Naked Science - Earth's Evil Twin

National Geographic Documentary

Venus and Earth: roughly the same size, and once about the same distance from the sun and whose evolutions have followed similar paths. But today, Venus is described as a vision of hell. Could it be an indication of what's in store for Earth?

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Naked Science - Death of the Earth

A report by a team of leading astronomers in May 2008 seems to have finally put to rest an age old question... What is the ultimate fate of planet Earth? Traditionally, the prevailing view has been that billions of years in the future the aging Sun would loosen its gravitational grip on the planet and allow it to escape a fiery demise.

The sobering reality is quite different and the clock is now ticking for our beloved home planet. Along with a team of leading scientists carrying out pioneering research in fields of biology, climatology, geology and astronomy, Naked Science goes on a quest to investigate what the future holds for planet Earth... and throws up some shocking surprises. Great supercontinents will form and fragment with lethal consequences, the oceans will turn red before floating away into space, plants and animals will be wiped from Earth before finally, all life will be extinguished forever. Using cutting edge scientific models that can make predictions not just thousands but million and even billions of years into the future, we can now more than ever see how the forces of nature will conspire to bring about the Death of the Earth.

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Naked Science - Comets

Season 4, Episode 4 of the Naked Science Series. This episode explores Comets. Harbingers of bad luck and/or the bringers of life? Narrated by Eric Meyers; Scientists are racing to unlock the secrets of these icy giants because they may tell us how the universe evolved, how the planets formed and how life began on Earth.

   

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Naked Science - Deadliest Planets

National Geographic's Naked Science documentary series

Humans may someday develop the technology to colonize other planets. Is it possible to make other planetary environments more like our own? Travel our solar system to see what it would take to live on a neighboring planet.

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Naked Science - Solar Force

National Geographic's Naked Science

Naked Science is a one-hour American documentary television series that premiered in 2004 on the National Geographic Channel. The program features various subjects related to science and technology. The last series was released in 2009. There has been a new series each year since 2004.

Watch Documentary - Solar Force

Do the sun's invisible cosmic rays influence our weather? Can solar winds impact Earth? The level of cosmic rays emitted by the sun is anything but constant. Scientists are just now discovering the ways in which the sun's fluctuating output affects our planet's weather and overall climate.

Naked Science: Solar Force

National Geographic's Naked Science: Solar Force

Do the sun's invisible cosmic rays influence our weather? Can solar winds impact Earth? The level of cosmic rays emitted by the sun is anything but constant. Scientists are just now discovering the ways in which the sun's fluctuating output affects our planet's weather and overall climate.

Links;
Wikipedia - Meteorology
Wikipedia - Climatology

Solar Force Michael Paré, Billy Drago, Walker Brandt, Robin Smith (DVD)$23.28
Two worlds about to collide, and only one man can save them. Michael Pare stars in this futuristic thriller about a cop from the moon who is sent to earth to find a stolen chemical, capable of restoring its destroyed environment. But when he finds out the truth behind his mission and those who sent him, he must fight against all odds for survival. From the director of American Cyborg and Delta Force 3. Starring Michael Pare (Warriors, Eddie and the Cruisers, Streets of Fire), Billy Drago (Gun Crazy, The Untouchables, Pale Rider).

Carl Sagan's Cosmos

The Columbia Tragedy: System Level Issues for Engineering - Sheila Widnall '60, SM '61, ScD '64
November 4, 2003. Running Time: 1:14:09

About the Lecture
Among the “tragedy of errors” that doomed the space shuttle Columbia, perhaps the most damning were NASA’s organizational blunders. Sheila Widnall served on the board investigating Columbia’s destruction in February, 2003, and she can describe the technical failures that led, moment by moment, to the ghastly trail of debris across the western United States. But the investigation board traced the roots of this disaster to NASA’s “culture of invincibility,” years in the making. Well-intentioned people, Widnall states, became desensitized to deviations from the norm. NASA managers treated repeated anomalies -- such as foam smashing into shuttle tiles on take off -- as “maintenance turnaround events.”

Foam striking protective tiles on the leading edge of Columbia’s wing led to the horrors of re-entry: gases in excess of 5000 degrees F entered through a possibly 10-inch-wide breech in the wing, melting sensors and internal structure, sending the shuttle out of control. The failures that led to this moment, are both engineering system failures, and human communication failures.

Widnall and the investigation board recommend independent safety oversight for shuttle flights; NASA leadership that heeds minority points of view and doesn’t let scheduling or budget pressures define space missions; and routine inclusion of engineers who have the right to address both technological and operational issues of a flight.


FURTHER READING:
For a recent article on the Columbia tragedy by William Langewiesche in The Atlantic Monthly, go to Columbia's Last Flight: The Inside Story of the Investigation—and the Catastrophe it Laid Bare

Link: mitworld.mit.edu

Colonising Space

The Universe - Colonising Space; A History Channel documentary film about the imminent colonisation of space, and the possibilities and difficulties that lie before us in our endeavour to spread out beyond our plant's biosphere and into the solar system, and perhaps even beyond.



Carl Sagan always maintained that we should be a "two planet species" - That we should colonize one planet and also have the earthm because he said the earth is in the middle of a shooting gallery and that bit is too risky to put all of our species on one planet.
The highest probabilities for our first destination as a colony planet is Mars...

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