Send a probe into the Sun? No.

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I never said I was an expert. I'm a layman and my guess you are one too. And as laymen we need to put our trust in the people that actual know this stuff, like the scientists and other rational authorities. And not only that, we also need to be critical, gather information and find the facts and then check the sources to see it they are correct and reliable. It's not an easy process... I like to call myself a sceptic, and I've come to rely upon some tools for my fact checking, I link some of them below. Hopefully they'll explain what I'm trying to communicate here a bit better.

And it's not about worshipping science, science is the tool to understand the world around us, it's the best tool we've got for that job.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
http://www.syfy.com/tags/bad-astronomy

But I think what you're trying to describe here is also about ethics and that is a legitimate concern of course. But that is more of an philosophical and political issue. Science is just the tool to get the knowledge.

If NASA keeps throwing their garbage into the sun, it will anger Huitzilopochtli!!

Somebody in this thread seems to be unable to defend their position. Ad hominem attacks are unpersuasive, to say the least. Making them repeatedly against other members and entire institutional systems only makes me lose respect for any position you might take.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/too ... em-Abusive

When metals are melted/smelted/vaporized, the materials disperse into the atmosphere, and drift all around a globe/sphere on which the melting/smelting/vaporizing has taken place. This means the whole globe/sphere is poisoned, instead of the toxic waste staying in one location.

This is the reason why we can trace the history of Greek and Roman smelting in our ice cores taken from Greenland. There were no Roman and Greek smelting operations in Greenland. The toxic pollution drifted there on the breeze.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/ ... revolution

If you think that something no longer exists, or isn't harmful, or doesn't matter because it melted or vaporized, that's a position that can be easily refuted. We know what happens when metals are melted/smelted/vaporized on a globe with "wind".

To refer to this kind of activity as "littering", or "philosophical" shows a profound misunderstanding of the proven persistent and pervasive physical damage that it causes; and dismisses the fact that there is no known way to repair that damage, once it's done.

This literally means that the probe which "melted" on Venus is now everywhere on Venus. It isn't "gone".

I challenge, and welcome, anyone visiting/participating in this thread to make a comprehensive presentation showing the rest of us how to remediate waste once it's dispersed in an atmosphere, and settled all over a globe. Show how to clean up waste once it's dissolved and dispersed in an ocean. Show how to clean up the soil, once waste is dumped in a superfund site. Show how to clean up the site of a nuclear accident. I think anyone who even gives this challenge a cursory try will soon find out that there's no easy solution. That's because it's not an easy problem. It's not silly. It's not a joke.

If it was, Earth would be a paradise, instead of being smudged with mountainous dumps, toxic superfund sites, lingering nuclear accident sites, fresh waters and sea waters and beaches polluted with oil slicks - dissolved or dissolving toxic plastics - mine tailing leaks - excessive fertilizers and farm chemicals and more which lead to enormous oceanic "dead zones", acid rains and ocean acidification, an ozone layer which is endangered from pollution, and so forth.

We have one Mars. We have one Venus. We have one Sun. They happen to be very old, and very relevant for generations past, present and future. Suggesting that we treat them with respect, and acknowledging that our scientific processes for studying them is polluting them, isn't the same as claiming that the sky is falling. The sky isn't falling. That's a faulty comparison.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/too ... Comparison

We are polluting the environment around us at an alarming rate, and we have no method to clean up that pollution. That's fact. It's not fact that the sky is falling, and no one in this thread claimed that it was.

If visitors to this thread admit they don't have the answer for how to clean up the garbage, well then at least I have a song for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZesRAo5PBg

And, actually, RetroGamer87, my favorite is Tlazolteotl: http://www.matrifocus.com/BEL09/key.htm

ha ha

Last edited by plainjain on 08 Dec 2017, 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Toxic pollution? That could harm the lifeforms that live in the sun. If any exist, that is!

But these toxic metals could permanently damage the sun. A ball of iron could halt the sun's fusion reaction, if that ball of iron was many times larger than Earth.

If you dumped every planet, moon and asteroid in the solar system into the sun it would go on burning.

To claim that this probe will cause environmental damage to the sun is like saying a single candle will cause global warming.

permanently pollute is not always the same as permanently damage, and my post is in reference to more than the sun.

So what's so bad about it if there's no damage? No one here is claiming that pollution of the Earth isn't a problem because that causes serious damage.

I said that there probably won't be damage. I said that every time you get in your car and go onto the road, you take a greater risk than the Parker probe would cause for you.

As for how it's bad even without damage, i doubt that it could be explained to you.

Because, there's nothing that some people won't spit on.

Michael Ossipoff

The degree to which you're doing that amounts to worship.

I don't doubt that the experts are right when they say that the Parker probe probably won't cause disaster. It probably won't.

But you believe your experts when they say that the probe is desirable.

As I said before, is there anything we won' spit on?



Very good.



Incorrect. Gathering information isn't, or shouldn't be, a holy grail, a purpose in itself, that over-rides principle and aesthetics.

Study the sun with spectrometers, but don't toss things into it.

And I'll say this again:

The Sun doesn't belong to anyone. No one has a right to do intrusive experiment on something major that doesn't belong to them, without getting some consensus permission.




If you're referring to the risk of the probe, I've already agreed that it probably won't cause disaster.



No, that's exactly what it's about.

The great holy scientific quest for knowledge. We have monkey-curiosity about how the Sun works, but no respect for it, as the source of energy for life, and an essential part of your environment whenever you go out the door of your house on a sunny day.




And you put it above all else. That's worship.



...and you put that above principle, aesthetics, and respect for the energy-source that makes life possible, and makes possible the environment that you find whenever you go outdoors.

As i said, there's nothing that some people won't spit on.

Michael Ossipoff

It would be wrong to spit on something sacred but the sun isn't sacred.

Besides, the fact that NASA is doing this to study the sun indicates that they interest in the sun. It's not their intention to desecrate it.

If you want you can write a letter to NASA and they'll give it as much attention as it deserves.

You do know that the surface temp of the sun is 5000 degrees yes? Any probe would be vaporized instantly there and pose no threat to the sun whatsoever. The mass of the materials of the probe is nothing to that of the sun.

More like a fart in a hurricane.

Maybe more like a fart in Jupiter's great red spot.

If you think launching a probe into the sun is bad, take a look at what NASA launched into the moon!

https://youtu.be/kDyEWbQK8xc

Sending a probe to the sun is "spitting" on the sun?

Doesn't physically damage the sun, but it would...hurt the Sun's feelings???

Is THAT what you're worried about?

WTF?

And you talk about how they discovered evidence of Greco Roman smelting in ice cores taken in Greenland.

Well... you wouldn't have known that if they hadn't taken ice cores in Greenland in the first place. And isn't drilling into the ice of Greenland to get core samples itself a form of being "invasive"?

Isnt sending one probe to the sun more equivalent to taking ice cores than it is to creating a metal smelting industry?

And countless asteroids made of similar metallic material to that probe rain down on the sun every hour any way. So how is a manmade probe gonna make a difference?

RetroGamer87 asked:

I didn't say there was no damage. There might not be "serious" damage - uh, in the immediate future, or "permanent" damage, but that's not the same as "no" damage.

Physical actions result in physical reactions.

One physical reaction of vaporizing a probe from Earth in the sun's corona might be that the lingering vaporized materials contaminate future scientific studies and findings about the sun, and it's corona. You wouldn't smear mold and rotting meat all over your fancy "I'd like to learn how to cure cancer" research lab, and then expect that the results that the lab produced accurate and reliable results in the future. If the Sun is your lab, then you shouldn't intentionally sully it during the course of your research. NASA could build probes which could return to Earth, and be recycled without poisoning the planet, or the Sun. They could do that, because they are very smart people. They don't do that, because they externalize costs.

Cost is another way of describing reactions, only those are not limited to physical reactions.

NASA could accept the cost, in time and resources including but not limited to money, of actually following their own protocol regarding cleanliness, and making sure there are no microbes hitching a ride on their Mars probe, before sending their probe to the ONE Mars that exists, for example. Because if they don't, there's this other cost where some of us become unimpressed with their project.

Or maybe we all could realize, at long last, that when we pollute our entire planet, and we desperately start looking for another planet to inhabit because there seems to be no way to actually clean up the pollution we've begun to wallow in, and our approach for that endeavor includes carrying on with our same old habits of polluting everything we come into contact with, just beyond the exosphere this time, we are sending a message to youth that this is "normal" and "acceptable", and then they grow up thoroughly convinced that there are no physical reactions to physical actions, either. Then, once they grow up, what you get are a bunch of adults with bizarre, unsubstantiated thinking patterns and "belief" systems, who are unable to comprehend that pollution is an actual problem, even as they wallow in it.

Here is a quote you may have heard before, and it's followed by a little note about it, which I copied from the internet:

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lau Tzu

"Although this is the popular form of this quotation, a more correct translation from the original Chinese would be "The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet." Rather than emphasizing the first step, Lau Tzu regarded action as something that arises naturally from stillness. Another potential phrasing would be "Even the longest journey must begin where you stand." [note by Michael Moncur, September 02, 2004]"

From: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/24004.html

This quote is relevant in this discussion because it's important to understand that this adage holds true also for pollution.

If you think it's okay and normal to throw garbage onto the soil, then it seems okay to throw garbage into the water. If you accept that it's normal to throw garbage into the water, then it's fine to throw it into the atmosphere, and exosphere. If you can throw garbage into the exosphere, it must be fine to start piling it onto the moon. If it's okay to dump garbage on the moon, then it must be normal to dump it on Venus, and Mars. If Venus and Mars are garbage dumps, then Saturn and the Sun can be a dump, too.

If you can understand that pollution of the Earth is a problem, as you say RetroGamer87, then what would make you think that it has no effect if you pollute other bodies in the cosmos? Have you externalized the cost? Do you believe that you will never have to worry about it in your lifetime, and somebody's children's children will figure out how to clean it up?

That's not science. That's the adoption of a flawed economic strategy, in lieu of a scientific solution. It's a non answer. If pollution is a problem here, it's a problem elsewhere.

naturalplastic asked:



First, I'm not sure where you get the impression that I'm against any type of "invasive" scientific inquiry, naturalplastic. Maybe you've confused me with someone else, it's a long thread.

I'm concerned when science, or any industry or activity, results in pollution of the environment. I'm worried that there seems to be little interest, or progress, in finding ways towards remediation of pollutants. And I'm dismayed as during my lifetime I've seen the pollution begin to spread far beyond our skies. I'm distressed that there are a plethora of grown adults who arbitrarily dismiss pollution, and become notably upset when you happen to notice that there is pollution, and dare mention it in public, yet those adults can't provide a single reasonable reason as to why they would do so.

It's like you attacked the character of their diety, or something.

I mean, don't take it personally, people. It's just garbage.

If you want to know the whole truth about how I feel about drilling ice cores to study pollution, it's as follows. I am very happy that someone figured out that you can read the history of some pollution by drilling out ice cores, and studying their contents. I think that this data is valuable. However, every time I watch a documentary about it, I cringe to see the same scientists who raise concerns about the environmental damage this pollution causes riding across the ice sheets in gas powered vehicles, wearing synthetic clothing, etcetera.

I am entirely aware that we are living in a time where it is difficult to avoid polluting with every move you make. You can't go to the grocery store, or do a load of laundry without likely causing some harm to the environment. Even the receipts at the checkout are poison. So I tend to understand that scientists can't avoid participating in polluting activities, either.

I don't believe science shouldn't be done at all. I think science should continue to be done.

However, I don't think that it's too much to ask that scientists make a concerted effort not to poison everything they study, especially when it comes to things like cosmic bodies which haven't yet been in contact with human activity. If that means that they're not ready to do a study that they really, really want to do, then they can admit that, and work towards finding a way to conduct the study which won't poison the lab (in this case we're mainly discussing bodies other than Earth, which is already poisoned to an alarming degree. But that doesn't mean that I think it's okay to poison Earth in the name of science or other endeavors.) If not poisoning or polluting the thing you want to study m
means finding a way to return your probes and vehicles to earth, then in my opinion, they should do that.

It may surprise you to learn that scientists are starting to try and find ways to reduce the amount of pollution their experiments create, and I'm not alone in having these concerns.

For example, Rocket fuel, which has been necessary to travel to space and study "things" in space, is toxic, and it tends to get everywhere, even if you don't mean it. Even if the science you're using it for is really, really cool, and interesting. People have known this since the seventies. Here is an article about rocket fuel, and how it gets everywhere:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7025323/ns/he ... iwLv0qnGUk

Funnily enough, this same "rocket fuel" poisonous chemical turns out to be pretty common in the soil on Mars - the planet we scientifically and strategically chose to be our "golden child" for future human habitation in order to frantically escape our current poisoned planet (Earth) - to the degree that we humans may not be able to reside there, at all. (Gasp!):

http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... nauts.html

Science tends to be a one step forward, two steps back endeavor. But before anyone gets all upset that rocket fuel is toxic, and starts proclaiming that we have to use toxic fuel in order to achieve the all important "scientific conclusions", you might like to know that even NASA is aware that rocket fuel is toxic, and they have looked/are looking for alternative fuels. They think they might be able to do the same science in a less toxic way:

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/system ... able2.html

I'm not endorsing that fuel, either. I know next to zilch about it. I only provide the link for those visitors to this thread who believe that "scientists" and "NASA" are unconcerned with pollution, should be unconcerned with pollution because the sole thing of import in science is the "conclusion", and think that pollution is a joke, or doesn't exist, for some strange reason. I know of very few scientists who think that pollution is a joke, or "believe" it doesn't exist. Scientists are making the move towards creating less pollution, and hopefully someday they will be able to create no pollution. Hopefully the rest of us will find ways to follow suit.

There is actual proof that pollution exists.

There is actual proof that physical actions result in physical reactions.

Sometimes, physical actions can result in non-physical reactions, too.

Like, if you decide that it's acceptable to throw garbage everywhere, and pretend that it doesn't exist - even though when you look in the tree tops you can find that plastic bag you misplaced from the grocery store two years ago, and if you look along the edges of the street, you can find that old tire you misplaced ten or fifty years back, and if you open your eyes and look in the river sediment you can find the PCB's that Monsanto and GE misplaced eighty years ago - your children may sadly grow up with the erroneous impression that this pollution has no effect, that there is no reason to stop throwing garbage everywhere, and that it's funny for people to understand that it does have an effect, and understand that there is good reason to stop throwing garbage everywhere.

That's not a physical reaction, maybe. It's just you and your children's thoughts, leading to you pretending that something which is real is not real. It is, however, a related reaction which will likely influence you, and your children's future behavior, and there will be consequences for that. The trash will continue to spread from the soil, to the water, to the atmosphere, to the exosphere, to the moon, to Venus and Mars and Saturn, to the Sun, to infinity and beyond.

I suppose that we could continue our toxic explorations into space, so that we can try to run away from the filth that we leave everywhere. We could do that because we subscribe to a flawed economic strategy that says some babies will clean up our waste when they grow up, if the rocket fuel in their mother's milk doesn't kill them first.

If we must only make decisions based upon economic tenets, rather then aiming for a comprehensive approach to the consideration of problems we face, we could also allow ourselves to think on the questionable economic strategy that claims, "job creation is good for the economy". What would happen if we applied that strategy to cleaning up the garbage?

Maybe business/science could be required to close the cycle. Maybe they could be required to clean up the pollution which they create, if they're going to be allowed to conduct their business which creates pollution? That would create a LOT of jobs! There is so much business going on, there's so much pollution to be cleaned up . . . my GOODNESS! We could create a lot of wealth if we created jobs like that! If we're only creating half the jobs right now, production, shipping and sales . . . we could probably double the amount of jobs available if we also required businesses and other endeavors to clean up their own messes, instead of externalizing that to some babies who haven't agreed to that task. Think what that would do for the "economy"!

Now think what it might do for the health, happiness, and well being of you, your loved ones, and future generations. Because this isn't solely about economics, any more than sending a probe into the Sun is solely about "permanent damage".

There's another old adage out there that goes something like:

"Don't poop where you eat."

I cleaned it up a little.

My question is, "Why would anyone in their right mind argue that you should?" Because that seems to be the position of some people when you mention that pollution is bad, and should be subject to remediation, and they can't explain reasonably why they support that position.

Saying that something is "too big" to be polluted is not a reasonable, or thoroughly thought out position. It's been used before, and refuted.

Saying that something is "too big" to be treated with disrespect is also not a reasonable, or thoroughly thought out position, either. Anything can be disrespected.

Saying that pollution is a problem on Earth, but not anywhere else isn't a reasonable, or thoroughly thought out position. It negates itself.

Saying that the Sun is not sacred isn't a reasonable, or thoroughly thought out position. The Sun, and many astral bodies including Earth have been sacred for humans for many millennia, and they will continue to be.

Name calling of people who believe there's is such a thing as pollution isn't a reasonable, or thoroughly thought out position. It's logically fallacious, and abusive. It's conceding the debate.

Making a false comparison is not a reasonable, or thoroughly thought out position. It's a logical fallacy, and a telling a lie in order to mislead the viewing audience. It's also conceding the debate.

I'm not falling for it. Especially since no one seems to be able to actually defend the position that pollution is funny and has no effect at all in the universe. All they seem to be able to do is repeat these strange positions, without providing factual, reasonable thoroughly thought out evidence as to why people who believe in pollution and that it causes damage, should change our position, endlessly. Like a mantra.

Now I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion. Your beliefs. But at least have the insight to realize that they're opinions and beliefs, and not scientific facts, or even reasonable, well thought out arguments.