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

In article 9IRQb.116056$5V2.583387@attbi_s53,
"Robert J. Kolker" wrote:

Accidents happen, and the potential victims should be adequately
informed of the risks. NASA claimed a risk of disaster to be one in
tenthousand per orbiter. The statistics are more like one in twentyfive
to one in fifty.

Life is full of risk. Life -is- risk. The moral imperative is to be
honest with the persons puting their lives on the line. NASA lied.

I'm fairly certain the pilots and crew are WELL aware of the risks, yet
folks still line up to go and do, anyway.

Would you turn down a chance to go into space? I wouldn't.

Just as I enjoy and realize the risks of spelunking, I do it anyway.
Dangerous? Yup, you bet, I am replacing a fellow who died caving, in my
organization. Fun? Yup. Discoveries? Yessiree. But if we didn't do it,
humans might actually still think there are gnomes and demons living in
those holes, they wouldn't understand aquafers or find archeological or
biological wonders. You would still think bats were evil.

I know it's fanciful, but what if...

Is there calcium carbonate on Mars? Caves. Caves? Biology. What then? A
robot can't go spelunking, no radio underground.

Fantasy? Probably. But let's rule out the "beliefs" and replace them
with actual knowledge.


None of the above. Never worked for NASA. I have not worked for a
gummint contractor since 1968. I got a my fill of that nearly forty
years ago. I am not disgruntled. I am appalled at the dishonesty and the
incompetence. If a private company wants to do that with -its- money,
then fine by me, but -my- pocket it being picked and I object to that.

A private company will act no different in protecting it's interests and
bottom line.

I have a generic dislike for lying son's of bitches running a scam on
the tax paying public. Do you think it is o.k. to filch money on false
pretenses?

Bob Kolker


I don't think it's o.k., but it happens every day, doesn't make it
right, but it happens across the board in every sector, private, govt.,
religion, non-profit.

You asked how the knowledge of bacteria's existance on another world
would help our general welfare. That's just it, WE DON"T KNOW, it could
be profound (especially to religion). It could have many other effects
as well. But I'd say it would be better to try than wonder "what if".

No other specie have done what we collectivly have done.


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Chris L Peterson wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:51:36 GMT, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

It would be more accurate to say NASA is Morton Thiokol...

You missed my point, which was only that NASA and JPL are different entities
with very different internal cultures and politics. This is often overlooked.
Sean O'Keefe can walk around the Mars Rover control rooms beaming and talking
about NASA's great success, but (funding aside) this mission, and most others,
are not NASA projects at all, but collaborations between JPL and various
universities.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


So, correct me if I'm wrong, but my take in all this is that NASA's
only real involvement in these unmanned missions is in providing the
launch vehicles?

Chris L Peterson wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:51:36 GMT, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

It would be more accurate to say NASA is Morton Thiokol...

You missed my point, which was only that NASA and JPL are different entities
with very different internal cultures and politics. This is often overlooked.
Sean O'Keefe can walk around the Mars Rover control rooms beaming and talking
about NASA's great success, but (funding aside) this mission, and most others,
are not NASA projects at all, but collaborations between JPL and various
universities.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


So, correct me if I'm wrong, but my take in all this is that NASA's
only real involvement in these unmanned missions is in providing the
launch vehicles?

Chris L Peterson wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:51:36 GMT, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

It would be more accurate to say NASA is Morton Thiokol...

You missed my point, which was only that NASA and JPL are different entities
with very different internal cultures and politics. This is often overlooked.
Sean O'Keefe can walk around the Mars Rover control rooms beaming and talking
about NASA's great success, but (funding aside) this mission, and most others,
are not NASA projects at all, but collaborations between JPL and various
universities.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


So, correct me if I'm wrong, but my take in all this is that NASA's
only real involvement in these unmanned missions is in providing the
launch vehicles?

Robert J. Kolker wrote:



The Ghost In The Machine wrote:


I would hope that we don't lose 17 more, but it's clear that
from a death standpoint 17 is a lot less than 1.7 million,
which IINM is within an order of magnitude of the number of
Americans who perished during World War II.


Our survival as a nation depended on America entering into the
festivities of WW2. Can you convince the skeptical that our survival as
a nation is conditioned on sending manned expeditions to Mars or the
Moon? Pray do tell us why we must. And no fair invoking Cheng He either.

You place unreasonable limitations on the discussion; you
are not sufficiently cynical.

The only condition that I can see is if there is a credible military
threat from another nation's occupying the Moon, say. If that be the
case, then we would have to respond in some fashion.

The Soviet Union bought it during Apollo. Just as the
Space Shuttle was not overtly advertised as a missile-proof
nuclear bomber, the USSR clearly was intended to see an
American Lunar base as an unassailable nuclear missile
platform; an early, if ambitious, ancestor of SDI. Note that
the strategy eventually worked (in terms of reducing an
enemy's ability to make war).

I don't think anyone seriously takes Mars as a potential
nuke platform. Please don your Cynic hat; assuming for the
moment that the covert purpose of America's space program is
as I describe above, what covert purpose could a manned
mission to/long term base on Mars serve for any participant?

Example; China has nukes and overt (and presumably
covert) Lunar ambitions, so our capacity to settle Mars
could be interpreted as easy Lunar fly-by (and drop-off)
capability...

Question is, can China con a con? ;)

Mark L. Fergerson

Robert J. Kolker wrote:



The Ghost In The Machine wrote:


I would hope that we don't lose 17 more, but it's clear that
from a death standpoint 17 is a lot less than 1.7 million,
which IINM is within an order of magnitude of the number of
Americans who perished during World War II.


Our survival as a nation depended on America entering into the
festivities of WW2. Can you convince the skeptical that our survival as
a nation is conditioned on sending manned expeditions to Mars or the
Moon? Pray do tell us why we must. And no fair invoking Cheng He either.

You place unreasonable limitations on the discussion; you
are not sufficiently cynical.

The only condition that I can see is if there is a credible military
threat from another nation's occupying the Moon, say. If that be the
case, then we would have to respond in some fashion.

The Soviet Union bought it during Apollo. Just as the
Space Shuttle was not overtly advertised as a missile-proof
nuclear bomber, the USSR clearly was intended to see an
American Lunar base as an unassailable nuclear missile
platform; an early, if ambitious, ancestor of SDI. Note that
the strategy eventually worked (in terms of reducing an
enemy's ability to make war).

I don't think anyone seriously takes Mars as a potential
nuke platform. Please don your Cynic hat; assuming for the
moment that the covert purpose of America's space program is
as I describe above, what covert purpose could a manned
mission to/long term base on Mars serve for any participant?

Example; China has nukes and overt (and presumably
covert) Lunar ambitions, so our capacity to settle Mars
could be interpreted as easy Lunar fly-by (and drop-off)
capability...

Question is, can China con a con? ;)

Mark L. Fergerson

Robert J. Kolker wrote:



The Ghost In The Machine wrote:


I would hope that we don't lose 17 more, but it's clear that
from a death standpoint 17 is a lot less than 1.7 million,
which IINM is within an order of magnitude of the number of
Americans who perished during World War II.


Our survival as a nation depended on America entering into the
festivities of WW2. Can you convince the skeptical that our survival as
a nation is conditioned on sending manned expeditions to Mars or the
Moon? Pray do tell us why we must. And no fair invoking Cheng He either.

You place unreasonable limitations on the discussion; you
are not sufficiently cynical.

The only condition that I can see is if there is a credible military
threat from another nation's occupying the Moon, say. If that be the
case, then we would have to respond in some fashion.

The Soviet Union bought it during Apollo. Just as the
Space Shuttle was not overtly advertised as a missile-proof
nuclear bomber, the USSR clearly was intended to see an
American Lunar base as an unassailable nuclear missile
platform; an early, if ambitious, ancestor of SDI. Note that
the strategy eventually worked (in terms of reducing an
enemy's ability to make war).

I don't think anyone seriously takes Mars as a potential
nuke platform. Please don your Cynic hat; assuming for the
moment that the covert purpose of America's space program is
as I describe above, what covert purpose could a manned
mission to/long term base on Mars serve for any participant?

Example; China has nukes and overt (and presumably
covert) Lunar ambitions, so our capacity to settle Mars
could be interpreted as easy Lunar fly-by (and drop-off)
capability...

Question is, can China con a con? ;)

Mark L. Fergerson

"Robert J. Kolker" wrote:
" Before Challenger, NASA publicly estimated the risk of catastrophe at
one in 1,000. Before Columbia, the operating risk was called one in 500.
NASA has been working on a second-generation space plane with the stated
goal of cutting the risk to one in 10,000.
The risk of getting cancer is one in eight."

.... and much higher if you smoke ... which only goes to prove
that if anyone actually cared about risk, smoking would be
banned.

A 1:1000 or even 1:50 risk raises hackles, with deafening silence
by the same opportunists when it comes to 250000/year (in US)
committing suicide, and taking 50000 more with them through
Second Hand Murder. Welcome to Crazy World.

"Robert J. Kolker" wrote:
" Before Challenger, NASA publicly estimated the risk of catastrophe at
one in 1,000. Before Columbia, the operating risk was called one in 500.
NASA has been working on a second-generation space plane with the stated
goal of cutting the risk to one in 10,000.
The risk of getting cancer is one in eight."

.... and much higher if you smoke ... which only goes to prove
that if anyone actually cared about risk, smoking would be
banned.

A 1:1000 or even 1:50 risk raises hackles, with deafening silence
by the same opportunists when it comes to 250000/year (in US)
committing suicide, and taking 50000 more with them through
Second Hand Murder. Welcome to Crazy World.

"Robert J. Kolker" wrote:
" Before Challenger, NASA publicly estimated the risk of catastrophe at
one in 1,000. Before Columbia, the operating risk was called one in 500.
NASA has been working on a second-generation space plane with the stated
goal of cutting the risk to one in 10,000.
The risk of getting cancer is one in eight."

.... and much higher if you smoke ... which only goes to prove
that if anyone actually cared about risk, smoking would be
banned.

A 1:1000 or even 1:50 risk raises hackles, with deafening silence
by the same opportunists when it comes to 250000/year (in US)
committing suicide, and taking 50000 more with them through
Second Hand Murder. Welcome to Crazy World.