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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
 Posted - 12/06/2003 : 13:07:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Dr. Mabuse wrote:quote:
Hardly... With the parallax we have on earth it's not enough to determine distance with such accuracy, within a few hundred miles. You have to consider Earth's rotation too. Longitude perhaps, but not latitude.
Nah, Sea Sorbust is talking about guiding an asteroid towards a target here on Earth. We can land vehicles fairly accurately on the Moon or Mars. I'd say, given the right sort of engine (which doesn't yet appear to exist), we could target an asteroid to hit Earth within a given 100-mile radius. It may take several orbits (of the Sun), which wouldn't make it the best kind of "immediate response" weapon, but it'd be possible.
It is true, Dr Mabuse, was talking about guiding an asteroid. I don't comprehend your objections; while I would like to believe Dave's assessment from a vantage of aesthetics and engineering, I hope that you are right from a security viewpoint. We have no defence whatsoever and the idea of someone "throwing" even a smallish asteroid at us is unsettling: We here in the U.S. have two extremely vulnerable regions, one near Yellowstone and one off of the mid-Atlantic coast. A strike in the Yellowstone area would likely wipe out the entire western U.S. and one off of the Atlantic fault, the entire eastern U.S. Both of these vulnerabilities have been published in the public press and are well known.
Did I adequately answer your question on my take on Venus in my last response to Dave W.? Was not talking about colonizing Venus, or even establishing a base; just using it as a possible orbital platform for automated, robotic asteroid hunters/orbit-charters. That would be expensive with no way to recoup anything on "investment"; purely a matter of an aggressive defence against potential impactors.
Dr. Mabuse: Have you seen this news story: A blast from heaven? Four hundred foot high waves nearly a thousand miles from impact site! It's all still under study though, but the objections seem pretty flimsy to me. Surely the impactor must have set off seismic activity that compounded the blast effect.
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2003 : 13:25:46 [Permalink]
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There's another aspect of Venus. Now that we know about extremophiles, life on Venus might not be as "impossible" as has been previously thought. It's my view that if the smallest forms of life can exist somewhere that evolutionary processes might raise "higher" lifeforms as well.
Even the most "rabid" of creationist could probably accept the thought that creation might have occurred simultaneously on planets other than Earth.  |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2003 : 15:32:52 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Sea Sorbust
In response to Dave W.'s lengthy harangue:
Zebra fish: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994411
Where's the Kelp? Sea Anemone and gelly-fish are much closer genetically speaking, aren't they?quote:
Name calling: By Dave W.: "Hawkins is an idiot." in this thread: http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2385&whichpage=1
Dave justly called Hawkins that. Renae on the other hand is valued member of our community. You have been caught misrepresenting Dave, and now you try to use misdirection?quote:
Invisible NEOs:
[snipped]
Scares the bejeezus outta me.
But placing a big telescope on Mars will only be effective when Mars is of the opposite side of the sun. Which it isn't half of the time. This means that for a year we'll be blind. And one other thing, NEOs are called "near Earth orbits" because they have almost the same orbit as Earth does. This means that Earth will rear-end the asteroid, or it will rear-end Earth. Not come out of the sun like a strike-bomber plane attacking a carrier. But I agree that we need a better warning system. We got relatively good track on NEOs compared to asteroids and comets coming from the asteroid belt, the Kupier Belt, and the Oort Cloud.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2003 : 18:08:39 [Permalink]
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Sea Sorbust wrote:quote:
Zebra fish: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994411
No mention of kelp. Sea anemone and jellyfish genes, yes. But no kelp. I'm still waiting to see an example of an animal/plant mix (not necessarily from you), but these fish aren't it.quote:
Name calling: By Dave W.: "Hawkins is an idiot." in this thread: http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2385&whichpage=1
In which I did not call Renae - or any other member of this forum - an idiot. To quote me as saying such, was a lie.
I will, however, take the implied "Dave did it, so I can do it too" argument to heart, and try to set a good example by avoiding calling even non-members of this board bad names.quote:
On my hypothetical comparison of defence against potential impactors and bioresearch:The only point of comparison that can be squeezed out of my comments is that they both use money.
Then why the heck did you bring it up in a thread about asteroids?quote:
Dangers of BioResearch: It is true; I am guilty inserting an example vast waste of TaxDollars on projects with very high potential for deadly catastrophe. Yet somebody is putting squeeze on politicians to short-change major defence needs. Considering huge size of money spend on biological stuffs, they are prime candidate. Might also look into Dept. of Defence budget at huge waste in aircraft programs: Aircraft are dead; missles are "future"---starting about 10-20 years ago. Commercial transportation, all subsidized by TaxDollars, died with advent of teleconferencing 7+ years ago. Other examples are available; BioSpending is just one of the biggest of today's economic sinkholes.
Got a citation for that? How does the budget break down?quote:
Dave's drivel: "I can't find anyplace where I've ever specifically talked about the amount of money spent, so I don't see how I've "misrepresented" it at all."
Dave's comment on TaxLoot:quote:
...I would actually like to know just how much money is being spent by the government on biomedical research - as compared to the billions of dollars spent every year by pharmaceutical companies themselves - before taking the comparison between government-funded medical research and government-funded NEO searching any further.
Emphasis mine. I was asking how much the government spends on biomedical research. How I can "misrepresent" how much is spent while trying to find out how much is spent is a puzzle that I doubt you'll help me solve.
quote:
Drug companies' example: We probably agree on this one. If you don't get sick you don't have to spend money on treatment. Research on prevention is best place to spend money yet extremely little is done...
Doctors tell their patients all the time to take the fewest risks to get and stay well. People disregard that advice by eating too much, exercising too little, smoking, drinking, etc. Prevention is the best place to spend money, but no matter how much money is spent, it won't be able to overcome the "I'll do what I want, damn the consequences" attitude that people have. Blaming anyone in medical research or in the drug companies for this attitude is incredible.
quote:
Scary microbes: Naturally evolving nasty microbe unlikely---we've been around for a long time and are still here.
We've been around for a pathetically short 200,000 years. There could very well be a microbe that's nearing the end of its 200,001-year evolution into a human-killing beast. That you think this "unlikely" is an example of your short-sightedness.quote:
Biologists evolve microbes all the time; even biology students evolve microbes. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. And all for the purpose of playing like tots in lab or for profit: bigger house; bigger boat; bigger car.
Tell that to their faces. I bet you walk away with not a few lumps. Telling people that their work, which they often consider to be underfunded and beneficial to the world, is nothing but a scheme to buy yachts and fast cars is a sure way to piss them off. You'll also have to do a better job of supporting these assertions if you'll want to convince me that even a majority of biomedical research funding goes into research which is as dangerous as you claim. Creating monoclonal antibodies (where a lot of profit is to be had), is not likely to produce a killer microbe.quote:
Invisible NEOs: It was post by walt fristoe on first page
Well, Walt didn't refer to them as "invisible," now did he. Nor did he go into much detail.
quote:
Venus orbit for finding invisible NEOs: If asteroid-hunting telescope finds NEO as it passes Venus' orbit, we should have months, at least, to prepare interceptors. Not days.
Typical asteroid speed is 25 km per second. At that speed, it takes only 70 days to get from the Sun to the Earth. If we wait until an asteroid passes Venus' orbit, between the Earth and the Sun, that cuts it down to 19 days. Months? Hardly. Plus, the current best-assumptions plan on preventing impacts is to steer the things away from us, which takes years to do, so even granted several months (say we discover it while Venus is on the far side of the Sun from us), it still wouldn't be enough time to do anything to stop it. Perhaps you have a better idea?
quote:
On your questionable understanding of human anatomy: Suggest that I am better identified with pot and that you are better identified with kettle.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2003 : 08:11:49 [Permalink]
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Dave W.: quote:
No, obviously willfully incorrect reporting: lies.
I also note you failed to expound upon how I misrepresented your posts. How many other direct questions have you failed to answer? Ah, I'm too busy to count right now...
Sin duda. 
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"This is the forest primeval...." |
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2003 : 11:17:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
quote:
Originally posted by Sea Sorbust
Invisible NEOs:
[snipped]
Scares the bejeezus outta me.
But placing a big telescope on Mars will only be effective when Mars is of the opposite side of the sun. Which it isn't half of the time. This means that for a year we'll be blind.
The plan originally fielded called for placing 50 or so automated asteroid/comet-hunters scattered in Mars's orbit with the permanent station on Mars or its moons acting as the womanned, or manned, maintenance facility. The notion was a first-cut, rough-sketch idea.  It was first fielded over on the SDMB where it received a lukewarm reception.
quote:
And one other thing, NEOs are called "near Earth orbits" because they have almost the same orbit as Earth does. This means that Earth will rear-end the asteroid, or it will rear-end Earth. Not come out of the sun like a strike-bomber plane attacking a carrier. But I agree that we need a better warning system. We got relatively good track on NEOs compared to asteroids and comets coming from the asteroid belt, the Kupier Belt, and the Oort Cloud.
Had always thought that NEO only meant that the orbit of the object was near to Earth's orbit, meaning that there was a possibility of an intersection at some time in the future.
Do we have any idea what is in the Oort Cloud? Even the on-again, off-again Pluto mission won't tell us that. Think that Oort Cloud is one very large mystery with some astronomers even suggesting it might have one of those hypothetical "Dark Stars". |
"This is the forest primeval...." |
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2003 : 11:33:44 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Missed us! And we're coming up on the two-year anniversary of this close call, which would have been pretty messy had it hit us.
Kilometer wide!!
Brrrr. Yes, in truth, it would have been very messy had it hit us, even if it were a "splash down" rather than a land strike. 
The link to the U.S.News article, A blast from heaven?, that I gave earlier in this thread has expired but it is thought to have hit off the coast of New Zealand about 500 years ago with a "diameter", IIRC, of approx. 1/2 kilometer, 500 yards, and, by calculations, raised waves 100 feet high, 1000 miles away near Sydney, Australia; and by actual observation of coastal sea-rubble near Sydney, waves 400 feet high!
And that was a water-strike. Just imagine if it were in an Iowa or Ohio cornfield.  |
"This is the forest primeval...." |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2003 : 11:59:22 [Permalink]
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Sea Sorbust wrote:quote:
And that was a water-strike. Just imagine if it were in an Iowa or Ohio cornfield.
If so, there would probably be less destruction. The midwest isn't as populous as either the East or West coast, and "amber waves of grain" is just a metaphor: there won't be soybean tsunamis crashing into NYC. Again, according to this report, a 1-km impact only devastates a region 500 miles in diameter. A water impact would generally be much worse, as tsunami waves crash into highly-populated coastal cities over a much larger area. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2003 : 12:56:23 [Permalink]
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Yeeeeees. Unfortunately there seems to be vast disparities when it comes to estimates of impactor damage. Suspect that it is very difficult to find actual impact sites; to measure resultant damage; to estimate size and composition of colliding object; to guesstimage the velocity, speed and direction, of said object. Geology is a very slow science; usually progressing at a, literally, walking pace. Deep-sea geophysical research projects are likely even worse.
On bright side, geologists are developing some new and effective techniques which might allow for quicker geophysical surveys, even in ocean environments. On the bleak side, money is woefully lacking. Even worse, few geophysical researchers are hunting for blast craters. If the U.S.News story is correct, the one off of New Zealand was only found by accidental observation and through a determined effort of Colombia geologist D. H. Abbott and others.
The most recent paper in your linked list is the basic source for the U.S. News article. Half-km rock; 100-400 foot high tsunami 1,000 miles away. Yet the paper identified by 18 Mar 03 Uni Arizona, less than a year ago, is titled "Worried About Asteroid-Ocean Impacts? Don't Sweat the Small Stuff". The UAriz paper says
quote:
The idea that even small asteroids can create hazardous tsunamis may at last be pretty well washed up.
Small asteroids do not make great ocean waves that will devastate coastal areas for miles inland, according to both a recently released 1968 U.S. Naval Research report on explosion-generated tsunamis and terrestrial evidence.
And, a real fart-blast of psuedoscience:
quote:
University of Arizona planetary scientist H. Jay Melosh is talking about it today at the 34th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas. His talk, "Impact-Generated Tsunamis: an Over-Rated Hazard," is part of the session, "Poking Holes: Terrestrial Impacts."
Given all life's worries, new evidence that asteroids smaller than a kilometer in diameter won't generate catastrophic tsunamis is welcome news, and not only for coast dwellers. It will save taxpayers the cost of financing searches for small Earth-approaching asteroids, a savings of billions of dollars, Melosh said.
Nice, comforting theory; too bad it is so heavily contradicted by actual observation.
I hear what you say about the "nominal" devestation of a land-blasting asteroid or comet; however, such a strike can be expected to raise quite a dust cloud. We have just recently fielded enough data-gathering equipment to observe a huge Martian dust storm and to also observe what its effect on temperature was: A increase of 30 degrees. Does anyone really want to think about basking through a New York summer with average temperatures being 100+ degrees? Or a Miami summer with average daily temperatures in the 120-130 degree range?
While it was a Martian dust storm that was measured, until very recently science thought that the huge amounts of dust raised by an exchange of nuclear weapons would lower temperatures so much that the resulting weather was called Nuclear Winter!
Not meaning to pick on U. of Ariz. research; science cannot progress without hypotheses and theories; but when reality in the form of actual measurements comes along and "chomps us in the quasifactual ass," it's time to admit that our theories< |
"This is the forest primeval...." |
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2003 : 13:26:28 [Permalink]
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Dave, Dr. Mabuse: Think it's worth remembering that we, humanity, know next to nothing about asteroids. The NEAR mission to Eros studied the asteroid from all directions, but from afar. While NEAR was able to land successfully on Eros, demonstrating that it is possible to land on an asteroid, the landing was not planned for and, as far as is public knowledge, no data were gathered on the surface.
Direct knowledge of asteroids, things that could easily exterminate our civilization, is nil. This fact is the underlying reason for this entire thread and for its cries of bribery and corruption in high places of government. |
"This is the forest primeval...." |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2003 : 14:20:55 [Permalink]
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Sea Sorbust wrote:quote:
Direct knowledge of asteroids, things that could easily exterminate our civilization, is nil. This fact is the underlying reason for this entire thread and for its cries of bribery and corruption in high places of government.
And the point I was trying, and apparently failed to make, is that direct knowledge of SARS-farting nuclear-tipped unicorns is also nil. Is the fact that the government spends nothing on researching them and their effects to be taken as evidence of bribery and corruption? Or should it instead be taken as evidence that our elected officials have at least a shred of good judgement in evaluating risks?
The risk from the unicorn threat is, with any luck at all, zero, even if were there to be even one such animal, it could conceivably wipe out all of humanity. The risk from an impact with anything more than local effects is pretty damn small, too.
As far as I am aware, no country's government has been in existence for more than a few hundred years. Asking for lots of money to be spent on protecting against a 1-in-1,000,000-per-year event, therefore, is fiscally foolish, since it is unlikely that the government will exist to continue the program later on. If you could guarantee results - for example, finding 99% of all 1km or larger asteroids - within, say, 5 years, you might be able to get funded. But what sane astrophysicist would make a claim like that? |
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Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/16/2003 : 08:51:37 [Permalink]
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The chance that any nation will attack the U.S. at this juncture in history is, ImHO, smaller than the "1-in-1,000,000-per-year event" that you attribute to some undefined asteroidal attack against the U.S.; yet we spend large public sums on intelligence activities covering virtually every nation, however tiny. I have not heard a single call to close 90-95% of our very expensive embassies.
Indeed: Your "1-in-1,000,000-per-year event" is nonsensically small. We know about the horrifying asteroid- or comet-caused blast in Siberia in, IiRC, 1907. Less than a century ago. Colombia's Ms. Dr. Abbott and others just found a 13-mile wide crater under 1,000 feet of water. It is believed that it happened about 500 years ago, with the arguments among geologists being anthropological rather than geological. It is known by direct observation that it somehow raised 400 foot high waves that hit near Sydney some 1,000 miles from the impact site! That's two massive, catastrophic impacts within the past 500 years. And both were namby-pamby air-bursts; not the surely more destructive ground impacts.
The suggestion of bribery and/or corruption in high places in government was based on the current administration having axed and hacked away at the Space budget. I go to sleep not "counting sheep" but to wonderful dreams of seeing the current administration's Chief Budgetary Boob swinging by the neck from a D.C. Cherry Tree.
Our elected officials? I don't know whose "elected officials" they are but they most certainly aren't "ours" and absolutely don't have any interests of the American people in mind when they write their laws, when they give away our taxdollars to their well-heeled patrons. Who needs Al Kaida as an enemy when we have the Congress? They just got finished flopping down Three Billion TaxDollars, or as the Brits say it, Three Thousand Million TaxDollars, to support research in nanotechnology. The reason given was that nanotechnology is thought to be "the next hotest economic bubble" for the Wall Street gamblers; yet it widely suspected that nanotechnology may well be more dangerous to humanity's survival than the previous well-greased-by-TaxDollars economic bubble, biotechnology. Defense? Not by "our" elected officials; they all seem fully willing to underwrite our possible extermination just to pad their patrons pockets.
Not enough evidence of bribery and corruption for you? Global Warming with a substantial, if not total, cause being our piggery for things produced by greenhouse gas-producing processes is a scientifically well-accepted fact. Even Randi seems to have accepted the notion as fact. Yet "our" elected officials and "our" executive administration, maybe Clinton maybe Bush, has passed legislation giving automotive transportation to small businesses, provided that they choose from the hugely polluting light-truck catagory: SUVs or bigger. All paid for by our TaxDollars. I don't know about your town but mine is becomming overrun by the especially despicable, from a Global Warming viewpoint, Hummers, owned by small businesses and paid for by our TaxDollars. "Our elected officials" with "a shred of good judgement in evaluating risks?" Bah!
I'll think of your good faith in "our elected officials" when tomorrow's winter storm rolls through. Just last Sunday, two days ago, the whole SW coast of Florida had substantially more rainfall than is statistically expected for the entire month of December! The TV weathergals say that tomorrow's storm should be the same or even worse than Sunday's. Global Warming in action. Global Warming financed in no small part by "our" elected officials' legislation, using our TaxDollars. Bah! Bah-squared!! Bah-cubed!!! "Good judgement in evaluating risks" [b]indeed{/b]
Edited to fix some grammer and spelling; nothing substantive was added or subtracted. Nor multiplied. |
"This is the forest primeval...." |
| Edited by - Sea Sorbust on 12/23/2003 10:29:52 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/16/2003 : 17:53:36 [Permalink]
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Sea Sorbust, I worded my post very carefully. I said, "our elected officials have at least a shred of good judgement," and not "our elected officials exercise good judgement at every turn." I think the people running the government are doing a pretty bad job of it, but by railing against the latter position, instead, you are simply attacking a strawman.
And your activies, or lack thereof, have led in some small part, to the current governmental situation we have today. Impying that they are not "our" elected officials shows only that you want to blame someone else. If you've got positive evidence of bribery and corruption, take it to a judge. All you've shown so far is that you don't like where tax dollars are spent, but that doesn't prove your case. The same case can be made by people who are diametrically opposed to your views, using much the same statements. Thus, those statements are not arguments which can lead to conclusions, they are instead unsupported accusations.
And, frankly, your appeals to emotion, bold fonts and exclamation points do nothing to convince me that your accusations are correct. These old eyes get tired of the frequent bolding, the capital letters, and odd punctuation, and lead me towards not paying attention. If you don't care if I'm convinced, that's fine - just don't expect me to reply in detail to your posts.
The one thing I will correct about my prior posts is this: it should have been 1-in-100,000 odds, since I was talking about 1-km impactors, large enough to devastate 200,000 square miles. I was assuredly not discussing the tiny (by comparison) Tunguska-type impacts, which are to be expected every 150 to 300 years, do 1/100th the damage, and which are orders of magnitude more difficult to detect in time to do anything about them. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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PruplePanther
Skeptic Friend
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2003 : 12:36:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by walt fristoe
I think we will eventually have to get to Mars, for our very survival. Unless we can buld completely artificial habitats, ala The High Frontier.
I believe that there is only one living organism on this planet, and it is the whole planet. Humankind represents the reproductive function of the Planetary Organism, i.e., if we were to terraform and/or colonize another planet (be it Mars or some other), we will have effectively reproduced the Earth. If we don't do this, then our only function will be as a planetary cancerous disease.
Now don't get me wrong; I don't believe that our role as planetary reproductive organs was preordained by some divine angency. It's just a matter of function, like ovaries or testicles. It's just the nature of living things to want to reproduce, and how else can a planetary organism do that except through a specie like us? Sort of a global mitosis.
Don't know what "High Frontier" is but you sound like Computer Org, Walt Fristoe. Am wondering tho y you didn't comment on my posting right before yours where i reluctantly posted
quote:
I dont think that we Americans will ever get to mars. But i also think HAHAHAHAHA yes i'm serious HAHAHAHA that there already ARE humans on mars. Not sure that they'll ever get back home to earth tho.
Embarrassed i was. But serious i am.  |
"If I don't know where we are, I can't plot a course home." Major Carter, SG-1 |
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