In the past, I would have been adamant in defending the shuttle program/ISS, but lately I've been wondering why so many billions have been spent on manned missions when that 500 million (USD) per launch could have been better spent (IMHO) on space probes.
FYI, these probes cost about 400 million (USD) each, and promise to return more science value than all Shuttle missions combined (IMHO).
Granted, it was said of the very valuable (scientifically speaking) Apollo missions that 90 seconds of human-on-alien-world visual observation was more valuable than weeks or months of robot observations.
Still, given their cost and advancing robotic/computer technology, I would be very disappointed if NASA continued to spend so much on manned space "exploration."
The ESA and NASA already have a history of working together. The Saturn-bound Cassini, for instance, has the ESA-designed Huygens aboard. A little competition is healthy (see the current Mars missions), but international cooperation is the only way we'll see big projects like Cassini in the future.
I was surprised to learn recently that trees are not CO2 sinks--once they die, decay restores their lifetime of consumed CO2 to the atmosphere.
There are only two CO2 sinks:
- biological matter that is interred deep into sediment (which often becomes oil)
-solid CO2 at the bottom of the ocean (where the pressure results in a higher melting point)
That there are only two sinks of carbon on Earth makes me suspicious of fossil fuels, as much as my heart goes out to the pro-tech sentiments expressed here.
Yes, you can show that entanglement acts over arbitrary distances instantaneously[!!] (it doesn't take much energy, either). Somehow, particles can conspire through means surpassing the speed of light (or so it seems to us mere mortals); there is even a simple undergraduate experiment on the subject...however, things work out such that we cannot use this to our advantage; we're stuck with speed-of-light communication for the forseeable future.
This has not been mentioned, but it's rather important:
Article 1, Section 9:
"No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state".
It's that simple.
Slashdot Mirror
In the past, I would have been adamant in defending the shuttle program/ISS, but lately I've been wondering why so many billions have been spent on manned missions when that 500 million (USD) per launch could have been better spent (IMHO) on space probes.
FYI, these probes cost about 400 million (USD) each, and promise to return more science value than
all Shuttle missions combined (IMHO).
Granted, it was said of the very valuable (scientifically speaking) Apollo missions that 90 seconds of human-on-alien-world visual observation was more valuable than weeks or months of robot observations.
Still, given their cost and advancing robotic/computer technology, I would be very disappointed if NASA continued to spend so much on manned space "exploration."
The ESA and NASA already have a history of working together. The Saturn-bound Cassini, for instance, has the ESA-designed Huygens aboard. A little competition is healthy (see the current Mars missions), but international cooperation is the only way we'll see big projects like Cassini in the future.
I was surprised to learn recently that trees are not CO2 sinks--once they die, decay restores their lifetime of consumed CO2 to the atmosphere. There are only two CO2 sinks: - biological matter that is interred deep into sediment (which often becomes oil) -solid CO2 at the bottom of the ocean (where the pressure results in a higher melting point) That there are only two sinks of carbon on Earth makes me suspicious of fossil fuels, as much as my heart goes out to the pro-tech sentiments expressed here.
Yes, you can show that entanglement acts over arbitrary distances instantaneously[!!] (it doesn't take much energy, either). Somehow, particles can conspire through means surpassing the speed of light (or so it seems to us mere mortals); there is even a simple undergraduate experiment on the subject...however, things work out such that we cannot use this to our advantage; we're stuck with speed-of-light communication for the forseeable future.
This has not been mentioned, but it's rather important: Article 1, Section 9: "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state". It's that simple.