Politics: A new beginning

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
But I do know that there are 47 GIs dead since SH was found, and that the admin plans to turn over the keys to the place in June.

I guess I've been hoping that they've been planning to turn over title, but keep the keys.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

The scientific costs of the effort to get Bush re-elected (i.e., Bush's Moon & Mars boondoggle): NASA is going to have to let the Hubble telescope die sooner than it otherwise would. Scientists are displeased.

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration decreed an early death yesterday to one of its flagship missions and most celebrated successes, the Hubble Space Telescope. In a midday meeting at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., two days after President Bush ordered NASA to redirect its resources toward human exploration of the Moon and Mars, the agency's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, told the managers of the space telescope that there would be no more shuttle visits to maintain it.
  
  A visit by astronauts to install a couple of the telescope's scientific instruments and replace the gyroscopes and batteries had been planned for next year. Without any more visits, the telescope, the crown jewel of astronomy for 10 years, will probably die in orbit sometime in 2007, depending on when its batteries or gyroscopes fail for good. "It could die tomorrow, it could last to 2011," said Dr. Steven Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Institute on the Johns Hopkins University campus in Baltimore. Dr. Beckwith said he and his colleagues were devastated. At a news conference last night, Dr. John M. Grunsfeld, the agency's chief scientist and an astronaut who has been to the Hubble two times, called the the telescope the "best marriage of human spaceflight and science." "It is a sad day that we have to announce this," Dr. Grunsfeld added.
  
  As the news flashed around the world by e-mail, other astronomers joined the Hubble team in their shock. Dr. David N. Spergel, an astronomer at Princeton and a member of a committee that advises NASA on space science, called it a "double whammy" for astronomy. Not only was a telescope being lost, but $200 million worth of instruments that had been built to be added in the later shuttle mission will also be left on the ground, Dr. Spergel said. Dr. Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz who is also on the advisory committee, said, "I think this is a mistake," noting that the Hubble was still doing work at the forefront of science. Dr. Tod Lauer, of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, said, "This is a pretty nasty turn of events, coming immediately on the heels of `W's' endorsement of space exploration."
  
  The demise of the Hubble will leave astronomers with no foreseeable prospect of a telescope in space operating primarily at visible wavelengths. The announcement also precludes hopes that astronomers had of using the Hubble in tandem with the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launching in 2011 and which is being designed for infrared wavelengths, to study galaxies at the far reaches of time.

linky

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
The scientific costs of the effort to get Bush re-elected (i.e., Bush's Moon & Mars boondoggle

I saw this, and thought that the initial spin sounded unrealistic.

First, only days after Bush gives a generalized vision of where NASA should be going, the announcement is made that Hubble is out. Sounds a bit quick for a measured budget-driven response.

Next, the article also says this:

"More important, NASA officials say, after the Columbia catastrophe a year ago, the missions are also considered dangerous. The shuttles do not carry enough fuel to reach the space station in case of trouble.

In its report on the shuttle disaster last summer, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommended that there be a way to inspect and repair the shuttle's heat shields, which were damaged after the Columbia lifted off. That is easily conducted if the craft is at the space station, but not at the Hubble.

In his remarks to the astronomers on Friday, according to those present, Mr. O'Keefe referred to that recommendation and said it would be too difficult to develop that ability for a single trip to the telescope.

Given enough time, NASA might have developed the tools to do it, Dr. Grunsfeld said, but the decision to retire the shuttles in 2010 foreclosed that possibility.

"Cost was not an issue," he said."

I'm guessing this decision was made some time ago, and someone's bringing it out now for reasons they have decided to not make explicit.

But, then, I'm a suspicious asshole.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm guessing this decision was made some time ago, and someone's bringing it out now for reasons they have decided to not make explicit.

But, then, I'm a suspicious asshole.

If you were more suspicious, you'd wonder why this news came out on the Friday before a holiday weekend.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If you were more suspicious, you'd wonder why this news came out on the Friday before a holiday weekend.

A mission to Mars is a boondoggle, but looking at stars is important science. the moon trip produced more valuable technology than anything that came before. Why wouldn't a Mars trip do the same? This would be pratical advances that improve quality of life.
from bilmore's post it seems unlikely there was a direct link to the telescope being cut, but even if so, a telescope helps us learn about stuff that's interesting, hypothetical, and of no real practical value.
so even if it were a "choice," it seems like an intelligent choice.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
A mission to Mars is a boondoggle, but looking at stars is important science. the moon trip produced more valuable technology than anything that came before. Why wouldn't a Mars trip do the same? This would be pratical advances that improve quality of life.

(1) We've already invented velcro.

(2) If they were serious about going to Mars anytime soon, and it weren't just a political gambit to get W. re-elected, they would be talking about serious money, and they wouldn't be talking about using the moon as a staging base.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the moon trip produced more valuable technology than anything that came before.

What does this sentence mean? Do you mean that the technological breakthroughs developed to assist the moon shot outweighed all other technological achievements put together?

[Montecore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The Montecore sock had better worry, too.

Good God, man. That joke fell down harder than Britney on her Wedding Night. That shut up your audience faster than David being bitch-slapped by Liza. Where are you getting your material? Did you buy Amy Goodman's sense of humor at a Pacifica fund raiser?

[andViolins]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
A mission to Mars is a boondoggle, but looking at stars is important science. the moon trip produced more valuable technology than anything that came before. Why wouldn't a Mars trip do the same? This would be pratical advances that improve quality of life.
from bilmore's post it seems unlikely there was a direct link to the telescope being cut, but even if so, a telescope helps us learn about stuff that's interesting, hypothetical, and of no real practical value.
so even if it were a "choice," it seems like an intelligent choice.

Hey Hank,

Thanks for sharing that you know nothing about space exploration.

If you want to see what NASA is cooking up for its next space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, check out http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov/

aV

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the moon trip produced more valuable technology than anything that came before. Why wouldn't a Mars trip do the same?

Tang and teflon, baby. Yeah, right. Like we really went to the moon.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Like we really went to the moon.

One of OJ's finest acting moments! In cinema, I mean.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
What does this sentence mean? Do you mean that the technological breakthroughs developed to assist the moon shot outweighed all other technological achievements put together?

I'm trying to cover the Club stuff, plus fill the Puffy void, plus do my normal argumentative act. bilmore turned down the extra shifts. Would you cut me some slack.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Tang and teflon, baby. Yeah, right. Like we really went to the moon.

How about the rocket guidence technology we developed? Sure, we could have waited till China had developed it on its own and elected a Bill Clinton type who'd sell the technology, but that might have been awhile.

And what good has telescopes provided, i mean besides some King Crimson album covers?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by andViolins
Hey Hank,

Thanks for sharing that you know nothing about space exploration.

If you want to see what NASA is cooking up for its next space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, check out http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov/

aV

I really can't read the whole page to decipher what practical knowledge could come from this telescope. telescopes show images of stuff far away- they're cool, and i find the theories they help develop interesting, but please.....what practical information comes from this telescope?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
And what good has telescopes provided, i mean besides some King Crimson album covers?

Well, for starters, we learned that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which I believe has proven to have some practical applications.

S_A_M