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"Splat" of Schiaparelli Mars Lander Likely Found (spaceflightnow.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Tablizer quotes Space Flight Now:
Views from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released Friday show the crash site where Europe's experimental Schiaparelli lander fell to the red planet's surface from a height of several miles, leaving a distinct dark patch on the Martian landscape...The image from MRO's context camera shows two new features attributed to the Schiaparelli spacecraft, including a large dark scar spanning an estimated 50 feet (15 meters) by 130 feet (40 meters). Schiaparelli's ground team believes it is from the high-speed impact of the lander's main body... A little more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) to the south, a bright spot appears in the image, likely the 39-foot-diameter (12-meter) supersonic parachute and part of Schiaparelli's heat shield, which released from the lander just before ESA lost contact."
Kaboom. There's always a Kaboom.
On a more serious note, what's with all the anti-science prats showing up on Slashdot recently ?
At one time, the community here used to be the one championing new experiments as a positive learning curve even if the immediate experiment ended in failure.
Seems like there's a bunch of prats around here who don't realise that all the things they take for granted these days came about as the result of many experiments, including the failed experiments.
How much did all of this mission cost? Does anyone realize how much food that money could have provided to those in need ON THIS PLANET?! We have no business looking off-planet until we learn to live in harmony with THIS planet.. and with each other.
If you take the budget of ESA and divide that number by the GDP of the EU (a slightly misleading calculation, but not grossly so) you find that the EU spends less than 0.04% of its GDP on space.
You also have to keep in mine that the European economy has a tremendous amount of over-capacity in terms of unemployed people and under-utilised infrastructure and machinery. Europe would not be able to increase its production of food and other goods by anywhere near 0.004% if we stopped spending money on space. We'd just have more unemployed scientists, engineers and factory workers.
In the neighborhood of $1.3 billion.
$1.3B would buy in the timezone of 300 million big macs. Which would be enough for every poor FAMILY in the world to get a Big Mac. Hardly a significant impact on world hunger.
Note that if ALL the money ever spent on space were spent on food instead, we'd be worse off. The weather satellites alone paid for the entire world's space exploration budgets in better harvests as a result of better weather prediction....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
There used to be some guys who didn't care about a space program. They just wanted to chase chicks and eat. Then one day, a rock came out of the sky and obliterated them and everybody related to them. That was 65 million years ago.
(||) Nehmo (||)