Text 36473, 78 rader
Skriven 2016-09-10 23:06:32 av Lee Lofaso (2:203/2)
  Kommentar till text 36457 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
Ärende: Voyager 1 and 2
=======================
Hello Björn,

 BF> Next year it will be 40 years since the Voyager 1 (Sept 5, 1977) and 2
(Aug
 BF> 20, 1977) was launched.

And in less than three years from now we will all be celebrating
the greatest hoax ever created.

 BF> To me, as a science lover, I think that the Voyager mission is one of the
 BF> most important achievements that humanity has ever managed.

NASA pulled a fast one on us all with its claim of landing a man
on the moon and returning him safely back to Earth.  Why should we
believe its claim to have sent two spacecraft outward beyond the
solar system, with computer systems no more powerful than the old
Commodore 64?

 BF> What the NASA thanks to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did by then deserves
 BF> at least a Nobel Prize of some kind IMHO.

Whatever for?  The French could easily have done the same.  Or the
Japanese.  Or the Chinese.  Or any of a number of other countries.
The act of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely back
to Earth was a *political* matter, not scientific.  Ditto with the
awarding of the Nobel Prize.

 BF> Those two space crafts, that has already provided humankind with more
 BF> information about our solar system than the combined effort of all the
 BF> scientists before them, surely deserves more attention than they get now
--
 BF> still alive and kicking.

It is a great scientific achievement for its time.  But it was still
a political decision rather than scientific.  The dropping of atomic
bombs on Japanese cities was a political decision, not scientific.
I seriously doubt US president Harry Truman understood any of the
science behind the atomic bombs, as to how they were made or work.
All he knew was that he was told they would work for the purpose he
intended.

 BF> Just imagine that they still receive and transmit data 40 years later. How
 BF> many man made electronic inventions work after four decades?

Quite a few.  But those are relics and no longer of much use nowadays.

 BF> And then there is "the golden plate" attached to both of them. How many
have
 BF> actually studied the intelligence behind those, trying to tell someone who
 BF> recovers one of those plates after a milliard years?

It was very stupid to include it on the spacecraft, as we should
never advertise our presence to others in the universe.  However,
that does raise an interesting question.  What about the face on
Mars?  We know it is there, because we have seen it.  A massive
structure of what appears to be a human face.  Or humanoid.  Who
carved or built it?  This is not a natural formation on Mars.
And you know what that means.  We have to send astronauts, and
cosmonauts, and taikonauts, and whatever other nauts there are
around the world, onward to Mars to investigate the matter.

 BF> Oh, BTW, the reason I write this is that I just finished watching "Cosmos:
A
 BF> Spacetime Odyssey" on Netflix. If you don't already have Netflix, I can
 BF> recommend it. At just around 10 bucks (US, Euro or whatever) per month,
 BF> it's far much better than any "normal" TV shite you pay for.

One of Sagan's mad ideas was to nuke the Moon.  He was part of a
government project investigating the possibility, but in the end
it was decided to be a bad idea.  I mean, nuking the Moon could
leave us with no Moon.  And having no Moon might make it impossible
for women to conceive.  With would result in the death of the human
race (and most other living creatures).

--Lee

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