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NASA Teams Scientific Experts To Find Life On Exoplanets
coondoggie writes: As the amount of newly discovered planets and systems outside our solar system grows, NASA is assembling a virtual team of scientific experts to search for signs of life. The program, Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) will cull the collective expertise from each of NASA's science communities, including earth scientists, planetary scientists, heliophysicists, and astrophysicists. They'll work with key universities to better analyze all manner of exoplanets, as well as how the planet stars and neighbor planets interact to support life.
I remember a LONG time ago, before we'd found any exoplanets and largely it was a theoretical exercise.
Gravitational lensing was theoretical, finding a black hole hadn't yet happened, and planets were thought to be quite uncommon.
And 25 years or so later, now we're here. Sometimes, the mind just goes "holy crap, really?" about some of this stuff.
The universe just seems bigger, cooler, and wackier than we ever though it would be.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'd rather see people working on Earth's climate, where their work has many important applications, than on exoplanets, which are a scientific curiosity with little practical value.
Didn't see the 'to' in there for a second.
The quest for life in the universe is perhaps one of the more important endeavors of our time... I wish this search would take on more emphasis then the say the next weapon system. Collectively humans spend more on carnival cruise ship or Hollywood movies then we do in searching for life and intelligence beyond earth. The thought (as noted by Arthur C Clark) that either we are the only intelligence in the universe or we are not and there are other forms of intelligence out there - are equally powerful motivating forces towards an expansion beyond this little fragile womb.
Really? They're going to "cull the collective expertise from each of NASA's science communities"? Seems a bit harsh.
Some signs are pretty obvious; you don't need experts:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap03...
Table-ized A.I.
Join GNnA (GAY an operating system
"Teams Scientific Experts" how obtuse is that?
It's NASA, we know they're not using clairvoyants or small children . . . "NASA assembles team to find life on exoplanets" or any other less markety way of saying it would work too.
This isn't the justice league for fucks-sake. Stop trying to make it sound like something overly exciting . . . forming a team, indeed.
So, if we're looking for intelligent life, I'd argue that we won't find it. Why on earth (yes, I said it) would intelligent life want to be found by us? I think they would do everything they could to prevent us from finding them, and maybe just monitor us, at least until we get our collective shit in one pile. All this becomes moot if they decided they wanted to overthrow the planet. But, suppose they had not already found us, and were hostile...now you've really screwed the pooch, assuming they've found some way to break the laws of physics as we currently understand them.
If we determine a planet had low level life, what good does it do us? We can't go there and do anything with it. We can't learn anything from it.
So, if you want to look at this from a purely research oriented posture, fine it might be nice to know life exists somewhere else. But, there's no ROI on this project, and in fact there's money that would be better spent elsewhere IMNSHO.
Just another day in Paradise
NASA will use all sorts of experts, but they will of course ignore the discoveries of the first expert they hired to help find life on Mars, James Lovelock.
Hired to build machines to search for life on Mars, he investigated biology and quickly realized that over geologic time, extremophiles such as bacteria found in hot springs or in the arctic could not survive without all the rest of life creating the free oxygen and other elements and compounds necessary for life. NASA ignored The Gaia Hypothesis completely yet that was a discovery they paid for.
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OMG I'm so sick of people phrasing scientific questions in terms of "ROI".
Science is not a business! If it was, all research would involve finding cures for male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction.
Luckily for you, thousands of scientists have spent decades researching things that had no ROI. And many of the important technological advances (including life-saving medical ones) have been made by pure research that WAS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD JUST TO UNDERSTAND IT.
Of course, enjoy ranting about ROI-less scientists on your computer using the Internet. Both were invented before they had a fucking business model developed.
OMG I'm so sick of people phrasing scientific questions in terms of "ROI".
It's a perfectly valid approach. Of course, "satisfying curiosity" is a perfectly valid "R", so that doesn't mean you should stop doing this kind of stuff. It just needs to be prioritized.
... but not as we know it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
When we'll discover traces of life somewhere far far away, it'll long be dead and gone. And if that life somehow developed into some form of sentient beings, they'll also be long dead and gone. What'll remain,had they had time to achieve the required technological discoveries required, is super intelligent robots.
OMG I'm so sick of people phrasing scientific questions in terms of "ROI".
I'm sorry, but if you look at any grant process, it comes down to ROI. The return might not be measured in dollars, but with finite resources to distribute among science work, and multitudes of new project ideas, money gets distributed to projects based on their chances of working and the potential information learned, sometimes within context of a larger goal or scheme depending on the program. This includes everything from practical electronics research with intent to be in consumer goods within a decade, to rather pure research endeavors like the LHC and cosmology.
Both were invented before they had a fucking business model developed.
Both were invented with some intended uses and goals in mind though.
Why are there no microscopes on Mars? Why no Petri dishes with the usual 'soup' of bacteria friendly growth agents?
The first serious attempt to answer the question used very cleverly designed chemical experiments- and they proved beyond doubt that Mars had simple life. BUT because the experiments had results that IMPLIED the existence of life using statistical methods, they could be safely down-played even in most scientific communities, let alone with the general public.
Earth is controlled by various hyper-powerful Organised Religions. NASA doesn't do a damned thing the Vatican opposes, for instance. The Churches are still arguing internally about the consequences of their 'flocks' learning that life exists outside the Earth. Their consensus is that they better play safe, and continue to suppress this knowledge amongst the general population (and that most certainly included you Betas reading this).
So there are no microscopes on Mars, and a legion of popular 'science' shills justifying this fact. NASA even had to claim its standard rock examining macro lenses were 'microscopes' so scum like 'bad astronomy' could reassure his readers.
Hooke's work revolutionised our understanding of life, but 300+ years later, NASA claims you must NEVER use microscopes to look for signs of life. And you Betas, like the sheep in Animal Farm, all bleat "yes, yes, you must never use microscopes on Mars- what a waste of time that would be".
And then you dribble over a NASA announcement like this- dear lord. If NASA won't allow you to know about the tiny primitive life on Mars, they sure as heel would never reveal if they discovered something much more significant about some distant planet around another star.
NExSS for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) so that it is an infinite hub for searching? Like Gnu is Not Unix (GNU) only more science-y....
Not cures, treatments. Ongoing treatments(???) for chronic problems. Proceed directly to step three.
And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good... Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
> NASA Teams Scientific Experts To Find Life On Exoplanets
Hey, Nasa scientists, OK, it's hard to get a girlfriend -- but this is becoming ridiculous...
How about building a few more large visible spectrum orbiting telescopes. Link them together, do some interferometry and see life on other planets first hand?