We didn't go to the moon to plant a flag but to perform and confirm Galileo's law of falling bodies! Well, ultimately, at least for the politicians, we went to the moon to plant a flag or two.
Politicians are always asking why should we go to space? The stupid politicians sit around argueing how to spend money, never does it hit them that by tapping space resources, we can make much economic problems go away. Go figure.
I want to bring up space for other reasons actually.
Arthur C. Clarke in his "Spaceflight and the Spirit of Man"(i've got my such short article from his "Voices from the Sky") argues that space exploration will open mankinds mind and free him from tyranny and dogma of its youth. I agree. I just wanted to point out some stuff in analogy with what I've been saying here on this blog.
Mr Clarke makes analogies of space exploration to life going from the sea to land. He notes that no matter how smart some sea life gets, they are forever constrained and limited to the stone age at best(sea otters open up clams and muscles by means of knocking them on stones). One thing is for sure, they can never get to use fire.
The thing about being in the sea is that all that life is protected from the elements so well, they don't need technology.
Clarke points out that the land is a comparativelly more dangerous place. Animals needed to evolve all kinds of biological innovations to survive on land(lungs instead of gills; temperature controls, new skeletal structures to deal with gravity . . . life didn't really have to deal with gravity much in the sea . . . ). This i'd argue is similar to the way humans had to take on the technologies of nature . . . pest control, irrigation, and I always forget the third!
I'd further argue that space exploration will further require us to learn to be more scientific. Out there, we can't mess around with our beleifs nearly as much as we do here on earth.
I'm tempted to further connect all my space exploration talk here to the development of nanotechnology. By now, it's pretty clear that geo-politics is not a reliable force to get mankind off the earth. It seems we need a technology that will allow those who want to get away fromn the immature mankind of the past; nanotechnology seems to me to fit the bill.
Space exploration and nanotechnology is all fine; but, what about all the knowledge mankind has accumulated? This is kind of why this blog is important; it shows the most general perspective factually and logically.
We didn't go to the moon to plant a flag but to perform and confirm Galileo's law of falling bodies! Well, ultimately, at least for the politicians, we went to the moon to plant a flag or two.
ReplyDeletePoliticians are always asking why should we go to space? The stupid politicians sit around argueing how to spend money, never does it hit them that by tapping space resources, we can make much economic problems go away. Go figure.
I want to bring up space for other reasons actually.
ReplyDeleteArthur C. Clarke in his "Spaceflight and the Spirit of Man"(i've got my such short article from his "Voices from the Sky") argues that space exploration will open mankinds mind and free him from tyranny and dogma of its youth. I agree. I just wanted to point out some stuff in analogy with what I've been saying here on this blog.
Mr Clarke makes analogies of space exploration to life going from the sea to land. He notes that no matter how smart some sea life gets, they are forever constrained and limited to the stone age at best(sea otters open up clams and muscles by means of knocking them on stones). One thing is for sure, they can never get to use fire.
The thing about being in the sea is that all that life is protected from the elements so well, they don't need technology.
Clarke points out that the land is a comparativelly more dangerous place. Animals needed to evolve all kinds of biological innovations to survive on land(lungs instead of gills; temperature controls, new skeletal structures to deal with gravity . . . life didn't really have to deal with gravity much in the sea . . . ). This i'd argue is similar to the way humans had to take on the technologies of nature . . . pest control, irrigation, and I always forget the third!
I'd further argue that space exploration will further require us to learn to be more scientific. Out there, we can't mess around with our beleifs nearly as much as we do here on earth.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to further connect all my space exploration talk here to the development of nanotechnology. By now, it's pretty clear that geo-politics is not a reliable force to get mankind off the earth. It seems we need a technology that will allow those who want to get away fromn the immature mankind of the past; nanotechnology seems to me to fit the bill.
ReplyDeleteSpace exploration and nanotechnology is all fine; but, what about all the knowledge mankind has accumulated? This is kind of why this blog is important; it shows the most general perspective factually and logically.
ReplyDelete