[X] My Assistant

[tedstryk]

Just a reminder that the press briefing is tomorrow (November 30, 2005) at 10:00 am ET / 7:00 am PT and will be shown live on NASA TV:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/nov/H...s_Briefing.html

Some major discoveries will be announced, including:

Titan has an atmosphere
The Hellas and Argyre basins on Mars are of impact origin.
Mars has large volcanos in the Tharsis region.
Mars has two moons.

[dvandorn]

As European Tax Payers it's just a real shame we get virtually nothing back from ESA in terms of public accessibility to information in comparison with the open NASA Policy. Do you think one day that they might get the message about making data freely available, or are we banging our heads against a brick wall ?

But, guys, note that it's not just the general public who are in the dark about the data being collected by VEx. Please note the opening in another thread from someone actually working VEx Mission Science Operations:

For those who want to know more about what Venus Express is doing, I can provide some information on the science operations planning.

I cannot provide any science results. Science data is processed by the individual Principal Investigators in charge of each instrument. It is hoped that an issue of Nature will be done in the near future which will focus on the VEX science results from year one, and we are all looking forward to that.

Cheers-

Don Merritt
VEX Science Operations Center

Here is someone who seems to have responsibilities in the planning of continued science operations, and yet he is waiting for an issue of Nature to come out to see what results the individual PIs are seeing!

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it appears that science operations planning is being done without the benefit of much in the way of data getting leaked back to the planners by the PIs.

Seems to me this is a system that grants the PIs *far* too much power and secrecy. They are guaranteed a lion's share of the credit for any discoveries made by their experiments, they ought not be so paranoid about anyone other than themselves seeing anything beyond what The Wizard decides to allow us to see in His published works... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

[Mongo]

Seems to me this is a system that grants the PIs *far* too much power and secrecy. They are guaranteed a lion's share of the credit for any discoveries made by their experiments, they ought not be so paranoid about anyone other than themselves seeing anything beyond what The Wizard decides to allow us to see in His published works... *sigh*...

Sorry if this is getting too off-topic, but at least the data exist, and will (I assume) eventually be released.

Compare this to archaeology, where the excavation leader used to have full control over the publication schedule, and often waited years or decades before publishing. There were many cases where he or she died before getting around to publishing, resulting in a complete loss of information about what was found at that site -- and since the site is destroyed during the excavation, the information is gone for good.

Compared to that, a few extra years' wait for Venus Express results is not too bad. (not that it's good, since the delay presumably hinders planning for followup missions)

Bill

[JRehling]

Sorry if this is getting too off-topic, but at least the data exist, and will (I assume) eventually be released.

Compare this to archaeology, where the excavation leader used to have full control over the publication schedule, and often waited years or decades before publishing. There were many cases where he or she died before getting around to publishing, resulting in a complete loss of information about what was found at that site -- and since the site is destroyed during the excavation, the information is gone for good.

Compared to that, a few extra years' wait for Venus Express results is not too bad. (not that it's good, since the delay presumably hinders planning for followup missions)

Bill

Good points, but archaeology digs don't cost $200 million, and Venus is a much harder place for unscrupulous raiders to poach your dig.

[dvandorn]

Good points, but archaeology digs don't cost $200 million, and Venus is a much harder place for unscrupulous raiders to poach your dig.

And nothing makes the practice in archeology right or useful, either.

Hoarding useful (and interesting!) data is simply not justifiable to me. I appreciate it when a PI says "We've put so much of our lives into this, isn't it fair that we get to see and use the data before anyone else sees it?" But while someone may have spent years or decades of their lives working on these programs, his or her salary almost invariably comes from the public.

If I'm helping to pay salaries, I don't think it's fair that they keep their work secret from me, or want to release to me only those bits of it they choose to show me. As an American who grew up in the 1960s, that kind of behavior was always characterized as the Soviet approach to things. It was invariably criticized, and cited as one of the reasons why the Soviets had such high failure rates in their space programs.

The whole thing *feels* like an attempt on the part of the PIs to avoid any accountability for their work. These people are accountable to their supporting taxpayers and to humanity in general, *not* just for the publication of whatever small subset of their data they choose to show the world.

Maybe it's just an American cultural thing, I don't know, but I think Americans tend to mistrust people who hoard information. In America, people who keep secrets are usually thought of as people who have something to hide. I know that my basic emotional response to ESA's poor excuse for public outreach is "What the heck are they hiding from me, and why should they want to hide anything from me?"

This is the kind of behavior that just fuels the kooks and c0nspir@cy guys, too -- how many times have those guys pulled the line "if this probe took thousands of pictures, what's in the ones they haven't shown us??? Why are they keeping them secret???"

-the other Doug