The sun goes red dwarf to take out the satellite. I can almost picture all of humanity going FFUUUUUU!bleachigo10 said:
After Seven Years, Mercury Finally Has Our Message
- Thread starter Scott Bullock
- Start date
Because of this, we aren't going to Mars, or even back to the moon anymore. NASA has only one space mission left before we shut down and retire all of the shuttles/rockets, and then we'll have to bum rides off of the Russians and other countries.luckycharms8282 said:
While the reasoning behind it is understandable, its still really disappointing.
XD I know. But my wishful thinking has me hoping that the more planets we search (we're already scanning mars with bots), the more likely is will be that we'll find said tech. Honestly, I could not care less if the tech is on mars or mercury, as long as we freakin get it!Souplex said:
First, the moon is larger than it looks. If we get to the point where we can affect the moons mass in any significant way, we'll also be able to deal with any consequences.fix-the-spade said:
Second, no one wants to ship ore back to Earth. Getting mass out of a gravity well is expensive, and cargo space is limited, so the ore will be processed on site, and you can expect at least 80% of the material excavated to stay on the moon.
Third, the countries of the world have an interest in not bringing the moon down on them, and they employ large groups of people with lots of powerful computers that track and predict the behavior of celestial objects. The moon will be one of those. In the time it takes to make any difference at all on the moon's mass, the problem will have been exhaustively studied every year for however many centuries it will take.
Fourth, you should consider the number of large impact craters on the moon. Each of the larger ones excavated far more material than we are likely to, blasting a lot of it into space, and imparting a significant amount of force to the moon as well, which mining would not do. You'll notice that neither the alterations to the moon's mass, positive or negative, nor the impulse from those impacts has managed to dislodge the moon from its orbit around Earth in 4 billion years. Consider also that the rate and size of impacts was greater in the early days of the moon, and there were likely impacts on the moon far greater than any we see evidence for now, that have since been covered up by later impacts or lunar volcanic activity (the dark portions of the moon are basaltic lava flows; the moon had active volcanism for a time).
If you take this scenario to planets, then you may as well wonder if pouring a glass of water in the ocean will cause another tsunami.
I think you are not being overly negative, but you are vastly overestimating the impact that humans can have on certain systems.
Well we've already doomed this planet by polluting the shit out of it, so I don't see the point of trying to fix it.luckycharms8282 said:
Maybe because it's just so interesting that we won't try to fix ourselves but instead pursue knowledge of the rest of the universe until we're wiped out.
Meanwhile at Nasa:
Hum... wait a second...
That's no planet!
It's interesting to hear and I hope they find some cool stuff up there. I'm still trying to get by here on Earth though.
Hum... wait a second...
That's no planet!
It's interesting to hear and I hope they find some cool stuff up there. I'm still trying to get by here on Earth though.
If the moon suddenly disappears, we're screwed. Life on earth only evolved because the moon acted as a moderating influence on our planet; without it you're going to be seeing a lot more natural disasters and so on.008Zulu said:
OT: Sweet! I always love hearing about these things
The money is much better spent on this than invading foreign countries at a whim.
Im pretty sure in 2004 we were involved in at least one war in the Middle East. The US of A also owed various companies and other countries almost ten trillion dollars, and that was seven years ago. George Bush also allocated 14 billion dollars to NASA in one year alone to fund projects like this. Thats about a dozen too many billions being spent on space exploration and taking pictures of planets.Scott Bullock said:
Life didn't really evolve *because* of the moon. A better way of putting it would be that life adapted to the presence of the moon.Bobbity said:If the moon suddenly disappears, we're screwed. Life on earth only evolved because the moon acted as a moderating influence on our planet; without it you're going to be seeing a lot more natural disasters and so on.
OT: Sweet! I always love hearing about these things
The money is much better spent on this than invading foreign countries at a whim.
NASA's entire budget wouldn't even cover rounding error of our 1.7 trillion dollar budget shortfall.luckycharms8282 said:
You can scrap the program entirely, and you'd still have a 1.7 trillion dollar deficit.
Fair enough, I did put that very badlySilentHunter7 said:Life didn't really evolve *because* of the moon. A better way of putting it would be that life adapted to the presence of the moon.Bobbity said:If the moon suddenly disappears, we're screwed. Life on earth only evolved because the moon acted as a moderating influence on our planet; without it you're going to be seeing a lot more natural disasters and so on.
OT: Sweet! I always love hearing about these things
The money is much better spent on this than invading foreign countries at a whim.
It evolved and adapted to become what it is now, due to the presence of the moon, I guess I should have said.Considering, though, that life is adapted to the presence of the moon, we're still going to have no end of problems if it suddenly runs off.
If you want to solve your problems before moving on to new things why don't you go live in a cave until you figure out how to create an endless supply of food and fire without killing any creatures or burning any wood, and while you're doing that the rest of us will move on to colonize the solar system and eventually the entire galaxy.luckycharms8282 said:
We could just replace it with a Death Star.Bobbity said:Fair enough, I did put that very badly
Considering, though, that life is adapted to the presence of the moon, we're still going to have no end of problems if it suddenly runs off.
Dont worry, they will target the countries with the highest populations first. Sure as hell glad Australia's population is less than 22 million.Jamous said:
Likely less, without a massive hunk of rock pulling at our oceans and tectonic plates we will have smaller waves and less frequent earthquakes.Bobbity said:
