The Evangelical Ecologist points to some interesting material on the possibility of getting fuel for energy from the moon. It seems to me that space exploration will really take off when we find an economic reason to go there. Spin-off technology is just not that likely to light up people’s life, and fundamental research is not sexy enough. A bit of helium-3 just might do it. 🙂
OK, these are not that closely related, but the Christian Carnival will appear here tomorrow, and it will be evening before it appears. I will announce the winner of the Mosaic Bible giveaway at the same time.
When the James ossuary was found I initially commented that I thought it looked like a forgery. This was a rather bold statement on my part, probably excessively so. I’m not a paleographer, and I only had a newspaper photograph to work from. Nonetheless, there was enough that I could see that I seriously questioned…
I’ve been following through the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary in my study of Leviticus for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, the way I like to study these passages involves reading the text in Hebrew, reading and annotating the commentary, reading the text in the LXX, hunting down materials in other commentaries and translations, and so forth. …
I’m continuing to have considerable database problems. I’m keeping a close eye on the blog and I can bring it back up easily, but it’s not looking very stable. It’s possible I may change to a different provider for my server. In the meantime, I ask for patience! Update: I’m testing a change in the…
I find myself commenting a bit on this topic before I really feel ready to do so, but there are certain things I’d like to insert into the conversation that is being generated from Adrian Warnock’s blog, through the discussion of John Piper’s book The Future of Justification. (Some preliminary notes on the new perspectives…
As an exercise in math illiteracy it would be hard (though likely possible) to beat How to Pick Your Powerball Numbers from ABC News. If you are allowed to work without context (sample size, population size, etc) you can make anything sound useful.
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If two square kilometres of the moon’s surface power a 1 gigawatt power station for a year, and since the average total power consumption of the human world (in 2001, and growing fast) is 13,500 gigawatts, how many years would it take to for us humans to completely destroy the surface of the moon? Well, the surface area of the moon is about 38 million square kilometres, so the answer is a bit more than a thousand years at 2001 consumption rates. So this power source may outlast fossil fuels on earth, but it won’t last for ever. Anyway, is it really appropriate for humanity to destroy a whole heavenly body in this way, or even to start to do so? After all, there is a lot more energy available which is truly renewable, such as the 174 million gigawatts received by the earth from the sun. So there is a lot more going for finding more economical ways of using this huge flux of solar energy, which will never run out, at least not for billions of years.
Well, I agree on the solar energy, and also on conservation. But I still like to see ideas that are way out of the box batted around.