OK, the first post for this blog.
My current hot topic is the Darwin Project
Darwin is designed to use stellar interferometry to mask out the glare from distant stars and allow a direct view of any planet orbiting them. Initially, it might only show the existence of planets, but with refinement of the technology, it could allow us to see it's chemical composition.
Imagine being able to see blue oceans on a distant Earth sized worlds, or to be able to see brown land masses and the existence of oxygen, even direct evidence of life.
How exciting would that be? What would it be like for humanity to know there are other planets we could live on, or even other planets that others might already live on.
What a wake up call that would be for the human race!
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Thoughts of an amateur space exploration architect.
2 comments:
Interesting you talk about a wake up call for the human race - much needed in my view. In my view, we as a race have almost become overly pre-occupied with our busy lives and living within social structures. A good paradigm shift would do some good for the future of this planet.
This snippet from a NSDA of Japan magazine from a few years back really illustrates a "forgotten" inspiration for exploring space.
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Hiromi Nakamura who worked for the National Space Development Agency of Japan. He interviewed a disaster psychologist. In one of his writings he says:
"Travel is a symbolic challenge to unknown danger...Really, travel is an incubator for human evolution discovered by humankind. It is travel that has long remained a source of stimulation to innovative development of survival tactics. This has induced human beings to be willing to accept risks arising from the start of travel to the unknown world."
Here, let us replace the word "travel" with "space" or "space development". Then, don't you see the motivation, necessity or reason for human efforts to go to outer space? More important than purposes is surely our common recognition of the motivation.
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Whilst Darwin isn't about going there physically, we are exploring with our minds and understanding. In some ways, equally important.
- Bish
Well, I wish I could be quite that optimistic. I think that discovering another planet covered in clorophil would be very exciting, but the real implications might only hit home to people in the scientific community.
I think a paradigm shift of the level you are talking of would only come from seeing direct evidence of intelligence, otherwise most people will ultimately just say "so what?"
The other thing that will probbaly cause your paradigm shift in thinking, of course, will be our soon to be upon us global ecological melt-down. Let's hope it's not then too late.
Now there's a comforting thought to leave you with.
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