Maybe there is nothing in science Mr. Orange detests more than the space shuttle, the International Space Station, and Bush’s childlike desire to send people to the moon and mars. (Not like Mr. Orange hasn’t said it before.)
Why? Because any one of these programs soaks up enough money to launch dozens of satellites and probes that could be doing real science.
And now this sad and beautiful irony: NASA wins a nobel for the COBE satellite, aka the magical two-fingered bra-strap unhooker who let loose the breasts of understanding the earliest beginnings of our universe.
As the Times rightly points out, the COBE satellite is precisely the sort of thing that’s been pushed aside by one politico’s buck rogers race to distract the country from [insert a travesty of this administration here]:
Too bad the program that yielded these pioneering discoveries was reined in not long ago so that NASA could pour billions of dollars into resuming shuttle flights, finishing the international space station, and developing spacecraft to pursue the Bush administration’s ambitious space exploration program.
…
The COBE satellite was part of NASA’s Explorers Program, which uses small satellites to conduct important studies that don’t need gigantic, costly space platforms. Yet these and similar small-scale missions were disproportionately cut to free up money for more grandiose programs.
Not that empirical evidence suggests that public opinion matters to our current crop of ruling elites, but it’s heartening to discover that three fifths of Americans agree that spending billions to get a human footprint on a desert planet is a little like spending billions in order to start a civil war in more terrestrial deserts:
His plan to spend billions of dollars to manned mission to the moon and eventually to Mars drew opposition from 61 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed January 14-15.
…
Even among members of Bush’s own Republican party, 48 percent opposed the plan against the 42 percent who supported it.
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The brain is not a f*cking Lite-Brite, OK?
Hear ye Hear ye.
Also of more shallow note, what happened to ye olde banner? We doth like it greatly. And miss its visage.
The tankers are voting on a new theme as I write this. You should be proud - the enviably professional state of your blog hath shamed us into updating our look.