Opportunity, the second Mars Explorer Rover is on the surface andtransmitting!

"Robert J. Kolker" wrote:



Craig Davidson wrote:


At 15 cents a day, would you agree that your efforts would be much more
productive if spent on the other much more expensive programs being funded
by the federal government ?

If I had my druthers I would eliminate -every program- or function of
government that was not directed toward defense of the lives and
property of citizens or peacefully resolving conflicts (law courts).
That means goodbye to welfare, both individual and corporate. By the
way, corporations are the biggest welfare bums in the country. Subsides
to corporations and other business should stop forthwith.

If you want something, pay for it.

I am particularly ****ed at NASA because its management is homicidally
negligent. They have killed two crews and destroyed two expensive
(albeit ill designed vessels). And they have not learned a damned thing
from these misfortunes. Furthermore they have lied to the crews about
the magnitude of the risks they are to take. That is unspeakable immoral.

Any engineer who brings up a safety concern when the management has
declared a mission "do or die" is in grave danger of losing his job and
being publicly denounced as a whistleblower and a trouble-maker. It is
very hard to find another job with such an albatross hung about the neck.

I am very interested in space-based enterprise. Our communication
systems are now dependent on comm-sats. We would be much worse off
without a working GPS. All these unmanned projects are not only
technically excellent, but -they pay for themselves-. The taxpayers do
not have be looted to keep these systems in operation. You and I pay for
these systems when we make telephone calls or subscribe to the services
that our ISP-s provide to us. That is how it -should- be. We pay (of our
own free will) and we get services we value.

If I thought a private company could make a go of launching NEO
functional sattelites I would invest my money. That is MY money. Not
YOUR money. If you are pro-space, join the L5 society.

The mark of a cillized man is that he knows what is his and what is not
his. The savage makes no such distinction. He looks, he wants, he grabs.
That is how our space program is now funded and it is a disgrace.

Bob Kolker


Please take your rants and go away.

plonk That is the sound of you going into the killfile.

On a sunny day (Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:54:55 GMT) it happened "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote in PWWQb.150687$na.257871@attbi_s04:

I am very interested in space-based enterprise. Our communication
systems are now dependent on comm-sats. We would be much worse off
without a working GPS. All these unmanned projects are not only
technically excellent, but -they pay for themselves-. The taxpayers do
not have be looted to keep these systems in operation.
You silently leave out that the launches use rockets, rockets that were
developed for military purposes, (all comes from the V1 V2, Von Braun was
captured and taken to the US to make rockets for them).
WITHOUT that program there would have been no satellite, no commercial ones
NOW.
The east - west rally (Sputnik - etc..) was what started it.
I am not a militarist (?) but not against a good defense.
Many many things you use today were (including some of the computer you use
now), developed by the military and on a military tax budget, BEFORE
they became even available for the consumer market.
But you know all that, so stop drawing a BW picture where a color one would
be more appropriate.
It is extremely difficult to say what the spin off in the long term will
be from the mars missions.
If not only for claiming the ground...
:-)
That may not seem important now, but wait until resources are found
or its military aspect becomes more important.
At 15 cents / day, you have spend the last few days more on posting
objections.

JP

On a sunny day (Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:54:55 GMT) it happened "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote in PWWQb.150687$na.257871@attbi_s04:

I am very interested in space-based enterprise. Our communication
systems are now dependent on comm-sats. We would be much worse off
without a working GPS. All these unmanned projects are not only
technically excellent, but -they pay for themselves-. The taxpayers do
not have be looted to keep these systems in operation.
You silently leave out that the launches use rockets, rockets that were
developed for military purposes, (all comes from the V1 V2, Von Braun was
captured and taken to the US to make rockets for them).
WITHOUT that program there would have been no satellite, no commercial ones
NOW.
The east - west rally (Sputnik - etc..) was what started it.
I am not a militarist (?) but not against a good defense.
Many many things you use today were (including some of the computer you use
now), developed by the military and on a military tax budget, BEFORE
they became even available for the consumer market.
But you know all that, so stop drawing a BW picture where a color one would
be more appropriate.
It is extremely difficult to say what the spin off in the long term will
be from the mars missions.
If not only for claiming the ground...
:-)
That may not seem important now, but wait until resources are found
or its military aspect becomes more important.
At 15 cents / day, you have spend the last few days more on posting
objections.

JP

On a sunny day (Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:54:55 GMT) it happened "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote in PWWQb.150687$na.257871@attbi_s04:

I am very interested in space-based enterprise. Our communication
systems are now dependent on comm-sats. We would be much worse off
without a working GPS. All these unmanned projects are not only
technically excellent, but -they pay for themselves-. The taxpayers do
not have be looted to keep these systems in operation.
You silently leave out that the launches use rockets, rockets that were
developed for military purposes, (all comes from the V1 V2, Von Braun was
captured and taken to the US to make rockets for them).
WITHOUT that program there would have been no satellite, no commercial ones
NOW.
The east - west rally (Sputnik - etc..) was what started it.
I am not a militarist (?) but not against a good defense.
Many many things you use today were (including some of the computer you use
now), developed by the military and on a military tax budget, BEFORE
they became even available for the consumer market.
But you know all that, so stop drawing a BW picture where a color one would
be more appropriate.
It is extremely difficult to say what the spin off in the long term will
be from the mars missions.
If not only for claiming the ground...
:-)
That may not seem important now, but wait until resources are found
or its military aspect becomes more important.
At 15 cents / day, you have spend the last few days more on posting
objections.

JP

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:23:26 GMT, Chris L Peterson
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:02:05 GMT, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

Jeepers. Edison invented the light bulb and Marconi invented wireless
telegraphy without government subsidy...

Sure, and huge amounts of scientific development continue to be done privately.
I didn't say it should all be publicly funded. I just think there is a certain
class of science where the commercial benefits may be small, or too far out, for
private funding to be viable. These may nevertheless have great value (I, for
one, believe something can be valuable without being commercial.) Space
exploration, particle physics, certain social studies... these are things that I
think should happen, and I don't see where the money is going to come from
except the government. I don't have a problem with that, and I give my vote to
people supporting this kind of research.

Then there are also the things that were funded by the government which
originally had no commercial application but via technology transfer
have affected our lives in ways the original developers could never have
guessed. A prime example is the internet. Without government funded
development (no corporation would ever have funded work on the arpanet
back then without a clear view of commercialization) Mr. Kolker would
not have this soapbox with which to vent.

Steve

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:23:26 GMT, Chris L Peterson
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:02:05 GMT, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

Jeepers. Edison invented the light bulb and Marconi invented wireless
telegraphy without government subsidy...

Sure, and huge amounts of scientific development continue to be done privately.
I didn't say it should all be publicly funded. I just think there is a certain
class of science where the commercial benefits may be small, or too far out, for
private funding to be viable. These may nevertheless have great value (I, for
one, believe something can be valuable without being commercial.) Space
exploration, particle physics, certain social studies... these are things that I
think should happen, and I don't see where the money is going to come from
except the government. I don't have a problem with that, and I give my vote to
people supporting this kind of research.

Then there are also the things that were funded by the government which
originally had no commercial application but via technology transfer
have affected our lives in ways the original developers could never have
guessed. A prime example is the internet. Without government funded
development (no corporation would ever have funded work on the arpanet
back then without a clear view of commercialization) Mr. Kolker would
not have this soapbox with which to vent.

Steve

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:23:26 GMT, Chris L Peterson
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:02:05 GMT, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

Jeepers. Edison invented the light bulb and Marconi invented wireless
telegraphy without government subsidy...

Sure, and huge amounts of scientific development continue to be done privately.
I didn't say it should all be publicly funded. I just think there is a certain
class of science where the commercial benefits may be small, or too far out, for
private funding to be viable. These may nevertheless have great value (I, for
one, believe something can be valuable without being commercial.) Space
exploration, particle physics, certain social studies... these are things that I
think should happen, and I don't see where the money is going to come from
except the government. I don't have a problem with that, and I give my vote to
people supporting this kind of research.

Then there are also the things that were funded by the government which
originally had no commercial application but via technology transfer
have affected our lives in ways the original developers could never have
guessed. A prime example is the internet. Without government funded
development (no corporation would ever have funded work on the arpanet
back then without a clear view of commercialization) Mr. Kolker would
not have this soapbox with which to vent.

Steve

Steven Shelikoff wrote:

guessed. A prime example is the internet. Without government funded
development (no corporation would ever have funded work on the arpanet
back then without a clear view of commercialization) Mr. Kolker would
not have this soapbox with which to vent.

There were bulletin boards prior to the internet. They could have
evolved into a wide computer network. There were also intermachine
protocols in addition to TCP/IP. Arpa was not the only entity working on
hooking up computers. IBM was doing a lot of work independently of
defense contracts.

Hooking up computers by telephone lines was done independently of and
well before Arpa.

Bob Kolker

Steven Shelikoff wrote:

guessed. A prime example is the internet. Without government funded
development (no corporation would ever have funded work on the arpanet
back then without a clear view of commercialization) Mr. Kolker would
not have this soapbox with which to vent.

There were bulletin boards prior to the internet. They could have
evolved into a wide computer network. There were also intermachine
protocols in addition to TCP/IP. Arpa was not the only entity working on
hooking up computers. IBM was doing a lot of work independently of
defense contracts.

Hooking up computers by telephone lines was done independently of and
well before Arpa.

Bob Kolker

Steven Shelikoff wrote:

guessed. A prime example is the internet. Without government funded
development (no corporation would ever have funded work on the arpanet
back then without a clear view of commercialization) Mr. Kolker would
not have this soapbox with which to vent.

There were bulletin boards prior to the internet. They could have
evolved into a wide computer network. There were also intermachine
protocols in addition to TCP/IP. Arpa was not the only entity working on
hooking up computers. IBM was doing a lot of work independently of
defense contracts.

Hooking up computers by telephone lines was done independently of and
well before Arpa.

Bob Kolker