Big Sky Debate Page

THE CHANCE OF AN UNIMAGINABLY EXPENSIVE CRASH IS VERY HIGH-Grossman ‘11

Download 1.49 Mb.

Page	17/30
Date	14.07.2017
Size	1.49 Mb.
	#23287

1 ... 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ... 30

THE CHANCE OF AN UNIMAGINABLY EXPENSIVE CRASH IS VERY HIGH-Grossman ‘11

[Karl; professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York; Despite Solar Options, NASA-Nuclear Alliance Continues Plutonium-Powered Missions; Truthout; 10 Aug 2011; http://www.truth-out.org/despite-solar-options-nasa-nuclear-alliance-continues-plutonium-powered-missions/1312560708; retrieved 11 Aug 2011]

But if there is an accident before the rover is well on its way to Mars and plutonium is released on Earth, its cost stands to be yet more gargantuan.

NASA's final environmental impact statement for what it calls its Mars Science Laboratory mission says that if plutonium is released on Earth, the cost could be as high as $1.5 billion to decontaminate each square mile of "mixed-use urban areas" impacted.

What's the probability of an accident releasing plutonium? The NASA document says, "the probability of an accident with a release of plutonium" is 1 in 220 "overall."
A LARGE SWATCH OF THE EARTH’S SURFACE COULD BE CONTAIN MATED BY PLUTONIUM-Grossman ‘11

NASA's final environmental impact statement admits that a large swath of Earth could be impacted by plutonium in an accident involving it. The document's section on "Impacts of Radiological Releases" says "the affected environment" could include "the regional area near the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the global area."

"Launch area accidents would initially release material into the regional area, defined ... to be within ... 62 miles of the launch pad," says the document. This is an area from Cape Canaveral west to Orlando.

But, "since some of the accidents result in the release of very fine particles less than a micron in diameter, a portion of such releases could be transported beyond ... 62 miles," it goes on. These particles could become "well-mixed in the troposphere" - the atmosphere five to nine miles high - "and have been assumed to potentially affect persons living within a latitude band from approximately 23-degrees north to 30-degrees north." That's a swath through the Caribbean, across North Africa and the Mideast, then India and China, Hawaii and other Pacific islands, and Mexico and southern Texas.

PLUTONIUM DISTRIBUTION COULD GIVE MILLIONS LUNG CANCER-Grossman ‘11

Dr. Helen Caldicott, president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, has long emphasized that a pound of plutonium, if uniformly distributed, could hypothetically give a fatal dose of lung cancer to every person on Earth. A pound, even 10.6 pounds, could never be that uniformly distributed, of course. But an accident in which plutonium is released by a space device as tiny particles falling to Earth maximizes its lethality. A millionth of a gram of plutonium can be a fatal dose. The pathway of greatest concern is the breathing in of plutonium particles.

As the NASA environmental impact statement puts it, "Particles smaller than about 5 microns would be transported to and remain in the trachea, bronchi, or deep lung regions." The plutonium particles "would continuously irradiate lung tissue."

"A small fraction would be transported over time directly to the blood or to lymph nodes and then to the blood," it continues. Once plutonium "has entered the blood via ingestion or inhalation, it would circulate and be deposited primarily in the liver and skeletal system." Also, says the document, some of the plutonium would migrate to the testes or ovaries.
PROPOSED PLUTONIUM IS FAR MORE RADIOACTIVE THAN NAGASAKI BOMB-Grossman ‘11

As Dr. Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, has explained, Plutonium-238, "is about 270 times more radioactive than Plutonium-239 per unit of weight." Thus, in radioactivity, the 10.6 pounds of Plutonium-238 that is to be used on the Mars Science Laboratory mission would be the equivalent of 2,862 pounds of Plutonium-239. The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was fueled with 15 pounds of Plutonium-239.
NASA HAS A LONG HISTORY OF LAUNCH ACCIDENTS, INCLUDING NUCLEAR MISHAPS-Grossman ‘11

Accidents have happened in the US space nuclear program. Of the 26 space missions that have used plutonium that are listed in the NASA environmental impact statement for the Mars Science Laboratory mission, three underwent accidents, admits the document.

The worst occurred in 1964 and involved, it notes, the SNAP-9A plutonium system aboard a satellite that failed to achieve orbit and dropped to Earth, disintegrating as it fell. The 2.1 pounds of plutonium fuel dispersed widely over the Earth, and Dr. John Gofman, professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, has long linked this accident to an increase in global lung cancer. With the SNAP-9A accident, NASA switched to solar energy on satellites. Now all satellites and the International Space Station are solar-powered.

There was a near-miss involving a nuclear disaster and a space shuttle. The ill-fated Challenger's next mission in 1986 was to loft a plutonium-powered space probe.

WE CANNOT AFFORD THE RISK, WHICH ENDANGERS THE LIFE OF ALL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET-Grossman ‘11

Involved in challenging the mission is the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Maine-based organization, says that, "NASA sadly appears committed to maintaining their dangerous alliance with the nuclear industry. Both entities view space as a new market for the deadly plutonium fuel."

Says Gagnon: "The taxpayers are being asked once again to pay for nuclear missions that could endanger the life of all the people on the planet.... Have we not learned anything from Chernobyl and Fukushima? We don't need to be launching nukes into space. It's not a gamble we can afford to take."

With the return of Atlantis and the end of the shuttle program, there are concerns about this being the "end" of the US space program.

If NASA continues to insist on mixing atomic energy and space, an accident - a nuclear disaster overhead - that indeed could end the space program.

THE AVERAGE FAILURE RATE OF LAUNCHES MAKES RISK OF NUCLEAR CONTAMINATION HIGH-McAvoy ‘04

[Joseph; Nuclear Space and the Earth Environment: The Benefits, Dangers, and Legality of Nuclear Power and Propulsion in Outer Space; William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review; 2004; http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=wmelpr&sei-redir=1#search=%22nuclear%20propulsion%20space%20exploration%20dangerous%22; retrieved 11 Aug 2004]

In its risk assessment for the Cassini mission, NASA estimated that the likelihood of cancer fatalities due to the launch were one in one hundred thousand. 182 It also estimated that the likelihood of cancer fatalities due to an accidental re-entry was one in one million. 8 3 However, these statistics have been disputed by critics. "'I find that NASA bureaucrats in some sense are living in Fantasyland', says Michio Kaku, a physics professor at City University of New York. 'Pure guesswork has replaced rigorous physics. Many of these numbers are simply made up." 8 4 Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space noted that "[w]hen you look at the average failure rate for rockets, eventually, you are going to have a problem." 8 5 Others have used the space shuttle Columbia tragedy in Texas to illustrate the strong possibility of an accident. 8 6 "I think the [Columbia] tragedy definitely raises legitimate questions about the technical risks associated with the current space program," said Edwin Lyman, the head of the Nuclear Control Institute, "and should give anyone pause before we continue to expand nuclear capabilities in space."
THE TEST BAN TREATY PRESENTS A SERIOUS OBSTACLE TO NUCLEAR PROPULSION-McAvoy ‘04

The Partial Test Ban Treaty presents a serious obstacle to the development of a Project Orion-style nuclear pulse rocket propelled by nuclear explosions. 2 °3 The Treaty clearly prohibits the potential testing or operation of such a craft in outer space or the Earth's atmosphere; a ratifying nation desiring to do so would be forced to withdraw from the treaty." 4 The Outer Space Treaty, however, would not be an obstacle to such a rocket; the Treaty's ban of weapons of mass destruction in space would not prohibit a rocket with nuclear explosives designed for propulsion, rather than for use as a weapon.
THE DECISION TO USE NUCLEAR PROPULSION IS A HIGH-RISK, UNNECESSARY MOVE-Grossman ‘02

[Karl; professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York; Plutonium in Space (Again!); Covert Action Quarterly; Summer 2002; http://www.space4peace.org/articles/morenukesinspace.htm; retrieved 26 Jul 2011]

"The U.S.," says Green activist Lorna Salzman, a founder of the New York Green Party, "is now allocating billions of taxpayer's dollars, mobilizing all its police, military, investigative and spy powers to head off potential bio- and nuclear-terrorism - not to mention suicide bombers, airplane hijackers and makers of chemical weapons - to protect American citizens while preparing to invest a fortune on space nukes that could inundate those same citizens with radiation . . . Is NASA trying to tell us that terrorism inflicted by religious fanatics is bad but self-inflicted nuclear terrorism is OK? Or is NASA itself so infected by fatal hubris that it refuses to entertain the possibility of rocket failure. There are viable alternatives that do not put lives at risk." 43

"Why on Earth," asks Alice Slater, president of the New York-based Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, "would any sane person propose to take nuclear poisons to a whole new level?" 44

"Nuclear power," says Sally Light, executive director of the anti-nuclear Nevada Desert Experience, "whether in space or on Earth is a risky business. Why is the U.S. blindly plunging ahead with such a potentially disastrous and outmoded concept? We should use solar-powered technologies as they are clean, safe and feasible. Committing $1 billion for NASAs Nuclear Systems Initiative is unconscionable. Did the people of Earth have a voice in this? One of the basic principles of democracy is that those affected have a determinative role in the decision-making process. We in the U.S. and people worldwide are faced with a dangerous, high-risk situation being forced on us and on our descendents."
IT WOULD BE MUCH WISER EXPLORE SPACE SLOWLY THAN RISK NUCLEAR ACCIDENT-Grossman ‘02

In contrast, NASA's new stress on nuclear power in space "is not only dangerous but politically unwise," says Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of nuclear physics at the City University of New York. "The only thing that can kill the U.S. space program is a nuclear disaster. The American people will not tolerate a Chernobyl in the sky. That would doom the space program." 13

"NASA hasn’t learned its lesson from its history involving space nuclear power", says Kaku, "and a hallmark of science is that you learn from previous mistakes. NASA doggedly pursues its fantasy of nuclear power in space. We have to save NASA from itself." He cites "alternatives" to space nuclear power. "Some of these alternatives may delay the space program a bit. But the planets are not going to go away. What’s the rush? I'd rather explore the universe slower than not at all if there is a nuclear disaster." 14

THE FUTURE OF NASA IS AT RISK-Grossman ‘02

Dr. Ross McCluney, a former NASA scientist, says the Nuclear Systems Initiative "is a surprise to me because I thought the issue of using nuclear in space had been settled at NASA because of the history of problems and the dangers." 15

McCluney regards the new nuclear program as "an example of tunnel vision, focusing too narrowly on what appears to be a good engineering solution but not on the longer-term human and environmental risks and the law of unintended consequences. You think you’re in control of everything and then things happen beyond your control. If your project is inherently benign, an unexpected error can be tolerated. But when you have at your projects core something inherently dangerous, then the consequences of unexpected failures can be great." 16

"As a former NASA employee and a great NASA supporter, I am fearful of the future of NASA if it gets too involved with nuclear material," says McCluney, principal research scientist at the Florida Solar Energy Center.

Planetary Defense Negative

HARMS: CURRENT PROGRAMS ARE DETECTING DANGEROUS BODIES
THE SPACEGUARD SURVEY WILL HAVE CATALOGED ALL MAJOR BODIES WITHIN A FEW YEARS-Shapiro et al ‘10

[Irwin; Chair of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Defending Planet Earth:Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies; 2011; http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12842; retrieved 21 Jun 2011]

Congress established two mandates for the search for NEOs by NASA. The first, in 1998 and now referred to as the Spaceguard Survey, called for the agency to discover 90 percent of NEOs with a diameter of 1 kilometer or greater within 10 years. An object of this limiting size is considered by many experts to be the minimum that could produce global devastation if it struck Earth. NASA is close to achieving this goal and should reach it within a few years. However, as the recent (2009) discovery of an approximately 2- to 3-kilometer-diameter NEO demonstrates, there are still large objects to be detected.
THE SAFEGUARD SYSTEM HAS ALREADY DRAMATICALLY MITIGATED THE ALREADY LOW RISK-Shapiro et al ‘10

Having determined the sizes and distribution of orbits for NEOs, one wants to understand the risk to human life and property that is presented by various sizes of NEOs. Although the impact of a large NEO (diameter greater than 1 kilometer) anywhere on Earth would have major consequences in terms of loss of life and damage to property, the frequency of such impacts is very low (Figure 2.4, Table 2.1), and thanks to Spaceguard, nearly 85 percent of such objects have already been detected. None of those detected objects has a significant chance of impacting Earth in the next century.
THE SAFEGUARD SURVEY HAS DRAMATICALLY REDUCED THE RISK-Shapiro et al ‘10

Assuming that 85 percent of the NEOs with diameters larger than 1 kilometer have been discovered, which is close to the present state of affairs, Harris (2009) calculated the hazard statistics shown in Figure 2.7. Here the reassessed risk presented by the remaining 15 percent of the NEOs with diameters greater than 1 kilometer is comparable to that from all smaller objects. Figure 2.7 predicts that, in an actuarial sense, there is a long-term statistical average of about 91 fatalities worldwide per year due to impacts. Because the assessed statistical hazard from mid-range objects has dropped, the overall hazard has decreased as well. The drop from >1,000 to 91 expected fatalities per year clearly demonstrates the results of the Spaceguard Survey to date, which has “retired” the statistical risk from most objects above the assumed global catastrophe threshold. Using the Stokes et al. (2003) data for asteroids smaller than 1 kilometer in diameter yields a “humped” distribution with a peak near 300 to 400 meters. This hump may be significantly reduced when more realistic assessments of the effects of impact-driven tsunamis are available.
ONCE THE SPACEGUARD SURVEY IS COMPLETE, THE RISK WILL BE DRAMATICALLY REDUCED-Chapman ‘07

[Clark; Senior Scientist Southwest Research Institute, Dept. of Space Studies; Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society, 2007; pgs. 145-161]

Within this range of possible NEA impacts meriting practical concern, which scenario is objectively the most threatening? Although giant impacts are very rare, the potential mortality is unprecedentedly large once the threshold for global disaster is exceeded (NEAs >1.5-3 km diameter); such impacts dominate mortality, perhaps 1,000 deaths per year worldwide. This threat is comparable with mortality from other significant natural and accidental causes (e.g. fatalities in airliner crashes). Of course, this is a statistically averaged mortality; in almost any year there are zero deaths, but a tiny chance that one year a billion people will be killed. This threat motivated implementation of the Spaceguard Survey. Since most of that mortality has been eliminated by discovery of over 2/3rds of NEAs >1 km diameter and demonstration that none of them will strike the Earth in the next century, the remaining global threat is from the 1/3rd of yet-undiscovered large NEAs plus the minor threat from comets. Once the Spaceguard Survey is complete, the residual threat from a globally destructive impact will be <100 annual fatalities worldwide (see Fig. 2).
THE AIR FORCE IS COOPERATING TO BUILD THE PAN-STARRS SYSTEM WHICH WILL DOUBLE THE RATE OF ASTEROID DISCOVERY-Morrison ‘06

[David; senior scientist @ NASA Astrobiology Institute; Asteroid and Comet Impacts: The Ultimate Environmental Catastrophe; Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences; Aug 2006; pp.2041-2054]

Stokes (2003) and his team concluded that if we wish to make serious progress within the next decade in retiring the risk from sub-kilometre NEAs, we will need a much more ambitious survey using telescopes larger than the current 1 m systems. Such surveys have been proposed by two panels of the US National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council under the general name of LSST, or Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. One wide-field telescope of approximately 8 m aperture at a superior observing site could carry out a survey that is 90 per cent complete down to 200 m diameter within a decade while also accomplishing several other high-priority astronomy objectives that require all-sky surveys. Meanwhile, while the justification for an LSST is still being debated, the University of Hawaii, with support from the US Air Force, is constructing a $60-80 million multiple telescope system called Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) with a primary objective of discovering sub-kilometre asteroids. When the first 1.8 m Pan-STARRS telescope begins operations in 2006, it is likely to double the rate of asteroid discovery, and the full system might increase the survey power by an order of magnitude beyond current capability.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COUNTERPLAN

ASSIGNING PLANETARY DEFENSE TO MILITARY IS A CRITICAL FIRST STEP TOWARDS BROADER COORDINATION OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES-Garretson & Kaupa ‘08

[Lt. Colonel Peter and Major Douglas; Potential Mitigation Roles of the Department of Defense; Air and Space Power Journal; September 2008; http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj08/fal08/garretson.html; retrieved 05 Jul 2011]

The first and most important step in creating a planetary-defense plan is to find a home in the US government for such a program— preferably US STRATCOM. Other organizations would prove dysfunctional or suboptimal for us security. We would enhance our national-defense capabilities by working under STRATCOM auspices to pursue technology that might not be available or easily transitioned if developed by another agency. The united states doesn’t need a new dedicated agency or the inevitable duplication of effort that it would create. Once we decide upon a lead agency, we would then turn to developing a ConoPs, including the creation of interagency lines of communication. STRATCOM will not be the lone actor because mitigation policies will demand capabilities found in other organizations. After modifying existing search programs, we would identify the mitigation options that need development and testing. Massive extinctions have occurred in the past and can certainly occur again. Earth is not immune to collisions with asteroids and comets, but we can prepare for these events by establishing a solid planetary-defense plan.
ASSIGNING PLANETARY DEFENSE TO THE MILITARY IS AN IMPORTANT FIRST STEP AND WILL LEAD TO INTERAGENCY COOPERATION-Garretson & Kaupa ‘08

Although merely assigning the planetary-defense mission to STRATCOME would not constitute a complete fix, it represents the immediate next step to address the issue. Following authorization and assignment of the mission to one specific agency, we can start to examine other milestones. One of these entails conducting a tabletop scenario to assess our reaction capability and reveal significant capability gaps in order to determine useful directions for exploration and the development of a concept of operations (CONOPS). An exercise of this nature would expose a much broader level of designers to the problems of planetary defense and possible options. It would also bring together key agencies to begin a dialogue about how to pursue interagency communication and actions.

AMERICAN LEADERSHIP ON PLANETARY DEFENSE WILL PROVIDE INNOVATION AND AMERICAN PREEMINENCE IN SPACE-Garretson & Kaupa ‘08

The United States reaps significant economic benefits by providing international security. We have the most to gain by maintaining security and the most to lose if it fails. By visibly pursuing the capability to defend the planet, we make ourselves increasingly essential to international security. Furthermore, we will likely have to pay the bill anyway. The humanitarian crisis that could ensue from an impact with a 300-meter asteroid could easily dwarf the Asian tsunami of 2004. The humanitarian supply, airlift, sealift, and rebuilding costs would be staggering. Economic losses to us investors, huge costs to us insurers, and a possible recession or depression resulting from the loss of a city or nation would likely occur.

Despite concerns about the expense of developing such a planetary-defense system, it would translate into a competitive advantage for the United States. Solving difficult problems would create us intellectual capital, industrial capacity, and new technical areas of leadership critical to maintaining our lead in space.

PLANETARY DEFENSE SHOULD BE OVERSEEN BY THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE-Garretson & Kaupa ‘08

Both NASA and the DOD have expertise in space matters and operate space assets, but nasa’s core mission is space exploration. The DOD’s core missions are maintaining us security, protecting American lives, and ensuring the security of our allies. Expertise aside, planetary defense is clearly a defense mission. Further, since the DOD maintains a robust space mission, the proposed mission appears more closely aligned with the strengths and scope of the DOD than with those of the DHS.
SOLVENCY: NO TECH TO STOP IMPACT
THERE IS NO TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE TO PREVENT MASS EXTINCTION EVENTS-Shapiro et al ‘10

The amount of destruction from an event scales with the energy being brought by the impacting object. Because the range of possible destruction is so huge, no single approach is adequate for dealing with all events. For events of sufficiently low energy, the methods of civil defense in the broadest sense are the most cost-effective for saving human lives and minimizing property damage. For larger events, changing the path of the hazardous object is the appropriate solution, although the method for changing the path varies depending on the amount of advance notice available and the mass of the hazardous object. For the largest events, from beyond global catastrophe to events that cause mass extinctions, there is no current technology capable of sufficiently changing the orbital path to avoid disaster.
EVERY DEFLECTION TECHNIQUE HAS TECHNICAL ISSUES THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED-Ailor ‘08

[William; Director, Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation; Planetary Defense: Are We Ready; Aerospace America; January 2008; pgs. 26-31]

All deflection techniques have technical issues that must be addressed. For example, there

is great uncertainty in the momentum transfer for the Kinetic Impactor and nuclear explosives;

the Gravity Tractor must operate autonomously for extended periods in close proximity to a rotating,

nonspherical object; and the Mass Driver must attach to and operate on a NEO, again for an extended period. Unknowns and uncertainties must be considered in the overall design of a deflection mission.

DEDICATED MISSIONS TO EXPLORE THREATENING OBJECTS WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE DEFLECTION ATTEMPTS-Bucknam and Gold ‘08

[Mark, Deputy Director for Plans, Secretary of Defense, and Robert, Chief Technologist for the Space Department at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University; Asteroid Threat? The Problem of Planetary Defense; Survival; Oct-Nov 2008; pg. 141-156]

Dedicated missions to visit and study the PHOs actually threatening Earth would be needed before attempts were made to deflect them, unless one were to rely solely on stand-off nuclear explosions, in which case little information beyond orbit and approximate mass would be needed.17 Funding several PHO rendezvous missions would probably cost between $1-5bn. For the sake of comparison, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission launched by NASA in 1996 cost a little over $100m. Several years later, NASA's Deep Impact mission, which slammed into Comet Temple-1 on 4 July 2005, cost approximately $300m; and NASA's Dawn mission, launched last September to explore two asteroids in the main asteroid belt, cost nearly $500m. Finally, in April 2006, SpaceDaily.com reported that a QinetiQ-led consortium had won a €450,000 'contract to design a satellite mission that could one day be used to deflect an asteroid threatening the Earth'.18 A separate report says the QinetiQ team 'won a £315,000 grant for its preliminary designs', and that the overall mission - named Don Quijote - would cost an estimated £200m.

SOLVENCY: WARNING SYSTEM A BETTER INVESTMENT

A SYSTEM TO PROVIDE WARNINGS FOR CITIES WOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY WE DON’T NOW HAVE-Choi ‘10

[Charles; A Week's Warning of Asteroid Strike Would Be Simple, Scientist Says; Space.com; 03 Dec 2010; http://www.space.com/9629-week-warning-asteroid-strike-simple-scientist.html?; retrieved 27 Jun 2011]

Tonry details his analysis in a paper set to appear in the January issue of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

"When it comes to something that dangerous, it just feels incumbent to me that we at least look to make sure that things are okay or not, now that we have the technology to do so," Tonry told SPACE.com. "Not looking would be like driving down a road without looking at your rearview mirror just because you've never been rear-ended before. It's nuts."

Developing a network of telescopes that can find city-destroying asteroids years in advance, giving scientists a chance to deflect them, would take decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead, Tonry and his colleagues are suggesting a network that in many cases could give the authorities enough notice to evacuate areas. Such a network could be constructed quickly and cheaply, they say.

"The performance you can get out of modern software, modern detectors and very modest-sized telescopes is surprisingly interesting," Tonry said.

SOLVENCY: FOCUS ON LARGE OBJECTS BETTER
WE SHOULD FOCUS OUR ATTENTION ON COMETS AND LARGE NEOS-Shapiro et al ‘10

Stokes et al. (2003) provide considerable description of the threat represented by long-period comets, and there is no need to repeat all of their arguments here. In brief, they find that the comet hazard constitutes only a tiny fraction (on the order of <1 percent) of the total risk to life on Earth by impacting NEOs (prior to the Spaceguard Survey) and that producing a complete catalog of hazardous long-period comets is far beyond the abilities of any proposed survey. For these reasons, they suggested that limited resources would be better utilized in finding and cataloging Earth-threatening near-Earth asteroids and short-period comets. With the completion of the Spaceguard Survey (that is, the detection of 90 percent of NEOs greater than 1 kilometer in diameter), long-period comets will no longer be a negligible fraction of the remaining statistical risk, and with the completion of the George E. Brown, Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey (for the detection of 90 percent of NEOs greater than 140 meters in diameter), long-period comets may dominate the remaining unknown impact threat. Furthermore, these comets present a difficult challenge, as they are large objects, and there will be only a short warning time (months to a very few years maximum) before impact. Thus mitigation options are very limited, as noted in Chapter 5.
SOLVENCY: GROUND-BASED BETTER
GROUND-BASED TELESCOPES OFFER MORE VALUE AND RESULTS-Reich ‘10

[Eugenie; NASA panel weighs asteroid danger; Scientific American; 08 Sep 2010; http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-panel-weighs-asteroid-danger; retrieved 21 Jun 2011]

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, a manufacturer ofspacecraft based in Boulder, Colo., has proposed building such a remote scope at a cost of $600 million. But Irwin Shapiro, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who chaired the 2010 Committee to Review Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for the U.S. National Research Council, says that ground-based observatories such as the planned Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachón in Chile are better value for money than space telescopes, because they last longer and are less expensive. He says the LSST is also more likely to command funding, as it is the top priority recommended by the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey, released in August by the National Academies. Putting a space telescope in a Venus-like orbit "would in effect start from scratch," he says.
NEW GROUND-BASED TELESCOPE ARE AS GOOD AS SPACE-BASED-Space Daily ‘05

[Ground-Based Telescopes Have An Extremely Large Future; Space Daily; 11 April 2005; http://www.spacedaily.com/news/telescopes-05p.html; retrieved 13 August 2011]

The European Southern Observatory has undertaken a concept study for the next generation of ground-based Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). Dubbed OWL ("OverWhelmingly Large"), ESO's concept is conceived as a 100 m. diameter optical and near-infrared, adaptive telescope (illustrated).

The largest ground-based optical telescopes in use today use mirrors that are 10 m (33 ft) across. But the prospects for future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) are looking up.

According to recent studies by international teams of astronomers and leading astronomical organisations, the next generation of optical telescopes could be 50-100 metres (165 - 330 ft) in diameter - big enough to fill a sports stadium.

This "quantum leap" in size has important implications, since astronomers want to capture every photon of light that comes their way, and a 100m mirror has a collecting area up to 100 times greater than existing instruments.

Furthermore, a 100m telescope would have extremely sharp vision, with the ability to see objects at up to 40 times the spatial resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

On Friday 8 April, Dr. Isobel Hook of Oxford University told the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham about the compelling scientific case for Extremely Large Telescopes which has been developed at a series of meetings over the past four years.

The results of this evaluation process, which involved more than 100 astronomers, have recently been published, coinciding with the start of the European Extremely Large Telescope Design Study.

"A team of over 100 European Astronomers has recently produced a brochure summarising the science that could be done" said Dr. Hook.

"This work is the result of a series of meetings held in Europe over the last 4 years, sponsored by the EC network OPTICON.

"The new report explains how an ELT will revolutionise all aspects of astronomy, from studies of our own solar system - by producing images of comparable detail to those from space probes - to the edge of the observable Universe."

As the report states: "The vast improvement in sensitivity and precision allowed by the next step in technological capabilities, from today's 6-10m telescopes to the new generation of 50-100 m telescopes with integrated adaptive optics capability, will be the largest such enhancement in the history of telescopic astronomy.

SOLVENCY: NUCLEAR DEFENSE
ALLOWING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTS FOR ASTEROID DEFLECTION WOULD MAKE THE ANTI-TESTING REGIME IN SPACE IMPOSSIBLE TO VERIFY-Bucknam and Gold ‘08

Given the complexities of conducting rendezvouses and precisely timed stand-off nuclear explosions to deflect inbound asteroids or comets, responsible authorities would certainly want to conduct tests before having to rely on a deflection system to avert a catastrophe. However, the Limited Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space. Ideally, a PHO should be deflected well before the anticipated collision, meaning that if nuclear explosives were used for planetary defence, they would detonate so far from Earth they would be harmless and utterly inconsequential for anything but their targets. The treaty could be modified to allow tests for planetary defence, so long as they were conducted sufficiently far from Earth. But if an existing nuclear weapon were to be used in a planetary-defence test, the country that designed it might use the test in a way that would contribute to its military weapons programme. Monitoring of the test for military purposes would be indistinguishable from monitoring for the ostensible purpose of evaluating asteroid-deflection results.
NUCLEAR DEFENSE AGAINST ASTEROIDS IS HOLLYWOOD SCIENCE FICTION-Foust ‘07

[Jeff; The three D’s of planetary defense; The Space Review; 19 March 2007; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/835/1; retrieved 13 August 2011]

To take Hollywood’s word for it, stopping an incoming asteroid or comet from hitting the Earth is fairly straightforward. NASA discovers, or is alerted to the discovery of, an object on an impact course, and quickly cobbles together—either by itself or in cooperation with the Russians—a plan to deflect or outright destroy the intruder with nuclear weapons. Sometimes the job is done by some convenient (if treaty-violating) nuclear weapons already in orbit, but usually it’s a team of astronauts, with some non-professionals with critical skills thrown in, who quickly fly off in a highly modified shuttle to save the day. And save the day they do, although not before some fragments hit the Earth and wreak some havoc. It’s a storyline that has been used and reused a number of times, from Meteor to Deep Impact and Armageddon to, most recently, the pretty awful Sci-Fi Channel film Earthstorm (whose twist is that, this time, the asteroid hits the Moon, and threatens to break it up until our intrepid astronauts—and an explosives expert—save the day.)

Reality, of course, is a bit more complex than what can be compressed into a two-hour movie. Dealing with an object that’s on a collision course is more complicated than sending some astronauts in a nuclear-powered shuttle to blow it up with an atomic bomb: besides the fact that there are no nuclear-powered shuttles that can zip across the solar system, blowing up or even trying to deflect an asteroid with nuclear weapons can cause more harm than good. Movies also tend to gloss over the difficulty in discovering these objects and refining their orbits to confirm that they indeed pose a threat to the Earth: they’re discovered, their orbits plotted, and that’s it. Also overlooked is the decisionmaking process required to determine how best to deal with that impact threat, and who—besides the United States—should be involved in that effort. Those three areas—detection, decisionmaking, and deflection—are critical to successfully dealing with the problem posed by near Earth objects (NEOs), but as recent events have shown, there’s no consensus yet on how it should be done.

ALLOWING NUCLEAR TESTS FOR PLANETARY DEFENSE WILL UNDERMINE NON-PROLIFERATION-Bucknam and Gold ‘08

Moreover, nuclear-weapons states would need to decide whether to limit tests to existing nuclear devices, or to allow new nuclear-explosive designs to be evaluated. Stand-off nuclear explosions would impart energy to PHOs when X-rays or neutrons were absorbed on the face of the object nearest the blast. The resulting heating and spallation of material from the target would give it a push away from the blast. Thus, nuclear explosives designed to focus X-rays or neutrons in a particular direction would presumably be more effective for planetary defence than existing bombs. International cooperation would be highly desirable to determine whether such new devices should be designed, developed and tested. Energy-focusing nuclear explosives would almost certainly have military applications, and countries currently adhering to self-imposed moratoria on nuclear testing would have to decide whether to allow underground tests of devices designed for planetary defence, knowing that such tests could very well have far-reaching effects on non-proliferation regimes. In all likelihood, it would seem more acceptable to test and place weapons in space if they were drawn from existing stockpiles, rather than developed anew.
THE START TREATY BLOCKS WEAPONS IN SPACE-Bucknam and Gold ‘08

The 1991 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (START I) bans placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit or using intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver 'objects into outer space for purposes inconsistent with a party's other international obligations'. This treaty between the US and Russia, as the successor to the Soviet Union, might need modification to enable the testing or fielding of a planetary-defence system - assuming, that is, START I survives beyond its expiration date in 2009.
EVEN IF THE OUTER SPACE TREATY COULD BE MODIFIED, THERE ARE SERIOUS DIFFICULT POLICY OBJECTIONS-Bucknam and Gold ‘08

Assuming the Outer Space Treaty could be modified for planetary defence, several difficult policy issues would remain. Treaty signatories would have to decide how many nuclear devices to place in space, and where and for how long they should be left there. There would need to be a policy for disposing of them once they exceeded their shelf life. There would need to be agreement about who would put them in place, monitor them and maintain their orbits. Finally, there would need to be agreement over who could decide upon and control their use.

SOLVENCY: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY WILL NOT AGREE
THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY WILL AGREE TO DEFELCTION SYSTEMS- Bucknam and Gold ‘08

The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (the Outer Space Treaty) came into force in October 1967. It banned the placement of weapons of mass destruction in outer space, in orbit around the Earth, or on celestial bodies. It also established principles of responsibility and liability for a state's actions in space and has served as the basis for other space-specific treaties. If nuclear explosives offered the most promising means of deflecting an incoming asteroid or comet, the threat of annihilation would presumably convince parties to the treaty to make an exception to it. But absent a palpable threat - a named asteroid and a known collision date - signatories to the treaty might resist placing nuclear bombs in space. Such reluctance could undermine defences against long-period comets, where the probability of success could very well hinge on having a system in place before the threatening object was detected. Before world leaders agree to amend Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty to allow nuclear weapons in space, they will need to be convinced that the threat posed by asteroids and comets is not only real, but that it exceeds the dangers that led to Article IV in the first place.
TECHNOLOGY IS NOT ENOUGH; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION WILL BE REQUIRED TO MAKE NEO DEFLECTION WORK-Easterbrook ‘08

[Gregg; contributing editor; The Sky Is Falling; The Atlantic; June 2008; http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/06/the-sky-is-falling/6807/1/; retrieved 27 Jun 2011]

None of this will be easy, of course. Unlike in the movies, where impossibly good-looking, wisecracking men and women grab space suits and race to the launchpad immediately after receiving a warning that something is approaching from space, in real life preparations to defend against a space object would take many years. First the necessary hardware must be built—quite possibly a range of space probes and rockets. An asteroid that appeared to pose a serious risk would require extensive study, and a transponder mission could take years to reach it. International debate and consensus would be needed: the possibility of one nation acting alone against a space threat or of, say, competing U.S. and Chinese missions to the same object, is more than a little worrisome. And suppose Asteroid X appeared to threaten Earth. A mission by, say, the United States to deflect or destroy it might fail, or even backfire, by nudging the rock toward a gravitational keyhole rather than away from it. Asteroid X then hits Costa Rica; is the U.S. to blame? In all likelihood, researchers will be unable to estimate where on Earth a space rock will hit. Effectively, then, everyone would be threatened, another reason nations would need to act cooperatively—and achieving international cooperation could be a greater impediment than designing the technology.

THE UNITED NATIONS WILL NEED TO MAKE PROACTIVE DECISIONS ABOUT ASTEROID DEFLECTION-Schweickart et al ‘08

[Russell; Chairman Association of Space Explorers Near-Earth Object Committee; ASTEROID THREATS: A CALL FOR GLOBAL RESPONSE; 25 Sep 2008; http://www.space-explorers.org/committees/NEO/ASE_NEO_Final_Report_excerpt.pdf; retrieved 05 Jul 2011]

If damaging impacts occur an average of only once every 700 years, why should the international community deal urgently with this issue? The simple answer is that far more NEOs will appear to pose a threat to Earth than will actually strike it. In many instances, we won't know with certainty if an impact will occur until after it is too late to prevent the collision—whether it actually occurs or not. As a result, the decision to deflect an incoming NEO will often have to be taken when the probability of impact is 1 in 10, or even 1 in 100. For example, if the actual impact rate is 1 per 700 years, but the decision to act must be taken when the probability of impact reaches 1 in 70 (about 1.5%), then the average frequency of decision-making is once every 10 years. Over the next 10-15 years, then, the process of discovering NEOs will likely identify dozens of new objects threatening enough that they will require proactive decisions by the United Nations.
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY NEEDS TO ACT NOW TO DEVELOP NEO DEFLECTION PLANS-Schweickart et al ‘08

There is a strong derived benefit in having the international community grapple with these issues now, in the brief period before the incidence of specific NEO threats increases. Once a potential NEO threat arises, with a particular risk corridor8 8 A virtual locus of points, unique to each NEO, within which a NEO may impact the Earth. Although extending across the entire planet, the corridor is often only a few tens of kilometers wide. Physical effects of the impact may extend well beyond the corridor. Also see and/or identified impact point, the discussions concerning deflection actions, and which nations should bear the temporary increase in risk during the campaign, will inevitably become more political and difficult. We make our recommendations for the decision-making process on the basis of the value of human life and property, independent of national political power or influence. It is critical that the decision-making process be thoroughly deliberated and agreed upon prior to the advent of a specific threat.

ANY NEO DEFLECTION STRATEGY MUST BE DETERMINED BY INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT-Schweickart et al ‘08

The rationale for such a pre-established, international set of decision-making criteria on NEO deflection and mitigation stems from a combination of: (1) the uncertainty in the specific impact point at the time a deflection decision must be made (i.e., the potential impact zone may extend entirely across one hemisphere of the Earth), and; (2) orbital mechanics considerations which dictate that action to deflect an asteroid will temporarily raise the risk to other regions and populations in the process of eliminating the risk for all. This temporary shift in risk from one region and population to another during NEO deflection will include a choice as to which nations will face that heightened risk. Plainly, with a NEO impact and its proposed deflection affecting people and nations across the face of the planet, the decision criteria, policies, and practices must be determined by international agreement.
MAJOR SPACEFARING NATIONS WILL HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER TO IMPLEMENT A PLAN-Bucknam and Gold ‘08

It is not a question of if Earth will be walloped again by a sizeable asteroid or comet, but when. Learning whether it will happen in the next l00 years ought to be a top global priority. An international consortium could pool resources and enhance the capacity to locate and track PHOs, while simultaneously creating a forum to foster the sort of transparency and removal of legal barriers desirable for developing and fielding a mitigation system. Major spacefaring states - the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India and member states of the European Space Agency - should be enlisted in the effort. The consortium would have to decide whether to collaborate on all areas of the challenge or create a division of labour among its members. That decision would involve weighing concerns over technology transfer against a desire for transparency.
DECISION TO ACT MUST BE INTERNATIONAL IN NATURE-Foust ‘07

[Jeff; The three D’s of planetary defense; The Space Review; 19 March 2007; http://www.thespacereview.com/article/835/1; retrieved 13 August 2011]

Rusty Schweickart, the Apollo-era astronaut who serves as chairman of the board of the B612 Foundation as well as chairman of the NEO committee of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), believes that any decisionmaking process must be international in nature. He notes that, in the process of deflecting an asteroid initially on a course to hit one country, the risk of an impact might temporarily shift to another country during the course of the deflection. Moreover, such decisions might have to be made long before the probability of an impact becomes one in order to have enough time to deflect the object. That means all the countries involved need to have a say in the decisionmaking process, even if they are not involved with the deflection itself, and with more potentially hazardous NEOs to be discovered in the years to come, more and more countries will face the risks of an impact. “Inherently every nation is going to be involved in making this decision,” said Schweickart at the AAAS conference. “There is one agency, namely the United Nations, which therefore has got get involved in this decisionmaking process.

SETI/METI Negative

SOLVENCY: NO ONE THERE

BIOLOGISTS ARE FAR LESS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE PROSPECT OF LIFE THAN SETI ADVOCATES-Squeri ‘04
[Lawrence; When ET Calls: SETI Is Ready; The Journal of Popular Culture; Feb 2004; pg. 478]

Many biologists do not share the optimism of SETI's astronomers and astrophysicists. These biologists see terrestrial life as the result of good fortune, and doubt that the unique chain of accidents—the right amounts of heat, light, and water, to mention a few—that produced life on Earth can be duplicated elsewhere. Biologists also are skeptical of the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence. The Earth has produced over one billion species, but only one is intelligent. Besides, if intelligent life does exist, it may be so different that it may not communicate as we do.

FERMI PARADOX ARUGES THAT IF EXTRATERRESTRIALS DO EXIST, WHY HAVE WE NOT SEEN THEM-Squeri ‘04
[Lawrence; When ET Calls: SETI Is Ready; The Journal of Popular Culture; Feb 2004; pg. 478]

Another objection to the existence of extraterrestrials was posed over a half century ago by physicist Enrico Fermi when he asked the famous question “where are they?” Fermi was not referring to the aliens of ufologist lore. He was asking why all of humanity had not seen extraterrestrials or at least why the American president or the Pope or the United Nations General Assembly had not seen them. Fermi's question has remained pertinent. To this day, SETI has to explain why extraterrestrials have yet to visit the Earth and why our radio telescopes have not detected their signals.

THERE ARE SO MANY FACTORS MAKING EARTH UNIQUE, WE NEED TO CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT LIFE IS VERY RARE-Schenkel ‘06
[Peter; retired political scientist; SETI requires a skeptical reappraisal; Skeptical Inquirer; May-June 2006; pg. 26]

Second, as recent research results demonstrate, many more factors and conditions than those considered by the Drake formula need to be taken into account. The geologist Peter D. Ward and the astronomer Donald Brownlee present in their book Rare Earth a series of such aspects, which turn the optimistic estimates of ETI upside down.

According to their reasoning, the old assumption that our solar system and Earth are quite common phenomena in the galaxy needs profound revision. On the contrary, the new insights suggest, we are much more special than thought. The evolution of life forms and eventually of intelligent life on Earth was due to a large number of very special conditions and developments, many of a coincidental nature. I'll mention only some that seem particularly important: The age, size, and composition of our sun, the location of Earth and inclination of its axis to it, the existence of water, a stable oxygen-rich atmosphere and temperature over long periods of time--factors considered essential for the evolution of life and the development of a carbon-based chemistry. Furthermore an active interior and the existence of plate tectonics form the majestic mountain ridges like the Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes, creating different ecological conditions, propitious for the proliferation of a great variety of species. Also the existence of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn (as shields for the bombardment of comets and meteorites during the early stages of Earth). Also the repeated climatic changes, long ice ages, and especially the numerous and quite fortuitous catastrophes, causing the extinction of many species, like the one 65 millions years ago, which led to the disappearance of dinosaurs, but opened the way for more diversified and complex life forms.

THE FERMI PARADOX AND THE VERY NATURE OF INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY CALL INTO QUESTION EXISTENCE OF ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS-Schenkel ‘06
[Peter; retired political scientist; SETI requires a skeptical reappraisal; Skeptical Inquirer; May-June 2006; pg. 26]

Third is the so called "Fermi Paradox" another powerful reason suggesting a skeptical evaluation of the multiplicity of intelligence in the galaxy. Italian physicist Enrico Fermi posed the annoying question, "If so many highly developed ETIs are out there, as SETI specialists claim, why haven't they contacted us?" I already expressed great doubt about some of the explanations given to this paradox. Here I need to focus on two more. The first refers to the supposed lack of interest of advanced aliens to establish contact with other intelligent beings. This argument seems to me particularly untrustworthy. I refer to a Norwegian book, which explains why the Vikings undertook dangerous voyages to far-away coasts in precarious vessels. "One reason," it says, "is fame, another curiosity, and a third, gain!" If the Vikings, driven by the desire to discover the unknown, reached America a thousand years ago with a primitive technology, if we--furthermore--a still scientifically and technically young civilization, search for primitive life on other planets of the solar system and their moons, it is incredible that higher developed extraterrestrial intelligences would not be spurred by likewise interests and yearnings. One of the fundamental traits of intelligence is its unquenchable intellectual curiosity and urge to penetrate the unknown. Elder civilizations, our peers in every respect, must be imbued by the same daring and scrutinizing spirit, because if they are not, they could not have achieved their advanced standards.

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN STARS IS AN INSUFFICIENT REASON TO EXPLAIN THE LACK OF CONTACT FROM OTHER CIVILIZATIONS-Schenkel ‘06
[Peter; retired political scientist; SETI requires a skeptical reappraisal; Skeptical Inquirer; May-June 2006; pg. 26]

A second argument often posited is that distances between stars are too great for interstellar travel. But this explanation also stands on shaky ground. Even our scientifically and technically adolescent civilization is exploring space and sending probes--the Voyager crafts--which someday may reach other stellar systems. We are still far from achieving velocities, near the velocity of light, necessary for interstellar travel. But some scientists predict that in 200 or 300 years, maybe even earlier, we are likely to master low "c" velocities, and once we reach them our civilization will send manned exploratory expeditions to the nearest stars. Automatic unmanned craft may be the initial attempts. But I am convinced that nothing will impede the desire of man to see other worlds with his own eyes, to touch their soil and to perform research that unmanned probes would not be able to perform. Evidently, civilizations tens of thousands or millions of years in our advance will have reached near c velocities, and they will be able to explore a considerable part of the galaxy. Advanced ETI civilizations would engage in such explorations not only out of scientific curiosity, but in their own interest, for instance for spreading out and finding new habitats for their growing population, or because of the need to abandon their planet due to hazards from their star, and also because with the help of other civilizations it may confront dangers, lurking in the universe, more successfully than alone. The Fermi Paradox should therefore put us on guard, and foster a sound skepticism. Lack of interest in meeting a civilization such as ours is the least plausible reason why we have not heard from ETI.

EXAGGERATED ESTIMATES ABOUT SETI BACKFIRE AND UNDERMINE SUPPORT FOR THE PROGRAM-Schenkel ‘06
[Peter; retired political scientist; SETI requires a skeptical reappraisal; Skeptical Inquirer; May-June 2006; pg. 26]

But SETI activities so far do not justify this hope. They recommend a more realistic and sober view. Considering the negative search results, the creation of excessive expectations is only grist to the mill of the naysayers--for instance, members of Congress who question the scientific standing of SETI, imputing to it wishful thinking, and denying it financial support. This absolutely negative approach to SETI is certainly wrong, because contrary to the UFO hoax, SETI (as UCLA space scientist Mark Moldwin [2004] stressed in a recent issue of this magazine) is based on solid scientific premises and considerations. But exaggerated estimates fail to conform to realities, as they are seen today, tending to backfire and create disappointment and a turning away from this fascinating scientific endeavor.

NONE OF THE PLANETS WE HAVE DISCOVERED HAVE THE CONDITIONS LIKELY TO CREATE LIFE-Schenkel ‘06
[Peter; retired political scientist; SETI requires a skeptical reappraisal; Skeptical Inquirer; May-June 2006; pg. 26]

Another argument supporting the skeptical point of view sustained here is the fact that none of the detected planets around other stars comes close to having conditions apt for creating and sustaining life. Since Michel Mayor's Swiss group discovered the first planet outside our solar system around the star 51 Pegasi ten years ago, about 130 other planets have been identified within a distance of 200 light-years. Research results show that most are of gaseous composition, some many times the size of Jupiter, some very close to their stars, very hot and with extremely rapid orbital cycles. So far, not one presents conditions favorable for the development of even the most primitive forms of life, not to speak of more complex species. Again it may be argued that only a very tiny fraction of planets were surveyed and future research might strike upon a suitable candidate. This may well be, and I would certainly welcome it. But so far the evidence fails to nourish optimistic expectations. The conditions in our universe are not as favorable for the evolution of life as optimists like to think.

WE ARE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE; MOST OTHER PLANETS ARE WILDLY DIFFERENT FROM EARTH-Blake ‘11
[Heidi; staff writer; Alien Life Deemed Impossible by Analysis of 500 Planets; The Telegraph; 23 Jan 2011]

Howard Smith, a senior astrophysicist at Harvard, made the claim that we are alone in the universe after an analysis of the 500 planets discovered so far showed all were hostile to life.

Dr Smith said the extreme conditions found so far on planets discovered outside out Solar System are likely to be the norm, and that the hospitable conditions on Earth could be unique.
“We have found that most other planets and solar systems are wildly different from our own. They are very hostile to life as we know it,” he said.
He pointed to stars such as HD10180, which sparked great excitement when it was found to be orbited by a planet of similar size and appearance to Earth.
But the similarities turned out to be superficial. The planet lies less than two million miles from its sun, meaning it is roasting hot, stripped of its atmosphere and blasted by radiation.

EXTRA-SOLAR PLANETS ARE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THAN EARTH AND CONTACT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE ANYWAY-Blake ‘11
[Heidi; staff writer; Alien Life Deemed Impossible by Analysis of 500 Planets; The Telegraph; 23 Jan 2011]

But Dr Smith dismissed the claims, insisting that other extrasolar planets differ starkly from our own and that even if they did support life, it would be impossible for humans to make contact.

"Extrasolar systems are far more diverse than we expected, and that means very few are likely to support life.
"Any hope of contact has to be limited to a relatively tiny bubble of space around the Earth, stretching perhaps 1,250 light years out from our planet, where aliens might be able to pick up our signals or send us their own.
But communicating would still take decades or centuries.

THERE IS A GROWING BELIEF THAT OUR GALAXY IS NOT CONDUCIVE TO DEVELOPING LIFE-Benford ‘10
[Gregory, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, UC-Irvine; James, and Dominic, NASA Scientist; Searching for Cost-Optimized Interstellar Beacons; Astrobiology Volume 10, No. 5, 2010; pgs 491-498]

There is a growing sentiment within the astrobiology community that we are not typical members of the suite of galactic civilizations because we live among the outer regions of a galactic habitable zone (Kasting et al., 1993; Trimble, 1997; Gonzalez et al., 2001). In papers such as Lineweaver (2001) and in popularizations such as Rare Earth (Ward and Brownlee, 2000), a view emerged that stresses the
difficulties facing intelligent life in our galaxy. Lineweaver (2001) argued that early, intense star formation toward the inner Galaxy provided the heavy elements necessary for life,
but the supernova frequency remained dangerously high there for several billion years. Later, stars orbiting between the crowded inner bulge and the barren outer Galaxy were born into a habitable zone, starting about 8 billion years ago. The habitable zone expanded with time as metallicity (driven
by supernovas) spread outward in the Galaxy and the supernovae rate decreased. They argued that*75% of the stars that harbor complex life in the Galaxy are older than the Sun and that their average age is*1 billion years older than the Sun.
THE EMERGENCE OF INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH COULD WELL BE A FLUKE-Davies ‘10
[Paul; PhD; co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, both at Arizona State University; The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence; 2010; Kindle Edition]

Earlier I discussed how the intelligence hurdle wasn't surmounted readily on Earth – it took over 200 million years of brain evolution among land animals before hominids evolved. That was bad enough. But Carter's reasoning suggests a far more pessimistic conclusion. The predicate of his argument, remember, is that the average, or expected, time for intelligent life to arise is much longer even than the several-billion-year habitability window offered by a typical star like the sun. So the fact that intelligence took over 200 million years to evolve on Earth, slow though that may seem to us, should be regarded (according to Carter) as a fluke, a statistical outlier, an event lucky to have happened at all in so short a window. And the upshot of this 'lucky Earth' conclusion is that the vast majority of other sun-like stars will not share our system's good fortune. They will fail to possess planets with intelligent life. If Carter is right, then, Earth is a very rare exception, and the emergence of intelligent beings like humans is a freak event, just as Monod maintained.

THE ABSENCE OF REPLICATING MACHINES ALL BUT PROVES WE ARE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE-Davies ‘10
[Paul; PhD; co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, both at Arizona State University; The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence; 2010; Kindle Edition]

The physicist Frank Tipler has argued forcefully that the apparent absence of von Neumann machines in the solar system all but proves we are alone in the universe. He estimated it would take only 300 million years for the galaxy to be flooded with these devices, so there has been plenty of time for a galactic takeover to happen. Tipler reasons that von Neumann probes are a highly effective form of interstellar migration, on both logistical and economic grounds, and therefore their absence represents a more potent version of the Fermi paradox. It is easy to think up reasons why living beings might avoid travelling between the stars (it's a long way after all); it's less easy to understand why alien von Neumann probes wouldn't do it.

Directory: file -> fetch
fetch -> 11 th Lit Semester 1 Final Study Guide!!!
fetch -> Industrial Revolution Inventors
fetch -> Analysis for Galveston Hurricane of 1900
fetch -> The Illuminators (Team 2) 1900 Galveston Hurricane Cycle a team Assignment
fetch -> Team csi-utb ruth Reyes Jose Ferrer
fetch -> Galveston Hurricane of 1900 Cycle a-teacher as a Problem Solver
fetch -> Is Climate Change Starting a New Dust Bowl? Cycle A
fetch -> What makes a storm a hurricane
fetch -> The 1950s were the "Happy Days" because it was a time of economic prosperity, technology development, new entertainment, new fashion and family growth. The 1950s was a great time
fetch -> Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age

Download 1.49 Mb.

Share with your friends:

1 ... 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ... 30