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New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

nytimes.com

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Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#11

Post by eponeponepon »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #8

Seems like a good time to reflect on the work: "Whitey on the Moon" https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 It'd be one thing if this was private money, instead it comes out of the pocketbooks of those suffering. That's rarely acknowledged.

I think, if we want to play 'what-about', then it's fair to say that the cost of the New Horizons mission ("approximately $700 million over 15 years", per Wikipedia) is a drop in the ocean compared to the US Dept of Defence's direct spending on the 2003-2010 Iraq war, which was more than $700 billion, which came just as much out of the wallet of the US taxpayer (who is both rich and poor, and separately, both content and suffering), and as a little-known side-effect, killed a bunch more people than New Horizons has so far.

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#12

Post by stagger87 »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #8

Seems like a good time to reflect on the work: "Whitey on the Moon" https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 It'd be one thing if this was private money, instead it comes out of the pocketbooks of those suffering. That's rarely acknowledged.

Spending on space exploration has been in debate and protested since the 60's, and probably even earlier than that. Not to say that it isn't worth discussing, only to counter the comment about being rarely acknowledged.

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#14

Post by pjc50 »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #8

Seems like a good time to reflect on the work: "Whitey on the Moon" https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 It'd be one thing if this was private money, instead it comes out of the pocketbooks of those suffering. That's rarely acknowledged.

In a simply literal sense this may be true, but it's also misleading.

(What is true is that the only people to have seen the far side of the moon directly are white male Americans, but New Horizons is not a manned mission)

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#16

Post by ianai »

stagger87 wrote: post #12
RA_Fisher wrote: post #8

Seems like a good time to reflect on the work: "Whitey on the Moon" https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4 It'd be one thing if this was private money, instead it comes out of the pocketbooks of those suffering. That's rarely acknowledged.

Spending on space exploration has been in debate and protested since the 60's, and probably even earlier than that. Not to say that it isn't worth discussing, only to counter the comment about being rarely acknowledged.

Not to mention that government finances are nothing like private finances. Governments are assumed to be infinitely lived and their debt can always be paid by new debt. Debt isn’t the same thing for a government that it is for a private entity. For instance, only the government creates money. A Tbill is literally the government taking currency today and agreeing to give it out with interest over time. It was going to need to do that all along.

I say NASA’s budget could be much greater. And employment for all could be guaranteed. Political movements to the otherwise are bad for society. They actively hurt society and guard against betterment. We’re talking dark ages vs progress.

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#17

Post by KineticLensman »

eponeponepon wrote: post #13

Has there been any talk of further fly-by targets? I seem to recall there were a number of possible candidates after the Pluto fly-by, but I suppose the Thule visit might have ruled some or all of those others out.

I haven't found a definitive 'no' but with a bit of quick googling - the current mission extension runs until (at least) 2021 and there is very little onboard fuel for significant course updates. Some of the other potential targets were in fact ruled out by the selection of Ultima Thule. The extended mission for New Horizons calls for the spacecraft to conduct observations of, and look for ring systems around, between 25 and 35 different KBOs.

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#18

Post by hirundo »

Maybe this is the first visit to the future home of humanity, the Kuiper Belt. Vast lebensraum and resources for colonization. Not so much solar power, but we could fuse our own. When energy is cheap the next bottlenecks are surface area and mass. It seems like success would drive our descendants to mostly live in the belt. How disappointing if those images come back tomorrow and show that it's already occupied.

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#19

Post by FactolSarin »

eponeponepon wrote: post #13

Has there been any talk of further fly-by targets? I seem to recall there were a number of possible candidates after the Pluto fly-by, but I suppose the Thule visit might have ruled some or all of those others out.

Nothing concrete, but there probably will be another https://www.space.com/42808-nasa-new-horizons-possible-third...

Re: New Horizons Reaches Ultima Thule

#20

Post by KineticLensman »

hirundo wrote: post #18

Maybe this is the first visit to the future home of humanity, the Kuiper Belt. Vast lebensraum and resources for colonization. Not so much solar power, but we could fuse our own. When energy is cheap the next bottlenecks are surface area and mass. It seems like success would drive our descendants to mostly live in the belt. How disappointing if those images come back tomorrow and show that it's already occupied.

> Vast lebensraum and resources for colonization

Well 'vast', yes, but not much else. Mainly rock and ices.

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