Slashdot Mirror
Still No Contact from Beagle 2
Many of you have submitted this, so this will be a condensing of the relevant information. WebfishUK writes: "The BBC has just released this story which announces the failure of the latest and possibly best chance to contact the British built Mars probe, Beagle 2. Given that Mars Express was designed to communicate with Beagle (unlike the earlier attempts with NASA's Mars Odyssey), this may indicate that something catastrophic has happened to Beagle 2." From Bromrrrrr: "[The]
ESA is reporting that the Mars Express, which everybody was hoping would be able to get through to the poor lost puppy, has failed its first attempt. 'We have not lost hope yet to contact Beagle 2, but we also know that it has landed on an unforgiving planet,' said David Southwood, ESA's Director of Science." and I-R-Baboon adds: "The Mars Express mothership from the EU passed 350 km over the intended landing site of the Beagle 2 hearing only silence. Although nothing was heard, hope has not been given up yet, as scientists will keep trying until February, with more passovers of the Beagle 2's landing site on January 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, and 14th." Additional updates can be obtained from the Beagle 2 homepage as well as from the ESA's homepage for the Mars Express. Here's hoping that the lander is only down, and not out.
So do they just give up, or hope Spirit can eventually find it and give it a doggie biscuit?
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
Damn, those martians shot down another one of our probes!
They have much better aim than, say, Saddam Hussein's SCUD missle launchers!
Hey, maybe Saddam hid his better weapons of mass destruction ON MARS!!!!!!!!!!!
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
why dont they include some sort of near-indestructible beacon that will send a signal in case of crash, so that orbiting probes can locate and photograph the crash site??
unlike the earlier attempts with NASA's Opportunity
That would be the Mars Odyssey, not Opportunity.
Their rover turned out to be a dog.....
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
But it's down... and won't get up again. Let's just rejoice over the spirit pictures.... It is something, even if it wans't funded by our tax euros.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
In Sovjet Russia... nah...
Retrieving the black box is going to be a *bitch* :)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
How far away is the US probe from the beagle landing site? Could they send their own little explorer over to check out what happened?
The 'Beagle 2' finally sent the first pictures and an explaination why it didn't sent earlier click here.
Dude, we're all humans, and we're all in this together. Your probe worked (wooyay), ours didn't. (doh)
There is such a thing as a bad winner you know.
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
Maybe the Rover can track the Beagle. Would it be able to do things like nudging or flipping the Beagle? Maybe it landed upside down, or on a slope.
The solarpanels might generate energy after some handeling. But can the Rover do that?
-- (:> jms cs.vu.nl (_) --"---
do I detect an oxymoron?
"we also know that it has landed on an unforgiving planet,' said David Southwood, ESA's Director of Science"
Damnit, didn't he see Red Planet in time?!
He's dead, Jim!
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3376343.stm
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
Huge ambition packed into such a small volume (73kg) and the only test-landing failed miserably.
:-( We are all in this together, remember ? Anyone still there ?
Well, you never learn until you've tried and failed. Perhaps next time.
What I do find disappointing is the first post above though. I'm obviously disappointed for us Brits that our first Mars probe has died a death, but I'm elated the US managed to get theirs to work perfectly. Pity the feelings aren't reciprocal
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Although beagle failed, I would like to commend the ESA for attempting the mission on a shoe-string budget. Landing on Mars is no easy task as we have found through a few, shall we say mishaps. Also, let us not forget that Beagle 2 was only part of the mission. I do believe that Mars Express is operating as expected. So all and all, for a first mission on a tight budget and small timeframe, I think the ESA put on a good show and encourage them in their efforts to explore the universe.
The US succeeded where the EU did not
Yeah. Of course, it's totally unheard for an American space project to blow up, or fail completely because the scientists couldn't even manage to seperate metric measurements from imperial. Let's face it, the Beagle landed in a crater. Tragic, but it's not incompetence.
Feeling the need to declare your nation's superiority on Slashdot is quite the sign of insecurity.
The US will launch a nuclear missile to destroy everything in the area to keep the Beagle from falling into enemy hands.
Maybe he just ran in circles chasing until he was so dizzy that he just fell of Mars
MonkeysKickAss
"I've been crossing my eyes at Nasa's Mars photos for half an hour and I still can't see a beagle!"
Dupe.
On the plus side, though, you're well on your way to becoming a Slashdot editor.
"Derp de derp."
But another way to look at Mars Express (even minus the Beagle) is as a successful cooperation between many different nations -- A skill the US sometimes does not appear to be able to foster amongst itself and it's so called "partners". And I think is loosing out because of it.
While the US may be happy that it's "won" the race (for what, we're not sure. Everyone loses when only half of the planned scientific packages show up to do some previously undone exploring), I look at the internation space station, and the shuttle program, and think: gee, it's sure great that Russia still has those Proton boosters and Soyouzs blasting off from Siberia there. Otherwise what would happen to those poor Americans up there? We can't all do it alone, and even if we could, it's always easier if there are others around to help us. Especially when it comes to space exploration.
Can't any of the various orbiting probes (like the Mars Express for instance) take pictures of the area in which Beagle 2 was supposed to have landed?
The pro-US-Europeans failed (the UK). The nonpro-US-Europeans had success (the mothership Mars-Express is working fine). Well...
Time for the rescue mission. This is the perfect opportunity to launch mankind's first Mission to Mars.
I mean, who wants to be the one responsible for leaving a beagle on Mars? Can you just imagine the commercials?
"Lost: Puppy on Red Planet. Will accept offers to build a multi-billion dollar spacecraft to retrieve him. Answers to the name Beagle. Please help him come home with your donation."
I'm telling you, if people fall for Nigerian and Viagra schemes, we can get them to finance this thing within 10 years. Maybe less, if we also target the people who buy penis enhancement pills.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I'd be real pissed at you earthlings dumping all your cruddy robots on my planet.
Mars is *not* a landfill!
Ruining our ecosystem with your trash!
Death to earth!
Where's the ka-boom?
Actually, I'm English, but thanks for playing.
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
Beagle2 is about the size of a bicycle wheel, it weights 60kg. NASA's six-wheeled robot is the size of a golf buggy and weights about 8 times more.
Beagle was built at a cost of around 45m, whereas NASA spent 512m.
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
...but we also know that it has landed on an unforgiving planet
Well now there's the problem -- next time we should just go to a forgiving planet instead. What were we thinking?
I suppose you don't want to talk about that piece of quality american math that went to Mars a few years ago????
And the Russions almost beat you to the Moon. (They did beat you to orbit, both unmanned, dogged(sp?) and manned)
A. I don't know what you're talking about. AND
B. I didn't mention first to space for a reason, but if you want to call the russian k-9 experiments a great success don't forget there's a little dog skeleton floating around in a tin can out there in space.
First of all, I am also sad to hear these news. Although the Beagle 2 wasn't primarly an ESA project, so the ESA itself should hopefully not be hurt too much, it is still a very unfortunate loss with all the high tech equipment on the B2, and a loss hurting particulary much for the UK. If successful, it could have broken new ground as the by far most advanced spacecraft launched, being partially privately funded.
However, the lesson I think should be learnt is that in space, one often needs to be lucky for success as many factors plays a role. Even with a perfect craft, especially if you're trying to land on another planet. And if you are pushing this much needed luck to the extremes with such major time constraints, that you don't even have time to perform further tests on a failing airbag mechanism, fires a multi-million dollar craft into outer space while crossing your fingers and hoping it will work when landing on Mars, you will need an ENORMOUS amount of luck for success.
I think it was unfortunately a much higher chance of failure for the Beagle 2 than a success because of the time and budget constraints.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
No. They had no telemetry, no radio signals, and gravity reversed itself at the last minute.
Some of the questions on Slashdot are just scary.
Nasa Rover Missions : 400 Million a Piece
1 succesfully landed
2nd in route
Beagle / Mars Express : 345 Million
1 beagle missing In Action
Mars Express working and in orbit
Guess Research and Development Costs is actualy WORTHWHILE
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Anyone? TIA!
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
The airbags weren't properly tested and I'd bet the farm that is what made this mission fail. Beagle2 is in a millions pieces, imho.
the parachute at least. probably the airbags, possibly the parachute lines, and the heat shield.
The Soviet Union did indeed want to go to the moon.
It was supposed to touch down in a certain area. A few minutes after it was supposed to touch down, they noticed a big, smoking crater. They're trying to figure out of the two are related.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I mean, do you think they intentionally build the signalling system to self-destruct on a crash landing, or what ?
There's a 73 Kg limit (including all the airbags, entry heat-shield, and the actual payload) for the entire mission, and you want to put in armoured (read: heavy) modules for when it all goes wrong ?
What purpose would this serve ? So we can now get a photo where the 6 white pixels (and I'm being *very* generous with the resolving power of the orbital cameras) are the lander. Whoosh. What now ? And to do that, we leave out the gas spectrometer, perhaps ?
I'm sure you're a clever individual, but there are also very clever people at mission control. They will have forgotten more about sending probes on a journey through the Solar System than you or I will ever know, and I really was a rocket scientist, albeit only for a few years (it doesn't pay well...) Engage brain before fingers...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Like the England rugby team?
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
I think userfriendly said it best.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
What's with you people and your Beagle jokes. Why haven't people realized yet (After we've been talking about this for weeks) that the MER landing sites are very far away from Beagle and that nothing would be gained anyway from visiting the "crash" site. I still see /.ers think Beagle was a US venture or don't realize that MER is an international effort (Although NASA paid for most of it.)
./ posters were informed... but I guess I am new here.
I thought
Beyond Beagle
Meanwhile, UK science minister, Lord Sainsbury, who was at a Beagle news conference in North London on Monday, gave the strongest indication yet that the British Government would help fund the European Space Agency's (Esa) Aurora programme.
"We need to be working with Esa to ensure that, in some form, there is a Beagle 3 that takes forward this technology. I very much hope that the Aurora programme which is currently being developed by Esa will take forward this kind of exploration."
The Aurora programme is Esa's bold vision to land probes, and perhaps eventually, astronauts on the Red Planet.
From here.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
and I'm guessing you all know enough not to confuse metric and English units... Our space program hasn't exactly had a lot of success lately, so perhaps people get a little rowdy when something actually does go right - either that or someone's been reading too many articles about the righteousness of our foreign policy in Neocon Weekly.
Considering the failure rate of space missions and the difficulty of correcting mistakes, I'm suprised that anyone actually goes into space.
only country to attempt to go to the moon (russians never wanted to go, nor planned to go) sending shit out the solar system is nothing, u just push it, first to discover life on mars? we'll see...
The Russians planned and tried to go to the moon. But when we got there first, they gave out that story of "Nyah, we never wanted to go to that dirty ol' moon, anyhow!" (insert pout and kicking at the dirt). The soviet space program is well documented and the records have been declassified.
Sending stuff out of the solar system is not nothing. I mean there is the matter of escaping the gravity well of the sun. It requires some interesting physics.
Life on Mars, well, that is debatable. Scientists have claimed to find simple fossilized life in meteorites that were thought to have come from Mars, and there were I think at one time claims that there were were bacteria-like lifeforms on rocks that were brought back from Mars, but the jury is still out. ET has not shown up yet. Still these were NASA discoveries.
What's with the anti-french sentiments?
Know thy history:
"You silly kniggit. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second tahme."
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It was the Mars Express inability to hold little more than 60kg that meant Beagle2 had to meet incredibly tough design rules to even get it on Mars Express.
BBC:
"The main constraint was mass - the mothership, Mars Express, could spare only 60 kg for its interplanetary passenger.
That meant a compromise between scientific kit and landing gear. Retro-rockets were not an option. Nor was a transmitter that could have sent radio signals to Earth to give feedback on the landing.
Spirit had both of these, lending high drama to its plunge through the Martian atmosphere. "
Maybe more of an overall failure of ESA's Mars Express than Beagle2's build failure?
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
What's with the anti-french sentiments? I really don't get it. Don't forget that without the french you wouldn't have won the war of independence and you wouldn't have the statue of liberty.
Yes, but after our war for independance France went into a serious decline. It got much much worse after Napoleon. WWII finished them off. Now they don't even fight their own battles anymore. There is not a lot to be proud of with respect to France these days. It is sad, but true.
The Russians did try to go to the moon but they had too many problems with the new rocket. They realized that they would lose the race to the moon and so they focused on space stations in LEO and claimed they never tried to go to the moon. Pride, and all that...
Not Safe For Work!
Well, I mean, unless you're on windows. Then I guess it's just redundant.
So did Spirit.
No, it landed in a lake and was intended to land in a lake, not a small crater (blocking radio signals) that B2 is thought of having unintentionally landed in. But it's just one theory, and it doesn't even matter... It was never a competition anyway.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
should change their method of contact.
"Here Boy! Here Boy!", does not seem to be working anymore.
Sig it.
They named the new crater Beagle II.
No, the Beagle *made* a crater. Big difference. :P
:-P
So you're the single person on Earth knowing what actually happened to it and can exclude all other possibilities like a crater blocking its signal, airbags not deflating, electronics failing, etc.
Hey, that's good to know.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Either my contact lens prescription is woefully out of date, or my brain has veered into wishful-thinking territory.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
Yes, it did. They got signals indicated it descended through the atmosphere. Unfortunately, they don't exactly know what happened afterwards, if it was electronic malfunction, airbag problems, crater blocking signal, heat shield breaking apart, etc
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Are you quoting from "The Sound of Darkness"?
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
We need to tell the martians to stay away from the Toxic Witch's Brew!!
Beagle-2 then was in free-flight, from December 19th til December 25th. Thats 6 days of free flight with no way to really track Beagle-2 nor do anything about it if it were found to be off-course.
Usually a space probe is tracked via the radio signals that are sent to Earth. Speed and location are usually derived from measuring the Doppler effect on the radio singls. I haven't read anything to date about any methods the ESA was able to use after December 19th to verify that Beagle-2 was in the correct position for landing and all. I kept reading stuff saying that "Beagle-2 and Mars Express are now XXX kilometers away from each other", but I'm not sure how they deduced this other than calculating it based on the path and inclination that Beagle-2 *should have* been on. What if it started in an unexpected slow spin after release? What if its angle of attack was over the engineering limit?
Feel free to correct my knowledge if I am off-base here. I'm interested to know if/how ESA was able to contact Beagle-2 between Dec 19th and Dec 25th when it was in free flight.
Contrast that to the Spirit mission at 800mil. USD.
Europe thought they had a better angle on better, faster, cheaper. Thanks to the US and now Europe's attempts along these lines, we at least have a better idea of what is probably "too cheap for Mars".
And by landed on we mean crashed into.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Shouldn't Henry Rollins be hosting coverage of this long distance robot war?
check ESA Mars Express Orbiter Details to see how much more scientific data the european mission will return, even though some 20% of the mission failed.
- 3D imaging will reveal the topography of Mars in full colour
- build up a map of surface composition in 100 m squares, also measure aspects of atmospheric composition
- build up measurements of ozone and water vapour over the total surface of the planet for the different seasons
- measure the vertical pressure and temperature profile of carbon dioxide which makes up 95% of the martian atmosphere, and look for minor constituents including water, carbon monoxide, methane and formaldehyde
- measure ions, electrons and energetic neutral atoms in the outer atmosphere to reveal the numbers of oxygen and hydrogen atoms
- probe the planet's ionosphere, atmosphere, surface and even the interior
- map the sub-surface structure to a depth of a few kilometres
a lander just creeps around, poking holes in things. orbiter looks closely at the whole planet.
why not let the science results decide who succeeded.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
I'd like to commend the Martian defense personnel. They did an excellent job taking out Beagle 2, but it's too bad they were too "partied out" to get Spirit. Better luck to them next time!
hey!
...while playing a round of golf. Or hiking in a crater. Or retrieving a poorly aimed frisbee. Pausing, they'll see some badly eroded pile of something shiny, walk over to look at it closer, recall a paragraph from their early astrophysics lessons, and radio back to the colony base "Hey Rosco, wasn't it somewhere around here that Beagle2 was lost? Back in '03? Well it's not lost anymore."
Yes, I'm talking about humans on Mars, being casual and knocking about the place, kicking over rocks on a lazy day, sometime in my lifetime. It could be my son or daughter grown up. Or your own, or even yourself if you are young now. Keep that in mind today, it helps to take the edge off this sort of temporary setback.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Beagle2 was only 'the lander' of Mars Express.
On the website we can read:
The Mars Express Orbiter will:
image the entire surface at high resolution (10 m/pixel) and selected areas at super resolution (2 m/pixel)
produce a map of the mineral composition of the surface at 100 m resolution
map the composition of the atmosphere and determine its global circulation
determine the structure of the sub-surface to a depth of a few kilometres
determine the effect of the atmosphere on the surface
determine the interaction of the atmosphere with the solar wind
All of that sounds really cool.
Iraq: war to save the U
Uh, where in my post did I participate in the American-European rivalry?
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
... some martian has silenced Beagle with a large mallet.
I bet it was playing Blur in cheap on-hold music style (think greensleeves). That would drive anyone crazy.
Russia did want to do a moon landing, but the US wouldn't let them use the sound stage.
The base station of the US pathefinder was photographed by the high resolution orbiter. It only filled a few pixels, so you had to stretch your imagination to believe the black and white pixels matche the orientation of the airbags and base respectively.
I think there was a weak attempt to locate the failed 1999 lander's parachute photographically. The high resolution camera can only see miniscule parts of the surface.
Well, there is absolutely nothing to be proud of with respect to the US, or is there?
Sure there is. We have the strongest economy and the largest GNP in the world. We have the greatest technology (though I fear that may change if we do not shape up) in the world. We have the strongest military. We invented the computer you are using to connect to the website (also invented here) over the internet (invented here) using broadband (invented here) or the telephone (also invented here). Slashdot itself was invented here and is hosted here.
Another thing to be proud of with respect to the US is that our citizens clearly do care about what happens in the rest of the world, as evidenced by our work as the global police. True, we get a lot of flak over it, but the US has endeavoured to do some very good things with its technology and powerful military. If teh US was really bent on world domination, it would be a dark dark world indeed. But Americans don't want to dominate the world, they want other people to live free like we do. Nothing illustrates this better than what happened in WWII, where every country occupied by the US ended up being a liberated democracy whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis.
What confuses most people, Americans included, is the actions of our government in recent decades. There are clearly people in our government with Imperialist attitudes about things, and right now those people are more powerful than ever before, more popular, and more arrogant. So we have a serious chance of losing what makes us great right now. This is why ordinary Americans need to recall why we are proud to be Americans. Step up to the plate, speak out, and say no to those who seek to dominate other human beings.
Strange day when the now 2 week old fact that Beagle 2 was a failure is still considered news to /. editors, but the successful Spirit probes impending rover deployment gets no mention, nor does the new high resolution stereograms.
It's not life as we know it.
Only the Brits could claim to hear silence.
second to send first man into space
So we were second to be first, eh? Well, that's quite an honor!
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
Hm. Seeing as the Germans, at least, are responsible for one of the science instruments on the MERs, you are wrong. And, by the way, having Beagle fail is not "success" in the way normal people define it.
A) refers to the failed Mars Explorer mission, where a lot of money and effort was wasted because someone forgot to check that the units in the design were written in English units rather than in metric (or vice versa). It wasn't exactly the high point in American space exploration (although it isn't the low point either). I think it happened in 1998.
>Sure there is. We have the strongest economy and
>the largest GNP in the world. We have the
>greatest technology (though I fear that may
>change if we do not shape up) in the world. We
>have the strongest military. We invented the
>computer you are using to connect to the website
>(also invented here) over the internet (invented
>here) using broadband (invented here) or the
>telephone (also invented here). Slashdot itself
>was invented here and is hosted here.
Thanks for that. America did not invent
* the computer.
* websites (or the WWW).
* the telephone.
* Broadband encompases many technologies, including 3G techs, not all of which can be claimed to be invented by america.
Also, currently the EU has a larger GNP then America.
I will give you the military though as you seem so proud of it.
But wait 800-1000 years, by then the Red Planet may have been terraformed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Of course they did make several unmanned landings. What I hadn't realised was that in 1976 they also had a probe return samples to Earth.
The scope of this mission is larger than for beagle is it not? Also it is 800 million for both Spirit AND Opportunity. If we find water and if we find there was/is life on mars, it will have been worth it and then some. Bill Nye the science guy defended the missions with a great analogy.
Paraphrased Question: "Isn't that a lot of money that could go to better use?"
Paraphrased Answer: "Not really, if you go to a fancy coffee store you will have spent your contribution towards the mission"
I am a Republican, and as such I am selective about which government programs I endorse. This is one though for two reasons.
One, privately there is little incentive to perform this type of science. Two research for these missions goes to help our military develop the next generation of equipment.
A third less obvious (or less tangible) reason is to inspire a generation of kids to dream about the prospects of a future in science or engineering. If kids want to be astronauts instead of athletes, you will have most fail, but those that want to be astronauts will at least have a path laid for higher education.
--Joey
... it is only that you guys take it to fanatical extremes.
Excesses are generally bad on my book.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis
You make some good points, but you *really* ought to check yourself on this one. Try telling some old Soviet tank commander, or some little old babushka that the Nazis were their friends, and you'll be lucky if you walk away from the incident. A lot of Russians hate and distrust Germans in general, and Nazis in particular, with a passion that most people find hard to comprehend. Considering the nearly 40 million Russians/Soviets that died as the result of 2 German invasions, I can't say I blame them. The USSR did a lot of horrible things, but being friends of the Nazis? Never.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
telephone (also invented here).
No, invented here (Canada).
Another thing to be proud of with respect to the US is that our citizens clearly do care about what happens in the rest of the world, as evidenced by our work as the global police.
"We bomb you because we care!"
You can't take the sky from me...
The Russians planned and tried to go to the moon. But when we got there first
Their robots got there first...
You can't take the sky from me...
Isn't that off the "Tunnel Under Troubled Water" album?
1. Recover bodies from first Manned Mars Mission. .
2. Recover Beagle 2
3. Recover other failed Mars probe missions. .
4. Science
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Its like discovering a cure for cancer, who cares who discovers it first as long as its discovered.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
mars is high risk. they should have known better by now. there are enough data points to show they made they wrong decision even before they launched ...
website : CERN (Switzerland)
broadband : ??? ADSL - Alcatel (France)
telephone : Bell (Canada)
Big Mac : who gives a shit (USA)
Just love those crappy posts who seem to score on Slashdot... you just have to wonder what they are smoking !
The budget was not the only constraint - the Beagle probe was built in a staggeringly quick space of time.
Mod parent and everyone who participates in "Yeah!/Boo! America" in this thread down please.
Personally I think I should be getting "Insightful" modpoints. Look at all the discussion my parent post has generated! I'm not kidding here!
We've seen this discussion bounce through many facts about space travel, to say the least which have been on topic and on discussion with the original story section "space" We've examined which countries were first at what, and who were the men behind these achievements in space exploration.
I think my original parent post was OK. It should at least get a +3 Funny
http://deadbrain.co.uk/news/article_2004_01_04_542 1.php
Nice Marmot
If the beagle had succeded and spirit had failed what would the Euroopeans be saying?
I speak from complete ignorance and wishful thinking, but wouldn't it be possible to calculate the general area where the lander may have fallen and take pictures from orbit? Maybe the resolution of the cameras is not enough though... and the orbiters have probably better things to do than look for the Beagle2 like this.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
I'm confused. I mean, I'll give you the Web, that was not invented by US citizens. The grandparent was wrong on that one. But computers and phones? Hmm. Looked up phones on the Web and it appears that Antonio Meucci really invented the phone, not Alexander Bell. OK. Computers? Doesn't this depend upon whether you view the z3 or ENIAC as the first "real" computer? They each have some concepts that resemble computers today, but also each do bits differently. The ENIAC was US. The z3 was German (I think, I can't recall). I don't know, maybe you're thinking of Turing or someone as the true father of computer. Whatever the case, while at least 2 of those items appear to be legitimately invented elsewhere, all 3 got 0wn3d by the USA. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the USA was the center of power for adoption of those devices. I'm comfortable with that. For most US citizens, the source of pride isn't necessarily that we bred it, but that we fed it.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
I didn't know that has ever happened. We've sent stuff there, starting in 1976, but are you sure we (i.e., Terrans) ever managed to bring samples back? And what mission was that?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The victim of lame slashdot humor. It never had a chance.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
While the dye you mention is probably a joke, having a radioactive liquid that would spill on a catastrophic crash would be released. The dye would obviously not be visible at all, but we do have the technology to track radiation from quite a ways away...
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
... was the "It isn't enough that I succeed: Someone else must fail" kind of mentality that underscored the IRC messages from JPL.
If someone goes around shouting "We No.1, We No 1!", and they really are number one, fine. They're a bit OTT and demonstrative, but still, fine.
It's when someone, anyone, goes around shouting "We No. 1 - you shit!", that patience wears a bit thin.
Best,
T&K.
Political language
Damn, those martians shot down another one of our probes!
Perhaps someday a martian will stumble across it, fix it, make it intelligent, and Bagel will come back to us searching for its Creator.
Bouston, this is Bission Bontrol: The Beagle has etcetera...
"Yes, I'm talking about humans on Mars, being casual and knocking about the place, kicking over rocks on a lazy day, sometime in my lifetime. It could be my son or daughter grown up."
Well, of course, it's the logical next place to colonize. All those cheaply-built colonies we tossed up on the moon in the 1970s are starting to show their age, and spacefare to the Lagrange-point stations is at an all time low, so anyone can afford to go! Pack the kids into your nuclear-powered flying cars and get to the local spaceport today, the martian homesteading rush is about to begin.
0 1 - just my two bits
whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis
You make some good points, but you *really* ought to check yourself on this one. Try telling some old Soviet tank commander, or some little old babushka that the Nazis were their friends, and you'll be lucky if you walk away from the incident. A lot of Russians hate and distrust Germans in general, and Nazis in particular, with a passion that most people find hard to comprehend. Considering the nearly 40 million Russians/Soviets that died as the result of 2 German invasions, I can't say I blame them. The USSR did a lot of horrible things, but being friends of the Nazis? Never.
The USSR was never friends with the Nazis? You do realize that had Stalin not allowed Hitler to build weapons in Soviet factories and train troops on Soviet soil that he was not supposed to have he would never have been ready to start WWII, don't you? Then there was that bit about the nonagression pact they had with one another. Oh, and there's also the fact the the USSR traded with Hitler providing much-needed petroleum products without which the war would have likewise not been possible.
Though Hitler opposed Communism, both Stalin and Hitler ran similar regimes. They befriended one another in order to carve up Europe. Yes, it went sour for them, and I am sure the Soviet tank commanders did not like the Germans after that even if they had liked them before (hint, there are centuries at least of animosity between Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany, and for good reason). But the USSR and the Nazi regime were indeed friends and helped one another enslave the people of Europe.
When the allies defeated Hitler, Stalin made sure that he would not lose his gains. Eastern Europe was under Soviet domination. But wait, there is more. The Soviet states were actually under Russian domination the whole time, and the USSR gained several states.
Speaking of which I think you will find that the majority of Soviet losses were in fact losses from nonRussian states, most of all from Ukraine. Ukraine fought on three sides at least in the war. There were Ukrainian SS troops fighting for the Germans, Ukrainian Red Army troops fighting for Stalin, and Ukrainian partisans fighting for Ukraine. It all added up to a lot of Ukrainians being killed in battle besides the massive civilian casualties. The civilians were starved and attacked by all sides.
The tale in other Soviet states is very similar. In addition vast numbers of the native populations were deported to Siberia. As for the Red Army losses, these were exacerbated by Stalin's refusal to accept escaped POWs or any form of retreat. Sometimes the troops who were goading units into battle with orders to shoot any Red Army soldier who came back were better equipped than those who were fighting.
Now that I think about it, it probably was disengenuous to say it the way I did because it might imply that the average Soviet citizen liked and approved of what was happening. That is certainly not the case. Stalin is the real culprit here. But that is just it. You get the US or you get Stalin. Personally I think the US way is better. And trust me, as much as I dislike Bush, I prefer him to Putin just as much as I would have FDR to Stalin.
No, [the telephone was] invented here (Canada).
Canadians love to claim this, but it's basically untrue. Bell was born and educated in Scotland, then he moved to London in 1867 (at age 20). In 1870 he moved to canada, and then in 1872 (just two years in canada) he moved to the US. The telephone was officially unveiled in the US, four years later in 1876. The patents for the telephone are all filed in the US.
One reason canada likes to claim the telephone as their own is because bell occasionally visited canada for long periods (as much as 6 months at a time) before he invented the telephone, and then continued to do this even after 1876. He also probably made some key discoveries in the 2 years he officially lived there. But, by this logic, scotland has more claim the telephone than canada, simply because he was there a lot more before the invention.
At any rate, he was an American citizen, and proud to be one at that.
website : CERN (Switzerland)
broadband : ??? ADSL - Alcatel (France)
telephone : Bell (Canada)
Big Mac : who gives a shit (USA)
Just love those crappy posts who seem to score on Slashdot... you just have to wonder what they are smoking !
I'll give you the web. I was clearly wrong. I had conflated invention of the graphical web browser (US) with invention of the web.
I was right about US companies (AT&T and Time-Warner) coming up with broadband, however. Likewise Alexander Graham Bell was a US citizen and a patriot, so you are wrong to attribute him to Canada. Someone else expounded on this better than I could in this thread.
But hey, go invent something in your country and make them proud! That is what this is all about anyway.
Thanks for that. America did not invent ...
* the computer.
Also, currently the EU has a larger GNP then America.
I will give you the military though as you seem so proud of it.
Actually I was pretty sure we did invent the computer. All the early computers, from Babbage's analytical engine to the ENIAC etc were designed in the USA. Nevertheless, I was directly referring to the personal computer which was invented by Steve Wozniac and Steve Jobs, two fine upstanding Americans.
As for the EU, well, it's not a country now is it? I think that's eventually in the cards but adoption of the Euro will be important to that and there are some difficulties. Nevertheless, I think we should ramp up if Europe has somehow overtaken us as a collective in GNP. I mean after all if we are going to top them in defense spending then we should top GNP as well.
As for the military, I am proud that that military has kept the world safe from dictators and bullies. By the way that includes keeping Europe safe after it was proven Europeans themselves could not do that. A lot of Europeans are proud of the grand social programs they have and the many investments in infrastructure their countries' governments have made. But I wonder if that would be possible if the Europeans had to even come close to paying their equal share for UN and NATO costs. You should think about that next time you want to complain about teh US being a global policeman.
I didn't know that has ever happened. We've sent stuff there, starting in 1976, but are you sure we (i.e., Terrans) ever managed to bring samples back? And what mission was that?
Probably this was a case of the news reports being confusing. I remembered a lot of reports of "rocks from mars with life on them" which must have been the same story as the first one.
"There's a 73 Kg limit (including all the airbags, entry heat-shield, and the actual payload) for the entire mission"
there *was*
obviously you cant go back in time to retrofit a beacon on Beagle 2.
is the next beagle mission going to have a 73kg weight limit?
Anybody remember when all the Mars missions were supposedly being "sabotaged" (read: stopped working) several decades ago, and NASA jokingly blamed it on the "Great Galactic Ghoul?"
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Whenever I read obvious BS like this on /. I bookmark the post, wait until I get new mod points and mod it down once I do.
We had your kind of patriotism in Germany too once you know? It's called fascism now.
Well if you are truly German perhaps reports of superior German education are unfounded after all. Allow me to give you a demonstration in political science 101.
What you are referring to in actually Nationalism. A firm belief that your country is the best. Nationalism gets a bad rap in part because of situations like Nazi Germany. But it is really not evil in itself to think your country is the best in the world. The trick is to work to make it so. If you do not have pride in your country, and do not work to make your country better, your civilization will ultimately fall.
Besides, what is wrong with having pride in one's country? Someone said that the US had nothing to be proud of. I refuted them and gave some of the myriad reasons US citizens have to be proud. What is wrong with that?
What would you say if I claimed Germany had nothing to be proud of? Would you not defend your country and speak of its rich cultural traditions, beautiful landscape (and women), beer and sausages, excellent automobiles, and kick-ass highway system? Is being proud of national achievements really fascist? Of course it isn't.
Fascism is the belief that society should be strictly controlled by a strong leader. Examples of Fascism in action are Fascist Italy and Spain and Nazi Germany during and before WWII. I have never advocated fascism and I never will. I believe strongly in freedom, democracy, and self-reliance. These are, by the way the cornerstones of American (US) philosophy of which we are likewise very proud.
Another thing to be proud of with respect to the US is that our citizens clearly do care about what happens in the rest of the world, as evidenced by our work as the global police.
"We bomb you because we care!"
Actually, here in the US there is a group called "Food not Bombs" who distribute food to the homeless. Now imagine their surprise when they found that we were dropping food and bombs simultaneously on Afghanistan. Well, at least we got it half right :P.
The difference and analytical engines wew design by a Brit in the UK. The Z3 was German and the bombes and in particular, Colossus for code cracking were British, albeit the bombes had some Polish input. The first commercial electronic computer was built by a British company as was the first virtual memory computer. Essentially it wasn't until the superior buying power of major corporations and the US government spurred development over in the US. The European market was very fragmented then and without a large single domestic market, they fell behind.
You will find out that almost all EU countries contribute a much larger share of non-military foreign aid to the rest of the world. Although the military contributions are smaller, the social programmes make up for this. Unhappy people and unstable countries make poor neighbours and an effective recruiting ground for terrorists.
Also you will find that unlike the US, the EU countries have been paying their share of the UN. The US has in the past refused to pay and they are only doing so now by renegotiating their contributions downwards.
Indeed, and a rover, too. The first one of its kind I believe.
whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis. - Like the man on /. used to say: if I ever meet you, I will kick your ass. Don't even reply to me, freaking fascist.
You can't handle the truth.
Some older Russians may distrust Germans, but the younger ones aren't bothered. The Germans had a history of working with the Russians dating back to Peter the Great. There was a large contingent of Russians of German ethnic origin (mostly descendents of farmers invited by Catherine the Great), although many have taken up their right to relocate to Germany. Catherine herself was born in Darmstadt, Germany.
A little known fact is the Soviet Union did get to the moon first. The United States manned moon landing was made shortly afterwards. Another fact is that without British and continental European assistance the United States would have come second in the manned programme. Rather than dwell on the PR oversights that encouraged you to come to the conclusions you have, I'm pleased to see Europe, Russia, China, India, and Japan, have started producing PR that better reflects their own considerable achievements.
I'm greatly encouraged by the enthusiasm with which many politicans and members of the public have shown towards Beagle. Putting technological achievements aside, this alone makes the project a success. Professor Pillinger is still of the belief that Beagle will bark, and isn't giving up hope until all possibilities have been exhausted. I share that belief. And that is probably the greatest triumph. Professor Pillinger has helped remind us what a sense of wonder and hope for a better world can achieve.
It's probly just hung up in Martian Customs. The poor ole' Beagle might be undergoing a cavety search this very moment.
Have a flare of some kind that spews out BLUE/GREEN smoke/crap that lands on the surface and stays there for years. and it about 100 feet long too, like powdered colored crap. use 4 of them in a cross config so you can work out where it is.
Total weight, 1kg max.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Time to build 50 of the damn beagles and launch them at once 73 * 50 = 3600kg, easily launched on a Titan5 or Ariane5. Sure it might cost $120m to launch, and be hard to fit 50 landers in one bigass probe, but hey, it would be the best result ever! with 20-50 locations being rovered at the same time.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It's a matter of too much too soon.
Give it a few years. The aliens will make their big poo-bah appearance soon enough. (They're already practically oozing out around the edges as it is!) Then the fan will really take a hit, all veils will burn away, etc.
Personally, I think it'll be a challenge just to stay alive for the next five-eight years to see all this stuff go down. --What with the draft, economic collapses and military lock-downs coming, disease-cities becoming death traps with road blocks to prevent you from leaving, and such. Among other things.
It's true that the future isn't set, but not enough people are working to act in favor of their future selves. (There really is a ton of things you can do. Stop eating all the amazing poisons put in your food, for a start. Clear your head. Soy is one such example, containing toxins which prevent mineral and protien uptake in your body. It's also filled with plant-based eostrogen, (yes guys, that would be 'Female Growth Hormones'. Why do you think Asians are so small? Hint: it's not the exuse you've been sold.) And best of all, soy has managed to creep into practically every foodstuff on the market. Look it up.)
But really. . . At this point I've more or less given up on humanity as a whole. Mars probes be damned. Anybody who does enough digging will know more or less what is being seen on the red planet but not shared.
Though, it's nice to see that so few people are calling me nuts these days. When I was warning everybody about this stuff back in 2001, the cat calls were just harsh.
Fear is Food, so don't get spooked. Grow a spine, look reality dead on, and you'll win.
-FL
Bravely navigate the endless black depths of space to a new and strange planet. Then crash.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
And you know what? It is concensus that it is unacceptable to make such a statement. Do it and you will be denounced a frigging Nazi pig. It is fine to be 'thankfull' or 'gratefull'. But 'proud'? That would be too much. Don't belive me? Ask any of your German friends - should you have any.
Maybe this give some of you an idea how your biased patriotism sounds in the ears of contemporary Germans who has been tought over and over again that 'patriotism' == 'fascism' == 'dead jews' == 'YOUR fault'.
Just my 0.02 Euro.
-- Contradictions only exist in thought - not in reality.
- The fact that you now have some drone browsing some red planet's surface and others don't
or
- The fact that meanwhile you feel unearthly superiority over other earthlings and write about it to /. the FBI is browsing all your accounts and financial data without informing you - and it's perfectly legal. And much, much more.
I just wonder if I really should feel that sad about all this Beagle ping timeout thing..
I live a common life, therefore i prioritize
-el
Looks like they found the problem:
crash image
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Not quite. See here.
I reckon it was smashed to bits on landing. The Beagle 2 team had problems when testing one of the landing bags at a vacuum facility in the US; basically, the bags burst, and the team realised that they had to use a lower pressure and compromise on a few other items to save on weight. One compromise too far I think.
My web domain.
Hi,
since Mars Express - which I'd consider to be the most important part of the project - is working perfectly, there will be a stereo-camera with a resolution of 2m (Meters) orbiting the planet.
This might be enough to see what happened to the poor little doggie.
There are a lot of great instruments aboard Mars Express, you can find all the information about them on The ESA Site
k2r
What you are referring to in actually Nationalism
Besides, what is wrong with having pride in one's country?
"Nationalism is an infantile sickness, it is the measles of the human race. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!" Albert Einstein
Would be nice, of course, but that kind of money will be daaaamn hard to come by these days.
Maybe one day, but probably not before we have a big-ass camera on the orbit to point out truely safe landing sites and maybe even few human operators on that side of the solar system orchestrating the thing.
Well, maybe the Chinese can get anyone else to crap their pants and kick-start western space exploration again...
It's more subtle than your 101. Defining Fascism narrowly as a political belief misses some defining features: directing public opinion and support by playing up to people's nationalist passions and prejudices (demagoguery).
This is exactly what a European sees in Bush. See how easily the US gov't has been able to manipulate public opinion and get support by bashing the French in the Iraq question rather than addressing the actual issues. He's ridden roughshod over democratic principles in domestic policy and is detaining civilian prisoners without access to a lawyer in Guantanamo, all in the name of "national security".
You must realise that European history is really about nationalism and the hurt that has caused. People look at lessons from their own history when they interpret the present. Some Europeans look at America today and see the mistakes from their past: nationalism, jingoism, demagoguery, imperialism, colonialism, crusades, concentration camps and war. Europeans are very cautious, pessimistic and critical because of these lessons. They teach us that things are rarely simple, clear cut or 100% certain and that there is always another side to the story.
Nothing wrong with being patriotic or being proud of your country as such. However, there's the issue of "we're best" being very close to "I'm better than you" and the implications that has. Jingoism and racism are the darker side of nationalism.
Nationalism is a good motivator, but it can be dangerous as a political tool. It's also not a very clever way of dealing with people from other countries on a personal level when you have an attitude that says "we're better than you." Things work much smoother on all levels when you try to be respectful of their right to be who they are.
I'm sure most Americans act in good faith. What were the lessons for the US from its history, for example WWII? How do they affect American thinking?
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
That's not what that dig was about though, was it? Your problem is presumably not that France won't fight their own battles, but rather that they won't fight *yours*.
I think Illiad has the best way of putting it: here
42 + 1 = 42
Germany has a humane society, wonderful arts, excellent science, a great economy and a good social system. I'd be proud to be German.
It's all about how that reflects on how you relate to other people. You can be proud while holding people from less achieving nations as equals.
It's also healthy to base your self esteem on other things than nationality. You shouldn't be ashamed or feel superior on a personal level. You're judged on who *you* are, what you are like and what you do, not what your grandparents did or what kinds of cars some factory churns out in some part of your country.
-- A fellow European from Finland
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Yep, It definetly landed on mars...
...although the exact amount of fragments it landed in is still unknown.
Regards
elFarto
Yeah, the Beagle landed in a crater alright...
The one it made itself when the rentry systems failed.
Like maybe the Beagle was made by British Leyland & just can't cope with wet weather unless a rubber glove is tied arround it's dizzy, I mean its electronics, & it rained on launch day.
Yeah, I don't think that ever happened. That would require landing on mars which we have all seen is difficult in itself but would also require taking back off from Mars. That would probably be more difficult then landing. It would require making it land with enough fuel to take off and get back to earth making it much more dangerous. It would also require more then twice the amount of fuel then a one way mission would. And if it costs near 100 million to take off from earth just think what it would cost to take off from mars.
I seem to remember reports of fossilized bacteria found in meteorites or something like that. I really doubt that it was from mars.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
- Things are the way they are because they're coded that way -
Try spirit.nasa.gov!
Pinging spirit.nasa.gov with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from spirit.nasa.gov bytes =32 time<100ms TTL=128
Reply from spirit.nasa.gov bytes =32 time<100ms TTL=128
Reply from spirit.nasa.gov bytes =32 time<100ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for spirit.nasa.gov: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
Color photos = YES
-A
Actually, here in the US there is a group called "Food not Bombs" who distribute food to the homeless. Now imagine their surprise when they found that we were dropping food and bombs simultaneously on Afghanistan. Well, at least we got it half right :P.
And the "tamper-proof" bombs are the same colour as the food packages!
You can't take the sky from me...
Anyone who has owned a Beagle will tell you what a bad idea it was to name the probe "Beagle". Beagles don't come when called and they get on the trail of a critter and will walk 25 miles.
I only wish you could have sent my beagle to mars instead of the probe...
-- $G
Moral of the story for moderators: I you think something I've posted is off-topic, then do some research or ask a grown-up before moderating it down.
I sympathize with our Euro friends, and am one American who wishes them all well.
But don't understand how a beacon could cost 2.5 kilos? All it would have to be is a pager-like device attached to the batteries, which pings until shut up by other (functioning) circuitry. It could even ping low if neighbor circuitry is dead; medium if it's upside-down; high, if it sees light. Hell, I could have made them one matchbox-size. I'm sure they were concentrating on science devices.
Although, since the cause is really martians carrying the probes into their caves, it wouldn't have helped. (sigh)
Campaign finance reform is national security.
Of course, in my post higher up this discussion I didn't include you, tosspot
No but, yeah but, no but...
> Wow... the EU (almost an entire continent) has
> a GNP larger than America (one country).
Most of the EU is on the Asian continent.
Therefore the member countries (often called states) occupy only a small percentage of the continent.
The USA is one country that covers about the same land area as all of the states that make up the EU put together. Like the states of the US the members of the EU have a common currency and shared central bank.
> NAFTA is still larger.. idiot
Why yes, you are an idiot.
Whereas democrats want to raise taxes on the parents of future scientists so that they can't afford to send their kids to universities. At the same time they redirect that tax money to welfare families so somebody can learn to bounce a ball better and get into the NBA. Our priorities are fucked up.
I wouldn't go THAT far, but there is some truth to what you are saying. Getting kids interested in science and engineering will likely provide them with higher salaries so that America and continue its fantastic tradition of a very large middle class.
--Joey
I wasn't certain if I had it right, and I didn't. Thank you
The colossus mark 1 and mark 2 were both working in 1944. Eniac was not finished until 1945.
Babbage was British (1791-1871) and made programmable mechanical computers that were used by the british and american governments.
The EU is not a country but most of its member states share a common currency, have centralised banks, have common regulations regarding trade and migration and human rights. In many respects you could compare the EU now to the US a couple of hundred years ago.
>I am proud that that military has kept the world safe from dictators and bullies
There are an large number of dictator and bullies in the world today. Many of them supported by the US.
I don't know either, just repeating what the head of the project said in one of his briefings.
karma capped
You obviously have not lived in Germany. Raising a German national flag on a flag pole in your garden is enough to be called a Nazi pig. It was hotly publicly debated if one can actually claim 'I am proud to be a German!' (Ich bin stolz ein Deutscher zu sein!).
And you know what? It is concensus that it is unacceptable to make such a statement. Do it and you will be denounced a frigging Nazi pig. It is fine to be 'thankfull' or 'gratefull'. But 'proud'? That would be too much. Don't belive me? Ask any of your German friends - should you have any.
Maybe this give some of you an idea how your biased patriotism sounds in the ears of contemporary Germans who has been tought over and over again that 'patriotism' == 'fascism' == 'dead jews' == 'YOUR fault'.
Just my 0.02 Euro.
I am somewhat aware of the detrimental effects of overdoing denazification, but I did not know how far it had gone. That is sad. Germans have a lot of things of which to be proud. It is sad that Hitler took power and planned to destroy Germany, as well as the Jews, but he is dead now. Let us bury the Nazis, not praise them, but don't bury Germany with them.
I have befriended a few Germans here and there and have found those I have met among the most conscientious, intelligent, and friendly people I have known. So be proud to be German. You have a rich history, a fair dinkum present, and a glorious future ahead.
Let's see...If we are talking about exploration of the space...and you are all saying how proud you are of being american...why dont you say what country was the first to put up a space shuttle around the earth? or the first to take a human being on space? IT WAS NOT AMERICA. You seem to forget your errors and only put your success. That's the problem with americans, you are always saying that the world owes you everything, but you dont seem to accept that you have errors (Apolo I, Iraq, support for the dictators in latin america, support Bin Laden, Vietnam, etc). I'm sorry but I must hate you...my father was tortured and killed in Chile (a regime that you support) only because he traveled to the USSR and eastern europe. My kudos for been responsible of a massacre and actually feeling proud about it (we did it because the security of the world), I dont know how do you expect to not be hated by all the countries you destroyed, only because you tought that was the right thing to do. You are not angels, you are not saviors, you are not heros (nobody IS) trying to impose your LIBERTY by the force (or supporting a regime) is only making you worst that the regime that was before you.
Same goes to the Spirit and Beagle2, I'm glad that you feel proud of having success, but remember to learn from errors or you will only have an awful revenge.
Cheers.
I did not list our numerous sins and errors specifically because I was replying to a post that asked of what Americans can be proud. If you read my other posts you will find I am often highly critical of the US and its leadership.
There are few things in our history more shameful than our policy in Latin America. I think the main problem here was that our leaders were driven by capitalism rather than democracy. And it was a particularly insidious form of capitalism as well, in which only the very few gain anything at all, off the backs of the many workers. That was wrong, and if I ever attain political office, it will be something I will strive to correct. If I ever see anyone running for office who promises to change this I will vote for them.
The average american is not a corporate CEO or a VP for United Fruit. The average american works hard for what they have and would like the rest of teh world to succeed and have freedom as well. Do not mistake the actions of a few for the will of America.
Also it is a mistake to think of the US as a single ethnic background, and to a large extent it is different from most other countries in this way. All of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are made up mostly of immigrants, but of the countries in this hemisphere the US is the most desirable for immigration precisely because it offers unparalleled opportunities for immigrants. The best and the brightest from all over the world come to the US to live. This is, by the way, what Confucius said should be the goal of nations. You want to make your country the best place to live in in the world so that the best people will be falling over themselves to come there and make it even better.
I have never supported any dictator, nor terrorist anywhere. My tax dollars probably did, but they were a drop in the bucket. So far as these things have ever been submitted for my review I have always opposed them. I think that is typical of most americans, which is why the support of dictators is generally secret. When americans learn that the CIA is helping dictator X oppress his people, or that the Army School of the Americas is churning out expert torturers, they cry for blood. There have been several cases where this goes into trial, like Iran-Contra. Granted, the ultimate response of the government is less than should be desired, but that is what happens when you elect elitists to run the country.
I hope that by continuing to promote pride in the US we can make people proud enough to fight the elitists and antidemocratic forces. I pray that this leads to us helping our neighbours lead better lives without fear of reprisals. And I hope they can forgive the past when we have finally buried these demons.
... of people who can point fingers at space failures and say "I could to that better".
;)
You know, like most of Slashdot
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Yeah, I don't think that ever happened. That would require landing on mars which we have all seen is difficult in itself but would also require taking back off from Mars. That would probably be more difficult then landing. It would require making it land with enough fuel to take off and get back to earth making it much more dangerous. It would also require more then twice the amount of fuel then a one way mission would. And if it costs near 100 million to take off from earth just think what it would cost to take off from mars.
I seem to remember reports of fossilized bacteria found in meteorites or something like that. I really doubt that it was from mars.
No, actually the scientists did think the meteorite was from Mars. Here is one story.
And here is NASA's take on it. As I said, I was confused and after thinking about it a bit realized that this had to be the only instance of Mars rocks, for the reasons described. By the way, it would not take twice as much fuel to bring rocks back from Mars because Mars gravity is 0.11G. It's quite a bt tougher than bringing back moon rocks, but it could be done in theory. I had thought that perhaps we could send a probe to mars that was capable of taking off later, but we have not done that yet.
Yes, but bell didn't invent the telephone. It was Meucci (according to the US Patent Office, given that Meucci sought to patent it first). See http://www.popular-science.net/history/meucci_bell .html
Yes, yes. Antonio Meucci, a fine, upstanding, Italian-American. Don't you get it? This is the whole point. Einstein was born in Germany, but persecuted for his Jewish background, so he comes to the US. The best minds from all over the world come to the US. US superiority is not racist ethnic superiority. It is superiority granted by the fact that people like living here and come here from all over.
or the telephone (also invented here)
According the the US patent office, invented in Cuba by an Italian who later registered his invention on a time limited patent in the USA, which he couldn't afford to keep up the payments for. Later patented by Bell.
Lots of countries didn't invent the things for which they are popularly attributed the inventions. E.g. UK - TV (actually invented by the French), Radar (Germans), jet engines (Romanians)
As I pointed out earlier in this thread, Meucci immigrated to the US and in fact filed his patent there, not in Cuba. TV I had thought was invented in the US but we will give that one a pass for now. Radar and Jet Engines you have no excuse for. The fact the British had Radar before the Germans was a deciding factor in the Battle of Britain. The US also developed Radar, but I am reasonably certain that of the three it was the Brits who first deployed it correctly and who continued throughout the war to have the best radar equipment. (IIRC they came up with onboard radar for aircraft first as well).
I never read anything about Romanians having anything to do with jet engines. The Germans had the most advanced jet engines and created the first functional jet aircraft, but the US and I think the British were working toward it. It was not until after the war that they got on this in earnest, however, using data from Germany.
Speaking of not invented here.. I think it is exceedingly odd that France does not pasteurize their dairy products. I know that they are not alone in this and have even been told unpasteurized dairy is better. But still....
Americans are not free. To be free you'd at least have to be able to support your self without the permission of others.
Look at your basic needs: A house. May you cut down some trees and build one, where you see fit? No, you need permission(s).
How about food? Well unless your a native (not including eskimos) you may only hunt/eat whatever your community tells you to.
That's two major causes that makes me say that you are not free.
America is not a free land, you must conform.
Firstly, it is plainly understood that human society requires conformity to rules. This conformity is willingly undertaken because if we do not live according to agreed upon rules humans cannot occupy the same space peaceably.
Secondly you can certainly support yourself in the USA without the permission of others. This is a basic tenet of our philosophy. You can also cut down trees on land you own. In some areas, like Alaska, you can still obtain a homestead and build your cabin there and live on it. Subsistence hunting is allowed (with a permit of course). But the rules that restrict this are there to protect the rights of the citizenry. I cannot come and chop down YOUR trees. I cannot take all the animals for myself and slaughter them wholesale. I have to share and that sharing occurrs according to previously agreed-upon rules. That does not mean we are not free.
"whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis." - Like the man on /. used to say: if I ever meet you, I will kick your ass. Don't even reply to me, freaking fascist.
Yes, it is obvious that my words were misunderstood. It is wrong to attribute the actions of a country, particularly a dictatorship like the USSR under Stalin, to the people in that country. That is not really what I meant by my statement, however. The USSR was essentially a Russian empire, and the Soviets did enslave the people both within the USSR and within the Soviet Bloc. Stalin was a power-hungry dictator who entered his pact with Hitler precisely in order to better extend his empire. He exploited the non-aggression pact for this purpose.
When the USSR fought the Nazis, the end result was that even more of Europe was enslaved by Stalin than would have been had Hitler left the USSR alone. My point was taht whereas the USSR brought slavery and misery wherever it went, the US made people more free than before and gave them strong economies. It was a major philosophical difference.
For the record, I am not a fascist. In fact I am vehemently antifascist. I am also not necessarily against communism as an idea. I do disagree with most implementations to date because they have all revolved around the removal of all freedom from the individual. For any nation, choking freedom is killing yourself.
I think that for now Capitalism has the best chance of working, mainly because it uses both the best and worst aspects of human nature to survive. It works best when everyone has equal opportunity however, and gets damned ugly when they do not.
Radar was originally researched by a german scientist. The first usable radar for locating ships and planes was britisht ors/blrad ar.htm
i story.html
2 08/bell .html
http://inventors.about.com/library/inven
Jet engines are creditied to Whittle and Ohain (britain and germany) however there are a number of other claiments.
http://www.aircraftenginedesign.com/h
As for the telephone, well that is also a debated area.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20031
matfud
> Firstly, it is plainly understood that human society requires conformity to rules. This conformity is willingly undertaken because if we do not live according to agreed upon rules humans cannot occupy the same space peaceably.
A cynical view, that I question. Still I see no point to value "living peaceably with rules" higher then "living maybe not so peaceably without rules".
The first option implies you to impose rules on your neighboor. Rules that govern how they should live, a way of life that you may think of as peaceful. Right?
If you do this to your neighboor, it means, by its very nature, that you are restricting what he may do. You can not argue that this isn't restricting his freedom. It does.
Peaceful, perhaps. Freedom, no.
Actually they are always free to reject the rules. Anyone can do anything at any time. Other people may make consequences in addiotion to the natural consequences of these actions, but still the choice is there. In theory these rules are agreed upon by neighbours. Yes in practice democracy makes this law to a certain degree but stil has limitations. Despite this, I am still free to decide my own rules as are my neighbours. If we agree, and do not involve the authorities in any way, then in essence we have created a mini-anarchic state. This is more common in the US that you might think.
It might be so minor as not calling the cops when yur neighbours have a loud party as you too have loud parties or do not care. Or not telling that they are drunk outside of the normal confines of law or god forbid using illegal intoxicants. It goes so far as to have entire communities which exist in the wilderness living according to their own definition of what is right, even if it involves such taboos as nudism or polygamy. This is the natural state of human beings which is normally invisible because there are so many enforcers for social mores and laws. Still it exists. Humans are free and are meant to be so by their creator. Our founding fathers understood this and when they created this nation they codified this idea into law. It is with this attitude that governments shoudl govern, if at all, that their power is derived from the people, and that the people agree to the laws they will obey. All else is folly.