Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Mon, 16 Apr 90 02:07:40 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 16 Apr 90 02:07:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #265 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 265 Today's Topics: Re: releasing data / digitized images Re: HST Images Re^3: Fermi paradox Re: releasing data / digitized images Re: Interstellar travel Re: Interstellar travel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Apr 90 05:02:46 GMT From: eagle!news@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ted Fabian) Subject: Re: releasing data / digitized images In article <15364@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: >In article <1990Apr11.051210.12459@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> tfabian@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Ted Fabian) writes: >>I'd like to add a few comments to the recent discussion which has been stuff from my original article deleted > >I only quote this paragraph to point out that, to the extent Ted gets >"negative feedback" on these opinions, it is NOT likely to center around >his presumed access to images -- but rather on the opinions themselves. thus far, I've only seen three replies to my message.. and yours is the only one that really could be considered negative.. but that's beside the point... > >>Many folks have been critical of policies which seemingly prohibit release >>of images until one year has passed.. > >This is not the primary criticism. Most everything anyone has asked for >is lots more than a year old. The objection is that even DECADE-old >images are not available in a digital form where amateurs can easily get Tom, you clearly are missing the point I was trying to make... while the data is probably available somewhere, the processes in which it was likely archieved have made it either very difficult to find or to use let alone supply it to hobbiests or amateur researchers... I've heard discussions in which folks have difficulty in finding shuttle data and drawings from the design phases because it was not filed or cataloged properly in an electronic format.. and that was recent data... do you really expect data from a decade ago to be stored any better?? sadly, I don't think it is... I could be wrong, but since the project I am working on is supposed to correct prior mistakes in current projects, I suspect I'm not far offbase.. > > >>First and foremost, the overall goal of the spcae program and / or the >>particular mission (in this case, the HST) needs to be weighed against >>the benefits provided by releasing the images... > >The overall goal is knowledge. This is not something that has to be >"weighed against" releasing publicly announced results in machine >readable form. aqgreed.. knowledge is a desirable goal.. but there is a fine line between who needs what knowledge... As Mary Shaffer points out to you in another reply to your message, you (and others) have still not given any valid reason or research goal for needing the data... consider the following: data is made available to the world at large through the networks.. it's then grabbed from a server somewhere by foreign groups or individuals with whom the United States does not currently have exchange agreements.. those people research that data, and turn it around into something that could be used against the United States... now that scenerio may not apply here for digitized space images, but the idea is the same.. if someone does not have the "need to know" or the "need to access data" that data should not be released... it would be like my asking you personally to post you income tax returns and copies of all your receipts to the nets... you'ld undoubtedly respond that it's "none of my business"... it's the same thing here.. while some folks may be justified in needing the images, it's not necessarily the best vehicle to release those images over the net... some control needs to be present.. yet the same goal exists in my asking you for your tax info.. it would provide me knowledge... again, your control of that info stops me.. think about it.. > >>I don't think that it will.. if you have a need to get the data, you're >>either already in such a position, or you know how to get the data without >>complaining openly to the world about it.. >> >>rather, I think the things we're seeing in SCI.SPACE as of late are from >>people who don't have a need to have the data.. they simply want the data >>either as a status symbol, or as some sort of ego booster.. > >This is pretty awful, and I hope/assume Ted's already sorry he wrote >it. It's also why we don't pay random GS's in the research centers to >decide who "needs" data. no, I'm not sorry.. I'm trying to point out reality to you... also, your crack about "random GS's in research centers" is not very nice... the folks who are the GS level workers in NASA (myself included) are a dedicated bunch of people who could move to private industry and double or triple their incomes.. but they have chosen to dedicate themselves to research or development roles as civil servants... if you've got problems with their decisions, or their decision making processes, try walking a mile in their shoes before you step on their toes... they're using their best judgement under the circumstances and within the guidelines they've got to live with... > >Someday a team of three or four bright high school students will >announce a totally unexpected new discovery based on NASA information >they got from a BBS or CIS or UUCP download from some generous, forward >thinking clearinghouse person who decided to attack this problem in spite >of the nay-saying attitudes expressed above. What an ego booster, eh. I hope you're right that some bright folks will be motivated to make new discoveries.. but I trust that they'll get their start by going through channels, and by having the research backing, or the grants, or the resources to work with the system, not against the system... remainders of my original, and Tom's reply message deleted... > >'We have luck only with women -- not spacecraft!' \\ Tom Neff > -- R. Kremnev, builder of failed Soviet FOBOS probes // tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET -- ---------------------------------------------------- Thanks, Ted Fabian NASA Lewis Research Center tpfabian@nasamail.nasa.gov *my opinions tfabian@mars.lerc.nasa.gov *are my own.. -- ---------------------------------------------------- Thanks, Ted Fabian NASA Lewis Research Center tpfabian@nasamail.nasa.gov *my opinions tfabian@mars.lerc.nasa.gov *are my own.. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 90 22:39:36 GMT From: uvaarpa!murdoch!astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU!gsh7w@mcnc.org (Greg S. Hennessy) Subject: Re: HST Images In article <5A040F0F19280354-MTABWIDENER*DXANDY@widener> DXANDY@WIDENER.BITNET writes: # # What's to stop some enterprising amateur (or professional) astronomer #from intercepting the signals from the HST and decoding them himself? The downlink goes into White Sands Missle Range. Not a very large area to have a receiver in. I don't know how large of a dish you would need. The decoding of the signals would not be trivial. -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 90 02:36:11 GMT From: landon@apple.com (Landon Dyer) Subject: Re^3: Fermi paradox In article <1025@larry.sal.wisc.edu> (Frank Scherb) writes: >Why not consider the idea that the Galaxy is so big that given about >a million years of exploration you still only see a very small piece >at best? ... I know where they are: they've been nibbled to death by ducks: "Sorry, Jor-El, the senate proxmired the appropriations bill for your probe, and the `Save Krypton' lobby is petitioning the EPA to outlaw mass-drivers because they affect the planet's spin... "In any case, you can't launch the thing with a Kryptonite power reactor -- you have to use something SAFE, like plutonium." It's quite possible that bureaucracy and political short-sightedness are universal... :-) -- ----------------------------------------- "Mmmph! Urghurmph! Grugmph!" Landon Dyer, Apple Computer, Inc. "What's he trying to say?" Development Systems Group (MPW / DSG) "I dunno -- someone shoved a NOT THE VIEWS OF APPLE COMPUTER lawyer in his mouth." ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 00:01:25 GMT From: bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) Subject: Re: releasing data / digitized images In article <1990Apr11.051210.12459@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> tfabian@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Ted Fabian) writes: >I'd like to add a few comments to the recent discussion which has been >going on here in SCI.SPACE about the releasing of images in formats >that allow those images to be viewed on PCs.. however, I suspect that >I'm liable to get negative feedback.. so let me preface my thoughts by >first saying that I'm in no way connected to the HST Project, nor am I >in any position that would provide me with access to their data or their >images.. if I wanted the images, I'd have to wait like everyone else.. I only quote this paragraph to point out that, to the extent Ted gets "negative feedback" on these opinions, it is NOT likely to center around his presumed access to images -- but rather on the opinions themselves. >Many folks have been critical of policies which seemingly prohibit release >of images until one year has passed.. This is not the primary criticism. Most everything anyone has asked for is lots more than a year old. The objection is that even DECADE-old images are not available in a digital form where amateurs can easily get their hands on them for private study and research. The amazing growth of amateur computer data exchange is being ignored. As for new HST data, I have heard nothing but understanding and sympathy for the yearlong investigators' data embargo. It makes sense. But this does not address the unavailability of older data, or data not affiliated with a particular investigation team (like the guidance images slated for early release in a few weeks). >First and foremost, the overall goal of the spcae program and / or the >particular mission (in this case, the HST) needs to be weighed against >the benefits provided by releasing the images... The overall goal is knowledge. This is not something that has to be "weighed against" releasing publicly announced results in machine readable form. >I don't think that it will.. if you have a need to get the data, you're >either already in such a position, or you know how to get the data without >complaining openly to the world about it.. > >rather, I think the things we're seeing in SCI.SPACE as of late are from >people who don't have a need to have the data.. they simply want the data >either as a status symbol, or as some sort of ego booster.. This is pretty awful, and I hope/assume Ted's already sorry he wrote it. It's also why we don't pay random GS's in the research centers to decide who "needs" data. Someday a team of three or four bright high school students will announce a totally unexpected new discovery based on NASA information they got from a BBS or CIS or UUCP download from some generous, forward thinking clearinghouse person who decided to attack this problem in spite of the nay-saying attitudes expressed above. What an ego booster, eh. [ the remainder of Ted's posting, which manages to miss the point completely about what people want from HST -- we'd like a tiny sample of images released from the labs, and at the discretion, of individual investigators, in whatever format they stored them on their Suns etc before release, plus a tiny sample of guidance/engineering images from HST support itself, again in any format they want -- is omitted. ] -- 'We have luck only with women -- not spacecraft!' \\ Tom Neff -- R. Kremnev, builder of failed Soviet FOBOS probes // tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 90 05:14:26 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Interstellar travel >So what is the Fermi Paradox? Is this the equation where you try >to estimate various factors which relate to the chances of intelligent life... To sum up *very* briefly, the Fermi Paradox is that interstellar flight at substantial fractions of the speed of light doesn't seem too difficult for a civilization not much older than ours, a single civilization can thereby fill the entire galaxy in an eyeblink of geological time, and such civilizations ought to be common in the galaxy by everything we know now... so, in Fermi's words: "Where are they?". Why haven't we been visited? Why has native intelligence (ours) been able to develop undisturbed on a planet that has been ripe for colonization for a billion years or so? Why aren't the large engineering works of *really* advanced civilizations visible in the galaxy? It is not difficult to concoct explanations for why a single civilization would fail to be visible. The hard part is making the explanations really inevitable, so that even oddball civilizations well off the normal development path cannot escape them, while making them natural enough so that *we* don't have to be inordinately lucky or extremely unusual to have gotten as far as we have. I've seen many proposed explanations of the Fermi Paradox; I researched the subject a bit for a series of articles on it for the Canadian Space Society newsletter a while ago. I find none of the proposals believable enough to account for the evidence. It's unsolved. -- With features like this, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology who needs bugs? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 14 Apr 90 06:23:46 GMT From: oravax!harper@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu (Douglas Harper) Subject: Re: Interstellar travel In article <1990Apr13.051426.28366@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: ] >So what is the Fermi Paradox? Is this the equation where you try ] >to estimate various factors which relate to the chances of intelligent life... ] ] To sum up *very* briefly, the Fermi Paradox is that interstellar flight at ] substantial fractions of the speed of light doesn't seem too difficult for ] a civilization not much older than ours, a single civilization can thereby ] fill the entire galaxy in an eyeblink of geological time, and such ] civilizations ought to be common in the galaxy by everything we know now... ] so, in Fermi's words: "Where are they?". Why haven't we been visited? ] Why has native intelligence (ours) been able to develop undisturbed on a ] planet that has been ripe for colonization for a billion years or so? ] Why aren't the large engineering works of *really* advanced civilizations ] visible in the galaxy? What's always puzzled me about the Fermi Paradox is why it's considered paradoxical. Since Fermi's argument is a strong one, it strongly suggests that "what we know now", just isn't so. This is hardly paradoxical (unless you go by the "demonstrated proposition which is contrary to received wisdom" sense of "paradox"). So what if intelligent life is rare in the galaxy? Why not? I don't know about the rest of the human race, but I find the prospect of an unpopulated galaxy for us to explore and populate to be completely within reason, and very exhilarating besides. -- Douglas Harper oravax!harper@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu "Finally, in conclusion, let me say just this." -- Peter Sellers ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #265 *******************