Iβm Emily Lakdawalla, senior editor, planetary evangelist, blogger and passionate space advocate for The Planetary Society. I specialize in planetary geology and robotic spaceflight missions. I am at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, covering the New Horizons Pluto flyby on Twitter and my blog. Ask me anything about New Horizons, or any other robotic planetary science mission including Cassini, Curiosity, and Rosetta.
More about me: planetary.org/emily
Follow me on Twitter: @elakdawalla
Join my forum: unmannedspaceflight.com
EDIT: I had to quit answering questions to go get a New Horizons mission update. Thanks everyone for your great questions; this was fun. I will try to return to this thread to answer more or respond to followups, but I might not be able to right away -- Pluto beckons!
They used to accept, but their page says "We are not currently accepting Bitcoin donations through this page. If you would still like to donate crypto currency, please contact us at membership@planetary.org. Thank you."
I contacted them and their response was "unfortunately, we are no longer accepting bitcoin donations. Very few donations were coming in through this channel and it turned out we were spending more on maintaining this opportunity that we were receiving. If someone is interested in making a large donation via bitcoin, we have the ability to handle a one-time transaction, but general giving via this mode of giving is no longer available.
I hope you understand and will consider making a gift today using more conventional means. "
Sounds like these folks could use some help with this new technology, any takers?
The Gaia hypothesis proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. It basically states that our planet is a single living superorganism, but one which is like a tree in that thereβs no mind directing its behavior. I think with the introduction of a fully global human society on the horizon, weβre actively transforming ourselves into a collective mind for our planet and for the first time in its history it will intelligently self-regulate and improve upon itself as well as acquire the ability to reproduce via space and extra-earth planet colonization.
Unfortunately, we are currently in an environmental crises due to human action, but iβm optimistic that one day we will learn from our mistakes and will learn to be fantastic stewards for our planet and its creatures. I believe weβll eventually make this planet better off than we found it for all life by greening the worlds deserts (introducing biodiversity and transforming earth into a superhabitable planet) and eliminating (or at least significantly reducing) suffering & predation via genetic engineering. I think weβll domesticate the rest of nature and be able to connect more deeply with animals as a whole like we do today with our pets. We may even raise their intelligence and improve on our ability to effectively communicate with them to accomplish this to a greater degree.
At the very least, we get to decide to make this a part of our grand collective purpose, and thatβs something I want very much to happen and be a part of. Our home is an amazing, beautiful place and what weβve built has and can definitely continue to add to its awe-inspiring magnificence. Once weβve found our way, we will carry our knowledge and wisdom throughout the universe as we give birth to more and more dead planets in the hopes of one day finding others out there to merge with. Our spaceships acting as seeds that seek to fertilize planet sized eggs along the journey. At this point, Gaia itself would be spreading throughout the cosmos to add matter, energy, intelligence/computing power and life to its collective mind.
