Beep…beep… beep - Fifty years since Sputnik. - Page 2 - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

Tethys · #16 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGG

Well, some people still say humans cannot visit the Moon, and have never been there.

USPO has its own resident Moon conspiracy theorist...I try to keep the word "Moon" out of the title of any threads I post in the S & T forum so as not to lure him in.

Tethys

Tethys · #17 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil_inKarlate

Not unlike people who spout similar fanciful notions like:We will never eliminate disease. The elimination of smallpox has allowed for the rise of cancer. The quest for a germ-free environment has given rise to near-unstoppable 'super germs'. People are designed to self-destruct and make room for the next generations, and viruses and bacteria are designed to overcome whatever defenses we may come up with.

We will probably never eliminate hunger. While your premise of getting all governments to work together negates the fact that all vaguely recent famines have had a major political component, less hunger will generally lead to more people, which will lead to more food demands, which will be met if ending hunger is our primary goal, and thus we will have even More mouths to feed, and so on, until at some point we truly meet the saturation point of earth's food production (or exhaust its supplies), and we'll find ourselves with a Lot more people and a lot more... hunger. I did throw in 'probably' because if some sort of draconion population control measures are adopted in parallel, it Might be achievable.

We will never end poverty. Poverty is comparative. If you could wave your magic wand and give everyone on the planet a house with running water and a full pantry, a medical savings account, and a college education (and a couple other things you consider the opposite of 'poverty'), you would simply have college grads asking if you wanted fries, dopeheads letting their houses fall into disrepair, and people whose houses only had 1 or 2 bedrooms. While much better off, they would still be the new 'poor'.

We will never eliminate "etc". It is too much fun to use, plus can sneak in by way of its many aliases, "et cetera", "...", in some cases "blah blah blah", and so on. There are probably even versions I'm not thinking of. (Like the one I already slipped into this paragraph after I had made my 'comprehensive' list!) Just like disease and poverty, "etc" is a scourge that we'll be stuck with for a very long time.

Besides which, a lot of advancements have been dependent on, or at the very least facilitated by, war and conflict. Among other things, Sputnik went into space on what was essentially an ICBM, built over-powered to carry not-yet-designed H-bomb warheads. We're discussing this on an internet originally designed to maintain military and governmental communication even when many hubs were destroyed by such nuclear weapons. Modern electronics are based on metallurgy and materials sciences that trace their roots to the quest to build better cannons. (Or at the very least made some appreciable progress in the course of that quest.) The US space program itself, plus whatever technological spin-offs it may have engendered, were a result of the one-upsmanship of cold war non-cooperation. So while I won't go so far as to say war and conflict are overall Good things, they do have some appreciable upsides that a lot of people ignore.

Well, I reckon the role of the Germans has been underplayed in popular acclamation of the Soviet and US space program. In that sense, even Nazi Germany’s military endeavours had a beneficial spin-off.

I think there are positive and negative aspects to all natural and social phenomena, and indeed war and violent conflict have led to technological and social progress in world history.

However, I do not think that “conflict” need be viewed in terms of a violent confrontation between groups, or even in terms of a competitive economic model.

The dialectics of progress could come from what has always been a driver in human social and technical evolution - the struggle between humanity and nature. Thus, humanity coming together to solve the problems that faces the population of the Earth, the environmental health of the planet, and to surmount the challenge of space travel is, in my view, a “conflict” that can drive human progress.

Tethys

Speakeasy · #18 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tethys

I could not read the article, but it sounds interesting. I love all that historical stuff. …it is probably not in a format readable by my screen reader. Any chance of obtaining it as a text file?

As you requested...

Quote:

GETTING More LIGHT On the Moon

By Calvin Frazer

IT IS unwise to dogmatize about the future, and hence a cautious man of science “would hardly make the positive assertion that human beings will never visit the moon, though the difficulties involved in such a journey now appear insuperable. On the other hand it is quite safe to assert that, without leaving his own planet, man will learn much more about the earth’s satellite in days to come than he knows today. This expectation is based upon the remarkable progress accomplished in the study of the moon in recent years.

Here are a few achievements that would have seemed utterly and forever impossible to astronomers of a century ago:

It has long been realized that the lunar surface must get intensely hot during the long lunar day and intensely cold during the long lunar night, as the moon has no atmosphere—or none to speak of—to temper and conserve the heat of the sun’s rays. Science could only speculate, however, about lunar temperatures until a recently invented instrument, the vacuum thermocouple, was attached to the big 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory and applied to the actual measurement of these temperatures from point to point on the surface of the moon.

These measurements show that wherever the sun’s rays fall vertically upon the moon the surface becomes a little hotter than boiling water, while at the edge of the illuminated area the surface is nearly as cold as liquid air. When the solar rays are withdrawn during the lunar night, which is half a month long, the surface gets colder and colder until its temperature is probably as low as 240 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

A range of about 450 degrees between midday and midnight is one of the reasons why human visits to the moon are apparently impossible!

Though bygone astronomers did not believe the moon to be made of green cheese, they did not know, as we do today, that the surface material must consist mainly of some material similar to volcanic ash or pumice. This has been proved by Prof.

R. W. Wood, of Johns Hopkins, who has photographed portions of the moon with color screens and plates sensitive to different regions of the spectrum. Comparison of the photographs with those made of sulphur-coated rock in the laboratory shows almost certainly that there are deposits of sulphur on the moon.

As sulphur is often found in the materials ejected from volcanoes, Prof. Wood’s discovery supports the old idea that the thousands of so-called craters on the moon are the vents of extinct volcanoes, but there are some serious objections to this idea and a different one is now favored by many authorities. The moon is undoubtedly hit by millions of meteorites every day, and some of these bodies are certainly big enough to make conspicuous scars on its surface. Even the earth, though well protected by its atmosphere, is now known to be scarred in many places by meteoric bombardment as witness the long-famous Meteor Crater in Arizona.

Bullets have been fired into a little leaden moon by some investigators and craters have been produced very similar in appearance to those seen in lunar photographs. The terrific impact of a big meteorite, traveling at enormous speed, would produce enough heat to melt and volatilize the rocky surface of the moon over a large area.

Here we have a possible explanation of the long white “rays” that extend for hundreds of miles from some of the larger craters and have caused more controversy among astronomers than any other feature of the moon’s surface. These rays may have been formed by the splashing of molten rock when an exceptionally large meteorite hit the moon.

One of the first uses made of the Mount Wilson telescope already mentioned—the largest in the world—was to take a series of photographs of the moon, which revealed hundreds of craters and other details previously unknown. At the same institution a remarkable campaign of lunar mapping has now been undertaken by a committee of the Carnegie Institution.

The new system of mapping employed at Mount Wilson consists of taking numerous sectional photographs of the moon, which are pro-jected by means of lantern-slides and concave mirrors upon the surface of a small globe coated with magnesia powder, as illustrated.

All objects appear on*the globe in their true shapes and positions and photographs made from the illuminated globe give an accurate map. A contour map of the moon is also being made by a process of stereoscopic photography similar to that used in mapping the earth from an airplane.

It is, of course, well known that the lunar attraction, combined with that of the sun, causes tides in the ocean and also in the solid crust of the earth, and some seismologists believe that it plays a part in causing earthquakes. Many of the other effects that the moon has been alleged to exercise upon the earth, including the control of weather, are mere “moonshine.”

One remarkable and mysterious influence, however, has recently come to light. Studies by H. Munro Fox and other biologists show that a number of living organisms, particularly marine animals, exhibit a lunar periodicity in reproduction. Thus a species of sea urchin living in the Red Sea always spawns at full moon, and the palolo worm, living in Pacific coral reefs, spawns once a year exactly at the last quarter of the October moon.

This curious coincidence of reproductive activity with the moon’s phases appears to be well established but has not been satisfactorily explained. Perhaps, after all, there is something in the old idea that moonlight stimulates human love-making!

Although, the 1930's artwork featured in the actual article really completes the package.

Tethys · #19 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speakeasy

As you requested...

Although, the 1930's artwork featured in the actual article really completes the package.

Thank you, Speakeasy. I enjoyed reading that. Yes, it would have been nice to see the artwork....I'll have to wait till they develop bionic eyes or some other miraculous way to restore sight.

Tethys

Tethys · #20 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedyer

True, I mean WMD changed everything. The dropping of the atomic bomb especially. While people often debate on whether it should of been dropped or invented in the first place, I on the other hand can't imagine what the world would be like without it nukes. The Cold War was just the result of it, in which conflict didn't dissipate entirely but I do honestly believe that WWIII's delay has a lot to do with WMD. Fear keeps us in check after all, since reasonable/nice people don't seem to do it.

The computer ate my first reply to you. Let's try again...

Albeit that it is true that there has been no global conflict since the end of WWII, it's sobering to ponder the fact that a build up of WMD can go either way: it can deter WWIII (MAD), or lead to it.

Tethys

Tethys · #21 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Government Man

Fools! Where do they think I'm posting from?

I've been meaning to ask you...what's your Australian connection?

Tethys

Tethys · #22 (**permalink**) 10-08-2007

Think I've replied to everyone here...good night one and all. It's bedtime on this side of the world.

Tethys

Speedyer · #23 (**permalink**) 10-09-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tethys

The computer ate my first reply to you. Let's try again...

Albeit that it is true that there has been no global conflict since the end of WWII, it's sobering to ponder the fact that a build up of WMD can go either way: it can deter WWIII (MAD), or lead to it.

Tethys

Yes, but the good news is that so far it has delayed it. Without nukes, I'm quiet certain WWIII would of happened by now and that the world would be in shambles. I mean think about it, no nukes in existence means nothing to hold Soviet Russia back. It would be a very different world, but by all accounts a violent one.

Tethys · #24 (**permalink**) 10-09-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedyer

Yes, but the good news is that so far it has delayed it. Without nukes, I'm quiet certain WWIII would of happened by now and that the world would be in shambles. I mean think about it, no nukes in existence means nothing to hold Soviet Russia back. It would be a very different world, but by all accounts a violent one.

Speculative, Speedy, and there are counter arguments here...but I think it's a topic for another thread.

Tethys

Government Man · #25 (**permalink**) 10-10-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tethys

I've been meaning to ask you...what's your Australian connection?

Tethys

It's where I go to vist when I'm taking a break from my secret moon base.

Speedyer · #26 (**permalink**) 10-10-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tethys

Speculative, Speedy, and there are counter arguments here...but I think it's a topic for another thread.

Tethys

Maybe so, but then again it is only a opinion, as anything is when you think of the "what if's".

DGG · #27 (**permalink**) 10-12-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by proUSA

I was thinking more along the lines of feeding the hungry and eliminating disease. Economics alone wouldn't stop that.

True, but economics alone is the single most important part in feeding the hungry and eliminating disease. The market economy has risen many countries out of poverty, thus eliminating starvation and mass diseases.

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