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Friday, January 14, 2005
TITAN
Oh yay. We landed a little robot gizmo on one of Saturn's moons. Apparently, it's important that the lander is the size of a Volkswagon Beetle, because every news story feels inclined to mention that fact 6 times per paragraph. If we're lucky, with the data it sends back to us, we should be able to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that yet another celestial entity sucks. OK. So now we know that the moon, Mars, and Titan are definitely not of any interest or use to us. I saw the images. I disagree with the news story that labeled them "breathtaking." Yeah right. If you drove through a place that looked like that here on Earth, you'd say, "Christ, what a godforsaken hell-hole," and the air force would come shoot missiles at it, for practice.
Ever notice how we spend bajillions of dollars trying to figure out what's in space and how old the universe is and what Earth was like a katrillion years before life began (because all of this is so relevant to humanity), or, even worse, making newer, sexier airplanes to defend us from enemies we don't even have, or constructing elaborate multi-zillion dollar contraptions to smash atoms to bits so that we can look at the little smashed bits and say 'Look! Little smashed atom bits!' but there's never enough money for studying things like sustainability, alternative energy, conservation, the quality of the Earth's atmosphere, or, what the hell, even how to feed all the new little people that keep cropping up in ever-increasing numbers?
At least that Titan robot saucer only cost $3.3 billion. Which is like...1/5th or something the cost of one of those new fighter planes we're making so that we can defend ourselves against the communists.
And what's up with the battery life on that piece of junk?!? They waited over a decade for it to make it there, so that they could collect...get this...THREE MINUTES OF DATA on the surface before the batteries died. Sheesh. You'd think for $3 billion they'd have thrown in the extra-life batteries or something. We might as well have just launched a Volkswagon Beetle into the Nevada desert with one of those giant catapults, taken some grainy, black-and-white pictures, and called it good. We might have learnt something.
-m
Oh yay. We landed a little robot gizmo on one of Saturn's moons. Apparently, it's important that the lander is the size of a Volkswagon Beetle, because every news story feels inclined to mention that fact 6 times per paragraph. If we're lucky, with the data it sends back to us, we should be able to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that yet another celestial entity sucks. OK. So now we know that the moon, Mars, and Titan are definitely not of any interest or use to us. I saw the images. I disagree with the news story that labeled them "breathtaking." Yeah right. If you drove through a place that looked like that here on Earth, you'd say, "Christ, what a godforsaken hell-hole," and the air force would come shoot missiles at it, for practice.
Ever notice how we spend bajillions of dollars trying to figure out what's in space and how old the universe is and what Earth was like a katrillion years before life began (because all of this is so relevant to humanity), or, even worse, making newer, sexier airplanes to defend us from enemies we don't even have, or constructing elaborate multi-zillion dollar contraptions to smash atoms to bits so that we can look at the little smashed bits and say 'Look! Little smashed atom bits!' but there's never enough money for studying things like sustainability, alternative energy, conservation, the quality of the Earth's atmosphere, or, what the hell, even how to feed all the new little people that keep cropping up in ever-increasing numbers?
At least that Titan robot saucer only cost $3.3 billion. Which is like...1/5th or something the cost of one of those new fighter planes we're making so that we can defend ourselves against the communists.
And what's up with the battery life on that piece of junk?!? They waited over a decade for it to make it there, so that they could collect...get this...THREE MINUTES OF DATA on the surface before the batteries died. Sheesh. You'd think for $3 billion they'd have thrown in the extra-life batteries or something. We might as well have just launched a Volkswagon Beetle into the Nevada desert with one of those giant catapults, taken some grainy, black-and-white pictures, and called it good. We might have learnt something.
-m
Comments:
Who knows, maybe half the imagery we see is actually southern Idaho or somewheres...
I think we should launch a probe that lands on other places on this planet. Imagine a probe that lands in New Delhi, or Cleveland.
Oh, and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for not mentioning our oceans! Whenever the average pseudo-scientist complains about money spent on space research, they always say something about "how we don't even understand our own oceans." I say: good! The oceans are stupid and we should just leave them alone. We don't need people screwing with them even more than we already are. So, I guess you are not a pseudo-anything. (Pseudo scientists read Scientific American and think they are informed.)
Last night I dreamt that I was older and lived near an ocean. It had that Jersey/Maryland shore type of feel. I have never dreamed about the future like that. I would love to end up near the beach. I like beaches a lot more than mountains. (Mountains are made to visit, and then leave.)
--gh
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I think we should launch a probe that lands on other places on this planet. Imagine a probe that lands in New Delhi, or Cleveland.
Oh, and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for not mentioning our oceans! Whenever the average pseudo-scientist complains about money spent on space research, they always say something about "how we don't even understand our own oceans." I say: good! The oceans are stupid and we should just leave them alone. We don't need people screwing with them even more than we already are. So, I guess you are not a pseudo-anything. (Pseudo scientists read Scientific American and think they are informed.)
Last night I dreamt that I was older and lived near an ocean. It had that Jersey/Maryland shore type of feel. I have never dreamed about the future like that. I would love to end up near the beach. I like beaches a lot more than mountains. (Mountains are made to visit, and then leave.)
--gh
