I appreciate your point. The problem is that it is hard to measure the benefits to society of any spending program. I think it is safe to say that the space program has benefited society greatly in material ways (miniturization, computers, physics), but also in cultural and personal ways (we landed on the moon).
We should also keep the costs involved in perspective. The Mars Polar Lander cost (these figures are from memory and may be off) about $165 million. F-22 fighter jets cost about $200 million each and the Pentagon recently ordered 300 of them. Each Space Shuttle mission costs ~$800 million.
Some other budget outlays for 1996 (from the New York Times Almanac): National Defence: $265,748,000,000 (yep, 265 Billion) Interest on Debt: $241,090,000,000 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Welfare): 20,295,000,000 Space Research and Technology (1994): 13,533,000,000 Total budget (1996): 1,560,330,000,000
The United States is incredibly wealthy. I agree that the quality of life of its citizens should have a priority in the budget, but NASA isn't where I'd take the money from.
Nobody in the know really expected either of the penetrators to work.
The probes seem like the easiest part to test, and therefore feel the most confident about their success. After the failure of the MPL, NASA was coming up with a lot of possible scenarios for the failure, most of which involved landing on a slope, canyon, etc. These explainations made the loss seem like the result of bad luck, which is obviously what NASA would prefer (bad luck looks better than incompetence). The failure of the probes indicate that the MPL probably didn't fail on touchdown, but failed at an earlier point which also resulted in the probes' failure.
Saying that everyone expected the probes to fail independantly of the MPL keeps alive the possibility that the MPL just suffered bad luck. Stating that the probes should have worked opens the door to having to explain a catastrophic failure due to a design flaw.
I didn't see the Variety article. I'm surprised that they can't change resolution on-demand as you described in your post. Is this the case?
I have two cameras. A Nikon F2 (old, fully manual, you can even take the eyepiece off and look down on the glass like a view camera), and a Canon Elph (APS). I end up using the Elph more just because it is so portable. I can put it in my pocket and forget about it until I want to take a picture. My biggest complaint with the APS camaras is inherent in all point and shoot - I hate automatic exposure. Also, the flash is useless after a few feet. I find the picture quality to be fine for 4x7 prints even with 400 ASA film. I'd never take an 'art' picture with it, but for taking on vacation, to the ball game, etc. it is hard to beat.
By 2006, TV as we know it (and the attendant VCRs and DVDs) will be replaced by the new HDTV.
The problem with this rosy future is that the HD in HDTV is optional. When the beancounters at DisAOLWarner choose between a beautiful high-definition broadcast and 20 low resolution broadcasts, what are they going to do? Yes, we will finally get our 500 channels, but it will be the same crappy resolution we have now. Oh FCC, what could have been...
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I appreciate your point. The problem is that it is hard to measure the benefits to society of any spending program. I think it is safe to say that the space program has benefited society greatly in material ways (miniturization, computers, physics), but also in cultural and personal ways (we landed on the moon).
We should also keep the costs involved in perspective. The Mars Polar Lander cost (these figures are from memory and may be off) about $165 million. F-22 fighter jets cost about $200 million each and the Pentagon recently ordered 300 of them. Each Space Shuttle mission costs ~$800 million.
Some other budget outlays for 1996 (from the New York Times Almanac):
National Defence: $265,748,000,000 (yep, 265 Billion)
Interest on Debt: $241,090,000,000
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Welfare): 20,295,000,000
Space Research and Technology (1994): 13,533,000,000
Total budget (1996): 1,560,330,000,000
The United States is incredibly wealthy. I agree that the quality of life of its citizens should have a priority in the budget, but NASA isn't where I'd take the money from.
The probes seem like the easiest part to test, and therefore feel the most confident about their success. After the failure of the MPL, NASA was coming up with a lot of possible scenarios for the failure, most of which involved landing on a slope, canyon, etc. These explainations made the loss seem like the result of bad luck, which is obviously what NASA would prefer (bad luck looks better than incompetence). The failure of the probes indicate that the MPL probably didn't fail on touchdown, but failed at an earlier point which also resulted in the probes' failure.
Saying that everyone expected the probes to fail independantly of the MPL keeps alive the possibility that the MPL just suffered bad luck. Stating that the probes should have worked opens the door to having to explain a catastrophic failure due to a design flaw.
I have two cameras. A Nikon F2 (old, fully manual, you can even take the eyepiece off and look down on the glass like a view camera), and a Canon Elph (APS). I end up using the Elph more just because it is so portable. I can put it in my pocket and forget about it until I want to take a picture. My biggest complaint with the APS camaras is inherent in all point and shoot - I hate automatic exposure. Also, the flash is useless after a few feet. I find the picture quality to be fine for 4x7 prints even with 400 ASA film. I'd never take an 'art' picture with it, but for taking on vacation, to the ball game, etc. it is hard to beat.
The problem with this rosy future is that the HD in HDTV is optional. When the beancounters at DisAOLWarner choose between a beautiful high-definition broadcast and 20 low resolution broadcasts, what are they going to do? Yes, we will finally get our 500 channels, but it will be the same crappy resolution we have now. Oh FCC, what could have been...