8th July 2010, 1:47 PM
Darunia, I'm sorry to have to teach you this now, but NASA is, and has been for recent decades, as much about educating the public as it has the space program itself.
There's a reason why they are constantly publishing those amazing Hubble photos of deep space. There's an entire group of NASA employees who's main task is educating the public. Space exploration is a big part of what they do, but not the ONLY part. Education is another, and this is just another part of that education.
What has this education led to? NASA is understaffed to analyze all the images they are taking from space. "Amateurs" have been picking up a lot of the slack by identifying all manner of things in various series of images, such as potential planet-like objects and so on. Further, amateur telescopy has advanced a lot, to the point where there's people in pretty much every part of this country looking up at the sky, catching a number of things NASA alone would miss, and contributing a lot. (Incidentally, this is part of the reason why conspiracies of government covering up some doomsday planet or asteroid are stupid, they can't silence every single amateur astronomer out there.)
Reaching out to educate another country about it's past to get them interested in science is simply an extension of what they are ALREADY doing and have been doing since I was a kid.
For the record, analyze your "parodies" before submitting them. Forest rangers actually DO take time to educate the public about things. Isn't that right Smokey the Bear?
Oh and lastly, what the hell does this have to do with "political correctness"? Clearly you're upset about it so it isn't that politically expedient, which is about the only definition I can think of here. Nothing they're saying isn't true after all.
There's a reason why they are constantly publishing those amazing Hubble photos of deep space. There's an entire group of NASA employees who's main task is educating the public. Space exploration is a big part of what they do, but not the ONLY part. Education is another, and this is just another part of that education.
What has this education led to? NASA is understaffed to analyze all the images they are taking from space. "Amateurs" have been picking up a lot of the slack by identifying all manner of things in various series of images, such as potential planet-like objects and so on. Further, amateur telescopy has advanced a lot, to the point where there's people in pretty much every part of this country looking up at the sky, catching a number of things NASA alone would miss, and contributing a lot. (Incidentally, this is part of the reason why conspiracies of government covering up some doomsday planet or asteroid are stupid, they can't silence every single amateur astronomer out there.)
Reaching out to educate another country about it's past to get them interested in science is simply an extension of what they are ALREADY doing and have been doing since I was a kid.
For the record, analyze your "parodies" before submitting them. Forest rangers actually DO take time to educate the public about things. Isn't that right Smokey the Bear?
Oh and lastly, what the hell does this have to do with "political correctness"? Clearly you're upset about it so it isn't that politically expedient, which is about the only definition I can think of here. Nothing they're saying isn't true after all.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)