Astrologer Sues NASA Over Comet Probe 999
0110011001110101 writes "NASA's mission that sent a space probe smashing into a comet raised more than cosmic dust -- it also brought a lawsuit from a Russian astrologer. 'Bai is seeking damages totaling $300 million -- the approximate equivalent of the mission's cost -- for her "moral sufferings," Izvestia said, citing her lawyer Alexander Molokhov. She earlier told the paper that the experiment would "deform her horoscope." ' "
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:5, Informative)
And i do believe they will let the case proceed, as the judge recommended that the astrologer and her defendant find a specialist who would be able to tell whether the experiment caused and increased threat of comet impact. It seems that they are trying to spin the case into a demonstration against the US "solving all problems, scientific ones included, with bombs." (quoting the astrologer herself) Yeah, so it might be absurd, but it seems that in foreign politics, everything goes for the Russians.
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Astrologers are morons anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Here we go again... (Score:4, Informative)
That's the part I find funny (Score:4, Informative)
Notice something rather distinctive about that comet?
It's covered in impact craters already
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:5, Informative)
Keep in mind that they have a special "Celebrity" branch whose members are treated to a completely different experience than the regular rank & file...
For more information... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A point of clarification (Score:5, Informative)
>> Like quarks ... where's the objective verification
In the Large Hadron Collider you will find the answer. Here [unipi.it] or here [mppmu.mpg.de] or a more wider search [google.ca]
>>What about the hadron boot-strap? Branes?
Not sure what you mean about boot-strap, but as for the Hadron family, look for..."Large Hadron Collider"
You may not SEE them, but evidences are conclusive enough. When experiences match theory closely, it holds proof of existence.
>Branes
Branes..ah! Branes...Wait for the next version of the LHC [ichep02.nl]. We'll know if it's just theory or not in a few years, so hold your breath! Even more! The Higgs boson [uct.ac.za] might give up to the LHC and show up at last (he's the one supposedly responsible for giving its mass to a particle - so it's somewhat a big deal). And the nice thing is that, since it's theory (again), we'll soon be fixed on wherever it exists or not. If not, other theories will try to explain mass and will be tested. Until we find out.
>>I think we take a lot on faith without realising it. Much of that is based on someone elses faith too!
That is where your mistake is. Science is not faith-based but fact-based. Faith has no room in the scientific process. Confidence in one's experiments or theory is only confidence and has to be tested to be considered valid.
>>And I don't see Occam's razor as being a logical method.
The Occam's razor is not a method for conducting science, it is a simple thought and a guidance as to where to look at: the most simplest explanation is the first you should consider. It assumes (generally rightfully) that nature takes the shortest paths. As do humans. But again, it is not a method - at all.
You are wrong. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Waaa. (Score:3, Informative)
Comets tend to have oddball orbits, often highly inclined to the ecliptic, that can make them very hard to reach because of the required delta-V. Tempel's inclination is only 10 degrees, which is probably one of the reasons it was chosen for this mission.
In any event, it's far easier and cheaper to crash into a given celestial body than it is to rendezvous and land on it. And in this case, an impact was highly desirable since it represented an easy way to expose and study the material deep below the surface.
Robotic exploration of objects in the solar system generally follows a pattern of first flying by an object, then "hard" landings (impacts that destroy the spacecraft), then orbiting it, and then landing on it. That's exactly how the moon was explored; I'm old enough to remember the Ranger series of spacecraft that hit the moon in the mid 1960s, leading the way to Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor (robotic soft landings) and eventually Apollo.
If the body has an atmosphere, then air drag (heatshields and parachutes) can be used to convert a hard landing into a soft one, but the moon, comets and asteroids don't have atmospheres.
I expect somebody someday will figure out the intricate gravity assists that would be required to rendezvous with a carefully chosen comet and match its velocity. But you have to crawl before you can walk, and Deep Impact did an excellent job of that. Remember also that Deep Impact is a Discovery mission, which means it has to make the most of every dollar spent. It very clearly did that too.
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:4, Informative)
ID does not make any testable predictions (how do you test for a supreme being?) and as a result cannot be considered a theory. In fact, those who support ID go out of their way to show the flaws of Darwins theory but never show why ID is better.
It's not about logic. It's about the scientific process which requires facts to validate or invalidate a theory. No such proof is ever given by the ID side.
This whole argument is useless since Darwins theory has been shown to be the correct one thanks to both horses and birds. In both cases these animals evolved from other animals. In the case of horses the fossil evidence (see, there's that proof I'm talking about) shows that horses were not always horses. They are descended from creatures roughly the size of a large dog and can in no way be considered a horse.
As far as birds are concerned the proof, while not absolute, is all but confirmed especially in light of this article [sciencemag.org] (which was rejected for submission) which describes how the bone of a T. Rex was examined and found to have a similar structure to only one living relative: female birds who had just ovulated.
Combine the above information with the overall skeletal structure of birds with those of T. Rex (and other dinosaurs), throw in archaeopteryx [berkeley.edu] and you have another link in the chain.
Remember, nowhere does Darwin say that all creatures must have evolved from other forms. He only says that creatures may evolve. Since both horses, and to a large extent, birds have been shown to have evolved from other creatures, the theory has been proven to be correct. Even leaving out birds gives one such proof of the theory and one is all you need.
The issue isn't about using logic, it's about people wanting to believe that somehow we're unique. That there is a reason for our existence. The idea that we're born, live and die just like the billions of other creatures on this planet is too much for their egos to take. They need to find a reason for their existence. If that reason is religion, so be it. Just don't try to masquerade religion for science.
Re:The Russian court has got see reason, here. (Score:4, Informative)
Pure loser-pays systems are no better than the status quo, because then small individuals daren't ever risk suing large organizations, because if they lose, they may end up owing millions in legal fees (since the big company can spend that much without breaking a sweat). You might say, "Well if they lose, then it was obviously a frivolous lawsuit," but that's plainly not true either.
Tort Reform (Score:2, Informative)
It's called tort reform (AFAIK) and nearly every nation I can think of (Australia, UK, Canada) has it, save for the United States. Being that we're a nation whose legislative processes are governed almost exclusively by the interests of lawyers, it's no wonder we'll likely never see such an animal.