O/t e=mc?

[tornado]

Without the government we would not have ht e internet and a few other services we all so depend on. Its not all bad.

again -- maybe you are too young but.......
.. independent scientists working at U of I (never having anything more than minimal educational grants) developed what was and still is the precursor to the internet..they even developed the very first computer message boards and personal notes (e mail!!) and playing community games and even one-on-one games against anyone, anywhere who was hooked by phone lines to the system, and EVEN touch-screen technology!!!!

They have never properly been given credit because they have never asked for it - but as far back as 1973 I used the U of I PLATO computer system precisely as people use the internet today to collaborate with, access publications, and even play games againsat people as far away as Europe and Guam.
I have every confidence that independent of any federal government help - the internet would have evolved anyway...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)

Some developments elsewhere like mass production of penicillin can be attributed to federal employees...although all the prior work - the discovery, the actual production and development was done privately - but again, I fully believe these developments would have come along just fine had the federal government stepped out of the way and actually stopped using their endless federal pocketbook in their efforts to compete AGAINST the private markets and researchers.
In the end - all other antibiotics subsequently developed over the past 80 years have indeed come from the private research that goes on all the time at PRIVATE corporations like Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, and Pfizer.
In fact - federal bureaucracy and regulations have done nothing to help and everything to hamper.

[tornado]

got a kick out of a couple new reports this morning that are your modern "pop science" ...

These are "scientists" or maybe "pseudo-scientists" hwo buffalo the media and are looking more for cheap, quick publicity and 15-minutes of fame,
there's little similarity to anything that's looking for any scientific accuracy or validity.........

---This story is titled:
"4.5 billion 'alien Earths' may populate Milky Way, says new study"
Well... calling planets in other star systems "alien earths" is a little disingenuous at best and knowingly lying from the scientific pulpit at worst.
NOT ONE planet either in our own solar system or elsewhere has ever yet been shown to be anywhere close to earth-like conditions. (Except, of course, earth!)
In fact - Mars is even more earth-like than even the MOST earth-like planet ever even imagined in other solar systems - and yet there's not even a single spot on MARS that's anywhere near as habitable as the very WORST & most INHABITABLE place on earth!! So - nobody with any sense would try to label Mars as earth-like.

Then of course - there's one other tiny little factor that may be relevant - that even the closest one is trillions of miles away - far enough that there's no known way to even complete 1% of such a journey or carry enough supplies, fuel, or needs to do anything even if you could get there!

http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/02/07/45-billion-alien-Earths-may-populate-Milky-Way-says-new-study/5471360241600/?spt=hts&or=7

---Speaking of close - this separate story says... there are earth-like planets practically right next to us!! A mere walk across the park!!!
"Earth-like planets may be in our own backyard"

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_earth-like-planets-may-be-in-our-own-backyard_1797561

http://news.yahoo.com/closest-earth-planet-stroll-across-park-174405856.html

...well, again, a little exaggeration - in fact an unfathomably HUGE amount of exaggeration...
PLUS - it's not even remotely close to "science" because this guy admits - that NO SUCH PLANET has even been discovered yet!
"That planet hasn't been found yet..." ...duh....

I'm fine if the guy wants to keep looking or even plan a trip there - but I have some objecitons to how they always seem to want to go about it --- buffalo the media and the government into not only paying for their work but also ponying up the trillions of $$$$ to pay for useless trips that are going to kill people --


TRIVIA QUESTION:
"How many astronauts (US only because we don't know the Russian numbers)...
have left earth's atmosphere and travelled to orbit & beyond?
Then how many have died trying?


Roughly 400 different astronauts have been at least to orbit...seventeen have died as direct result that we know of - doubtful, but there may be more, but not made known -
Thus - on the job mortality rate thus is about 4% - if that was the case for any job anywhere - mine, yours, even dangerous stock car racing or extreme sports...
if the mortality was 4% undoubtedly the feds would step in and shut it down!!

[thefish7]

Roughly 400 different astronauts have been at least to orbit...seventeen have died as direct result that we know of - doubtful, but there may be more, but not made known -

I'm going to choose to ignore the hyperbole on planethunting, but what does this sentence mean? Are you suggesting NASA has covered up space fatalities?

Why don't we compare it to something more closely related, such as sea exploration in the Age of Sale. I'm guessing you hit 4% there also. Exploration (especially in space) is fantastically dangerous, but I'm not sure what the objective in pointing that out is.

[tornado]

I think the dangers have been subject to tremendous underreporting, lying, and propaganda....you be the judge - there clearly have been coverups...
just read the transcript of the PBS documentary linked below

most of the people in the program earn a pretty good living in their efforts to convince the government to keep appropriating funds......
did you not see the PBS documentary on the Columbia disaster?

It's hard to watch that documentary and not come away believing that some people in the space program value the potential of success & the propaganda value of it was worth way more than those people's lives..
There were multiple, multiple layers of irresponsibility, people who knew the dangers were way, way more serious than stated, people who refused to come clean or be responsible with the knowledge they had, and those who outright lied and tried to coverup their selfish & ambitious negligence & mistakes.
There are even some who have now come forward saying they knew the shuttle was not likely to survive re-entry - BUT they didn't want to tell the astronauts on board and even went one step further and knowingly lied telling them there was no danger when they knew the danger existed!

http://video.pbs.org/video/1024203198/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-shuttle-disaster.html

You decide - I will leave with just a couple quotes from the transcript - words directly from the people who knew...
"During the shuttle's development, there was concern that ice fragments falling from the shuttle's huge external tank could damage the orbiter.
...
On the very first flight of the shuttle, in 1981, engineers noticed hundreds of fragments of foam breaking loose and hitting the underside of the orbiter.

Engineers worried that severe damage to the underside of the orbiter could allow super-heated atmospheric gases to leak in during re-entry, which would be catastrophic.

..during the launch of the shuttle Atlantis, a chunk of foam had gouged a small crater in one of its booster rockets, missing a critical electronics box by inches.
NASA ordered an investigation, but it was delayed. The launch of Columbia could not wait.
Its science mission had to be completed, to make way for the construction of the international space station...

Eighty-one seconds after liftoff (Columbia), a large piece of foam insulation broke off the main tank and hit the orbiter on its left wing.
Engineers had seen the impact while reviewing film on the second day of the flight, but mission managers decided the impact did not pose a safety problem.

...the thought of the debris that we had seen from the foam and the discussions that we had on orbit came into my mind because it was the left wing.
And that gave me kind of a sinking feeling, and...but again, fortunately, your training kind of kicks in, and it forces you to not get zeroed in on any one specific area until you have good reason to do that. But it did sort of cross my mind that this could be a very bad situation if, in fact, we had a breach in that wing.

They knew, on the second day of the mission, that a piece of foam hit the wing leading edge, that it probably weighed...
probably was the size of a small briefcase and probably weighed two pounds.


Rodney Rocha was the division chief engineer for the Columbia flight. After seeing the video, he and other engineers had wanted NASA to obtain additional images to check the shuttle for damage.
We have ground-based telescopes, and—"we" meaning the military does—and satellites up there. I'm aware that we used some of that in the early shuttle flights in the '80s. Some of that was used and was classified. So that's why, in my e-mail request, I said let's ask, and I actually said, "let's beg" for outside agency assistance. And I explained why. "We're highly uncertain about this problem. There's too many possibilities here. Some of them are very bad."
(BTW- the other governmental agencies REFUSED access to that other vital information and sources such as the telescopes!!!)

This was a big foam strike. It was the biggest one anyone had ever seen. It was a large piece that clearly came off, hit the underside of the wing, and no one knew where it hit.
On the eighth day of the mission, the crew was informed of the incident as part of a routine e-mail. It said, in part, "This item is not even worth mentioning, other than wanting to make sure that you are not surprised by it in a question from a reporter. There is absolutely no concern for entry."
(BUT - they admitted they knew otherwise.)

Scott Hubbard, who was a member of the Accident Investigation Board, ran around all over NASA—and at that time he was the center director of the Ames Research Center—he ran all over NASA saying, "The foam did it. The foam did it. The foam did it," telling anybody who would listen, "Here is how. This is why. And the foam did it." And yeah, there was resistance to that. People didn't want to believe it. And until they demonstrated it, they didn't really believe it.

There was one engineer, who came from Johnson Space Center, and she actually had tears in her eyes, because she, you know, didn't want to believe that the foam did it. But this was so dramatic a test, it showed that there was just no doubt.

When members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board released their findings, in 2003, they were unflinching in their critique of what they called NASA's "broken" safety culture. They concluded that the management team operated outside of the rules, even as it held its engineers to a stifling protocol. But the board members didn't limit their judgment to dysfunctional management.

SCOTT HUBBARD: I remember making the comment, and I wasn't alone, that if your going to risk people's lives, that ought to be for a purpose. And out of these discussions, grew what's in the last part of the report, which is to say, "Look, NASA needs to figure out why it's doing this." And the space science program is well established with the scientific community, but why are we doing the human spaceflight piece? And it's my belief—I believe this is accurate—that that report lead directly to the "Vision for Space Exploration."

NARRATOR: The "Vision for Space Exploration" was announced by President Bush in January, 2004.."



So - despite all those serious problems and warnings that things need to halt and get straightened out - literally the next day NASA decided to proceed with further space exploration and on to MARS!
Even some of the relatives of the dead astronauts are saying they feel like their loved one has been treated with disrespect and disdain in the name of progress.


BTW - one other ecent story says there were plenty of people INSIDE the NASA shuttle program who believed that if there was a serious problem that might kill all on board
...that the astronauts should NOT BE TOLD!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/space-shuttle-doomed-tell-crew-144338380.html

"If it has been damaged (doomed), it's probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know.
Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit,
knowing that there was nothing to be done until the air ran out."


...sorry but I find this to be a horrendously arrogant and insulting viewpoint - that this guy was going to play GOD,
make the determination that the crew couldn't be saved, and let them die without telling them any of the truth about their situation!
When Harpold raised the

[tornado]

...Are you suggesting NASA has covered up space fatalities? ..

one other thing - many of the 400 or so astronauts ARE DEAD from causes that are suspiciously or undeniably linked to the space program...
Wally Schirra just died a couple years ago from malignant MESOTHELIOMA - a cancer that's linked 100% of the time to asbestos exposure....ahem........
...and John Glenn & others also had asbestos related disease....
it would be hard to argue they got their exposure outside of the very industry we're talking about here...

[ChewaBrave]

We get it - you're not into government space exploration.

[tornado]

nor into anything the government has to lie about to spend our money like trips to Dominican Republic

[SFP]

The only thing I'm surprised T is that you are using PBS as a source!

I thought you did not believe they should even be on the air.

[tornado]

they are free to be on the air - where has anyone ever said otherwise - but they should compete like I do and everyone else does without getting free money from the taxpayers

government handouts are bankrupting this and almost every other nation -
then when the freebies die out - this is what we get -

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/10/gree-o27.html

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=30230

the working & the affluent will always get by just fine - but sooner or later those spending other people's money run out and then those dependent on the handouts will suffer, grow displeased, then riot -
get ready - it's coming -

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/austerity-riots-a-glimpse-of-americas-future

[ChewaBrave]

There is some really entertaining stuff at "Endoftheamericandream.com"

[tornado]

Top brass at NASA makes powerful plea to the people & to the President for MORE taxes & more funding...
to be able for NASA to get to MARS then beyond...and his reasoning is pretty unique...

-he basically lists 3 reasons - we need to get going and get the practice now learning how to deal with moving humanity to another planet because our #1 our planet is dying, then #2 our sun will soon "burn out", and #3 it is apparent other intelligent civilizations (hinting that the proof of this is ? flying saucers?) are already doing this & they are way ahead of us.

OK Mr. Bolden - I guess you can believe what you want - but NASA is already funded with nearly $20 Billion per year and I am not sure I see a whole lot of evidence of where it goes?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-nasas-goal-of-a-manned-mars-mission-doesnt-match-budget-reality/2014/04/22/4c004df4-ca62-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html

http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/23/mission-to-mars-is-necessary-for-survival-of-human-race-4706507/

Oh, and btw - just in case anyone was wondering what the prevailing scientific thought is on how long before the sun burns out....
some scientists think possibly as soon as 6 billion years - many feel we have a good 10-20 billion years of wiggle time...depending on who you believe..