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Nat'l Public Radio interviewed children about their thoughts
on space travel, moonbases, and visiting Mars, the results
of which were broadcast during All Things Considered
Wednesday afternoon.

'Twas rather disparaging to hear several of the young ones
exclaim how great it is that we have another planetary
option for when the Earth no longer supports life.

Though I am a believer that Life has an innate desire to
cross the Void (whether that be the Ocean or the Great
Vaccuum), and sometimes (but not always) believe that
crossing that Void may very well be "the Meaning of Life"
or our Destiny, I have difficulty reconciling that
belief with the evidence that we are so deeply dependent
upon the environment the Earth provides for us, especially
in comparison to the other planetary environments we've
studied so far.

One of the lessons we must learn from studying Mars is that
our Earth is a precious and unique place, intricately
meshed with our existence as human beings.

The "When we've used this one up, we'll just move next
door" attitude is rotten, and goes beyond the cynicism of my
own generation, which was bad enough.

It's sad to think that the destruction of our Terran habitat
is a given to the children.  But why else should we
want to go to Mars?  (Oil pipeline?) (<--Aha--maybe I do
have them beat on the cynicism tip...)


--Jason

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Jonah Cohen wrote:
> Someone here is horrendously misinformed. It's either me, or the
> President of the United States. I would not mind at all if someone
> pointed out why it is, indeed, me, but here's my beef:
>
> I dig space exploration as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that
> Bush's new space initiative (establishing an ISS-style base on the moon
> by 2015, then using that as a jumping off point for manned missions to
> Mars) is just outright nuts. Has he been watching too much Star Trek?
>
> I mean, we have a difficult enough time maintaining the ISS. And it's
> scientific benefits are debatable (Time Magazine lavbeled it "space
> pork"; see also Bob Park's excellent book "Voodoo Science"). And when you
> compare it's cost/benefit ratio to unmanned exploration, like Hubble or
> the Spirit rover now cruising around Mars, it seems especially dubious.
> So imagine how much more difficult it would be to construct and maintain
> and operate and if need be evacuate such a station that's 160,000 (am I
> right?) miles away, not just 125. I've seen the Apollo crafts at the
> Smithsonian, and they don't look like they carry lots of cargo.
>
> Bush also thinks the manned missions to Mars could be launched from the
> moon. I'm no rocket scientist, but I do know that launching a human into
> space in any way (never mind 140,000,000 miles to Mars - and that's just
> 1 way!) requires lots and lots of people, lots of safety checks and lots
> of fancy equipment. How are you going to manage to construct and operate
> Cape Canaveral 2 on THE MOON?
>
> And aside from the technological difficulties, what's the reward for all
> this? My favorite laugher was when Bush said his plan would let us
> harvest the moon's abundant natural resources. Say what?!?!? I know of no
> valuable resources there - and even if there are some, how could they
> possibly be so valuable that spending billions of dollars to recover
> small quantities of them makes any economic sense?
>
> So please tell me: am I a space moron? Am I missing the obvious? Or is
> the mainstream media in serious derelect of duty in not pointing out the
> scientific illogic of this plan?
>
> Scratching my head,
> Jonah Cohen
> Outreach & Public Programs Manager
> Science Center of Connecticut
>
>
> "Too many whites are getting away with drug use.
> The answer is to... find the ones who are getting away with it, convict
> them,
> and send them up the river."
>       -Rush Limbaugh
>
>
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JasonJayStevens

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