Gonzaga Debate Institute 2011 Mercury Scholars seti aff
Astrobiology Advantage 1/
Download 410.36 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Public Engagement Advantage
Astrobiology Advantage 1/Astrobiology research declining now DeVore, Deputy CEO of SETI, 6 (Edna, “Astrobiology research threatened at nasa”, March 30, SETI Institute, http://www.seti.org/page.aspx?pid=777) PG Science is suffering, and scientists, students and the public are not going to quietly accept the cancellation of nearly completed missions. Nor will they tolerate the starvation of fundamental research programs. In Astronomy and Astrophysics Division, the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and Dawn Missions were originally scheduled for cancellation in the ’07 budget. The Space Interferometry Mission is delayed, and Terrestrial Planet Finder has been pushed beyond the future budget horizon, the equivalent of cancellation. Both SOFIA and Dawn have now been reviewed. This week Administrator Griffin reinstated Dawn, overturning Mary Cleave’s abrupt cancellation of the mission. The results of the SOFIA review have not yet been announced. SOFIA is virtually complete, and it makes no sense to cancel this mission as several members of the House of Representatives—including Rep. Ralph Hall (R, Texas), Rep. Mike Honda (D, CA)--both pointed out to NASA administrators in Congressional hearings on the NASA budget. Astrobiology is the core science of space exploration, and it’s proposed for a 50% cut. The 2005 budget was approximately $65 million. For 2006 and forward, Cleave cut the program to $32.5 million. Allen Telescope Array crucial to astrobiology research Welch, former director of the Radio Astronomy Lab at U.C. Berkeley, 10 (William J., “The allen telescope array as a tool for seti and astrobiology research”, Astrobiology Science Conference 2010, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/abscicon2010/pdf/5437.pdf) The ATA [1] is a multielement array of radio telescope antennas which is especially well suited for surveys such as for SETI and for important biomolecuules. The individual antennas are small, which provides a very large instantaneous field of view. It operates over a very large bandwidth, covering most of the transparent window in the earth’s atmosphere at radio wavelengths. As an extended array, it is effective in rejecting man-made interference. Multiple beams within the field of the individual antennas can be formed, enabling searches toward multiple target stars. The large number of antennas provides high sensitivity for the search. It is designed to operate in a commensal mode so that SETI searaches can be conducted at the same time as other astronomy searches. This makes essentially full time available for the SETI searches. Astrobiology key to US science leadership Manichelli, SETI Institute PI, 6 (Rocco, Space.com, March 6, “Destroying Astrobiology would be a disaster”, http://www.space.com/2135-commentary-destroying-astrobiology-disaster.html) PG Astrobiology sets an agenda for inspiring the next generation of planetary explorers and stewards to sustain the NASA vision and mission. Astrobiology has generated orders of magnitude more results, visibility, and above all, more sources of education to the young than any space science discipline ever before. If the cuts come to pass, it will be devastating. Consequences will include: The loss of cutting-edge science and the loss of the US leadership while, in comparison, Europe and other countries are increasing their research grants in related domains and broadening their programs. The loss of hundreds of scientists who will be left without funding, the same scientists who are currently world-leaders in their research areas and are making headlines worldwide today, as they have been at an increasing pace over the past 10 years because of the quality and results of their research. The loss of an entire generation of young researchers who just defended their Ph.D. thesis in astrobiology-related subjects and will have nowhere to go. The US has invested millions of dollars in the formation of this young and strong elite to ensure the future of the US leadership in space sciences. This will be a total waste. Everyone has a stake in astrobiology. Destroying astrobiology will be a national disaster to an extent that the United States is unlikely to recover from it. It will have enduring consequences on the country's science leadership in the world. The astrobiology budget cuts will destroy the foundation of this leadership by annihilating an entire generation of researchers, their research, and the new generation they were forming. Public Engagement AdvantageSETI encourages public engagement in science Tough, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, ’00 (Allen, Foundation for the Future, 2000, “When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact”, www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_wrk1.pdf , p. 28, 21 July 2011) SW Advanced preparation should include educational programs for preparing people for the possibility of contact. SETI provides a wonderful “hook” for engaging people in science. Properly designed educational programs can enhance people’s understanding of astronomy and life sciences, as well as acquaint them with SETI and its possible aftermath. The SETI Institute’s “Social Implications” report (Billingham et al., 1999) devoted close attention to this and looked to broad partnerships including planetaria and libraries as well as schools, colleges, and universities. This report also described how SETI scientists could work with the news and entertainment media to educate people and help shape public opinion. A multimedia approach can help, for example, by using the visual arts to make the extraterrestrial presence real but in nonthreatening ways. Several education efforts are already underway. The SETI Institute’s “Life in the Universe” curriculum is noteworthy in part because it is under translation into different languages to make it more accessible to the world’s population. The SETI Australia Centre also has a large educational component. Relevant also are the websites and outreach programs maintained by the NASA-Ames Astrobiology Institute. Specific target populations include the media, opinion leaders, and children. The media must be highly informed so that it can provide high-quality coverage even in the event of rapidly unfolding developments. Politicians, scholars, business magnates, military officers, and other opinion leaders must be informed, because they will help shape the reactions of the many people who look to them for guidance. Children are important because it is they who will carry on the search, and their generation may be the first to experience the full impact of contact. As a useful spin-off, educational efforts aimed at children will help them separate science and fiction, and nudge them toward careers in science and technology. In addition to reaching individuals, we need to reach organizations and institutions that will have much to do with managing contact and its aftermath. These include intelligence-gathering organizations, legislative and regulatory bodies, the military, the media, and professional organizations of all sorts.
(Robert, American Scientist, “Science as a Democratizer”, http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/science-as-democratizer/1) PG I'll start with an observation. In general, countries that have stronger sciences have stronger democracies. And in countries where science has little strength and scientific ways of thinking have no apparent impact, governments tend to range from undemocratic to totalitarian. This is quite obviously correlation, not cause—and even if cause, the direction of the causation arrow is unclear. A democratic country might foster science, perhaps as a second-order effect of the prosperity and high literacy conventionally coincident with democracy, just as logically as a scientific country might foster democracy. How might science engender democracy? I'd like to suggest two mechanisms: first, by changing the way people think; second, by altering the interaction among those who make up the community. The more scientifically literate people become, the more they will expect, even demand to participate in the political process, and the more effective they will be at it. Such social evolution may be slow, nonlinear and chaotic, and periodically may even reverse course, but it is probably also inexorable, as the recent history of the former Soviet Union and other Communist countries in Europe shows.
(Larry, December, Promoting Democracy In The 1990s, 1p.http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/diam_rpt.html ) Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty and openness. The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built. Directory: 2011 2011 -> Enterprise Network Management iPost: Implementing Continuous Risk Monitoring at the Department of State 2011 -> Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis 2011 -> Malevil Robert Merle 2011 -> The Elephant Keeper’s Children Peter Hoeg 2011 -> January 1: Ecstasy zZz January 2: King of Anything Sara Bareillis 2011 -> Tracks, Mixes, Masters, and More!: Analyzing Preservation Priorities for Multitrack Recordings 2011 -> Department of Electrical Engineering 2011 Annual Report 2011 -> Jv packet •Mars Colonization Affirmative •Mars Colonization Negative 2011 -> Asian Pacific Mathematical Olympiad(apmo) 2011 -> Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) omb no. 1024-0018 Download 410.36 Kb. Share with your friends:
|