Cassini to graze Saturn moon's plumes

Read more:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13448
The Cassini spacecraft will fly closer to the moon Enceladus on 12 March than ever before in an attempt to scoop up particles from the moon's mysterious icy jets (Courtesy of NASA)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• cassini
• enceladus
• flyby
• jets
• plumes
• new
• scientist
• newscientist

[Mittau]

Yeah we should totally just concentrate all our attention on terrestrial problems and forget space exploration altogether. Its not like exploring a new place just to see what is there has ever yielded positive results for the exploring nation/organization as a whole...

Just imagine we could all be living in caves unaware of the complexity of the world around us, believing cancer, aids and all the other terrible things in the world are divine punishments or whatever.

[ikapacho]

The space program offers us an opportunity for colonization and places to send our people, assuming we ever find a planet with an atmosphere that will allow us to terraform its surface.

[Basicpiviot]

Finding that balance is impossible with capitalisim. We need to rethink society in general. it will not do to have a profit based economy, we need to utilize our technology to automate all we can, and get rid of human labor.

[JuniorDExchangecore]

@ Basicpiviot. Yes, but there is some speculation that due to its proximity to Saturn, that the water inside could be warm enough (due to constant spinning) to support life. It might also begin to develop a atmosphere with all the moisture spewing out as well, and if it is dense enough, it might produce some extra heat that we could perhaps live on.

[JuniorDExchangecore]

Well... not really. Slaughtering would be best, because then we could reuse the nice soil. :P

[Kenzofeis]

The population capacity of humans are extreme.

We don't mate only once or twice every year but are capable of reproducing by way of chainreaction by a factor much larger than 2x at every step.

Example: if every fly-egg survived into a grown fly, the earth would be covered by a 2m thick layer of flies in one year.

What is needed is to take religions (and some cultures/views/power-money-bro­kers) by their ears and make people understand that higher survival rates neseccitates lower birthrates..

[Kenzofeis]

My post here now will as everything else vanish in time in all the violent vortexes of utterings from all around.

But, humans expaning their habitats onto other planets will only bring the same problems there. It's like repeat but no real rinse. It will not remove the problems we already sit in.

It's an old instinct of leaving a troubled area to try and find something better - but as shown so many times, problems reoccur.

Humans are like bacteria - only a few thereof is good.

[Mittau]

I hate having to insert sarcasm tags on all my humour, it ruins the effect. But for your benefit, I was being sarcastic.

[Basicpiviot]

@Craft 2299 there is nothing on the moon, not even special minerals since the moon is made out of the same materials as the earth. its a barren wasteland... its Mars or bust!

[Craft2299]

Overpapulation isnt very mutch of a problem now, but as u sayd there will be "other" places wel find. god hope not the moon. we need that. not ruined.

[ItLingersAgain]

ikapacho is pretty clever!

[Volodus]

Imagin asteroid on it way to the earth. In 20 years it will hit earth and destroy evrything on it. In that case, all other problems (like polution, wars, starving, HIV, cancer) are unimportant.