It may surprise my reader, I was genuinely excited to hear that the Phoenix landed safely on Mars. While I have reservations about space exploration, it does excite me. At age six I saw Neil Armstrong take that first step on the moon. Even though here in Britain it was three in the morning, I was awe struck by the achievement. Just as I am by NASA getting the phoenix probe safely on the Martian surface. Although it would have been nice if the Martians had been there to greet us.
And the mission is there to see if the chemicals are there below the surface of Mars that will prove if life once existed on the red planet. Personally I think they will find them. Had Beagle two not crashed on Mars, the British could have been the first to find that proof. But its our own fault for sending a dog to do a robots job.
While I do think that life did exist there, I suspect that when the chemicals that make up life are found it will reignite the theory that life on earth was seeded from space via meteors from Mars Something I don't believe as I think it started here independently.
While we are on the subject of space, I was highly amused to here that the toilet on the international space station has broken down. Fortunately there is a shuttle ready to take the part up to fix the plumbing; but they just have to wait while they have a whip round at NASA for the call out charge for the plumber.
As my regular reader will know, I do have reservations about the current phase of space exploration and the return to the moon. The major reason why America, China, Japan, India and us in Europe are planing to go back to the moon is in search of exotic elements. On the moon there is an abundance of the element Helium 3, a heavier form of helium with an extra electron that in theory could be used to fuel a fusion reactor. The theory is that this element could provide limitless energy. However I have grave reservations simply because it is all theoretical as we don't have enough of the element on earth to even test a fusion reactor beyond a few thousandths of a second. Even if everything does work we are looking at forty or fifty years before this could start providing energy. Also it is perfectly possible that the theoretical physics is wrong and it will not be the new oil.
Personally I think that much more energy should be exerted in developing renewable energy now, and once we have sorted out that part of our planets problems then we can look at extending our reach into the solar system.
I realise that I could be wrong and this could be the unexpected technological fix that digs us out of the energy crisis we are in. But so far no new energy source has ever lived up to the promises made. Here in Britain when Nuclear power was first used to generate electricity, we were promised that it would generate so much that it would be;
“To cheap to meter”
However, the head of the UK nuclear decommissioning authority has said that; it will cost substantially more than the seventy eight billion pounds ($160 Billion) to deal with the waste already created by Nuclear power already.
I just hope that we do have a plan B hidden away somewhere.
Image Copyright NASA
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