UKC

Just hope I get home in time for the start of this.

Anybody else looking Girard to this?

In reply to The Lemming:



I haven't seen last night's episode but this evening has prompted a couple of questions for me.

The first one is/was how come the USA got to the moon in such a short period of time?
It can't just be money thrown at it. can it?

The next question raised was the risk adversity to fatalities in space exploration. The powers that be want a zero tollerance to deaths, while the two astronaughts on the show said that this was unrealistic and counter-productive to pushing the boundaries of space exploration. Who's right, the politicians or those willing to put their lives on the line?

In reply to The Lemming:

In my view, your 2nd question sort of answers your 1st. At the time of the moon landings, they were less sensitive to risk, astronauts had already been killed, and they were determined to get there. Nowadays, 24 hour news and general western attitudes to risk makes it hard for the politicians/NASA to accept the public reaction to deaths, so safety is paramount and progress is slow. Interestingly, it is the less developed countries (with higher tolerance to deaths) which will probably return to the moon first. In the meantime, the USA makes half hearted sounds about Mars, but will they get there in the foreseeable, who knows?

In reply to Skyfall:



The USA is out of the race, if there is one, and China is stepping up to the challenge. Maybe Stargazing Live should embrace the Chinese desire and enthusiasm and discuss what stage China is at and how they hope to proceed in their goal of a manned mission to the moon?

In reply to The Lemming:

I would say the death of an astronaut is the thin end of an extremely expensive wedge. If an astronaut dies it is most likely the end of millions of dollars and years of effort so everyone is very interested in making it work.

In reply to Loughan:

I would say it's more the other way around unfortunately. There isn't the public/political will to tolerate deaths and the cost of making systems sufficiently safe is almost prohibitive in terms of new manned missions. The developing countries can run cheaper missions because they aren't quite so safety conscious, more like the USA in the 60's.

In reply to Skyfall:

Loved Stargazing, well worth the licence fee alone IMO.

The discussion with Cunningham & Hadfield was fascinating. The debate around our achievements in space always revert to why we have not gone back to the Moon? Yet in many ways our achievements (in space) since 69 have been far superior (ISS, Mars rover, Hubble, GPS etc).

Really really great stuff. Looking forward to tonight.

In reply to JMGLondon:

Sadly I am working tonight but I will keep an eye open for anything exciting in the sky

In reply to The Lemming:

Have the shows inspired anybody to dust off and bring their binoculars or telescopes out of retirement?

In reply to The Lemming:

Just catching up on the last episode right now but how Ground Breaking has this serise been over the last few years?

One year the British viewing public helped find a planet, then the show filmed live footage of an aurura. What else can Plucky Britain pull out of the bag from this inspirational show?

So much for the race to the bottom with entertainment like I'm a celeb and X Factor. There are still people with brain cells that want to see exciting telly.

Now how the fek do I get Chrome Browser to do a dictionary on a tablet?

Three cheers for the BBC.

In reply to The Lemming:
I have a genuine question. Space is big, and in the words of The Hitch Hiker's Guide "Space is really big", but how come stuff is in planes?

Take the rings of Saturn. The rings are thousands of kilomiters wide but only several meters wide. Why have all those dust and ice particles chosen to orbit in one plane rather than circle Saturn higglety pigglety.

Then there are the planets circling the sun, they again are mostly in a narrow plane.

And then we have the Milky Way. How come all those stars and planets revolve around a huge black hole in such a relativly narrow plane?

Cole, over to you.

And nobody say its god's design.