Thoughts on my post about water below

I know there are many valid points made in the replies to my post below and I have replied to many of those posts directly. That said, one of the chief points made below in regard the whole thing being feasible is the cost. That said think about this when it comes to the money needed for a project like I suggest. This country spends tens of missions every year exploring space,and looking for water on other planets, etc, etc. WHY? Granted there have been some great things that came out of the space race, but why spend all of that money looking for water on another planet when that same money could be better spend figuring out how to better manage the water we already have on this planet. True the infrastructure to do as I suggest would be massive, but what's easier, a pipe to move a billion gallons of water from North Carolina to California, or one to move a billion gallons from Mars to Earth, IF water was ever found there to start with? That's just one of the ways this country wastes money every year that could be better spent on things to make our loves better right here on earth, but it's so much easier to get money spent on things like the fountains in Vegas, etc, for our entertainment, than on the things we really need for our survival.....

I guess what I'm saying with the whole thread below is this country has hugly misplaced priorities. Until we, as a country get things straightened out, then we are going to stay in a world of crap........even though we do have the capabilities to pump the crap where ever we want but can't do the same with good water.........Just saying.....

the push gas from one end of the country to
the other, why can't the do the same with water...

The whole water concept is just too mundane; at the moment it has no political or social "s3x appeal". Figure out a way to make it a hot political item and you're on your way. Might have to tie the issue to some disadvantaged group for it to get political traction. Or get the media to start pumping the idea that one percent of the population has 99 percent of the water.

Ever hear of the TVA? Boulder Dam? Lake Meade? Six dams on the missouri River in SD and ND?
We ARE storing billions of gallons of water and using it for humans and agriculture. Mos of the rural water lines in SD are full of Missouri River water.
Ever hear of the aquaduct in California?. Sierra Nevada Mt water to LA? C'mon Wayne, think man.

They CAN push water from one end of the continent to the other....just like fuel. But, who is going to pay you for it when you get it there? We're pretty much used to essentially "free" water. It has to make economic sense first.

Do you have any idea how much water an acre of corn needs times many millions of acres and thats just corn how about the rest of needs for water in a extreme dry cycle. After reading your thoughts maybe you have had some bad water.

Moving water around... Isn't that going against nature's design? The Russians tried doing things like that, such as making rivers flow backwards, for decades. Why don't we all just adapt better to nature's climate and fluctuations instead of trying to control it? Why build cities in AZ if it's bone dry? Why build beach houses in hurricane zones? Why not plan to lose a crop every 10 years due to an unexpected drought or rainfall?

Just some more thoughts.

Not sure exactly how much water any crop needs for 'normal' irrigation due to so much being lost through evaporation. However I do know that there has been alot of research done on point/drop irrigation with the end result being a crop who's yield matched or bettered the yield of another crop irrigated with many times more water. Granted that type irrigation might not be feasible for all crops but when it is why not use it? On the other hand why don't we all set around doing nothing until the worlds population keeps getting larger and larger. It's already to the point we are trying to genetically engineer crops to work with less water, to put out higher yields, etc, etc. Why not put some of that same effort to making nature work for us a bit more naturally, or using what nature already provides in a more sensible manner. Instead we're too busy trying to genetically change what is natural and as a result have invent some new strain of 'super crops, poision resistant insects who now eat those crops, etc, etc. In the end all we wind up with are crops//products who's long term effects to us and our health and well being aren't guaranteed, or even scarier even known in many cases.

Again, I'm not talking about what we are already doing. Read my replies to the previous posts with my thoughts on all of that. That all has it's place and works fine, but there is no reason we shouldn't be able to take things a step further if it would better our living conditions, the surity of our crops, etc, etc, etc.

Unfortunatley if we did that we'd have a country the size of the US where, instead of millions of people being spread out across 50 states, we'd all be living in overcrowded cities like they already do in China. Either that or a large portion of the population currently on the Earth would have to die off in order to get us back to a time when populations were smaller and the Earth could handle said population without mankind needing irrigation, HVAC systems, trucks an autos for transporting goods and ourselves long distances, etc, etc, etc. Either way, in the fuuture, the results of not doing anything now, I'm afraid, are going to be just about as bad, if not worse, than the problems that would be associated with at least trying to do something.

A few random thoughts from me, just the same friendly chat you have offered.

A sad day for the USA was parking the last space shuttle; we have ended our exploration, our drive, our reaching out. We are no longer a leader in the world. It"s a big deal, many don"t see it that way, but it signals the end of the USA as a world power. We just don"t care any more.

Reaching, searching, exploring - that makes us all unite and achive something. Now we are nothing.

There is already a lot of water here, we"ve found it already. If people want water, build another dam or aquaduct or move to where the water is - no big deal. Old technology. Know how to do it, just takes money to build, energy to run - lots of both.

No one wants to import water to the world from space. They want to search for ways of supporting life - us or aliens - on other planets. Possible or not? The money & energy used spent on all of the space program over the last 100 years is very, very tiny compared to what it would take to pump water from Carolina to California for just a year....

We could scrub out all our gas/fuel/chemical pipelines, retrofit them, and be pumping water through them pretty cheaply. We can certainly do that. Easy. We would have a drop in a bucket. No one would notice the little dribble of water that resulted.

We already pump 410,000 million gallons per day of water, so we already are doing what you want. Nothing new, you juust need a big enough pump. We likely spend more in one day on pumping water than we spent in a whole year on the space program.

Very sad when we gave up on the space program. We have lost our way. We are happy to just sit on our rears and look for nothing, reach for nothing. Classmate of mine said we lived through the good years as a country, we are now in decline, the future is just winding down.

I think, with messages such as yours, I agree with him. We are headed down the wrong path, a path of going nowhere.

That doesn"t mean you have a poor goal - better distrubution of water, ng, fuel, electricity, and so forth is good. We should be doing those things.

Digging a ditch across contenental divides and 100"s of watersheds is a rather _large_ task.

Pumping water up several mile long hills for half the time for thousands of miles is expensive. A pipe and pump big enough to matter is _very_ expensive.

But we know how to do it, no big deal.

What is a big deal is to continue reaching, to continue exploring, to try to find new things.

Very sad when the last shuttle was mothballed, and we have no replacement, no future explorations of anything.

We"ve lost our way. We are in decline.

--->Paul

By the time it makes economic sense it'll be too expensive to do. Look at the way they do interstates, etc already. By the time everything is planned out and construction is completed the road is usually too small for the amount of traffic it will be required to carry. At that point in time the already overbudget project now costs ten times as much to go back and redesign, and redo when it should have been done right to begin with........

I saw a bridge build about 4 miles from my house some years ago on a Federal grant. Long story short because it was Federal they couldn't change the old bridge more than 10%. So they had to build a temporary bridge (It fixed some problems with the existing bridge and was a really nice structure by the way). Then they went in and tore the old bridge out, and rebuilt it back as close to origional as possible, still with a really sharp curve coming off of it, etc, etc, etc. Basically no better than it was before, just new. Then they went in and tore temporary bridge, which was built as good as the old one, and again fixed problems with the approach and egress from the old bridge, and tore it out. Then they gave away all of the thousands of yards of fill material that they had to use to build the temporaty structure. In the end they built the bridge twice, all because it was Federal money.............

So, we can waste money on projects like that, but not on something that might just be worthwhile. Again, such is the sorry state this country is currently in.

Paul, the shuttles needed to be retired because of their age.

I agreee that the space program should not have been gutted and shuttered.

In the 1980's Saudi Arabia looked into using ocean tugboats to tow glacial icebergs to their shores as a new supply of fresh water. It was feasible but not economical.

In the 1990's some south-western US developers suggested piping great lakes water to Arizona & Nevada so they could develop some inexpensive desert land holdings. Some great lakes states studied the proposal and found the bad results from taking too much water out of the Colorado river. To protect their lakes, all the US states bordering the great lakes states have signed an agreement requiring that any water diverted from the great lakes must now be returned to the great lakes watershed after its use.

Some times it's most economical to store excess water in place until it's needed later.

Interesting topic, is there a specific project you have in mind?

About every 5 years we have a major drought in Atlanta and our water source, Lake Lanier, loses about half (or more) of its water. Rationing becomes the headline. Panic starts to set in. People begin to denounce all of the hew buildings, subdivisions, golf courses, strip shopping centers, etc. that are continually being built all over the metro area. "There won't be enough water for all these people and homes and businesses in the future!" But as soon as the rain starts falling again, everyone forgets about the water shortage and life goes on as usual, with more people and more construction happening.

I'm not sure if everyone in the world realizes that water, which is clean, potable, uncontaminated, with no trace elements or chemicals is priceless.

Thats one side of this to consider. Aside from what you have brought up. It is evident now that all the greedy pharmaceutical companies have produced products that can be found abundantly in municipal drinking water. It is evident, that PCB's (poly-chlorinated-biphenols)from the Fort Edward dam on the Hudson River north of me, can be found around the world, they were contained until some foolish decision was made to break up the dam, GE, is now paying for a massive dredging effort to clean up the river, removing the now encapsulated sediment containing PCB's. We as a species are not too bright about taking care of a priceless life giving substance called water. The pure clean water unmolested by mankind will be worth more than gold someday, and this is going to be one of the biggest dilemmas faced by mankind, given what has happened so far.

Need to add building BELOW sea level to the list.

Nah! They were built to fly over 100 missions each. We only had but 135 total, including the ill fated Challenger and Columbia missions. Oh, and the ones being referred to by the OP, if anyone is interested, were and are for the most part PRIVATELY funded.

There really must not be a shortage of water in the USA as so much is still being wasted watering lawns,Golf Courses and irrigating crops grown in dry areas that take alot of water.Drought is a normal occurance most anywhere and has to be planned for, with agriculture monoculture we have here in much of the USA diaster is predictable.
As the old saying goes 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' But many farmers only grow one or two crops and don't spread their risk out over several crops and livestock.When you gamble you loose sometimes.

I agree, Paul. We need to maintain a leadership in space exploration. Sad, indeed.

The Saudis have massive desalting systems that provide drinking water and for watering crops, from ocean water. And you thought those rag heads just pumped oil.

Just yesterday I viewed a long informational video on you tube that shows large detention camps here in the USA. These camps are "detention, or relocation camps" These camps are really low to medium security prisons. And....There are over 3000 of them in the USA. How many billions did it take to build these camps/prisons. And these are not filled up with felons, they are empty. ( WTF? )
The video explains that the camps are set up in case martial law is declared and the average John Q public has to be detained because they are a threat to Big Bro. These camps were started in the 90s.
The gubbermint is too busy trying to control you and me to do something intelligent, like get large amounts of water to farms and communities.
Please go to youtube then type in fema camps. Piles of info on this. Very scary.

ncwayne, check out this link on the chicago deep tunnel project. they basically installed deep underground tunnels to divert and collect floodwaters into temporary underground holding tunnels to avoid polluting lake michigan during floods. they can then pump out and process the water and reclaim it. spendy,but it seems to be working. there is a lot of info on the net, and also on youtube.
poke here

here is a good video explaining how it works
poke here

The reason science is looking for water on Mars is not to import it to earth.It is that water is necessary to sustain life.

Yep. Napolean said 'he who controls the weather, controls the world'. Insted of ...whatever we were doing in space the last 50 years, it could have been spent trying experiments to -get it to rain where and when ya need it? All the decades spent getting ready to nuke the ruuski's, we could have just said, 'look comrade, be good, or we will freeze you into the next century'. Naplolean would have loved that option, we probably could have done it.
Landslides in British Columbia, cars floating down Arizona streets, and just now huge hail stones in Manhattan. Yet some spots had no H2O in years.
I believe the sun is 100% responsible, but..... If some one at a control panel in a space station could just press a few buttons, pull a few levers.... try to make up for a bad situation???
That option is gone for our lifetime.

Doubt it'll ever touch Gold in price as the technology is there to take the salt out of seawater just not practical moneywise in most situations yet.You can do it with a modified moonshine still and have pure water as it leaves the bad stuff behind when it becomes steam just costs a few bucks to do it.

This is true, but when the sh^i hits the fan, and someday it will, you can't drink gold, not sure what that means monetarily, it is a must have, I am very thankful for a clean aquifer and well that provides clean cold water here, our other place, 30 miles north, with the exception of one well that is clean, tested, 2 other wells on site I do not trust and bring bottled water when I work there, dry spell dried 2 of them down already, its just a must have, I enjoy a cold bottle of Poland Spring as much as my favorite beer, mind you that too takes clean, good quality water to be a good beer.

Great link. That project just goes to prove that what I am talking about IS feasible when it becomes necessary. For the amount of work being done, and the cost mentioned (3 billion over alot of years), that is a really low price to pay, per year, for the capabilities it gives the city. Not to mention the pollution it keeps out of the river.

As it stands, many cities are being hit up right now by the EPA over the same problems Chicago is/was having of raw sewage being discharged by combined storm and sewer drains. Granted the costs to do the work are high, but with the jobs created, and the help to the environment it's well worth the expense.

I've heard and read about those camps, along with the rail cars that were built with chain/shackel rails inside designed to transport prisioners to those camps. True or false, who knows anymore given the current state of this country. Regardless of any of that it all comes down to the fact our government can waste tens of billions every year on total BS and not give any thought to putting that money to projects that would resally make a difference.

OK, but who cares if there is life on Mars when we are having problems sustaining life on Earth? Any way you look at it space exploration might be exciting and all that, but in these times money spend looking for anything outside our galaxy would be far better spent on taking care of the problems we have right here on Earth. Heck, NASA and others have scientists working every day to find ways to keep vehicles powered for years on other planets. While the idea behind it is fine, why not put the same effort toward creating things designed for use here on Earth. Granted many things from the 'space race' might make it out to the general public at some time in the future, and that's fine too. The problem is doing the research for something that would be Earth based simply isn't s3xy enough to recieve the same funding that something designed to operate on Uranis will recieve....That's just not right......

Isn't that how superman got to the Kent farm? His planet was going to die? Hey if this one is, it will be our star's fault, and Mars won't be of any help. Neither is killing the shuttles. Water on Mars means people could live there- sorta, with a solar powered car that gets 3 years out of a charge? Like the rovers that kept going years beyond the expiration date? And one is simply stuck in mud that isn't suppose to be there, cause Mars isn't suppose to get that warm... this is a solar system warming, not global.
We got a voyager thing that was launch about the time of the bicentenial, and just went past Pluto's orbit a while ago... and still going, sending back messages.... I don't care if that spoon full of plutonium can power a golf cart or a house.... it is going for 36 years now, and that's something we can't buy either.
What did Westinghouse tell Tesla? Don't invent me anything that can't be metered and billed monthly...