WHY WE'LL NEVER LIVE IN SPACE

Did COP28 accomplish anything?  According to Time magazine:

COP28 Ends With Historic Deal to ‘Transition Away’ From Planet-Warming Fossil Fuels

This global warming annual meeting this year was held in Dubai and chaired by Sultan Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates.  He is, of course, a fossil fuel baron.  

• This UAE Consensus ended the summit to applause and cheers by the delegates.
• While it falls short of any kind of details to actually phase out, no previous COP text ever mentioned moving away from oil and gas.
• Considering who was in charge and where this gathering occurred, it was better than nothing.

I brought with me on my 5-week Japan trip the October 2023 issue of Scientific American.  There were several noteworthy articles that over the next few weeks could well become blog postings.

• What happens during a supernova?
• Metals that self-heal.
• Talking with animals.  How AI is changing the potential for intelligent communication.

A fourth article, Why We'll Never Live in Space, written by Sarah Scoles, will be my focus today.

She wrote the book, They Are Already Here:  UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers.  Does she really believe in alien flying saucers?  Watch this 53-minute video to find out.  Better yet, watch this 1 hour 26 minute interview by Michael Shermer of Skeptic.

Says Scoles about living space:

• 
  NASA is investing heavily in its Artemis program to return boots on the Moon.  This is being done with many other nations, except Russia.  Artemis is the Greek goddess of animals, plants and childbirth.  She is the twin sister of Apollo.  How much will it cost?  $41.5 billion over five years.  There are a lot of female astronauts on the team, and one of them will become the first woman on the Moon.  This will be on Artemis 3, probably to launch in 2026.

• 
  Is any of this realistic? 
• Sure, we can send people to the Moon, as we did with Neil Armstrong in 1969.
• Then in 1971 Mars 3 arrived on Mars.  This was a Soviet program.
• Those occurred more than half a century ago!
• But humans living for a long time, if not forever, in space?

• Says Scoles:

Humans evolved for and adapted to conditions on Earth. Move us off our planet, and we start to fail—physically and psychologically. The cancer risk from cosmic rays and the problems that human bodies experience in microgravity could be deal-breakers on their own. Moreover, there may not be a viable economic case for sustaining a presence on another world.

• 
  But at this year's Analog Astronaut Conference, none of these problems seemed unsolvable.  
• They thought that living in space was our destiny, an inevitable goal that we must reach toward.  
• No doubt true, for someday we will be threatened by an asteroid or virus or global warming or whatever.
• 
  In any case, our Sun's gradual expansion will in approximately 1.3 billion years threaten life on Earth.
• So we probably have a billion years to get out.

• 
  In any case, I have regularly posted that humans are unfit for long-range space travel and AI robots will be our necessary attempt to expand to other worlds.  Further, the choice will not be ours, for AI will determine our future, not the Sun.

• Scoles says:

Human bodies really can't handle space. Spaceflight damages DNA, changes the microbiome, disrupts circadian rhythms, impairs vision, increases the risk of cancer, causes muscle and bone loss, inhibits the immune system, weakens the heart, and shifts fluids toward the head, which may be pathological for the brain over the long term—among other things.

• Various forms of radiation will make humans very, very sick.  Probably okay to Mars, but not in outer space for years and years.  There is no way to shield astronauts.
• Psychological risks of long journeys are unknown, and could be serious.
• So while physical and mental health problems are overwhelming, the larger issue is COST.  
• No business profit case can be made.
• Earth explorers had trade, gold and more farmland goals.
• Sure, if we might have to leave because of an uncontrollable asteroid or expanding Sun, but what other value is it to go somewhere else?
• 
  Space is inspiring, but economically futile.
• If companies don't lead the way, can and should government?
• A 2018 Pew poll indicated that just 18% of people thought Mars was a top priority, and only 13% for the Moon.
• A 2020 poll from Morning Consult found that just 7-8% of respondents thought sending humans to the Moon or Mars should be a top priority.
• About the 1960's and the Apollo Project to the Moon, 45-60% thought that the government was spending too much on space.
• Mind you, there can be unintended benefits.  Our success on the Moon spurred the Soviet Union to spend heavily on space, and essentially bankrupted them over time, leading to the end of the Cold War in the early 1990's.
• 
  Well, what about all the spin-off technology transfer that occurred, like satellite communication, robotics, better batteries and the like.  True, but Linda Billings, a consultant who works with NASA, said that it would be more cost-effective to further a technology by investing directly in the private sector than obliquely through a space agency.

• 
  A bottom line is, why go to some place like Mars, when you will be struggling to survive.  Are you enjoying life or going through constant torture?  Why go to be miserable.  Then in getting there, what's the fun in guzzling tubes of pizza and the like.
• Then there is that moral matter of contaminating other sites by our presence.

Elon Musk has plans to have a million people on Mars by 2050.

• Will build a fleet of 1000 Starships, and launch 3/day.
• Estimates that colonizing Mars would cost between $100 billion and $10 trillion.
• That lower number makes no sense because just one lunar base should cost $50 billion.
• But nothing wrong with a cool dream?  Right?
• Elon, the Blue Revolution makes more sense.  Not only will you ameliorate hurricanes and remediate global warming...you can make a profit.

I'll end with another space matter.  Have you in the past seen the Geminids Shower?  Do you know what I'm talking about?

• The peak begins tonight and extends into tomorrow night.
• Not quite a shower, as you will only see one or two every minute.  Yet, this is 60 to 120 per hour, and how often does that occur.

• 
  They have a greenish hue, meaning the elemental source is oxygen, magnesium and nickel.
• Most of these showers originate from comets, but the Geminids come from a sun-orbiting asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
• So what are the differences among asteroid, comet, meteoroid and meteor?  I bet you didn't know this.
• An asteroid is a rocky object that orbits the Sun.  
• They can be quite large, the biggest being Vesta (329 miles in diameter).  
• If this piece of rock in space is more than a meter in diameter, it is an asteroid.  
• 
  The asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago to make extinct dinosaurs was only 6 miles in diameter.
• Created a crater of around 120 miles in diameter in the Yucatan Peninsula.

• 
  The impact released energy about 50,000 times more than the 9.1 Sumatra earthquake of 2004.
• And get this, triggered a mega-earthquake that lasted for weeks to months.
• The moment magnitude size might have been 11.
• The total mass of all the asteroids in our solar system is less than the size of the Moon.
• 
  A meteoroid is smaller than a meter in diameter, and is called that when traveling in space.  When it enters our atmosphere and burns up into a shooting star, it is a meteor.  What survives and is found on the ground is a meteorite.
• A comet is a smallish icy dirtball (a few miles to tens of miles in diameter) that also orbits the Sun.  
• Can have a tail that stretches for millions of miles.
• 
  1.8 billion years ago a large comet slammed into what is now Canada.  
• The crater is 120 miles wide.
• This region is home to nickel and copper mines because the impact cracked the crust, allowing parts of the mantle to rise up with these elements.

• 
  During the past 1000 years, no human is known to have been killed by a meteorite.  However, there are early Chinese records of this occurring: rained iron in 1341 and killing at least 10,000 in 1490.
• There is only a 1 in 10,000 chance that a large comet or asteroid will hit our planet during your lifetime.  NASA says there is less than a 0.01% chance of a hazardous asteroid impacting Earth in the next 100 years.
• On the other hand, there are over 32,000 known and 120 comets close enough to be concerned.

• 
  However, asteroid Apophis, once thought to perhaps threaten us in 2029, then 2039, and again in 2068, is now ruled out as a danger
• Okay for another century.
• Apophis has a diameter of 1100 feet.

• 
  I have in the past reported on the B612 Foundation, a private non-profit organization led by former astronauts involved with the search for potential asteroid and comet threats.

Sorry, got carried away by the subject matter.  I was originally only going to mention your looking for the Geminid Shower tonight and tomorrow night.

• Interesting story involving Harvard astronomer Fred Whipple.
• In 1983, working with NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite, he discovered a new cosmic object, a comet of 3.17 mile diameter, which got to a point 13 million miles from the Sun, closer than any asteroid.  He named it 3200 Phaethon, the son of the Greek sun god Helois.
• 
  Comet Phaeton takes about 1.4 years to make a single orbit through our solar system, and in its wake leaves dense tail particles. 
• Once a year in December, Earth moves through that debris trail, leading to the spectacle known as the Geminid meteor shower.  Why?  Because the meteors appear to come from the constellation Geminid.
• 
  This phenomenon was first observed in 1862, but only recently explained.
• The absolute peak this year will be between 1AM and 2AM Eastern Time on December 14...which is tonight.  
• But you need to be smart about watching.  If in a dark desert or mountain top, maybe 120/hour.  In your backyard, maybe not.  This will continue, actually, until December 22, with a smaller number/hour.

• 
  I earlier said green hued, but most times the colors range from yellow to orange.
• They shoot in all directions.
• Oh, don't look at your phone during this viewing.  Your eyes need to adjust to the dark.

• 
  Known as the King of Meteor Showers, especially this year when the Moon will only be 1% of full.
• There is, too, the Perseid meteor shower, which is active each summer from July to September, and draws its debris trail from comet Swift-Tuttle. And there are others as well: the Lyrid meteor shower, which is active in April and gets its meteor debris from the Comet Thatcher; and the Quadrantids shower, which is fed by the debris from asteroid or rock comet 2003 EH1 and is active from December to January. And there will also be the Ursid meteor shower, which will follow hard on the heels of the Geminid, on Dec. 22 to 23.
• 
  But the Geminids are special, for the meteors are slightly larger, making for brighter and longer-burning shooting stars.  Other showers tend to be whitish.  The Geminids range in color from yellow to orange to green.

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