*quality *doublepromote

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Zifnab.

Double-Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, March 19th, 2012 9:16am PDT - doublepromote requested by Zifnab.

Don't get me wrong I love the idea of space exploration, but at this point in humanity's existence, some serious social problems and environmental problems require fixing. If we can't even keep this planet habitable, what's the use of going to another.

>> ^Peroxide:

If we can't even keep this planet habitable, what's the use of going to another.

If we can't keep this planet habitable, what other choice do we have?

I'll borrow from ND Tyson here and echo that I think there is a *huge amount* we can gain from aiming our sights at something like Mars. What we learn...and how we fail, may underscore and inform the importance of keeping what we have.



We need a bigger perspective to grow. We always have.


>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^Peroxide:
If we can't even keep this planet habitable, what's the use of going to another.
If we can't keep this planet habitable, what other choice do we have?

I totally dig these Sagan videos, but they can be slightly misleading: they're often mash-ups, not continuous excerpts, and the editing sometimes introduces implications that aren't found in the books themselves. (This one opens with a few lines from Chapter 5 of Pale Blue Dot, then skips back to a few discontinuous lines from its introductory chapter.)

I was with the message for the first couple of minutes, but the final minute or so of the dialogue seemed to be suggesting "okay we screwed up with Earth, bugger it, let's find new planets".

Now I'm entirely for space exploration, getting to Mars, building a base on the Moon, baby steps in the grand scheme of exploring the universe, but necessary steps. However I would always put the priority of Earth first, would never abandon its well-being. We humans are nostalgic, and if we don't repair the damage we've done we'll forever be a lost species wandering from planet to planet, looking for places that are never quite the same as the Earth of textbooks (or should I say ebooks?) of old...

I guess what I'm saying is that this video could do with a bit more of a positive attitude towards fixing the problems we've created

I think its like Tyson says, inspire the youth with the possibility of exploring the cosmos and show them what science can do for humanity and perhaps we'll be more capable of solving the problems of our own planet.

I also think there is a more philosophical side here. We are explorers, it really defines us. Pushing the frontiers and understanding the context of our existence makes us wiser, wisdom we desperately need. Its almost as humanity has become introvert, we consume ourselves and never stop looking inwards... maybe I am being too abstract but thats how I see it.

>> ^Reefie:

I was with the message for the first couple of minutes, but the final minute or so of the dialogue seemed to be suggesting "okay we screwed up with Earth, bugger it, let's find new planets".
Now I'm entirely for space exploration, getting to Mars, building a base on the Moon, baby steps in the grand scheme of exploring the universe, but necessary steps. However I would always put the priority of Earth first, would never abandon its well-being. We humans are nostalgic, and if we don't repair the damage we've done we'll forever be a lost species wandering from planet to planet, looking for places that are never quite the same as the Earth of textbooks (or should I say ebooks?) of old...
I guess what I'm saying is that this video could do with a bit more of a positive attitude towards fixing the problems we've created


What? I've watched this video 5 times and have no idea what you're talking about. I completely agree that space travel is no antidote to sustainability but there's nothing about this that implies we should abandon Earth. It merely states the fairly obvious fact that prosperity is a state of mind; one brought on by collective action rather than stagnation and depression. Exploration is the nature of our species and we could better address the little, petty problems we have here by imagining ourselves elsewhere than by pretending they have some crippling significance.

I think Tyson is overstating it when he suggests that all American progress was due to the shared national vision of landing a man on the moon. We got tons of science out of it, but more and more science isn't doing us any good as long as it accelerates our self-destruction. If there were some project that would focus the collective will to save the planet from us, that would be cool.

Quite poetic.

I think building a scientific literate populace would lead to us fixing our planets problems that we created. It is the lack of understanding even basic scientific concepts that leads the populace and our politicians to refuse to accept climate change is in large part man made.