Category: Space

we can’t run to mars from our problems on earth

whbeebe

Kim Stanley Robinson, the science fiction author of the Mars trilogy “Red Mars,” “Green Mars,” and “Blue Mars,” was interviewed on 6 March of this year by Blog Picture Science. In that interview Robinson discusses what has transpired in robotic planetary exploration over the last 20+ years since the first novel came out in 1992, and how that has re-shaped his thinking about the key assumption in his novels, that assumption being that it would be fairly straightforward to terraform Mars.

Now, he believes it’s going to be a lot harder and take a lot longer to accomplish.

His reasons for this change in thinking are based on:

  1. “There’s much less nitrogen on Mars than there should be if there had been an ordinary distribution through the solar system in the original planetary accretion.This is still mysterious but it apparently exists and we really need nitrogen, so that’s one problem.”
  2. “Another problem is there could be indigenous bacterial life down in the basement regolith which is to say a kilometer underground or 100 meters underground and that’s going to be very hard to disprove. So when we go there we may be intruding on alien life.”
  3. “And lastly the surface is covered by perchlorates which are poisonous to humans in the parts per billion range and the Viking lander didn’t reveal that. It has since been revealed by our subsequent landers. Now those perchorates could be changed into something more benign to humans by introducing a surface bacteria of our own to eat them and process them because they’re basically salts. But that would take a long time. So these are new stoppers that I didn’t know about when I wrote my books.”

In case you’re curious where you’ve heard about perchlorates, they’re used in high-performance solid rocket motors as well as explosives. In 2013 the EPA started to regulate perchlorate in drinking water due to its adverse effects on the thyroid gland in pregnant women and young children here on Earth.

On Mars, perchlorate concentrations in the Martian soil are estimated at between 0.5 and 1%. That may seem small, but perchlorate adverse effects on humans can be caused by concentrations in the parts per billion range. With all the fine dust on the surface of Mars, there’s no way it wouldn’t get into a Martian habitat and slowly poison the inhabitants. Any permanent one-way colonization effort to Mars would be a trip of death, something that the Mars One effort may not have even considered. Or perhaps they did get the perchlorate memo; contracts to develop the 2018 robotic lander have run out and as of February 2015 were not renewed. This could be as simple as a plain old lack of money, but that lack could have been triggered by someone bright enough to really appreciate the issues Robinson has pointed out.

Further into the interview, Robinson states “[W]e have to make a reconciliation on this planet (Earth) there is no planet ‘B’… the terriforming of [Mars] is too long, it’s really thousands of years and we only have decades to get it together here… [Mars terraforming] can only follow on the first great project, which is sustainability here (on Earth).”

I think we’ve got our work cut out for us right here on this planet. But before you think I’m down on the whole idea of Mars, Know that I’m not. The following video, “Voyager,” came from Robinson’s website. It’s a bit about how we might colonize our own solar system, our own bit of space with all our planets. But we have to make our civilization sustainable on our original world, to preserve this unique planet called Earth. Only then will we have a chance to make it sustainable everywhere else.

lucy

whbeebe

I thought that by today I might have good news about Lucy the ASL Cat. She came home from the vet’s this past Monday and as usual refused to eat. So I stopped by a local Publix grocery on the way home from work and picked up a can of Goya brand mackerel. Once in a food dish she tore into it like she was famished (and point of fact she was). She ate a large helping at every meal until yesterday, when she started to slide back into lethargy and not eating.

So Judy took her back to the vet’s this afternoon. And while she was there Lucy had another throwing-up session, except this time it was clear with a little bile in it. All the fish she’d eaten was apparently farther down her GI tract.

I drove straight from the office after leaving work a bit early to the vet’s. I met my wife there and then with Lucy, and finally the vet. While my wife and I were alone in the visitation room waiting for the vet, Lucy was brought back in to us. At first she was quiet, but then she began to move around the room, checking things out. She seemed to rally quite a bit and was soon walking and jumped up on the bench, moving from one end of the room to the other, and even rolling over playfully on the floor. She was her regular kittenish self (she’s always been the most playful of the three cats).

While she was active I took a number of photos and posted them on my Flickr stream. I intended to post them here, but instead I picked these two photos of Lucy to show her at her best. They were taken by me as soon as I got home from our wedding anniversary cruise back in September 2014. I’ll always have all the photos of Lucy, and I’ll cherish them all. My only regret is that I never seemed to have taken enough of her. But that doesn’t mean I can’t remember all the other little Lucy incidents and stories.

You can see just how cute and playful she could be in the second photo. And for whatever reason, the light coming into the room that day seemed to fill the air around her with a glowing energy. Almost angelic.

Lucy was always claiming any box or bag on the floor as her own. She’d jump in and roll around to make some noise, then poke her head out to see if I was paying attention. Then she’d give me those big round cat eyes for a moment and then shoot out like she was jet propelled. None of the other cats would do that except Lucy. And every time she did it I’d laugh. I think that’s what she wanted to hear, my laughter.

I may very well be heading into the ultimate end state for Lucy, where I have to put her to sleep. I want to give her every chance to come out of this and live with us a few more years. She rallied well today and so I gave permission to the vet to have her scoped next Monday just to see what might be wrong and if it’s fixable. But I have to be prepared for the worst. Animals don’t live forever, any more than humans do.

I never thought I’d be this attached to a cat the way I’m attached to Lucy. I have no idea how old she really is. She became our third household cat in 2008 during a very hot August. Our next door neighbors had left for a vacation and asked if I’d feed and water two strays that had appeared on their doorstep. One of them was Lucy. So every morning and evening I’d go over with food and water for both. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky, and Lucy wasn’t dumb, so she started to follow me back to my house. I started to feed and water her at my front door. Then one day, not long after she started to follow me home, I opened the front door and stared down at Lucy. She stared back up, gave me a perfunctory meow, and walked in the front door to live with us.

And here, I believe, lies a small problem with how I relate to Lucy. In spite of her kittenish behaviors and her thin body when she first arrived, Lucy may be a lot older than I think. She was already fixed and had a flea collar on her. My theory about Lucy is that she was left behind with one of the many houses in my neighborhood that got hit with foreclosure. When the owners left one of the houses behind, they left Lucy as well. Lucy could very well be a senior cat; I just don’t know. Regardless she’s had seven wonderful years in this household, and I’ve been blessed with seven wonderful years of her presence.

Once in the front door I gave her another dish of water and some of the cat food we fed our other two cats. And that started a seven year love affair between a cat and a human. Lucy really did love me. She’d come up in my lap, no matter where I sat, and purr like a motorboat. I’d give her rubs and she’d purr even louder. After a time she’d leave, check out the house (we laughingly called her out guard cat) and come back for another rub session.

As our “relationship” progressed she’d meet me at the garage door when I’d come home. At night, when it was proper time for bed, she’d come get me, purring all the while, and herd me back to bed. Then she’d jump up on top of me, walk up my chest, then drop down sphinx-like to stare into my face. That was my cue to give her more head and ear rubs. Finally I’d gently move her off, turn off the bedside lamp, and slowly go to sleep. Lucy would curl up beside me and go to sleep herself. In the morning my personal purring alarm clock would wake me, and the day would start anew.

The house is empty right now and lonely without her, in spite of having my wife, the two Labs, and the other cats with me. Lucy was my cat and she loved me with a fierceness I’ve only seen in one other animal, my long-since deceased black Lab Katie. And I have to now admit, I love that little cat back just a fiercely.

I didn’t realize until I started to write this post just what period in my life Lucy was around for. 2008, the year Lucy arrived, was the year I changed jobs for the company that would eventually lay me off in 2013. It was the same year my wife had to have her artificial knee replaced with a second operation because they’d botched the first operation. 2011 was the year I blew out my left knee and the start of a year of constant and increasing pain. 2012 was the year I got my left knee partially replaced, and 2013 was the year I was laid off. And Lucy was there to witness it all, and a lot more. When I had my knee surgery Lucy was my constant companion while I was down and out on my back. Lucy was especially attentive as only a cat can be. When I started to travel for weeks at a time, loyal Lucy was always there to greet me to give me ankle rubs and purr a hearty welcome. Only Ruby the Lab was as attentive (and she still is).

I’m going to show this last photo, because it’s of Lucy in the vet’s office. She’d walked over to me and settled on my left leg, just like old times. I lost it badly at that point, and I’m still losing it when I see this photo. My wife took it for me.

And for those who think I live under a rock, I’m aware of Leonard Nimoy’s passing. A child of the 60’s, I was fortunate to see The Original Series when it was first broadcast. I was mesmerized by the Vulcan as well as the series. To drive home Vulcan superiority, here’s a photo of Spock with a cat. This is a scene from the last episode of season 2, “Assignment: Earth.” It was the last TOS series I remember before the horrible third season started with “Spock’s Brain.” After “Spock’s Brain” I never watched another episode of TOS until it hit re-runs. I’ll always have the first two seasons, especially episodes like this one. With a Cat.