Re: Space Policy Sucks, while there's Life on Venus

From: Eric Chomko (echomko_at__at_polaris.umuc.edu)
Date: 01/22/05 

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:35:21 +0000 (UTC)

Brad Guth (bradguth@yahoo.com) wrote:
: "No one knows for sure since accurate earth temps are a little over 100
: years and our study of the sun even less."

: "What evidence to do have of a 105,000 year cycle? I read that the last
: ice
: age was a mere 10,000 years ago."

: Not so fast, as we now have multiple deep core samples that go way back
: 750,000 years, sharing all sorts of viable data that's essentially
: unaffected by humanity. It's only the last couple of thousand years that
: humanity has been a sufficient influence to being noticed as 'global
: warming' due mostly to the -5% albedo shift we've imposed upon the
: environment of Earth.

Albedo shift from a core sample?

: I've reviewed several core sample charts that clearly establish the
: levels of atmospheric CO2 and several other gas/vapor elements
: throughout time, of which the consensus remains fairly well established
: as to how our long-term environment changed so that those readings came
: about, and of such long-term shifts in the environment certainly wasn't
: achieved by way of anything that our sun introduced, or that other
: planetary/geological considerations permitted, at least not time after
: time.

: You do realize how much of an accelerated growth process it requires for
: an accumulation of diatoms to build one cm?

No.

: To offer some further perspective as to how much diatom deposits
: amounted to from just our last cycle go-around, the White Cliffs of
: Dover are primarily of diatomaceous earth, those cliffs represent many
: layers upon layers of diatom deposits which are essentially the skeleton
: remains of diatoms, whereas the timeline of all known humanity (say
: 50,000 years) is perhaps responsible for not more than 0.1% of that
: level of contribution. Thus clearly a temporary influx of illumination
: or geological transition simply isn't going to cut it. Diatoms need
: additional warmth and mostly additional near-UV and UV/a spectrums of
: energy for thousands of years at a time.

: http://www.cycle-n-sleep.co.uk/rinfo/related/garden/dovercliffs.htm
: "White Cliffs of Dover The White Cliffs, up to 300 feet high, are made
: up of millions of small sea creatures ..."

So are many layers in the Grand Canyon.

: That's roughly 90 meters worth of mostly diatom contributions, and how
: persay does your conditional laws of physics and of your ozone layer
: depletion theory deal with that?

I doesn't, it merely privdes a fossil record for bygone eras. Your guess
of the atmosphere based upon evidence at the bottom of a sea is no better
today than it was 250-500 million years ago.

: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rhmiller/depositionfeatures1/DepositionalFeatures1.htm
: SEDIMENTARY FORENSICS: DECIPHERING THE STRATIGRAPHIC RECORD

: Your "if we are really part of a binary" is being somewhat of a broad
: analogy. Although, it seems that the 225 million year cycle of the Milky
: Way galaxy is suggesting upon another perfectly good number of
: alternatives that don't quite fit your golden book of astrophysics
: rules. Your "other than Pluto's orbit and inclination" excludes the
: Kuiper and oort zone debris, of which Sirius should afford something
: similar, though much greater.

Sirius isn't the closest star system, Alpha Centauri is. Based upon your
logic we must be in orbit with AC as well.

: What other star could possibly yield that sort of illumination upon
: Earth, especially of one that's anywhere within our neighborhood?

Sirius is a fairly large star that is close to us. THAT makes it the
brightest star in the sky. Surely, you are aware of Rigel in the
constealltion Orion and how much bigger and brighter it is than Sirius?

I suggest you look at a table of the closest stars and a table of the
brightest stars. Get a lesson in apparent magnitude vs. absolute
magnitude, then I suspect you will learn just where Sirius fits in
given that analysis.

: Is there another fast-tracking mega A1+ class star that's worthy of our
: consideration besides Sirius?

I'm sure the charts will tell you. Again, Sirius is bigger than the sun
but smaller than many other stars.

: Certainly there are bigger and even more intense illuminating stars than
: Sirius. However those suckers are nowhere within reach of our solar
: system, at least not upon any 105,000 year cycle. Whereas reported by
: the ESA/Hipparcos stellar motions team, it seems even more likely that
: our travels, including those of the Sirius star system, have been
: somewhat different than the bulk of the vast Milky Way, which should
: only add further weight to my argument.

Well astronmer Frank Drake seemed to think Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani
deserved special attention. Others believe that Vega does (Sagan, I
think).

: "All you had to say was that the sun is a G2 star and Sirius is an A1,
: Geez! Also its proper motion is not that great suggesting little chance
: of actually being in orbit with us. In short, it, like other stars is
: the solar neighborhood, is acting exactly like a typical star."

: and "If we are part of a sun/Sirius system, then what is the orbital
: period?"

: Actually I've stipulated that Sirius isn't orbiting us (much like our
: sun doesn't orbit Earth), as much as I meant that it's our somewhat

Hah! Tycho said that the sun orbitted the earth and all other planets
orbitted the sun. I bet that you cannot disprove Tycho on this!

: minor solar system as being dragged summarily along and thereby in orbit
: and/or close fly-by association with the massive Sirius star system. Of
: course there's other nearby gravity influences, and no doubt you've
: already figured all of that one out because you're so darn smart, and
: I'm not.

Brad our abilities are not in question, stick to the science. If Sirius is
in orbit with us then surely some orbital elemets exist, period,
eccentricity, semimajor axis, etc. What are those for the sun/Sirius
system? Without them you have nothing.

: By best guess/estimate is a relationship of roughly 105,000 years, give
: or take a few thousand since there's other stars to consider than just
: the influence of the Siruius star system, possibly even a few small
: blackholes out there to boot.

Interesting theory but difficult to prove. What would the closest distance
between the sun and Sirius be in the 105,000 period given a current
distance of 8.7 LY?

: Obviously you haven't considered a recorded timeline of various gas
: elements as clearly recorded from within the past 750,000 years as
: worthy science, nor proper stellar motions being worth squat, thus
: there's no point in even mentioning the relative speed or direction of
: our solar system with respect to absolutely anything, as apparently our
: solar system remains isolated upon some individual frame of existence,

But there is no proof that our sun and any other star, including Sirius,
are in any kind of stable relationship over time. In short, isolated does
seem to be the correct word.

: somewhat of an island that has absolutely no associations with anything
: that's within your conditional book of astrophysics. Apparently you
: consider the likes of the ESA/Hipparcos mission as every bit as much of
: a ruse as I perceive those Russian lunar landers and that of our
: NASA/Apollo cold-war ruse of the century. In other words, of whatever
: doesn't apply to your standards is either a joke or a lie, preferably
: both, yet you'll probably insist there are WMD.

It is your beliefs that are in question not mine.

: "The theory is that the ozone layer is diminishing. And it has nothing
: to do with Sirius! Sirius' association with fire is seasonal at best."

: I like your back-door and save-thy-*** theory which managed to leave
: out the far greater importance and subsequence influence of a
: drastically falling magnetosphere as the prime influence upon our ozone
: layer as well as the Van Allen zone of death that's been falling off
: like a rock, which by the way is not suggesting any sufficient
: re-cycling event that matches up with those recorded ice-age cycles, of
: which humanity is at best only an extremely small part of that equation,
: and much like what transpired on behalf of the Mars magnetosphere
: whereas it didn't manage to re-cycle on behalf of salvaging whatever
: life on Mars, so why would and/or could our magnetosphere do better. Why
: are you digging throughout the intellectual mainstream cesspool for more
: of your usual dog-wagging spin and damage-control hype, especially when
: you could be working outside and upwind of the stinking box, on behalf
: of humanity?

You are trying to equate science with politics. The former is a physical
science and the latter is a social science, if the word "science" really
even applies to politics. Anyway, lying to get your way is commonplace in
politics. It appears that you and folks like you are the only ones that
lie about science, however. The rest of us, should at least strive for the
truth when it comes to real science. And true science SHOULD be
mainstream! Again, politics is a whole other story.

: Being that we have our sun as a calibration marker-post, is there any
: chance your superior talents and resources can divulge some specific
: illumination numbers on behalf of exactly what the likes of Sirius would
: deliver into the surface environment of Earth from the distance of 0.086
: light year (100 times closer)?

Sirius is 26 times as bright as our sun, according to Pat Moore's
astronomy guide.

: I can tell by your warm and fuzzy all-knowing expertise, which by the
: way so far hasn't offered squat on behalf sharing any specific numbers
: or whatever else on behalf of this topic, that you're only here to stalk
: and topic/author bash your way along. However, perhaps since you seem to
: know all there is to know, you should inform our pagan warlord where
: some of those WMD are stashed, that way our resident commander and chief
: village idiot moron will not have to even consider any aspects of
: remorse in his war-crimes trial, or is that one going a little to far
: outside the mainstream, by asking too much?

Look I'm no Bush fan, but I fail to see how politics fits into the
discussion.

: BTW; what's science fiction about a little or a lot of perfectly natural
: terraforming going on, or don't you belive in panspermia?

: Isn't that exactly what Dr. Zubrin and thousands of others have been
: insisting, that we should be artificially doing with regard to Mars?

: I don't suppose that you're another one of those Titan or bust sorts, of
: becoming another must do or die trying to get humanity onto Titan?

I think we should go back if that's what you mean? First, I think we ought
to do a sample return from Mars though.

Eric

: Regards, Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/update-242.htm

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