August 6, 2012
The Martian Curiosities
Well. $2.5 billion from the public fisc (that would be you) to land yet another probe on the Red Planet. Which will crawl spasmodically around, taking soil samples, seeking microbial fossils, and ancient evidence of water. To what purpose, I ask?
Apollo 11 only cost $1.75 billion in 2012 dollars, and we let two guys stomp around, plant flags, and take more photographs than a Japanese at Disneyland that year, while a third guy orbited the Moon as the official Loneliest Man in the Universe. Now we are excited when we replicate something we've been doing since 1976. And doing well for 20 years.
Sure, most Mars probes crash and burn. Usually the Russians'. But how many times can we spend that kind of money to take humble samples of the same barren, bleak terrain?
We all know the main reason this boondoggle cost so much is the ridiculous Rube Goldberg parachuting contraption. Where is Occam when you need him? I honestly believe part of the reason for the contraption was the media frenzy engendered by the "7 minutes of terror" meme, that was pimped 24/7. NASA created its own terror for ratings, and subsequent funding.
I have nothing against space exploration. In fact, I absolutely love it. I've been wearing fake NASA helmets and crashing my head into trees since I was 5. Still do upon occasion. I have Gus Grissom mounted on a crucifix in my bedroom. But these Mars probes are weak tea. We'll find nothing. Perhaps evidence life might have existed there once. What kind of life? The shoulders in Pasadena shrug in ignorance.
For two and a half billion dollars I want intrepid souls with unstable rockets under their asses, flying into the unknown. I want a man to say "That's one small step for man, and one curiously parasitic beetle crawling underneath my fingernail." I want to see brave men in hyperbaric quarantine while we observe mutations.
Seven minutes of terror, my ass. This is what happens when you transfer your values from Mission Control to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When Texas and Florida ride bitch in the back seat: California values. The only terror felt in NASA in the last 24 hours was the terror incumbent in losing one's federal funding because of screwball, grandstanding stunts. These idiots will be sending little robots to Mars for 100 years if we let them. Their ideas boast grand vision, but they are in reality the most myopic of internal disciplines. In fact, I'll wager there are three times as many geologists on this team as biologists. Rockhounds, too lazy to search for oil. Well, at least the Grand Canyon didn't call you a dweeb. So you have that.
Fuck this. Let's put some boys in space. I'd rather go back to the moon in 5 years than wait 40 for a puppy sent to Mars. At least you can smack the piss out of a golf ball there.
V, I see you've struck a real vein of public sentiment. It appears the answer is nobody gives a shit. So much money is spent on so many useless trivial ventures while politicians (mostly democrats) and their friends take whopping cuts, that even the thinking public is no longer able to raise a hue and cry.
Posted by: Casca at August 7, 2012 12:02 PMWell, certainly nothing beats the dancing hamsters of our national entertainment, or a monkey in space, or men in trash cans with rockets strapped to their ass finding the moon and declaring it a Par 2.
Still, the wonk in me loves and appreciates the idea of Voyager having moved beyond our Solar System, and loves the idea of building a remote control car to drive on Mars while Britain celebrates the end of the Industrial Revolution and the Plague.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at August 7, 2012 1:11 PMDamn Joan, who knew you were funny?
Posted by: Casca at August 7, 2012 1:19 PMI assure you, any humor I convey is purely accidental. My last name is Argghh! after all.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at August 7, 2012 3:16 PMImagine - just as a thought experiment, mind you - the sort of writing a child of V-Man and Joanie would produce... holy fuckamoley.
Posted by: Elisson at August 7, 2012 9:25 PMWe abandoned the Moon to support LBJ's Great Scoiety.
Posted by: butch at August 7, 2012 11:03 PMAnyone else get a sick feeling in your stomach watching 2.7 billion fly off into outer space from a planet where kids still starve to death on an hourly basis?
And on another note. 2.7 billion could buy a lot of insurance. Priorities eh?
I like walnuts in my potato salad. It makes it crunchy and delicious.
Posted by: JohnB at August 8, 2012 7:52 AM@Elisson Poor dear! Such a creation would be such a pastiche of inscrutable attention-deficit-off-the-beaten-path as to lose its way before it could even walk.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at August 8, 2012 9:48 AM"Anyone else get a sick feeling in your stomach watching 2.7 billion fly off into outer space from a planet where kids still starve to death on an hourly basis?" No, I get sick watching us feed 36 million starving Ethiopians so that they can breed into 72 million starving Ethiopians. Then I get a sick feeling when we import them to Minneapolis. I get a sick feeling watching fat mamas feeding their fat kids at 7-11 with my ebt card. Every morning, with two supermakets next door.
But as Shiela Lee Jackson, that great representative from the 18th district of Texas said, we can put men on Mars so why can't we cure poverty? Might be a clue there.
I'm just tired of spending billions of dollars to send vehicles into space that don't even have any weapons on them. What if Curiosity encounters the Borg? Will we let them assimilate it?
Posted by: Velociman at August 8, 2012 5:54 PMLet's don't be too hasty to criticize LBJ's Great Society. Just think of the by-products,spin-offs and other benefits we've enjoyed since the mid-60's.
To name a few:
Generations of Cradle To Grave entitlement.
Millions fatherless prison occupants.
Three meals a day for late sleepers.
Car Jacking.
Gang-banging.
Professional bulling.
Thug sports.
Ghetto arts has given us (my fav.) Hip-hop,cRap.
BET
MTV
Wiggers
Mo-better Drugs
The tsunami goes on forever and the misery never ends.
Quite. $16T pissed away to create a permanent subculture of gang-bangers and welfare brood cows, and those of us who wanted to get the hell off this rock didn't even get the fucking t-shirt. In a saner world those resources would have financed cost-effective means to get out of our local gravity well, and we would already have a permanent commercial presence on the Moon.
Posted by: WalkingHorse at August 8, 2012 7:45 PMIt's simple, we empty the prisons, and send all the guards and felons to Africa, where we set them free. Then in the second phase, we send the rest of the government employeess. Then... pay per view.
Posted by: Casca at August 9, 2012 12:45 AMJust think what we could get if we spent Bambi's trillion-dollar stimulus package on make-work for rocket scientists and the like. A dream come true, and fewer welfare and guvment leeches.
Posted by: Kevin Copple at August 9, 2012 10:52 AMWe abandoned the Moon to support LBJ's Great Scoiety.
Posted by: JaneGordon at October 26, 2012 1:13 AMthe reassignment was done only in an abundance of caution, chief assistant state attorney manny madruga said, and the person zepeda knows is not an attorney or an employee of state attorney dennis ward's office. * 4k001, 8h663, 9h348, rechargeable stun guns
Posted by: Kareniug at November 10, 2012 2:25 AMI assure you, any humor I convey is purely accidental. My last name is Argghh! after all.
Posted by: runloolink at January 8, 2013 11:22 AMI assure you, any humor I convey is purely accidental. My last name is Argghh! after all.
Posted by: Gardner at January 24, 2013 11:36 AM