Mere Survival is A Lot

Water requirements are substantially greater in total than those of any other life support consumable. They include water for direct crew consumption and usage as well as for use in oxygen generation by electrolysis. The latter generally trades well for long-duration missions because of the potential for surplus recovered water due to water present in supplied food and metabolically generated water, as well as the lower mass penalty associated with water storage compared to oxygen storage. Water is also used as an expendable coolant during extravehicular activity (EVA). The overall life support water balance is thus an important driver in life support architecture and technology selection. As noted in a 2007 Life Support Technology Seminar section titled “Closing the Air Loop – CO2 Reduction Technologies,” “It’s really about water.”¹ The same can be said for optimizing life support systems for long-duration space missions.

Nor did the late Emperor [Napoleon III] find in his front a divided Germany, and the mere survival of a great military organization. He found a united people, and an army surpassing in completeness, as it did in armaments—the victors of Prague, Rosbach, and Leuthen. The Germany known to the Congress of Vienna had disappeared—the deformed had been transformed. The little seed of unity, sown early in the century, had grown into a forest tree. The spirit of Arndt had run through the whole Teutonic nation, which, after the turmoil of 1848 had subsided, and the heavy hand of Russia had been taken off by the Crimean War, found a leader in the strongly-organized kingdom of Prussia.

Such is the part the village communities have played in the history of their country. Knowing this, what pride can one feel in them? That they have survived through all vicissitudes may be a fact. But mere survival has no value. The question is on what plane they have survived. Surely on a low, on a selfish level.
I hold that these village republics have been the ruination of India. I am therefore surprised that those who condemn provincialism and communalism should come forward as champions of the village. What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel recognized this in 1965, when he addressed the 34th General Assembly, the annual convention at the North American Jewish federation system. He said, “The significance of Judaism does not lie in its being conducive to the mere survival of a particular people, but rather in its being a source of spiritual wealth, a source of meaning relevant to all peoples.”

Man will survive as a species for one reason: He can adapt to almost anything. I am sure we can adapt to the dirt, pollution, and noise of a New York or Tokyo. But that is the real tragedy—we can adapt to it. It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life, the attributes that make human life different from animal life.

Wild animals can survive and even multiply in city zoos, but at the cost of losing the physical and behavioral splendor they possess in their natural habitat. Similarly, human beings can almost certainly survive and multiply in the polluted age of technological civilization, but we may sacrifice much of our humanness in adapting to such conditions.

Our reaction to crowding and to strangers, our sense of social order, even our forms of conflict, are conditioned by deep imprints from the biological past. A human environment must allow ways for man to express his aboriginal nature, to satisfy these needs that are rooted in the Stone Age, however great the outward changes brought by urbanization and technology.