Let’s fix the earth before we go tearing through the skies

We all hope that Philae, the craft that travelled for 10 years and covered more than seven billion kilometres to hitch a ride on a passing comet, will come back to life.

The European Space Agency lander remains powered down as a result of being starved of sunlight, but its makers say that it will come back to life as early as August.

Even though the mission ended with a setback, it revealed the outer limits of human brilliance. The numbers, magnitude and scale of the project are astonishing.

Imagine planning for a quarter of a century to fly something through half the length of our galaxy to land on a rock moving at 70,000 kilometres an hour. Imagine that communicating and getting photos from an object half a billion kilometres away (equivalent to the circumference of 12,500 earths) when one mobile service provider struggles to get me a telephone signal in my house.

Finally, imagine pulling it off as planned, down to the two minutes expected arrival time.

When we look back on this decade, the Rosetta Mission will rank as one of the most memorable events, irrespective of how it ends. It is a remarkable feat of exploration. However, it also is cause for concern.

We seem to be in a new age of space exploration as more man-made contraptions sail across the heavens. There is already a confederation of nations, both developed and developing, poking around space.

ALTERNATIVE HOME

The reason is given as research, but you cannot help feeling that there is a martial edge to all this exploration. Rocket science is the same, whether you want your payload on the other side to be astronauts or explosives.

Conflict spurs human innovation and you get the feeling that, if it weren’t for the Cold War, there would be no footprints on the moon.

The US, in particular, seems set to build missiles with global reach that are so fast, they can beat any defensive shields. With global reach bases across the world, aircraft carriers on every ocean and troops at the ready make less sense.

With lightning-speed missiles that can bomb any corner of the globe in an hour,  even regional allies are expendable. The goals of self-sufficiency and unchallenged supremacy that will always excite the American psyche are within reach.

It is scary that the fastest weapons in the superpower’s arsenal are also the ones  capable of delivering the most abominable payloads. When you have weapons that can deliver nukes in an hour to any part of the world, the time to negotiate our way out of extinction is that much more reduced.

As awesome as the new scientific insights we gain from the new space age are, we know they will end up having real-world applications in the battlefield. The world will all be a bit more paranoid and unsafe due to the activities of NASA scientists.

The immediate militarism that will arise from increased space travel, though, isn’t the main reason I think scouring of the heavens is premature.

This planet isn’t a rehearsal for elsewhere. We know of no other worlds close enough that can sustain life, and even the ones that are galaxies away with what looks like water aren’t might not support carbon-based life. There is also the problem of getting there. We cannot reach the other worlds where our species will thrive with our frail bodies. We also do not have the ability to traverse the heavens at speeds that would make migration possible.

Space exploration is terribly expensive, and the money could be put to better use on earth. With so much wrong with our earth and so much still left to do, we aren’t ready to go up there.

A cynic would even say that our jaunts across the sky are displacement activity aimed at directing attention away from the fact that we are destroying the earth and pretending that we can find alternative shelters.

The earth is likely the only home we will ever have. The hottest deserts on earth are still better than the coolest places in Venus.

For example, we could consider the oceans. Instead of the limitless oceans in the skies that our blue dot sails through, perhaps we should look at the seas closer home. All life on earth began in the oceans.

It is more likely that we will find life forms that can better help our understanding of ourselves in the sea rather than in the sky. Space will tell us about the origins of the universe, the oceans will tell us about the origins of life.

CARBON SINK

The oceans are in a crisis due to overfishing and increased dumping. The high seas are particularly vulnerable because no one country or global organisation claims ownership. Fish stocks are being depleted and whole species are endangered. 

This is worrying, particularly because globally, more animal-based protein comes from the sea than from land. We still haven’t catalogued every single critter on  earth. Every other week, the British newspapaper, 

The Observer, writes about some recently discovered critter or plant species. Before mastering this world, we shouldn’t be looking for other worlds.

 The beautiful images that the Hubble telescope sent back from across the galaxy were inspiring. But the pictures of life on the ocean floor are just as surprising and awe inducing.

Oceanography is greatly underfunded globally despite the oceans being the largest carbon sinks out there. The seas are buying us time as we try to figure this fossil fuel thing out. We should treat it better.

The people scouring the oceans are mainly funded by the oil industry, and all they are looking to do is stick oil platforms and lay oil platforms across the ocean floor.

We are successful as a species due to our curiosity. However, should our curiosity be directed upwards when the sea, our preserver and sustainer, is dying?

The earth is our heaven, more beautiful than any we have spied on across the heavens. We have the power to make generation-wide catastrophes, and it seems like we are making one now.

Space cannot be “the last frontier” when we haven’t scoured our oceans’ floors.  Exploration, just like charity, should begin at home. Let’s try to avoid turning our world into another uninhabitable hellhole circling the sun.

We need more Jacques Cousteaus (famous oceanographer) and fewer Neil Armstrongs (needs no introduction) among us.  Our salvation will probably not come from the stars; it is more likely lurking somewhere undiscovered in the ocean’s thick mud.

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CLUELESS WEATHERMAN

Met Department forecasts misleading 

BACK IN OCTOBER, weathermen predicted that there would be drought this rainy season, but instead, it rained heavily.

Two weeks before the great deluge, forecasting heads at the meteorological department assured me that there was nothing to worry about.

Weather forecasting now seems more art than even pseudo-science. Is it underfunding, ignorance or the fact that the weather is genuinely unpredictable?

Forecasts aren’t a joke. Some people’s businesses depend on weather, apart from the fashionistas. And with dodgy drainage. it can be a life-and-death issue. Heavy rainfall means outbreaks of cholera in Mombasa and it is a moral duty to warn people.

 If they aren’t right, why on earth are what the Meteorological Department put out called weather forecasts? They should be called weather “guesstimates”. Is it a science when predictions come with disclaimers, qualifiers and caveats?

I am still not sure whether weather can be forecasted three days in advance with any ydegree of accuracy. However, the Meteorological Department believes it can, and we should hold them to account.

The Meteorological Department’s job is to tell us what will happen. If they cannot, then they shouldn’t draw salaries.

MAN OF STYLE

How do I carry my stuff without looking like a fool

HOW ARE MEN supposed to carry their stuff around? I mean things like books and the like.

Backpacks are for people who go to schools and they ruin your shirt. Besides, they make you look like a child.

Briefcases are a sign that one has no money but  is trying very  hard to look important. Everyone who is important enough to have a briefcase has someone who  carries it, and walks ahead of them. Briefcases are affectatious.

Man bags are practical, but then, everyone will think that you are the only man in the world who actually knows the names of the four men in Sauti Sol.

How are men supposed to carry their things around without looking like an idiot, or worse, people inquiring as to why he has been single for so long?