Messed up priorities

It is really sad that NASA does not have the 1.3 billion funding needed to complete their new telescope project that would help explain what dark matter is, among other things. The way the government spends money, 1.3 billion is nothing for a project of such potential scientific importance. They could siphon off some from the hundreds of millions that keep getting dumped into that F-35 money pit, for example, which is at least 50% over budget and still years away from completion. hmm choices are produce a bunch of planes that fall short of the original design specs at a cost of $235 million each (for now), so we have a new capacity for efficiently killing one another, or invest 1.3 billion in a program that might give us a better understanding of physics and how the universe works, a program for which NASA has managed to knock $250 million off the budget before the project has even started .. even been funded. The cynic in me tells me which option wins out. Come on.  There has to be 1 billion bucks that can be scrounged up from somewhere. I think I might write my representatives about this one. Link to story about the telescope: http://tinyurl.com/6lmp8uu

Old comparison, it costs about 5 cents to immunize a kid. It costs a couple of hundred to kill him. Guess which the government is more likely to focus its money on. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Take it from this pile: http://tinyurl.com/cqg699w . ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

NASA should do a kickstarter for this.  I bet they'd fund it in record time. > > It is really sad that NASA does not have the 1.3 billion funding needed > to complete their new telescope project that would help explain what > dark matter is, among other things.

> NASA should do a kickstarter for this.  I bet they'd fund it in record > time. > Maybe we should start a kickstarter for the Build The Enterprise Project :-) http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/

I'd kick in a couple bucks for that. On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Maureen <mamamaureen@gmail.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

A couple of dollars? I'd kick in a couple of hundred, its that important. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

"it costs about 5 cents to immunize a kid. " Cost who 5 cents? The drug company?  Sure. Those paying for it.  No way.  A couple of hundred at least.  Probably a lot more. J - A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. - Willis Player

whatever. On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 7:06 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Dana you may think its OK for us to permanently live with cranial recto-inversion I do not. The possibilities of two nearly identical satellites operating at the same time opens the possibility for instance of a system with an aperture the size of the earth effectively. We've been good at detecting extremely large exo planets. This system would increase the resolution to detect objects the size of asteroids or smaller. It would be like having a new Hubble system, even more modern. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Well, the new Hubble is already under construction.  This would be an unplanned addition.  The NASA folks said if they got both, they could use one to look at wide area views of the universe and the other to really zoom in on something interesting when they find it.  I believe the term ideal was tossed about.  This is in addition to different detection capabilities that weren't designed into the current and replacement Hubbles. We already have one replacement Hubble for 8.8 billion.  Why not add an entirely different system that can work in tandem with it for only 1.3 billion more? That seems like a pretty good deal to me.  The money can come from striking 6 of those stupid JSFs from the order of over 2,000 expected to be placed.  The upkeep on those planes is estimated to cost well over 1 trillion dollars over their operational lifetime.  The fewer we have, the better.  6 planes means nothing to the military, who only wants them because they are cool new toys anyway.  They would just have to make do with those old PoS F-22s.  Just one extra space telescope would mean the world to NASA researchers.  We don't even know the full contents of the solar system yet.  It is sad. On 6/9/2012 6:23 PM, Larry C. Lyons wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Exactly and report after report has shown that for every dollar spent on NASA there's been a $10 to $20 return. If all one can see are the dollar signs involved, you have to admit that's a pretty good return on investment. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I cannot count the times I have had to explain some clueless fool that money spent by NASA is not put in the rocket and blasted into space. It is spent right here on earth, providing jobs and as you stated, a very good return on investment in terms of the discoveries and inventions. My only objection to space exploration is I am afraid they'll put cities and suburbs on the moon someday and destroy its beauty, and commercial interests like mining and petrochemical companies will pollute space the same way they have earth.  Put rules in place before that happens would make me a happy camper. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

given that crude oil is organic plant material that's been fossilized it would be quite the thing if petroleum is found on the moon. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: > > given that crude oil is organic plant material that's been fossilized > it would be quite the thing if petroleum is found on the moon. > Wasn't the moon once part of earth? Not sure if the event they think created the moon predated plant life.

> Wasn't the moon once part of earth? > That is one theory. I think it's gained more support recently. > Not sure if the event they think created the moon predated plant life. I'm fairly certain it would have predated life. Not sure either though. -Cameron ....

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Cameron Childress <cameronc@gmail.com>wrote: > > I'm fairly certain it would have predated life. Not sure either though. > Quick search yielded this: How old is the Moon? Almost the entire Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago, when the solar nebula collapsed. But astronomers think that the Moon formed later than that, when a Mars-sized protoplanet smashed into the Earth. The debris from the collision splashed into orbit around the Earth and then reformed into the Moon, which still orbits us today. Astronomers think this collision happened about 4.53 billion years ago, about 30-50 million years after the rest of the Solar System formed. This was relatively soon after the formation of the Solar System, and well before the time when life formed on Earth. Our planet was probably still mostly a molten ball of rock, and the impact of the Moon did little to change that. This is the dominant theory of how the Moon formed, but there are others. It?s possible that the Moon was captured by the Earth?s gravity, or it just formed in place around the Earth after the formation of the Solar System. That's from here: http://www.universetoday.com/19599/age-of-the-moon/ No idea if the site is reliable or not...but that seems reasonable.

It really amazes me the number of things that had to go exactly right to allow life to form on Earth. First the universe exists. Our star is just the right size and temperature. Earth is just the right distance from it. The moon exists and is just the right size and has just the right orbit. The Earth has just the right gravity. The climate is just right, more or less. There is enough water. The planet is the right temperature inside. The elements work together the way they do. Jupiter exists and is where it is. The scattered disk exists. Neptune exists and messes with the scattered disk. The Earth is made of just the right materials at the right consistencies at the right layers. Earth had the right kind of volcanoes in its early days. The solar system is where it is in the galaxy. The sun's traversal through the galaxy is exactly the way it is. The Oort Cloud probably exists. The list goes on. If any of those things had been different, then *poof*, we probably wouldn't be here trying to figure out why we are here ... and I would really like scientists to figure that out. On 6/11/2012 1:12 PM, GMoney wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> It really amazes me the number of things that had to go exactly right > to allow life to form on Earth. An infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters..... There are lots of stars out there. -Cameron ...

I think the conditions are so specific, that is about what it would take.  Sure, there has to be other life out there, but I think it is rarer than it might seem it should be. On 6/11/2012 1:59 PM, Camer ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

You guys are looking at it back aspwards. We fit these circumstances so well because we evolved with them in effect. It would have been amazing if they were different, but its the environment we are in. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

No.  I don't think I have it backwards.  I am not saying that it's amazing that everything is tailor made for us.  I am saying that it is amazing that there is life at all.  If anything in that list didn't exist, or things didn't happen the exact way they did in the right order, then not only would we not be here, but it is likely that nothing would be here.  Earth would be just another lifeless could-have-been, orbiting the Sun right along with Mars. On 6/11/2012 2:25 PM, Larry C. Lyons wrote: > > You guys are looking at it back aspwards. We fit these circumstances > so well because we evolved with them in effect. It would have been > amazing if they were different, but its the environment we are in.

> No.  I don't think I have it backwards.  I am not saying that it's > amazing that everything is tailor made for us.  I am saying that it is > amazing that there is life at all.  If anything in that list didn't > exist, or things didn't happen the exact way they did in the right > order, then not only would we not be here, but it is likely that > nothing would be here.  Earth would be just another lifeless > could-have-been, orbiting the Sun right along with Mars. This could be true, or life may have happened anyway. Perhaps it would be more resistant to radiation from the sun for example. On other star systems and other planets, there is also the possibility that life would not be carbon based - and we have even less idea what those "rules for life" are. We don't even know why life suddenly appeared (unless it was the magic man in the sky). Many scientists propose that it could have been carried across the cosmos on a comet or other space bound object. Or, considering that our sun is a Population I star (http://bit.ly/NuS9Wx - not a first generation), it could have come from a location much closer to home. What if life on earth originated in a pervious incarnation of our solar system or a combination of multiple other, older solar systems. These possibilities are very interesting to me... -Cameron ...

Its not amazing. At all. There are billions of galaxies in the universe. Each galaxy containing billions of stars. Each star having who knows how many planets revolving around it. Its simply a game of odds. With that many possibilities, at least one planet (and in my opinion, not the only one) was b (Iound to have all the right things 'click'. But, I tend to agree with Larry on this one. (Did I really just say that?) ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Shocked! I tell you Simply Shocked! This day should be a national holiday. Scott agrees. What is this universe coming to. The apocalypse is near! 2012 is true its the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Scott Stroz <boyzoid@gmail.com> wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

It's not the rapture until we see this: On Armageddon, at 12:00am, sammycode@gmail.com wrote: I agree with Larry. On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> I think the conditions are so specific, that is about what it would > take.  Sure, there has to be other life out there, but I think it is > rarer than it might seem it should be. It will be interesting to see if the Drake Equation (http://bit.ly/LRV8SP) hold up over time or is valid in any meaningful way at all. Unfortunately none of us are likely to be alive long enough to see it either way.... -Cameron ....

>> Not sure if the event they think created the moon predated plant life. > Yes.  The Earth was probably not solidified at the time.

No a better way of looking at it is that we are perfectly adapted to live in the current conditions of earth. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

You probably won't find petroleum, but it could have a lot of mineral wealth. >> Not sure if the event they think created the moon predated plant life. > Yes.  The Earth was probably not solidified at the time.

There are some good theories that suggest that the moon was a part of earth once, but that was well before the carboniferous age. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

They'll find something up there that they can exploit.  Oil is hardly their only product. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Solar power on an unimaginative scale. Although frankly it may be a good thing, if things like the really dirty industries etc could be moved off the earth. However for industrialization the asteroid belt is much better. Really cheap resources, and relatively cheap transportation to market. Thing is the moon is so large I cannot see how it could "ruined." You're applying industrial age thinking to an entirely different era. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

please do not put words in my mouth, Larry. On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 3:23 PM, Larry C. Lyons <larryclyons@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----