I wonder how much of a geek it makes me, when I am staying up late X-mas eve, just to see if Beagle2 landed on Mars alright.
Strange how this has so little effect on my life, but I am on the edge of my seat about it. I remember when we got the Mars rover pics back, and I even remember way back as a kid, seeing the Viking pics.
I am a huge fan of robotic exploration of space, largely because you get so much more bang for you buck. You can send out numerous little probes for the cost of sending one person up. Not to mention that if a probe is lost, no one dies.
But beyond that, it seems that the human exploration of space is kind of pointless. I can see, of course, running to the moon, or Mars to find resources, but beyond that, it just seems that the distances are just to great. On the Mall in DC, they built a scale model of the solar system, with the sun down near the Smithsonian, and then each planet set the correct distance away for the scale. And when you get to the end, there is a plaque that says that at this scale, the nearest star would be in LA.
Maybe this is a depressing view of things, but then again, I have a very firm belief that when we finally wipe ourselves off of this planet, no one will really miss us.
What's great is to go to the Hayden Planetarium. There, they have this timeline of the universe, which spirals down three floors, kind of like the Gugenheim. And along this spiral, is a panel showing the history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the present. And you go through galaxy formation, the formation of the solar system and whyat not. And then you get to the Earth. And then, you go through the history of the Earth and come to the history of man. The history of man is literally a human hair they stretched across this panel.
Hmmmm, Misanthropy, thy name is me...
Strange how this has so little effect on my life, but I am on the edge of my seat about it. I remember when we got the Mars rover pics back, and I even remember way back as a kid, seeing the Viking pics.
I am a huge fan of robotic exploration of space, largely because you get so much more bang for you buck. You can send out numerous little probes for the cost of sending one person up. Not to mention that if a probe is lost, no one dies.
But beyond that, it seems that the human exploration of space is kind of pointless. I can see, of course, running to the moon, or Mars to find resources, but beyond that, it just seems that the distances are just to great. On the Mall in DC, they built a scale model of the solar system, with the sun down near the Smithsonian, and then each planet set the correct distance away for the scale. And when you get to the end, there is a plaque that says that at this scale, the nearest star would be in LA.
Maybe this is a depressing view of things, but then again, I have a very firm belief that when we finally wipe ourselves off of this planet, no one will really miss us.
What's great is to go to the Hayden Planetarium. There, they have this timeline of the universe, which spirals down three floors, kind of like the Gugenheim. And along this spiral, is a panel showing the history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the present. And you go through galaxy formation, the formation of the solar system and whyat not. And then you get to the Earth. And then, you go through the history of the Earth and come to the history of man. The history of man is literally a human hair they stretched across this panel.
Hmmmm, Misanthropy, thy name is me...