{"id":3031,"date":"2014-05-16T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T14:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/?p=3031"},"modified":"2014-05-16T10:40:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T14:40:15","slug":"missiles-misconceptions-why-we-know-more-about-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-than-the-depths-of-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/?p=3031","title":{"rendered":"Missiles &#038; Misconceptions: Why We Know More About the Dark Side of the Moon than the Depths of the Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"We know more about the dark side of the moon than the depths of the ocean.\r\nThis is startling, considering how much more tangible the ocean is than space, and\r\nmore importantly, how much more critical it is to the health and survival of humanity.\r\nTens of billions of dollars are spent on manned and unmanned missions probing deeper\r\ninto space, while 95% of Earth&#8217;s oceans remain unexplored. The result is a perilous\r\ndearth in knowledge about our planet at a time when rapid changes in our marine ecosystems profoundly affect its habitability.\r\n<br \/>\r\n\r\nThe more intensive focus on space exploration is a historically recent phenomenon.\r\nFor millennia until the mid-20th century, space and ocean exploration proceeded\r\nroughly at the same pace, driven by curiosity, military, and commerce. Both date back\r\nto early civilization when star-gazers scanned the skies, and sailors and free-divers\r\nscoured the seas. Since the 1960s when Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard descended\r\nto the deepest point on the ocean floor, and Neil Armstrong ascended to the moon,\r\nhowever, the trajectories of exploration diverged dramatically. Cold War-inspired\r\ngeopolitical-military imperatives propelled space research to en extraordinary level,\r\nwhile ocean exploration stagnated in comparison. Moreover, although the Cold War\r\nended more than 20 years ago, the disparity in effort remains vast despite evidence\r\nthat accelerating changes in our marine ecosystems directly threatens our well being. Misconception about the relative importance of space and ocean exploration caused,\r\nand continues to sustain, this knowledge disparity to our peril.\r\n<br \/>\r\n\r\nIn this thesis, we first review in section 2 the history of space and ocean exploration before the Cold War, when the pace of exploration in each sector was more or less\r\ncomparable for thousands of years. We show in section 3, however, how the relative\r\npaces and trajectories of exploration diverged dramatically during the Cold War and\r\ncontinue to the present. In section 4 we seek to dispel the persistent misconceptions\r\nthat have led to the disparity in resources allocated between space and ocean exploration,\r\nand argue for prioritizing ocean research. Finally, in section 5 we highlight\r\nthe urgent imperative for expanding our understanding of the ocean.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We know more about the dark side of the moon than the depths of the ocean. This is startling, considering how much more tangible the ocean is than space, and more importantly, how much more critical it is to the health and survival of humanity. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on manned and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,5,43],"tags":[126],"class_list":["post-3031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meche-theses","category-publications","category-bachelors-theses","tag-ocean-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3031"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3035,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}