Without it, life on Earth probably never would have occurred. It has defended life on Earth from many meteor and asteroid strikes. It energizes life on Earth today. It may even save us from ourselves with its gift of massive amounts of free energy, ours for the taking. "It" is our moon.
This BBC documentary, Do We Really Need the Moon, is brilliant, almost mesmerizing. It's almost an hour in length but it only takes a few minutes' watching before you'll be hooked.
Always been fascinated by our Moon, it's colours, brilliance, markings on the surface. I can look at it for hours through my telescopes - craters, mountains, rays, rilles, differences in albedo, Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI was a child of the Apollo era. Played hooky to watch the Gemini launches. Built more Saturn V and Apollo CSM/LM spacecraft models than any other subject and more than I can ever remember. Devoured every book and Popular Science/Popular Mechanics/Mechanix Illustrated/LIFE magazine article I could get my hands on. Watched every launch and lunar EVA. It STILL amazes me.
If someone offered me a ride, gratis, on Richard Branson's sub-orbital pop, I'd probably go for it, but to be honest, I'm kinda "meh" about it. I WANT TO GO TO THE MOON!
We need to go back there. We need to go back to learn and explore and see. We need to go back and build bases and cities and far-side observatories and launch sites to the other planets and beyond...
It's important.
N.
"We need to go back there. We need to go back to learn and explore and see. We need to go back and build bases and cities and far-side observatories and launch sites to the other planets and beyond..."
ReplyDelete10-4. Like RAH wrote, the Moon is a harsh mistress, but necessary for our future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_is_a_Harsh_Mistress
We have lovely expanses of beach where I live and, especially after tourist season, they're great for a long, quiet stroll.
ReplyDeleteAs you walk along what Joe Oliver likes to call "tidewater" there's an amazing amount of life. Tide change is nature's feeding call, a feast delivered up twice daily.
When you get to remote places you'll see a variety of seabirds, wolves and bears coming out to help themselves.
Watching these tides you realize how much absolutely free energy is there waiting for us, ours for the taking. The northeastern half of Vancouver Island also forms a natural, high-powered Venturi tube. All this untapped, clean energy - from the moon or the Earth's rotation - is there waiting for us.
We've got it all - hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, ocean current, wave energy and in incredible abundance. That's what you get from being on the west coast facing the world's broadest ocean.
What madness possesses us that we see our country's future in peddling coal and bitumen?
The whole solar system amazes me and is a mystery for me. Was all this extraordinary arrangement, which made life possible on earth, a result of an accident?
ReplyDeleteA Russian scientist said that aliens consider sun a dim star amongst many many more bright stars which are a lot bigger than sun.
And scientists know that there are many more earth-like planets only a lot bigger than earth. Is there life on them? Are there aliens? How many more planets are in the known universe and how many have life on them. There is a lot to be explored.
Mound, the Bay of Fundy, in Maritimes, has the highest tide in the world. It is a gold mine for energy but nothing has been done so far.
ReplyDeleteTidal basin hydro-electric projects for the Bay of Fundy were subjects of a lot of discussion during the 1960s. Sometime in the mid-1980s, when I brought the subject up for discussion while attending an energy management diploma programme, the professor treated it as of no account (and even laughable) and advised the students to disregard it as pie-in-the-sky daydreaming.
ReplyDeleteJohn B, there was some discussion more recently about Bay of Fundy and energy production. But no action has been taken. I believe there is a great potential there.
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