Mars can wait; NASA should try landing on asteroids first - Ars Technica (but let's try Earth first)

[Paul D. Fernhout]

From:
"Mars can wait; NASA should try landing on asteroids first"
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/10/nasa-panel-argues-for-flexible-path-mission-to-asteroids.ars
"The final report on the future of NASA's human space flight committee has
been released, and it concludes that there's a complete mismatch between the
agency's current plans and its budget. To get things back on track, it
suggests revisions to the Ares launch program and a new set of missions to
the Lagrange points and asteroids."

Now, I'm all for the asteroids as a great destination. Still, for the
banking bailout (how many trillions now?) we could have built
self-replicating space habitats on the Moon, Mars, the Asteroids, and lots
of other places...

"Where there is no vision, the people perish"

Such a waste.

Instead, this is where the innovation from big bucks is happening:

"Coming to the Battlefield: Stone-Cold Robot Killers"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202191.html

"Armed robotic aircraft soar in the skies above Pakistan, hurling death down
on America's enemies in the war on terrorism. Soon -- years, not decades,
from now -- American armed robots will patrol on the ground as well,
fundamentally transforming the face of battle. Conventional war, even
genocide, may be abolished by a robotic American Peace.
The detachment with which the United States can inflict death upon our
enemies is surely one reason why U.S. military involvement around the world
has expanded over the past two decades. The excellence of American military
technology makes it possible for U.S. forces to inflict vast damage upon the
enemy while suffering comparatively modest harm in return. ...
The rapid emergence of the armed unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) that roam
over Pakistan is a sequel to Moore's Law. Onboard computers became far more
powerful, so automatic pilots became far more competent. Signal processors
became more sophisticated, facilitating collection and processing of more
interesting intelligence. Global Positioning System receivers shrank and
could be economically employed on small robotic aircraft. Precision-guided
munitions could deliver lethal firepower. And so forth. ...
The U.S. Navy has arguably moved farthest toward substituting treasure
for blood. A generation ago the Reagan administration brought World War
II-era battleships out of mothballs to provide gunfire support to onshore
operations. With a crew of more than 1,500, these ships were designed to be
manned by the low-paid draftees of the 1940s, not the more amply rewarded
volunteers of the 1980s. The Navy couldn't afford them, and the ships were
soon returned to mothballs. In their place, the Navy came up with the new
DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer, an automated warship with a crew of only 150. ..."

It is hard to see it at first, but the same technology that lets us build
automated warships means we can easily create so much abundance we don't
need them to fight over land, energy, or goods. :-) Those semi-automated
warships and killer robots are more than wasteful and dangerous to all of
humanity. :-( They are deeply *ironic*. :-)

So little time left to turn this around.
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005282.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005321.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005323.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005363.html
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/princeton-graduate-school-plans.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/sunrise-sustainable-technology-ventures.html

Fortunately, there is some grassroots "blessed unrest":
http://www.blessedunrest.com/

Even as the dystopian side of polite "Manna" robots is starting to look like
a good thing compared to a world of military robots:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Good thing Google never responded to my email of 1/3/2002 (almost eight
years ago, is it?) asking about a job related to information management, so
I've had time to think and post about these issues instead. :-)
"[p2p-research] Google chief: Vast changes to Web loom"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005331.html

As has been said:
"When the gods wants to laugh, they listen to our plans.
When the gods want to destroy us, they answer our prayers."

Or something like that. :-)

So, thanks for all the free time, Google. :-)

But, it looks like, between police robots, riots, military robots, Moore's
law, an outdated defense ideology, a brittle infrastructure, plus a space
program that is "lost in space", well, maybe we do need some prayers
answered, after all. :-) But maybe not by the gods. :-)

All it takes is organizing the world's manufacturing knowledge:
http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
http://www.oscomak.net/
involving thousands and eventually millions of people across the globe:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/b918d271f9bb701d
and then building starter seed factories:
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
and deploying them to places with usable materials, and we can have
sustainable communities anywhere we want in the solar system (even on Earth. :-)

It might even be profitable... :-)

Until monetary profits cease to matter. :-)

"Money is a sign of poverty (Iain Banks)"

We can really make it happen, even without Google. :-)
http://www.openvirgle.net/
http://www.openmanufacturing.net/
http://www.wikipedia.org/

But Google could make it more likely we succeed before time runs out on the
exponential growth of killer robots and some other noxious tools of
amplified intelligence (perhaps two decades left, tops until it is "utopia
or oblivion"?)

We need both a global mindshift and infrastructures that reflects it:
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
http://www.thevenusproject.com/

Then, if we can build post-scarcity societies, powered by the ultimate
resource, imagination, then everyone who wants to travel to Mars will be
able to make the trip, whether just to visit for a day, or whether to settle
down and raise a family over a lifetime.

Just like James P. Hogan suggests: :-)
"Voyage from Yesteryear"
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

Anyway, you have my resume already, Google. Not much has changed except for
a kid and some essays and a bit of free software here and there. :-) OK,
well there was that other stuff, sure. :-) But it was well intended. :-)

But, with or without Google, we'll succeed. Just a question if Google
specifically makes a lot of money along the way to open manufacturing and
sustainable societies full of abundance for all. :-)

Well, back to other stuff like learning Clojure so I can better represent
knowledge about and build simulations of sustainable societies. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/