Comments on: KEPLER MISSION WILL TAKE A GALACTIC CENSUS OF EARTH-LIKE WORLDS

By: Arthur

Arthur — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:46:55 +0000

> The goal is to discover those planets in the “Goldilocks Zone” or habital zone, where water can exist in liquid form and planetary temperatures would at least give life a chance to arise. It’s called the “Goldilocks Zone” because the orbit would place the planet in a zone not too cold and not too hot but “just right.” This is a narrow zone indeed if you think about it. Of our two closest planetary neighbors, Venus is probably too close to the sun for life to have arisen (other factors like a runaway greenhouse effect also doomed life there) and Mars may be at the outer edge of the habital zone, having seen liquid water early in its formation …

Don’t get too dogmatic about this Goldilocks zone. A lot depends on the size of the planet. Make Mars 4 or 5 times more massive, it holds on to it’s atmosphere and there’d be liquid water on it’s surface today. Give Venus a big ass moon like Earth has, it strips off some of the extra atmosphere and maybe Venus ISN’T too close under those conditions.

Heck, Earth isn’t in the Goldilocks zone. The daylight temps on the moon are far too high for liquid water - therefore, anything at Earth’s distance is too close to the sun.

It’s the combination of distance and the planet’s atmosphere that you need to know. I don’t know if Kepler is fancy enough to tell us that.

Still, it’s worthwhile.

By: RWA

RWA — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:51:45 +0000

Thanks for the kind words, Rick. However, I’d say that the fact that we don’t when the research will pay off is reason enough to fund it now, so that it pays off ASAP. Furthermore, the jobs it creates in the short term aren’t just in research itself; the doubling of funding for the NIH which Gingrich rammed through Congress helped fuel the construction boom by enacting the construction of new facilities. If we don’t want economic bubbles to pop, then we need this sort of continual investment, which guarantees that funding of current industries will be continuous and permanent, while opening the window for new ones.

Now you see why I keep asking you draft Fortner?

By: Chuck Tucson

Chuck Tucson — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:04:03 +0000

If anyone is interested, here is the Hubble Heritage gallery of truly awesome images, one of my favorite bookmark visits…

http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/gallery.html

By: Mark30339

Mark30339 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:18:56 +0000

The quest for earth-like planets poses interesting philosophical questions. First, if we find some, should we seed them with collections of earth life in a Star Trek “Genesis” project? After all, Earth may become inhospitable one day.
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Second, are we prepared to acknowledge that intelligent life is a unique miracle bestowed upon, and entrusted to, us? I wonder if the search for life elsewhere is really an attempt to evade this responsibility. The universe is a pretty big place, it’s not likely that the searching or the evading will end anytime soon.

By: funny man

funny man — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:38:26 +0000

The problem is that you can’t direct invention. For example, there is the hope for biotech ‘garages’ producing anything from biofuels to novel medications. It might sound naive but it happens when enough people is convinced it can happen. My example always is Florence at the end of the Middle Ages. How many inhabitants were there? Perhaps 50,000. Now does that mean any place in the US has the same talent pool that Florence? Perhaps so but they don’t believe that themselves. The few that do actually migrate towards institutions like MIT because they think that is where it is ‘happening’. And so it does. True enough; whether today with government funding and or visionary financiers or back then the Medici, money is still needed. Hope we don’t forget the greatest strength of the United States especially in time of crisis, innovation and discovery.

By: Allen

Allen — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:53:14 +0000

Imteresting timing for your post; I just finished re-reading Shklovskii’s and Sagan’s book, “Intelligent Life in the Universe.” I’m sure Sagan would have loved to see this program.

Funding from the Federal government for science continues apace. It is the nature of that funding that is changing. It’s all about return on investment now. “When will it be ready,” “how many lives will this help,” and so on. This is becoming a bad precedent, as the funding agencies are constantly being pushed by Congress for the “right” kind of research. There aren’t many scientists on the Hill, but they like to pretend that they are.

Very good points - and reminiscent of the science advisor in Sagan’s “Contact” who cut basic research in favor of funding projects with a return on investment.

ed.

By: SeniorD

SeniorD — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:33:30 +0000

The Federal Government, in the form of NASA and NOAA, has a monopoly on space research. The current financial meltdown, caused by a simpering, mincing Congress more addicted to bribing constituents and receiving ‘donations’ to their respective ‘Political Action Committee(s)’ puts private enterprise endeavors in limbo.

If some smart engineers met up with equally smart and visionary financiers, a true revolution in space exploration/exploitation can occur. Zero-G silicon crystals, nanotube light switching computers or the odd hydrogen-3 power plant would certainly make money.

Get the Feds out of space exploration and put real risk takers in charge of their own corporations to take advantage of the science they can do.

You sound like Rand Simberg - blogger at Transterrestial Musings. There are already a lot of smart engineers who have hooked up with visionary financiers. And in about 15 years, those are the people who will taking humans into space.

Still be a role for NASA with these missions of exploration and discovery, I think. At least until the research and development infrastructure for the private sector can match what NASA can do.

ed.

By: sara in va

sara in va — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:45:41 +0000

So, if the missions found life, and far superior beings who believed in God, would that convince you, Rick?

If so, then I say, fund the programs. Because, you know, if it saves just one life….then spending billions is worth it.

Said,facetiously. Happy Sunday.

By: RWA

RWA — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:50:18 +0000

With trillion dollar deficits staring Congress in the face, the probability that NASA funds will be cut to the bone are about 95%. Congressmen find it easy to cut programs that don’t enrich cronies or buy them votes back home. Most of the pure scientific exploration represented by Kepler, New Horizons, the Mars probes, and the Webb telescope are easy pickings for the budget cutters.

And that’s too bad, because basic science is one of the few things deserving full governmental support. The media likes to credit the Omnibus Bill of 1993 for the boom and surplus of the nineties, but the actual credit goes to five decades of scientific research which led to the information economy; if we want long-term sustainable prosperity, we need to make these sorts of investments. The Republicans can regain some of their intellectual currency by advocating more spending on basic science instead of direct intervention in the economy. Not only do the projects themselves generate thousands of new jobs in the short term, but the work itself leads to hundreds of new industries and enterprises in the long term. This is something the great physicist and conservative Republican Robert Millikan advocated during the Great Depression, and we should revisit his position in the light of today’s crisis.

Bravo! Hurrah! Couldn’t have said it better.

The catch is, we don’t know how this basic scientific research will payoff in the end. The process of discovery and invention itself leads to unknown real world benefits. The knowledge that will accrue to us as a result of Kepler is tiny compared to the spin-offs in new technolgies and products.

Can’t put that on a graph, unfortunately. Which is why NASA budgets are so easy to cut.

ed.