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and of course it's not just what we say

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to kids it's what we show them

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the images sent back by nasa's hubble

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plays such a huge part in capturing kids

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attention in an ever increasingly

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crowded world with many many demands on

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them

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this means we can show kids something of

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the cosmic environment that surrounds

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them

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think about what would it be like to see

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a sunset on mars

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now manned space flight is a topic which

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kids never tire of

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and because of nasa they can read about

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it they can hear about it watch

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documentaries look at photographs and

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visit space centers

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nasa runs a huge number of educational

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programs both in and outside schools

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this means that kids space dreams aren't

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limited to science fiction

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and with exciting new missions planned

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back to the moon and onwards to mars it

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means that there may be kids now who

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will grow up wanting to be astronauts as

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excited about it as a whole generation

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of astronauts today are the ones

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who watched the apollo moon landings in

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their pajamas with their parents and

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decided they were going to grow up to be

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an astronaut and that's certainly an

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awful lot more aspirational than wanting

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to grow up to appear on reality tv show

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or become a pop star

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because of nasa

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we can also show

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kids what our planet what the earth

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looks like from space

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they can see

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what a beautiful planet we live on but

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how vulnerable it is how fragile it is

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and we can really make it clear to them

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that they need to look after it when we

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look around us in space we see all sorts

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of other fascinating extraordinary

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exciting worlds but we don't see another

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planet nearby exactly like the earth and

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that's a very strong message to kids to

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say you live on a beautiful planet

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please look after it

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so we're not saying that all children

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need to grow up and go into space

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but we are saying that the work done by

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nasa has a profound and lasting impact

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on the way that children view their life

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on earth their cosmic environment it can

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influence the choices they make in the

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future and their careers

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i'd like to close with a fan letter we

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had from ben age six

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his mother had told us he wasn't a

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confident child but that he loved

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reading about space so much that it has

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changed his life

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he wrote to us to say

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now that i know i'm good at space

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i've decided to become a scientist when

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i grow up

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what will we find when we go into space

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is there alien life out there or are we

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alone in the universe

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we believe that life arose spontaneously

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on the earth so it must be possible for

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life to appear on other suitable planets

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of which there seem to be a large number

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in the galaxy

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but we don't know how life first

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appeared

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the probability of something as

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complicated as a dna molecule being

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formed by random collisions of atoms in

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a primeval ocean it's incredibly small

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however there might have been some

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simpler macromolecule

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which then built up to dna or some other

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macromolecule capable of reproducing

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itself

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still

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even if the probability of life

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appearing on a suitable planet is very

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small since the universe is infinite

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life would have appeared somewhere

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if the probability is very low the

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distance between two independent

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occurrences of life would be very large

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however there is a possibility known as

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panspermia that life could spread from

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planet to planet or from stellar system

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to stellar system carried on meteors

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we know that earth has been hit by

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meteors that came from mars and others

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may have come from further afield

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we have no evidence that any meteors

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carried life but it remains a

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possibility

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an important feature of life spread by

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panspermia is that it would have the

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same basis which would be dna

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for life in the neighborhood of the

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earth

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on the other hand an independent

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occurrence of life would be extremely

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unlikely to be dna-based

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so watch out if you meet an alien

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you could be infected with a disease

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against which you have no resistance

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one piece of observational evidence on

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the probability of life appearing is

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that we have fossils of algae from 3.5

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billion years ago

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the earth was formed 4.6 billion years

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ago and was probably too hot for about

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the first half billion years

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so life appeared on earth within half a

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billion years of it being possible which

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is short compared to the 10 billion year

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lifetime of an earth-like planet

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this would suggest either panspermia or

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that the probability of life appearing

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independently is reasonably high

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if it was very low one would have

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expected it to take most of the 10

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billion years

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available if it is panspermia any life

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in the solar system or in nearby stellar

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while there may be primitive life in our

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region of the galaxy there don't seem to

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be any advanced intelligent beings

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we don't appear to have been visited by

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aliens

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i am discounting reports of ufos

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would they appear only to cranks and

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if there is a government conspiracy to

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suppress the reports and keep for itself

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the scientific knowledge the aliens

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bring

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it seems to have been a singularly

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ineffective policy so far

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furthermore despite an extensive search

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by the seti project we haven't heard any

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alien television quiz shows

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this probably indicates that there are

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no alien civilizations at our stage of

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development within a radius of a few

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issuing an insurance policy against

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abduction by aliens seems a pretty safe

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bet

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why haven't we heard from anyone out

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there

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one who is expressed in this calvin

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cartoon

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the caption reads sometimes i think that

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the surest sign that intelligent life

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exists elsewhere in the universe is that

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none of it has tried to contact us

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more seriously there could be three

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possible explanations of why we haven't

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heard from aliens

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first

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it may be that the probability of

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primitive life appearing on a suitable

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planet is very low

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second the probability of primitive life

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appearing may be reasonably high but the

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probability of that life developing

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intelligence like ours may be very low

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just because evolution led to

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intelligence in our case we shouldn't

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assume that intelligence is an

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inevitable consequence of darwinian

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natural selection

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it is not clear that intelligence

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confers a long-term survival advantage

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bacteria and insects will survive quite

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happily even if our so-called

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intelligence leads us to destroy

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ourselves

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this is the third possibility

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life appears and in some cases develops

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into intelligent beings

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but when it reaches the stage of sending

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radio signals it will also have the

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technology to make nuclear bombs and

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it would therefore be in danger of

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destroying itself before long

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let's hope this is not the reason we

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have not heard from anyone

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personally i favor the second

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possibility that primitive life is

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relatively common but that intelligent

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life is very rare

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some would say it has yet to occur on

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can we exist for a long time away from

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the earth

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our experience with the iss the

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international space station shows that

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it is possible for human beings to