NASA and Global Change

Google Tech Talks
December 11, 2008

ABSTRACT

Abstract: Almost exactly forty years ago, aboard NASA's Apollo VIII spacecraft, the first humans to leave our world took perhaps the most important and influential photographs of all time: The full Earth (taken from halfway to the moon), and Earthrise (taken from lunar orbit). These two images completely changed the way we look at our planet, at our environment, and at ourselves. That is to say: in 1968, humanity discovered the planet Earth.

But what has NASA done lately to help the Earth? At present, NASA has more than a dozen large Earth observing satellites in orbit, returning over a terabyte per day of physical, chemical, and climatological data about our planet. NASA gathers more data about the earth, and funds more research in the Earth Sciences, than the rest of the world combined.

Dr. Worden will survey NASA'a activities in Earth science, climate modeling, and environmental technology. He will also discuss the information technology under development (some in partnership with Google) for disseminating and analyzing the massive data generated by these activities.

Speaker: Pete Worden
Prior positions for Dr. Worden included Director of Development and Transformation, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command; Consultant to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on space related issues; Congressional Fellow with the Office of Senator Sam Brownback as advisor on NASA and space issues; Staff officer for the Presidents National Space Council. Dr. Worden spearheaded efforts to revitalize U.S. civil space exploration and earth monitoring systems. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific technical papers in astrophysics, space sciences, and strategic studies, served as a scientific co-investigator for two NASA space science missions and is a recognized expert on space issues both civil and military.

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[pinglia]

disagreed, human kind is a vastly superior, race and it is well within our capacity to save this planet.. and no we will not go back to horse and buggy... haha... the fact that people say that there is nothing we can do is simply bullshit.... if we globally warm an entire planet and we can also cool it... i for one am a mechanical engineer and i know we can save this world

[fireofenergy]

Cool timelapse!

All humanity has to do is build a few thousand molten salt thorium reactors. They spit out about 1,000 times LESS radioactive wastes. AND that waste halflives down to biosphere safe levels in 300 years NOT 10,000 years!

There is enough thorium to power the planet with excess of energy for thousands of years. There's thorium on the moon and in the asteroids too.

Desert solar is only needed for jobs!

Enviro's, listen up, CONSERVATION IS LIMITATION = NO FREEDOM !

[TheRealArchAngel]

"the fact that people say that there is nothing we can do is simply bullshit"

Only if you truley belive in the Physist's 18th century "greenhouse effect" from trace co2 actually distributing and storing heat in the Ocean and atmosphere instead of the 16:05 Evaporation/percipitation cycle that Meterologist observe powered by thermals in oceansand earth surface and amplified by Sun during the day and the OCean Conveyer mostly from heat from the sea floor from earths core along with sun 17:01

[GameFreakBart]

@pinglia If we don't speed up our research to GM food we'll run out of food at 2050 and the numbers of people will slowly decrease. This will decrease the use of energy aswell so the release of greenhouse gases will be reduced. However, if we manage to feed the human population so the human population will grow further, global warming isn't gonna stop and we'll heat things up pretty bad before the next ice age. When the next ice age arives humans will probably die anyway though..

[55painterman]

some may think we will not become exstinct but I know we are if we could do this to our planet in the short time that we did I cannot see any future and its sad we could of done so ,many good things on earth but between religion and money= GREED' we have another 30 yrs, on this planet before our food water and land become contaminated and we all start dying out like flys...didn,t we learn from the great dinasaurs? animals that powerful died out because of their own fecies' it wasn,t an asteroid!

[PhainHmoobLee]

the earth has been here and will continue to be here whether humans exist or not.

there are plenty of living creatures here than just human.

the earth will save itself, humans need to save themselves from their own destruction.

[ZealfortheCross]

Anthropic principle- strong and weak. 222 points of contemplation. :o)

[Lamentfordeath]

@pinglia Do you know the scope of changes that have occurred on this planet since before and after the dawn of human history? Beyond imagining, And yet the planet still remains intact and very livable. I think its a little ego maniacal to assume we are capable of dishing out more damage than the planet inflicts on itself. Try to be a little more observant and check your emotions at the door please.

[nightmareaol]

@pinglia one that don't know how to type lol... but yeah i agree... but we need everyone to pitch in

[SuperKabylo]

On en sait si peu........

[ChristopherJManess]

@pinglia I would definitely say that we CAN save this planet, but the forces that be (aka greedy profiteers) struggle over control of it. Even NASA has resources to do just as much harm as they can good. The horse and buggy is more of a religious aspect, which so many have not learned about. Of course, we may be far worse than we are at present if they did learn the esoterics.

[TheCaptainLulz]

@pinglia youre premise is flawed. to quote George Cartlin, the earth is fine, been here through all sorts of worse things, the people are fucked! There isnt even the remotest possibility we will sterilize the earth, but WE may not survive what we are doing.