Comments on: The Hubble Constant: High Interest

By: Army Otaku » Blog Archive » Why I’m not scared of the dark…

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:24:24 +0000

[...] Miles O’Brien recently brought it to our attention that the amount of money Bernie Maddof scammed with his Ponzi scheme ($50 billion) is way bigger than NASA’s budget. [...]

By: amba12

amba12 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:57:06 +0000

This piece is linked with appreciation in my long love letter to the Hubble (link love!) on Natural History Magazine's blog, facTotem.

By: colonelfrog

colonelfrog — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:31:11 +0000

Scientists look at the manned spaceflight budget and wet their pants thinking about what wonderful robot spacecraft they could buy if they had that much money.

By: jondc9

jondc9 — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:29:44 +0000

for some reason, modern NASA types haven’t read the nice books by wiley ley. great images of huge rocketships, of spacestations that looked like donuts, rotating to create gravity for those on board. I figure somewhere, somehow, sometime people forgot the images of a Pan Am space shuttle docking with a real international space station. (to the music of “on the beautiful blue danube”)

I am ashamed of modern NASA and those behind it. Better not to do anything in space if you can’t do it right. Save up the money for something really worthwhile…not junk. Apollo on steroids? YUCK.

I sure hope the boys at AREA 51 have worked up a real neato spaceship.

By: charlesthespaceguy

charlesthespaceguy — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:25:15 +0000

High speed rail was but an example – the Federal deficit was obscene at 400 billion but is now beyond that, about 1.8 trillion. Supposedly it will decline next year. But so many of the projects funded by it are multi year construction projects! Do we wish to build a high speed rail that goes 1/4 of the way from LA to San Fran? Do we want to build bridges that go half way across a river? Enormous deficit spending is a direct threat to every useful program – and high speed rail is just an example. How can we financially support allies when we will struggle to pay for the interest payments on our debt?
I also like mass transit and am an enthusiastic supporter of MetroRail here in Houston. But at least MetroRail makes economic sense, unlike many of the programs being paid for by deficit spending.

By: davidbuchner

davidbuchner — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:05:23 +0000

“He’s not really dead, as long as we remember him…” -Dr. McCoy

By: davidbuchner

davidbuchner — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:27:20 +0000

I do not understand the comments here. Sometimes they seem to be in a tree, sometimes not.
Anyway, about “it will not happen if we stop trying now. This could very well be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Very good to keep in mind: nothing is inevitable; it’s important to do if people _decide_ that it’s important.
(Madler’s Antarctica example intrigues me, though — yeah! Why _aren’t_ people settling there? Hmm…)

By: Miles O'Brien

Miles O'Brien — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:56:13 +0000

Another reason we miss Spock” at the NASA helm…

By: davidbuchner

davidbuchner — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:12:16 +0000

Good stuff. A little more than halfway in — I’ll get into it more later, after I wash dishes and make some sort of supper.

Just one thing that jumped out: “Now this kind of thing simply does not happen at a NASA briefing.”

Actually, Miles, it does. Not super-often, but when it does, we notice. I have a favorite I often use as a tagline, something Mike Griffin said about not being able to understand why people aren’t excited about what’s going on in space. And telling them to just go watch Desperate Housewives, then. I appreciated that, because it was genuine and unscripted, and because *that’s how I feel.* “What is WRONG with you people? Wake UP!” is a common refrain around here.

Whenever these people (technically government bureaucrats, remember) say something personal and genuine, perhaps impolitic — it makes my day.

“I can explain it for you. I can’t understand it for you.”

By: Miles O'Brien

Miles O'Brien — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:36:17 +0000

Is it worth it to build a telescope on the lunar surface?