Axis Mundi X discussion
Jupiter and Venus Conjunction.
message 1:
by
Lori
(new)
Dec 03, 2008 10:01PM
No, drat, it was too cloudy last night, but as I was driving home tonight I saw the moon, which was quite a perfect crescent, just beautiful. I had clear forgot that the planets might be affecting the sky, jesus, from one day to the next I can't remember a thing. I'm going out to see what's going on, thanks for reminding me.
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This is only tangentially related to space, but NASA is going to announce something terribly depressing at 9:30 PT tomorrow...
Noooooooo! Is there a meteor about to crash into us????Isiah, you can't give me a sleepless night, you HAVE to PM me.
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I hope you are not about to lose your job Isaiah....seem to be a lot of redundancies recently .....
Saw it. Gorgeous. Camera batteries were dead.
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The Mars Science Laboratory was scheduled to fly next year. But the project has been dogged by cost increases and technical challenges. The launch has been postponed until 2011.
The delay was announced Thursday to mission scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. That's according to a person who attended the meeting who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the information has not been made public.
NASA will hold a news conference at its Washington, D.C. headquarters later Thursday.
The Mars Science Lab is billed as the most advanced spacecraft to probe the Martian surface.
Curses! Yet another delay in my pursuit of a Kim Stanley Robinson-like existence on Mars. At this rate I'm going to be over a hundred before I make it there!
Charissa got it...http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/bad...
Hope you got to sleep eventually, Lori. Wasn't really public information until the DC press conference this morning.
This is very sad news for everyone here. MSL is the crown jewel of JPL's work -- utilizing all the technology advances in the past century, in robotics, automation, thermal protection, precision landing, the list goes on -- to achieve the most important science about another planet ever contemplated. I don't personally work on MSL, but I can imagine for the people that do how much two years must hurt. Imagine having a wedding date set with someone you really loved for October of next year, and then your parents came and told you "don't worry, you can still get married, but not until 2011." Some consolation, right?
And I wish this were just an issue of cost-cutting, because then we'd have a clear villain. But it's not. Actually, the delay will cause a cost increase for MSL, within a finite (but unchanged) NASA budget.
The problem is more with the system than dollars and cents. The managerial section is unfocused, and has too many competing claims on its fealty (as is generally the case with government). The bureaucracy is absurdly complex. All of this, with a bidding/contract system for work, which JPL is a part of, encourages underestimation of technological difficulties, as well as the hardware version of pork-barrel spending. (Add this robotic arm and I won't have to fire anyone and I get a raise!)
If you gave NASA's budget in venture capital to a set of companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, we'd be on Mars by next Wednesday. The whole industry needs to be decoupled from government. It's very unfortunate that, while Alan Stern in a recent editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/opi...) hit on some of these issues, his prescription and general outlook were absurdly Chicken-Little. Today's announcement about MSL was probably partially related to the irresponsible tone of this article, which caused a furor in the space community.
A sad, sad, day...
I know just what you mean, Bun. This is one of those things that I don't have a good answer to, even though I know something is wrong. And I know that by looking at the ratio of NASA budget to military spending. Oh, that reminds me, guy named Robert Zubrin wrote a book, The Case for Mars, proposing in great detail a plan for a manned Mars mission. Its cost? $55 billion, to be paid over 10 years.
$5.5 billion per year. That's almost exactly
ONE ONE-HUNDREDTH of US military spending for FY'09.
fuck. that.
Waaaaah.someone call me a waaaaahmbulance
maybe just a glass of waaaaahter?
we'll see if Ms. Obnoxious Twaaaaaaht has anything to say about that.
At 1430PT there's an internal conference here with Congressman Adam Schiff about all this tomfoolery. I intend to go down and ask him waaaaaht the hell his problem is and he better have a good answer or he's getting an engineering Fatwaaaaaah put out on his congressional ass.
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What do you think about government prizes? Like the DARPA contest where they set the goals and those that achieve them get a bank roll. I think it is a great idea, but really underfunded, the prize never covers the cost of development... well that is not true I recall an article from Scientific America where a science teacher re-engineered the glove for the space suit. I believe he was able to meet he stated standards and used Duct tape.
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Who's talking about my twaaaaahhhht?
Where would we be without duct tape? And they used it to fix the shuttle, too, didn't they.
I enjoy pursuing the truth and knowledge of how cool it is to blow shit up. But that's not the only thing that interests me. I also enjoy a good IMplosion.
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I still love the show. Those guys crack my shit up.
Yes, Charcita, Rusty has been known to watch "Mythbusters". I usually get a kick out of that show.
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hooooweee! That blowd up reeeeeeeeeeeal good!
That was a great sketch! Was that on SNL? I'm having a brain fart about it.
LOL....SCTV - the original SNL. Gawd I loved that show. Any sketch featuring Edith Prickley, Count Floyd or the Great White North. It's piss-your-pants funny.
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:::;twirls with bells and the smell of patchouli wafting through the air::::
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Bubbler! Gotta have a bubbler in that aquarium. I like the ones that look like a deep sea diver.
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Gimme a head with HAIR, long beautiful HAIR!!
Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen.Give me down to there hair, shoulder length or longer hair
Here baby, there, momma, ev'rywhere, daddy, daddy.
Sorry I got caught up in the moment. It won't happen again.
Get a haircut, Princess.I'm watching you.
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my work here is done.
Anyone can have short hair....some of us choose other wise!
Dudes I have no idea what this thread is about.You know, come to think of it I don't even want to know. Carry on.
Dude....I thought you were a rocket scientist!
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No haircut but I am interviewing for a job Wednesday!
