China begins operating giant telescope to explore deep space

[yuiyoshida]

[longship]

1. And the US is likely to lose Aricebo!

Which is now the second largest radio telescope on the planet. It's like Fermilab. Once the LHC went on line, the Tevatron at Fermilab was shut down.

It's very sad. Really. Apparently if we cannot be number one, we're gonna be number zero. This is the USA under GOP control.

Don't get me started about the Superconducting Supercollider!

Or the mindless idiocy of the Thirty Meter Telescope protests in Hawaii.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. That's because the BIG LIE is, "We're broke!"

[longship]

3. Well, that argument is certainly no help. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. The point is we are NOT broke. We could afford a massive NASA budget....

All we need to do is stop spending it all on war.

[longship]

6. Well, that certainly is true.

I am a big supporter of a permanent moon base. I don't know why we didn't do that in the 70's.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Nixon....

He considered all of that "moon stuff" to be a "Kennedy thing".

Yeah,....he was that petty.

[longship]

8. That did not stop him from exploiting Apollo 11.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Soon after he was cutting funding for Apollo....

We should have just kept on going.

By 2000 they expected a moon base and a space station and average people would be taking a 45 minute flight from NY to Tokyo while weightless.

[longship]

10. Well, I don't know about the latter.

But the rest of it would have been a realistic goal given Apollo's success. After all, any space travel is inherently risky to life. So, ixnay on the 45 minute NYC to Tokyo flights. Hell, we don't even have supersonic passenger service because of the risk, which is very real.

Thanks. A good colloquy!

[reACTIONary]

4. Agreed !