I watched Aliens again last night and I’m not sure that landing on a comet (or any other celestial object) is the greatest idea. Still, even though I am not a scientist, I am impressed.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
As a life-long science geek, I have been closely following the Rosetta mission for the past few months. I am someone who has sat, spellbound, and watched for decades each more daring, amazing and exciting space event. But from a purely scientific point of view, I am simply gobsmacked by the technical feat that has been accomplished here. I don’t know if there is anything that I have seen in my lifetime that is more amazing than what these people have pulled off by landing this damn thing on a comet. How, in this country, we can have so many people viscerally opposed to science, technology, higher education and intellectual pursuits, in the face of such epochal technical achievements, simply boggles my mind. I weep for our future, while at the same time cheering on these amazing scientific people.
How, in this country, we can have so many people viscerally opposed to science, technology, higher education and intellectual pursuits, in the face of such epochal technical achievements
Propaganda networks that run anti-knowledge, anti-reality propaganda 24/7, all with the theme that godless/Muslim Democrats use science to make fun of god-loving/fearing RealAmericansTM who practive faith-based knowledge and faith-based politics.
It still amazes me how easily people will readily accept and perpetuate easily falsifiable evidence simply because they have been told it is somehow a threat to them. And it will never occur to them to ever wonder if this is actually true. They simply accept it.
My tribe right or wrong, coupled with cognitive dissonance, projection and faith = Modern Republican Voter.
Maybe the comet didn’t appreciate being invaded by an illegal alien gizmo.
Love science, but prefer it to be earth based and not feed the fantasies of earthlings that getting to another rock is easy, affordable, and livable. Our ancestors had to deal with the existential fact that we don’t live in the center of the universe. Our descendents will have to deal with the realization we are of this puny planet and elsewhere is too far away.
I understand your point, but I don’t think science can necessarily be categorized as “earth based” or “space based”. The beauty of science is that one never knows where it will lead when you simply formulate the hypothesis, execute the experiment and analyze the data. Many of the greatest discoveries have come when the primary experiment has failed or when things happen which we absolutely didn’t expect or anticipate. That is just the nature of true science.
As a percentage of the federal budget, NASA doesn’t spend that much. (And most of the good side benefits to science came early.) Still, at $20 billion, that’s not chump change. Cut the Pentagon budget in half and slash all the related “national security” crap and fund more primary research science (not engineering/tech), and objections to polluting other planets and comets would be less.
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I’m a little more interested in investing in life on earth today and how we preserve it going forward.
Millions of people die every year for lack of clean drinking water and sanitation. Yet, the wealth goes to landing gizmos on comets, flying to the moon, and reserving a seat on a Virgin low-altitude carnival ride.
Space money is spent on earth. There’s nobody on the comet to take Applepay and we do not rocket payloads of greenbacks into orbit. ALL the money is spent here, mostly on high tech workers who earn a decent living. This “let’s spend the money here, instead” attitude led to the widespread unemployment of those workers and the economies based on them suffered as well. Instead of the money going to the inner cities as Liberals who thought you thought, it went to tax cuts for the rich instead. Even idf you think NASA is just the circus part of “bread and circuses”, I’d rather the masses have their space photo circus than the Koch’s gaining more money (hence power).
I know where the money goes. Sheesh! But you did neglect to include all the corporate contractors that do well in addition to the tech workers (mostly in the top 10% income bracket).
Not going to shed any tears for unemployed, government funded, highly paid STEM workers (a high percentage of whom obtained their advanced education on the government’s dime) mostly engaged in boondoggles, when there’s much work to be done here and plenty of un/under employed people capable and willing to do it. We went to the moon because it was easy and sexy.
I have friends in NASA, and they make a pittance compared to what they could be making at Boeing, Lockheed, and BAE.
We were speaking of the time when NASA had approximately 40,000 in-house employees and another 350,000 were employed by contractors. Today there’s only 19,000 in-house and 60,000 with contractors. And Boeing and Lockheed are two the the contractors. But it does appear that there’s been a bit more job security at NASA than with the contractors.
If the NASA STEM employees are paid a decent, but not extraordinary, salary, that’s good. Contractors shouldn’t be paying any more for the same work.
It might be considered an investment in humanity in the sense that it gives us valuable technical knowledge about how to rendezvous with a fast-moving large object, information which could come in handy as we approach a rendezvous with a projected very-near-Earth object, Asteroid Apophis, in 2029.
Yes, I know, Nasa downplays the danger, but last I checked space scientists in Russia and China, maybe Europe too, take the threat more seriously.
Note that it was the European Space Agency that can launch probes like this one.
NASA had for some time a space probe program called Mission to Planet Earth. The information that that program turned up about geophysics was so disturbing to the climate change deniers (cough fossil fuel peddlers) that of course discretionary spending had to be stopped for NASA programs. It’s not science that’s the problem; it’s folks scared of what science might find that will upset their all-too-human beliefs.
One thing that science might find, for all the science fiction belief mythology about terraforming, is that we will likely do a poorer job in a more hostile environment that we do here. Real estate developers have been massively stripmining and terraforming earth over the past two decades. How has that worked out? How about atmospheric management?
Science moves forward by upsetting beliefs. Or at least consensuses.
Yes, it didn’t go unnoticed that it was the European Space Agency and not NASA. We’ve got Curiosity on Mars. And now that China is rich (not the people; only the government and a small elite sector), they’re going to the moon with probes in search of resources to exploit.
Humans have trashed every pristine environment they’ve ever encountered. We’d do the same on other planets, etc. if it weren’t so darn expensive to get there in a quantity large enough to do serious damage.
The amount of money spent on science is a pittance. Any type of exploration that leads to more knowledge and understanding is worth it, whether it comes from exploring the ocean, a clinical study involving stem cells, or a mission to land a vehicle on an extra-terrestrial object.
You don’t have to be a scientist to be impressed. Seriously, just check out this animated gif showing the flight path, and try NOT to be impressed.
Even the ghost of Isaac Newton is impressed.
European Space Center build on land I used to roam on as a 5 year-old. I’m pretty pround of theses scientific missions and I have visted the center a couple of times. Later in life as an adult and employed by a California based analog chip producer even sold some chips which flew on earlier missions. Speaking of endurance testing …
Rosetta mission
○ 1964-2014: fifty years of European cooperation in space
That’s the European Space Agency that did that.
What happened to the US space program? It was doled out to private entrepreneurs who are having problems reinventing the wheel. “Margin of safety” never occurs to private enterprise unless their lawyer tells them what it is, something hard to do in ground-breaking development.
Yes, I was about to comment on that. Sad that the baton has passed after the USA under Eisenhower and Kennedy had been in the forefront. To bad that after the Moon Landings, America , in effect, said “Been there. Done that.”
It wasn’t about science back then — it was the Cold War, and we had to beat the “evil empire” and show them who was number one. As hollow a goal as our endless military and war fetish.
Initially yes. Repub. would have just pummeled Kennedy in 62 and 64 had he not kicked Nasa in the pants to get going.
To his great credit however, even if some on our side don’t always credit him or are unaware of it, he did propose a joint US-USSR mission to the moon at the June 61 summit w Khrushchev, only to be turned down.
Apparently sometime in his final weeks, JFK finally got an affirmative response from NK. But after Dallas, it was all swept aside as if it never happened.
“Hey Nicky, we can’t find any area of agreement on Berlin, Laos, and Cuba; so let’s go to the moon together.”
JFK was hardly or barely on board with a mission to the moon as early as June ’61 and the USSR space program was further ahead at the time.
JFK did propose a joint effort in a UN speech on 9/20/63; that likely unnerved a few Cold War warriors.
How could he “hardly or barely” be on board re the joint mission if he proposed it face to face to NK at their first and very important summit in June 61? Yes, at that time the Soviets were ahead, but only by a year. (Btw, they found agreement on Laos, another surprising good move by Kennedy.)
Then in fall of 63 they apparently agreed, according to NSAM 271, to cooperate in outer space ventures including missions to the moon. Sergei K. in recent years has confirmed his father agreed to a joint mission only a few weeks before Dallas.
Aliens is one of the scariest movies – EVER.
But, yes, this is cool.
et, the wealth goes to landing gizmos on comets, flying to the moon, and reserving a seat on a Virgin low-altitude carnival ride.mua bán trả góp điện thoại tại tphcm | mua bán trả góp ipad air
It’s not science that’s the problem; it’s folks scared of what science might find that will upset their all-too-human beliefs.mua trả góp laptop | mua máy tính bảng trả góp