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


Rand Simberg wrote:
> On 19 Jul 2005 21:22:02 -0700, in a place far, far away,
> spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
> way as to indicate that:
>
> >> >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.
> >
> >The problem is that Big Science at one level dismisses ANY
> >consideration of the popular semiotic as influencing policy indirectly
> >(by causing managers to authorize irresponsible stunts like Deep
> >Impact, and to endanger the lives of Shuttle crews through macho
> >dismissal of a key recommendation) as being one with the phenomenon I
> >am standing outside.
>
> Amidst all your other ignorant nonsense, I'm now supposed to take
> serously someone who actually uses the word "semiotic" in a Usenet
> post?

Yes. A "semiotic" is a sign, a signal. If you are ignorant of this
word, that is your problem, and it is part of the "normalization of
deviance" which infects American technical praxis with
anti-intellectualism, used as a form of controlling people.

>
> >> <rest of ignorance of orbital mechanics snipped>
> >
> >I believe, based on my layperson's understanding of "orbital
> >mechanics", that if there are unknown subplanetary objects then
> >indirect interactions are today noncomputable.
>
> Over the long term, yes. Not over the short term.

What's the short term? Don't engineers give a good goddamn about their
grandchildren? Or do they fucking move to retirement communities and
vote down school bond issues?

Oh, gee, I guess that this is what American engineers do, especially if
they are successful at "thinking like a manager and not an engineer".
Seems like we have a big problem here, which is the denial of
connectedness, whether in the form of engineering anti-intellectualism
or taking risks with unknown phenomena, from Alamogordo to Tempel-1.

The subplanetary body Apophis 99942 was discovered in 2003 on what was
thought to be an Earth trajectory with arrival time 2029. Then,
recalculations indicated that it would miss earth.

However, further research has indicated that a variation in Earth's
gravitational field, a "keyhole", may alter its orbit, putting it into
Earth trajectory after all in 2039.

This is SHORT-TERM uncertainty. The Tempel-1 mission does, to its
credit, show us that we can implant monitors on Apophis 99942. But it
does NOT show us any way of destroying the object without creating
further short-term uncertainty in the form of a lot of pissed-off
fragments (well, OK, not pissed off, but certainly on RANDOM
trajectories).

Sure, Keynes said "in the long run we are all dead". However, William
F. Buckley (who I happen to admire because unlike younger conservatives
Buckley has brains and heart) said in response "no-one who has children
could say this".
>
> <bizarre and irrelevant rant about "managers vs engineers">
>
> >I realize that it is the fashion to masquerade ignorance by making
> >global and negative statements. But chances are YOU are unaware of the
> >fact that in fact we canthe not, using Newtonian orbital mechanics,
> >predict what would happen if we tried to destroy an asteroid on Earth
> >trajectory.
>
> No one said anything about destroying asteroids.
>
> And we of course we can predict the trajectory of an asteroid whose
> trajectory we modify, over time periods of importance.

.

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