No, it was the Hubble program that produced cool screen savers and I bet you have some too.
The government has made very poor funding decisions as of late: http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/FINAL-DOE-Loan-Guarantees-Report.pdf I worked on a project for one of the recipients, what a goat f$:)&! and a waste of our money. The US goverment needs to fund basic research of all types, including LENR and get out of the business of picking winners and losers in the capital markets. I like the fact NASA is pushing projects down to contractors like SpaceX once the technology is understood. I also like the fact we are using automated drones for things like space cargo and defense and saving the precious and expensive astronauts & pilots for the difficult tasks. Better ROI and less risk. On Sunday, May 27, 2012, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > At 12:10 PM 5/26/2012, Chemical Engineer wrote: > >> Jed, >> >> I suggest you remove all of those Hubble screen savers and wallpapers off >> your PC. It cost way too much to produce them >> >> On Saturday, May 26, 2012, Chemical Engineer wrote: >> If that was the only accomplishment of the shuttle i might give your >> argument some weight >> >> On Saturday, May 26, 2012, Jed Rothwell wrote: >> Randy Wuller <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> You could have replaced the Hubble many time over for the cost of the >> Shuttle and its operation. >> >> >> That is true. See the book "Hubble Wars." The cost of the Shuttle mission >> to repair the Hubble was greater than the cost of launching a new Hubble >> would have been. I regret to say this, but it was a publicity stunt. >> > > Brilliant. The Shuttle program was justified because it produced cool > screen-savers? Why should we toss out those expensive screen-savers? We > should keep them as reminders of how billions of dollars can be spent to > produce some great images. > > Now, for the future, can we produce even better images with an improve > space telescope, launched far more cheaply? > > I bet there are some great images of tokamaks and other hot fusion > machines. I've seen some great steampunk stuff from the Soviet program. Big > Old Machines, rusting away. This means? > > Big Science is almost intrinsically a problem, it requires massive > bureaucracy, which is readily self-preserving, just not surprising. Science > is now tending toward much smarter investments, and to distributed > intelligence. >
