Lost Mars

First my apologies for blogging all over the place in topics. In a way I’m responding to readership. some comments, questions and emails I’ve gotten ask me questions and I’m responding. The topics are determined by my willingness to answer those.

OK so this post I’ll be dealing with the reality of going to Mars and back. Forget money. Forget politics. The real questions are CAN we go and SHOULD we go?

The answer to the question of should we go is easiest. YES! For sure we should go. Why the heck not? Should it be within this generation? maybe not. But that more lay in the realm of CAN we go.

So can we? Well, currently, No. If we put all the money, politics and manpower we needed can we? No. Sorry if that’s bad news. Technologically we just aren’t ready for this challenge. Much as I’d love to see it happen.

THE biggest problem is our sun. The constant bombardment of radiation outside the earth/moon system would subject our travellers to ten times the radiation of a nuclear power plant workers lifetime limit.  Its just not healthy for them. But, there is promise. New materials are being developed and a composite of these materials will help.

The next biggest hurdle is the lack of gravity. Sure we can spin the ship and do some exercise but that may not be enough to keep bones and muscles in healthy working order.

Another stumbling block is the return trip. Even if we get there the road home is way harder then the road there. Basically we’d have to build two ships. One would have to be parked at Mars for the return before the manned ship could even leave our cradle. That first ship would need double the fuel and a supply of food for the return ship. If we sent enough small missions in preparation then we could try to set up a fuel depot on the surface.

Being on the surface of Mars would not shield our astronauts from radiation and in a way it would be worse. The constant dust everywhere clogging up joint and critical life systems is a worry. As well as the occasional wind twirling up the dust to make it more like sandpaper would be a problem even after only a short time on the surface.

Personally I don’t see the psychological effects of months of isolation as a road block but NASA sure does worry about it. I think if we humans have a mission in mind and have training in respecting personal space within a chain of command then these professionals would have no problem. maybe I’m too optimistic on the human condition in this respect.

The track record of accuracy for delivering unmanned probes to the fourth planet isn’t that great. Sure the recent results are awesome. We’ve come a long way since the beginning of the space race. That doesn’t mean we are ready for a manned trip.

Really if we want to do this we need a lot more technology. We need a lot more trips. We need a lot more resources on the planet before we can even think of making the trip. It would be far easier to setup base on the moon.

Autism & Computers

Console games have a place but if you want to lower your childs stress level you may want to turn to a PC. Here you can get more appropriate and much more educational games. Face it, console games are for entertainment.

The computer is a tool not a toy. If your child has any diagnosis in the autism spectrum you will want them to learn to type to communicate. No console has a keyboard they can learn to express themselves with. The earlier they start the better they will be at it. Schools would never use a console as a teaching item.

Many childrens shows have websites and your child will find enjoyment from visiting them with your supervision. My child has Aspergers and loves puzzles. We find many easily printed colouring pages and mazes for off line enjoyment. If the level of frustration gets too high we can switch to something else fairly easy.

Also look for games that offer more open range for them to explore and do small tasks. Not FPS or RPG just they won’t understand them. Things with a fixed story or just idle combat won’t help them or you.

As an aside you should see some of the rollercoasters my kid has designed in Tycoon. Amazing for a 5 year old!

False Dichotomy

Seems I’ve been accused of a fallacy with respect to my view on politics. I must admit that topic is not my forte but the comment I made could be interpreted as a fallacy. I hope to shed some light on another logical fallacy so we can all try to avoid it.

A false dichotomy is when someone tries to reduce an argument of many possibilities down to only two.  This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a problem of variation to diametrically opposed opposites like black and white.

In my comments I’ve noted there are really only two political parties in the US. The Democrats and the Republican. This gives you only two choices instead of the reality where there are plenty of other parties. In this case they are the two strongest competitors but it is a fallacy to state they are the only choices.

This fallacy is not restricted to just politics so be on the look out. Most famously a false dichotomy is used by creationist in the argument of intelligent design versus Evolution. They say evolution is not possible so life must have been designed. Jumping to that conclusion creates a false dichotomy. There are many other fallacies creationists use as well so there will be more for me to write about.

Chinese Whispers

“But the aim of chinese whispers is to keep the message as close to the original as possible. It’s normally pillocks who deliberately ruin it that creates the distortion.” – meatman

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago there were no printing presses and the majority of the world was completely illiterate. For fun they would tell stories around a fire and if the story was good it would be handed down the generations.

You’ve all played this game at one time. It is called Chinese whispers or telephone. This is where we have a group of people and one has a secret message. Each successive participant secretly whispers to the next a phrase or sentence whispered to them by the preceding participant. Take a passage from the bible and see how distorted the message is after passing thru just 20 people. Now do this through 10 generations for fathers and sons. At the end have a monk transcribe the story in a dark room then translate the text through no less then 3 languages, (Hebrew, Latin, Greek and English).  Pass that book down another 2000 years with revisions and translations and you will find why it is very difficult for a rational person to believe this is doctrine from the designer.

Archaeologists, scientists and religious studies have looked for the subject of this text and have been unable to discover much about the original authors. They have even less evidence about the main characters. So what does this make this book?

The answer, Fiction. That’s right  it’s all completely made up. Just like any story by the Brothers Grimm. Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel are just as real as the Epistle John, Judas, Je$u$ and g*d.

What’s that you say? You still think it must be true because the book calls itself true? Or does it? We’ve just interpreted it to be true for several reasons. First because our parents taught us it was true. The same way they told us of Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy.

Secondly, because it is an ancient text. Just because something is ancient doesn’t make it correct. Take witch burning, accupuncture and leeching as examples. Not to mention the inaccuracies of Chinese whispers.

Next, we tend to want to believe it for its moral value. Stories are good at teaching lessons of morality. I agree there are many parts of the text that can be use to teach morals. I also think there are many examples we should NOT use and we should show caution on our interpretation.

Lastly, we tend to want to believe the bible because we want answers. Answers to the deeper questions of life. There are many unknowns and because we are mortal we wish to know our lives have meaning. We want comfort in losing loved ones and lie to ourselves to make it better. Having a Utopia is a great way to recover from a loss.

Now before you call into question my morals and ethics let me assure you they are just fine. In fact I could point out that an argument of that would have no authority. Also note that if you believe the whispers then judgement is reserved for a higher power.

So go ahead. Next time you have a large group of people play Chinese whispers. Let it remind you to think of the possibilities for errors in these messages. Most of all let it open your mind to possibilities.