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ESA Cryosat Launch Reported Failure
hptux06 writes "Earlier today the ESA lauched their "Cryosat" satellite, designed to monitor ice levels across the Arctic/Antarctic. It's being reported a failure, disappearing 90 minutes after the launch. It cost £90M (160M US$) to build, and was supposed to spend three years determining the effects of global warming." From the article: "The satellite rode into space on a Rockot vehicle, a converted SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile. The rocket, which in the Cold War would have been armed with nuclear weapons, had been modified for peaceful space duties with the addition of a Breeze-KM upper stage. Dr Matthias Oehm, chief executive officer of Eurockot, said they had not received the expected signals from either the spacecraft or the upper stage of the rocket that should have injected it into orbit. "
...they get a replacement up there won't be any ice left to study.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
It was a waste of money anyway. Global Warming is a crock invented by anti-capitalist socialist marxist liberals to deter America's economic success and progress in the world.
I know it's off topic, but does anyone know why it's raining little bits of metal? I just raked the yard ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4323378.stm
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Heard this story the other day, and it seemed appropriate.
Workmate was telling me about one of his professors, who got out of the Soviet Union. While he was still behind the iron curtain, he was a quality control officer for the ICBMs aimed at the US.
One day he was asked by one of his students what would have happened if the Soviet premier would have ordered a launch of these ICBMs.
He replied "Nothing, maybe a few explosions within the silos, but not much more."
In unrelated news, the Pentagon announced that its much critisized anti-ballistic missile system has achieved its first successful test shootdown today. Whitehouse officials rejoiced at the success, heralding it as a sign that the interests of the United States are now even more secure. An unnamed Whitehouse employee and former oil company lobbyist said, "See, all those millions of dollars finally paid off!"
It's funny, laugh!
Because it's not so much a per country-, but a per capita thing. Yes, China might eventually emmitt more than the US. However, like India, they have about four times the population. So when they're on par with the US, then it would still take about four Chinese to produce the same amount of carbon dioxide as one person in the US causes. At the moment, it takes about 20 Indians, so despite their bigger population it will take a while for them to catch up, I guess.
There is a certain correlation between energy consumption and living standard. That doesn't mean it's proportional, though. Much can be saved by increasing efficiency -- better insulation for houses, cars with better milage, modern power plants, that kind of stuff. Still, to a certain degree that correlation is undeniable, and when we in the rich countries say we want to keep our wasteful lifestyles unless the poorer countries reduce their energy consumption, too, then we're saying they're not entitled to a higher living standard than they have today. Since we caused the mess in the first place, I have a bit of a problem with that attitude.
There is no good reason, and that is why Kyoto is flawed. I do have to commend Europe for their work with the environment, but once they play favorites, they lost me on wanting such a treaty for the US.
Try to look at it from our (I'm in Europe) perspective. The science is pretty solid, our climate is changing. Even if there were doubts -- and there aren't any to be taken seriously -- considering what is at risk, we should play it safe. So we try to reduce our energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emmissions in general. But even if Kyoto meets its target, the reductions will be less than the increased output of the US in the same timeframe. We read about the outrage at US gas stations because you now have to pay $3 per gallon. We pay twice as much, so people buy efficient cars.
You use a quarter of the world's oil production, and you could do with much less if there were some decent incentives for efficiency, without lowering your living standard one bit. Instead you point at poor countries where people use a fraction of what we use in our countries before we even have lunch, and claim it's unfair that they don't have to reduce their output. Those are countries where the average person makes much, much less than we make, so if $3 per gallon seems like much for somebody in the US, you can imagine what it means to them even if they would only have to pay the $2 a gallon costs to produce at today's oil prices. Reducing consumption also means less of an impact of higher oil prices due to growing global demand -- do you understand why some see the US as somewhat unfavorable when they read arguments like yours?