Is there life on Mars? Cloud-gazing Curiosity accused of lacking scientific focus Mars rover Curiosity recently tweeted having its head in the clouds, which just so happens to serve as a good metaphor for a mission that an independent committee of experts say lacks scientific focus. A Planetary Mission Senior panel reviewed Curiosity's work to date on behalf of US space agency NASA. The rover's escapades …
Curiosity is not looking for anthropogenic climate change so therefore is not a proper science mission. Just going there and looking for stuff and making up theories from the stuff that is found is not proper science. To do proper science you have to come up with a theory first, model it and then adjust the data from real measurements to match your models.
Disclaimer: I am assuming that you are not sarcastic or something, and that you didn't mean you need to adjust the data [...] to match your models, but rather the other way around.
I would argue that there are loads of "proper science" that gather data on a phenomena before they venture out in creating theories and models which they then set up experiments to verify or rule out. Actually I would say that is the normal way to do it. After a "that is odd"-moment spending lots of time setting up theories and models when all you have is a single point of observation is a waste of time and can also be counterproductive. Take Darwin and his trips. Not calling his observation, cataloging and note taking in the field, prior to him forming his theory of evolution, for science makes the term a tad narrow for my use of it at least.
Pirate because Darwin probably had to watch out for those.
I did read it, and I still do not see it as clear cut.* The problem with irony is that it is supposed to clear that you usually means the opposite of what you say. This is usually achieved by ensuring that what you are literally saying is beyond what any reasonable person could mean, and also that the recipients know that the sender is a reasonable person.
I have met quite a few people on the Internet, even here, and also a few face to face that could state exactly what "the Axe" said and mean it. (even without my assumption that the last sentence was just poorly drafted)
Anyhow, I'll let my original post stand to make people at ease and the next time they read some wacko's ramblings** they can just say "meh, it is just irony and I won't be fooled like the mr.K fella"
*I blame it partly on my slight fever and that I am not a native English speaker.¤
**Actual wacko
¤This is just an excuse.
@The Axe
Possibly not.
In the first place, we have to accept that there is not a clear binary divide between irony and sarcasm:
"Sarcasm does not necessarily involve irony [but :. may do] and irony has often no touch of sarcasm [but :. may do]" Fowler's Modern English usage
Irony "... is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more and of the outsiders' incomprehension." (Fowler's Modern English Usage).
So I'm calling irony based on mr.K's response.
There is a natural tension between "we need to get to Mt. Sharp before the rover dies/we run out of funding/because it's our target" and stopping for science. Plus as you'd expect, the rover drivers want to DRIVE.
However what was REALLY bad was that NONE of the chief project scientists bothered to show up to the mission extension committee to argue for the rover, giving the committee the distinct impression they were literally "phoning it in" and they felt they were too big to get canceled.
Less than half the missions to Mars have been successful, the ISS needs 18 hours a day maintenance to keep it up, you might want transporters, replicators, tractor beams and doors that go shwoop shwoop when they open but unless we prove launch, landing, habitation we won't be sending people to Mars, we'll be sending corpses to Mars.
It's been over 40 years since any human has been any further than low-earth orbit, that was for 12 days, do you think that an 18 month round trip including landing on a planet with barely any atmosphere and taking down enough fuel to escape it's gravitational pull anything but science fiction at the moment?
China have the good idea of going back to the Moon, maybe even a moonbase in the next decade (or two) they will be shipping habitation pods and fuel there, once it's proven for the Moon, Mars will become a rational next step (or maybe Europa).
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Curiosity may have some shortcomings as a science mission (and I am not comfortable with its little load of Pu238, an element and isotope not present on Mars for thousands of millions of years, if it ever was) but this seems like a bit of a beat-up article (ooh-er, I am supposed to be a paid reg writer, what can I write about today?).
Nothing except some of the Soviet Venera probes (if you haven't, read about them), comes close to matching its landing for audacity.
I rate Venera-series probes as the most audacious planetary exploration even now, given the sulphuric acid in the atmosphere,insanely high pressures, lead-and-tin melting temperatures. unimaginable winds.
Yet they sent back measurements, photographs, and live sound.
The mechanical ballet of Curiosity's landing was magnificent, I enjoyed seeing how the controllers used at several (most?) steps were much the same as the ones to fire airbags in cars. All proofs of concept for techniques that will land people or send them supplies.
I am sad that our Nozomi probe did not get there, the IAU ordered it destroyed because of a chance of it hitting Mars, and it hadn't been sterilised to the required level.
I watched the launch after driving for two hours after midnight, beautiful sight, and in a beautiful place, so of course felt an emotional attachment to its progress.
Also sad for Russia's Phobos-to-Ground and ESA's Beagle 2, but I only shed a tear for Nozomi.
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