‘Agriculture in Space’ and ‘Drones on Mars’

‘Space exploration’ has its own charm. Perhaps it’s an area where class and creed does not matter and ‘Humanity’ gets counted as a single entity. Or maybe it is a big money game, not for the poor of Third world who are still struggling for sustenance.

Anyway, it has ample scope of imagination…  From science fiction to real science, there are many ideas which resonate and get realized… because of actual or perceived need.     

Two of these had an insignificant presence in the back page of an Indian newspaper recently. Amid the more appealing headlines of ‘Radhe Ma’ and ‘Indo-Pak tension’, they were nowhere in the mainstream electronic media. Yet, they may have profound impact on our future generations.

Incidentally both are being pursued by NASA.

For a poor nation like ours, such costly ventures maybe beyond our means, especially when we are still unable to address farmers’ suicide and malnutrition. But I feel jealous to know that someone on the same planet has the means to venture into such unknown territories.

The first one is about food:

Astronauts in ‘International Space Station’ ate the vegetables sown in space.

[Link: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/10/nasa-astronauts-lettuce-vegetables-grown-space ]

Someone remarked – ‘It was one small bite for man, one giant meal for mankind.’ Whether it turns out to be a giant leap or not - is yet to be seen.

The harvest was sown in space earlier also, but at that time it was brought back to earth to test it for food safety regulation. I wonder if we can have such process for all our food items sold in Indian retail market and streets. How many of them would be able to pass the rigorous food regulatory test of NASA. Maggi fiasco is just the tip of iceberg and most of us are aware of how contaminating our food is!

Well… ‘Space-produce’ passed the test and this time astronauts devoured it. Now what is so important in it?

The main objective is to get the fresh food [not the preserved one] for human on Mars mission. But who knows we may need such ‘Space-produce’ in our everyday life.

Because this earth is eventually going to be so polluted that crop sown here would definitely be contaminated. Pesticides in the soil are only one side of this problem. Environmentalist and soil experts can elaborate but yes, it’s a very real threat and agriculture in space can be a solution.

With the private commercial ventures vying for the futuristic space pie, maybe a startup would soon offer such special space-grown vegetables on your doorstep through drone couriers.

Second insignificant news story is about the ‘Drones’ to be sent to Mars.

NASA Designers have made a prototype of small drones which would dig the steep valleys of Martian surface, where the Rover can’t go.  

 [Link: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/drone360/2015/08/03/nasa-wants-to-put-drones-to-work-on-mars/ ]

Drones will be sent as detachable payloads on a rover that will act as base station for them.

Perhaps we may then find the aliens hiding inside a cave or an underground world connected through an opening on a ridge where the drone would hover.

Before a human foot finds that distant world, we should know about every inch of that planet – Yes, that is the obvious idea behind this design.

Perhaps such little drones would be required for each space flight beyond our friendly universe that is mostly up to ‘International Space Station’.  In the asteroids, where we are looking for minerals, in many moons like Titan where we suspect of an alien life, or maybe for a mission to Kepler 186f in distant future, and so on – there are ample possibilities where this nascent idea would become a matter of life and death.   

I don’t know if this earth is going to survive for another thousand years or not. But for the human race, ‘Space’ is going to be a refuge for sure. Little drones – not just for surveillance or as couriers – but to smell the unknown territory before landing up there – will definitely be the force multiplier.

And of course, without Space-Agriculture there would be no survival.

Maybe then we would have a tale of a lady farmer on a space-station and a gentleman miner on an asteroid... 

Wish List 2015

‘2015’ is here to stay for sure, especially because‘January’ has crossed the midway. All the hoopla of ‘Happy New Year’ has subsided. So, something serious or mundane can be discussed without any hype.

Every year, as the new dawn changes the calendar on the wall, we talk about what happened, and what we expect from the coming year. To make the coming time more fruitful or more enjoyable, we take Resolutions to streamline our haphazard life that has not been as it should have been in the year that passed or for that matter in the whole life till date.

Most of these resolves never get realized. They remain dormant in our minds only to appear in next December. Yet, some of us do that ritual year after year, in the hope of improving our life one day.

For personal resolutions, it is easy to associate the hope. But what if we wish for everybody, for our nation, for our planet earth collectively, without any resolve? Maybe it is like a prayer that may get the blessings of an unknown almighty one day… or perhaps it is like a child’s fancy that is never going to materialize… 

...Such a wish will remain a wish forever. 

Yet, to have a list of these is an interesting idea. Maybe one day some of them will be at least seriously discussed.

So, have a look at my wish list for 2015:

1. Work as per choice, not compulsion:

Some of us, the privileged ones, have achieved this. But I wish every single human being on our planet to work only out of their passion, not because a boss is dictating it to be done or one has to do it out of any dire need. Though an ideal situation in theory, it’s never going to be a reality. What will happen to those menial jobs that nobody wants to do and everybody wants to be done, if people work only for passion? Can you recall such essential but uninteresting jobs? There are plenty including a sweeper’s, I guess.

There may be many who would not like to do anything at all except sleeping under the sun in winters, but to wish them would not be prudent perhaps.

2. Violence less world:

            This is a completely unrealistic wish. Violence is an essential evil to defeat the devil. We need the military and the police to protect the nations against the enemies of outside and inside. And we also need individual aggression to confront the wicked people in everyday life. Yet, I wish that the violence would somehow become redundant. So that we don’t need to make weapons, which eat a major chunk of our savings collectively. May our streets would become safe to roam in the night and so on and so forth…    

3. No need of God:

            Sorry, if it is blasphemy… Again it’s a mirage. We all need god in some form or another. Maybe there is an atheist residing somewhere in this same blue planet, but till date I have not met him or her (god knows if she is a female or what!). Still, I wish if we can do without Almighty. The religion would transform to a political party in that scenario, perhaps. With ‘PK’, still fresh from its resounding success at the box-office, this wish may not be too politically incorrect, I hope. How easy would it be to hope without fear in that case, just imagine!

4. Pure drinking water everywhere   

            Drinking water has become a big business because we don’t get pure water nowadays. But the avid travelers can vouch for many pristine places where one gets such drinking water freely flowing from a ridge. I wish the same to be available for everybody without spending a penny. Some of the developed nations have achieved this feat, but for the third world it’s a distant dream. But my wish is not about the technological advancement per se, but about the day when every source of water would become drinkable, though the salty sea would remain an exception for sure. Hello, is there any reverse process of pollution?

This list can be really very long… like the delicious yummy food for everyone, no disease, no corruption, everything goody-goody … But, would not that be too boring? What would the news channels show in that case?

No, we can’t wish for a heaven like situation where nothing is wrong. But, at least we can strive together to make this earth a little better place to live… if not in 2015, then in next year or sometime in distant future…

Is it too much to wish for?   

The future and our children

One of the great minds of our time, Professor Stephen Hawkins recently expressed concern over the futuristic development in the field of artificial intelligence, though its current state of the art aids in his writing and speech. His words are:  

“...The efforts to create thinking machine pose a threat to our very existence... Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

But that future is still very far - certainly not realizable in our lifetime.

And it’s not just a single tool of modern science posing dangers.

Genetics – that tinkering with our DNA - may also unleash superbugs that will destroy our future.

And who can undermine the impact of a nuclear warfare, threat of which can’t be ruled out when its arsenal is already there – ready to strike with a press of a button.  

Before it happens, there are external threats to our mother earth - threat of aliens, of asteroids and meteors, of solar volcanoes.

Plus, who can forget the debate of the global warming, the environmental change, that may again lead to the dark ages!

Amid all such threats, we are digging the soil of Mars, yet unable to feed all the hungry souls of this mother earth.

Will we be able to provide the dignity to all our fellow humans? Is it really a collective responsibility?

Or being part of the nature, are we bound to destroy & create, and live among the dichotomies, waiting for the bright and worse at the same time?

In fact, we need not to wait. It’s already happening. Just look at our children. They are the actual sailor or architect of this future...

Are they ready?

For ‘good’ to win against the ‘bad’, they need education as well as values. We have created a huge amount of information in every field and that percolates in the curriculum but what about values – that are equally important if we want to save the destruction.

Perhaps the values come from the religion also. But the organized aggressive conflict in the name of religion, as seen in these times, is not ready to spare even the children. What happened in Pakistan is an extreme unimaginable act. But, in various forms- whether the religion or the greed, it is happening in our country also. Our Nobel winner Mr. Kailash Satyarthi can testify for some of them.

And it’s not just about this side of globe. Many parts of the world are not far behind in abusing their children.

So, with a large chunk of children not keeping pace with the rest would eventually create friction. This will lead to destruction with or without technological advancement.

Nobody can justify the cowardly act of terrorists, but we should also understand how such fanatics are being created at every second all around the world. After all they were also children a few years back and have been raised by somebody.

What are we doing that our children will not imbibe such barbaric behaviour and will ensure that artificial intelligence or nuclear technology would become only a boon, not bane?

Taste the Moon

Memories are like the pages of a good old book. 

Flip them and a character or scene emerges out of the blue. And you try to locate its place and time automatically, mesmerized by the chance discovery.  

Here is something similar I discovered recently.

I am still trying to figure out who has written it and when.

The graphics is of course mine, a part of series called ‘Meditation’ that I made around the same time when - many years ago - I first found this:

“The world is troubled
With a lack of looking 

I sing my songs

The world sleeps 

I see the sky reflected in my teacup

I move the cup

And I tilt the sky 

The flying crane is shadowed

On the mud wall

My shadow touches his

And I ride the bird 

The stars are mirrored in a pool 

Of rain

With my hands I scoop up the water

I have a handful of stars 

I group the branch of a tree

The wind blows

And the tree shakes my hands 

The moon shimmers on my glass of cognac

I drink

And taste the moon 

I climb on a fig tree

And look down

The earth has fallen 

All the world

All the world pours in at my barred window

I lower the my lids

And dam the flood”

On the way to Jaigarh fort and looking towards Jalmahal 

Confession

Yes, I liked SRK in ‘Rab ne bana di jodi’ in which the heroine does not recognize him in the absence of his moustache. - Dumbo! but yes, I liked that and I am not ashamed of it.

And, I have seen many of Govinda movies in a C-class Cinema Hall full of smoke.

Yes, I graduated from a college that nobody recognizes. And, I can’t drive a two-wheeler, not even a bicycle.

Yes, I feel awkward in the parties - maybe because I can't drink the booze. And I never danced, perhaps never can. 

Also, I bought a guitar but could not learn. I also tried synthesizer playing a song by rote, but just that. I forgot it and never could understand the difference between ‘Sa’ and ‘Re’. The melody is an alien for me, yet I can judge the singers of Indian Idol.

Yes, I fear a lot – of darkness, of dogs, of heights, of strangers, of many other things.
And of course, I write what nobody reads.

Yes, I am a loser who wants to be ‘somebody’ – I don’t know what that means actually.

And I am becoming old, perhaps really old that youngsters call me uncle. So, time is running out for me…

Yet, I dream day in and day out…that one day…

 Sunrise at 'Havelock Island'  January 2012