On Feb 5, 11:46*am, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:
I've read how serious amateurs study data from advanced
instruments and find new things, obviously many serious
amateurs are superior to the average pro astronomer,
expecially if the pro is cherry picking for a science paper.
OTOH I also read some data from observations is held in
secret for 1 year so the pros have first crack at writing up
'a paper'.
Seems like a nutty system, especially when it's the tax-
payer paying for the instrument.
What gives?
Ken

One way or another, we taxpayers and consumers get to pay for
everything. Fortunately the cost to the public isn't 0.0001% that of
what our NASA and their associate agencies and contractors have been
costing us. In other words, amateurs have been costing us perhaps one
dollar for every million dollars our NASA and DARPA have been costing
us.

The all inclusive government cost that's reported isn't 10% of the
truth, so we can always count on spending a lot and getting next to
nothing in return from those we hire to do their best. With so much
that's nondisclosure rated and/or need-to-know, it's wonder than
anything constructive gets accomplished, much less on time and in
budget.

Our F-35s at perhaps 200 million each and costing us another 100
thousand per hour to own and operate is a good example how insiders
get to do pretty much whatever they like, and we always get to pay for
it.

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