Drama in space: But Philae keeps trying to harpoon comet The ESA's comet-chaser spacecraft Rosetta will send its lander Philae towards Comet 67P on Wednesday – after some scrambling by boffins here in Germany over the past few hours to get the probe ready for its historic landing attempt. The comet is hurtling through space at 135,000km per hour towards the Sun, and the ESA hopes …
I see that Philae and Rosetta are now (2014-11-12T09:09+0000) separated, but it's a bit worrying that a featherweight probe is going to try to drill its way into the surface without those cold gas thrusters. It'll be like trying to unscrew a screw without being able to push on the screwdriver. Fingers crossed.
" It'll be like trying to unscrew a screw without being able to push on the screwdriver"
You mean 'screw in a screw without being able to lean on it'. As long as you have harpooned yourself to the wall you can pull on the harpoon rather han lean on the screw i guess.
<control> "Fire harpoons!"
<rosetta> boiiinnnggggg
<control> "Oh bugger, I forgot the stabilising thruster doesn't work ... it's like one of those boingy, jumpy, springy things you stick to the desk with a sucker ..."
<rosetta> weeeeeeeeee ... "My God, it's full of stars ... and you can call me Harpoon Assisted Lander ..."
'Joking' aside I am truly in awe of what Rosetta has achieved so far, even without the attempted landing. It's amazing to think that yesterday we mark the signing of the armistice that brought an end to Europe tearing itself limb from limb and here we are today sharing an incredible amount of excitement that proves how much we can achieve when we work together. Wonderful stuff.
No, no, Farage is pro-Europe. He says so a lot. He just wants to come to an arrangement by which we have all the benefits of EU membership without having any of them come to live here (other than Mrs. Farage) and without contributing to the budget.
If I have misrepresented his views perhaps a UKIP member could put me right, based on UKIP policies and public statements, rather than simply downvoting.
Can somebody tell me what the benefits of EU membership are? Apart from me being able to buy a years supply of fags at a less extortionate price when I go to EU land.
I'm serious. Not even in that televised debate did (whoever Farrage's no name opponent was) manage to give a reason for having the EU.
I've tried googling it but still not found anything solid just politicians rhetoric.
I *have* heard mutterings about "trade" . But what about trade? why does it make trade better? we still manage to trade with non EU countries so whats the difference? (as evidenced by all the i-things flooding the country)
p.s. awesome news with the lander , hope we get good news with non-thruster assisted ice screwing in 4 hours
One of the primary differences is import duty, which is an added percentage levied on the cost of goods from outside the EU. It varies depending on governnment policy. Then there is the harmonisation of regulations, which is often held up in the media as a bad thing but makes it easier for manufacturers because you don't have to make product varients for each seperate country, but can just do one.
Say you leave a trading block that you do a lot of business with and say average import duty is 3%. Everything you buy from the old block goes up 3% because of your import duty, and everything you sell to them has 3% slapped on top, so your exports are less competitive. You can , of course, decide not to have any import duty from your old chums to keep prices down but your manufacturers have lots of cheap EU goods as competition but can't sell their stuff in EU countries as it's expensive and doesn't meet their regulations any more.
Ah , thanks Bunbury.
something to think about there.
Is there much manufacturing of actual things going on in this country?
Could the exporter not just rent an ice cream van in target country and sell from there?
Are we paying £50m a day to be in the EU just so we cant charge import duty on all the EU things?
I guess its all about how much cash and stuff goes in and out, ie the trade deficit
Yes we make lots. Office of national statistics for 2013 Trade in Goods (i.e. not services): UK imports from EU £221Bn, exports £151Bn; both are bigger than the rest of the world combined. Biggest catagories of goods exported (though not necessarily to EU) are mechanical machinery, cars, electrical machinery, medicines and pharmaceuticals, crude oil, refined oil.
Glad to see also (relevant to main story) that we have a trade surplus in scientific and photgraphic good. And beverages, hence icon.
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