Most of you have probably heard bits and pieces of this. Seven years ago, "scientist" launched "Stardust" a space vehicle designed to intercept a comet call "Wild 2", but not only intercept it but to lauch its own "probe" into the comet, causing the comet to give off pieces of itself. The space craft, weighing a meer 850 pounds was to turn in behind the comet and collect the bits of debris that came off of it! Folks this comet was 500 million that's MILLION miles away! "Stardust" just returned not only to earth, but to the exact location in Utah that they wanted to come to. The entire trip of 2.9 billion that is BILLION with a "B" miles took seven years. Most of us can't even begin to fathom the math, physics, quantum physics and quantum mechanic involved in this ! An 850 pound space probe ain't that big and the comet was evidently not that big and it was 500 million miles away and not only to hit it but to launch a probe into it then swing in behind it and collect debris from it and then return to the precise location on earth where they wanted it to land???? Unf...... believeable!
What makes me mad??? It was a half-backside written article by AP on page 18
of our local rag. The article spent as much time critizing the fact that a previous probe had crashed on earth instead of "floating" gently to earth.
But My God just let some football player in the play-offs sprain his little pinky and you would think we were under an alien invasion. These frigging ball players probably earned more in one play-off game than these scientist earn in 10 years! and to what ! what do these big dummies contribute to society, what postive influence do they have on society. Can some name every starter on the Steelers, or Bronco's - hell yes! Name one scientiest involved in this unbelieveable project. Most of those big dumb lumoxes can hardly find their way to the dressing room at half-time. These sciencetest not only found a comet 500 million miles from earth, but hit it with something not too much larger than a football!!!
MY God where is the justice!
Make me mad??? Hell yes it does!!!
Virginia
What makes me mad!?
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Virginia
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What makes me mad!?
First star to the right, then straight on 'till mornin!
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Jadeanne
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Virginia,
I guess the 7 years it took was way to long for the public attention span.
Scientific achivements are just too dull for lots of people to care.
It didn't have live prime time television coverage, a licensed logo, skimpy clad cheerleaders jiggling around, and a big brewery sponsoring it. Where's the entertainment factor?
Jadeanne
I guess the 7 years it took was way to long for the public attention span.
Scientific achivements are just too dull for lots of people to care.
It didn't have live prime time television coverage, a licensed logo, skimpy clad cheerleaders jiggling around, and a big brewery sponsoring it. Where's the entertainment factor?
Jadeanne
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SilverLady(SO)
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Virginia -
I agree with everything you said, but like Jadeanne also pointed out, there was no 'entertainment factor' attached to Stardust for the various media outlets (i.e., tv, newspapers) to give more recognition, or air-time, to this wonderful scientific achievement. Blame the media for not spreading the news of this accomplishment - they are concentrating on the 'news' that brings in the big money . . . what a shame.
Blame society as a whole for wanting to see more 'entertainment' and not science. Professional athletes, even actors & actresses, are paid way too much for their lack of contribution to society as a whole - indeed, more than a few are a bad influence on the younger generation, and it's getting worse.
There was a survey done recently where children and teenagers were asked if they had a choice, would they rather be famous (actors, singers) or smart (scientists, etc.). The majority said they would rather be famous.
I fear this is another example of our society going to hell in a handbasket.
- SL
I agree with everything you said, but like Jadeanne also pointed out, there was no 'entertainment factor' attached to Stardust for the various media outlets (i.e., tv, newspapers) to give more recognition, or air-time, to this wonderful scientific achievement. Blame the media for not spreading the news of this accomplishment - they are concentrating on the 'news' that brings in the big money . . . what a shame.
Blame society as a whole for wanting to see more 'entertainment' and not science. Professional athletes, even actors & actresses, are paid way too much for their lack of contribution to society as a whole - indeed, more than a few are a bad influence on the younger generation, and it's getting worse.
There was a survey done recently where children and teenagers were asked if they had a choice, would they rather be famous (actors, singers) or smart (scientists, etc.). The majority said they would rather be famous.
I fear this is another example of our society going to hell in a handbasket.
- SL
SilverLady(SO)
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- Native Motor City and Wolverine gal . . . GO BLUE!!
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Bernice
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My father worked as a scientist for NASA from 1965 - 1971. I'm used to ignorant people trashing science and space exploration. Dad would have been proud of stardust, despite the heartbreaking last moment.
People watch their sports with the help of devices that might never have been invented were it not for space exploration. Go figure.
Hugs,
Bernice
People watch their sports with the help of devices that might never have been invented were it not for space exploration. Go figure.
Hugs,
Bernice
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Amelie-Laveau
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Jessie
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Not all actors are bad. Tom Hanks has done some good when they made the movie Apolo 13. I mean every one knew how the story was going to turn out and yet people still went. From the movie He did the mini series From Earth to the Moon. While I will say I can not name many if any of the scientist on ANY space project it my belief that they do it for the science not the fame. NOW as to recent stardust project I saw the news 7 years ago when the rocket was launced the news covered it. The news covered when the launched the object into the comet, and the covered the landing of object on the news. This covered by all three major networks and while it was over after that when the science is examined I bet they will do anouther story about the Stardust Project.
Heck does anyone remember when that little robot landed on Mars and for nearly a week it was all anyone could talk about. I remember that I could not even get on JPL website to see the pictures because there servers where so overcrowded with people wanting to see the first Black&White images from Mars.
Now I know that this may not mean much but "Americans" and I count my self. Have short attention spans we are a NOW type of country and when something takes 7 years it is a little hard for many of us to keep track of the whole thing.
And that is my
Bye for now
Heck does anyone remember when that little robot landed on Mars and for nearly a week it was all anyone could talk about. I remember that I could not even get on JPL website to see the pictures because there servers where so overcrowded with people wanting to see the first Black&White images from Mars.
Now I know that this may not mean much but "Americans" and I count my self. Have short attention spans we are a NOW type of country and when something takes 7 years it is a little hard for many of us to keep track of the whole thing.
And that is my
Bye for now
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Absaroka
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Well said everyone. But you left out the folks who go step further and subscribe to a lot of superstitions because they feel science is bad.
Nothing against athletes and especially not against serious artists. I also thought there was a lot to consider in the comment made years ago that along with all the scientists and scientific studies done back when people went to the moon they should have sent at least one artist, be it poet, painter, musician or whatever.
We wouldn't even be talking here on the computer without science. Even though on a more cynical note I believe that the first electronic computers were built to enable them to do the math neccesary to build the Bomb. On yet another hand (running out of them here) I recently recieved life saving medical treatment involving radioactivity that might not have been developed otherwise.
Absaroka
Nothing against athletes and especially not against serious artists. I also thought there was a lot to consider in the comment made years ago that along with all the scientists and scientific studies done back when people went to the moon they should have sent at least one artist, be it poet, painter, musician or whatever.
We wouldn't even be talking here on the computer without science. Even though on a more cynical note I believe that the first electronic computers were built to enable them to do the math neccesary to build the Bomb. On yet another hand (running out of them here) I recently recieved life saving medical treatment involving radioactivity that might not have been developed otherwise.
Absaroka
everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
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Jeannie
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I agree with you Virginia. The people that do the most important and amazing things usually don't get much respect or credit but as I always tell my kids,life is not fair. If it were I'd be shopping for cosemetics right now in my long blue sequined gown.
Hey girls. Just remember George W. went to Yale ,about 25 minutes from me. Talk about life not being fair. He is against affirmative action. What do you call that?
This weekend I'm driving to New Haven to see the George W. Bush shrine they have on the campus of Yale. It consists of his Cliff Notes,cheat sheets and a six pack of empty bud longnecks. He's so special. If they had a short bus when he went to school he would of been on it. Big Hugs.
Love
Jeannie
Hey girls. Just remember George W. went to Yale ,about 25 minutes from me. Talk about life not being fair. He is against affirmative action. What do you call that?
This weekend I'm driving to New Haven to see the George W. Bush shrine they have on the campus of Yale. It consists of his Cliff Notes,cheat sheets and a six pack of empty bud longnecks. He's so special. If they had a short bus when he went to school he would of been on it. Big Hugs.
Love
Jeannie
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CJ
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http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Stardust.jpg
Hi all,
It's certainly no secret that folks who work behind the scenes get less attention than people who are right up there, on stage, so to speak. I think that many of these "hidden workers" prefer it that way, be they doing science or working in some other field; it gives them the time to concentrate on the tasks at hand rather than have to pander to some popular notion of entertainment.
I think one of the reasons the general public has little interest in unmanned space probes (as opposed to manned missions) is, precisely, the lack of human drama. Women and men who are willing to risk their lives to push back the frontiers of our knowledge about where we fit in in this big universe of ours will always command our attention more than do robots, the Viking probe and Mars Lander being two exceptions--the one because of all our science-fiction-born expectations about finding life on Mars and the other because it contained an actual message (graphic depiction of a human couple included) to potential extra-terrestrial forms of life. The SETI project is somewhat popular for very much the same reason: we do expect to make contact with extra-terrestrial life at some point (and everyone can help in this task by participating in the distributed network set up to help analyze chunks of Arecibo raw data on their home computers by downloading the SETI screen saver here: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/)
As has been discussed here before, the windfalls of the space exploration program are so important that it's safe to say that many of our medical advances (to name but one possibility) wouldn't have been achievable without those windfalls. When people think of space exploration, they think of the gaining of knowledge for knowledge's sake. But it's more than that; there's also the matter of exploring (and sometimes pushing back) the limits of human existence. My only peeve is the degree to which military use is made of such windfalls. Indeed, from the days of Sputnik (October of 1957), the military has been a prime "client" of the space program.
As for being smart or famous, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein, and a host of others are both smart and famous. Hell, even actors Jodie Foster and David Duchovny are smart and famous (although you'd be right to question the latter's intelligence if his choice of film roles is anything to go by).
Athletes and entertainers busy themselves today in what the Romans called "circuses." The Romans knew that keeping citizens occupied with vapid entertainment kept them tame and pacified, unquestioning and uncritical of authority. That's why athletes and entertainers get the big bucks--we want relief from the unglamorous drudgery of ordinary life, a life that often includes the slow, quiet, patient, and all too often unheralded work of those folks whose goal it is to push back the limits of human knowledge and to find ways to better human life. While this state of affairs doesn't make me mad, it certainly forces me to constantly re-evaluate what role I, myself, have to play in such a society.
Love,
CJ
Hi all,
It's certainly no secret that folks who work behind the scenes get less attention than people who are right up there, on stage, so to speak. I think that many of these "hidden workers" prefer it that way, be they doing science or working in some other field; it gives them the time to concentrate on the tasks at hand rather than have to pander to some popular notion of entertainment.
I think one of the reasons the general public has little interest in unmanned space probes (as opposed to manned missions) is, precisely, the lack of human drama. Women and men who are willing to risk their lives to push back the frontiers of our knowledge about where we fit in in this big universe of ours will always command our attention more than do robots, the Viking probe and Mars Lander being two exceptions--the one because of all our science-fiction-born expectations about finding life on Mars and the other because it contained an actual message (graphic depiction of a human couple included) to potential extra-terrestrial forms of life. The SETI project is somewhat popular for very much the same reason: we do expect to make contact with extra-terrestrial life at some point (and everyone can help in this task by participating in the distributed network set up to help analyze chunks of Arecibo raw data on their home computers by downloading the SETI screen saver here: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/)
As has been discussed here before, the windfalls of the space exploration program are so important that it's safe to say that many of our medical advances (to name but one possibility) wouldn't have been achievable without those windfalls. When people think of space exploration, they think of the gaining of knowledge for knowledge's sake. But it's more than that; there's also the matter of exploring (and sometimes pushing back) the limits of human existence. My only peeve is the degree to which military use is made of such windfalls. Indeed, from the days of Sputnik (October of 1957), the military has been a prime "client" of the space program.
As for being smart or famous, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein, and a host of others are both smart and famous. Hell, even actors Jodie Foster and David Duchovny are smart and famous (although you'd be right to question the latter's intelligence if his choice of film roles is anything to go by).
Athletes and entertainers busy themselves today in what the Romans called "circuses." The Romans knew that keeping citizens occupied with vapid entertainment kept them tame and pacified, unquestioning and uncritical of authority. That's why athletes and entertainers get the big bucks--we want relief from the unglamorous drudgery of ordinary life, a life that often includes the slow, quiet, patient, and all too often unheralded work of those folks whose goal it is to push back the limits of human knowledge and to find ways to better human life. While this state of affairs doesn't make me mad, it certainly forces me to constantly re-evaluate what role I, myself, have to play in such a society.
Love,
CJ
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Carol Ann
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Hi everyone,
Well I am kind of a space junkie and try to keep up with whats going on (so much). I had to back track "stardust" to bring me up to date as I truly didn't remember it. Look it takes so much time for these ships to get to where thier going the public soon forgets
.
I stayed up until 3 AM to watch the moon landing on a black and white TV,
I guess you have to watch the Nasa channel with isn't that great or better yet the discover sicence channel. But I agree that the people who plan and put these programs together only have self satifaction as to what they have done
Carol Ann
Well I am kind of a space junkie and try to keep up with whats going on (so much). I had to back track "stardust" to bring me up to date as I truly didn't remember it. Look it takes so much time for these ships to get to where thier going the public soon forgets
.I stayed up until 3 AM to watch the moon landing on a black and white TV,
I guess you have to watch the Nasa channel with isn't that great or better yet the discover sicence channel. But I agree that the people who plan and put these programs together only have self satifaction as to what they have done
Carol Ann-
Lorna
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Excellent thread!
And this in a nutshell is what's wrong with our society and has always been. Mock what you don't understand or cannot comprehend. That's the "American way".
As long as people have their ESPN and their Tivo and their Pepsi and their iPods and their reality TV, they don't have to care about anything else in the world.
And this in a nutshell is what's wrong with our society and has always been. Mock what you don't understand or cannot comprehend. That's the "American way".
As long as people have their ESPN and their Tivo and their Pepsi and their iPods and their reality TV, they don't have to care about anything else in the world.
Live it. Love it. OWN IT.
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Kerri
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Sorry Virginia, but I dont understand why we invest so much time and effort into space exploration. What good has it done? So we have made a quantum leap in non-stick pan technology, but so what!
We will never leave this ball of dirt & gas, despite what the trekies would have us believe. I would much rather see all these resources pointed at ways of improving the lives of people across the globe, here and now!
For example the thousands of dying refugees in Pakistan, the looming epidemic of bird flu. Not forgetting the state of the African continent and our own determination to cause the destruction of the planet by global warming.
It still wont win any media awards, but it will be more beneficial than knowing the chemical composition of a comet tail.
Tara 4now
kerri
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CJ
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Hi all,
Kerri,
While I understand how you feel (and you're certainly not alone), it may be that there are "side-effects" of the space exploration efforts you're not aware of. Here are just a few:
- Water filtration systems
- Smoke detectors
- Wireless communications
- Laser heart surgery
- Needle biopsies
- Digital image processing (including CATScans and MRI)
- Prosthetic limbs
- LEDs
- Chromosome analysis
- Digital mammography
- Scratch-resistant polarized lenses
- Safety (and sports) helmet padding
- Aircraft lightning and windshear protection
- Collision avoidance systems
- Pyrotechnic rescue tools
- Firefighter breathing systems
- Virtual reality systems
- Lasers and micro-lasers
- Advanced materials (such as graphite composites)
- Recycling of human and industrial waste as fertilizer
- Hydroponics
- Landmine explosion prevention
- Oil spill control and containment
- Forest fire mapping and imagery systems
- Robotic bomb disposal
In some small way, many of these technologies do indeed better human life despite all the very valid negative points you brought up.
More so than do football players with a seven-figure annual incomes, I would imagine.
Love,
CJ
Kerri,
While I understand how you feel (and you're certainly not alone), it may be that there are "side-effects" of the space exploration efforts you're not aware of. Here are just a few:
- Water filtration systems
- Smoke detectors
- Wireless communications
- Laser heart surgery
- Needle biopsies
- Digital image processing (including CATScans and MRI)
- Prosthetic limbs
- LEDs
- Chromosome analysis
- Digital mammography
- Scratch-resistant polarized lenses
- Safety (and sports) helmet padding
- Aircraft lightning and windshear protection
- Collision avoidance systems
- Pyrotechnic rescue tools
- Firefighter breathing systems
- Virtual reality systems
- Lasers and micro-lasers
- Advanced materials (such as graphite composites)
- Recycling of human and industrial waste as fertilizer
- Hydroponics
- Landmine explosion prevention
- Oil spill control and containment
- Forest fire mapping and imagery systems
- Robotic bomb disposal
In some small way, many of these technologies do indeed better human life despite all the very valid negative points you brought up.
More so than do football players with a seven-figure annual incomes, I would imagine.
Love,
CJ
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Virginia
- Goddess of the Universe
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- Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:06 pm
- Location: Strange Magic Hill
There is a show in ( I think - Starz net work) called "
"What the #@$% do we know."
Granted we are in many respects a somewhat primitative species, but if we don't destroy ourselves we have such potential. Yes we have brought a lot of misfortune on our fellow travelers on this "big blue marble." But deep within the human psyche is that yearning, that desire, that unquenchable need just to know - what the hell is it all about????? I must again and I can not quote it exactly but the line in the movie, "Men In Black"
"500 years ago everyone knew the world was flat! 50 years ago everyone knew we would never land on the moon! 15 minutes ago you knew we were alone in the universe - just think what you will know tomorrow!"
Yes we are unique - humans- that is! On one hand we now have the capability to totally wipe ourselves out of existence - yet on the other hand we can do such wonderous things - who will win out????
Virginia
"What the #@$% do we know."
Granted we are in many respects a somewhat primitative species, but if we don't destroy ourselves we have such potential. Yes we have brought a lot of misfortune on our fellow travelers on this "big blue marble." But deep within the human psyche is that yearning, that desire, that unquenchable need just to know - what the hell is it all about????? I must again and I can not quote it exactly but the line in the movie, "Men In Black"
"500 years ago everyone knew the world was flat! 50 years ago everyone knew we would never land on the moon! 15 minutes ago you knew we were alone in the universe - just think what you will know tomorrow!"
Yes we are unique - humans- that is! On one hand we now have the capability to totally wipe ourselves out of existence - yet on the other hand we can do such wonderous things - who will win out????
Virginia
First star to the right, then straight on 'till mornin!
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Absaroka
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- Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:30 am
First of all their is curiosity and just the urge to know which I think is part of the inate human spirit.
2nd there are some real big benifits, some already listed. One I didn't see is understanding the weather. I would suggest that satelite weather imagery has saved countless lives in the last 50 years. Any idea what Katrina might have been like if it took everyone by total surprise? Look how badly we did when we knew it was coming.
As for never leaving the Earth, it seems that may be true. But if you consider the difference between life today and life a few hundred years ago, if we don't all kill each other in the next couple of thousand years who knows what will happen?
Absaroka
2nd there are some real big benifits, some already listed. One I didn't see is understanding the weather. I would suggest that satelite weather imagery has saved countless lives in the last 50 years. Any idea what Katrina might have been like if it took everyone by total surprise? Look how badly we did when we knew it was coming.
As for never leaving the Earth, it seems that may be true. But if you consider the difference between life today and life a few hundred years ago, if we don't all kill each other in the next couple of thousand years who knows what will happen?
Absaroka
everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon