Earth's Comet Hunting Blind Spot
Earth at risk after cuts close comet-spotting program, scientists warn, The Guardian
“The Earth has been left with a huge blind spot for potentially devastating comet strikes after the only dedicated comet-spotting program in the southern hemisphere lost its funding, leading astronomers have warned. The program, which discovered the Siding Spring comet that narrowly missed Mars on Sunday, was shut down last year after losing funding. “It’s a real worry,” Bradley Tucker, an astronomer at the Australian National University (ANU) and University of California Berkeley, told Guardian Australia. “There could be something hurtling towards us right now and we wouldn’t know about it.”
Siding Spring survey
Let’s see, which is a more important use of a few million dollars? Keeping the comet hunters alive so they can spot the next rock before it annihilates us, or adding it to the billions already going into Constellation so we can claim we are sending four civil servants to Mars in 2038 to put up an American flag? If the Obama Administration proposes anything, Congress will attack it as a leftist plot. Sorry to be so cynical, but American politics has devolved into a struggle for money and power that has become far more important than saving our planet.
how about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter? its 2011 budget was $11.4 billion.
https://www.nationalpriorit…
2001 alone? Are you serious? The F-35 is essentially a drone ground attack aircraft that adds the risky and very expensive option of keeping its drone operator on board. It’s great to see that after all these years we finally got to use the F-22 in one combat mission on which it was not needed.
I am serious.
The Joint Strike Fighter program merged together several existing aircraft technology development programs, and was initiated in 1996. two X planes, the X-32 (Boeing) and the X-35 (Lockheed Martin) were produced in 2000 to compete for the JSF contract. LM won the contract and the F-35 program was started, with the first test flight of the F-35 in 2006. it has since been in development hell, with numerous problems.
I can’t find a solid number on how much has been spent on the development of the F-35 so far, but the per-aircraft costs, no matter how many will be built, will be by far the highest for any fighter aircraft, over $120 million each. The US military is planning to build about 2,440 of them, for a total cost, including development, of around $400 billion. the estimated total costs, including 55 years of operational service, is over $1 trillion.
So there is a bigger money sink than even the SLS/Orion (with its total lifetime cost of about $400B). Impressive. Nevertheless I don’t thing even the F-35 can touch SLS/Orion for its cost per flight of $1B+payload.
The big programs develop a political momentum that so often squeezes out the small ones.
yep. the horror that is the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Do you hate SLS that much big V? “I don’t think that even F-35 can touch” F-35:antiquated thinking and technology. SLS is at LEAST new.
antiquated technology?
part of the problem with the F-35 is that it’s got too much new technology in it. the helmet-mounted HUD doesn’t work right. The integrated logistics information technology is only partially developed. the radar and inertial navigation systems are buggy. the touch-screen controls don’t work well. there’s so much computer hardware running that the cockpit overheats and the air conditioning system is inadequate to keep the pilot cool. And it’s such a tricky bird to fly that they need really complex computer programming to fly it, and the software development needed to do so is several years behind schedule. flight test pilots report the current build of software it uses is inadequate for pilot training. and… there’s many other problems. i could go on for pages and pages.
“antiquated thinking and technology” referred to the idea of putting a pilot in a plane when you can have someone pilot a less expensive and equally effective drone. Sorry for the confusion reference.
an MQ-9 Reaper drone costs about $14.4 million, which still isn’t terribly cheap, and while the drone is cheaper, drones are limited in ways that manned aircraft are not. for example, drone pilots are limited to the field of view of the cameras on it, so they have significantly less situational awareness. it’s a lot easier for a drone pilot to pull the trigger like they were playing a video game, so there are ethical concerns over using drones, and their use has been portrayed quite negatively in the media.
anyway, your response doesn’t quite mesh with what you said previously. the SLS is meant to fly with people, too.
Wait, $400 billion for SLS / Orion? that doesn’t sound anywhere close to being right. Last I heard, development costs through 2017 were going to be about $22 billion, with operating costs, including launches, of about $4 billion per year. Unless you think that SLS / Orion will be flying for the next 75 years, that doesn’t sound right.
It is sad to see the Siding Spring comet search closed down, but that is unfortunately consistent with some other recent government action in Australia. But keep this in perspectiove. The impact risk from comets is only about 1 percent that from asteroids (NEAs), so it makes sense to concentrate our efforts on finding NEAs. Further, neither comets nor NEAs remain fixed in one part of the sky. Thus normally if some part of the sky is not covered, the objects that were in that “blind spot” will be seen when they move to a more favorable location. Finally, we do not have the technology to protect us from a comet impact even if we were given a few months warning.
Unfortunately the esteemed journalists at The Guardian don’t know the difference between a comet and NEA (or NEO, for that matter). According to the official page, “The Siding Spring Survey (SSS) is a Near-Earth Object search program”.
And you can’t blame the Australia Government either since this survey was NASA funded. (Not that the Australian Government’s science funding has been “stellar” either, but fair should be fair in this instance).
We (the Americans) tried to get them started up with the funding and technical know-how to own this part of solar system astronomy. It was an underhand pitch for them to knock out of the park: an entire half of the sky that hadn’t been touched by U.S., Europe or anyone else. With all the upfront investment is was supposed to be EASY for them to keep it going. Instead, the moment the American money got turned off, the Aussies said “thanks for the cash, we’re done!” That’s international cooperation for ya, they all love to “cooperate” as long as you pay the bills.
Yep…makes absolute sense. Shut down the type of program(s) that have the capability to provide advance warning of a potentially civilization ending (EOTWAWKI) event. Skywatch/Skyguard programs that run (successfully) on peanuts, comparatively speaking. Given enough advance warning in space and time, diversion missions could literally save hundreds of thousands or millions (heck, worse case, billions) of lives. Another face palm moment. Such cheap insurance for such incredible stakes. Funny thing is, it would have been better for all of us if Siding Spring had actually impacted and lit up Mars’ ass. That would have sent shockwaves through the political and government agencies…and all of a sudden I bet all sorts of funding would suddenly become available. A Shoemaker-Levy event on our next door neighbor is probably the only thing that would get people to sit up and take notice.
I hate to say it, but the US can’t fund all of this by itself. It’s bad enough we pay for the security of western Europe as it is.