Comments on: Easter Island: An Object Lesson

By: Reality Check admin

Reality Check admin — Sun, 15 May 2011 21:44:42 +0000

Thanks Tim, excellent graph. very pointed.
Seems to me the US have lost the plot a bit, space-wise – a great shame, they were actually pretty good at it.
Have to give them (or someone) something new to think about on the space exploration front – I’m working on it …
(And I’m not the only one)

I’ll have to keep an eye on xkcd.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 06 May 2011 18:16:44 +0000

Hi Dad,
Did you see the recent xkcd, which was really about the US cancelling the shuttle program?
http://xkcd.com/893/

I like xkcd.

By: Boz kay

Boz kay — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 08:06:29 +0000

Fantastic, truely facsinating and love the analogies, thanks grahame, Boz

By: Reality Check admin

Reality Check admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:47:24 +0000

Sorry, I didn’t answer your question. The research is happening, and will happen. Once the possibilities are clear there will be various bodies – including, I suspect, independent trusts – that will be very ready to pick it up and run with it.

Watch this space.

By: Reality Check admin

Reality Check admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:35:15 +0000

I don’t see it as bleak, Wendy, for me it’s just part of the ongoing process of evolution. As it says in ‘Desiderata’: “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should”.
Perhaps the problem is that as a species we tend to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of creation – whereas we are in fact just at the very early stages of a journey to who-knows-where (or what). As St Paul said “We do not yet know what it is that we may become” – we don’t need to follow the Christian faith to say ‘amen’ to that. The process of evolution that brought life to a ball of dead rock, and produced intelligent (sometimes!) self-aware mammals from pretty unpromising origins in the protozoa od the prehistoric slime, hasn’t finished with us yet!
We have a choice: when the waves of an unknown future roll towards us we can turn and run (and probably get bowled over and washed away), we can stand transfixed like rabbits in the headlights (similar fate) – or we can grab our surfboards and ride those waves! The choice is ours.

‘Fortune Favours the Brave’.

By: wendy Holdstock

wendy Holdstock — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:20:11 +0000

Thank you for this – it is rather bleak – partly because i feel there is such blindness and lack of vision in humans these days – or maybe not if Easter Island really did happen as you say.
Who will be brave enough to spend the money needed for this research and for the reconnaisance flights?
Yours Wendy