On the Politics of Discovery

jonathan wrote:
"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...

Christof Kuhn wrote:

jonathan wrote:

I'm beginning to suspect that politics are becoming
involved in the science of this mission.

Politics has always been the goal of the American space program from the
race to catch up to Sputnik to the present. That is old news to many
of us. The science and resulting technology are spinoffs.


I've been shouted at for my opinion, but for me, this Mars business is
quite useless, compared with the amount of money involved.

I'd agree, except for the fact that the space and military programmes is
the vehicles the US likes to use for high-tech R&D spinoffs into the
private sector. While freeze-dried ice cream and space pens have limited
usefulness, US companies use government 'goals' such as space, NIH, and
so forth to fund the R&D companies should probably be doing on their
own. To a large degree, and in ways that are positively tortuous at
times, programmes like NASA are in essence the 'socialist support' which
other companies in other countries get directly from the government. US
citizens wouldn't stand for direct support, but they go positively ga-ga
over the "our team' aspects of NASA and similar nationalistic endeavors.

I'm not saying I agreed or disagree, just how it looks to me.


I think that the "extraterrestric life" hysteria is one of few ways for
NASA to justify their existence (or at least the size of their
organisation) - another is the really useless meteorite hysteria.

Other than this newsgroup, I don't see people in the US caring much one
way or another about extraterrestrial life,



But discovering that life evolved on two different planets, and in much
the same way, will reverberate around the globe. The idea that humanity
is a unique creation from some mysterious unknowable creator will be
abolished once and for all.

jonathan,
You need to take a trip into the central/rural US sometime--see and
meet the people, especially the more conservative types. Short of the
Second Coming complete with angels and a personal greeting from God,
nothing will change some minds.
You wanna be a poet? Expand your horizons.
Jo

Jo Schaper wrote in message ...
jonathan wrote:
"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...

Christof Kuhn wrote:

jonathan wrote:


But discovering that life evolved on two different planets, and in much
the same way, will reverberate around the globe. The idea that humanity
is a unique creation from some mysterious unknowable creator will be
abolished once and for all.

jonathan,
You need to take a trip into the central/rural US sometime--see and
meet the people, especially the more conservative types. Short of the
Second Coming complete with angels and a personal greeting from God,
nothing will change some minds.
You wanna be a poet? Expand your horizons.
Jo


Hey Jo,
This *is the rural midwest,
These *are the people,
And Jonathon, JPT, ARnie and me, ...
We *are the second coming,
Just hang on for the greeting from God whilst he cleans out the
chariot, fetches a few thunderbolts from the shed, and rustles up a
few angels not on sabbatical. (Don't know if folks go a bundle on the
thought, but God is on our side.) (Heard it before?)

(Arnie: it was something to do with dropping the bar to twenty years
residence, which is, just coincidentally, the length of time Arnie has
been here, ..I mean there.)

"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
jonathan wrote:
"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...

Christof Kuhn wrote:

jonathan wrote:

I'm beginning to suspect that politics are becoming
involved in the science of this mission.

Politics has always been the goal of the American space program from the
race to catch up to Sputnik to the present. That is old news to many
of us. The science and resulting technology are spinoffs.


I've been shouted at for my opinion, but for me, this Mars business is
quite useless, compared with the amount of money involved.

I'd agree, except for the fact that the space and military programmes is
the vehicles the US likes to use for high-tech R&D spinoffs into the
private sector. While freeze-dried ice cream and space pens have limited
usefulness, US companies use government 'goals' such as space, NIH, and
so forth to fund the R&D companies should probably be doing on their
own. To a large degree, and in ways that are positively tortuous at
times, programmes like NASA are in essence the 'socialist support' which
other companies in other countries get directly from the government. US
citizens wouldn't stand for direct support, but they go positively ga-ga
over the "our team' aspects of NASA and similar nationalistic endeavors.

I'm not saying I agreed or disagree, just how it looks to me.


I think that the "extraterrestric life" hysteria is one of few ways for
NASA to justify their existence (or at least the size of their
organisation) - another is the really useless meteorite hysteria.

Other than this newsgroup, I don't see people in the US caring much one
way or another about extraterrestrial life,



But discovering that life evolved on two different planets, and in much
the same way, will reverberate around the globe. The idea that humanity
is a unique creation from some mysterious unknowable creator will be
abolished once and for all.

jonathan,
You need to take a trip into the central/rural US sometime--see and
meet the people, especially the more conservative types. Short of the
Second Coming complete with angels and a personal greeting from God,
nothing will change some minds.
You wanna be a poet? Expand your horizons.
Jo



I need some tools before I can expand to anything. This whole
rover thing is a chance to take the concepts I believe in out for
a spin in the real world.

So I followed the principles religiously with this 'problem' and posted my
answer three weeks ago as a test of the concepts and my understanding
of them. I still stand by the answer in every detail as originally posted.
The last three weeks of data have supported that solution, without
a single fatal flaw yet to be released.

If in the end this grades grade out ok, which will happen, It'll be
....off to see the wizard....g




Jonathan




"Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the ground,
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found;
Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend,
A little newer for the term
Upon enchanted ground."



s

In article ,
jonathan wrote:

"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
jonathan wrote:

But discovering that life evolved on two different planets, and in much
the same way, will reverberate around the globe. The idea that humanity
is a unique creation from some mysterious unknowable creator will be
abolished once and for all.

jonathan,
You need to take a trip into the central/rural US sometime--see and
meet the people, especially the more conservative types. Short of the
Second Coming complete with angels and a personal greeting from God,
nothing will change some minds.
You wanna be a poet? Expand your horizons.
Jo

I need some tools before I can expand to anything. This whole
rover thing is a chance to take the concepts I believe in out for
a spin in the real world.

So I followed the principles religiously with this 'problem' and posted my
answer three weeks ago as a test of the concepts and my understanding
of them. I still stand by the answer in every detail as originally posted.
The last three weeks of data have supported that solution, without
a single fatal flaw yet to be released.

If in the end this grades grade out ok, which will happen, It'll be
....off to see the wizard....g

You seem to have a serious reading comprehension problem.
Did you even read what Jo said? Are you even capable of
carrying on a coherent conversation? This little exchange
went like:

Jonathan: Discovery of life on Mars will destroy the
belief in God's unique creation of Man.

Jo: It's going to take a lot more than that to change
the minds of deeply conservative, fundamentalist
Christians. Get out a little.

Jonathan: I need tools to expand. I posted something
about sponges on Mars a while ago that no one has
been able to refute.

Jonathan, you've failed the Turing test.

"Dan" wrote in message news:YF%4c.6011$JL2.121397@attbi_s03...
In article ,
jonathan wrote:

"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
jonathan wrote:

But discovering that life evolved on two different planets, and in much
the same way, will reverberate around the globe. The idea that humanity
is a unique creation from some mysterious unknowable creator will be
abolished once and for all.

jonathan,
You need to take a trip into the central/rural US sometime--see and
meet the people, especially the more conservative types. Short of the
Second Coming complete with angels and a personal greeting from God,
nothing will change some minds.
You wanna be a poet? Expand your horizons.
Jo

I need some tools before I can expand to anything. This whole
rover thing is a chance to take the concepts I believe in out for
a spin in the real world.

So I followed the principles religiously with this 'problem' and posted my
answer three weeks ago as a test of the concepts and my understanding
of them. I still stand by the answer in every detail as originally posted.
The last three weeks of data have supported that solution, without
a single fatal flaw yet to be released.

If in the end this grades grade out ok, which will happen, It'll be
....off to see the wizard....g

You seem to have a serious reading comprehension problem.
Did you even read what Jo said? Are you even capable of
carrying on a coherent conversation? This little exchange
went like:

Jonathan: Discovery of life on Mars will destroy the
belief in God's unique creation of Man.

Jo: It's going to take a lot more than that to change
the minds of deeply conservative, fundamentalist
Christians. Get out a little.

Jonathan: I need tools to expand. I posted something
about sponges on Mars a while ago that no one has
been able to refute.

Jonathan, you've failed the Turing test.



Sheez! I have a reading problem? If someone suggested
I take a different path, what is wrong with explaining how
I am planning...trying.. to do just that?

If I pass this test I have the tools to move on and out.

So would you if your mind were open to new discoveries.

Jonathan

s

Leonard unto Jo: greetings.

Re the possibility of Extraterrestrial Life; more specifically, the
discovery of Martian Fossils, viz.:

It would be a double-edged sword. One, this discovery would enhance funding
for NASA in the USA, ESA in the European Union, and revitalize the Russian,
formerly Soviet, space program. Provided that these fossilized life forms
(as I understand the discipline, paleobiology) were not localized in one
specific area, and the only way we could find out is to send additional
missions to Mars, said discovery would be the greatest news since Creation
Week.

The second edge would not necessarily be the destruction of the uniqueness
of Divine Creation on this terrestrial ball, and only this terrestrial ball.
Among the conservative if not fundamentalist communities, we have one
faction wherein I am a part: the concept of "Planet in Rebellion." Repeated
references in Scripture allude to the Almighty creating life elsewhere, most
notably Job 38, wherein He rebukes Job, "Where were you when I laid the
foundations of the Earth, and all the sons of God sang together for joy?"
(And repeated allusions in Job.) Or in Nehemiah, werein he asserts if Jewry
were scattered to the uttermost part of the Heaven, if they would repent,
God would bring them back to Jerusalem and the Land.

In the "Planet in Rebellion" thesis, all the Universe obeys the diktats of
the Deity, with the exception of Earth. We have used our intelligence not to
glorify God, but to deify Man. And as a result, God has to, with the
greatest of reluctance, chastise Man -- either directly, as in the Flood
myth, or indirectly, through applications of the laws of physics. Hence the
occasional space rock which hits our world with devastating results. We
haven't seen too many of them lately, due to what Paul described as the
Restraint of the Spirit in his letters to Thessalonica. When the Restraint
is removed, though, the rocks may well be allowed to hit. Herein I am
uncertain, and that is for our astronomical communities to determine, and
publicize through such programs as "3 Minutes To IMPACT," on The Discovery
Channel and/or its avatars.

Comments?

--
Leonard C Robinson
"The Historian Remembers, and speculates on what might have been.
"The Visionary Remembers, and speculates on what may yet be."

I'm beginning to suspect that politics are becoming
involved in the science of this mission...
This mission is about rocks, and only rocks, they chant.

If they discover life with this mission, there would be
no need for a sample return mission. In addition this
mission would prove that robotic eyes are enough and
even a manned mission isn't needed.
If Nasa thinks they can hold back data...


Media seem to trying to help them...

But we will try to cut thru this, right here.

You can see clear proof of prehistoric life on Mars with your own eyes:

A HREF="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/extrasense"DOUBLE CLICK HERE/A

ES