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Just What Everyone Needs Right Now – Thanks Neil Tyson – Not

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 30, 2020

Keith’s note: I also tweeted this response: “Thanks for the cosmic buzzkill. Just what everyone needs right now – purposeful negativity by you when we all should be trying to pull together and look beyond – and above – today’s bad times to a hopeful future that lies ahead.” That said, Elon had a better response – one that he can back up with action.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

10 responses to “Just What Everyone Needs Right Now – Thanks Neil Tyson – Not”

  1. Jeff2Space says:
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    Yeah, this is yet another of his overly vague negative Tweets. Completely worthless. He’s a smart guy, but when he gets too far “out of his lane” this is the sort of thing he says.

    • domehi says:
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      Is it really getting out of his lane? Usually that means that someone is veering off his expertise. Here, I don’t think that Neil actually lacks any more knowledge than he already lacks in his supposed area of expertise. He just likes to be snarky and provocative no matter what he is saying. That is partially, and a few other things, why he became famous. It certainly does not have to do with his research expertise (of which, he has little). I think it is funny every time he says that he wishes he could get “back” to the “lab” to continue his research, but the public just keeps pulling him back in! He was never in the lab.

      • space1999 says:
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        I recall they used to say similar things about Carl Sagan… According to his online CV, he’s a Harvard grad, with MA MPhil and Ph.D., at Columbia, postdoc at Princeton. So although I don’t know the guy, I’d think he has expertise in at least some area, and I’d imagine he was in a lab somewhere along the way. By chance I was at a Lunar science workshop that he participated in 10-15 years ago. I’m not a Lunar scientist, but he was an active participant and seemed well respected by the Lunar scientists there. Big personality for sure, and good sense of humor.

        • fcrary says:
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          Well, yes, similar things have been said about Dr. Sagan. Mostly because there is some truth to it. He was much better at promoting science than doing it himself. That’s not to say Dr. Sagan was a bad, or even second rate scientist. But he wasn’t based on his work, an excellent one. I’ve also heard people say he treated his own students less favorably than his audience. It’s also clear from his publication list that many of his more famous papers, Sagan and somebody or Sagan et al., were largely the work of his students and/or coauthors. But the expectations about first authorship vary from place to place, field to field and with time. Most of the people who complain about Sagan are, I think, mostly annoyed that the general public assumes anyone who is great at presenting science to the public is automatically a great scientist. That’s like confusing an actor’s personality with the personality of the characters he plays.

        • domehi says:
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          I worked directly with Carl Sagan and I worked directly with Neil. Carl actually did real science. Look up his papers. Then, look up Neil’s papers. Talk to his collaborators and ask what science he has actually done.

  2. Pixels Engineering says:
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    Who said we can’t cure the coronavirus? We’re 3-4 months into it – as a man of science, does he think cures for novel and unprecedented diseases have happened in that amount of time?

  3. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Yes, and Elon Musk has also posted the user guide for the Starship to support his Tweet. If it works, not just the Moon, but the entire Solar System will be accessible to inexpensive exploration and development. The link to the PDF is here.

    https://www.spacex.com/site

    Imagine what planetary science could do with 100 ton spacecraft that are 8 meters wide with a height of 22 meters… No more worrying about every kilogram of mass when designing one.

    As a lunar lander it will be able to deliver 100 tons or 100 astronauts to the lunar surface. That means it could take every active NASA astronaut, a couple dozen scientists and some embedded journalists to the Moon in a single flight…

    It also would be able to deliver three Orion capsules with service modules to the Gateway, if NASA insists on keeping both.?

    • Randy Lycans says:
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      It’s a document. With pictures. That vehicle doesn’t exist and won’t exist in a manner that can lift those kinds of payloads for years. Let’s see how it pans out and on what schedule.

      • kcowing says:
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        Gee they have been testing hardware, firing engines, etc. Manwhile, NASA’s SLS … not so much.

        • Randy Lycans says:
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          I guess you’ve missed the RS25 engine testing and the ICPS testing and the Intertank testing and the LH2 tank testing and the LOX tank testing and the Engine Section testing…oh wait, I misunderstood, you aren’t looking for facts.