The American Physical Society is making its objections to the Moon, Mars and Beyond Initiative. The gist of their argument is that it might cost more than projected and the over-runs might take away from other scientific projects.
Returning Americans to the Moon and landing on Mars would have a powerful symbolic significance, the APS report observes, but it would constitute only a small step in the advancement of knowledge, since much will already be known from exploration with the robotic precursor probes that are necessary to guarantee the safety of any human mission.The other objection seems to be that the initiaitve is ill-defined. Well, methinks that getting there and anddoing stuff is pretty good enough at this point. As you may all know it is our contention that there are plenty of reasons to go. Not nearly any good enough reasons not to go.
The APS report was authored by a 10-person group, with the committee chaired by Joel Primack, a professor of physics and a leading astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
According to their web site, the American Physical Society is the world's largest professional body of physicists, representing more than 45,000 physicists in academia and industry in the United States and internationally. It has offices in College Park, Maryland and Ridge, New York.
Still, it's a thought-provoking read.
Test Your Space Trivia
Right here. This one is good:
7. In the "Star Wars" films, the Imperial TIE Fighters are propelled by ion engines (TIE stands for Twin Ion Engine). While these spacecraft are fictional, real ion engines power some of today's spacecraft.Fact or Fiction!?
Go knock yourself out. :)
- Art Neuro
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