Venus Express: One Year in Orbit, Symposium at the 2007 EGU General Assembly |
Venus Express: One Year in Orbit, Symposium at the 2007 EGU General Assembly |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Jan 3 2007, 07:37 PM
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#1
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Forwarding an email that was sent out today by Dmitri Titov, Venus Express PI. Cross reference with this UMSF thread.
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Jan 4 2007, 08:59 PM
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#2
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Yes - but there IS someone to observe the event - the scientists on the instrument teams ARE seing this stuff going on - they're just not telling anyone about it.
The apple falls, it's measured by scientists, written in their notebooks -but they don't think to publicise the fact. Doug |
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Jan 4 2007, 10:33 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
I think that in the US the space community long ago woke up to the idea that with no bucks, there will be no Buck Rogers - whether manned or unmanned - and that to get the bucks the taxpayers have to see some return (questions of pork etc notwithstanding). In the European context, things are still very cosy, and there's less need to strive for survival - when it's Buggin's turn for funding, out it rolls (oh, and if you're a heretic with a Beagle-ish project you'll never be welcome, and whatever slight funding you're pleased to have will always be just sufficient to cause a convenient failure!).
Don't start me on ELDO. That'd be a rant, and us UMSFers don't do rants, oh no! Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Jan 5 2007, 12:07 AM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
[...]
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Jan 5 2007, 12:20 AM
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#5
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
I remember the great missions of the 1970s plus the Voyager encounters in the 1980s (especially at Saturn) putting some impressive articles in my small-town hometown newspaper with dazzling images accompanying. The cost of those to NASA must have been tiny. ESA can't muster the equivalent. The problem isn't that ESA can't muster the equivalent -- it's that they somehow don't seem to see a need to do so. I think there is more to it than a lack of money -- the incremental increase in funding which would make outreach possible is a tiny percentage of what ESA spends on its other projects. I think that ESA actually believes that they have only one audience -- the scientists and engineers employed by the projects -- and that there is absolutely no reason to serve any other audience. They almost seem arrogantly aggressive about it. If I were a member of the EU, I would try and get political action going. Contact my MP or whatever and insist that, if ESA can't serve the needs of the people of the EU and is unable to see themselves as anything but a service to a handful of scientists, then perhaps ESA needs to just go away. Eventually, spending large sums on things for which the people aren't given any pay-off will become a political liability, and if ESA can't manage the process, then someone else needs to step in and do it. Or else Europe will end up withdrawing from space activities... and we all know that's a bad idea. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Jan 5 2007, 12:26 AM
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#6
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Contact my MP or whatever I tried that...it killed him Seriously. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicest...ire/3754905.stm I contacted him at the beginning of May '04 - he wrote back to me asking for more details, sounded genuinely interested...and promptly died before I could get back to him. Since then we've had two more MP's - one of whom wasn't around long enough to matter, the second just fobbed me off with copy-and-paste UK space policy nonsense. Basically a dead end. I'm thinking of approaching the science minister. Doug |
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Jan 5 2007, 09:51 PM
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#7
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Member Group: Members Posts: 112 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Canberra Member No.: 558 |
I have said this before and I am going to say this again.
The constant ESA bashing that is a persistant part of this board makes me really, really angry. It is utterly unneccessary, completely pointless, and based on an arrogant assumption that what NASA does everybody else should do. Just about every discussion about an ESA mission on this board has its obligatory childish whine about about their PR than than becomes several pages of whinging. It is sickening. Even a simple announcement of a forthcomoing meeting for announce results beomes a platform for this rubbish. ESA is a completely different organisation with a different charter, different buget, and different goals. Accept it. live with it. They are in the business of doing science, not running PR or education. if you want to get results as they come in, get on the science teams. Otherwise wait until the results are published like the rest of us and shut the hell up. I spent nearly a year off from contributing to this board because of the crap attitude to ESA, and if this keeps on I will again. It reduces the tone of the board to a common political chat room. Jon |
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Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Jan 5 2007, 10:25 PM
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#8
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Guests |
The constant ESA bashing that is a persistant part of this board makes me really, really angry. Jon, you make a fair point about ESA not being NASA, its having a different mission, different standards of accountability, etc., but I think comparisons are inevitable. Getting angry about them is, forgive me for saying so, a little ridiculous. On the other hand, I guess my being an American has given me a thicker skin and inured me to criticism from Across The Pond So, to define the parameters, and to avoid driving you away for another one-year sabbatical, I guess I'll go ahead and ask: What level, if any, criticism of ESA (or its member countries' national space agencies) is acceptable to you? None? 5%? 28.78%? |
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