Philae Lands:)

[Drongle McMahon]

and they did it without it costing the country almost half a billion quid

True of Rutherford, but irrelevant in context. I am using the example to illustrate the fact that benefits are unpredictable, not about whether that work should have been funded. Not true concerning accelerator development, which is very expensive, although medical applications were foreseen quite early on.

I guess my real difficulty with your argument is that there will always be immediate needs that are more important than investment in knowledge, irrespective of prevailing economic conditions, and in someone else's eyes if not your own. So applying your absolute criterion instead of a proportional weighting will always mean zero investment in knowledge, and loss of the benefits that flow from it. It  also seems to me inconsistent with your claim to be in support of the pursuit of knowledge in general. You have to keep allocating some proportion of expenditure to maintain it.

I happens that our present (UL) government have weighted the long-term research benefit highly, as they have protected research expenditure from the swingeing cuts made elsewhere. In the past, the science budget has often been the first to suffer in strained circumstances.

The commitment to expenditure on Rosetta was, of course, made in economic circumstances very different from those we are in now, and most of it had probably already been spent before 2008. Do you think the original commitment was ungustified under the prevailing conditions? Or was cancellation mid-expenditure required after circumstances changed in 2008, consigning the past expenditure to the dustbin. The latter sounds drastic, but there is plenty of precedent in just about all government IT "investment"!

 

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Of course planets get hit by metorites, Coby. It happens continuously here on Earth. We don't need to land a piece of equipment on a comet to deal with it.

---

Of course we need to study the comets; to know well what exactly they are. It's valuable information for the development of methods how to deal with the nasty ones. So far we know relatively little about them.

 

Therefore we need keep sending those small probes on the comets to learn more about them. How do we deal with a threat of which we know almost nothing about?

 

Phil Deakins commented (in blue):

But comets are not meteorites and, unless I'm mistaken, the chances of being hit by a big meteorite are massively greater than being hit by a comet. So let's land on a meteorite. It's true that it would be good to develope some way(s) of maybe deflecting dangerous meteorites. I wouldn't be writing all this it that's what the Rosetta mission did. But I see no point in landing on a snowball to find out what meteorites are made of so that we can maybe find ways of defelecting one.

---

 

---

I think it's good to get the definitions here now . :matte-motes-big-grin:

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/space/cometasteroidmeteoroiddifferences.html

Comet

• A comet is a relatively small solar system body that orbits the Sun. When close enough to the Sun they display a visible coma (a fuzzy outline or atmosphere due to solar radiation) and sometimes a tail.

 

Asteroid

• Asteroids are small solar system bodies that orbit the Sun. Made of rock and metal, they can also contain organic compounds. Asteroids are similar to comets but do not have a visible coma (fuzzy outline and tail) like comets do.

 

Meteoroid

• A meteoroid is a small rock or particle of debris in our solar system. They range in size from dust to around 10 metres in diameter (larger objects are usually referred to as asteroids).

 

Meteor

• A meteoroid that burns up as it passes through the Earth’s atmosphere is known as a meteor. If you’ve ever looked up at the sky at night and seen a streak of light or ‘shooting star’ what you are actually seeing is a meteor.

 

Meteorite

• A meteoroid that survives falling through the Earth’s atmosphere and colliding with the Earth’s surface is known as a meteorite.

- - - - -

Yes, let's land on a meteorite, we can do it with no cost at all, we just step on it and it's done. Naturally if we want to study it in detail it will cost something.

Anyway, seriously; meteoroids are not serious large scale threat to earth due to their small size. They burn up as meteors in the atmosphere - only from the largest ones something of it may survive and end as a meteorite on the ground.

Comets and asteroids are totally different beasts due to their size. Those we need to study in detail to learn more about them.

[Phil Deakins]

I'm in brown this time

 

---

Drongle McMahon wrote:

and they did it without it costing the country almost half a billion quid

True of Rutherford, but irrelevant in context. I am using the example to illustrate the fact that benefits are unpredictable, not about whether that work should have been funded. Not true concerning accelerator development, which is very expensive, although medical applications were foreseen quite early on.

I guess my real difficulty with your argument is that there will always be immediate needs that are more important than investment in knowledge, irrespective of prevailing economic conditions, and in someone else's eyes if not your own. So applying your absolute criterion instead of a proportional weighting will always mean zero investment in knowledge, and loss of the benefits that flow from it. It  also seems to me inconsistent with your claim to be in support of the pursuit of knowledge in general. You have to keep allocating some proportion of expenditure to maintain it.

I don't dispute that. I agree that there will always be some pressing social needs that could be put ahead of potentially beneficial research. But I'm not really talking about all pressing social needs. A few are far more important than most, and it's just those few. To be perfectly honest, I've been appalled at the intention to spend 20-30 billion quid (much more when it actually happens) to shave some minutes off some train journeys, because, as the Prime Mininster said, "

We are falling behind other countries in high speed rail travel

", and that has a definite impact on my thinking about spending large amounts of money unnecessarily, when essential things are being cut back through a lack of money.

If the project had been to research possibilites of deflecting dangerous asteroids, for instance, I wouldn't have posted any of this. It's true that the landing experience will help in that respect, but the mission isn't about that. It's primarily about origins. If it had been about deflecting asteroids, it would have been completed years ago, because it wouldn't have taken so long to reach one. Going to, or landing on, one or more asteroids is the only way to do that research, so that ideas can be found to deflect them. Comets don't come into that. I think that Rosetta passed a couple of asteroids on its journey, and did a bit of study on them, so maybe it sent back some useful data for that purpose, but nothing like the value of doing with an asteroid what it did with a comet.

In all probability, all the originators of the mission were interested in is origins, and the rest was added in order to get the funding for it. Cynical thinking, yes, but I bet it's not all that far off the mark.

I happens that our present (UL) government have weighted the long-term research benefit highly, as they have protected research expenditure from the swingeing cuts made elsewhere. In the past, the science budget has often been the first to suffer in strained circumstances.

You may be right, but, if that's what they did, they got it dead wrong imo. I'm more inclined to think that they contributed almost half a billion quid so that this country could be in 'the club', as it were. Appearances.

The commitment to expenditure on Rosetta was, of course, made in economic circumstances very different from those we are in now, and most of it had probably already been spent before 2008. Do you think the original commitment was ungustified under the prevailing conditions? Or was cancellation mid-expenditure required after circumstances changed in 2008, consigning the past expenditure to the dustbin. The latter sounds drastic, but there is plenty of precedent in just about all government IT "investment"!

A very interesting point - and a very difficult question for me. It's something that never ocurred to me until you wrote it and, on first thoughts, it may be the one point that scuppers everything I've been saying. Right now, I don't have an answer. The only thing in my mind is that, when the mission was committed to, our essential services were not as sorely pressed as they are now, and, if that's true, then I've been wrong all along (prior to this paragraph. I'm replying as I'm reading your post). I have only been looking at it from today's perpective - as if the money had been spent in the current financial climate. I would agree that the mission should not have been aborted after it had set off.

I have to say, well done. I have no sensible argument against that point. If things were better financially back then, then I've been wrong in this thread, in which case, I take back everything I've said about the Rosetta mission. If the government chose to spend almost half a billion quid today on something like that, then I would oppose it as I've done here.

---

One final point... I still love Coby :heart: 

[Phil Deakins]

See the above post

Comets are often refered to by scientific people as snowballs - water ice. Perhaps not all of them think of their composition as the same as asteroids, which are not thought to be snowballs.

I did start to use the word asteroid instead of meteorite. I think I said meteorite because some else did.

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

 

The documents don't even suggest that landing on a comet will help when trying to land on an asteroid. It will, of course, but it's not part of the stated objectives for Rosetta.

---

Darn, they shoud have stated in the documents all the benefits what will come and also what benefits may come from the mission. It would had put a lot more value to this mission if they had done so.

:smileyvery-happy:

Actually they may have done so and most likely have done so. It would be strange if all things had not been considered and weighted carefully in the planning stages of a mission. As not all documents from any mission are made available to the general public, we just don't all the details.

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Darn, they shoud have stated in the documents all the benefits what

will come

and also what benefits

may come

from the mission. It would had put a lot more value to this mission if they had done so.

:smileyvery-happy: 

---

It's probably just as well they didn't put all that stuff in, or it might have cost us twice as much lol

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm in brown this time

---

Drongle McMahon wrote:

. . . .

Phil replied in brown:

 

If the project had been to research possibilites of deflecting dangerous asteroids, for instance, I wouldn't have posted any of this. It's true that the landing experience will help in that respect, but the mission isn't about that. It's primarily about origins. If it had been about deflecting asteroids, it would have been completed years ago, because it wouldn't have taken so long to reach one. Going to, or landing on, one or more asteroids is the only way to do that research, so that ideas can be found to deflect them. Comets don't come into that. I think that Rosetta passed a couple of asteroids on its journey, and did a bit of study on them, so maybe it sent back some useful data for that purpose, but nothing like the value of doing with an asteroid what it did with a comet.

---

One final point... I still love Coby :heart: 

---

:smileyhappy: :smileywink:

Comets do come into that. Actually they are greater threat than asteroids are. Due to their higher approach speeds and greater distance where they originate from, they are harder to detect and deflect than asteroids are.

Quotations from some links are due (again):

http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/asteroid-threat/asteroid_threat.html

"That such cosmic collisions can still occur today was demonstrated graphically in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart and 21 fragments, some as large as 2 km in diameter, crashed into the atmosphere of Jupiter. If these fragments had hit Earth instead, we would have suffered global catastrophes of the kind that inspire science fiction movies."

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0128_030128_comets_2.html

Consider this example. An asteroid 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide with a density of 187 pounds per cubic foot (3,000 kilograms per cubic meter) traveling at 12 miles per second (20 kilometers per second) would impact Earth with a force approximately 15 times greater than the world's total nuclear arsenal. A comet of just over half the size and one-third the mass traveling at 37 miles (60 kilometers) per second could achieve an impact of similar force if it were to strike Earth. "Size matters," said Mazanek. "But so does density and speed."

 

Long-period objects like comets, are not easily detected until they enter the solar system. "A long-period object by definition may not have any records of sightings in written history," said Mazanek. "If it came back into the solar system and it was on [an Earth-bound trajectory], we would not have much warning."

 

Mazanek leads NASA's Comet/Asteroid Protect System, a program that would expand on the Near-Earth Object Program to include the detection of long-period comets, as well as small asteroids and short-period comets that pose an Earth impact threat. The space-based system, not to be in place for at least 25 years, would provide constant monitoring and a system to divert and modify the orbits of threatening objects. Confirmation of a long-period object on an impact trajectory would be possible at least a year before impact, allowing more time to take defensive action than current detection systems allow.

- - - - - -

 

[Ted McGregor]

 

Perhaps you should convince them to visit this person first ?

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm in brown this time

---

Drongle McMahon wrote:

. . . .

Phil replied in brown:

 

If the project had been to research possibilites of deflecting dangerous asteroids, for instance, I wouldn't have posted any of this. It's true that the landing experience will help in that respect, but the mission isn't about that. It's primarily about origins. If it had been about deflecting asteroids, it would have been completed years ago, because it wouldn't have taken so long to reach one. Going to, or landing on, one or more asteroids is the only way to do that research, so that ideas can be found to deflect them. Comets don't come into that. I think that Rosetta passed a couple of asteroids on its journey, and did a bit of study on them, so maybe it sent back some useful data for that purpose, but nothing like the value of doing with an asteroid what it did with a comet.

---

One final point... I still love Coby :heart: 

---

:smileyhappy: :smileywink:

Comets do come into that.

Actually they are greater threat than asteroids are. Due to their higher approach speeds and greater distance where they originate from, they are harder to detect and deflect than asteroids are.

But not as great a threat as asteroids because near-earth asteroids (objects), of a significant size, appear much more often

Quotations from some links are due (again):

http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/asteroid-threat/asteroid_threat.html

"That such cosmic collisions can still occur today was demonstrated graphically in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart and 21 fragments, some as large as 2 km in diameter, crashed into the atmosphere of Jupiter. If these fragments had hit Earth instead, we would have suffered global catastrophes of the kind that inspire science fiction movies."

I watched that. We're a much smaller target than Jupiter

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0128_030128_comets_2.html

Consider this example. An asteroid 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide with a density of 187 pounds per cubic foot (3,000 kilograms per cubic meter) traveling at 12 miles per second (20 kilometers per second) would impact Earth with a force approximately 15 times greater than the world's total nuclear arsenal. A comet of just over half the size and one-third the mass traveling at 37 miles (60 kilometers) per second could achieve an impact of similar force if it were to strike Earth. "

Size matters,

" said Mazanek. "

But so does density and speed.

"

 

Long-period objects like comets, are not easily detected until they enter the solar system. "A long-period object by definition may not have any records of sightings in written history," said Mazanek. "If it came back into the solar system and it was on [an Earth-bound trajectory], we would not have much warning."

 

Mazanek leads NASA's Comet/Asteroid Protect System, a program that would expand on the Near-Earth Object Program to include the detection of long-period comets, as well as small asteroids and short-period comets that pose an Earth impact threat. The space-based system, not to be in place for at least 25 years, would provide constant monitoring and a system to divert and modify the orbits of threatening objects. Confirmation of a long-period object on an impact trajectory would be possible at least a year before impact, allowing more time to take defensive action than current detection systems allow.

- - - - - -

 

---

You've really got into this discussion, haven't you?

 

[Drongle McMahon]

In all probability, all the originators of the mission were interested in is origins, and the rest was added in order to get the funding for it. Cynical thinking, yes, but I bet it's not all that far off the mark.

On the contrary, I think you are generous. My guess would be that their prmary concern was the advancement of their personal careers. Sadly, that has to be the priority for survival, in science as much as elsewhere. More noble motives are a secondary luxury dependent on success with this overriding one. In priciple though, that should not affect the assessment by the funders.

It's something that never ocurred to me until you wrote it 

It didn't occur to me until then either. Just goes to show the value of debate in driving the refinement of views.

HS2: Now that is a rather different question. The benefits there are supposed to have been explicitly identified and calculated. The validity of those calculations is certainly open to dispute, as is the question of who are the beneficiaries. There is always reason to be wary of benefit to "the economy" evaluted without reference of how it is distributed. Same applies to "economic recovery". However, this is digressing too far. I will let it rest.

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

 

You've really got into this discussion, haven't you?

---

It's all your fault. :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Coby Foden]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm in brown this time

But not as great a threat as asteroids because near-earth asteroids (objects), of a significant size, appear much more often

"That such cosmic collisions can still occur today was demonstrated graphically in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9...

I watched that. We're a much smaller target than Jupiter

---

Besides long period comets there are also lots of short period comets, they appear more often too.

The 1994 collision showed that catastrophic cosmic events still happen. Jupiter is a could catcher of comets - when it happens to be in the right spot in its orbit. Even Earth being smaller does not make us safe from collisions.

Concentrating only on asteroids would be foolish. It makes no difference whether the object is an asteroid or a comet - both must be studied and develop methods to prevent their collisions with Earth.

 

[ETA]

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood.

[Coby Foden]

Replying to one of your earlier posts... :smileywink:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

... I fully support ventures into space, and why I support it. I just don't support totally unnecessary ventures like the Rosetta mission, the purpose of which is to learn about origins, which is something that is of no real value to anyone. It's an awesome achievement but it has no value.

---

As you already know that the sole purpose of Rosetta mission is not the origins I'm not returning to that in this post.

But is the Rosetta mission really "totally unnessary venture" as you say, or is not?
You might find the following interesting reading.

I quote the whole text what is in the link below:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/resource.html

[underlinings/boldings are mine]
- - - - - - - -
The comets and asteroids that are potentially the most hazardous because they can closely approach the Earth are also the objects that could be most easily exploited for their raw materials. It is not presently cost effective to mine these minerals and then bring them back to Earth. However, these raw materials could be used in developing the space structures and in generating the rocket fuel that will be required to explore and colonize our solar system in the twenty-first century. It has been estimated that the mineral wealth resident in the belt of asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter would be equivalent to about 100 billion dollars for every person on Earth today.

Whereas asteroids are rich in the mineral raw materials required to build structures in space, the comets are rich resources for the water and carbon-based molecules necessary to sustain life. In addition, an abundant supply of cometary water ice could provide copious quantities of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the two primary ingredients in rocket fuel.

It seems likely that in the next century when we begin to colonize the inner solar system, the metals and minerals found on asteroids will provide the raw materials for space structures and comets will become the watering holes and gas stations for interplanetary spacecraft.
- - - - - - - -

The Rosetta mission is doing the most detailed study of the structure of a comet ever done before.

Questions:
- Is it 'totally unnessary unnecessary' to make a detailed study about what a comet is made of?
- Is it 'totally unnessary unnecessary' to learn to catch a comet, and to land onto a comet?
- Is all the data and experience gained from Rosetta mission 'totally unnessary unnecessary' for future explorations?

[ETA]
Edited spelling, thanks to TDD123 :matte-motes-asleep-2: :smileywink:

 

[Ted McGregor]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Questions:

- Is it 'totally unne

ce

ssary' to make a detailed study about what a comet is made of?

- Is it 'totally unne

ce

ssary' to learn to catch a comet, and to land onto a comet?

- Is all the data and experience gained from Rosetta mission 'totally unne

ce

ssary' for future explorations?

 

---

FIFY !

 

( Otherwise I might start to toss 'Lindenlabs' at you .. :robottongue: )

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

 

You've really got into this discussion, haven't you?

---

It's all your fault. :matte-motes-big-grin:

---

I just try to make you notice me, that's all :smileyembarrassed:

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Coby Foden wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm in brown this time

But not as great a threat as asteroids because near-earth asteroids (objects), of a significant size, appear much more often

"That such cosmic collisions can still occur today was demonstrated graphically in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9...

I watched that. We're a much smaller target than Jupiter

---

Besides long period comets there are also lots of short period comets, they appear more often too.

The 1994 collision showed that catastrophic cosmic events still happen. Jupiter is a could catcher of comets - when it happens to be in the right spot in its orbit. Even Earth being smaller does not make us safe from collisions.

Concentrating only on asteroids would be foolish. It makes no difference whether the object is an asteroid or a comet - both must be studied and develop methods to prevent their collisions with Earth.

 

[ETA]

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs)

are comets and asteroids

that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood.

---

Then perhaps we should be concentrating on moving some of the planets

[Phil Deakins]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Replying to one of your earlier posts... :smileywink:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

 

... I fully support ventures into space, and why I support it. I just don't support totally unnecessary ventures like the Rosetta mission, the purpose of which is to learn about origins, which is something that is of no real value to anyone. It's an awesome achievement but it has no value.

---

As you already know that the sole purpose of Rosetta mission is not the origins I'm not returning to that in this post.

But is the Rosetta mission really "

totally unnessary venture

" as you say, or is not?

You might find the following interesting reading.

I quote the whole text what is in the link below:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/resource.html

[underlinings/boldings are mine]

- - - - - - - -

The

comets and asteroids

that are potentially the most hazardous because they can closely approach the Earth

are also the objects that could be most easily exploited for their raw materials.

It is not presently cost effective to mine these minerals and then bring them back to Earth. However, these raw materials could be used in developing the space structures and in generating the rocket fuel that will be required to explore and colonize our solar system in the twenty-first century. It has been estimated that the mineral wealth resident in the belt of asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter would be equivalent to about 100 billion dollars for every person on Earth today.

Whereas asteroids are rich in the mineral raw materials required to build structures in space, the comets are rich resources for the water and carbon-based molecules necessary to sustain life. In addition, an abundant supply of cometary water ice could provide copious quantities of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the two primary ingredients in rocket fuel.

It seems likely that in the next century when we begin to colonize the inner solar system, the metals and minerals found on asteroids will provide the raw materials for space structures and comets will become the watering holes and gas stations for interplanetary spacecraft.

- - - - - - - -

The Rosetta mission is doing the most detailed study of the structure of a comet ever done before.

 

Questions:

- Is it 'totally unnessary' to make a detailed study about what a comet is made of?

- Is it 'totally unnessary' to learn to catch a comet, and to land onto a comet?

- Is all the data and experience gained from Rosetta mission 'totally unnessary' for future explorations?

 

---

From that point of view, let's first make a tiny bit of the moon habitable; i.e. a tiny scientific station containing people living and working on the moon's surface. When we can do that, perhaps we can think of doing the sort of stuff in your quote. Until then, it's a lot of pie in the sky.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm not at all sure what your last sentence meant, Maddy. Your healthcare system is very different to ours.

Most of ours is publically funded and free to the population.

---

Could you please explain to me how your public is not your population?

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

It's interesting that nobody in this thread has suggested that Rosetta's primary mission (origins) is worth putting before the declining public services.

---

Phil,

Humans have always wondered about their origins. Most of the world believes in made-up stories about it, absent any evidence. For that reason alone, I think scientific exploration into the origins of the universe is worth some public expenditure. I also wish we'd increase research into the biggest missing link in evolutionary history, the first one. We're still a long way from understanding the jump from chemistry to bio-chemistry 4 billion years ago. That's an origin story I can't wait to read.

Drongle,

I agree that the scientists primarly goals are likely the advancement or at least preservation of their own careers. But behind them are corporations large and small with the same goals. It's not hard to imagine aerospace companies lobbying for various projects to keep their revenues rolling. It's also not hard to imagine politicians wrangling for projects based on the economic benefit that might acrue to their constituencies, or themselves.

The appropriation of public funds is a messy business, regardless of where the money is spent. I share Phil's concerns about health care, but here in the US, the waste in that system is astonishing. And a good bit of that waste is the result of the government spending tax revenues on the system without requiring the transparency that's needed to observe whether the system is actually working well.

The mention of medical application of particle accelerators is interesting. I did some consulting work for friends at a local proton therapy startup some years ago. It was magnificent technology, but the treatment costs (even projected into a future where the technology was more mature) were so high that I had a hard time getting excited about it. I asked my friends if they didn't think we'd get a better bang for the research dollar if it were spent on prevention of the cancers they hoped to treat. The general response was "probably, but that's not what we do here".

I've another friend who's on the verge of resigning from her pharmaceutical company over her frustration at the cutting of research programs that show potential for curing diseases. Though denying it directly, she's certain the company's interest is to turn deadly diseases into managable chronic conditions. Curing a disease eliminates a customer base.

;-).

[Perrie Juran]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

It's interesting that nobody in this thread has suggested that Rosetta's primary mission (origins) is worth putting before the declining public services. I think I'm right in saying that. The only things that people have posted about, that they suiggest are worth putting ahead of the declining public services, are thing that don't get a mention in either of the documents you posted. The documents don't even suggest that landing on a comet will help when trying to land on an asteroid. It will, of course, but it's not part of the stated objectives for Rosetta.

---

At some point during my education one of my history teachers taught us that, “We study the past to understand the present; we understand the present to guide the future.”   I'm still trying to decide if she was just feeding us a line of bull.  We do seem to learn very slowly from our past mistakes.

I'm not sure if I know anyone who does not have some interest in Cosmology or Cosmogony.  And how it benefits us as a whole may be difficult to determine.  Does seeing how we fit into the 'whole picture' profit us?  Does seeing how the pieces of the puzzle fit together help?  I think it does but measuring that profit can be difficult at times. 

It's always a hard decision what research to invest in.  Prioritizing that research can be difficult too.  Because you never know what you will find at the end of the tunnel.  What scientific advances will come from this endeavor we don't know yet.  But if we didn't take the chance there would be no advances.

 

[Drongle McMahon]

Yes. The sickness industry is much more profitable than the health industry. No doubt there are comparable perverse motivators at work in the space industry. Nevertheless, there's no doubt that both have brought us useful things too.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Drongle McMahon wrote:

Yes. The sickness industry is much more profitable than the health industry. No doubt there are comparable perverse motivators at work in the space industry.

Nevertheless, there's no doubt that both have brought us useful things too.

---

No doubt!

[Phil Deakins]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm not at all sure what your last sentence meant, Maddy. Your healthcare system is very different to ours.

Most of ours is publically funded and free to the population.

---

Could you please explain to me how your public is not your population?

---

There wasn't indended to be any distinction between the two.

'Publically funded' means that it comes from the public purse - taxes paid by the population. 'Population' means population.

[Phil Deakins]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Humans have always wondered about their origins. Most of the world believes in made-up stories about it, absent any evidence. For that reason alone, I think scientific exploration into the origins of the universe is worth some public expenditure. I also wish we'd increase research into the biggest missing link in evolutionary history, the first one. We're still a long way from understanding the jump from chemistry to bio-chemistry 4 billion years ago. That's an origin story I can't wait to read.

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Curiosity is fine, and paying to discover the things we are merely curious about is also fine, but paying huge amounts of money for that purpose, at the same time as essential services are being seriously cut, is not fine at all.

[Coby Foden]

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TDD123 wrote:

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Coby Foden wrote:

Questions:

- Is it 'totally unne

ce

ssary' to make a detailed study about what a comet is made of?

- Is it 'totally unne

ce

ssary' to learn to catch a comet, and to land onto a comet?

- Is all the data and experience gained from Rosetta mission 'totally unne

ce

ssary' for future explorations?

 

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FIFY !

( Otherwise I might start to toss 'Lindenlabs' at you .. :robottongue: )

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Thank you. :matte-motes-big-grin: