The Atlantica Expeditions is a project sponsored and supported by the League of New Worlds.

The League of the New Worlds is a non-profit research foundation committed to the permanent human settlement of the world's oceans and the high frontier of space.

Humanity in the last fifty years has made great strides in the exploration of space and has all but completed the preliminary reconnaissance of the solar system.

But, In the course of our explorations we have overlooked three quarters of our own world. We have left a great yawning gap in the map of our own planet and a fuller understanding of our own world. We know almost nothing about the world's oceans and the impact twenty-first century civilization is having on its health and vitality. The time has come to fill in this great unknown.

That great unknown is in mortal danger of being destroyed before we have a chance to fully explore and understand the intricate role it plays in maintaining our own living planet.

http://discoveryenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/05/oceans-911.html

Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:

> The League of the New Worlds is a non-profit research foundation
> committed to the permanent human settlement of the world's oceans and
> the high frontier of space.

Then I consider them half evil and half good.

> Humanity in the last fifty years has made great strides in the
> exploration of space and has all but completed the preliminary
> reconnaissance of the solar system.

I'm not sure about the "great strides" part. We have done some
preliminary recon, though.

> But, In the course of our explorations we have overlooked three quarters
> of our own world.

We haven't overlooked them. But so far, we've left them mostly
unspoiled (except of course for the recent disaster in the Gulf), which
is a very good thing. There's hardly any natural land left on the
planet, but as you point out, 3/4 of the planet isn't land -- which is
probably the only thing keeping the biosphere ticking by this point.

We should be focussed on moving heavy industry, and eventually most of
the population, OFF the planet, rather than moving into and ruining the
richest part of the biosphere.

> That great unknown is in mortal danger of being destroyed before we have
> a chance to fully explore and understand the intricate role it plays in
> maintaining our own living planet.

The mortal danger is much, much greater if we start living there.
That's the whole point, and that's why I can't support the so-called
Leage of New Worlds (which in my head is the "League of Ocean Rape").

Best,
- Joe

Hello Joe,
Your off the cuff statements show me that you haven't really visited our website or read the information on it.

If you pay attention to the news or even bothered to visit and read the information on our web site, you would find out that for the most part the oceans are indeed suffering. And, we want to establish a permanent human colony under the sea to constantly monitor the oceans to see the full impact of what is being done there. Whether or not humans establish a permanent presence in the ocean realm - human civilization and industrial activity is still damaging this vital biome.

I am just as much of a supporter of space exploration and colonization as you are but, exploring the oceans is just as much a part of planetary exploration and vital to the long term survival of our species on this planet.

The debate as to whether to fund space exploration at the expense of undersea exploration or vice versa in our minds is a very artificial one. In a greater context exploring the oceans of our world is part and parcel of the planetary exploration of our entire solar system. But, it is a very vital one because it concerns a very large portion of our home world about which we know very little. And, much remains to be understood about the full impact our species is having on the ecosystems of the most vital biome of our planet.

In fact many members work with NASA and have a foot firmly planted in both exploratory enterprises.

Many of our members are planetary scientists, engineers and former astronauts. Also on our team is also movie director and producer, James Cameron of Titanic and Avatar fame. Mr. Cameron has been active in both undersea and space exploration endeavours.

In the face of so much talent I really do not understand your objections Joe.

So quite frankly your arguments Joe really do not hold any water for me.

Alex Michael Bonnici

From: Joe Strout
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2010 5:46 PM
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] The Discovery Enterprise: Oceans 911

Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:

> The League of the New Worlds is a non-profit research foundation
> committed to the permanent human settlement of the world's oceans and
> the high frontier of space.

Then I consider them half evil and half good.

> Humanity in the last fifty years has made great strides in the
> exploration of space and has all but completed the preliminary
> reconnaissance of the solar system.

I'm not sure about the "great strides" part. We have done some
preliminary recon, though.

> But, In the course of our explorations we have overlooked three quarters
> of our own world.

We haven't overlooked them. But so far, we've left them mostly
unspoiled (except of course for the recent disaster in the Gulf), which
is a very good thing. There's hardly any natural land left on the
planet, but as you point out, 3/4 of the planet isn't land -- which is
probably the only thing keeping the biosphere ticking by this point.

We should be focussed on moving heavy industry, and eventually most of
the population, OFF the planet, rather than moving into and ruining the
richest part of the biosphere.

> That great unknown is in mortal danger of being destroyed before we have
> a chance to fully explore and understand the intricate role it plays in
> maintaining our own living planet.

The mortal danger is much, much greater if we start living there.
That's the whole point, and that's why I can't support the so-called
Leage of New Worlds (which in my head is the "League of Ocean Rape").

Best,
- Joe

Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:

> Your off the cuff statements show me that you haven't really visited our
> website or read the information on it.

Incorrect.

> And, we want to establish a permanent
> human colony under the sea to constantly monitor the oceans to see the
> full impact of what is being done there.

Huge mistake. Colossal. Gigantic. Either you're being duped, or
you're just plain short-sighted, if you can't see what happens once
humans start living ANYWHERE.

I take some comfort from the fact that living under more than 10 meters
or so of water is in many ways harder and more dangerous than living in
space, so hopefully, this misguided effort will fail.

Best,
- Joe

I am with Joe on this. The less we know about the Amazon rain forest and the
deep sees the better. Let us protect these places.

Regards
Selvaraj

On 17 May 2010 03:49, Joe Strout wrote:

Oh great haven't heard this before, (ok sarcasm aside) It is a tired argument, ocean over space exploration. First off, let me just state my personal opinion on this debate, "I could care less about the oceans of the Earth", but that's just my opinion. It isn't an edict, so please take it for what it is worth.

Now that I have established that I am pro, space above all else, I would like to correct some of the "highly" misleading information they have been spewing for years. true or false? We know less about the oceans of Earth then the dark side of the moon, or as some tend to say solar-system. This is false six ways from Sunday. In fact we have been exploring the deepest depths of our oceans for hundreds of years, and in the last 50 gone further and covered more ocean floor in a week's time on ship doing deep sea exploration then all moon missions. I personally hate this comment, and wish they would stop spreading this falsehood. True there is a lot about the oceans we still do not know, but lets be very realistic, the ocean has a bottom and there isn't too much more that can be gained by throwing more time and money at it. It gets plenty already.

Now my real reason I become upset with the short sighted introverts that put ocean exploration in the same class as space, or even dare claim it more important. One it isn't more so, and yes it's important enough to justify the money we already spend on it, but not much more, and the scariest thing is the colonization of the oceans.
Come on people, how dose this even come close to sounding like a good idea? We muck up the land and water enough as it is, moving into the oceans to live will only guarantee that we screw the oceans up for future generations. (( do not give me some line about how we can live in harmony with the ocean, if we could we would be doing it already))

Simply put there is no way we humans can live 100% environmentally friendly, we can do so enough to take the pressure of the Earths ecosystem, but this wont matter in the least if we are using up every available area of the Earths surface including oceans. Space on the other hand seems to be an environment that we can't screw up. (( though I am sure we will figure out something, *laughs*))
It has no atmosphere to pollute, it already has deadly radiation levels far beyond anything we could do to it, and most of all no real signs of life, so nothing to inadvertently kill off by our simply being there.
Unlike the oceans of this world simply setting your sea lab down near a reef could cause the deaths of countless life forms. Directly or indirectly.

But hey who cares right the ocean is so much more important, and hey it's right here on Earth, thus meaning no rockets. Humm I smell politics, humm, maybe governments are tired of doing what is hard and wants to do something that is easy, and just claim it is harder..?

Oh and save billions for their own pockets, and wasteful social programs. Humm space exploitation could spell the end of the energy crisis, and dwindling resources forever! Humm Oceans have bottoms therefore limits, therefore limited resources, therefore the complete industrialization of the oceans of Earth would be needed as ocean resources dwindle in time. Yeah ok may take a hundred years to hit those limits, but in a hundred years we could very well find ourselves no closer to say a Mars mission then now, given how we are caught in perpetual procrastination about getting anything accomplished in space aside a new TV satellites.

So yeah the oceans need to be study and understood, but they by no means should ever take priority over space exploration and exploitation. Man kind has no future just sitting her on Earth, but we may go on for the life span of this galaxy if we move into space, and colonize.

So take you pick of futures. Future one is the introverted one where aliens find a long dead human civilization, and remark what a fascinating culture to bad their all dead now... Future two: is the extroverted one, aliens bump into man kind while we are exploring as well and we learn from each other blah blah blah you get the idea...

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Michael Bonnici" wrote:

After visiting the website I believe that this group wants
to gain knowledge of the oceans and wants to preserve them.
The idea that ignorance is the best way to protect the
oceans, rain forests, or anything else I find truly shocking,
at least coming from this group.

When we are ignorant of the rain forest we burn the rain
forest down because we don't know that there's anything wrong
with that. When we are ignorant of the oceans we dump our
trash into the oceans because we don't know that there's any-
thing wrong with that.

"Should we spend time, money and effort on the ocean or on
space?" This is a false choice exactly the same way that
"Should we spend time, money and effort on space or on
solving our problems here on Earth?" is a false choice.

Sorry to snarl, but this got to me. I don't know if
Discovery Enterprise is as wonderful as they present
themselves as (then again who is?), but not all intercourse
is rape, and we need to make sure DE really is the bad guy
before we convict them.

All of that being said, space is bigger than the oceans, and
has more resources.

sailor.barsoom wrote:

> After visiting the website I believe that this group wants
> to gain knowledge of the oceans and wants to preserve them.
> The idea that ignorance is the best way to protect the
> oceans, rain forests, or anything else I find truly shocking,
> at least coming from this group.

Nobody's advocating ignorance. In fact, only ignorance (or at least
severe naivet) can explain the belief that people LIVING in an area
will improve its biodiversity. The complete history of humanity, up to
and including the present, demonstrates the opposite.

You don't need to live in the oceans to study them; NOAA does a fine job
of studying them already. I'd be quite supportive of a group advocating
an increase in NOAA's budget (or other groups doing similar things).
Oceanographers != colonists.

> When we are ignorant of the rain forest we burn the rain
> forest down because we don't know that there's anything wrong
> with that.

No, we burn the rain forest down to make space to live in and grow food.

> When we are ignorant of the oceans we dump our
> trash into the oceans because we don't know that there's any-
> thing wrong with that.

For the most part, we DON'T dump our trash into the oceans currently.
But when we live there, you can bet we will.

Consider how much damage we've done to ocean biodiversity DESPITE not
living there -- and then compare it to the much greater damage we've
done to places where we do live. The argument "but this time it'll be
different, golly gee, really it will!" just doesn't hold water.

> "Should we spend time, money and effort on the ocean or on
> space?" This is a false choice exactly the same way that
> "Should we spend time, money and effort on space or on
> solving our problems here on Earth?" is a false choice.

Agreed.

> Sorry to snarl, but this got to me. I don't know if
> Discovery Enterprise is as wonderful as they present
> themselves as (then again who is?), but not all intercourse
> is rape, and we need to make sure DE really is the bad guy
> before we convict them.

Hah. Show me the ocean inviting us in, and then you can make an
argument that it's not rape.

> All of that being said, space is bigger than the oceans, and
> has more resources.

Exactly. Wrecking the oceans to make a little more living space for
humans on our one little planet is not only tragic, but also extremely
short-sighted.

The best (and perhaps only) way to leave nature in a natural state is
for humans to not live there. In addition to that, we need controls on
the amount of damage we do merely by visiting and resource-gathering,
but not living there is the #1 prerequisite.

Best,
- Joe

--- In spacesettlers, Joe Strout wrote:

> Nobody's advocating ignorance.

"I am with Joe on this. The less we know about the Amazon rain
forest and the deep sees the better. Let us protect these places."

Let me quote part of that again, with emphasise:

"THE LESS WE KNOW ABOUT the Amazon rain forest and the
deep sees THE BETTER."

I didn't write that.

Typical, one does not have to know a thing to respect a thing, nor does one having knowledge of something automatically give them respect for it, in fact it seems as we move into an area and learn more about it we exploit it more, and do damage upon it. This is in fact why the rain forest is going away. If we just stay the hell away from the rain forests of the world we wouldn't be losing them.

And "fixing problems here on Earth first" argument couldn't be more tired or wrong. If every society waited till everything was perfect before exploring new areas then we all still be living in one cave, in one small part of the world with no civilization to speak of. These societal issues have always been there, in every society, and NEVER should be used as a reason to become introverted, and stagnant in our quests to move forward. We only do ourselves greater harm in doing so. History proves this without a doubt...

I love it, how people just jump at using words like ignorant, because some one doesn't agree with you does not make them or their point ignorant, nor their arguments any less sound.

Now one would say yeah the issues here on Earth "need" fixing, but lets break down these issues, dwindling resources, well if a greater portion of man kind was out in space in colonies ( such as the L5 society wanted back in the mid 70s) then there is less people here on Earth needing those resources.

Over population, (happens to be one of the reason rain forest are getting cut down we need more room) Well the above space colony fixes that too.

Unlimited resources for people here on Earth, without taxing Earth environment. Hummm space station colony that also beams power down Earth side. Looks like if we didn't drop the ball in the 70s like we did we would be stetting pretty good right now. No, the world still would not be a perfect place, and as always there still be world issues, but they would not be the worries we have to day.

Though there is one last issue I would like to point out, the poor and impoverished. They have always been the first to hit the frontiers in hopes for better, this is how great things happen, how new frontiers are truly opened. I would venture that if we did start building space station colonies back in the 70s like L5 wanted, right about now we would be seeing the same migration into space that Europe seen when America came about. It is the grand future we all have been robbed of, as Author C. Clark said, an idea has three fazes.

1. Oh that will never work we don't have the tech.
2. Yeah maybe we have the tech, but it will cost way to much.
3. That was so easy why didn't we do it sooner!

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "sailor.barsoom" wrote:

I wrote it and I am prepared to defend myself : - )

and will do so shortly.

Regards
Selvaraj

On 21 May 2010 04:41, sailor.barsoom wrote:

"THE LESS WE KNOW ABOUT the Amazon rain forest and the
deep seas THE BETTER."

1. This statement has been made by me in the year 2010, at a time when we
have proved ourselves to be fully inept in protecting other lifeforms, and
the environment on our planet.
2. If not the seas, if we try to find out more and more about the Amazon
jungle, we will surely destroy it!!
3. We are still to evolve and clearly state a code of conduct relating to
the relationship of humans to other lifeforms on our planet.
4. Thomas Malthus while he talks of population growth overtaking resources
on our planet - the human centered viewpoint - is strangely silent on what
human population growth will do to other lifeforms on our planet.

I would suggest a code of conduct that should apply to all civilizations in
our innumerable galaxies. Let's pass this information on:

CODE OF CONDUCT FOR ALL ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS:

1. When a civilization reaches the technological age, it is imperative that
the dominant specie control its population, so as not to overpower and
smother other lifeforms on the planet.

2. At no time should such a dominant specie use up more than 1/20 (a figure
to be suitably calculated), of the photosynthetic resources of the planet;
leaving the remaining 19/20 for the natural cycle of life on the planet.

3. Such a civilization should slow down further technological developments
till it is able to leave the safety of the mother planet and move to
colonizing the 'dead planets' in its surroundings. Further development of
complex technologies (especially biotechnologies) should be undertaken away
from the mother planet.

4. At a suitable time the dominant specie will evacuate the planet
completely and leave the planet to its natural fate.

Regards
Selvaraj

On 21 May 2010 04:41, sailor.barsoom wrote:

I hear ya, I just personally thought it needed reiteration in no uncertain terms.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "sailor.barsoom" wrote:

Very well said, but we preach to the quire here. lol.
Though it is nice to see that most of us are on the same page here.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, sraj wrote: