Just a tad of quote from wikipedia.org - I think this is really neat that Google is using its power to help find Steve Fossett.
"On September 7, 2007, Google Inc. helped in search of the aviator (due to its connections to contractors that provide satellite imagery for its Google Earth software - Google Earth's 3-D tours of the world). Richard Branson, a British billionaire said he and others were coordinating efforts with Google to see if any of the high-resolution pictures might include Fossett's plane, a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon."
That's great
It's nice to see some of our modern technology being used to actually try to help someone instead of simply using it to build a bigger bomb.
Regards, Kathrinn
Saddest of all
Saddest of all, Kathrinn, is that building bigger bombs produced the side effect of much of the technology we like.
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Reality, like time, is relative to the observer
Anthony North
something like that
most of our comfortable way of life comes from people inventing new technology. The majority of this comes from wars.
We live in luxury now, because of all the wars.
This is sad of course, and I do not recommend starting more wars so we can get better computer games and better health care.
But it should give pause, and reason to think, to those who believe pacifism will solve the world's problems. I sure hope we/they will find one.
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The cost of living has not affected its popularity.
A naive hope
The past has been one of wars producing technology. Perhaps the future COULD be slightly different if we woke up.
Wars have reasons behind them. These reasons are usually based upon a higher ideal. So could we say it is the higher ideal that fuels technology?
Here's my naive hope - that we can grasp a higher ideal, fuelling technology, without the need for war. To me, I think that higher ideal should be a species-wide jump towards space.
That is our future - and technology's.
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Reality, like time, is relative to the observer
Anthony North
on the same lines
Technology and science will deliver what we ask from them.
But we have to ask them.
Many mushy, feel comfy, and frankly lazy movements has asked what we don't wan't. We don't want to muc hstress, we don't have it too hot or too cold. Our beds not too hard and not too soft.
Well, we have all that.
The reason that the military establishment gets real specific results is that, they ask for real specific results. Real fast aircraft, real silent submarines, and many other things of this kind.
The consumers have asked for violent and pornographic movies, and don't say that we did not get those.
What the consumers do not ask for is actual progress. If for example, a mission to Mars would take 100,000 people (counting those on the ground), and 20 of them would die, that would be too dangerous, and we should not even try.
On the other hand if 20 out of 100,000 students would die from drug abuse in high school football games and parties, that is just normal life.
This line of argument des not disagree much with what anthonynorth says.
We should make a serious effort. For some reason. War is not a good reason, but just entertainment is a worse reason. So that is how I feel.
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The cost of living has not affected its popularity.
Trivia
We are living in the Age of Trivia because the next step in exploration and colonisation seems too vast - in other words, space. We are in denial as a species.
As for those specific instructions to science, they will eventually come from big business, as has always been the case in exploration. At present, governments have a strangle hold on space. This will change.
The consumer is not the only culprit in our 'trivia'. Big business also manipulates the consumer to only ask for trivial things.
By the way, I think your estimates of the deaths involved when we get going is far too low. There will be many more out there. It happens when people have courage. Our modern, trivial world has forgotten that.
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I'm fanatical about moderation
Anthony North
death toll
Well perhaps I am too optimistic.
Maybe we should look at stuff like the expoloration of the Pacicic Islands, by hte Polynesians. Or the settlement of the norther Arctic by the Inuit. What was the death toll there, of those who went and never came back, and nobody knows about them? 10% or 50%, or 90%?
We only know about those who made it.
ANd as you say, we have forgotten that courage. It was normal at some time. Today, we think that a risk of 1% death toll to reach Mars is too much, in the public view. Many people would go with a risk of, say 15%. I would. Many other people would go with a risk of 50%. Perhaps when I get a little older, I would go with a risk with 75%, I don't know. We all die eventually - so at some point, hey If I can accomplish something, why not.
If, on you last 15 minutes, you can lay in bed, or go to Mars, what would you do?
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The cost of living has not affected its popularity.
Why do we go to space
Hello,
Why do we go to space though? Different reasons. Maybe because we have outused our natural resources and need them from space. We are over populated as a species, our planet will explode and we need another home, we are curious.....on and on
I would hope that we go for a good sake. I would hope we do not continue to ravage other planets as we have our Earth. That if we are able to make that leap, that we make it on a positive note.
If as humans we were able to live together without war and balance our consumption and be aware of natural laws and how much we can beat on this planet before it will burst, there would be no desperate need to seek another planet. It would not be a need, it would be out or couriosity and exploration, a far more better means of attaining a higher level.
Years ago there was a lot of arguement about shooting garbage out into space. It has been silenced and not been heard of for quite a while. Some conscious people brought up the fact that we are littering our solar system, which we are. So, too , if we are to be a space crusader can we be good consious ones? Look what we did (and do)to our oceans. We threw radioactive garbage in it and other crap thinking because we do not see it, it is not there. It is activly killing off life now. Space, it is the same thing, we can not see it - if it is there, but, what about the long haul over time? Hasn't there been instances where a part of a satellite or some euipment part has fallen back to earth and created havoc of some sorts?
I would think it would be nice to see Mars and other planets, but, I would not like to go there and see bad things happen just like things have happened here on Earth. I hope if we are ever able to get to some other place we are evolved enough to udnerstand we cannot continue in a negative manner and war, pollute, over popluate and consume.
It is not in my life time though any of this will happen.
C
Dr. Colette M. Dowell ND
Circular Times
www.robertschoch.net
why go to space?
The reason we want to go to space is simple, and not offensive at all.
We want to know what is there. We want to understand.
The people who are so negative about ourselves don't want to know, and they don't want to understand.
That is how I see it. I am a curious guy - I want to understand things.
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The cost of living has not affected its popularity.
Homo Curious
Hi Colette,
I've called the human race Homo Curious often. That's because it is our curiosity at the centre of who we are. If there is a mystery we strive to understand. If there's something to do, we strive to do it. It is at the route of everything we do, from science to religion. And space is waiting. When we remember who we are, we will be compelled to go.
But it will be such an awesome task that it will require total cooperation between us all to do it. So could it be that it will be space exploration that finally brings us together?
Naive, possibly, but I live in hope.
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I'm fanatical about moderation
Anthony North
Homo Curios is good
Shoot I see I had not logged out, sorry....bummer.
Yes, I like to go to space for curious reasons, not for the bad reasons. I do wonder where we came from as the missing link thing is strange.
Since I was a child I tried to understand where the universe ends, but, then it dosen't, you can still go further it seems.
I receive the space newsalert letter. I enjoy it very much. It tells about all of the new exploration that is going on, and has wonderful pictures from the different telescopes. Sometimes there are very beautiful artist's depictions of a scenario that is being explained in text.
I do not beleive in the big bang theory. For one thing, when the astronomers learn something new, they add an appendix to the big bang, the original theory is different then it started out to be. It boggles my mind to think there was just an explosion and bang here everything is, and "creation" has begun. What started the bang? And too, there must have been something there to bang out. So, inside the big bang there was some thing else taking place. Like a fractal in a way, you just keep going and going through another plane to another plane and, well, it can really be mesmerising to think about.
Dr. Colette M. Dowell ND
Circular Times
www.robertschoch.net
Apparently a bigger bomb only needs Agriculture...
Technology has created bombs made of cleaning fluids. If a mind is evil enough, it can kill with a finger. Killing others is in the mind of the one raised to hate.
Agreed, but ...
Delete 'evil' and insert just plain 'bad', and I agree with you.
medical
Medical doctors, or dentists, or even lowly pharmacists can kiil with a stroke of a pen. Intentionally or by mistake.
Give the patient the wrong prescription, and most of the time nobody will ever know why the patient died. Or indeed, they can kill by not giving or filing a prescription at all. They can kill by inaction.
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The cost of living has not affected its popularity.