The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Has science taken a wrong turn? If so, what corrections are needed? Chronicles of scientific misbehavior. The role of heretic-pioneers and forbidden questions in the sciences. Is peer review working? The perverse "consensus of leading scientists." Good public relations versus good science.
BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:50 pm

MSN needs to get some better science writers or editors …

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/lo ... r-AA170eue

The title says “Look! New JWST shows a Billion-Year-Old Spiral Galaxy in Stunning Detail”.

Then immediately below it says “In this latest image … snip … we’re seeing spiral galaxy LEDA 2-46648 as it looked while the first multicellular organisms were clumping together here on earth” … which happened from latest reports about a billion years ago.

So obviously, the galaxy is NOT a billion years old.

But my real question is why do we need detailed images of so many galaxies?

How many people hang them on their walls at home?

Because I imagine that’s about the only benefit the average taxpayer derives from such research.

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Feb 05, 2023 1:05 am

https://www.ndtv.com/feature/wolf-1069- ... us-3752533
Wolf 1069 b: Astronomers Discover An Earth-Like Planet Very Close To Us

… snip …

Finding a livable world that is similar to Earth is one of the most intriguing objectives of extraterrestrial study.
I say … Why? Don’t they have the cart before the horse? We have absolutely no means of going to this star because it is over 31 light years away. So why spend all this effort right bow trying to find such a planet. What possible benefit can that have to taxpayers?

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:55 am

https://www.designnews.com/industry/nas ... -dark-ages
Astronomy fans and scientists were dismayed when Puerto Rico’s Aricibo radio telescope collapsed, but NASA has plans for a replacement that will blow away the capabilities of that facility by putting a telescope that is nearly three times as large into a crater on the far side of the moon.

The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) will be a kilometer in diameter, in comparison to 300 meters for the collapsed Aricibo radio telescope and 500 meters for the FAST facility in Guizhou, China.

“While there were no stars, there was ample hydrogen during the universe’s Dark Ages – hydrogen that would eventually serve as the raw material for the first stars,” said Joseph Lazio, radio astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a member of the LCRT team. “With a sufficiently large radio telescope off Earth, we could track the processes that would lead to the formation of the first stars, maybe even find clues to the nature of dark matter.”
The cost? According to this ... https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/space ... Telescope/ ... between $1 Billion (with moderate risks) and $4-5 Billion (using present-day technology and therefore relatively low risk). The actual cost will probably be double those amounts if you consider how bad initial estimates for such projects usually are. But here's my question. Is knowing the processes that led to the formation of the first stars or (unlikely) getting a few clues about the nature of dark matter worth billions of dollars to any of us? Or is this just another project to keep all those astrophysicists out there living lives of relative luxury compared to most tax payers?

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Astrophysicists spending more of YOUR money …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:28 pm

Now I've mentioned NASA's DM boondoggle, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, to be launched in 2027 (they hope). But ESA (the European Space Agency) has it's own. It's called Euclid and it supposed to be launched by Space X in July. Now see if you can find how much the telescope costs It’s not easy. The mainstream is careful to not include that detail in articles. Even Wikipedia has no details about that now. It’s like they don’t want you to know that. If you go back to articles in 2012 you learn it was predicted to come in around billion dollars. But all the recent announcements (for example … https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2023- ... E7Co.html ) are mum as to the current cost. Euclid’s own website (https://www.euclid-ec.org) doesn’t say a word about it. Maybe it still around a billion, maybe it's not. One thing for sure, look at all the countries involved in it. Look at all the organizations involved in it: https://www.euclid-ec.org/?page_id=4352 . Hundreds if not thousands of people involved in designing and building it. Got to be a least a billion ... a billion taxpayer dollars ... probably down the drain. But if it weren't this, it'd probably be another drain ... Ukraine.

Just saying ...

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Justification for the Roman telescope and more ...

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Mar 05, 2023 9:45 pm

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-AA18fsla
Roman Space Telescope will survey the sky 1,000 times faster than Hubble
Why do we need that speed? Is there some urgency that we haven’t been told about?

Or are astrophysicists just eager to soak the public for every dollar they can before their scam is revealed?

The article quotes a NASA employee saying
"To solve cosmic mysteries on the biggest scales, we need a space telescope that can provide a far larger view. That’s exactly what Roman is designed to do.”


But how will a larger view help solve cosmic mysteries when they can’t even explain the smaller mysteries … like how gravity produces pairs of helically wound filaments? Are they thinking that dark matter is in some region of the universe they haven't looked yet? But we were told it is everywhere?

The article says
Roman will be used for tasks like doing a survey to estimate how many exoplanets exist in the entire galaxy.
Why do we need to know this? What’s the urgency in that? We aren’t likely to be going there any time soon, are we?

The article says Roman will be “
looking at the distribution of galaxies to help understand dark matter.
How will the distribution of galaxies help them understand dark matter. Surely what they already know enough about the distribution to have found it by now. It’s sounds more like they don’t know what else to do but keep looking. They are now praying to find the needle in the haystack that will save them from great embarrassment. And if not, at least they'll take a few billion more from the public coffers before they have to exist, stage left. Just saying ...
Last edited by BeAChooser on Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Justification for the Habitable Worlds Observatory

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Mar 05, 2023 9:56 pm

Here’s more on the same theme …

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-AA18el1S
Scientists seeking evidence of alien life believe they will spot telltale signs on ‘thousands’ of planets within the next 20 years.

Increasingly powerful telescopes will be able to examine the atmospheres of planets hundreds of light years away for evidence that we are not alone in the universe.

... snip ...

Nasa is planning ‘aggressive technology development’ towards a possible future project called the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will specifically examine the air of Earth-like ‘exoplanets’ for signs they could sustain life.
Cost of this dubious endeavor? Many more billions of YOUR dollars.

It's dubious because what good will our knowing that do us here on earth anytime in the foreseeable future?

Isn't this just an effort for astrophysicists to stay relevant?

But what is the relevancy ... TO US WHO ARE PAYING FOR IT?
Last edited by BeAChooser on Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:13 pm, edited 3 times in total.

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Justification for the search for alien life ...

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:11 pm

https://sciencex.com/wire-news/43948748 ... verse.html
Humanity's quest to discover the origins of life in the universe

… snip …

What humanity could learn from extra-terrestrial biosignatures

… snip …

"As we begin to investigate other planets, through the Mars missions," Mitchell [a zoology professor who works in Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe] says, "biosignatures could reveal whether or not the origin of life itself and its evolution on Earth is just a happy accident or part of the fundamental nature of the universe, with all its biological and ecological complexities."
Is knowing that really worth billions and billions of YOUR dollars folks? Do any of you think that anything they find through telescopes looking at exoplanets many light years away will let them improve the environment here on earth? Improve medicine? Or let them create or alter life here on earth for our benefit? I seriously doubt it. This sounds like a waste of time and money … unless we had the means to go to those planets. But we don’t and unless the government has been lying to us yet again, we won’t any time soon ... not in our or our children’s children’s lifetimes … almost certainly. So this just sounds like more waste of taxpayer money. To benefit only the people getting it.

User avatar
orrery
Posts: 406
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2010 7:04 pm

Re: Justification for the Roman telescope and more ...

Unread post by orrery » Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:22 pm

I want a full survey sweep of all of the local star systems in order to be able to measure energetic flux rates of the plasma streams that feed stars. I'd also want to be able to see how stars behave when crossing the galactic disc or how galactic wave phenomenon affect surrounding star systems. We need to establish behavioral patterns for whenever stars move through the galactic plane, micro-nova rates, how ISM affect star behavior etc.

Also, we are currently in a window of opportunity where we have the technology to do all of this. Continued advancement is not a given -- so -- I'd want a solar system spanning telescope network with a thousand JWST out to the orbit of Pluto leading to a multi-generational mission to send a fleet of telescopes to beyond the galaxy. For triangulation and resolution purposes.
"though free to think and to act - we are held together like the stars - in firmament with ties inseparable - these ties cannot be seen but we can feel them - each of us is only part of a whole" -tesla

http://www.reddit.com/r/plasmaCosmology

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Sun Nov 19, 2023 7:39 pm

Here’s just the very latest (there was plenty more while the forum was down) ...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-AA1jTG8W “New research hints at a periodic table for dark matter … snip … In a paper published on the preprint database arXiv, cosmologists delve into a concept termed “recycled dark matter.” This novel mechanism introduces the possibility that ultra-heavy dark matter (UHDM) particles were generated in the aftermath of the early universe’s phase transitions. The researchers propose that these particles got entangled in ultra dense pockets, leading to the formation of black holes and eventually evolving into a diverse array of dark matter species.” So they not only can’t find ONE type of dark matter, they can’t find any proof of a whole “a periodic table” of them. Yet they still *believe* in the gnome. MSN had another article on this (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment ... r-AA1jJzvN) in which they admit “Experimental evidence for this idea is still a long ways away”. But just watch … they’ll be asking for hundreds of millions of dollar to look for it. It’s a cycle repeated over and over and over the last 50 to 60 years.

Here’s another in the “one step closer” category … https://phys.org/news/2023-11-closer-un ... akihs.html “One step closer to unveiling dark matter with ARRAKIHS. The ARRAKIHS consortium, for which EPFL has the science lead, has just successfully passed the mission definition review of the project, a very important first milestone towards full completion of the mission preparation. ARRAKIHS is a satellite selected by ESA to address the nature of dark matter, to be launched in 2030.” It will be another $200 million dollars down the drain.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... s-origins/ “A second big bang? The radical idea rewriting dark matter’s origins …. snip … It is possible, they say, that in the weeks after the big bang there was a second, similarly profound moment of transformation. This one may have spawned monstrous shadow particles trillions of times the mass of those that make up normal matter and could make sense of the mysterious, invisible matter that seems to hold galaxies together.” Desperation breeds a double bang! And instead of “double the pleasure” and “double the fun” that the gum offered, cosmologists will likely get double the money!

And Euclid, the $1.5 billion dollar dark matter space telescope mission, has taken its first pictures. Whoopie! It seems to me though, we should get more than some “awe inspiring” photos for that much money. Henk Hoekstra, a cosmologist who was a proponent of Euclid, had this to say at it’s launch … https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/e ... -universe/ “To highlight the challenge we face, I would like to give the analogy: It’s very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there’s no cat.” Indeed!

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Nov 29, 2023 6:10 pm

On the topic of wasted resources …

https://www.businessinsider.com/milky-w ... me-2023-11
A team of scientists has discovered that the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is spinning so fast that it's squishing space-time.
Isn’t it amazing how scientists can figure all this out with apparent certainty at a distance of 26,000 LIGHT YEARS, yet can’t seem to get it right where Covid-19, Global Warming, the Social Sciences, etc, are concerned right here on earth.

Maybe they’re right … but so what? As the article admits …
That may sound alarming, but don't worry; the black hole is way too far away to affect us here on Earth.

But, Daly said, understanding how black holes function can help scientists learn more about the formation and evolution of galaxies like our own.
To which I again say, so what? Why do we need to know how galaxies form and evolve? I have no problem with interested parties figuring that out … but not at the taxpayers’ expense … not unless there’s some benefit from that to the taxpayers. Can anyone here name a benefit?

Roy
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun May 02, 2010 12:04 pm

Re: The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Unread post by Roy » Fri Dec 01, 2023 7:40 pm

Looking at the referenced scientific paper - it is a compendium of extracted numbers, references Eighty Five other papers, and discusses parameters and characteristics of supposed black holes of various sizes. It is, IMHO, “abracadabra science” . So , a black hole about black holes.

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Tue Dec 05, 2023 4:30 am

Talk about a total waste of Japanese taxpayer money …

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-billion-y ... -hole.html
A star near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy originated outside the galaxy according to a new study published in Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series B.
I can’t think of one thing this study finds which will change the lives of ANY us for the better now and into the far future. The only thing it does is maybe allow Shogo Nishiyama and the eight other authors of this study to live a better life ... at the expense of all those who funded the study. This is the sad truth about almost every study now underway by mainstream astrophysicists around the world.

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

Re: The ridiculousness waste of resources continues …

Unread post by BeAChooser » Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:54 am

As if you didn’t already have enough to worry about …

https://www.sciencealert.com/parasite-b ... the-inside
A rather unusual candidate for dark matter could be lurking inside stars, slowly eating them from the inside out.

A new paper led by astrophysicist Earl Bellinger of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and Yale University proposes that teeny tiny black holes that formed at the dawn of time could have been incorporated into Sun-like stars, and have been sitting at their cores ever since, gradually slurping up material and turning it into more black hole.

It's all extremely hypothetical, of course.
Except the part where you the taxpayer have to pay for this silly *research*.

That part is VERY real.

Poppa Tom
Posts: 109
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2019 10:05 pm

Re: Just Stuck On Stupid Syndrome

Unread post by Poppa Tom » Tue Dec 19, 2023 2:13 pm

Dang!

BeAChooser
Posts: 1052
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:24 am

What have the stars done for humankind?

Unread post by BeAChooser » Thu Dec 21, 2023 8:15 am

That’s the title of an article describing this interview with

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-stars-humankind.html
Professor Roberto Trotta from Imperial College London's Department of Physics … a theoretical physicist by training and astrophysicist by trade. … snip … [H]e is a Visiting Professor who wants to empower us to appreciate the sky and the stars. His newest book, "Starborn," was recently featured as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week. We spoke to him to find out what the stars, sky and everything in-between bring to humankind
Maybe a better question would have been ask … what have astrophysicists done for mankind? The closest they got was to ask “what have you discovered so far about the universe and its weirdness” … and Professor Trotta didn’t come up with anything specific. He just said that he and his group of “very talented younger researchers” (who I think are wasting their lives) “want to give answer to these questions in a way that uses all the information available in the data with a result you can trust”. In other words, his response was gobbledegook.

Towards the end of the article, they report saying to the professor ... “I see you’ve done quite a lot of science communication in the past”. He answers “It’s something I have always done, and always felt like it’s my duty as a scientist.” Well folks, you all know what I think of science communicators these days. ;)

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest