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REPORT ABUSIVE REPLY
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Message Subject
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Science Was Wrong: An Interview With Stanton Friedman
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Poster Handle
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Waterbug |
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Post Content
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Well.. this passage is bound to wad some panties around here..  Astronomers seem to be a favourite target in Science Was Wrong. Can you give some examples?
An astronomer (British Astronomer Royal) in 1956 said space travel was utter bilge and nobody would pay the cost, and what good would it be anyway. Astronomy has benefitted more from the space program than any other science. One claimed in 1903 that man would never fly in a machine. The Wright brothers’ flight happened quietly two months later. The negative attitudes had discouraged many from seeking development funds or doing experiments. One astronomer computed in 1941 that to send a man to the moon and back would require an initial launch weight of a million tons. Turns out he was too high by a factor of 300 million. Turns out, as one might expect, that he was totally unfamiliar with the literature that already had been published, that he made all the wrong assumptions. He like other academics think you can determine feasibility from basic physics. In the real world the initial assumptions are very important. He assumed a single stage rocket launched vertically with much too low an exhaust velocity and much too low an acceleration and using a retrorocket to slow the vehicle down upon return. We use the atmosphere and take advantage of cosmic freeloading at every turn including taking advantage of the moon’s gravitational field.
The SETI [Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence] cultists assume that interstellar travel is impossible even though they know nothing about it. They assume that aliens would send signals using technology compatible with our techniques roughly 100 years into the age of radio. There are stars less than 40 light years away that are over a billion years older than the sun. Surely their technology is more advanced. Rarely do astronomers point out how terribly wrong they have been in the past. Venus is not a tropical jungle. Mars has had water, and electromagnetic effects are very important in the solar system. Obviously if aliens are visiting, listening for signals using our technology makes no sense. So many cases of arrogance coupled with ignorance. They even would have us believe that they know how aliens would behave. They don’t understand earthlings no less aliens.
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