Re: Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July with Deep Space Fireworks



Eric Chomko wrote:
> spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>
> : Eric Chomko wrote:
> : > spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> : >
> : >
> : > : Joe Strout wrote:
> : > : > In article <42dcb390.80743252@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> : > : > simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:
> : > : >
> : > : > > >The problem being we don't know how to prevent an Earth strike. Recent
> : > : > > >research has discovered that the Bruce Willis prevention
> : > : > >
> : > : > > Yes, we do, as long as we aren't so ignorant as to think that
> : > : > > Hollywood is a useful guide as to methods by which to do so.
> : > : > >
> : > : > > <rest of ignorance of orbital mechanics snipped>
> : > : >
> : > : > But Rand, you snipped the best part:
> : > : >
> : > : > > ...could very well make one Earth strike into many Earth and
> : > : > > Moon strikes, where the latter through tidal effects could have further
> : > : > > bad effects.
> : > : >
> : > : > Hee hee! It's good to start the day with a laugh.
> : >
> : > : Especially if the rest of the day you spread cheek to people who think
> : > : like a manager and not an engineer. OK, a Moon strike would not change
> : > : the tides. As a layman who pays your goddamn salary, I find this a
> : > : surprise and I await your answer, for that is what usenet is for.
> : >
> : > Allow me. You need to get a better understanding how little there is in
>
> : Excuse me. I have been well aware since university and before how far
> : apart planets are, and to a lesser extent. asteroids.
>
> : Unfortunately, you are projecting a complex three-dimensional system,
> : that includes unknown subplanetary objects, onto a simplistic linear
> : scale.
>
> No, a simple euclidean scale, or even a Newtonian one which lacks
> Einsteins gravitational warps or bends.

....in which IF you haven't inventoried all subplanetary objects THEN
you have...nondeterminism.

>
> : Even if planets and to a lesser extent asteroids are far apart,
> : interactions over time (whether aeons or shorter periods) can increase
> : the probability of an event causing an event that affects humanity.
>
> The point is that what was done with Tempel 1 could be argued to be either
> good OR bad, equally WRT its impact on the earth. IOW, the chances are so
> small that ANYTHING will occur of it WRT the earth, that the assessment of
> good or bad become equal due to their probability being very very small of
> having any effect.

Probability good: 10e-5: probability bad 10e-4. Probability diff: order
of magnitude. Hmm, big difference in terms of the inputs.

But, I admit that the probability of the OR statement is low.

But you haven't at all understood, less come to grips with, the need
for a decision prior to the math, which is whether we need to treat
deep space with Hippocratic reverence and "above all do no harm".

I am getting real tired of your evasion while others make stupid
remarks about prose style.

If it is an axiom (and you are free to demur as long as you accept the
consequences of demurral) that IF a system is complex and partly
unknown THEN we need to take the Hippocratic oath and "above all do no
harm", THEN the possibility of benefit is moot.

We don't approve of the doctor who does an operation which MIGHT create
sexual potency or cure baldness when that operation MIGHT also harm. I
realize that in the immoral free market of American medicine, rich
patients might believe that they can demand such operations, but this
only means that being a stupid idiot without moral seriousness is
widespread in American life.

>
> : Ethically, even if the probability of Deep Impact causing through
> : indirect effects an Earth event is 10e-100, IF the event happened in a
> : space and time continuum with all the *raum undt zeit* in the world to
> : produce "unlikely" events, the authors of the destructive and macho
> : Deep Impact stunt would still bear an unbearable ethical responsibility
> : which they could have avoided by adopting my view, that as a complex
> : system space should be treated under a Hippocratic oath, above all, do
> : no harm.
>
> Again, based upon your scenario, the folks the tiggered Deep Impact could
> have saved humanity as well by avoiding an imminent strike of the earth by
> Tempel 1. My agrument is just as valid as yours!
>
Nope. They had no such intent. Instead, they had at best the intent to
help, not save, humanity by getting information. Mixed with careerism,
of course.

But it's clear you don't accept my radical thesis, that BECAUSE space
is while deterministic in the large not in fact fully known even in the
Solar System, we need to "above all do no harm".

What this means is you are prepared without moral seriousness to cause
harm on the scale of Columbus and the early Western explorers: they
caused depopulation of the American continent through disease, because
their "harm", the violation of either property rights or a commons,
caused diseases through a process they were too dumb to know about.

The alternative to the Columbian expedition, which was mercantilist and
therefore economically senseless, wasn't staying at home like a doofus.
It was instead WHAT WAS ALREADY HAPPENING, which were laissez-faire
voyages of trade whose scale restricted their biological impact, and
which by being gradual and step by step would have prevented, probably,
the impact of disease.

> : Treat it in other words with reverence.
>
> ...unless they are headed for your home. It is the same as I treat people.
> With respect, except when they try to break into my home and/or hurt my
> family or me.
>
Oh Jesus, here it comes...yeah, yeah, yeah...

> : Furthermore, if techs on the current Shuttle launch cannot get as
> : required all four sensor systems working, if the current launch fails
> : to meet a major requirement of the 2003 investigation, then resources
> : should be focused on the Shuttle.
>
> The shuttle is Johnson Space Center and Deep Impact is Jet Propulsion
> Laboratory. YOU tell the scientists and engineers at JPL that their work
> and jobs have been cut and sent to JSC in Houston for the shuttle.

Don't fucking gerrymander the issue. Public space policy, as Diane
Vaughan showed, is unitary and top-down. JPL and Johnson are part of
the same phenom.

>
> And after you do that, do the same thing with the Army and Navy because
> you want more for the Air Force. I dare you!
>
> Wait, let's identify your job and reallocate the money elsewhere for the
> better good.
>
> You might want to reread your namesake or maybe read up on Nietzsche or
> something?

Spinoza's knowledge was by definition noninvasive because it was the
shareable and nonproprietary part of experience. Note that ONE "deep
impact" means that subsequently we cannot perform the same operation on
the same comet with better tools whether invasive or noninvasive.
Whereas a Hubble observation is repeatable.

Any time we choose to destroy in order to know, we make the decision
that our instruments are optimal and won't improve.

However, today, JPL and Johnson both are constrained by omnipresent
funding pressures (created by overinvestment in military foolishness
and the exit of the rich from the tax base) to "race" to destructive
ventures with existing technology.

No account is taken of the fact that IF you delay a launch or other
stunt, your engineers can work not only on the questionable system but
all other systems.

The work of the engineers is in the current way of doing things not
properly accounted for as an asset, in my view.

My view is that if a guy has a degree from Princeton in aeronautics and
is not some hophead or drunk, he will show up with his slide rule, or
Blackberry, and generate most days fragments of real human knowledge
even if nobody asks him.

This is what geeks like to do. For example, in slack time as a
programmer, I have always worked on acquiring new skills by creating
tools for my own use, and one result was that in May 2004 I published a
rather straightforward, if rather droll, book on compiler
development...with a 26000-line compiler based on a set of tools for
string handling and math, versions of which I'd developed for
employers.

<shamelessPlug>Buy my book I need the money it is Build Your Own .Net
Language and Compiler, Apress 2004 (I wanted to call it Build Your Own
Goddamn .Net Language and Compiler but Apress would not let
me).</shamelessPlug>

However, the current top-down accounting system by focusing on the
"needs" of the administration effectively assigns zero or negative
value to unfocused efforts.

The result is that the operational types need to overfocus on the parts
of the system identified by management as critical.

Subsequently, crises occur because of a lack of continuous effort on
disfavored subsystems. For example, by 2003, the "system" for recording
the launch visually was a black and white camera (in an era when
parents can for a few hundred dollars buy a camera to record their
baby's drooling in real time).

That story of the black and white camera registers an astonishing
passivity extending to passive aggression, because it appears from the
record that by 2003 to many decent engineers had been bitch-slapped for
asking questions about quality issues not on the agenda...in a culture
of cost-cutting.

Iraq makes clear that members of the military-industrial complex use
procurement to enrich themselves and their fat pals. Therefore, the
replacement of the outdated camera couldn't use a simple commercial
product. The paperwork of procurement, rigged at NASA to favor known
companies, becomes part of "engineering" in a culture where
"engineering" is no longer the application of science, but also
manipulation of requirements and expectations.

As a result, prior to the 2003 event, engineers could not form a clear
idea of how insulation struck the wing and the pattern of chunks that
did so.

Here, the layperson's, the taxpayer's, and Ted Kennedy's
pre-liquid-lunch perceptions might have a validity lacking in NASA, in
JPL. Basically, it appears in layman's terms that by 2003 we were
firing a high-tech garbage can into space and as we did so, it was
falling apart.

I mean, come on. If my car's tailpipe falls off, I delay the launch.
But in the 2003 launch, pieces of the shuttle were falling off and
engineers were through lack of the older privilege of "pushback" to
stop the launch.

.

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