And to wrap up the hatrick of coverage
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/01/19/ci...spaceflightcom/
It was great to speak to Nancy - and all credit - that's a GREAT article!

On a related note
http://365daysofastronomy.org/2009/01/19/j...e-solar-system/

Remember, part of the Endeavour justification was that it was the right way to go anyway.....that only remains true if you do science along the way

How long is that again?

That's an ENORMOUS number of questions, which, if you would just look 5 posts up you will see answers for.

Doug

Conjunction, Science, RAT issues.

For information - we have discussed the biology issue in the Admin section. The discussion came to a very near unanimous decision that the outright ban on Biology is the right step for UMSF at the moment. Reasons cited include those I've mentioned before, as well as others. In no particular order

- Biology (like Politics or Manned v Unmanned) takes on a religious like status in peoples minds with no grounds for actual debate
- There are no biological instruments flying, or planned for flight.
- Setting a limit for what would or would not be acceptable would be near impossible. There is no fair or valid means to half-open the door on this.
- The administrative workload would increase significantly (high admin workload being the sign of a badly administered forum)
- There are alternate venues that are better suited to these sorts of discussions.

It is by taking difficult decisions like this one, that UMSF has become and continues to be what people admire it for. Such decisions are, to some extent, a judgement call. But the admin team has agreed, that this is the right judgement at this time.

They have vertical exaggeration. If it's too much or not is simply a matter of taste, and what you're trying to do.


Doug

I doubt it. If you've got Clubcard points - you can make the admission a lot cheaper

Ted and I have been ( I live about 15 minutes from it ) - there's the odd cool artefact in there, but as with most science museums, for the science geek, 90% of it is a bit tedious.

Nope- that's the same as it's been for ever. It's just a science centre/museum

http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/ is the governmental organisation.

http://www.scitech.ac.uk/ is the funding body.


Doug

Just turn your glasses inside out to look at the ends of the anaglyph.

Wouldn't a polar-anaglyph be, just, err, wrong? it would be inside out at the bottom, I think.

And James, being the thorough chap that he is, did do the non anaglyphy version http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/full_bonestell

Spirit wasn't

Yeah - that was a cool interview with DC, and a last minute rush to fix up the 'turtle' image for him. I'm really pleased with the finished article!

Then talk about them in a different forum - what's stopping you? People get banned or suspended for breaking the rules. The rules are there for everyone to see. People get warnings and a heads up when they're running the risk of breaking those rules. We even gave a specific warning in this very thread.

If someone gets banned - it's because they refuse to respect the rules.

UMSF was started, as you will remember, as a place for people to share their mosaics, and talk about what the MER's were up to. Its scope has grown and grown and grown for 5 years. Lines have to be drawn to dictate what is an isn't allowed to maintain the S/N ratio for those topics for which the board was started. Biology, like Politics, or Manned Spaceflight - has baggage. It has too much scope for arguments, bickering, personal ranting campaigns - and in the specific case of biology, fringe theory nut jobs.

Now, we can try and accommodate that subject and spend, literally, hours trying to keep things at a reasonable level, get accused of bias or inconsistent treatment - and the end result is the very occasional interesting topic and an enormous quantity of unseen administrative workload, annoyance, hassle, insults, accusations and entirely unjustified stress.

OR - we can simply say no to that subject entirely, giving admins and mods little bits of their lives back, keeping the ammount of administrative workload to a minimum - and above all, maintain the S/N ratio of the subjects for which this forum was started and is maintained.

If you want to talk about Biology, try the www.bautforum.com - it's brilliantly maintained, conducive to interesting discourse, and a perfect home for that sort of discussion. It's what I do - and I can see no reason why anyone else would object to doing the same.

As I've said elsewhere in similar discussions - accusations of baby out with bathwater are expected, and at least partially justified. But that's the price that I consider worth paying. Emilys posts explains it very very well.

No - I don't think I'm some internet god. But I fail to see why people go 'Wahahh - I want to talk about X'. What is stopping them doing that? Nothing. Find a place where it's allowed, and do it. I don't complain that I can't talk about manned spaceflight, or religion, or biology, or politics, or other off topic stuff. I stick to the rules and find somewhere else to talk about the issues I want to talk about that are not within the remit of UMSF.

UMSF is, intentionally, about a very very small subject area. S/N ratio is the currency of forums, and this one is, fortunately, quite high. I don't intend to risk it on subject matter that is, at its core, off topic. What is and isn't acceptable in a forum is more than just reading it's URL and assuming that's it.

Doug

It was written in a hurry. The point I'm making is that people can talk about anything they want. But they can't talk about biology, here. People object as if I'm banning them from discussing the subject. I'm not. I'm saying you can't talk about it HERE, in this forum, with these rules. It's not as if people can't go and talk about it somewhere else. Sorry if that was not clear.

There are things I want to talk about that, if I posted them here, I, in my admin role, would delete them, and then ban myself resulting in a catastrophic rip in the forum-time continuum. I know the rules for UMSF, so I stick firmly within them. If I want to discuss things that are outside the scope of UMSF (and regularly, I do) I visit BAUT usually.

Ahh - I get what you mean. I got around it when I was doing lots of anaglyphs by co-registering in the middle-ground - but even then, the channels were so seperated at near and far distance, they effect was lost. By 'moderating' the effect, you can, I suspect, get more effect over a greater range, but I can see why some people would like the 'raw and uncut' flavour of anaglyph instead.

You could use MMB - the anaglyphs are au-naturelle in there

So be it. I am sure you, and anyone else who wants to discuss it can do so elsewhere. I will almost certainly join in the debate over at www.bautforum.com , for example.

I am not completely banning astrobiological discussions. I'm not saying that no one can discuss it. But the rules of UMSF dictate that you can't discuss it here. It's not what UMSF is for. Everyone is totally free to talk about them elsewhere - and I'll probably join you! Yes - this is a baby out with bathwater issue. Rather that, than descend into a bickering fringe-theory conspiracy infested argument about astrobiology and methane. The price to pay for keeping UMSF to the standards we do, is the exclusion of things that may risk damaging it.

The story here, is that Astrobiology is off topic for UMSF. Rule 1.2. This is the first, last and only warning. In the post press-conf rush, I will not hesitate in hitting the delete button or issue suspensions.

What do you mean? I've made a lot of them, viewed a lot of them, and I don't know what that means.

It was. There have also been hints of it from ground based obs, and orbit obs. What I'm expecting ( although this is a guess ) is a map of its distribution across Mars- all be it at very very very low res. It should give us a hint of where it might be coming from.

Doug

Of course, until the news conference, there isn't actually a story.

Methane?