool. I support it. Please allow me to be a devil's advocate:
5. The world population doubles every 40 years. Eventually, we will have to either expand across other planets or enforce population control.
It seems to me that first world countries are having trouble keeping people procreating. The more advanced the society, the more rights the women, the better things the women have to do than sit at home and rear a half dozen to a dozen kids. Countries like Canada only grow because of immigration. Is it Taiwan that is trying to encourage procreation with subsidies?
4. Every dollar invested in NASA pays off seven dollars in terms of technological development for the US economy.
NASA is, by every account, a grossly large organization with bureaucracy the likes of which no other entity in the world can hope to measure up to. They're too bureaucratic to save the Challenger. Why not invest incredible amounts of money in some targetted industries (A mach 10 aircraft has little real world application today) and in some "emerging" industries with higher financial risks / humanitarian rewards?
3. We must expand from Earth to escape the threat of civilization-ending natural disasters, like a supervolcano, which could lower global temperatures below freezing for years. The chance of dying in a civilization-ending event is 1/455. Not to be grim, but that's 10 times more likely than dying in an commercial aircraft.
Most of the world ending scenarios seem to have other, potentially more beneficial solutions. Sure, leaving the world to go to the moon or someplace else may be a good way to spread the risk. It would be quite some time to set up the infrastructure to support a self sustaining populace that would not suffer from inbreeding. We may get to the point where this is possible, but NASA is not heading down a path to enable this. If there's a scenario that leads to a (nuclear or CO2) winter, why aren't we making subterrainian cities 10+ feet underground? I would expect one could even justify this by pointing out that such a city would be a prototype for an offworld city. Not that it should necessarily be a self contained monstrosity / joke, but something that starts to set up the infrastructure and maybe includes some geothermal carnot generators (what better way to take advantage of the perpetual winter outside than to make self-sustaining power by harnessing the power of the earth?
2. Scientific Exploration: Learning more about the universe around us will teach us more about our own world, ourselves, and our origins.
The inherant scientific value is irrefutable, but there is little real world application to this.
1. To provide the sense of progress which yields human happiness. No one likes stagnation. I can think of nothing more repulsive than the idea that in 200 years we could still be Earth-bound.
The dark ages were brought about because innovation stagnated. Everyone ran out of ideas and got so concerned with today that they stopped worrying about tomorrow. These days, we're perhaps on the brink of a newly perceived stagnation. We're masters of the air (airplanes), sea (gigantic boats and submarines) and land (earth destroying cranes, cars, trucks, trains, etc.). Microelectronics are banging against the Laws of Physics, with only nanotechnology seemingly a solution. In our daily lives, few people can think of a way to continue to innovate that makes a difference. Heck, most people don't want to upgrade their life centers (TVs) because the upgrades (HDTV) are too expensive despite how much better they are. Life changing innovation, the kinds of which impact "human happiness" are those leaps and bounds we've been hitting in the past century or two. You can't predict them, an
-
Airplane Graveyard: Tucson Arizona
If you like planes and such, I'd recommend the Airplane Graveyard in Tucson, Arizona. Don't go out of your way or anything, but since you will be visiting the Grand Canyon and Bioshere anyway... you might as well stop in. It's a great place if you are at all interested in aviation, history or aviation history. Great - now i sound like a commercial.
-
Titan missile and biosphere 2
While in Arizona you can check the Titan missile museum, which has the Titan intercontinantal missiles of the cold war, and in Oracle you can visit the biosphere 2 lab. Just for real nerds.
-
Couple/Few Ideas
In San Diego, you could check out The computer museum of America . In Arizona, you could check out The Titan Missile Museum as well as the not-so-successful Biosphere 2
-
Re:It's called...
Understanding other worlds is nice, but not strictly necessary.
I disagree. Every probe teaches us a great deal about planet evolution. It will help us to better understand planets like Mars (the most likely target for colonization). There is a limit to the number of probes we can send to Mars at once (we need the data from previous probes to build better ones), so we should certainly send probes to other planets, moons and asteroids.
I also don't believe that we should forget about everything but colonization, although it should be the nr. 1 goal.
Unmanned probes. Build lots of probes whose only goal is to get from point A to point B in the fastest and cheapest manner possible.
I already pointed that out. Besides, NASA & co are doing fairly well on this point already. There are other things I worry about more.
#2 is colonization 101. We don't offer that course in college yet. We should probably figure out how to teach it before sending people all over the solar system.
Textbook courses aren't the answer, IMO. We need projects like Biosphere 2 to inspire. Build more of them, have students visit them and work on real-life problems. It's unbelievable that NASA is hardly involved in Biosphere 2.
If you can build a colony under a lake then you can build it on mars.
I don't think that is very worthwhile. We should build biospheres in conditions that are similar to the place we want to colonize. Colonies should be self-sufficient as much as possible by using available resources (detected by the probes). Water is probably most important. Not only to drink, but it can also be split into hydrogen and oxygen with the use of electricity from solar power. If you can find a way to use the soil to grow plants, you can already feed people.
Notice that neither of these steps require sending people into space. Once you've worked them out, however, the stage is now set and you can send people anywhere you want.
I think you are ignoring the problem of cheaply sending cargo into space. We will need to send large amounts of cargo into space for our colony and for a Mars Space Station (which we will probably need). Of course, that problem is not going to be solved by sending $$$ shuttle missions to the ISS. That's my biggest beef with NASA. We need new and better technology, not more of the same. -
Re:NASA site mission STS-107And why exactly would you want to do that?
Go build a plexiglass dome in Antartica and live there for a few years, to see how moon life would feel. Remember to keep it sealed, so you can't have any additional air, water, or food. Only sunlight gets in. If you survive, then we can talk about extraterrestrial colonies.
"Getting off this rock" is a good goal- for a 100+ year timeframe! This discussion is science-fiction terrirtory.
There's no need to start moving off-planet yet. Sure, it's arguably overpopulated already, and it'll get more crowded as the century goes on- but the most barren, desolate wasteland on earth is a paradise compared to what you'd find on the surface of Mars or Luna!
To live in space soonest, we should fork the research into 2 branches:
- The space element: developing rocket boosters, atomic engines, and robot-drones to perfect interplanetary travel techology. Once the robots have managed to erect a powerplant and radio array on the moon's surface, then we can start to build habitats.
- The human element: learn how to keep people alive in a self-contained environment for a decade at a time. Essentially, keep repeating the BioSphere experiment until it finally works.
Once those 2 research branches have been followed through to independent success, true space colonization research can begin. But trying to develop both the spaceflight technology and the human sustainment skills at the same time- as the ISS program is doing- is an expensive, dangerous folly. - The space element: developing rocket boosters, atomic engines, and robot-drones to perfect interplanetary travel techology. Once the robots have managed to erect a powerplant and radio array on the moon's surface, then we can start to build habitats.
-
Important items#1 - Power: Solar energy is readily available.
#2 - Oxygen: Converting CO2 back to O2 with plants is one possibility, however, this may take awhile to get up and running. Power should be a nonissue for using filters similar to the space station. O2 can always be obtained from water but on the moon.... water isn't the best choice.
#3 - Speaking of water- transporting water up is one issue. Once you get enough, hopefully systems for purifying, using plants, etc can be used.
#4 - food - would require routine trips of food up until you got a large enough installation of plants. What would happen if you had a challenger disaster again and the people need foor?
#5 - sex and internet - not necessarily in that order? hmmm...
One only has to think of the biosphere and biosphere 2 to think of failed or partially failed experiments at doing something like a self contained area. - Biosphere 2
-
No points for originality
" Eden's Origins: The Eden Project was the brainchild of Tim Smit, now the chief executive of Eden."
No, Project Eden's origins were here with Biosphere 2. Great. Just what the world needs; Another Disney Land with trees instead of mice and rides. -
Re:Do we really need the ozone layer?
"and the others we can do well without"
Doesn't it bother you at all that projects like Biosphere 2 failed to create stable ecosystems? Do you really think creating an earth-spanning artificial ecosystem is the kind of stunt we'll pull off on the first try?
-
Re:biosphere problems
Even when Biosphere was being built it didnt seem that they were even trying to build it right and that it was more of a publicity stunt instead of a real research project.
The Biosphere 2 Center was most certainly not a failure nor a publicity stunt. True, the experiment with eight people living inside it for two years was not a complete success, but many things were learns, such as ways to avoid future problems with such an experiment. Many great inventors have had multiple failures before the final success, and a lot was learned from the project.
Anyway, a few years ago the Biosphere 2 Center was turned over to Columbia University (see here), and now it is Columbia's western campus. It is building new housing facilities and is also a serious research facility, conducting several experiments behind the glass, such as one indicating that coral reefs are gravely threatened by carbon dioxide emissions (see here).
It also has now more than a dozen university partnerships, and Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson (from the Clinton administration) signed an agreement there to establish "a framework for developing Columbia University's Biosphere 2 Center as a national user facility for earth system science, engineering and education" (see here).
If you ask me, the Eden Project sounds more like a tourist attraction than a serious research facility (although this sometimes goes hand in hand, as public interest can help the financial situation). I mean, does this look like much of a scientific endeavor to you? -
Re:biosphere problems
Even when Biosphere was being built it didnt seem that they were even trying to build it right and that it was more of a publicity stunt instead of a real research project.
The Biosphere 2 Center was most certainly not a failure nor a publicity stunt. True, the experiment with eight people living inside it for two years was not a complete success, but many things were learns, such as ways to avoid future problems with such an experiment. Many great inventors have had multiple failures before the final success, and a lot was learned from the project.
Anyway, a few years ago the Biosphere 2 Center was turned over to Columbia University (see here), and now it is Columbia's western campus. It is building new housing facilities and is also a serious research facility, conducting several experiments behind the glass, such as one indicating that coral reefs are gravely threatened by carbon dioxide emissions (see here).
It also has now more than a dozen university partnerships, and Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson (from the Clinton administration) signed an agreement there to establish "a framework for developing Columbia University's Biosphere 2 Center as a national user facility for earth system science, engineering and education" (see here).
If you ask me, the Eden Project sounds more like a tourist attraction than a serious research facility (although this sometimes goes hand in hand, as public interest can help the financial situation). I mean, does this look like much of a scientific endeavor to you? -
Dr Walford and longevity
Dr. Walford has been promoting this for a long time. This was one of the reasons he was selected to be one of the scientists on the BioSphere 2 Experiment
His website lists his many published books and studies. -
Re:tragic technology vs capitalism
There's been a change in the attitudes concerning capitalism and in capitalists. Disney's history (politics of Walt aside)is a perfect example.
is that the capitalists, while wanting to make money, also had visions and ideas to improve society and the world. Any philanthropic gestures by corporations today are almost strictly for tax breaks or good P.R.
From what I'm getting from the article, Walt's vision of Epcot would have been similar to Biosphere 2 where you have a working, productive model that seeks to serve society, and that picks up a tidy sum in the process.
