Bernie
May 29th 04, 11:48 AM
I presume everyone has now heard about the official report about
Beagles demise.
Despite my misgivings about the merits of space flight I did have some
simpathy for the Beagle team. I say did because having watched BBC TV
News Night last night (24\05\2004)I'm afraid my simpathy dwindle
considerably and my concerns about space flight took off again.
In the good old days of the 20th century about 70 years after the
Wright Bros first flew, I flew radio controlled model aircraft. Nearly
everey plane I made and flew eventually crashed. It was a good thing I
was never actually flying in the model planes myself. However in some
respects flying model planes whilst standing on terra firma is perhaps
more tricky than piloting a full sized aeroplane.
So I can partly appreciate the Beagle Team's difficulties, though my
planes were generally only flying a few tens of metres away from me
not tens on million kilometres.
However when watching Jeremy Paxman interview Professor Colin Pilinger
I was not really very impressed. Amongst other things Pilinger said
given another shot he would do things exactly the same again. What a
load of cobblers. The mission failed and its management was
critiscised. Surely the guy should eat a little humble pie. To shrug
off the spending of public money by saying that Beagle was not
entirely public funded did not impress me either. As for future
ambitions according to Pilinger the needs of scientific with regards
to going to Mars again are apparently just the same as when the Beagle
initial Beagle project originated in 1998. The one b big claim
justifying the failed Beagle effort was that the project had
encouraged a lot of youngsters to take an interest in science. I
wonder? After all in recent years we have had several spectacular
astonomical events such as Comet Hale-Bopp. Yes the did create public
interes, and no doubt it did result in some people taking up astronomy
as a hobby, but I suspect that when the comet had gone most people
soon forgot about astronomy again.
Bernie
Beagles demise.
Despite my misgivings about the merits of space flight I did have some
simpathy for the Beagle team. I say did because having watched BBC TV
News Night last night (24\05\2004)I'm afraid my simpathy dwindle
considerably and my concerns about space flight took off again.
In the good old days of the 20th century about 70 years after the
Wright Bros first flew, I flew radio controlled model aircraft. Nearly
everey plane I made and flew eventually crashed. It was a good thing I
was never actually flying in the model planes myself. However in some
respects flying model planes whilst standing on terra firma is perhaps
more tricky than piloting a full sized aeroplane.
So I can partly appreciate the Beagle Team's difficulties, though my
planes were generally only flying a few tens of metres away from me
not tens on million kilometres.
However when watching Jeremy Paxman interview Professor Colin Pilinger
I was not really very impressed. Amongst other things Pilinger said
given another shot he would do things exactly the same again. What a
load of cobblers. The mission failed and its management was
critiscised. Surely the guy should eat a little humble pie. To shrug
off the spending of public money by saying that Beagle was not
entirely public funded did not impress me either. As for future
ambitions according to Pilinger the needs of scientific with regards
to going to Mars again are apparently just the same as when the Beagle
initial Beagle project originated in 1998. The one b big claim
justifying the failed Beagle effort was that the project had
encouraged a lot of youngsters to take an interest in science. I
wonder? After all in recent years we have had several spectacular
astonomical events such as Comet Hale-Bopp. Yes the did create public
interes, and no doubt it did result in some people taking up astronomy
as a hobby, but I suspect that when the comet had gone most people
soon forgot about astronomy again.
Bernie