Sofia flew for the last time...

[PinkyMacGodess]

So depressing, I had to comment somewhere.

So much incredible science, and it's grounded. This is like the decision to not rebuild the Arecibo radio telescope. The destruction of science is beyond tragic. This is our future. I'm stunned. So sad...

 

[kwikdeth]

yes I was watching a documentary about this last night. Seems that it was premature, that their reason was due to the cost vs its contributions to science, but the program was steadily improving its results and efficiency.

 

[AeroEngineer]

Yes, truly sad. Another marvelous piece of engineering gone.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Man, that really stinks.

 

[icanhazmac]

Thanks for the info and link, I had not heard of this program before. @kwikdeth where was the documentary available?

 

[Rafterman]

“At the end of the day, the project itself just wasn’t productive. You’re talking about almost a Hubble cost for operations, but with a fraction of the scientific productivity,” says Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, a nonprofit research organization based in Pasadena, California.

Funds are scarce and they have to be allocated smartly.

 

[max2]

yes I was watching a documentary about this last night. Seems that it was premature, that their reason was due to the cost vs its contributions to science, but the program was steadily improving its results and efficiency.

Yeah I saw the documentary too!

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

“At the end of the day, the project itself just wasn’t productive. You’re talking about almost a Hubble cost for operations, but with a fraction of the scientific productivity,” says Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, a nonprofit research organization based in Pasadena, California.

Funds are scarce and they have to be allocated smartly.

Funds shouldn't be 'scarce'. But that's considered 'politics'.

How much money is being wasted on Artemis? BILLIONS, and it hasn't even left the ground!! But it helps people in power, so it's tolerated, nay enthusiastically supported!! *sigh*

 

[Rafterman]

Funds shouldn't be 'scarce'. But that's considered 'politics'.

How much money is being wasted on Artemis? BILLIONS, and it hasn't even left the ground!! But it helps people in power, so it's tolerated, nay enthusiastically supported!! *sigh*

I would like to see new dedicated missions to Neptune and Uranus.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Funds shouldn't be 'scarce'. But that's considered 'politics'.

How much money is being wasted on Artemis? BILLIONS, and it hasn't even left the ground!! But it helps people in power, so it's tolerated, nay enthusiastically supported!! *sigh*

The Guardian has an interesting article. It's shameful... Someone has to pay for the country and science like SOFIA.

 

[Huntn]

Funds shouldn't be 'scarce'. But that's considered 'politics'.

How much money is being wasted on Artemis? BILLIONS, and it hasn't even left the ground!! But it helps people in power, so it's tolerated, nay enthusiastically supported!! *sigh*

I was like why didn't we have a Moon base in 1975? …Money, our politicians are too busy cutting taxes and raising deficits to be able to afford that. For an idea of how it could have been, watch For All Mankind (Apple TV), really good imagined history.

 

[Herdfan]

So depressing, I had to comment somewhere.

So much incredible science, and it's grounded. This is like the decision to not rebuild the Arecibo radio telescope. The destruction of science is beyond tragic. This is our future. I'm stunned. So sad...

Have you ever been to Greenbank? I am fortunately live within a few hours and have gotten to tour it.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

And, no rebuild of Arecibo. The gut punch to research hits again.

I visited Arecibo and saw the work they were doing and was crestfallen when it all came literally crashing down. Now, NSF says they won't rebuild, giving the lead in that area of research to China. Truly sad...



Maybe the 'education center' can focus on why they are giving away this opportunity to get back into groundbreaking astronomical research?

 

[MajorFubar]

When you look at all the trillions spent on conflict and defence, humans could quite easily have been living on at least a working moonbase by now, had the money been thrown that way instead. Our infighting holds us back by centuries.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

When you look at all the trillions spent on conflict and defence, humans could quite easily have been living on at least a working moonbase by now, had the money been thrown that way instead. Our infighting holds us back by centuries.

I can't remember what the meeting was about but people started talking about the focus of where 'our' money is being spent, and I commented that 'It's too bad peace isn't more profitable'. Some gasped, some laughed, but many agreed. Appealing to base emotions is far more profitable.

Many trillions has been wasted on BS that does nothing to help anyone but the backers, investors. (*COUGH* Artemis *COUGH*) *sigh*

 

[Huntn]

When you look at all the trillions spent on conflict and defence, humans could quite easily have been living on at least a working moonbase by now, had the money been thrown that way instead. Our infighting holds us back by centuries.

I can't remember what the meeting was about but people started talking about the focus of where 'our' money is being spent, and I commented that 'It's too bad peace isn't more profitable'. Some gasped, some laughed, but many agreed. Appealing to base emotions is far more profitable.

Many trillions has been wasted on BS that does nothing to help anyone but the backers, investors. (*COUGH* Artemis *COUGH*) *sigh*

For a bigger picture, look up terms like:

• The Fermi Paradox
• The Great Filter

Do humans have what it take to prevail? I realize this is not the forum to start an indepth discussion/debate, but I will say this:

The planet is being degraded due to our numbers and Industrialization. There seems to be zero chance of us controlling our numbers or reigning in pollution world wide as a coordinated agenda Or to share like adults should be expected to for the common good. We have failed as caretakers of the planet.

We don’t function like a colony of bees or ants, and this just maybe our downfall. It’s prevalently what’s in it for me? (not we, or it’s a limited we) and we will coast along until a major crisis of our creation, threatens our existence.

In fact, I’ll go farther than that, it will take a crisis that actually impacts us, knocks us down, in other words we are forced do do something different to survive or to get comfortable again, and by then it might be too late. And I have to say, we will have deserved such a fate. 🤔

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

For a bigger picture, look up terms like:

• The Fermi Paradox
• The Great Filter

Do humans have what it take to prevail? I realize this is not the forum to start an indepth discussion/debate, but I will say this:

The planet is being degraded due to our numbers and Industrialization. There seems to be zero chance of us controlling our numbers or reigning in pollution world wide as a coordinated agenda Or to share like adults should be expected to for the common good. We have failed as caretakers of the planet.

We don’t function like a colony of bees or ants, and this just maybe our downfall. It’s prevalently what’s in it for me? (not we, or it’s a limited we) and we will coast along until a major crisis of our creation, threatens our existence.

In fact, I’ll go farther than that, it will take a crisis that actually impacts us, knocks us down, in other words we are forced do do something different to survive or to get comfortable again, and by then it might be too late. And I have to say, we will have deserved such a fate. 🤔

There is a group that thinks that the planet really needs a war, and that through massive loss of human life, the planet would, apparently magically, become manageable. Probably aside from the century of radiation, and all of the seismic instability it would cause. I worked with a guy who declared he was a 'libertarian', and had the idea that killing millions of 'undesirable people' would 'fix the planet'. Most of us were completely horrified by that.

But I read an article years ago that said the planet may come to the point where other nations will bomb a nation that isn't working hard enough to help save the planet. Wouldn't that be bizarre. Conversations like that usually call for dark lighting, and beer and salty snackie things.

But look at post 9/11/2001. People started working together more than before. Look at the pandemic, when whole nations drastically slowed/removed their polluting industries. The environment took notice, but it was only a brief lull in all of it.

The problem is saving our home planet should have never been political. It's sad that it has been dragged down to that level. People seem to think it won't al come crashing down while they are still alive, and I'm not so sure that it won't happen in my lifetime. Snow crabs have disappeared. Salmon is too. Bees are as well.

We need MORE research, not less. We need MORE science, not less. We need to act to survive.

Arecibo was doing research on NEO's, Near Earth Objects. One that hits Earth would be a really bad day, and that's just some of the research they were doing. The truth is that Arecibo needed to be upgraded severely, and no one wanted to pay for it. It wasn't profitable to keep. Private corporations didn't want to buy it, or pay to run it. Same with SOFIA, and thousands of research projects out there. There is a satellite that was built to monitor greenhouse gas emissions that is sitting in a hanger somewhere, has been for many years, because no one wants to see what it will show. So being ignorant is smarter? It's definitely more profitable. *sigh*

 

[satcomer]

I believe the lost is result of old age and bad press lately through my life about the optical telescopes are the thing beside listening to far away objects and stars! I believe sense the discovery ob most Stars having planets a great radio telescope is still needed in just in case they are step above us and we need to be listening, it is a huge Universe we know as into with as many galaxies as sand on beach!

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I believe the lost is result of old age and bad press lately through my life about the optical telescopes are the thing beside listening to far away objects and stars! I believe sense the discovery ob most Stars having planets a great radio telescope is still needed in just in case they are step above us and we need to be listening, it is a huge Universe we know as into with as many galaxies as sand on beach!

But radio telescopes can do much more than an optical telescope can. They can determine what elements are there, and also speed and angle of motion. They 'see' in way more wavelengths than the human eye can, and way more than an optical telescope can. Arecibo was mapping the surface of asteroids in near real time. Plotting spin, velocities, angles, variations of orbit, etc. It also could, obviously, do the SETI thing, but SETI was a side project. Personally I became a SETI skeptic a few years ago. Seeing the SETI computers was interesting. THE one that processed THE WOW!!! message. Wow...

They also had an X-server there, and were having issues with it. Apparently it wasn't as real time as they needed, and the researcher giving me the tour said they had a dedicated Apple engineer that was trying to figure out what when wrong with that machine. An aside here: It's a damn shame that Apple didn't buy Sun Microsystems. They could have bought the whole company and spun off their software (Solaris and MySQL) instead of Oracle buying them and all but shooting the hardware version in the head. Apple could have used the SunFire servers as a replacement for their X-Server boxes. Sun definitely had a really good reputation for their hardware, and Apple could have become a much more robust company having a residential and a hard business side. Oh well.

 

[Herdfan]

There is a group that thinks that the planet really needs a war, and that through massive loss of human life, the planet would, apparently magically, become manageable.

The planet comes up with things to do this all on its own. Think COVID. It's just we are advanced enough to limit the damage.

For now.

I do think over-population is a problem and it will only get bigger (NPI).