Worthy of survival

Bob Kolker wrote:

Ken from Chicago wrote:



The Moon and Mars are fairly decent.


Both are dead and neither will be terraformed. There is no free water
available.

We can't even terraform the Sahara Desert or the area around the Dead
Sea and they are on the same planet as we are. Death Valley cannot be
terraformed. Not enough water there.

Bob Kolker



And yet people have lived in and around the Sahara and the Dead Sea
places for millennia...


--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking

EvilBill wrote:

Steven L. wrote:

Without alien life forms, Star Trek would be boring as hell. There
haven't been many science-fiction stories written about a lifeless
universe, because it's devoid of romance and adventure.


I don't know, the new Battlestar Galactica manages just fine with its only
non-human life form being something originally created *by* humans.

Then it is not alien. It is artificial.

Bob Kolker

Bob Kolker wrote:

wrote:


??? No imagination....


What do you propose? The only other place in the solar system with a
decent amount of water is the moon Europa.

Bob Kolker

Rings of Saturn, for one...

Unless you prefer your water liquid, and down in a gravity well.

--

Frank

You know what to remove to reply...

Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the
human spirit."
- Stephen Hawking

"Bob Kolker" wrote in message
...
Ken from Chicago wrote:


The Moon and Mars are fairly decent.

Both are dead and neither will be terraformed. There is no free water
available.

We can't even terraform the Sahara Desert or the area around the Dead Sea
and they are on the same planet as we are. Death Valley cannot be
terraformed. Not enough water there.

Oh bull. The only thing that's keeping any of those places from being
terraformed is cost.

Look at the LA valley, that was worth the cost. But without a LOT of effort
it would be a pretty barren wasteland.



Bob Kolker

"Steven L." wrote in message

But so far, in the real world, we haven't detected any life beyond the
earth. Not even a bacterium.

Yes.

When Star Trek was first conceived by Roddenberry in 1964, some
scientists still hoped that Mars might harbor some forms of life.
Even as late as the 1980's, it was hoped that Saturn's moon Titan
might harbor life also.

But now we know they don't.

Um, we don't know that. Not detecting it & knowing it isn't there aren't
the same. We haven't much data on Titan yet.

There might also be microbes in any of the gas giant's atmospheres.
There could also be some in Europa, if it has a liquid ocean under the
ice.

Karl Johanson

Frank Glover wrote:


Of course. ALL fiction starts with somebody with a problem to deal
with, of *some* sort...

It was a dark and stormy night....

Bob Kolker

Frank Glover wrote:

And yet people have lived in and around the Sahara and the Dead Sea
places for millennia...

Not the Beduin. They live on the fringes where there are scrub plants
for their flocks. No one lives permanently in the middle of the Saharah.
No water. The Beduin are very skillful at living on the margins of dry
land with low rainfail. But there has to be sufficient free water to
sustain them and their flocks. The Beduins are very good a digging wells
and splitting water bearing flint rocks. It is almost as if they can
smell water in a dry place, but water there must be.

Bob Kolker

Frank Glover wrote:

Bob Kolker wrote:

wrote:


??? No imagination....



What do you propose? The only other place in the solar system with a
decent amount of water is the moon Europa.

Bob Kolker


Rings of Saturn, for one...

Unless you prefer your water liquid, and down in a gravity well.

That is where our kind will live best.

Bob Kolker

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

"Bob Kolker" wrote in message
...

Ken from Chicago wrote:


The Moon and Mars are fairly decent.

Both are dead and neither will be terraformed. There is no free water
available.

We can't even terraform the Sahara Desert or the area around the Dead Sea
and they are on the same planet as we are. Death Valley cannot be
terraformed. Not enough water there.


Oh bull. The only thing that's keeping any of those places from being
terraformed is cost.

The cost. Pricisely. We do not have the money or the technology to make
the Sahara bloom. No free water. The only way to do is to pipe potable
water in. That would require desalinization of sea water along with a
pipe and pumping system. Desalination is a very high energy cost
process. Do you think poor folks are going to sit still while money that
could be spent on them is goint to make the Sahara bloom (unnecessarily).



Look at the LA valley, that was worth the cost. But without a LOT of effort
it would be a pretty barren wasteland.

They have stolen water from the colorado river basin. That is your free
water source. The way it was done was to divert water to LA and leave
Mexico high and dry.

The Sahara is different. No rivers. The egyptians are not going to take
water from the Nile and put it into the Saharah. The only possible
source is desalinated sea water that that is very expensive to produce.
There is no economic return on doing so.

Bob Kolker

Ken from Chicago wrote:
"Steven L." wrote in message
ink.net...
Kweeg wrote:
"Space Cadet" wrote in message
ups.com...
Here is an interesting article by our old friend Dwayne A. Day, about
Link between Science Fiction and the Space Program and his
interpretation of SF impact on Space exploration, particularly Star
Trek's and whether or not if the new crop of SF shows will be able to
have a similar effect in the future

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/716/1

Thanks for the link...I've also wondered the same...
The big difference between the Star Trek universe and our real universe is
that the Star Trek universe assumes there is life everywhe Life forms
ranging from far more primitive than our own, to far more advanced.

But so far, in the real world, we haven't detected any life beyond the
earth. Not even a bacterium.

Without alien life forms, Star Trek would be boring as hell. There
haven't been many science-fiction stories written about a lifeless
universe, because it's devoid of romance and adventure. And that's why
real space travel just doesn't excite people anymore. We haven't found
anything out there except lifeless worlds.

When Star Trek was first conceived by Roddenberry in 1964, some scientists
still hoped that Mars might harbor some forms of life. Even as late as
the 1980's, it was hoped that Saturn's moon Titan might harbor life also.

But now we know they don't.

And nobody gives a flying crap about shuttling to Low Earth Orbit to man
an International Space Station. It's deep space missions to "seek out new
life and new civilizations" that turn people on.

If you want people to be as excited about space travel in the real world
as they are about Star Trek, then we need to start planning to take a real
"star trek" to actually "seek out new life, and new civilizations": Either
a deep space mission, or vastly improved telescopic sensors, or vastly
improved Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or something else that
will give us hope of finding life beyond the Earth.

If Mars also turns out to be lifeless, it will be hard to get Americans
excited even about sending humans there. Ironically, science fiction has
raised the bar for the average American: Alien life is now almost taken
for granted, and that's what I think that most folks to hear about: Where
are the alien life forms?



--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

FIREFLY, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: TNS and much of Asimovian fiction would
dispute the inherent boredom of a human-only universe.

But as the article pointed out, none of those shows has excited the
human imagination and achieved such classic status as Star Trek has.
Because they're downers, that's why; there's only us and we're badly
flawed so what's the point in extending our flaws out into the universe
when we can't fix them here on Earth either?



--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.