Space Quote: Meteorite Hunters

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A meteorite in the Antarctic. (Rutgers University)

“We get a piece for our collection and a new meteorite sample for potential research…In turn, they know what they can sell the specimen for because they know what kind of meteorite it is.”

-Statement by Alan Rubin, a research geochemist and curator of the University of California, Los Angeles meteorite collection, in a Wall Street Journal article titled “A $25,000 Prize Still Sits in the Maine Woods. Meteorite Hunters Aren’t Giving Up.” The article discusses the meteorite-hunting hobby of some individuals and how it has created a symbiotic relationship between hunters and scientists. As another scientist in the article stated, ““We as scientists, with a few exceptions, don’t have the time, effort or money to go hunting meteorites.” You can also find the article here.

Space Quote: Did Harvard Professor Avi Loeb Find Evidence of Intelligent Alien Life?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Characters from SyFy’s television series Battlestar Galactica. (SyFy)

“Our findings open a new frontier in astronomy of studying what lies outside the solar system through microscopes rather than telescopes.”

-Statement by Harvard Professor Avi Loeb to USAToday regarding his recent recovery of what is believed to be fragments of an asteroid from outside our solar system that crashed into the Earth back in 2014. More tests are being conducted on the pieces recovered from the Pacific Ocean to determine whether the material is natural or artificially made. If the latter, it may be the first evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Space Quote: NASA and Another Type of Tourism

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): OceanGate’s Titan submersible. (Associated Press)

“OceanGate is doing for deep sea exploration, discovery, and research what companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, World View, and Virgin Galactic are doing for space exploration and discovery…I look forward to supporting OceanGate’s effort to document the Titanic and its role as a deep ocean artificial reef when I join the expedition as a crewmember this summer.“

-Statement by NASA planetary scientist Alan Stern in an OceanGate press release from March 2022. Dr. Stern is best known for his role as the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The press release also discusses NASA’s assistance to OceanGate in the development of the Titan submersible that is still lost in the Atlantic after a mission to take tourists to see the late Titanic. While Dr. Stern mentions exploration and discovery, this was simply tourism gone wrong. Tourism is a lucrative aspect of the four space companies listed above, but it is not without its risks. Fortunately, Dr. Stern had a good trip last summer, and we can only hope the five individuals on the Titan will also return safely to the surface.

Space Quote: A Space Detente with China?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: factsanddetails.com

“With geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing extending into space, it is only to be expected that policymakers are looking back to the Cold War for helpful lessons. Unfortunately, it is far too easy to learn the wrong lessons from space cooperation during and immediately after the Cold War. Certainly, space cooperation was not a silver bullet to superpower problems on Earth and in space. The pattern of space cooperation between the United States and Russia is an important reminder that space cooperation has generally been the product of improving relations rather than the catalyst for change.”

-Statement by Aaron Bateman in his Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ article, “The Prospects for United States–China Space Cooperation are Limited.” The article suggests some ways that the two space-faring nations can find common ground even if they are not working on the same space missions as the American and Russians did in the past and still do today.

Space Quote: The Great Filter at Work?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: CHATGPT-GUIDE.SE

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

-Statement by artificial intelligence (AI) experts and public figures in a “Statement on AI Risk” from the Center for AI Safety. This followed an earlier open letter back in March from other AI leaders that called “on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” This could indicate we may be witnessing the “Great Filter” at work, which was one answer to Fermi’s paradox highlighting the lack detectable extraterrestrial life.