Space would be interesting to us again, if we declared war and invaded it.

My pre-school aged son is all the time pretending to launch his rocket ship to Pluto, the most mysterious of the planets at the time he learned them.

Who coulda thunk the Repubs will stoop so low.

Uh---
I don't feel *any* twinge of pain at this. Not one.

And I still cry when Dorothy sings 'over the rainbow'. And I still think the space program is cool.

Look, this is a non-issue.

It's about names, not things. Pluto is the same today as it was yesterday.

Man, this makes obsessing about Jon Benet Ramsey look politically astute.

what k.b. said.

There was never any reason to retain Pluto's planet status, beyond the tradition since its discovery in 1930. An 8-planet solar system is not inconceivable.

This is absolutely the correct definition, science-wise.

It's also obvious with any degree of perspective -- something the Pluto sentimentalists seem to lack in spades.

The biggest demarcation between objects in the solar system other than our Sun is between the eight classical planets and everything else.

By a vast load of criteria. Even Mercury has a more complex blend of constituent elements than the rocky iceballs (icy rockballs?) in the Kuiper Belt.

Bob

Can we downgrade Al to "dwarf troll" status? He recent posts have been quite disappointing.

No, not really.

It's also cool because now Gustav Holst's The Planets has the correct number of movements again :)

Bob

Now that Pluto is not a planet it no longer enjoys any protections under the Geneva Conventions, and can be held indefinitely at Gitmo without trial.

We protest this downgrading of our status, and will take our complaints to the Intergalatic Council! Your planet will be turned into space debris within days.

I really don't see the big deal. You don't have to change any classroom displays or mnemonic devices- Pluto is still out there where it's always been. You might say, well, now you have to add Ceres and Charon and other things, but Pluto can be kept in school models if only for the reason that it was the first dwarf planet discovered. People don't stop learning about about hydrogen and helium just because we've discovered meitnerium.

People don't stop learning about about hydrogen and helium just because we've discovered meitnerium.

What is this "meitnerium" you speak of? Did you make that up?

(Just kidding. Settle down!)

If people can't wrap their minds around the change in Pluto's status, brought about as a result of recent discoveries about the the solar system, then is it any surprise that some people are still having difficulties grasping the theory of evolution despite 150 years of scientific evidence confirming it?

I recommend http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/116/5/1134 as a constructive approach to (public) scientific education.

It was cool to me because I used to have the space and science beat for The Houston Post, now quite defunct. But Clyde Tombaugh's scheduled speech in Houston during that time, which I did subsequently attend and enjoyed, gave me the chance to write a story telling readers that the only living person to have discovered a planet in our solar system was coming to town to speak, and for that article I interviewed him by phone. It was fun for me all the way around.

k.b., you are a cold, cold person.

It's a technical development in a field most of us have nothing to do with, affecting a place we've never seen and never will. Here's my guess:

Speak for yourself. As a conservative, I hope for a better future, and plan to visit Pluto some day on a commuter space shuttle. The constant affliction of, "Things are only going to get worse and worse!!" is a uniquely liberal pathology, a horrible perversion of American whig philosophy.

My favorite living science legend story (and related to the element comment above) is that once Glenn Seaborg has an element named after him, he was the only person in the world you could send a letter to by addressing it solely using elements:
Sg
Bk, Cf
Am

I didn't know we were allowed to get rid of cold, heartless, worthless objects that we looked up to when we were young.

If only we could permanently downgrade plutocrats...

My Very Excellent Mother Just Sacked Underloved Netherworld (Planetoid)

The thrill of outer space bound to be fleeting? That gives the impression of "been there, done that." (I hear Magellan waffled about the whole circumnavigation thing: "Hey, Columbus already found the western route to Asia--exploration is *so* fifteenth-century.") Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a whole lot of space out there we haven't even seen, let alone visited. From a cosmic viewpoint, space is a helluva lot more interesting than this silly little rock!

I wonder if we can recall that NASA mission to Pluto?

I say blow it up and be done with it.

If I remember correctly, at times Saturn, not Pluto, defines the edge of the solar system (meaning occassionally Pluto is within Saturn's orbit), so there is no significant change in that regard.

As someone born in the 1950s, this isn't that big a deal. Someone who was a schoolchild in the 1930s - when a contest was held in schools to help choose the name - might be more sentimental.

No one could have imagined that Pluto would lose its status as a planet.

I remember that, as a kid, I was excited when Pluto's orbit passed inside Neptune's, and that it would be that way for another 20 years. Even then, it was clear to me that Pluto was not like the others, with such an eccentric orbit. Then, 20 years later, I was excited when Pluto was again the farthest planet from the sun. But, oh well, no more kids to be excited about this one odd "planet".

The period of real doldrums about space, at least for me, ran from the Challenger explosion through to a few years ago. These days things are happening! The X-Plane contest and all the stuff around it show real promise in doing what the governments of the 20th century never did: get into space sustainably, with budgets that make sense and activities that can keep generating interest as the developers move from one goal to the next.

The fundamental problem with the manned space programs of last century is that they tried to remove a whole lot of common human considerations, including greed and the sporting desire for new thrills. The modern rocket builders recognize that luxury tourists are crucial to getting things done. By acknowledging the power of spectacle, they can put "trivial" and "light-weight" desires to constructive use. This is good stuff.

And the range of schemes going! We've got everything from ultra-cutting-edge tech to recycled V-2s, and a whole bunch of them make sense for their various missions. Getting away from monocultures is as sensible in aerospace as it is in agriculture.

Hopeless pedant: Pluto's orbit crosses inside the orbit of Neptune, but never Saturn.

I always had a special affection for the planet, Pluto, because Mickey Mouse's dog was named Pluto. I was a child, okay?

BTW, back in those innocent days we didn't snort with naughty glee over "Uranus".

Pluto was the lowliest untouchable of the planetary caste system. The meaning of its exclusion has more resonance symbolically to some observers than others. There are those pure meritocracists who will simply say that if Pluto wanted to be in the solar system, then it should have worked harder and longer at being bigger.

Fuck losing Iraq, now the BushThugs are losing planets!.........Next the Earth....Bush on terrorists "I say we take off and nuke the site(Earth) from orbit,it's the only way to be sure!" Aliens

I think we need to send an unmanned probe to search for signs of intelligent life - on Earth!!!

They could start with Washington, D.C.

Mike -
Thanks for the correction - I knew it crossed within one of the planets.

The period of real doldrums about space, at least for me, ran from the Challenger explosion through to a few years ago. These days things are happening! The X-Plane contest and all the stuff around it show real promise in doing what the governments of the 20th century never did: get into space sustainably, with budgets that make sense and activities that can keep generating interest as the developers move from one goal to the next.

Mark my words, some day you will look back and remember this day, when I explained to you how humans will venture into space in a sustainable fashion.

Some charismatic religious whackjob will "hear voices" telling him to go and colonize Mars. Hopefully it will be a Mormon, as they already have the $$$ in hand and won't have to raise it. Much like traveling to Utah (even looks like Mars) they will discard rationality and make it happen, economics be damned.

There are those pure meritocracists who will simply say that if Pluto wanted to be in the solar system, then it should have worked harder and longer at being bigger.

sorry, but your argument lacks gravity.

Actually, all the excitement has moved to stars and galaxies and black holes and wormholes. Planets are too familiar already.

It is a bit early in the thread for serious, philosophical comments, but I wonder if the enthusiasm for space travel back in the cheerful, positive 50s & 60s, was a function of having a world population of only 2.5 billion people.

Now that the human population is starting to compete for earth's remaining resources, the costs of space travel are far more obvious.

On the whole, we would do better to discuss the rings around Uranus.

Actually, all the excitement has moved to stars and galaxies and black holes and wormholes. Planets are too familiar already.
Posted by: whenwego

Wait until they find signs of life on (fill in the blank). Or we find a BFA that is on collision course with the Earth.

Mark my words, some day you will look back and remember this day, when I explained to you how humans will venture into space in a sustainable fashion....

Isn't it just like a Red Stater to take credit for an idea that SciFi authors have been writing about for decades?

Isn't it just like a Red Stater to take credit for an idea that SciFi authors have been writing about for decades?
Posted by: Disputo

Have they? Brilliant minds think alike.

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space my dwelling place
The stars my destination

-Alfred Bester (1913-1987)

constantine--

ouch! I'm crying! Me, a cold, cold person? Just cause I care more about Pluto than about what they call it?

And after I told you I cry at the wizard of oz, and all, and you still say I'm a cold person, and is that fair?

hopeless pedant, it is Neptune you're thinking of, not Saturn; sometimes Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune.

Pluto isn't even the largest known trans-Neptunian object; that honor goes to a beast called 2003 UB313, nicknamed "Xena" by its discoverer; Xena is larger than Pluto. So Pluto isn't even the nineth-largest object orbiting the Sun.

In these times, it was bound to happen. There's no mention of Pluto in the Bible.

There was some reference to it in the 2004 EPA Report, but those pages were removed.

When are we going to hear about Iranians visiting Pluto to get Plutonium?

I can understand the emotional tug of "losing" Pluto as a planet, but I will say I prefer this to the notion of adding Ceres, Charon and UB313 as planets, with an indefinite number of other kuiper belt objects to follow.

There was another comment noting that, to a visiting alien, the solar system is really just the four gas giants plus a few motley bits of gravel.

The news isn't all bad:

http://themandarin.blogspot.com/2006/08/pluto-demoted.html

PTate in MN on August 24, 2006 at 1:41 PM:

I wonder if the enthusiasm for space travel back in the cheerful, positive 50s & 60s, was a function of having a world population of only 2.5 billion people.

Nah. I think that it was more of a byproduct of the US - Soviet space race and communist hysteria that accompanied it...Without that competitive aspect, many people view 60's-stylespace exploration as unnecessary.

BTW, I really don't like the term 'dwarf planet'...wasn't 'planetoid' available?

Not exactly sure why I am a little sad that Pluto is no longer a planet.

I beg to differ. We are living in the golden age of astronomy and un-manned space exploration.

was the cheerful, positive 50s & 60s view of space the result of population size, geopolitical rivalry, or what?

How about this: it was the result of an increasing awareness that we had acquired the technology to leave the surface of the planet, combined with a still pervasive ignorance about the distances involved once you have left earth orbit.

There was a slim window of time when people knew enough to be excited about other places "out there", before they learned enough to realize that it is all fabulously, hopelessly far away.

Getting to the next star is simply not like getting to America, or even to the Moon--the scale just makes it different. (The scale is like--how do you say--astronomical!)

Now that we have sobered up enough to realize that we ain't going to rocket off to the Crab Nebula for the weekend, it gets depressing. (Until we develop some faster-than-light travel, of course, which is why sci-fi writers very early on pretended there was such a thing. No warp-drive, no fun.)

You had to titrate your mixture of knowledge and ignorance very carefully, even back in those decades, to maintain that cheerful, positive attitude to space travel. It was never going to last.

The modern rocket builders recognize that luxury tourists are crucial to getting things done.

Commercial space ventures may be capable of achieving relatively modest goals like satellite launches and suborbital human flights, but for the forseeable future all major space activity will require government funding. The costs are too high and the return on investment too low or too distant to attract sufficient private funding.

A manned mission to Mars followed by a permanent martian colony should be the next major goal.

I actually see the hand of Rick Santorum behind this whole thing. Pluto apparently has an oblong orbit that overlaps Neptune. Clearly we can't have two male planets "overlapping."

Pluto's Liebermanesque "concession" speech:

"Yes, I am disappointed that a handful of left-leaning scientists got together behind closed doors in late August, a time of year when most decent, family-values-loving scientists are away at splash parks with their families, and decided to oust me for not meeting their narrow "round-based" agenda. Such an agenda only helps the terra-ists and gives aid and comfort to our enemies, who even now are rubbing their round little palms together with glee.

I have never been one to shy away from working with the celestial bodies orbiting the dark side. I believe that to really accomplish anything in this universe, we must constantly cave in to work with those on the dark side, and I will continue to do so when I am reinstated as a planet in November, when the real scientists come back to work. In the meantime, I extend the hand of friendship and civility to the dangerous, hateful haters who hate me. And to the true Americans who support me, I say thank you!"

They wil have to take my Pluto from my cold, dead orbit.

It's also cool because now Gustav Holst's The Planets has the correct number of movements again :)

Bob
Posted by: rmck1

Yep. If only the amazing version I have were not locked away on vinyl - and me without a turntable.

Humming 'Jupiter' softly (and off-key).

p.s. I think 'kid bitzer' is damned funny.

This column may help us all grieve our planetary loss:

I (heart) Pluto

I guess this means that I'll have to strike Pluto off the my list of "planets-I-wish-to-visit-someday."

p.s. is there life on mars? (tku db)

They can take the planet out of the solar system, but they can't take the solar system out of the planet.

There once was a planet called Pluto
Whose status at best was just pseudo
Now experts of space
Confer this disgrace
Which Pluto must take up the chute-o

Actually, the class of objects that Pluto now belongs to has no official name -- "dwarf" planets was not accepted.

Following the astronomers, might future historians downgrade certain US leaders from the status of "star" to "mutant dwarf"? The latter seem to dominate our current political constellation.

Inter-planetary travel is cheap and safe. Real life Mars is at Natural Arches National Park. Canyonlands is a good semblence of Venus. Don lead weights and dive to the bottom of a cesspool (lots of methane) to experience the 4 gaseous giants. Mercury is a scorched Tehran after the neo-cons have their way. Pluto is the only place that will be safe 10 years after that.

I am sad. I grew up knowing not only the names of the planets but the dates of their discoveries, who discovered them and what technological advances allowed us to see further out. I assumed that sometime in my lifetime someone (maybe me) would find a TENTH planet - far far away.

Instead the Solar System is one of the many places where we are going backwards.

I am unimpressed by the arguments for scientific consistency. A finite group can be defined by a list.

Planet of ice tugs at me
More than gravity
One more memory taken

Actually, the class of objects that Pluto now belongs to has no official name -- "dwarf" planets was not accepted.

Not quite.

"Dwarf Planet" was defined as:

a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

Which includes Pluto, "Xena", and the asteroid Ceres (but *not* Charon).

What to call the subset of "Dwarf Planets" that are Pluto-class objects has been deferred:

Pluto is a "dwarf planet" by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.

I am unimpressed by the arguments for scientific consistency. A finite group can be defined by a list.

An algorithm is much preferable to set.

I (heart) Pluto
Posted by: frankly0

Now they’re proposing to designate it a “large companion,” which sounds like the sort of euphemistic legal status the court might grant to Oliver Hardy and can’t be doing Charon’s self-esteem one bit of good.

LOL.

I gotta go check my rhyming dictionaries for 'deviant'.

Hmmmm...

rmck1: "...now Gustav Holst's The Planets has the correct number of movements again :)"

Nope. Seven is still not correct. (There is no "Earth" movement.)

There was never any reason to retain Pluto's planet status, beyond the tradition since its discovery in 1930. An 8-planet solar system is not inconceivable.

I would say the issue of which objects make the planet cut ought to be secondary to the issue of whether the new criteria are useful and meaningful; the reduction of this to pro- and anti-Pluto positions is, well, precisely what's broken about US political discourse, so not too surprising, if disappointing, outside of science.

The costs are too high and the return on investment too low or too distant to attract sufficient private funding.

A manned mission to Mars followed by a permanent martian colony should be the next major goal.

Waste of money. It'd be the world's most expensive publicity stunt. Robotic probes are getting so much freaking smaller and smarter every day. For the cost of getting just one soft sentient bag of protein to Mars, we could cover the thing with flying, crawling, digging machines. And Europa. And Titan. All likely sources of life or their precursors. And we could build telecopes that could image planets around other worlds, at least to the point we could do spectroscopy.

That being said, I am a thousand times more in favor of going to Mars than I am in favor of the International Space Station. That thing and the shuttle are *killing* our space program. Like if Colum

Waste of money. It'd be the world's most expensive publicity stunt. Robotic probes are getting so much freaking smaller and smarter every day. For the cost of getting just one soft sentient bag of protein to Mars, we could cover the thing with flying, crawling, digging machines.

Agreed. I'd even go out on a scifi limb and assert that it would be easier (in terms of resources and time) to develop and send a human AI to mars than an actual human.

That being said, I am a thousand times more in favor of going to Mars than I am in favor of the International Space Station.

How about we rename it the "Reagan Space Station"?

I gotta go check my rhyming dictionaries for 'deviant'.

Doesn't "Cheney" rhyme with "deviant"?

Mark my words, some day you will look back and remember this day, when I explained to you how human workers will be replaced with Martian immigrants who are willing to work cheaply because they live in the sewers and procreate like rats.

Liberals do not have a plan to address the crime and social disruption caused by illegal space aliens. Many of them deny the existence of a Martian immigration problem entirely, or complain about "profiling" of Little Green Men.

Likewise, they are unserious about defending our country from plutofascism, as seen by their foolish attempts to downplay the dangers of Plutonian Fundamentalism by reclassifying Pluto as a "dwarf planet". The American people understand that Plutonian Fundamentalism is a clear and present danger, and Democrats should not be surprised when they public rejects their weak Michael Moore approach to the Interplanetary War on Terror.

What's the point of this blog point, if there's no angle to bash Bush on? Please post something more substantive next time!

But what about the children?!?!?!?!??!?

Grumpy:

Holst was an astrology fan, and there are all sorts of allusions to how the ancients characterized their planet-gods in that music. It's not like he structurally based the movements on, say, spectrographic data of the planets themselves, like Varese might have. The work's intent is mystical evocation. No way would ol' Gustav need to write an "Earth" movement, for pretty obvious reasons.

Besides which, seven is a most excellent number :)

The first time I ever made out with a girl was with Venus in the background ... but my personal favorite movement is Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age.

CFShep:

I agree! I also thought sullijan's "concession speech" was pretty hysterical -- and egronaut's limerick kicked ass, too :)

Good werk, all eh yez.

Bob

If we can't even get a scientific consensus on whether Pluto is a planet or not for so long, how can we have any confidence what the gobal climate will be like 100 years from now?

LMAO!

Excellenet fake FF!

egronaut = ergonaut

And go Red Planet Mike !!!

Red State Mike:

I totally agree with you that manned space flight is a complete waste of time -- a sop for funding playing on romantic notions of human exploration and nothing more.

Bob

GOP:

Why bother?

Seriously.

Bob

GOP:

Because you get far more bang for your buck knowledge-wise with unmanned probes -- and I support them wholeheartedly.

Plus, whenever you have a disaster which kills astronauts -- you jeopardize public support for the program.

A probe goes south and it's like ... whoops. Pull out the data, see what we did wrong, fix it and try again.

Bob

GOP:

I see your thinking about interplanetary exploration is about on par with your thinking about the threat from Islamist extremism.

Entirely too faith-based for my blood either way.

Bob

To provide greater protection against the risk of extinction from a global catastrophe.

Of course it would be much easier to prevent global warming in the first place, but "easy" is for wimps.

Meanwhile, in other news:

In a lengthy interview with Florida Baptist Witness, struggling U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris asserts, among other things, that the separation of church and state is a fallacy.

"We have to have the faithful in government and over time," the Witness quotes Harris as saying, "that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/08/24/
katherine-harris-separa_n_27937.html

Back on topic: I see the great distances which separate homo sapiens from other star systems as possibly the one rational thing which might argue for the existence of a creator.

"No, it would be the next step towards a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the earth."

But from the liberal orthodoxy, human presence is already a cancer on Gaia Earth, why would anyone in their right mind want to spread this plague to other unsullied worlds?

Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) -- See here:

RESOLUTION 6B

The following sentence is added to Resolution 6A:
This category is to be called "plutonian objects."

Dammit Emory!

Freedom Fighter:

Put the Heinlein away (and the HeineKEN too, while you're at it; it's too early in the day). Show us an "unsullied world" in this solar system that's inhabitable by humans without dragging untold resources up to it -- and perhaps you'd have a case.

Otherwise, manned space exploration is wholly dependent on fictions like warp drive.

Short of a way around the Universal Speed Limit, intergalactic travel is simply ruled out of the ballpark.

Bob

GOP:

This has become (naturally) another one of your patented arguments-for-the-sake-of-argument.

The payoff is simply not worth the risk. Human grandiosity is a commodity the value of which is wholly subjective.

Bob

>Short of a way around the Universal Speed Limit, intergalactic travel is simply ruled out of the ballpark.

No, it isn't. It's just ruled out by our short attention spans.

We're not building the Terrestrial Planet Finder space telescope to see if there are other earths, colonizing the asteroid belt (which would make far more sense than mars), or halting our degradation of the earth, all for the same reasons. Short term thinking, and the collective attention span of caffienated fruit flies.

It's time for Disney to rename the dog and Clyde Tombaugh's 76 years of fame is over on the centenary of his birth!

has407,

Resolutions 5B and 6B did not pass (or perhaps were ot even voted on). The Pluto-class objects remain unnamed.

The solution is obvious, the need is immediate and the time is now:

PIMP MY PLANET!

Why would colonizing the asteroid belt make far more sense than colonizing Mars?

If your goal is to extract resources for shipment back to Earth, it does. Smaller gravity wells.

GOP said:

That would be a stupid goal.

LMAO. Thx for making me regret bothing to respond to you and reconfirm your status as a troll.

Waste of money. It'd be the world's most expensive publicity stunt.

No, it would be the next step towards a permanent, self-sustaining human presence beyond the earth.
Posted by: GOP

I am in general all for human exploration of space. When people ask me if there is life in space, I tell them the answer is either, "Yes" or "Not yet". I genuinely believe we are destined to spread out across the universe if we can avoid killing ourselves first. we should be around for another million or billion years. No reason not to spread out amongst the stars.

Bob
The payoff is simply not worth the risk. Human grandiosity is a commodity the value of which is wholly subjective.

What risk? I know plenty of astronauts. They're ready to go to Mars right now, and they know the risks as well as anyone can know them. There's minimal/no risk to us.

It's when we get to the current specifics that I balk. As I said, the things robotic probes can do are freaking amazing. For the cost of a single shuttle launch to LEO we can do a Mars probe or Cassini. The things we've learned from the two Mars rovers so dwarfs what we've learned from the ISS as to approach infinity over zero. Since it is currently a zero sum game for dollars, I favor putting the space dollars into a unmanned probes and a full court press on dropping launch costs from $10,000/LB to something a fraction thereof. Keep people on the ground until we can do it cheaper, using the waiting period to see what's out there to actually visit.

If your goal is to extract resources for shipment back to Earth, it does. Smaller gravity wells.
Posted by: Disputo

By far. For that matter, I think a hollowed out asteroid would make a great spaceship.

GOP, you and I diverge on this one.

PIMP MY PLANET!
Posted by: Lex

Snort.

And the 'Red Planet Mike' riff was great.

the collective attention span of caffienated fruit flies.

And another chance to get in my nifty new 'fruit fly' quote:

'And fruit flies, well, I never met a fruit fly that I was ashamed to share genes with, and I certainly can’t say that about human beings.' - James Gorman

Which fails to mention whether they are into double shot lattes...

I apologize if the analogy has already been drawn here. But 20 or so years ago, the paleontological community got together and after much consultation solemnly proclaimed that henceforth the brontosaurus would henceforth be called the apatosaur.

I read an article about it at the time, and a Steven Gould essay on the subject a year or two later and that's the last time I heard the word "apatosaur".

I suspect this Pluto re-designation will have similar results.

Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) -- Sorry, my bad for not paying closer attention.

Disputo -- Right; "plutonian" (6B) was voted on and failed.

>Why would colonizing the asteroid belt make far more sense than colonizing Mars?

Gravity well depth, as someone said. But also, on mars you have to provide a pressurized environment, shield against cosmic rays, its distant from Earth, you need a storage system to use solar power, or nuclear, and ores are scattered across the surface, which is costly to move around on.

In the asteroid belt resources and energy are more accessible, including water, and easier to choose from. Entire coasting mountains of stainless steel; some have km-deep ice shells. And you're already in space, allowing large scale structures to be built at low energy cost.

The only advantages of mars are nostalgia and gravity. But any colony of enough scale to be self-sustaining can make its living habitats simply spin for little cost. Architectural freedom is limitless, travel is cheap, free energy rains down 24/7. And there is a sort of technological adulthood to it; an entirely self-constructed society, standing on its own.

guys, guys, cut the squabbling, okay? Otherwise we'll have to send you to syzygial asteroids.

Could we get back to the earlier topic, and just talk about how damned funny I am? I really liked that part.

Cutting and Running from the Kuiper Belt

Once again liberals have provided another victory for al Qaeda and Islamo-fundie-fascism. The so-called "reality-based" community has chosen to confuse our children and make their elders look foolish, thus undercutting us at home when we need to be strong.

If nine planets was good enough for my grandfather, then it's good enough for me. My great-grandfather got by with eight, but he was ignorant and impoverished. Think back to Feb 17, 1930, the last time we only had eight planets. The country was mired in a Depresssion, millions were out of work and struggling to survive. Is that what we want to go back to? That's where some would take us.

Who is the International Astronomical Union (i.e. the French-sympathizing, astro-UN) and why are we subject to the scientifico-fascist decisions of their politburo? If Americans decide that the solar system begins inside the Kuiper Belt, then we should stand up to those who say the term "planet" should be rationally defined and consistently applied to account for new evidence. I have issued an executive order requiring all so-called scientists to swear that they believe that the Intelligent Designer created exactly nine planets and that Pluto is one of them. If they do not sign this they can't receive any government funding. Taxpayers should not have to fund research that they do not understand or find confusing. America will stand strong in the War on Scientifico-fascism.

Red State Mike,

What resource would be cheaper to obtain from the asteroid belt than from the Earth?

If you are do build something in space, it is far, far better to find it in space and not have to drag it up from a planet surface. It takes just an enormous amount of energy to lift something up from the Earth. An asteroid with a solar array or nuke-powered tug (free propulsion, essentially) could provide both propellant and enormous amounts of raw materials.

As far as things to bring back to Earth, I'm not so in-the-know. I do know that many of the asteroids are basically big hunks of metal ore in a highly refinable state. Also, many are considered dormant comets and so therefore are big iceballs of H2O. Finally, I mentioned Helium for fusion power.

Google on "asteroid mining". It's an interesting topic.

Would you believe that "The Case for Mars" is what Bush based his NASA orders on?
Posted by: Thomas1

I was at the World Space Conference in Houston, and during the reception there was a long line for the food and none for the beer. So I drank dinner. Ran into Bob Zubrin, who was of the same mind, in front of me in line. I asked him about Mars...

...Very passionate man on the subject. Especially after beers.

Would you believe that "The Case for Mars" is what Bush based his NASA orders on?

I would’ve thought it was based on “Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars” from 1938:

A deadly beam from space is threatening the Earth.
Believing that the beam emanates from Mongo,
Flash Gordon [and friends] leave Earth in a spaceship to combat the attack,
but find that the beam is coming from Mars.
Landing on Mars, the team discovers that the wicked Queen Azura has formed a partnership with Ming the Merciless who plans to destroy the Earth by extracting all of its nitrogen.
Flash and his friends must battle the fierce Forest People to obtain the black sapphire which can neutralise Azura’s powers,
and find a way to destroy Ming’s nitron lamp before the Earth is doomed.

Substitue Sah-damm for Ming and Islamofascists for Queen Azura and you have a timely political commentary.

Boys and girls, during the next generation or two we will run out of oil and other fossil based resources and will encounter greater and greater "faith based" violence. The world is going to be an ugly place. Civilization will hang in the balance. We will be entirely too busy simply trying to survive.

Real manned planetary space exploration is at least 300 years away. Between now and then we have to defeat ignorance and replace our basic energy technology. This last 50 years will be remembered in the same way we remember the age of Eric the Red-a false start and nothing more.

Red State Mike,

If you are do build something in space, it is far, far better to find it in space and not have to drag it up from a planet surface. It takes just an enormous amount of energy to lift something up from the Earth. An asteroid with a solar array or nuke-powered tug (free propulsion, essentially) could provide both propellant and enormous amounts of raw materials. As far as things to bring back to Earth, I'm not so in-the-know. I do know that many of the asteroids are basically big hunks of metal ore in a highly refinable state. Also, many are considered dormant comets and so therefore are big iceballs of H2O. Finally, I mentioned Helium for fusion power.

The idea that water, helium, "propellant" (by which I assume you mean some kind of rocket fuel) or any other kind of resource for use on the Earth could be obtained more cheaply from the asteroids than from the Earth itself is absurd. It just doesn't make any sense economically. And given that commercial fusion power is decades away even on Earth, it's hard to know why you think we need "helium for fusion power" anyway.

If you're talking about obtaining resources from the asteroids for use in space rather than on the Earth (to avoid the cost of launching those resources into space from a planet), then that just begs the question of why we need those space-based resources in the first place. If you're suggesting we need them to build a human colony in space itself (ala Gerard O'Neill), why would it make more sense to build a human colony in space rather than on Mars?

It warms my heart to see sock puppets finding true love.

Here's just ONE resource that could end up being cheaper to mine from Mars -- the already known concentration of deuterium (an extremely expensive but essential fuel for the nuclear power industry) is five times greater on Mars than Earth.

Deuterium is not used as a fuel for the nuclear power industry. And the idea that it would be cheaper to obtain deuterium for use on Earth from Mars rather than from the Earth itself is absurd.

Too bad that Goofy is still in the White House.

I wonder who at CNN let this in their report:

"It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 91/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/24/pluto.ap/index.html

I suppose NASA could dump the spacecraft into Jupiter since Pluto is not a planet anymore.

Bruce the Canuck,

Your claims are completely ridiculous. The capital costs of designing, building, launching, transporting, operating and maintaining the machinery and people that would be needed to extract and process raw materials from the asteroids, on an industrial scale, in hard vacuum, zero gravity, and full exposure to cosmic and solar radiation, and to manufacture from those raw materials, in space, even a small habitat capable of supporting a few astronauts for a limited time (let alone a permanent, self-sustaining human colony) would be astronomically greater than the costs of creating an equivalent human presence on Mars. The engineering and human factors challenges of conducting such an operation in space would be orders of magnitude greater than on the surface of a planet.

I wonder who at CNN let this in their report

That's the AP's fault (not that CNN shouldn't have checked it). The NYT also had that up for awhile, before they replaced it with their own story.

At least they didn't do a story on what this means for astrology, like NPR did yesterday.

I have irrefutable proof that Saddam Hussein hid weapons of mass destruction on Pluto. We must go there and destroy them or we are lost.

GOP:

Deuterium is used to mediate heavy-water reactors, and allows lightly-refined uranium (e.g. yellowcake) to be burned directly.

While it's not a fuel per se -- it *is* an excellent neutron conductor which facilitates the fission of materials that otherwise would take much more energy in the fuel cycle to refine and concentrate.

Cf. the Canadian CANDU heavy-water reactors.

Bob

I have irrefutable proof that Saddam Hussein hid weapons of mass destruction on Pluto. We must go there and destroy them or we are lost.

*Pluto*, bitches!

Thomas1:

I think you're thinking of dilithium crystals.

As in "We secretly replaced the Starship Enterprise's dilithium with Folger's crystals. Now let's watch ... "

:)

Bob

Finally, after a long time, I have been cured of the addiction to this blog. I must thank the trolls like GOP and American Hawk for persisisting in posting their nonsense here. No more blogs for me.

nut,

Fight the Power!

A guy who can't even get his Star Trek trivia correct is most certainly a troll.

GOP
The idea that water, helium, "propellant" (by which I assume you mean some kind of rocket fuel)

No, just some source of mass to toss out the back. I am assuming ion drives would provide the impulsive force to the mass.

or any other kind of resource for use on the Earth could be obtained more cheaply from the asteroids than from the Earth itself is absurd. It just doesn't make any sense economically.

Yep. That's not my point.

And given that commercial fusion power is decades away even on Earth, it's hard to know why you think we need "helium for fusion power" anyway.

It's the big "if". If fusion power works, you'll see Exxon (or their analogue) mining the moon and asteroids.

If you're talking about obtaining resources from the asteroids for use in space rather than on the Earth (to avoid the cost of launching those resources into space from a planet), then that just begs the question of why we need those space-based resources in the first place. If you're suggesting we need them to build a human colony in space itself (ala Gerard O'Neill), why would it make more sense to build a human colony in space rather than on Mars?

I'd flip that question around. Why Mars and not space? A whole lot cheaper since no gravity well, more manueverability, better access to power from sun, better space science due to no atmosphere, access to zero gravity for manufacturing, etc. And it'd be a focus on space exploration technologies rather than immediate exploration. Build the first evolution in interplanetary spacecraft on Earth. Use them to build the second evolution in space. The absolute critical design constraints on spacecraft are due to the rigors of Earth launch. They are generally grossly overbuilt for space. Better to build them in situ.

A big thing is we don't know what we don't know. If we can corral an extinct comet and pop some solar arrays on it to separate water into its constituents, we've got a free source of rocket fuel. Think big.

I am reminded of the joke about the two bulls looking down on a pasture of cows. One says, "I'm going to run down there and f--- one of them." The other says, "I'm going to walk down and f--- all of them."

Patience. Work on cheap space. Let the commercial side teach us what it can. Then go and never look back.

RESOLUTION 6B

The following sentence is added to Resolution 6A:
This category is to be called "plutonian objects."

Resolution 6B did not pass.

Disputo (above) is correct. Pluto, Ceres and UB313 ("Xena") are "'dwarf' planets", and a new class of trans-Neptunian objects, of which Pluto is the prototype, remains to be named.

Also determination of the dividing line between planet/satellite systems and double-body systems (like Pluto & Charon) was put off.

Planet. Dwarf planet.

Pluto is still a planet.

The definition will change again over time.

The idea that Pluto orbits a bit inside Neptune's orbit disqualifies it as a planet is not well thought out. Suppose Pluto's orbit was originaly all outside Neptunes but a close fly-by from another object altered Pluto's orbit of today.
It was a planet and now it's not? Silly.

And Pluto has cleared it's orbit field.

On the otherhand, UB313 has not, (Future 10th planet?). In fact, UB313 orbits at the same speed as it's debris field. It's large but not a planet. It's not moving faster than the debris junk orbiting with it. UB313 is embedded.

Probably wouldn't take much to knock UB313 out of orbit either.

Side note:

Dilithium crystals are used to control the energy release by the matter-antimatter reaction.

Scotty: "We need to test the crystals."

Kirk: "Test them in battle."

Spock: "Captain, These are crude crystals we do not know how the unusual energy patterns will effect our systems."

Scotty: "Aye, They might blow us up as well as if hit by a photon torpedo."

Kirk: "No option gentlemen. Activiate those crystals."

I have irrefutable proof that Saddam Hussein hid weapons of mass destruction on Pluto.

I bet it's Eric Estrada's house. Whatever happened to him? Wherever it is, that's where we should send our nuclear waste.

Red State Mike: Very good point about religious and other vision as a motivating force. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you're right about who gets to Mars first, though I recall reading that James Cameron has a preliminary budget for getting two IMAX-grade cameras and long-lasting rovers to Mars to do the location shooting for an sf film set there. It's on the order of a billion dollars - more than a studio's going to commit now, but I could see someone sufficiently wealthy deciding "Why not?"

My father worked for NASA, and I have a deep, deep respect for NASA's accomplishments. But they went wrong wrapping the really marvelous science and engineering in such a gray bureaucratic cloak. It needs brighter togs, basically.

nut
Finally, after a long time, I have been cured of the addiction to this blog. I must thank the trolls like GOP and American Hawk for persisisting in posting their nonsense here.

Good luck in your search for a liberals-only dittoheading echo chamber circle jerk.

Red State Mike: Very good point about religious and other vision as a motivating force. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you're right about who gets to Mars first, though I recall reading that James Cameron has a preliminary budget for getting two IMAX-grade cameras and long-lasting rovers to Mars to do the location shooting for an sf film set there. It's on the order of a billion dollars - more than a studio's going to commit now, but I could see someone sufficiently wealthy deciding "Why not?"

For sure. If I was filthy stinking rich, that's where I'd dump my money. We could do it easy for what the US spends on cosmetics each year.

Amen on the NASA comment.

*putting on Frank Zappa's Dwarf Nebula Processional March rather loudly and bopping about the room*

Bob

Red State Mike: I bet it's Eric Estrada's house. Whatever happened to him? Wherever it is, that's where we should send our nuclear waste.

That was actually quite funny. Paging Richard Thompson.

nut: Finally, after a long time, I have been cured of the addiction to this blog. I must thank the trolls like GOP and American Hawk for persisisting in posting their nonsense here. No more blogs for me.

Just don't read their posts. Life's too short--and there are bright, non-insane, attempting-to-be-honest conservatives to listen to/read for a change of perspective that actually has value. Not many of them left, but they're out there.

I think Pluto should just run as the independent planet.

GOP>Actually manufacturing the habitat for a permanent space colony from scratch in space itself, using raw materials extracted from the asteroids, is even more ridiculous still. You're talking about launching into space, and transporting half a billion miles, the entire industrial infrastructure and manpower needed to manufacture space vehicles from unmined rock...

>In contrast, some variation of the Mars Direct mission proposal...exploits martian natural resources without the need for massive hardware infrastructure, provides the means to establish and grow a permanent human colony beyond the earth over time...

So, you're comparing going flat out into a whole manufacturing economy in the asteroids, to setting up pre-fab outposts and then slowly more self-sustaining colonies on Mars. Apple, meet orange grove.

The asteroids are more likely to have exposed (or nearly so) high grade ores, even raw metals, as they haven't been exposed to atmospheric weathering. And transportation costs are very low compared to landing gear on a planet, much less hauling it across the undeveloped boulder-strewn landscape from one resource source to another.

Again, the radiation environments aren't that different, there's far easier access to energy in open space, and it can be a shorter trip. And either way, the scale of seed-industry is very large, yes. Mars is pretty close to a hard vacuum from the point of view of liquid-based processes as well. It just allows a prettier landscape in the mean time.

Mars has a lower industrial-process development cost. That's its only real advantage.

Neither option has any remote chance of happening in our lifetimes, unless someone actually builds a space elevator. Assuming that longshot, I'd bet both would happen.

"We are living in the golden age of astronomy and un-manned space exploration."

Eunuchs in space?

It's nice to see that GOP's massive and beligerant ignorance is not limited to terrestial legal and political issues. His ignorance of the relative costs and advantages of Martian colonies versus space-based development is equally great.

Bluntly, the thin Martian atmosphere is literally worse than useless. It is much too thin to provide significant protection from radition, or to eliminate the need for hermetically sealed structures, fully pressurized enviorment suits and all the other problems associated with vaccum.

On the other hand it is just thick enough to permit the creation of truly awesome storms with wind speeds that dwarf the worst hurricanes on earth massive dust storms and weathering effects on exposed surfaces.

As for the need for massive photovoltaic arrays to produce solar energy in the asteroid belt, hahahahahaha. All you need is large, but extremely thin mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto relatively small areas. Depending on the particular process that needs the energy, this concentrated sunlight could either be directed at relatively small solar arrays to produce electricity or further concentrated with lenses, secondary mirrors, etc to produce heat for industrial processes.

As for radiation, it would be just as easy to dig a few meters, or a few dozen meters, under the surface of an asteroid to place solar flare shelters and it would be to bury Martian outposts.

I would modify my previous comments on radiation dangers. The simple fact of being on a planetary surface means that half the Cosmic Background Radiation would be blocked by the bulk of the planet. Also, while the lack of a magnetosphere and the thin atmosphere mean much higher radiation levels on earth, they are still significantly lower than in a free-space environment.

Still, a number of options exist for shielding free space or asteroidal habitats and the advantages of energy availability, relatively concentrated resources and cheap transport are significant.

>Huh? A "whole manufacturing economy in the asteroids" is precisely what you proposed to justify your claim that colonizing the asteroid belt would make "far more sense" than colonizing Mars.

No. My position is that human off-world colonies are not worthwhile unless the point is to build a largelly self-sustaining industrial economy. We don't know what the minimum scale of that is, but it's way larger than Mars-Direct. That's just a way of selling the first step to the public for cheap.

The tonnage we'd need to lift off the Earth to make a self-feeding, self-manufacturing Mars (or asteroid) colony is outragously large. Too