De Gaule did not give it up. Petin did. Gees, were you guys all asleep in history class. Do you get your *facts* from FOX news 30 sec. anti-French rethoric? Do you actualy KNOW anything about anything at all or are just beating your chest like a dumb ignorant red neck? Because the issue of Yahoo! tryinf to impose it commercial rights above and beyond a country's laws it what is really at stake. Don't kid yourself, Yahoo! is no more about free speech than the current US administration.
Yes we do hide from the past in the US too, and have convienently rewritten history when it did not fit the current mood. One example is the issue of slavery in this country. The Civil War was not about slavery but money. Slavery did not end with the Civil War, segragation still existed in the late 60s. The US never had to deal with 10 years of facism at the hands of people like Hitler and Musolini. Europe did. European Jews and semites got burned, not Americains. I think that pretty much makes them more qualify than us to define how they want their post-war society to be...
Well, using your own words: If you are going to fucking ty to sell your fucking crappy software to a fucking foreign country, you might want to fucking get to know your fucking custormers first and fucking sell them something they fucking want instead of flooding the market with fucking crap.
I could not agree more.... And besides, the orginal poster mentions that all PC in the school run 98 and 2000. Is that supposed to train kids and getthem ready for when they get a job in a few years? Have you heard of XP? The point is: for the same reason that it is ok to teach someone what word processing, web surfing, etc... on an old version of Windows, it is ok to teach the same thing on a Mac. Except that the Mac run more reliably, are easier to administer.. but I digress...
And if they sold them for $801, 1 billion people would buy them and they would make $1 billion and expand their markey share even more...
Unfortunately, that is not the case, for obvious reasons. You can be certain that Apple spends a considerable amount of time making sure that its products are priced optimally to be both profitable and sell as many as they can produce. It seems that Apple is much more carefull at playing this game than over computer companies. They cannot afford to take a loss on a product, or have too many unsolf units, unlike a larger bigger company. Remember the Cube? People are still rambling about those.
In the end, it is probably further complicated by the fact that Apple does not produce $800 laptops. Apple produces $1500 laptop which they sell $2000.
Macs are very much like BMWs to me: when you are young and without much of a life, having a non dependable car which you need to upgrade, em.. I mean fix, is not a problem. Neither is running something like Linux, tweaking the kernel all night, or something like windows, re-installing from scratch all night. Heck, it seems even fun and makes you feel smart and like you are doing something worthwhile.
But then, something funny happens to some of us: we like our cars to be able to take us places without breaking down, we like to take our cars to garages that fix them correctly, and we prefer to own cars that last more than one or two years. We also like computers which just work, are well supported, and are built to last more than one or two years. In that sense, Macs are very much like BMW. Not everyone should be made to agree that paying a premium in order to free some time from your daily life is a good thing to do. But, people should also not be coerced by market and peer pressure into buying something just because it is cheaper even though it will take over their life and chain them up to their desk (or garage..:-) ).
Well, I am a 36 year old post-doc, I am making under $50/yr, but I do not work in someone else's lab. Rather, I work with a group of great people who are very motivated and good at what they do. I wake up in the morning happy to have some real problems to solve. Life is too short to make it just about $.
My dual G5 2Ghz is significantly faster than all the Linux dual P4 and Xeon PCs when analyzing astronomical images which are huge and performing very cpu intensive operations. I would not worry any more about the raw Ghz quoted here and there. The modern Mac can easily keep up, if not beat, any of the AMD/Intel chips. The real issue is what do you want to use: OSX or Linux (or XP... argh...). My choice is obviously OSX, because I find it faster, nicer, more robust, and more trouble free than anything else I ever used (save for NeXT boxes:-) ).
I was considering dumping Comcast cable TV in favor of DirectTV. The quality of cable here is TERRIBLE and I really was longing for a new provider.
When I heard that one of the few channels I watch late at night was being bought by Comcast I figured that the channel might somehow disappear from DirectTV and be only available to Comcast and friends of Comcast. This possibility made swicthing to DirectTV a little less attractive to me.
Now that Comcast is essentially destroying TechTV, there is nothing left for me to even have doubts about. I am free to move away from Comcast cable TV. THANK YOU Comcast!!
1) Just supplying gyros will not be enough. New batteries are required too. The current one will fail in 2 years or less 2) HST is only useful as long as the instruments on board are top of the line. The current ones are degrading and will continue to do so. This is why new instruments are constantly being installed in HST. This allows HST to use latest technology as it becomes available and allows people to look at different things using HST as time goes on (just like any observatory may I add) 3) Moving HST to the ISS is very problematic: (a) it takes a LOT of energy to move to an orbit which is in a different plane and it will take months to move HST to the ISS orbit using current technology. During that time, HST will be unusable and will deteriorate (b) the orbit of the ISS is too low for HST which was designed. Atmospheric drag would be a problem for it (c) the low ISS orbit, and the region around the ISS has more pollutants which would affect the instruments on board of HST.
Moderator, please note that you messed up the Score for this message: The sentence "Anyone who claims that Windows 2000 is buggy and unstable is in error. And an idiot." was obviously meant as a sarcastic remark and the score should have been 4, Funny
If you look at the number of releases from HST, they have been relatively constant over the years. The only reason why there has been a spike in releases is actually because the TAC (Time Allocation Committe) is meeting in a couple of weeks to decide on the next Observing Cycle proposal time allocations. This is when astronomers either get some time for their proposal or do not. Many try to release cool new stuff a few weeks before to raise the awareness levels of the people sitting on the TAC.
You are implying that JWST is a *better* telescope than HST in the absolute sense. This is pure nonsense. If you'd qualify your statement with something like "...in the study of the epoch of reionization" or equivalent then I would agree, but not the way you put it.
Saying that JWST does not complement HST flies in the face of the very people who have been advocating for a telescope to do just that, called JWST.
HST would not last forever, but before it is left to die, we need to have a clear plan for a successor or the astronomical community will loose the ability to observe in the UV/optical depth and resolution that can be achieve TODAY with HST.
Even IF JWST was the HST succesor in the Optical, its launch has slided 1 year per year since the project started (planned for 2007 in 2000, 2011 today). The astronomuical community will be caught without a descent space based telescope for years if HST is left to die and the void between HST and JWST is not filled. And that would be IF all science done with HST could be done with JWST, which is not the case.
AO in the UV,optical cannot fundamentally allow one to obtain the same quality of data that one can get from space. Athmospheric OH lines are there to make sure of that.
As was discussed today during the UDF announcement, JWST was supported by the Decadal study only because HST was supposed to be up and running to 2010, and JWST launched by 2007, with a new optical space telescope likely in the work before HST dies.
As things stands now, the community will loose a unique ressource. A lot of good research projects will continue to be done, but some will no longer be possible... and that's a shame because all of this was decided by ONE person and without a proper clear review of the process.
Moderators need explain how your got rated a 4 for your silly reply. NGST is most certainly not a replacement for Hubble. And to say that optical is boring shows how very vert little to know of the science which is being done with HST and which will not be able to be done EVER again until another 2m class optical telescope gets put into orbit or optical ground based adaptive optics catches on (which will never happen because of the athmosphereic absorption). JWST was proposed, not as a replacement to JWST, but as the near mile stone. This was assuming that 1) NGST would launch in 2007 (not 2011 as it is now) 2) that HST would be up and going fine until after JWST is launched and a replacement for HST is being build.
HST IS top of the line. I dare you to find any instruments anywhere which are more top of the line right now, inside a space telescope. HST was meant to be serviceable so that it could be kept up to date and equipped with the latest detectors as these are made available. This was done with SM3b and was planned to be done once more with SM4.
As for letting it die... this is equivalent to never changing the oil in your car because you will likely crash it one day, a better one will surely be available at some point in the future, and you just ordered a new boat which is bigger than your car and can therefore surely do everything your car does but better.
It makes absolutely no sense whatsover to let HST die right now. It is mismanagment on the part of NASA and from a small group of people who are more interested in politics than science.
I should call my cable provider (COMCAST) to ask them to stop carrying the Viacom channels. The only thing they seem to be doing these days is display banner on top of re-runs of Star Trek. Why do they think it is ok to indiscriminately take ALL of their viewers hostage to their feud with Dish? Why would cable operators carry channels from a company which obviously cares very little for what they show their viewers. I suppose I should not be surprised that UPN, Spike, and other Viacom channels are some of the worst channels we receive on digital cable. I do not meanm the content (I like Stat Trek...), but the quality is absolutely terrible. The only thingthat comes in neat and clear is the stupid propaganda banners at the bottom of the screen. Figures...
Keck was used for high res spectroscopy. It takes hours to get a single spectrum of something this dim. You could find these efficiently using Keck in a survey mode. Keck and HST complement one another quite while (as does the VLT and Gemini). JWST was meant to work wel with HST/Keck too by allowing yet another wavelength range to be examined at very loew sensitivities. The mistake made by some politicians and non-scientists is that they think that there must be a "best telescope" one can build to do ALL science. This is wrong.
You got some of the facts strangely confused... The mirror problem you refer to was not caused by the lack of testing. In fact, the mirror was tested using several methods, on quick and simple, and one requiring complicated calibration. The contractor, choosen by NASA, did the tests and choose which one to accept. You seem to think that the telescope was build by a group of astronomer in Baltimore...:-) Anyway, new technology will not be easier than continuing the maintenance on HST and JWST is far from completed and it still in the very early design stage.
OK, how about a full number of papers published from ISS "science"? How does it compare to HST? Let's get this discussion done to the end since you think that ISS is a great scientific instrument.
I know that many people have pointed this out before but I think that it is very important to understand the following: JWST is NOT a scietific replacement for HST. It provides improved, very sensitive infrared capabilities. On the other hand, HST provides unsurpased capabilities in the optical. In addition, while many peopple claim that what HST can do can be done from the ground it is because there is some serious confusion about how adaptive optics work. Right now, it works in the IR, not the optical. Moreover, the athmosphere is not very transparent at wavelengths > 8000A. JWST should never have been marketed as a replacement for HST. On one hand, JWST will allow people to do science which is not possible right now (in this sense only, it is the worthy succesor of HST which itself had a hufe impact on astronomy). On the other hand, HST, retrofited with the new WF3 and COS intruments would remain one of the very best observatories for years to come.
A new report was just released a couple of days ago. It carefully considers the pro and con of going to the moon and setting up observatories. The bottom line: it is not worth it. The moon offers little that we do not already know how to do with space telescopes. Going to the moon, 15 years ago could have made sense, certainly if the US had had a long term plan to stay there instead of pulling out in the 1970's. As things are now, moon observatories fall right in between ground based and space observatories. It is not worth bothering going to the moon for astronomical purposes at least.
The Bush adminstration wants input about this? But ignores the input it has been received about the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission? We are supposed to take this plea for input seriously? Is this the latest attempt from the Bush administration to build a coalliation? This administration's method not worked in the past and will likely contiinue not to work. They seem unwilling to listen to anyone and go blindy where noone has gone before, with a little blessing from God and while cursing the Infidels. Do not kid yourself, the only input they want is fro their friends in the aerospace industry.
No, there is NO replacement for HST being planed. JWST, often mentioned to be HST's replacement, does not have the capabilities to observed in the optical/UV. As will be demonstrated in a few weeks, HST is NOT "old". It has a couple of brand new instruments on board, one of them being the excellent Adanved Camera for Surveys. This large detector has been used to observed the Ultra Deep Field. The image will be made available in a few weeks and should provide ample proof that HST is really a wonderful tool. PLUS, the whole idea of the next servicing mission was to add two completely new, already built instruments to upgrade the spectroscopic and near infrared capability of HST. JWST will, likely, be a great near IR telescope with likely 3 different instruements on board. But it is still in the VERY early design phase and no way near complete. It has gained support because it has been claimed to be *cheap*. But it really is not HST replacement....
You might be shelling out your dollars for replacement hardware from a different vendor BUT in the end you only have a choice of which middle man you buy from. There are not that many chipsets you can buy in the market. Intel, no matter who you buy from has a good 50% chance of getting some money from you. People keep complaining that once you you buy from Apple that "you are stuck". This is at best a half truth. I do not buy my RAM from Apple. I do not buy my hard disk from Apple either. Neither did I buy my monitor from Apple. So, yes I did buy a main machine from Apple. If it break, I'll need to get it fixed. For free under warranty. How is this being more locked in into a vendor than buying a PC from DeLL which necessarily implies that Microsoft get liek 40% of the money made by DeLL as a license fee for XP? It is time to face it: PC users are locked in Intel and MS, even if they end up using Linux. AMD is still a minor contributor to the larger PC market. Not buying an Apple because the hardware sucks (it does not) is one thing. Not buying an Apple because the software sucks (it does not) is another reason. Not buying an Apple because you want to buy a $400 machine is another reason. But not buying one because you are "tied to Apple" is a completely bogus reason as far as I a m concerned
NASA has made the point that this WAS NOT a problem of money. The money is there. It is a problem of shuttle safety. There was a review process for the next 2 HST servicing missings. NASA asked the community what it wanted to do about HST in the next 10 years and the astonomy community CLEARLY stated that HST was essential and needed to remain operational AT LEAST until JWST come along. Even that, JWST is not a replacement for HST and HST can produce wonderful observations which cannot be obtained any other ways. The American Astronomical Society, as well as Senator Mikulski, have just asked for an independent congressional review of this issue. It simply seems wrong to have a single bureaucrat (NASA administrator) calling the shots and prematurely condemning programs as successfull as HST. Please, contact your congressman or woman and voice your opinion. YOU can help this process and ensure that it is being fair by actively contacting your congressmen and senators. If you do beleive that astronomy is something which unlightens us all then please by all mean do this as soon as possible. That HST is not being serviced is not the end of astronomy, but to have an administration which decides these things without a due process should not be okay. Not in a democracy!
I'll bite..:-) I bought a flat panel imac at home. It has worked flawlessly since the first day I turned it on. The screen is great, much nicer than typical cheap PC screen. The system is faster than the PC is replaces (an "old" 2 year old PII-800 with a geForce 2 GTS card and u2w2 scsi disks). It cost a lot less than a PC with a similar configuration (you got the math wrong, sorry:-). AND, I saves a lot of money on aspirin now that I do not have to listen to the PC power supply and cooling fans. To get a good PC, i.e something that is not a piece of shaking noisy junk, you need to spend a descent amount of $$$. The OS on th Mac is way better than anything MS was ever able to put out. PC users might not want to throw away their newPCs which work fine for them but in 6 months, when the Wintel monopoly tempts them to upgrade so that they can run the latest MS software at half the speed they were used to yesterday, they might want to spend the amount of money with a company which makes bery good products, has superb software, and whose product *really* do just work...
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De Gaule did not give it up. Petin did.
Gees, were you guys all asleep in history class. Do you get your *facts* from FOX news 30 sec. anti-French rethoric?
Do you actualy KNOW anything about anything at all or are just beating your chest like a dumb ignorant red neck?
Because the issue of Yahoo! tryinf to impose it commercial rights above and beyond a country's laws it what is really at stake. Don't kid yourself, Yahoo! is no more about free speech than the current US administration.
You == Stupid Moron. Fuck you!
Yes we do hide from the past in the US too, and have convienently rewritten history when it did not fit the current mood. One example is the issue of slavery in this country. The Civil War was not about slavery but money. Slavery did not end with the Civil War, segragation still existed in the late 60s.
The US never had to deal with 10 years of facism at the hands of people like Hitler and Musolini. Europe did. European Jews and semites got burned, not Americains. I think that pretty much makes them more qualify than us to define how they want their post-war society to be...
Well, using your own words: If you are going to fucking ty to sell your fucking crappy software to a fucking foreign country, you might want to fucking get to know your fucking custormers first and fucking sell them something they fucking want instead of flooding the market with fucking crap.
I could not agree more....
And besides, the orginal poster mentions that all PC in the school run 98 and 2000. Is that supposed to train kids and getthem ready for when they get a job in a few years? Have you heard of XP? The point is: for the same reason that it is ok to teach someone what word processing, web surfing, etc... on an old version of Windows, it is ok to teach the same thing on a Mac.
Except that the Mac run more reliably, are easier to administer.. but I digress...
And if they sold them for $801, 1 billion people would buy them and they would make $1 billion and expand their markey share even more...
Unfortunately, that is not the case, for obvious reasons. You can be certain that Apple spends a considerable amount of time making sure that its products are priced optimally to be both profitable and sell as many as they can produce. It seems that Apple is much more carefull at playing this game than over computer companies. They cannot afford to take a loss on a product, or have too many unsolf units, unlike a larger bigger company. Remember the Cube? People are still rambling about those.
In the end, it is probably further complicated by the fact that Apple does not produce $800 laptops. Apple produces $1500 laptop which they sell $2000.
Macs are very much like BMWs to me: when you are young and without much of a life, having a non dependable car which you need to upgrade, em.. I mean fix, is not a problem. Neither is running something like Linux, tweaking the kernel all night, or something like windows, re-installing from scratch all night. Heck, it seems even fun and makes you feel smart and like you are doing something worthwhile.
But then, something funny happens to some of us: we like our cars to be able to take us places without breaking down, we like to take our cars to garages that fix them correctly, and we prefer to own cars that last more than one or two years. We also like computers which just work, are well supported, and are built to last more than one or two years. In that sense, Macs are very much like BMW. Not everyone should be made to agree that paying a premium in order to free some time from your daily life is a good thing to do. But, people should also not be coerced by market and peer pressure into buying something just because it is cheaper even though it will take over their life and chain them up to their desk (or garage..:-) ).
Well, I am a 36 year old post-doc, I am making under $50/yr, but I do not work in someone else's lab. Rather, I work with a group of great people who are very motivated and good at what they do. I wake up in the morning happy to have some real problems to solve. Life is too short to make it just about $.
My dual G5 2Ghz is significantly faster than all the Linux dual P4 and Xeon PCs when analyzing astronomical images which are huge and performing very cpu intensive operations. I would not worry any more about the raw Ghz quoted here and there. The modern Mac can easily keep up, if not beat, any of the AMD/Intel chips. The real issue is what do you want to use: OSX or Linux (or XP... argh...). My choice is obviously OSX, because I find it faster, nicer, more robust, and more trouble free than anything else I ever used (save for NeXT boxes :-) ).
I was considering dumping Comcast cable TV in favor of DirectTV. The quality of cable here is TERRIBLE and I really was longing for a new provider.
When I heard that one of the few channels I watch late at night was being bought by Comcast I figured that the channel might somehow disappear from DirectTV and be only available to Comcast and friends of Comcast. This possibility made swicthing to DirectTV a little less attractive to me.
Now that Comcast is essentially destroying TechTV, there is nothing left for me to even have doubts about. I am free to move away from Comcast cable TV. THANK YOU Comcast!!
1) Just supplying gyros will not be enough. New batteries are required too. The current one will fail in 2 years or less
2) HST is only useful as long as the instruments on board are top of the line. The current ones are degrading and will continue to do so. This is why new instruments are constantly being installed in HST. This allows HST to use latest technology as it becomes available and allows people to look at different things using HST as time goes on (just like any observatory may I add)
3) Moving HST to the ISS is very problematic: (a) it takes a LOT of energy to move to an orbit which is in a different plane and it will take months to move HST to the ISS orbit using current technology. During that time, HST will be unusable and will deteriorate (b) the orbit of the ISS is too low for HST which was designed. Atmospheric drag would be a problem for it (c) the low ISS orbit, and the region around the ISS has more pollutants which would affect the instruments on board of HST.
Moderator, please note that you messed up the Score for this message:
The sentence "Anyone who claims that Windows 2000 is buggy and unstable is in error. And an idiot." was obviously meant as a sarcastic remark and the score should have been 4, Funny
If you look at the number of releases from HST, they have been relatively constant over the years. The only reason why there has been a spike in releases is actually because the TAC (Time Allocation Committe) is meeting in a couple of weeks to decide on the next Observing Cycle proposal time allocations. This is when astronomers either get some time for their proposal or do not. Many try to release cool new stuff a few weeks before to raise the awareness levels of the people sitting on the TAC.
You are implying that JWST is a *better* telescope than HST in the absolute sense. This is pure nonsense. If you'd qualify your statement with something like "...in the study of the epoch of reionization" or equivalent then I would agree, but not the way you put it.
Saying that JWST does not complement HST flies in the face of the very people who have been advocating for a telescope to do just that, called JWST.
HST would not last forever, but before it is left to die, we need to have a clear plan for a successor or the astronomical community will loose the ability to observe in the UV/optical depth and resolution that can be achieve TODAY with HST.
Even IF JWST was the HST succesor in the Optical, its launch has slided 1 year per year since the project started (planned for 2007 in 2000, 2011 today). The astronomuical community will be caught without a descent space based telescope for years if HST is left to die and the void between HST and JWST is not filled. And that would be IF all science done with HST could be done with JWST, which is not the case.
AO in the UV,optical cannot fundamentally allow one to obtain the same quality of data that one can get from space. Athmospheric OH lines are there to make sure of that.
As was discussed today during the UDF announcement, JWST was supported by the Decadal study only because HST was supposed to be up and running to 2010, and JWST launched by 2007, with a new optical space telescope likely in the work before HST dies.
As things stands now, the community will loose a unique ressource. A lot of good research projects will continue to be done, but some will no longer be possible... and that's a shame because all of this was decided by ONE person and without a proper clear review of the process.
Moderators need explain how your got rated a 4 for your silly reply.
NGST is most certainly not a replacement for Hubble. And to say that optical is boring shows how very vert little to know of the science which is being done with HST and which will not be able to be done EVER again until another 2m class optical telescope gets put into orbit or optical ground based adaptive optics catches on (which will never happen because of the athmosphereic absorption). JWST was proposed, not as a replacement to JWST, but as the near mile stone. This was assuming that 1) NGST would launch in 2007 (not 2011 as it is now) 2) that HST would be up and going fine until after JWST is launched and a replacement for HST is being build.
HST IS top of the line. I dare you to find any instruments anywhere which are more top of the line right now, inside a space telescope. HST was meant to be serviceable so that it could be kept up to date and equipped with the latest detectors as these are made available. This was done with SM3b and was planned to be done once more with SM4.
As for letting it die... this is equivalent to never changing the oil in your car because you will likely crash it one day, a better one will surely be available at some point in the future, and you just ordered a new boat which is bigger than your car and can therefore surely do everything your car does but better.
It makes absolutely no sense whatsover to let HST die right now. It is mismanagment on the part of NASA and from a small group of people who are more interested in politics than science.
I should call my cable provider (COMCAST) to ask them to stop carrying the Viacom channels. The only thing they seem to be doing these days is display banner on top of re-runs of Star Trek. Why do they think it is ok to indiscriminately take ALL of their viewers hostage to their feud with Dish? Why would cable operators carry channels from a company which obviously cares very little for what they show their viewers. I suppose I should not be surprised that UPN, Spike, and other Viacom channels are some of the worst channels we receive on digital cable. I do not meanm the content (I like Stat Trek...), but the quality is absolutely terrible. The only thingthat comes in neat and clear is the stupid propaganda banners at the bottom of the screen. Figures...
Keck was used for high res spectroscopy. It takes hours to get a single spectrum of something this dim. You could find these efficiently using Keck in a survey mode. Keck and HST complement one another quite while (as does the VLT and Gemini). JWST was meant to work wel with HST/Keck too by allowing yet another wavelength range to be examined at very loew sensitivities.
The mistake made by some politicians and non-scientists is that they think that there must be a "best telescope" one can build to do ALL science. This is wrong.
You got some of the facts strangely confused... The mirror problem you refer to was not caused by the lack of testing. In fact, the mirror was tested using several methods, on quick and simple, and one requiring complicated calibration. The contractor, choosen by NASA, did the tests and choose which one to accept. You seem to think that the telescope was build by a group of astronomer in Baltimore... :-)
Anyway, new technology will not be easier than continuing the maintenance on HST and JWST is far from completed and it still in the very early design stage.
OK, how about a full number of papers published from ISS "science"? How does it compare to HST? Let's get this discussion done to the end since you think that ISS is a great scientific instrument.
I know that many people have pointed this out before but I think that it is very important to understand the following: JWST is NOT a scietific replacement for HST. It provides improved, very sensitive infrared capabilities. On the other hand, HST provides unsurpased capabilities in the optical. In addition, while many peopple claim that what HST can do can be done from the ground it is because there is some serious confusion about how adaptive optics work. Right now, it works in the IR, not the optical. Moreover, the athmosphere is not very transparent at wavelengths > 8000A. JWST should never have been marketed as a replacement for HST. On one hand, JWST will allow people to do science which is not possible right now (in this sense only, it is the worthy succesor of HST which itself had a hufe impact on astronomy). On the other hand, HST, retrofited with the new WF3 and COS intruments would remain one of the very best observatories for years to come.
A new report was just released a couple of days ago. It carefully considers the pro and con of going to the moon and setting up observatories. The bottom line: it is not worth it. The moon offers little that we do not already know how to do with space telescopes. Going to the moon, 15 years ago could have made sense, certainly if the US had had a long term plan to stay there instead of pulling out in the 1970's.
As things are now, moon observatories fall right in between ground based and space observatories. It is not worth bothering going to the moon for astronomical purposes at least.
The Bush adminstration wants input about this? But ignores the input it has been received about the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission? We are supposed to take this plea for input seriously? Is this the latest attempt from the Bush administration to build a coalliation? This administration's method not worked in the past and will likely contiinue not to work. They seem unwilling to listen to anyone and go blindy where noone has gone before, with a little blessing from God and while cursing the Infidels. Do not kid yourself, the only input they want is fro their friends in the aerospace industry.
No, there is NO replacement for HST being planed. JWST, often mentioned to be HST's replacement, does not have the capabilities to observed in the optical/UV.
As will be demonstrated in a few weeks, HST is NOT "old". It has a couple of brand new instruments on board, one of them being the excellent Adanved Camera for Surveys. This large detector has been used to observed the Ultra Deep Field. The image will be made available in a few weeks and should provide ample proof that HST is really a wonderful tool. PLUS, the whole idea of the next servicing mission was to add two completely new, already built instruments to upgrade the spectroscopic and near infrared capability of HST.
JWST will, likely, be a great near IR telescope with likely 3 different instruements on board. But it is still in the VERY early design phase and no way near complete. It has gained support because it has been claimed to be *cheap*. But it really is not HST replacement....
You might be shelling out your dollars for replacement hardware from a different vendor BUT in the end you only have a choice of which middle man you buy from. There are not that many chipsets you can buy in the market. Intel, no matter who you buy from has a good 50% chance of getting some money from you. People keep complaining that once you you buy from Apple that "you are stuck". This is at best a half truth. I do not buy my RAM from Apple. I do not buy my hard disk from Apple either. Neither did I buy my monitor from Apple. So, yes I did buy a main machine from Apple. If it break, I'll need to get it fixed. For free under warranty.
How is this being more locked in into a vendor than buying a PC from DeLL which necessarily implies that Microsoft get liek 40% of the money made by DeLL as a license fee for XP? It is time to face it: PC users are locked in Intel and MS, even if they end up using Linux. AMD is still a minor contributor to the larger PC market.
Not buying an Apple because the hardware sucks (it does not) is one thing. Not buying an Apple because the software sucks (it does not) is another reason. Not buying an Apple because you want to buy a $400 machine is another reason. But not buying one because you are "tied to Apple" is a completely bogus reason as far as I a m concerned
NASA has made the point that this WAS NOT a problem of money. The money is there. It is a problem of shuttle safety. There was a review process for the next 2 HST servicing missings. NASA asked the community what it wanted to do about HST in the next 10 years and the astonomy community CLEARLY stated that HST was essential and needed to remain operational AT LEAST until JWST come along. Even that, JWST is not a replacement for HST and HST can produce wonderful observations which cannot be obtained any other ways.
The American Astronomical Society, as well as Senator Mikulski, have just asked for an independent congressional review of this issue. It simply seems wrong to have a single bureaucrat (NASA administrator) calling the shots and prematurely condemning programs as successfull as HST. Please, contact your congressman or woman and voice your opinion.
YOU can help this process and ensure that it is being fair by actively contacting your congressmen and senators. If you do beleive that astronomy is something which unlightens us all then please by all mean do this as soon as possible.
That HST is not being serviced is not the end of astronomy, but to have an administration which decides these things without a due process should not be okay. Not in a democracy!
I'll bite.. :-) :-). AND, I saves a lot of money on aspirin now that I do not have to listen to the PC power supply and cooling fans.
I bought a flat panel imac at home. It has worked flawlessly since the first day I turned it on. The screen is great, much nicer than typical cheap PC screen. The system is faster than the PC is replaces (an "old" 2 year old PII-800 with a geForce 2 GTS card and u2w2 scsi disks). It cost a lot less than a PC with a similar configuration (you got the math wrong, sorry
To get a good PC, i.e something that is not a piece of shaking noisy junk, you need to spend a descent amount of $$$. The OS on th Mac is way better than anything MS was ever able to put out.
PC users might not want to throw away their newPCs which work fine for them but in 6 months, when the Wintel monopoly tempts them to upgrade so that they can run the latest MS software at half the speed they were used to yesterday, they might want to spend the amount of money with a company which makes bery good products, has superb software, and whose product *really* do just work...