Cost of the Perseverance Mars trip.
- Thread starter Dave7
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winjim
Smash the cistern
No and neither have you.
Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
Agree, the military budget for many countries is obscene..
Industrialised human slaughter devices, funded by, and exchanged between national governments.
Yes UK Arms industry, we're looking at you.
Yuk
But don't you sense any tie up between space programs, and technology development, and the overall industrialised military agenda??
No. Actually, many of the civilian launchers are, or were developed from, military ICBMs. In Europe and Japan, space programs are funded by and for civilian and science purposes. Military and civilian programs are separate in the US.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
My guess is that the major, expensive developments in technology to get something into space at the right position were worked out decades ago, and are now much cheaper. It can't cost too much to have the Lego kit whizzing unpowered through space after it's free from the bounds of gravity. Three billion or so is pocket lint in the current scheme of things.
Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
Subduction may be of merely academic interest to you, living in a remarkably geological stable bit of the world. I suspect that may not be true of someone who was next to the Indian ocean on Boxing Day in 2004. A better understanding of these geological processes will hopefully lead to being able to predict such events - and avoid the appalling loss of life.
A better understanding of ocean currents leads to better weather forecasts. As a farmer, you'll know more than me the benefits that brings. Measuring chlorophyll absorption from orbit allows the tracking of algal blooms - or ocean productivity - which directly aids the conservation of fish stocks.
These boffins who you decry over wasting their time - they design the instruments on those satellites so that they can get the data to solve humanity's effects on the planet. That is what motivates many of them to get up in the morning.
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Awwww, is it fake?
classic33
Leg End Member
*Robert Goddard had most of it worked out, but was dismissed as being an eccentric. Von Braun and his team borrowed from Goddard's work.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
After the thaw in the Cold War, an American diplomat asked his Russian counterpart why the US had got to the Moon first.
"Your Germans were better than our Germans".
classic33
Leg End Member
And these two post will be picked over later today.
Kennedy invited the Russians into a joint mission to the moon, but the Russians said No/Nyet.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
That was quite a smart diplomatic move on Kennedy's part.
classic33
Leg End Member
Seems as though they had second thoughts about turning the offer down.
https://www.spacedaily.com/news/russia-97h.html
https://www.spacedaily.com/news/russia-97h.html
In theory, yes. In reality, god no. The Shuttle program (which I have wittered on about at length elsewhere) was crippled by Nixon as part of a compromise between NASA and the DoD who had a requirement for it to be able to launch military satellites, service them in-orbit and securely deorbit them.
What should have been only one part of a network of craft for staging interplanetary missions, became a glorified (and hideously expensive) heavy lifter that mainly earned its way through DoD contracts. Contracts now handled by (hoikkk, ptooie) the heavily NASA-subsidised SpaceX.
Actually it's the opposite. Not just in the US. The problem is we identify the military with weapons and we stop at that. We do not think of the design and technology behind the flight suit for fighter pilots or the type of metal compounds developed for the wings or the survival food ration formula or the radio equipment in the plane.
These activities are never siloed. They cross over all the time. On paper it might suggest otherwise.
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winjim
Smash the cistern
It's apparently footage from Curiosity overlaid with audio of unknown provenance.
mudsticks
Obviously an Aubergine
You misunderstand me completely if you thought I was decrying 'boffins' or the significance or importance of earth sciences.
I agree we should be investigating all these things very thoroughly - far more thoroughly in fact.
Especially the effects of mans activities on our planet, and how to correct that - we should have been doing all that decades ago really , instead of the science being directed by the oil companies.
Science funded by commerce isn't necessarily used for benign purposes.
But it seems to be far easier to get people excited about space travel, than what we need to do here.
If we could do both that would be nice, but you've still got people decrying, or questioning the significance of the work of climate scientists , for instance.
And saying they're 'making it up'
Respect for science overall seems to be patchy.
And which science gets funding, and why, is an issue of concern.
