Send a probe into the Sun? No.

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kokopelli
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07 Dec 2017, 7:47 pm

plainjain wrote:

Ha ha, I tend to agree with you, Michael829.

I do think that the exploration of space is important, as is all scientific inquiry - but people, even scientists, seem to want to believe that they don't have to think things through before they implement them, they don't have to worry about contamination, and if they mess up, or mess up the environment, then they want you to look the other way. NASA isn't immune to that!

2011:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45511362/ns/t ... inAnEqnGUk

2015:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... sity-rover

The mars rovers were sold to the public, in part, as a way to determine if there is, or ever was, life on Mars. But NASA failed to follow protocol for sending clean equipment, then sent the rover anyway because it would have been expensive and time consuming to clean the equipment, and now they expect the public to forget that contaminated equipment was sent.

This article, 2015:

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-why ... quid-water

says that the rover will stay 50 kilometers away from the water/ice area in question.

As if I've never heard of "wind". As if I can't imagine a microbe traveling 50 kilometers on the "wind".

I'm sure that they're sorry, but this is an error that can't be fixed. Now if we find life on mars, it will always be questionable whether it was there to begin with, or if it hitched a ride on a contaminated rover which NASA chose to send anyway, because of the expense of acknowledging their error, and addressing it before sending the rover.

It was their choice to ruin their own project. Therefore, I have trouble being impressed with their project.

Even if the solar probe you mention doesn't damage the sun - it could easily damage the advancement of scientific understanding if sloppy methods are acceptable for NASA.

As an aside . . . I can't believe how unconcerned most people are regarding pollution, and trash, in this day and age. Used to be that people argued that it was totally fine to dump tons of waste into the ocean, because the ocean was "so big" that it would never matter. We can see how that worked out. The sea life is rapidly dying due to our waste issues, the pollution washes up on our shores every second of every day, and we have no way to repair this overwhelming destruction.

It matters.

It dismays me that folks are now using the same, "it's too big to be affected by trash, and won't ever matter" argument regarding the sun.

When will it end? Our pollution reaches from the depths of the oceans (about 35,000 feet below sea level) to the edges of the exosphere (about 6200 miles up into the sky, if you only consider satellites, and well beyond if you consider all of the trash left behind in the wake of 'missions' to the moon and elsewhere).

Science is one of my favorite subjects, but I disagree that scientists should be allowed to poison the environment and not have to worry about cleaning up their messes. I don't think it's funny, at all.

Science is one of your favorite subjects but you worry about scientists littering the sun with space probes?

kokopelli
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07 Dec 2017, 7:51 pm

plainjain wrote:

Quote:

(If the invasive pollution will be absorbed without harm, that doesn't make the polluting act any less repugnant.)

Agreed.

I highly doubt that there's no harm done from ceaselessly poisoning the environment. The burden of proof for that lies upon the shoulders of those making that claim. I can't just believe that the only effect of a comet slamming into Jupiter was that it went behind some clouds, or that the only effect of sending a probe to Venus was that the probe melted. These are just things which people have imagined, aren't backed up by proof, and don't take into consideration effects which are not physical, or impossible to predict or confirm, either. Sounds reasonable, but doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

From https://www.dartmouth.edu/~toxmetal/tox ... story.html:

Quote:

The copper pollution of the Roman days still haunts us today. One former Roman copper mine and smelting site in Wadi Faynan, Jordan is still — two thousand years after it ceased operations — a toxic wasteland littered with slag from copper smelting. Researchers have discovered that vegetation and livestock in Wadi Faynan today have high copper levels in their tissue.

Melting/smelting metals can leave toxic pollution that lingers for thousands of years. That's fact.

Cause and effect, the butterfly effect, extraordinary claims, etcetera . . .

The state of the American educational system is really pathetic.

kokopelli
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07 Dec 2017, 7:53 pm

Enceladus
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07 Dec 2017, 11:16 pm

Michael829 wrote:

Quote:

I also suggest learning more about how science really works and why it is so important.

We can't all be a science-expert like you

As a typical Science-Worshipper, you feel a mission and a duty to defend science from the anti-science heathens, but supporting all science, every experiment, as long as it isn't prohibitively expensive or very likely to be dangerous.

...because anyone who questions the desirability of any science activity must not know "how science really works".

It's the scientific people like you versus the anti-science heathens, right?

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.

RetroGamer87
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08 Dec 2017, 6:40 am

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

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plainjain
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08 Dec 2017, 12:53 pm

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.

RetroGamer87
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08 Dec 2017, 1:04 pm

plainjain wrote:

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

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.

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plainjain
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08 Dec 2017, 1:09 pm

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

RetroGamer87
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08 Dec 2017, 1:16 pm

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.

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Michael829
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08 Dec 2017, 1:33 pm

RetroGamer87 wrote:

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

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08 Dec 2017, 2:15 pm

Enceladus wrote:

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?

Quote:

And not only that, we also need to be critical

Very good.

Quote:

, gather information

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.

Quote:

and find the facts and then check the sources to see it they are correct and reliable.

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

Quote:

And it's not about worshiping science

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.

Quote:

, science is the tool to understand the world around us, it's the best tool we've got for that job.

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

Quote:

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.

...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

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RetroGamer87
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08 Dec 2017, 2:37 pm

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.

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drwho222
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08 Dec 2017, 3:27 pm

Michael829 wrote:

NASA is scheduled, for some time in 2018, to launch a probe that will go through the Sun's corona, to gather information. (It's now known that the solar corona extends much farther out than was previously thought.)

Does anyone else agree that that sounds objectionable?

If NASA wants to deposit garbage on the moon and Mars, and other planets and moons, and in effectively-perpetual solar orbit, that isn't so bad. But must we intrusively experiment on the Sun too?

The Sun, with about 100 times the Earth's diameter, and a million times the Earth's volume, is the source of energy for life on the Earth. Is it that we really don't respect anything? Is there anything that we won't spit on?

If, after it is directed into a trajectory that goes through the solar corona, the probe isn't accelerated out of that orbit, then it will remain in that orbit that periodically goes through the solar corona. With each such passage, it will lose a little speed and energy, until it eventually falls into the Sun. (I don't know how long that will take.)

So then, not only are we intrusively experimenting on the Sun, but then we're depositing our garbage into it.

So, you go outside on a beautiful morning, and say, "Ah, sunshine, trees with green photosynthetic leaves, and a nice solar-heat-generated convective breeze. So let's intrusively experiment on the Sun and dump our garbage into it! ".

Michael829

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.

drwho222
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08 Dec 2017, 3:31 pm

RetroGamer87 wrote:

plainjain wrote:

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

More like a fart in a hurricane.

kokopelli
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08 Dec 2017, 3:57 pm

drwho222 wrote:

RetroGamer87 wrote:

plainjain wrote:

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

More like a fart in a hurricane.

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

RetroGamer87
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08 Dec 2017, 6:53 pm

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

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