The Folly of Near Term Manned Mars Exploration

The Mars Underground (torrent) (imdb) is a well made documentary film featuring director of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin. Zubrin was instrumental in shaping the current direction of NASA towards a Manned Mission to the Red Planet. Despite any romanticism, this is a complete waste of time, effort, and resources.

Long term, of course people will need to inhabit Mars and establish presence elsewhere beyond the Earth if we are to guarantee human existence. However, in the short term, governments would be better off developing artificial intelligence and robotics, and sending their best and most robust machines to explore and one day terraform Mars. The public investment in such useful technology pays off for everyone. The Mars Underground film does not even address this possibility. It unquestioningly assumes that the pinnacle of Humanity's existence would be to make physical contact with the Mars then expediently return to the Earth. Ultimately, the film amounts to a piece of cultist propaganda.

Make no mistake, the Apollo Moon programme was a waste of resources, but it did produce some political, scientific and economic dividends that offset some of the costs. At the time, computers were primitive although robotic probes were nonetheless useful. The Moon is also significantly closer to the Earth.

Regarding Mars, there is a third way which would waste far fewer resources, and do something to satisfy the Monkeys on Mars Cultists. The answer of course is to send people on a one way trip to establish a permanent Mars colony. Put in this context, the cultists are forced to ask themselves why they are so obsessed with returning people to Earth if Mars is worth visiting. Is this nothing more than a sexually frustrated egotistical fantasy of trillion dollar tourism, or is there some sensible purpose? If Mars is worth visiting, it should be worth staying. This is the argument of Lawrence Krauss who fundamentally advocates robotic explortation of Mars. Audio of his NPR Science Friday Interview. Crazy though it may be, plenty of sexually frustrated scientists who would jump at the chance for a one way ticket to Mars.

Robots are expendable, cheaper, and far more effective as a tool of scientific exploration and human colony construction than people will ever be. Let the private sector send people into space if it is economical and put public funds back where they belong: in scientific and technological research and development.

Room Temperature Superconductivity

If the research conducted by a Canadian and German team proves valid, scientists will have made an enormous leap by creating a room temperature superconductor with highly compressed Silane, SiH4. Superconductors can transmit electricity with miniscule resistance thus reducing energy loss. Since electric current generates magnetic fields, superconductors are required to generate enormously strong and sustained magnetic fields. MRI machines and the Large Hadron Collider at Geneve, Suisse are examples of the application of superconductors, but require expensive cooling.

A significant application of cheap superconductivity would be magnetic levitation.

*Update - I have been informed by an astronomer that the pressures required to acheive this (in the gigaPascals or millions of Atmospheres) are far in excess of anything we could engineer for industrial purposes, and are akin to the pressures existing at the center of Jupiter where hydrogen is metalic. We will have to keep waiting for cheap, practical room temperature superconductors.

Richard Dawkins, Galapagos Lectures

On an eco-tourist cruise to the Galapagos aboard the Santa Cruz, Richard Dawkins delivers several lectures on population genetics and the evolutionary process. Having read several of his books and watched most of his documentaries, I assumed I had just about exhausted his educational potential. This lecture series showed me the fallacy of this assumption. These are some of the best lectures I have heard on the subject, beautifully delivered as always by the eloquent professor. Available at Demonoid. Some lectures available at Google Video.

Scitalks

Scitalks is a Web video site which links to interesting scientifically relevant material.

(Unfortunately much of the content is in RealPlayer or streaming Windows Media format)

Atom

The new BBC 4 documentary, Atom, hosted by Jim Al-Khalili, is one of the best documentary series I have seen this year. It focuses on the development of the modern theory of the atom and quantum physics. Available on the usual torrent networks.

NASA

Thanks to one of Bush's brilliant ideas, NASA's budget is now mostly wasted in M2M (the human Mission to Mars) and the rest on the shuttle and ISS. A recent NPR interview put the orginisation further in question. Michael Griffin, director of NASA, doubted whether we would not all be better off under global warming and therefore should not prioritise its abatement.

With regards to the manned Space programme, NASA has recently experienced an astronaut bizarre love triangle and now allegations of drunken flight and systems sabotage. If NASA is to exist, which I believe it no longer should, its beneficial role should be to fund Earth Science, Astronomy, Aerospace Engineering, and general technology research in the public interest.

The Mars Rover and the Galileo and Cassini missions are examples of the incredible benefits that can come from a serious scientifically driven Space agency. The scientific value for those programmes has vastly exceeded the costs because they had the right idea: robotic exploration of outer space. Humans were not designed to live in space and so far the cost of such adventures is no were close to the benefits. Let human space exploration take place commercially as Richard Branson and Burt Rutan are demonstrating. Let scientists do their jobs correctly, and stop distorting their mission and their budgets with a child's fantasy. If children want to go into space, let them finance it themselves.

Blog Recommendation: Future Pundit

Future Pundit (RSS) is in many regards what I wish my blog were. He has an informed perspective on current world developments and understands their implications for the future of technology. Previous generations did not have the luxury of understanding the laws of physics and knowing what technologies would be possible in the future. Today, the physical laws are understood well enough to predict the general range of human technology for several millenia. In my opinion, a great deal more human discussion must focus on the future. Unfortunately, with a world all too focused on petty squables over land, primitive energy resources, and backwards religious belief, we loose sight of the larger picture to the detriment of the emerging future world.

Economic Thinking vs. Evolutionary Thinking

Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources in the production and consumption of goods and services. Mankind has finally entered a stage where the economy tends to increase at a positive rate owing to scientific understanding and the mastery of the physical world through technology. If humanity survives past its current critical phase (Type 0), the economic expansion will likely continue until the energy of the nearby galaxies has been exhausted and the Universe gradually begins to die a particle death.

During large periods of human evolution such was not the case. Resources and technology were stagnant. One person's average gain was another's average loss. Accepting immigrants into the community or yielding resources to a nearby tribe could have been an existential threat to a population's genetic prevalence. Thus humans have evolved with an inherent suspicion of outsiders and reluctance to trade with them. It works well as an evolutionary survival strategy on the African forest or Savannah, but is a very poor strategy for expanding wealth and resources in a positive-sum, technologically advancing civilisation. Without education to overcome the protectionist genetic instincts of primitive man or similar memetic cultural exclusivity, politics and laws end up restricting trade and immigration in very unproductive and uncooperative ways to the detriment of everyone.

Paul Rubin has written a very interesting piece about this. Via Mankiw.

The Neurology of Addiction

An interesting article from the NY Times concerning the insula of the brain.

Science Further Undercut

Economically and scientifically relevant data on the Earth are no longer important priorities for NASA as shown by budgetary cuts in satellite based Earth observation. Robotic space exploration is the only scientifically or economically effective sort, yet funds are being diverted instead on a fool's errand to send men to the Moon and Mars. Observation of the Earth is important especially to measure climate change. Hopefully the ESA will pick up the pieces on this.

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was one of the most articulate and rational thinkers of the past 50 years. A visionary, humanist, planetary scientist and professor at Cornell University, he put considerable effort into communicating the knowledge and implications of scientific revelation to the general public. On issues from science, public and foreign policy, and informed religious belief, he was an important voice for mankind. Indeed, when in my previous post I declared that technocrats should be the ones setting policy, I was referring to men such as him. His public television series 'Cosmos' should be required viewing.

He died 10 years ago.

Incidentally, most of his public writing was shaped by his regular use of cannabis. While he remained private about this issue during his life so as not to detract from his important public message, he anonymously advocated very strongly for its legalisation and responsible use.

Recently, his wife was interviewed recently by Ira Flatow on NPR Science Friday. This is an archived interview of Carl Sagan himself with Flatow from 1994 which I highly recommend.

My good friend Timothy recently posted about Sagan as well.

Richard Feynman: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures

If you have never heard Feynman lecture on Physics, you are in for a treat. These are streaming Real Video files of Feynman lecturing at the University of Auckland, NZ. I must credit Timothy for providing me the link. I detest streaming media, especially from Real, but as Timothy chastised me once, "Beggars can't be choosers." These lectures are superb.

What is Life?

Is each individual cell of a complex organism equivalent to the entire organism. Genetically speaking, yes. This has now been demonstrated. An entire mouse has been generated from a single non-reproductive blood cell. An egg cell was also used, but eggs are not themselves viable nor reproductive. This finding makes it clear that there is nothing particularly special about an embryonic stem cell from a philosophical point of view. Real scientists have known this for years despite what religious or political forces may imagine. In 'Monty Python's The Meaning of Life' there is the song 'Every Sperm is Sacred.' This parody of absurd religious thinking now should to be changed to 'Every Cell is Sacred.'

People should have the right to reproduce as they see fit assuming they have paid their dues/taxes to society and are not through recklessness creating a malformed or diseased offspring in an artificial way. Scientists should have the right to experiment with whatever cells they want to which are created artificially and have no possibility of causing human suffering.

Neuroeconomics Again

Will Wilkinson (good alliterative name) of the CATO Institute writes a poignant article on the topic of Neuroeconomics. It suggests that a Paternalistic System would correct irrational behaviour of individuals at little cost to rational actors, and therefore significantly increase social welfare. He cogently argues that despite the scientific evidence, a laissez-faire approach is still preferable given the technology and political structures which exist. I believe Wilkinson is correct, but I am open to the possibility that continued improvement of technology will enable changes in human organisational structure and physiological monitoring such that laissez-faire will no longer be a social optimum.

This came to me via Tyler Cowen's reaction to Hare's work on psychopathy upon which I have commented. This controversial post is also relevant.

Blog Recommendation: Cyberpanopticon

My friend Timothy has a blog that seems is shaping up quite well. I think it will focus primarily on International Relations, History, Science, and Law.

Basing Laws on Science

This article in the FT considers research at the University College London which explores neurological development and the neurological basis for behaviour.

The study has implications for the use of anti- social behaviour orders for juveniles and in determining at what age we should be criminally responsible.

In a broader sense, this type of research should have implications into the stage at which a person should be considered self-sufficient and independent. To have an age arbitrarily set at 16,18, or 21 above which one's parents are no longer responsible nor legally authoritative is potentially dangerous. For example, the age of sexual consent in Canada is 14. Rights and privileges ought to be based on some sort of merit, neurological or otherwise.

Perhaps the argument works both ways. Above the age of 18, it is well known that mental acuity starts to decline. This may explain why older voters are more likely to vote for war criminals like Cheney and Bush. Perhaps such people should lose their voting rights.

The Economic blogsphere is currently enamoured with this New Yorker article about neurology and risk behaviour.

Fascinating Science

It appears some sheep depend on a retrovirus to reproduce.

Evolution

The "Theory of Evolution" describes for all intents and purposes a scientific certainty as nearly as one exists. Charles Darwin through persistence and brilliance elucidated undeniably and nearly completely the existential mysteries of sex, competition, the variety and complexity of life on Earth and in turn our own ancestral origins.

The "Theory of Intelligent Design" is simply not science, and is designed as a means to confuse and manipulate ignorant, weak-minded individuals from understanding the truth of their origins and that of all complex life. It is quite sad that in the 21st century, Scientific Authorities waste their valuable time responding to such nonsense. They are compelled as a reaction to the moves by rulers and politicians in many countries to teach or promote the so called "Intelligent Design" theory. Not surprisingly, the infamous George Walker Bush promotes the teaching of I.D. in schools. Any political or educational leader is not deserving of authority who seeks to poison or befuddle the minds of the masses, particularly the young, with ignorant, fundamentalist dogma to the detriment of a proper understanding of firmly established scientific fact. Any religious doctrine contradicted by undeniable scientific evidence must be either revised or dismissed as mythology and tradition rather than lauded as fact. Furthermore, it is the moral responsibility of society's leaders to ensure basic science is taught to all and taught correctly.

The 7 part PBS series on Evolution does a good job of properly explaining Charles Darwin's elegant theory. Those like me, annoyed by the mere mention of I.D, should not watch the last part as it focuses on the backward Fundamentalist Creationist beliefs of large swathes of the US population.