In almost a month we will be
celebrating the fourty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings, an
incredible achievement for it’s time. I
can tell you that it was an enormous thrill to have witnessed this event though
for most people alive today, it is ancient history. Few of the people who brought this event
about remain alive today. Yet, two of
the three astronauts who made that first voyage to the moon are – Buzz Aldrin,
now aged 84, and Michael Collins aged 83.
Neil Armstrong, the mission’s commander, passed away in 2012 at age 82.
The three astronauts of Apollo 11. Left, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin. Middle, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins (the astronaut who did not set foot upon the moon). Right, Mission Commander Neil Armstrong.
What was important about their part
of the mission was that they made the effort.
The result of their willingness to take the risk and make the effort was
to create a technological revolution that made life we know today what it has
become. And their faces became the faces
of the future.
Liftoff, and the astronauts are on their way!
Can you believe that the technology that you are looking at is fourty five years old?
Anybody who worked with computers of
that time knows their extreme limitations.
Imagine a machine that filled an entire room yet offered less power than
some of the computers that run today’s toys.
The computer that controlled the “Lunar Excursion Module” or LEM for
short, had less capability than the computers that power today’s cheap watches.
Today’s smart phones with their
seemingly miraculous capabilities almost fall into the realm of magic for
someone who was alive 45 years ago.
I celebrate the increased power of
knowledge that revolution has brought.
Then, we only believed that extrasolar planets existed. At this point, astrophysicists may have found
1,500, and more are being discovered all the time. Automatic doors have been around for many
years. Medical body scanners are now being
built. Teleportation has been
accomplished albeit, only in the lab and only using particles. The possibility of warping space to travel
faster than the speed of light may now truly exist if certain parameters can be
met.
Biologically we know so much more
about life. We are almost to the point
of being able to replicate DNA patterns to recreate extinct species. We know the causes of DNA degradation in our own
bodies and know how to prevent or at least diminish the scale of it. That people would prefer to eat and drink in
the poisons applied to our foods and that do much of the damage people would
probably rather not change. They have
been sold on the idea that these poisons increase crop yields (I would personally
like to see studies funded by neutral parties comparing crop yields of true organic
verses chemical farming methods before I would think to agree with the necessity
of any chemical farming). Many have been
sold on the idea that GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) are safe to eat
when, in fact, no neutral study extant demonstrates this. The real question these studies seem to
suggest is the question of just how dangerous are these ‘foods’?
That so many people are willing to
feed their children these pesticide laced foods, these potentially dangerous
GMO products; that so many will support no actions that will abate the
potential climate change catastrophe; that so many care so little about man’s
devastation of the life sustaining abilities of the planet – all because today’s
profit is more important than the lives (and potential lives) of those who will
follow. That is, who will follow as long
as the planet remains capable of sustaining life. That today’s profit is more important than
future life tells us something about today’s human values. Such values drown out the message of the
importance of life in favor of the importance of materialism and profit.
Think about this. The possibility of incredibly long life
extension is possibly at hand because the two major factors imposing
limitations on longevity are DNA damage repair and DNA telomere repair. The factors affecting the former are fairly
well known, and an enzyme called telomerase may affect the latter. Yet, if society cannot properly act to
maintain all life on this planet, then what kind of world will these long-lived
people be moving towards. That is if
there remains human life after 2150. It
is possible that if climate change is not abated then earth’s temperature will
increase by five degrees by 2100. Once
it reaches six degrees the extinction process that has already begun may result
in an extinction even greater than came about in the Permian/Triassic
Extinction.
If life has value should it not have
value greater than profit or material things.
Does one have to leave the country of his origin to find places where
life is more truly valued.
As I looked
at the full moon last night these were my thoughts.
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