Imagine a dandelion seed, hanging in the air and floating across your vision, is like a ship made to transport a being of origin.
Is there life out there? What does it look like? What is life?
We look for ourselves in space because we can't look for what we can't imagine.
The anthropological question is why are we making these leaps about possible extraterrestrial visitors? Do we want them to: save us with their experience, save us from ourselves, offer a higher power (the human need to seek a technological god?), or will their destruction erase human agency and fault? Why do we want to be visited?
Think about how the Concept of the Uncanny - seeing something like us but just off - relates to the iconic alien image. When we see our self but cannot know if it is an alien or not, as in the classic movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
This science panel of 4 women scientists discusses what-ifs and imagined situations and possible ethic-challenging scenarios regarding nuclear power, extraterrestrial searches, astronomical origin stories, and travel to Mars. As such, fiction they say can realistically present these science questions to the public through excellent novels such as The Sparrow, Arrival, and Contact. For example, Laura Krantz's podcast Wild Thing brings narrative into the communication of science through long-form stories.
An aside: I notice in their conversations that, like myself, these women will test the public acceptance of their revolutionary concepts against the hypothetical "my dad" reasoner.
I learn that without the Moon's historical influence on the Earth's development (gravity, tides, tectonic plates, light and darkness), the Earth would experience differently things such as rock strain, solar tides, destabalized tilt of access, and even subliming icecaps. In fact, history on Earth for humans can be divided into before and after the capture of the Apollo 8 Earthrise image. A gibbous shape, lumpy not round, of the earth. One of the big questions for space travelers is how will humans react psychologically once they cannot see Earth anymore?
- Laura Krantz is a journalist, editor and producer, in both radio and print, and co-founder of Foxtopus Ink. Her podcast, Wild Thing has received critical acclaim from Scientific American, Rolling Stone, and The Atlantic, which named it one of the best 50 podcasts in 2018 and 2020.
- As a journalist, Rebecca Boyle has reported from particle accelerators, genetic sequencing labs, bat caves, the middle of a lake, the tops of mountains, and the retractable domes of some of Earth’s largest telescopes. Her first book, OUR MOON: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (Random House, 2024) is a new history of humanity’s relationship with the Moon, which Rebecca has not yet visited on assignment.
- As a Colorado-based science journalist, Sarah Scoles serves as a contributing editor at Scientific American and holds the position of senior contributor at Undark.
- Heather Swenson is an Aerospace Engineer with a multidisciplinary background in satellite operations, mission design, human factors, and trajectory analysis. Projects include reusable space transportation systems, lunar and interplanetary cubesat missions and human space flight systems including the Orion Program and lunar Human Landing System
These dynamic presenters are clear about their ultimate goal: to get us back to here, all one, all together, with all that we need, on Earth. This goal is pushed into the public by women scientists and women writers, and is a view not generally accepted by all scientists. Even as we can look to space for knowledge and resources and the unknown, we must realize that we are built to live here, we have everything we need to live here, and we need to preserve Earth.
Last question: what is the one subject that you would like to see more focused study of right now?
- space telescopes
- animal communication (see Lawrence Doyle in The Atlantic)
- matter and atoms can't yet be replicated with our equations!
- dark matter and energy - WTF?
1 comment:
Very interesting, and so true. I have never understood the concept of trying to live on another planet. When ours is so special and needs our attention.
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