Thanks for popping in. You are always welcome, and I don’t expect you to read my ridiculously long essays in their entireity. Truth be told, I put this stuff out there more for my neices than anything else. Someday when I’m gone, and they are all grown up, they will be able to learn a little bit about who I was and the things I cared about- moreso than they would otherwise know about me from when I show up at Christmas and Thanksgiving…

Here’s my problem with the “let’s fix the problems here on earth and THEN go explore space” school-of thought… the problem is that human nature does not change, and if we wait until people start not being idiots, and we solve every problem we have here on earth before we go explore what’s out there, it’s never going to realistically happen.

When Grog was debating whether or not to invest the time and effort to build a boat out of logs to sail across the Bering Straight to see what was over yonder, I am sure there were plenty of more practical, more helpful, and less risky things he could have been doing to help out the people in his village.

There have always been sickness, wars, injustice, poverty, etc. That’s part of the human equation- at least to date- just like exploration and reaching out to explore new frontiers has always been a good part of our makeup as humans. I am not willing to wait, nor should we wait.

My other problem with that school of thought is that I wonder how much sand is left in our hourglass as a species. Maybe a thousand years, but then again maybe 50 years .This is an uncertain time for us where we are prying the lid off of Pandora’s box and playing around with the pretty toys we found inside. Speciffically, we are messing around with things in the feild of synthetic biology that quite frankly are putting the future of homosapiens in doubt. Our technology is growing far, far faster than our wisdom here, and I am not sure if you have seen the movie “I am Legend”, but we may not be far from that exact scenario- ( minus the flesh-eating zombies of course ).

That scenario would at least solve your population worries I guess.

The other reason we should put aside some of our hard-earned tax dollars for space exploration no matter what is going on in the world, is that some of the fundamental questions that underpin our existence lay out there. There is more to life than just living and breathing air! There are metaphysical needs too. The Human Spirit needs to find proper sustenance and vocation too. We should care about the answers to the Big Questions. The Fermi Paradox- for example- deserves an answer, and I would really like to know if we are actually alone in this universe, or if the process of life goes forward on tens of thousands of other worlds as well as ours. We could learn a lot about ourselves based on what we find out there. We could know our true place in the great scheme of things. Everything we know here is such an utterly miniscule part of what is out there. To not want to know and learn and explore that mysterious expanse and the millions of other worlds out there is just not something I can relate to.

I do acknowledge that there is a limit to how many tax dollars we can morally justify spending on space exploration, given our problems here on earth, but with a GDP of 13 trillion dollars, I think we can afford a bit more than what we are currently spending.

I acknowledge that we will never achieve the kind of things I am talking about with a space program that consumes wealth in the same manner as our current program does. Instead, we need one that generates wealth, and I laid out some specifics in the essay to acheive that- IE a cheaper mass-to-orbit method ( The Space Elevator ), and that would lead to affordable Space Tourism. A hundred years from now, families may spend a week in orbit instead of going to Disney World if we can get a functioning tether up. You might call that “shit in one hand”, but upon closer inspection, that stuff I am holding in my hand looks a lot like carbon nanotubes…

Getting back to your world population scenario, your “by any means neccesary” comment scares me. I reccomend you pick up a copy of the novel “Rainbow Six” by Tom Clancy ( The Jack Ryan novel actually written by Clancy, not the series spin-off’s written by other authors ). In that book, he has a charachter that is one of the world’s foremost biotech engineers and he decides that it would be better off for the planet if we started over with a human population of several hundred people. The way he goes about acheiving that goal is completely plausible, and the scariest part is that there ARE people willing to go to these lengths if they could. What is REALLY scary though, is that there are a few people alive- right now today- who really could kill the entire human race if they put their mind to it. If J. Craig Ventner were to decide to wipe humans from the face of the planet to give the planet a chance to start over, he could really do it I think. He’s already created synthetic life-forms by re-programming DNA code, and is working on a bacteria now that will digest CO2 and cellulose to create Hydrogen for zero-emissions fuel.

It’s a brave ( and scary ) new world out there, and I would really like to see us get a couple of eggs out of our one tiny basket here on earth if you know what I mean.

When I wrote this essay, I was actually unaware of how many stars there are within a few hundred light-years of Earth. Did you know that there are 260,000 stars within 250 light-years? Based on what we are learning about the prevolance of extra-solar planets in our galaxy, it’s a near certainty that other earths DO exist within a very acheivable range if our species could ever get it’s act together enough to build a starship. I dont think it’s as far out of reach as some people think it is. Please check out this incredible 3-D map that some guy has put together of our nearbye stellar neighbors. It really puts things in perspective.

http://atlasoftheuniverse.com/250lys.html

I really do think that 250 light years is within the ultimate reach of our speices if we make it a few thousand years more here on earth, and I’d be pretty surprised if there wasnt at least several or ( even MANY ) earth-type planets out of those 260,000 stars that fall in that 250 light-year range.

If you are more pessimistic about our star-trekking abilities as a species than I am, and you think that 250 light years is too far, then there are still 33 other stars/solar systems within 12.5 measly little light-years. Surely we can do that, can’t we? That’s practically a walk in the park really….Heck, Proxima Centauri is only FOUR light-years away. Captain Kirk wouldnt have even bothered to turn on the warp-drive for such a piddling distance- it would have been a waste of good dilithium crystals.

I didn’t know you were lurking out there- keeping an eye on me for Legacy Partners? Ha, Ha. Thanks for the very un-deserved compliment. I really wish I had the time and energy to generate more content for my blog. I have a lot to say, but very little time and energy to say it with because I am always so tired after work. There’s a lot to be said for writing shorter, more concise posts more often, but I just don’t seem to be able to operate that way. As a result, I just sit down and let fly with one of my 10,000 word manifestos every few months - usually over a 3-day weekend.

I am doing side work installing air-conditioners on some of my weekends now, so a couple of posts that I really wanted to work on have been put off, which irritates me.

I still laugh when I think of your post on global warming and drilling for oil in ANWAR- generated in about ten minutes as I recall. What is the actual web adress for your blog? I typed a few variations of joels opinions but couldnt seem to find it.

These days, most of my posting is done in the comment sections of Breitbart articles linked to Drudge Report. Almost every day I peruse the Drudge Report at lunch and pick one or two of the Breitbart articles to toss out a few quick snotty comments before I go back to work. ( There is a group of regular commenters that I like to interact / exchange insults with in the Breitbart comment sections who also link to the articles via drudge- “So Cal Patriot”, “SF Progressive” etc. etc.). Stop by the comment sections and weigh in sometime- I’m there almost every day. I could use the backup, as I’m usually outnumbered 5 to 1.

Here’s a couple of links to Breitbart articles that I got into the comment sections of in the last week or so…

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D910TUN80

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080519104151.k48mg4st

http://comments.breitbart.com/d90h1cmg0/?commentspage=1

http://comments.breitbart.com/d90q5mt80/?commentspage=3

You can link to many breitbart articles from here:

http://www.drudgereport.com

I hope all is well in your life Big D. Give me a ring sometime and we will exchange war-stories. I’m doing much better than I was last time I saw you. I work harder at my job here, but I make more money and I have a LOT less stress. The only bad part is the climate- it was 102 degrees here today, which is straight-up killing me. Ah, how I pine for the good-old days when it was 20 degrees and we were up at 5AM shoveling 3 feet of snow for those ungrateful bastards…

My latest tinkering project is a swamp-cooler hat that will run off Ryobi 18V drill batteries. I am looking for a pith helmet tomorrow to act as the framework, and I hope to initiate some bench-tests soon with small direct current motors to see how long I could theoretically get this thing to run. I figure it can’t work out any worse than my Ranque Hilsch Vortex tube did…My plan is to walk around like Lord Helmet from SpaceBalls in my own artificially-generated bubble of air-conditioned comfort while the people around me suffer and sweat like pigs.

“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling incoherant response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.”

I write my posts mostly to lighten the mood or ruffle tail feathers, as it were, but it’s also nice to read something simcere and thought provoking.
-Dustin

I look at it this way, if a history book was written decades from now, it’s undeniable that my generation will be written off as the most useless and pathetic generation to ever burden this planet.

Distracted is the only way I can describe it. American youths don’t have any moral compass, or sense of priority. We are distracted by meaningless pursuits and topics, failing to see what is truly important.

I’ve always considered myself a patriot, but I for one have moved on. my loyalties have since moved on to greater causes. this country is beyond the point of no return, barring some dramatic revolution. I can only hope that in due time, whether it is during my lifetime or not, that the United States can return to its former greatness.

Geez, it’s at the point where even a youth such as myself can understand why we are looked at with disdain. We’ve earned this perception.

Pull up a chair my dear. You can sit between me and Bill Russell ( just as long as you aren’t a lakers fan ). I look forward to seeing your dinner list.- Ty

I’ll have to think about my list and then post it.

M