[extropy-chat] Re: SPACE: where are we?

[Technotranscendence]

On Friday, February 06, 2004 5:48 PM Christian Weisgerber
naddy at mips.inka.de wrote:
> Maybe I'm overly naive,

No comment.:)

> but I assumed that the people at NASA/ESA/etc
> are busy performing actual scientific work

Hmm.  If you'd read the rest of my post, you'd have seen that I wrote
much the same.  E.g.:

"Because it takes time for a person or people to analyze the stuff,
write it up, and make it presentable for public consumption."

and

"Well, the mission funding might not have included that in the first
place.  Whoever's writing up the news releases might be doing double
duty -- either not be the PR person for just this mission or actually
might be something like the project lead as well as the PR person."

> and don't waste too many resources on feeding
> details to a largely desinterested and scientifically
> illiterate public, where you have to start out each
> time with an explanation that you are not talking
> about the candy bar, and no, no humanoid aliens
> are going to be discovered.

And who pays the bills for this stuff?  The "largely desinterested and
scientifically illiterate public," I believe.

Also, Robert Bradbury is the one complaining.  Now, I don't believe he's
"largely desinterested and scientifically illiterate" yet he is part of
NASA's public.  Keeping him and people like him happy might be a good
idea for NASA, but then it's a public agency funded through taxes, so
why should it care?:)

Regards,

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html