Kiesha Nazarenus, Week 10!!, last week :(

It’s hard to believe that this class is almost over. We’ve covered so much material but as I sat down to write my final essay I began to realize the extent to which everything connects and supports each another. Especially as we discuss this week’s topic, Space Exploration, all the previous topics seem to connect and tie in perfectly.

Why it is that man kind is so interested in the concept of extraterrestrial life? Why is it that we feel it necessary to know what is not known…what drives this desire? Will our interest in space exploration lead to technological advances that will guide our society to a new way of living?
Tens of thousands of UFO reports have been made worldwide. Reports of unusual aerial phenomena date back to ancient times, but reports of UFO sightings started becoming more common after the first widely publicized U.S. sighting in 1947. Now personally I can’t possible look at some of the things people testify to and truly believe it… and frankly because of gut instinct I think UFO’s are a bunch of nonsense, but at the same time there is some convincing evidence out there. At this site I found, http://http://www.syti.net/UFOSightings.html#anchor361824, astronauts were cited as having testified to witnessing extraterrestrial life and actually believe in what they see. Whether this is true or valid or whether these astronauts are actually sane and credible, I don’t know, and I don’t know if I can fully buy into it BUT it does make you think. These men are up in space where most of society never goes and they testify to seeing UFO’s. In a taped interview by J. L. Ferrando, Major Cooper said: "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists in astronautics. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us.” As I was scrolling down the list of astronauts I froze when I got to Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong is quoted for saying that “Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon” and that unnamed radio hams with their own VHF receiving facilities that bypassed NASA’s broadcasting outlets picked up an exchange where Neil on the moon said “I’m telling you there are other spacecrafts out there, lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They’re on the Moon watching us!” Is this all just a big conspiracy…or are we just hesitant to believe? I mean who are we to say that in some other galaxy there isn’t another life form with similar intelligence to us.
I really like our guest lecturer this week even though the discussion was scientifically based without much discussion of art. It always amazes me when I see the research and projects that are being done at UCLA and Walter Gekelman’s work tops my list. At the end of lecture he briefly touched on a couple practical uses for plasma including some for medical purposes. Class was ending so he didn’t really get to expand on it, but he mentioned how people are trying to engineer new forms of biological tissue by growing it in plasma and plasma torches that can seal tissue instantly and plasma scalpels that will seal while cutting to prevent bleeding during surgery. Medical practice has the potential to change drastically as we form new ways for expanding a person’s life span. But at what point will prolonged life have a serious effect on over-population? When will our fascination for being able to cure everything kick us in the butt?