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Scottish Academic: Mining the Moon For Helium 3 Is Evil
MarkWhittington writes "Tony Milligan is a teaching fellow of philosophy at the University of Aberdeen and is apparently concerned about helium 3 mining on the moon. In a recent paper he suggested that it should not be allowed for a number of reasons which include environmental objections, his belief that the moon is a cultural artifact, and that too much access to energy would be bad for the human race."
This is probably the most publicity that Milligan will ever have in his life.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Seriously - does this guy have any clue as to how frickin' BIG the Moon is? You could carve a hole in it the size of New York City and it would barely be noticeable. You could carve out the entire dark side of the Moon and no one would ever see it (and misnomer aside, it gets just as much sunlight, thus He3, etc...)
The environmental angle? Maybe if it all got brought back here, okay... having not RTFA, I hope he isn't worried about the Moon's "environment", namely because it really doesn't have one of note.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It's just that every time they are about to fold under the pressures of reality, they discover a new advance in methods for predicting the end of the human race. (Oh the irony!)
Too much access to large amounts of cheap energy would mean that we don't continue to buy it from current sources. We can't have that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I would say that mining the moon is the best thing we as a race can do. No wars of intervention to get at resources "owned" by another nation. No environment damage due to exposure of contaminants or by-products. I guess there is a chance that the most powerful nations might keep the other ones from grabbing a piece of the pie, but there is so much surface area, that it is cheaper to mine than to wage war. Unlimited energy will also allow more time to develop green (direct from solar) technology, but maybe an argument is to be had that doing so will cause us to be lazy in this endevour.
Given a long enough time frame, the human race will either inevitably fizzle out on our single planet, or move on to be an interstellar civilization for at least some period of time. If the second possibility is to happen, utilizing the moon will most certainly be a stepping stone there. Whether it's covering the surface in solar panels, mining it for helium 3, or something entirely different like simply using it as a staging area for longer range launches, we can't say, but it's virtually guaranteed that humans will be all over the moon in some capacity if they are to expand beyond our planet/solar system. On another note, the moon is a boring bland rock compared to Earth. I bet the moon is incredibly desperate for us to do something interesting on its surface... "please, let something, anything happen aside from getting smacked with another space rock and getting a 15 millionth identical crater!"
teaching fellow of philosophy
sounds like the sort of individual who's opinion I certainly give a fuck about
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
too much access to energy would be bad for the human race.
Ah, so the classic "we should all live in the dark and grow our own food" argument. Beautiful. Give King Ludd my warmest regards.
Free hint, Tony - Yes, many of the energy booms of human history have come along with a variety of ills. But they have also come along with the single greatest periods of progress as well, both social and technological. The industrial revolution caused a good bit of pollution, but basically made human slavery a net loss, economically. And fusion, as a nice perk, pollutes less than fission (which we already do), which in turn pollutes less than dinofuels (which we also already do because the hippies would rather let birds - and us - die that build more fission plants).
So in summary - Go fuck yourself, Tony. Live in the dark if you want. I like computers, and air conditioning, and cars, and concrete, and aluminum cans, and cheap plastic bottles.
I'm still waiting on that slashdot article introducing the worlds first working economically viable fusion generator.
Eh, some of the trends are unsustainable projected into the long run.
That said, projected into the long run, there's a 100% chance of the Earth being destroyed.
The elements in our bodies come from exploding stars.
The earth coalesced from a swirling ball of gas and dust. Which had various quantities of these elements. Then yadda yadda, lifeorms started popping up. Of which man was one of the later variants.
Man needs this fishbowl of earth to survive in the universe, just like goldfish need a fishbowl to survive in our living room. Imagine if the goldfish could get to the refrigerator.
We're just trying to get to the refrigerator. Or maybe even go outside.
The earth is not the center of the universe. It's a smallish planet in the solar system. It's part of the universe. Just like man. Eventually the sun will red giant. If we don't go outside - leave the womb - we're finished. A fruit that died on the vine. Seems like we should be working on that problem now.
“Cultural artifact” has a specific meaning: A remnant of something created by a culture.
Hm, what if he’s on to something?
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, SAVE FOR THE ONE THAT’S RELATIVELY EASY TO GET TO
I will do my part by not visiting this topic ever again.
Why is Snark Required?
Sounds like the plot of Red-Mars. Environmentalists don't think we should be messing with mars and sabotage efforts to terraform it.
Eh, some of the trends are unsustainable projected into the long run.
That said, projected into the long run, there's a 100% chance of the Earth being destroyed.
First I think you mean 100% probability of the earth being destroyed, not chance. 2nd, it is not 100%. There is always a chance, no matter how remote that something happens and the earth is left intact, regardless of the scenario. There is never a 100% certainty of the earths destruction. It's pretty damn close, but not close enough.
The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I wonder if this nut was with that group/movement a few years back that was trying to get some resolution passed (in the UN maybe?) designating the moon (and eventually all celestial bodies) as some kind of nature preserve to prevent any kind of utilization/exploration. I agree completely that we need to be conscientious of our actions as we spread into the solar system and perhaps one day the galaxy, but we should expand the reaches of our understanding, exploration and habitation. Large swaths of the moon should be left alone for future generations and we should go out of our way to prevent any significant alterations of a celestial body without careful consideration. That said the universe is not some static art-piece that should/could be preserved in a single state. 600 million years of our own planets many massive changes should have been more than enough evidence for this idiot.
We are burning all oil here, probably getting out of that not renovable resource in this century or next. And that, in just 200 years of a civilization that been around for 10000 years, from a species that exist since 1 millon years ago, and will be out for anyone/anything here in the next billon years. And is it not just an energy source, it have a lot of derivatives that will be hard/expensive/impossible in practice to get from other sources. Compared to that, the limited amount of He3 that we could bring from the moon, and in a not very fast rate, won't count a lot.
Regarding the energy surplus, getting the same amount of energy from the sun (i.e. collectors in the desert, or satellites that somewhat beam down the energy) would have a similar effect.
The real problem is the civilization or the current culture, not using the moon as energy source or not. The current agenda is to use everything as if would be no tomorrow (thing that will happen if we keep acting like that). If you don't fix it, the moon won't matter anyway.
What the subject says.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Maybe he has a harsh mistress ...
But I have to agree, it would be a waste to use all that energy on advertisements.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Mining the moon for helium-3 is merely stupid. (1) there are no fusion power plants, (2) helium-3 is crap fuel, and (3) there is hardly any helium-3 on the moon anyway.
Oh and Hanlon's Razor comes to mind: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
... and that too much access to energy would be bad for the human race.
Rubbish! - With unlimited energy we could easily fix both the CO2-related issues from centuries of burning various fossil fuels, and any byproduct from having all this energy.
With unlimited energy we could control the weather for instance. All the damage from extreme weather would be only in history books.
Oh, and of course mining Helium-3 is evil. That's why the nazis hiding on the back side of the Moon is doing it. They went to the Moon because is was the evil thing to do, and the nazis - being ultimately evil at heart - thus had no choice but to go to the Moon and do the evil thing: Mine Helium-3. Returning to Earth in a huge flying saucer called "Götterdämmerung" to set up their nazi-utopia is actually less evil than mining the Helium-3. They even made a film called "Iron Sky" about this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Nuclear winter -> global warming? A bit of a non-sequitur, don't you think?
I think everyone, even conservatives, can agree that nuclear war and its consequences would be really bad. You don't need to be a bleeding heart liberal to dislike the idea of nuclear war.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
History says otherwise:
"Besides, of all ways whereby great wealth is acquired by good and honest means, none is more advantageous than mining; for although from fields which are well tilled (not to mention other things) we derive rich yields, yet we obtain richer products from mines; in fact, one mine is often much more beneficial to us than many fields. For this reason we learn from the history of nearly all ages that very many men have been made rich by the mines, and the fortunes of many kings have been much amplified thereby."
From here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38015/38015-h/38015-h.htm
So we are mining energy instead of metals now, anybody know a good book about energy?
Beyond that I first want to see a space efficient fusion reactor that works. What ever happened to Bussards wiffle ball reactor the US Navy swallowed?
Je me souviens.