3 ms·

Kinda related: I get that there will always be some amount of mission-related junk, but a for-profit company charging people to dump their DNA, cremated ashes a

by paxys 3y ago

Kinda related: I get that there will always be some amount of mission-related junk, but a for-profit company charging people to dump their DNA, cremated ashes and other random souvenirs on the moon always rubbed me the wrong way. If you can't do this in a national park you shouldn't be allowed to do it on the damn moon.

DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
> If you can't do this in a national park you shouldn't be allowed to do it on the damn moon. https://www.joincake.com/blog/scattering-ashes-in-national-parks/ https://www.joincake.com/blog/scattering-ashes-in-national-p...
- unbalancedevh 3y ago
  Regulations for stuff like this seem frivolous and overly restrictive, until you remember that what seems completely benign when one person does it is potentially destructive to the future of humanity when done at scale (like burning oil, throwing away plastic, etc.).
EA-3167 3y ago
A national park is a vibrant ecosystem that can be accessed by potentially millions of people, all of whom might have some thing they want to leave behind. The Moon is a lifeless, airless rock which is only accessible to a tiny number of people and only in a limited sense. The concerns for preservation are just so different between the two. As far as we know national parks are unique in the Solar system, maybe beyond. As far as we know lifeless, airless rocks are downright common, the only real thing going for the moon is that it's relatively close by.
o_nate 3y ago
The DNA and cremated ashes are not being put on the moon, they are going to be put in orbit around the sun. Its a separate mission but they both hitched a ride on the same rocket.
- paxys 3y ago
  No the plan is specifically to leave them on the surface of the moon. See https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-navajo-nation-objection-human-remains-scn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-.... Multiple private companies today are offering such "moon burials".
somenameforme 3y ago
Out of curiosity, why? I have a very different perspective and am having a hard time seeing where you're coming from. From my perspective, the Moon's just a huge dead rock that makes Mars looks like a tropical paradise. 2-week long days with boiling temperatures, followed by 2-week long nights with temperatures near zero. All while getting pounded endlessly by meteorites with no real shielding. Placing ashes or souvenirs on it seem completely innocuous to me. I also just did the math, and if each human on Earth used up a square foot on the Moon with this sort of stuff, there'd be enough space for more than 400 trillion people, which is a long winded way of saying that the amount of space used up is effectively 0. So I'm just not really seeing the downside?
- paxys 3y ago
  Sure the moon is barren and useless but then so is Antarctica or large chunks of the ocean floor or really most of the earth's surface. That isn't a green light to ignore the consequences and let people treat it as their backyard. The moon is also, unlike Mars and other similar bodies, immediately accessible to us (by many, many orders of magnitude of distance and effort). And "it's just one ship/urn/container" is never really a good argument because it is always going to scale up exponentially. So we need to treat it less like a trash dump and more a valuable scientific (and maybe eventually tourist) preserve.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    > Sure the moon is barren and useless but then so is Antarctica or large chunks of the ocean floor or really most of the earth's surface. That isn't a green light to ignore the consequences and let people treat it as their backyard. This is the part we probably disagree on the most. Wherever we look on Earth, in ice, in deserts, under the crushing depths of water in trenches, even in fumeroles and volcanic ecosystems... we find life or evidence of life. All of Earth that we can access is teeming with life, the history of life, our history. It's also a dynamic system on long time-scales, a glacier today is the water in our lakes and oceans "tomorrow" so to speak. We don't know what we might contaminate or disturb with our whims, on Earth, but on the Moon we know it is literally lifeless. Not devoid of life most people care about, or are aware of, which is an important distinction compared to lifelessness.

by paxys 3y ago

DarmokJalad1701 3y ago

> If you can't do this in a national park you shouldn't be allowed to do it on the damn moon. https://www.joincake.com/blog/scattering-ashes-in-national-parks/ https://www.joincake.com/blog/scattering-ashes-in-national-p...

unbalancedevh 3y ago
Regulations for stuff like this seem frivolous and overly restrictive, until you remember that what seems completely benign when one person does it is potentially destructive to the future of humanity when done at scale (like burning oil, throwing away plastic, etc.).

EA-3167 3y ago

A national park is a vibrant ecosystem that can be accessed by potentially millions of people, all of whom might have some thing they want to leave behind. The Moon is a lifeless, airless rock which is only accessible to a tiny number of people and only in a limited sense. The concerns for preservation are just so different between the two. As far as we know national parks are unique in the Solar system, maybe beyond. As far as we know lifeless, airless rocks are downright common, the only real thing going for the moon is that it's relatively close by.

o_nate 3y ago

The DNA and cremated ashes are not being put on the moon, they are going to be put in orbit around the sun. Its a separate mission but they both hitched a ride on the same rocket.

paxys 3y ago
No the plan is specifically to leave them on the surface of the moon. See https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-navajo-nation-objection-human-remains-scn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-.... Multiple private companies today are offering such "moon burials".

somenameforme 3y ago

Out of curiosity, why? I have a very different perspective and am having a hard time seeing where you're coming from. From my perspective, the Moon's just a huge dead rock that makes Mars looks like a tropical paradise. 2-week long days with boiling temperatures, followed by 2-week long nights with temperatures near zero. All while getting pounded endlessly by meteorites with no real shielding. Placing ashes or souvenirs on it seem completely innocuous to me. I also just did the math, and if each human on Earth used up a square foot on the Moon with this sort of stuff, there'd be enough space for more than 400 trillion people, which is a long winded way of saying that the amount of space used up is effectively 0. So I'm just not really seeing the downside?

paxys 3y ago
Sure the moon is barren and useless but then so is Antarctica or large chunks of the ocean floor or really most of the earth's surface. That isn't a green light to ignore the consequences and let people treat it as their backyard. The moon is also, unlike Mars and other similar bodies, immediately accessible to us (by many, many orders of magnitude of distance and effort). And "it's just one ship/urn/container" is never really a good argument because it is always going to scale up exponentially. So we need to treat it less like a trash dump and more a valuable scientific (and maybe eventually tourist) preserve.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  > Sure the moon is barren and useless but then so is Antarctica or large chunks of the ocean floor or really most of the earth's surface. That isn't a green light to ignore the consequences and let people treat it as their backyard. This is the part we probably disagree on the most. Wherever we look on Earth, in ice, in deserts, under the crushing depths of water in trenches, even in fumeroles and volcanic ecosystems... we find life or evidence of life. All of Earth that we can access is teeming with life, the history of life, our history. It's also a dynamic system on long time-scales, a glacier today is the water in our lakes and oceans "tomorrow" so to speak. We don't know what we might contaminate or disturb with our whims, on Earth, but on the Moon we know it is literally lifeless. Not devoid of life most people care about, or are aware of, which is an important distinction compared to lifelessness.