Supplemental section of the file (for printing purposes, starts at p. 102)



Download 1.03 Mb.
Page14/62
Date23.11.2017
Size1.03 Mb.
#34279
1   ...   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   ...   62

A2 Nasa Tradeoff DA

To do anything in space, we must perfect deflecting asteroids


Butler 10, (Katherine Butler is a regular contributor to several green sites, including Ecosalon and MNN, 4/19/10, “NASA's new asteroid mission could avert disaster on Earth”, http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/nasas-new-asteroid-mission-could-avert-disaster-on-earth, SH)
President Obama recently announced that he wants an American spacecraft to visit an asteroid by 2025. Experts say this goal will be extremely difficult to attain in 15 years because of the planning needed to rendezvous with an unscheduled asteroid. But Space.com reports that other experts say it is a mission that cannot be completed soon enough — the ability to nudge an a space rock from its path could help deflect future asteroids aimed at Planet Earth. NASA is focusing its efforts on finding the right asteroid to knock off course. John Grunsfeld is an astrophysicist and a former NASA astronaut who flew on five shuttle missions. As he told Space.com, “by going to a near-Earth object, an asteroid, and perhaps even modifying its trajectory slightly, we would demonstrate a hallmark in human history … [It would be] the first time humans showed that we can make better decisions than the dinosaurs made 65 million years ago." He explained that if scientists don’t work on a solution to changing the path of an asteroid, life as we know it will certainly be ended by one. According to Space.com, scientists estimate there are about 100,000 asteroids and comets near Earth and that 1,000 of them could be potentially dangerous. About a dozen of these asteroids could be reached by astronauts, but the target would have to be at least 300 feet wide to make it worth the trip. Even so, spacecrafts have landed on asteroids before. Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft just traveled to the asteroid called Itokawa, where it attempted to collected samples for scientists. Obama’s asteroid mission is the first step in the ultimate goal of landing on Mars. This mission would be complicated. First, the flight to a space rock would likely take months. Then astronauts would have to be tethered to the asteroid to keep from floating away, as gravity forces would not be in effect. In addition, the space flyers would be outside the Earth’s protective magnetosphere and would be exposed to harsh radiation. Nonetheless, some feel this is a risk we should take. TV's Bill Nye the Science Guy, vice president of the Planetary Society, told Space.com that "it's every bit as exciting in a different way, we're going to deep space. You turn around and take a picture of the Earth, and it's going to be a dot. You're not even going to see the atmosphere.” Sure, it’s risky and dangerous — but saving the planet could be a cool payoff.

A2 Zizek

Zizek votes aff. NEOs are real threats that are not constructed and cannot be answered by philosophy, only dealt with by real action.


Slavoj Zizek 2009 your author, celebrity philosopher, future rehab all-star – Interview posted on the web. “Zizek! – Full transcript” http://beanhu.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/zizek/
Let’s show them all, huh? Okay, philosophy. This, I can do it, at least traditionally, in two lines, no? Philosophy does not solve problems. The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems but to redefine problems, to show how what we experience as a problem is a false problem. If what we experience as a problem is a true problem, then you don’t need philosophy. For example, let’s say that now there would be a deadly virus coming from out there in space, so not in any way mediated through our human history, and it would threaten all of us. We don’t need, basically, philosophy there. We simply need good science desperately to find… We would desperately need good science to find the solution, to stop this virus. We don’t need philosophy there,because the threat is a real threat, directly. You cannot play philosophical tricks and say “No, this is not the”… You know what I mean. It’s simply our life would be… or okay, the more vulgar, even, simpler science fiction scenario. It’s kind of “Armageddon” or whatever. No, “Deep Impact.” A big comet threatening to hit Earth. You don’t need philosophy here. You need… I don’t know. To be a little bit naive, I don’t know. Strong atomic bombs to explode, maybe. I think it’s maybe too utopian. But you know what I mean. I mean the threat is there, you see. In such a situation, you don’t need philosophy. I don’t think that philosophers ever provided answers, but I think this was the greatness of philosophy, not in this common sense that philosophers just ask questions and so on.


Zizek votes aff – most of reality is constructed – asteroids are real threats.


Zizek 2009, Slavoj – your author, celebrity philosopher, future rehab all-star. In Defense of Lost Causes p. 370-1
Is this duality not prefigured in the Heideggeriann struggle between World and Earth, which we encounter, today, in the antinomy that defines our experience? On the one hand, there is the fluidification (volatilization) of our experience, its desubstantialization; this exponentially' exploding " lightness of being" culminate in the cyber-dream of the transformation of our very identity as a human being from hardware to software, to a program able to be reloaded from one to another hardware. Reality is here virtualized, any failure can be undone by rewinding and having another try at it. However, this virtualized world in which we dwell is threatened by the shadow of what we usually designate as the prospect of ecological catastrophe - the imponderable heaviness and complexity, the inertia of Earth catching up, reminding us of the fragile equilibrium which forms the invisible background foundation of our survival on Earth and which We can destroy (and thus destroy ourselves) – through global warming, through new viruses, through a gigantic asteroid hitting the EarthNever in the history of humanity was the tension so palpable between the unbearable lightness of our being (the media providing us with the strangest sensations with a click, cutting through the resistance of reality, promising a “frictionless” world) and the unpredictable background of the Earth.




Download 1.03 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   ...   62




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page