In the Shadow of the Moon
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 09.13.07
In the Shadow of the Moon, producer Ron Howard's breathtaking latest film, chronicles the history of the Apollo program by bringing together the surviving crew members of every manned Moon mission. With the help of digitally restored, rarely before-seen archival footage, the former astronauts describe, in their own words, a time when humans walked on the face of another world.
The Apollo program was forged in the middle of the Cold War; In 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to Congress challenging the United States to put a man on the Moon and return him safely back to Earth before the decade was up.
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had already orbited the Earth, becoming the first man in space. A few weeks before President Kennedy's threw down the gauntlet, Alan Shepard took a suborbital flight that lasted only 15 minutes—not much by anyone's standards, but enough to give the United States the "in" into outer space it was looking for.
On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on another celestial body.
"This country can do extraordinary things when it's galvanized," director David Sington, who hails from the United Kingdom, told TreeHugger at a recent press junket for the film.
"And when the leadership or the events conspire to make America, which is normally a country in which people just do their own thing, when it makes people actually decided on one goal, then that is where the sense of optimism and potentiality is," he added.
Having directed a couple of documentaries about climate change, the correlation between the "Space Race" and climate change was, for Sington, unmistakable. After all, the Moon landing has its own peanut gallery of doubters, skeptics, and conspiracy theorists, many of whom, he said, were otherwise highly intelligent people.
Still, Sington's faith in the United States is singular. "I think that one day in America there will be—and I think that you can see it beginning to happen—a strong political consensus that we need to tackle this issue," he said. "And when that consensus is crystallized by the political leadership it's going to throw up, then I think we'll deal with it.
"But it'll happen in this country irrespective of anything else. It's this country's destiny to do that." ::In the Shadow of the Moon
Its important for environmentalists to plan ahead for the expansion of humanity. Either humans will expand to fill the solar system and beyond, or we will, most likely, kill our selves off in a giant nuclear war.
I see a few issues coming-
Energy input- The current launch method (chemical rocket engines) is unsustainable. Either some form on nuclear engine that doesn't release radiation, or a rail gun.
Loss of resources- initially at least, all material used (water, fuel, metal parts, oxygen) in extraterrestrial exploration and colonization will come from earth, most likely not to return.
Finally, we must look at how our actions affect other planets. Can we allow ourselves free reign over them, because we are the only ones there (probably)?.
"...some form on nuclear engine that doesn't release radiation..."
huh? If you call it nuclear, it releases radiation by definition. Can you please elaborate?
Hey Abe Lincoln, I'm glad you're still around.
Anyways, a 'nuclear engine' doesn't release radiation by definition. There's usually radiation emitted by nuclear reactions, but that is a different story than nuclear engines.
I assume you are talking about a Nuclear Thermal Rocket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket ? Or using a nuclear reactor to power an Ion thruster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_propulsion ? There is also radioisotope thermal generators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator but the use of those is limited to small scale applications.
I just wanted to clarify since in any nuclear reactor you are going to have radiation (usually in the form of fission neutrons to produce heat, but also alpha, beta, and gamma). Did you mean release significant radiation outside of the containment boundary? There will always be radiation inside the reactor core.
The ambiguous use of the word radiation is what caught my eye, I'm not trying to be hostile.
Key word is release. Yes. A nuclear engine will be radioactive. But, would you call a power plant that released its radiation safe? NO.
If the engine has radioactive elements or isotopes being used as reaction mass, pushing the ship up, the it can't be used on earth, or anywhere with local human presence.