If every answer you give is going to be that God did it that way because it fits in with the fucked up creationist view of the world, then there really is no point in continuing this discussion.
And I'm disputing your original incorrect claim that a replacement ground based telescope can give just as good images as the Hubble can.
A very narrow observing program is exactly what you get with a ground based telescope because these telescopes can only see a very narrow part of the observable universe.
You cannot just make up the missing bits in another frequency range.
Some of Hubble's greatest discoveries were by sensing infrared: looking at the origins of the universe, discovering planets around other stars, the ultra deep field photographs. None of these discoveries were possible from the ground.
Just the cost of the repair mission could pay for another giant ground-based telescope with adaptive optics which will give us Hubble-like views, along with ease of maintenance.
This is a common misconception. Ground based telescopes cannot see what Hubble can see because the earths atmosphere filters out over 99% of radiation useful to astronomers. To view anything other than the visible spectrum and x-ray you have to get into orbit.
I hate the argument "lets get rid of Hubble because it is old". IT'S NOT OLD!! Most of the instruments including the gyros were replaced on the last shuttle servicing mission in '97, so really its only seven years old. It's only the shell that dates back to the 70's.
And assuming someone has enough sense to continue the planned robotic servicing mission in 2002, it will then again essentially be a new telescope.
You could, its just that Hubble is so massive that it world take a ridiculous amount of fuel.
For instance to get Hubble to the same orbit as ISS you are looking at about 40 tonnes of fuel. To get to a gravity neutral point (say earth-moon LaGrangian) would take a lot more than that.
It's a shame you couldn't contribute something a little more substantative rather than simply making a tired and shrill declaration.
Ok, laws like this exist in places where parents are too inattentive to take care of their children properly or too stupid to learn how to sensor themselves.
If the latter then they shouldn't have internet, if the former then they shouldn't have children.
To these parents I say take responsibility for your own child's upbringing and stop asking the government to do it.
A. Who said God created the entire universe for the benefit of humans? That seems to be a caricature of a creationist viewpoint.
This verse indicates the universe exists for God's pleasure, not only mine or yours: Bible reference
No that IS the creationist viewpoint. They state that the universe and everything in it was created about 6000 years ago. God created the heavens and the earth then stuck us on it. If that was true, how can stars be millions of light years away? And what about supernovae? How can a star explode before it even existed?
B. Stars and galaxies invisible to us may still have a _huge_ bearing on our existence. You didn't answer my question: Or do you think excising invisible stars and galaxies has no effect on the structure of the universe?
If you remove them somehow after their existence, of course they would. But if you believe God created the physical universe for us, then he could have easily created it without these distant stars and it would have had no effect on us.
C. Yes, everything *has* a purpose. But can any human understand the purpose of *everything*? Nope.
This is just more of "God works in mysterious ways" crap. It is what creationists say when they cant explain something logically because it conflicts with their beliefs.
In others, aren't you saying:
"God: why did you even bother? I would've done it better."
I'm saying that if you are a fundamentalist creationist and you believe the universe was created solely for the benefit of mankind then logically these stars and galaxies that have no bearing whatsoever on our existence have no point, and therefore are in effect a mistake by God.
Personally I believe that everything has a purpose, therefore I cannot believe in that fundamentalist creationist view.
For time keeping? For signs? For your viewing pleasure?
You missed my point. Galaxies of stars that CANNOT BE SEEN have no purpose for those things you mention. They can only be seen or their existence inferred by science.
In a view where the universe was created solely for our benefit that makes no sense.
As for your other point, the core of the earth does have a purpose : it provides structure to the planet, and the molten core creates a magnetic field that protects the earth from harmful radiation generated by our sun.
The problem I have with the literal bible version of creationism is if God created the world for us, why the hell are there galaxies of stars out there so far out that we can never possibly visit them?
Only an extremely small percentage of what is out there is visible by the naked eye. The rest is only visible by scientific instruments or not at all.
I believe in God, but I also believe in evolution. As such I also believe life had to have evolved on other planets. If not, then why is all of that out there? It's certainly not for our benefit.
I think the American version is actually the original one - us Brits changed our measurements some time after the Revolutionary War, while the US kept them the same.
Actually the difference between american and british gallons traces back to when britain owned America and enterprising captains ran trading ships between the two countries.
To make more money, the captains would transfer the contents of the larger british gallon barrels (ususally 5, 10, 20 gallons or more) into slightly smaller barrels en route and sell them to the Americans as full size. Since this was common practice, the Americans eventually accepted the smaller gallon as 'real'.
Obviously you either know the truth and are just being an asshole, or you really are the stupidest person on earth. However with the state of the American school system, you may have been taught that America colonized the world, just like you are taught in the bullshit concept of creationism.
In case you really dont know the truth, please educate yourself with the following history of the American colonization:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741502191/His tory_of_Colonial_America.html
If you really want a shock, also look up how Canada invaded and occupied portions of the US (in retaliation of the US invasion of Canada), including the burning of the White House, which is how it got its name in the first place.
I must be misunderstanding you. You're American and you honestly think you colonized Europe? Where do you think all of the American settlers came from?
University of London? You silly Brit. Just because your legal system is based on ours doesn't mean that everything that is "valid contract law" over there holds here.
I think you have that backwards. British law came first therefore American law is based on the British, not the other way around.
I resent whiny little liberal crybabies such as yourself being allowed to post on Slashdot at all.
So much for the land of the free and the first amendment. I guess everyone is allowed to have an opinion except for those people who happen to disagree with you.
You don't buy many DVDs do you? Forced previews have become all too common and it is not at all confined to rental DVDs - you get it on regular store-bought versions too - because they are THE SAME. Disney, especially, is notorious for doing it but they are far from alone in the practice.
I'm not a crazy collector but I do have a fair number of DVD's that I've bought. The only ones that I remember with advertisements have been the Disney ones.
Could be because I'm in Canada and we have our own manufacturers and distributors. They simply may not put the advertisements on, whereas Blockbuster movies with ads probably all get shipped from the U.S.
Interestingly, I just happened to have 3 Blockbuster rentals with me. The two that look like they come from U.S. distributors have forced commercials, while the one with a Canadian distributor goes right to the menu. May be a coincidence, but maybe not.
Have you also compared a DVD rented from another source? Or purchased?
If not, you're accusing Blockbuster when they likely have had nothing to do with it.
Well the fact that I'm forced (they disable the menu button) to sit through 5 minutes of advertisements for other recent releases on a Blockbuster rental proves that they do some modification to the film and it is not the same as a purchased DVD.
Since they do that there is no guarantee that the content of the film isn't modified either.
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Hey it took 15 years of Microsoft saying "OS/2 is dead" before it finally happened (and its still on life support).
Repeat anything often enough and people will believe it. How about "no new taxes" or "Saddam is linked to 9-11"?
If every answer you give is going to be that God did it that way because it fits in with the fucked up creationist view of the world, then there really is no point in continuing this discussion.
And I'm disputing your original incorrect claim that a replacement ground based telescope can give just as good images as the Hubble can.
A very narrow observing program is exactly what you get with a ground based telescope because these telescopes can only see a very narrow part of the observable universe.
You cannot just make up the missing bits in another frequency range.
Some of Hubble's greatest discoveries were by sensing infrared: looking at the origins of the universe, discovering planets around other stars, the ultra deep field photographs. None of these discoveries were possible from the ground.
This is a common misconception. Ground based telescopes cannot see what Hubble can see because the earths atmosphere filters out over 99% of radiation useful to astronomers. To view anything other than the visible spectrum and x-ray you have to get into orbit.
I hate the argument "lets get rid of Hubble because it is old". IT'S NOT OLD!! Most of the instruments including the gyros were replaced on the last shuttle servicing mission in '97, so really its only seven years old. It's only the shell that dates back to the 70's.
And assuming someone has enough sense to continue the planned robotic servicing mission in 2002, it will then again essentially be a new telescope.
You could, its just that Hubble is so massive that it world take a ridiculous amount of fuel.
For instance to get Hubble to the same orbit as ISS you are looking at about 40 tonnes of fuel. To get to a gravity neutral point (say earth-moon LaGrangian) would take a lot more than that.
This is a great example of why ground based telescopes cannot be a substitute for space based ones.
Write your congressman! Save Hubble!
Once they get the optional blocking in place then mandatory content blocking is not far behind.
Ok, laws like this exist in places where parents are too inattentive to take care of their children properly or too stupid to learn how to sensor themselves.
If the latter then they shouldn't have internet, if the former then they shouldn't have children.
To these parents I say take responsibility for your own child's upbringing and stop asking the government to do it.
This is the start of a short and slippery slope into censorship. The government should have no night to dictate what I can and cannot see or read.
No that IS the creationist viewpoint. They state that the universe and everything in it was created about 6000 years ago. God created the heavens and the earth then stuck us on it. If that was true, how can stars be millions of light years away? And what about supernovae? How can a star explode before it even existed?
If you remove them somehow after their existence, of course they would. But if you believe God created the physical universe for us, then he could have easily created it without these distant stars and it would have had no effect on us.
This is just more of "God works in mysterious ways" crap. It is what creationists say when they cant explain something logically because it conflicts with their beliefs.
I'm saying that if you are a fundamentalist creationist and you believe the universe was created solely for the benefit of mankind then logically these stars and galaxies that have no bearing whatsoever on our existence have no point, and therefore are in effect a mistake by God.
Personally I believe that everything has a purpose, therefore I cannot believe in that fundamentalist creationist view.
You missed my point. Galaxies of stars that CANNOT BE SEEN have no purpose for those things you mention. They can only be seen or their existence inferred by science.
In a view where the universe was created solely for our benefit that makes no sense.
As for your other point, the core of the earth does have a purpose : it provides structure to the planet, and the molten core creates a magnetic field that protects the earth from harmful radiation generated by our sun.
The problem I have with the literal bible version of creationism is if God created the world for us, why the hell are there galaxies of stars out there so far out that we can never possibly visit them?
Only an extremely small percentage of what is out there is visible by the naked eye. The rest is only visible by scientific instruments or not at all.
I believe in God, but I also believe in evolution. As such I also believe life had to have evolved on other planets. If not, then why is all of that out there? It's certainly not for our benefit.
Actually the difference between american and british gallons traces back to when britain owned America and enterprising captains ran trading ships between the two countries.
To make more money, the captains would transfer the contents of the larger british gallon barrels (ususally 5, 10, 20 gallons or more) into slightly smaller barrels en route and sell them to the Americans as full size. Since this was common practice, the Americans eventually accepted the smaller gallon as 'real'.
Obviously you either know the truth and are just being an asshole, or you really are the stupidest person on earth. However with the state of the American school system, you may have been taught that America colonized the world, just like you are taught in the bullshit concept of creationism.
In case you really dont know the truth, please educate yourself with the following history of the American colonization: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741502191/His tory_of_Colonial_America.html
If you really want a shock, also look up how Canada invaded and occupied portions of the US (in retaliation of the US invasion of Canada), including the burning of the White House, which is how it got its name in the first place.
I must be misunderstanding you. You're American and you honestly think you colonized Europe? Where do you think all of the American settlers came from?
I think you have that backwards. British law came first therefore American law is based on the British, not the other way around.
Why don't you grow up and get a life. Geez. I'm not bound by you to do anything. Post with your real name red neck coward.
And while you're at it why not take a good long hard suck of my ass.
I resent my earlier post being labeled as flamebait by the moderators.
Bush's space policy effectively cancels the shuttle program in 2010, so the shuttle has no future.
Bush also created the largest federal deficit and debt in American history, right after Clintons' record budget surpluses.
Both of these statements are fact and easily verifiable, so how can it be considered flamebait?
Well George Bush effectively cancelled the shuttle program by 2010 to pay for the massive federal debt he made.
I'm not a crazy collector but I do have a fair number of DVD's that I've bought. The only ones that I remember with advertisements have been the Disney ones.
Could be because I'm in Canada and we have our own manufacturers and distributors. They simply may not put the advertisements on, whereas Blockbuster movies with ads probably all get shipped from the U.S.
Interestingly, I just happened to have 3 Blockbuster rentals with me. The two that look like they come from U.S. distributors have forced commercials, while the one with a Canadian distributor goes right to the menu. May be a coincidence, but maybe not.
Well the fact that I'm forced (they disable the menu button) to sit through 5 minutes of advertisements for other recent releases on a Blockbuster rental proves that they do some modification to the film and it is not the same as a purchased DVD.
Since they do that there is no guarantee that the content of the film isn't modified either.