Odyessy Mars Mission

Wingnut · Mar 14, 2002

RanchMan ... obviously doing my taxes irritated me more than it usually does as I obviously came across differently than I intended. I was trying to make a case for that phantom "everyman".
All this Hard Science investigation certainly does provide high paid employment for scientists and others ... but I don't see a lot of benefit to the mass of people who aren't given a choice on supporting it.
Anyway ... let's see ...
1) golly, I'm sorry that I have the utter gall to demand some value back from providing employment to others. Heck, if knowing what Helen of Troy had for breakfast will improve chain saw efficiency ... I'm all for it. My "bitterness" isn't at the quest for knowledge ... it's the government dollars that are wasted in studies of the mating habits of the devonian lutefisk.

2) The only rats patoot I give about fossil fiel consumption is removing revenue from our "friends" in Saudia Arabia. Let me know when I can buy a resonably priced vehicle with anti-grav or a nuclear powerplant ... although my engine now has more compter control than my toaster over (almost, anyway) ... the fuel mileage is about the same as my non-computer controlled cars back in the late 70's.
3) No ... I don't claim to be clairvoyent ... I'll leave that to Cleo. Your point? My point was I'd like to see that amount of money applied to .. say ... clean drinking water, or eradicating mosquitos than seeing of you could bounce a lander all over Mars' surface.
4) yep ... based on services provided me by the various levels of government, they're far too high
5) yep ... haven't seen any indications of a pol with scruples yet ... although the law of averages says one might possibly exist somewhere. For some reason, I get rather suspicious of people who will spend $50 mill to get a $100k/yr job. Even with my obviously severly limited imagination and math ability ... it looks odd.

I won't waste a lot of bits to examine each of your examples ... but I will say that a large of improvements or inventions have come about because of military funding ... so, I guess that another war would really benefit us a lot by getting a new slew of inventions ... but, I'd rather not, thank you
Maybe some day when I'm in the hospital, etc ...
Nope, sorry, no personal benefit there ... I happen to be n endangered species. I do not want to live forever. I would like a cure for the common cold, though .... any chance they'll find one on Pluto or Europa?

my opinions are not popular ... but they're mine ... mostly just to stick needles in others and see if they're awake. I can easily be swayed with logic and proof but not with "faith".

I'm puzzled ... if you thnk everyone's taxes are too high ... how come you obviously support high cost projects that would be unlikely to happen unless government sponsored?

Chuck52 · Mar 14, 2002

Bob,

I guess I am terminally out of the loop. What information is NASA denying us? Was that face on Mars really Jesus? Seriously though, what is it they are supposed to be hiding?

Wingnut, Wazzup? Clean drinking water? Solar energy? What are you, some kind of crypto-democrat?

Chuck

Youare · Mar 14, 2002

A man I work with will not use a cell phone, he truly believes that NASA is programing people with micro waves every time they used the phone, planting sub-limital messages to get you to carry out the objectives the secret government is planning.

Then there is the theroy that man never really landed on the moon, it was all a staged play to fool I don't know who.

Oh by the way, this same man also believes the flu shot is also a medium for injecting every one with tiny transponders so "they" can keep track of you with GPS. Who was it that said "the paranoids got me"?/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Randy

PitbullMidwest · Mar 14, 2002

Umm... excuse me Bob, can I butt in? Honestly I have little interest in the space program. I do have a question for the space-nics out there.

Recently ABC news reported that Mars was warming. Provided that Mars has no industry or pollution to contribute to a "greenhouse" effect, what would cause this warming? If the answer is (duh) the sun, doesn't it logically stand then that the global warming experienced here on Earth (the next closest planet to the sun) is caused by the same thing and not "greenhouse gases"?

Big Al told me that the use of my 2 cycle LawnBoy had placed "Earth In The Balance". Could it be that he was wrong? If NASA can prove that Gore is an idiot, I'll gladly fund the space program.

Egon · Mar 14, 2002

Global warming:

Just a note of interest but about 6 to 10 thousand years ago the earth was warmer than it is today.

Egon

Bob_Trevithick · Mar 14, 2002

...Recently ABC news reported that Mars was warming. Provided that Mars has no industry or pollution to contribute to a "greenhouse" effect, what would cause this warming? If the answer is (duh) the sun, doesn't it logically stand then that the global warming experienced here on Earth (the next closest planet to the sun) is caused by the same thing and not "greenhouse gases"?

You want my best guess? Hoagland's hyperdimensional physics paper discusses this in some detail.. we probably haven't discovered all the planets in this solar system yet. There may be a big one, or some small ones, way out there.. with a huge angular momentum contribution. Check out the Hoagland paper. If you have to, skim it.. it gets kind of heavy (no pun intended) in spots. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.enterprisemission.com/hyper1.html>http://www.enterprisemission.com/hyper1.html</A>

And yes, I would guess that "greenhouse" effects are a minimul part of the warming, for both earth and mars.

Bob_Trevithick · Mar 14, 2002

...I guess I am terminally out of the loop. What information is NASA denying us?

Sigh.. okay.. this will sound crazy.. but remember, you heard it here first! /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

There is clear evidence of the ruins of ancient civilizations on both Mars and our own moon. You'll probably hear about this shortly.. at least within the next year or two. NASA is very hesitant to reveal what they've known for decades, probably because of the infamous Brookings report which predicted that civilization could collapse should the public gain knowledge of such things. Most people seem to feel Brookings is wrong, and so there's a movement afoot to speed up the release of the real data. NASA seems to be doing this now, but not saying what they are doing. They are just showing some data, and not commenting. The best is yet to come!

yeah, yeah, I know, it sounds like the ravings of a complete lunatic doesn't it? /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bob

PitbullMidwest · Mar 14, 2002

I don't buy the global warming story at all (at least as far as man is responsible). FOXNEWS.com reported about a year ago in their "Junk Science" column that NOAA has stopped using historical temperature data collected at sea for over a hundred years. Sea water was collected, the temp was checked and a formula applied to correlate it to air temp. But an analysis of the data using computors show that there is no correlation between sea water temps and air temps. It is this data that has always been the foundation for grants into global warming research.

Did any of you get "Weekly Reader" when you were in elementary school? I remember articles about the coming ice age and how the earth was cooling. By the time my younger sister was in elementary school the "Weekly Reader" was reporting that the coasts would be under water due to the melting ice caps.

My daughter brought her science book home a few month's back and it stated that the earth's orbit is not elliptical around the sun and that we go through 11 year cycles of warming and cooling, there are even names for the cycles that I can't remember.

Global cooling or global warming, its all about the research grants and how much they can take from a very gullible public.

PitbullMidwest · Mar 14, 2002

There is clear evidence of the ruins of ancient civilizations on both Mars and our own moon

Sounds like Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles"

RanchMan · Mar 14, 2002

Wingnut -
A LONG, long one....

I'll try to respond and keep the sarcasm in check (to a degree) and show that "I'm awake".

This WHOLE discussion started with you saying missions to Mars were worthless. My counterpoint was that space exploration, in general, and Mars missions specifically, have benefitted the general population. I never qualified how much to spend, where to go, etc. - just that there was value where you saw none. That being said.....

(1) I never said EVERY program had merit and that we should throw money at every whim or crazy idea. Look at my original message - I even explicity that we shouldn't "go broke" going after every "crazy exploration activity." I agree with you that the government does waste taxpayer money on a bunch of bunk.

Where we seem do disagree here is that you believe unless it makes your life (i.e. "ME, ME, ME" easier in a very tangible way (e.g. power assist on your Kubota's steering, improving your chainsaw's efficiency, lowering your gas bill, etc.) it has 0 value. Somehow I just don't buy your "phantom everyman" statement because some of the "social experimentation" you feel so strongly against may be just what a number of the "phantom everymen" may desire.

It would seem to me that if all you care about is yourself, you would never do a "favor" for a buddy without tracking it so that you can "call it in" at a later date. Additionally, it would follow that you would have no compassion for, say, someone who's car broke down or was stuck in a ditch. Again, unless you got a reward (of whatever type) you wouldn't stop to help, call a tow truck, etc. - after all, "it's their problem." Somehow, I just don't think that you would be that shallow - at least, I'd hope you aren't.

(2) I don't like giving the Saudi's money for their product any more than you do. Would I take a more fuel efficient vehicle? Absolutely IF it is (a) reasonably priced, and (b) it had similar capabilities. But this simply doesn't exist. (e.g. try towing anything with a "environmentally friendly" electric car... <the electric car is a bogus route anyway, but that's another discussion.>)

Regarding your '70's model vs. today? I'd venture a guess that if we didn't have all the smog/enviro-friendly additives, fuel efficiency would go up. So you have to choose your poison on that one.

(3) "My point" here was that you seem to believe all exploration is bogus UNTIL you personally know what "real value" benefits will result from it. How could you know what will result from something that hasn't been invented yet??? Although you explicitly state that you aren't clairvoyant, I don't see how that meshes with your earlier statements.

(4) We agree on something....Amazing!!! Wait, the jab at the end - "How come you obviously support high cost projects that would be unlikely to happen unless government sponsored." Hmmm, I thought I answered this in my previous messages - answers are (1) knowledge itself has intrinsic value; and (2) a lot of technologies (medical, manufacturing, etc.) are developed only because they were initially created to solve an unrelated problem associated with space exploration that nobody would have ever "thought of" to "sit down" and develop otherwise. (e.g How can you create a solution to a problem that doesn't exist?)

(5) While there are a lot of crooked politicians out there, I don't believe everyone is one of Satan's minions. (of course, by your definition, everyone from Washington to Bush was inherently "evil" - along with anyone elected for all of time.) That means every member of Congress, your State Legislature, your elected judges, your mayor, your dog-catcher, your Lyons's club president, your R/C club treasurer, etc. Sorry, I think there is more than a single politician in the world who has scruples. I would never go as high as saying 95% are good or something like that- but I don't subscribe to the "one in a million" mentality either.

War: Should we have one just to "advance technology"? Nope. A pretty silly statement... Should we take advantage of the things we learn due to war? Yep.

Hospital: Either you are pulling my leg with this whole thing or you are truly serious. By the cynical perspective, I don't think you believe what you stated here for a second. Medical conditons and the heartache it can cause individuals/families are a sensitive subject. Therefore, I'll just say based on what I have seen so far in my lifetime, I am happy those technologies have been developed.

Unpopular Opinions: WOW! We agree again! Yes, I do believe that your ideas are generally unpopular, although there may be different "twists" to it (see my initial message regarding use of funds). And Yes, they "are your own", which I take to mean that you have the right to have & express your ideas.

As far as your statement of "I can easily be swayed with logic and proof...." I don't think that is the case, not by a long shot.

Your basic claim is that nothing useful has come from the space program (except "coolers" and "freeze-dried food"). When specific items have been cited, you dismiss them out of hand and come back with "quippy" remarks, such as how there is a 0% chance of you ("phantom everyman" alert!) ever benefitting from medical advances that resulted from the space program, ergo, you will never have an accident, get a serious illness, or anything else "bad" will happen to you until it's "your time" and you'll be "turned off" like a lightbulb. I honestly hope that is the case for you (and everyone else out there)- but let's be real here, life isn't always pretty or fair, and lots of "good people" have less than pleasent things happen to them before they finally expire.

If you REALLY believed all of this, then it follows logically you have no need for health insurance, no need for car insurance, no need for safety equipment, no need to have "regular checkups", etc... Somehow, I'd be willing to be that you probably have/use all of those things.

It's really been interesting, but I've come to the conclusion (based on your own admission) that all you were really ever interested in was "stirring up trouble" (e.g. mostly just to stick needles in others)

I intially thought you might be open to some other perspectives and interested in a real discussion, but instead of trying to have a true conversation, you thought it would be more fun to try and make me "jump through logical hoops" to prove my case - when you had no intention of logically making your arguments, but instead just giving sarcastic remarks.

Quite frankly, I just don't think I'm interested in forcing this any further. I'm not your "pet" and owe you no "tricks" for entertainment value. You also seem to lack the desire for a substantiative conversation to convince me of your opinion with anything other than snide remarks.

I just don't think this effort is worth it because (a) I'm not your jester and (b) if you honestly believe that there is nothing wrong with your debate approach, there is no point in trying to "beat a dead horse" and convince you otherwise.

I believe I've made my point logically, used supportive evidence, and also made it clear that there were no "absolutes". I believe I even made my argument stronger by incorporating some of your points, but for you at least, that doesn't matter. That's the best I can do - and it's good enough for me.