Now this is interesting. I made a couple of comments to the effect the Richard Hoagland is being a bit er- ingenuous about his criticism of the Deep Impact probe and NASA in general. He suggested that the bombing of Baghdad was about as difficult as smacking a comet with a space probe I.E.
The entire thread can be seen here.
(Hoagland)
There are many ways I could answer your criticisms of our latest blog — sincere … sarcastic … ironic … with humor …. Or–
Seriously.
Let’s try serious:
For starters, it is obvious you are telling the absolute truth when you state, you “can’t even imagine ….” You seem somewhat easily impressed with “big numbers,” but apparently lack the context to put them in perspective. You have obviously “bought” with little independent thinking (or research) another consistent NASA mis-direction: “this is the FIRST time we’ve EVER done this …. This space business is S-O-O-O-O difficult ….”
Fortunately, you don’t have to “imagine.” We have excellent, INDEPENDENT examples of precisely what the Deep Impact Team accomplished the other night, and how “difficult” it was — and in the public domain.
To begin with: the “extreme difficulty” of what the Deep Impact Team accomplished — “steering by radio control an object, traveling at many thousands of miles per hour, into another object … all the while televising in ‘real time’ a stream of television images back …” — WAS REPEATEDLY, SUCCESSFULLY CARRIED OUT OVER TEN YEARS AGO … AND BEFORE AN ENTIRE WATCHING WORLD.
It was called “The Gulf War,” and featured EXACTLY this type of “remotely-monitored, computer-controlled, terminal guidance technology …” — in the form of guided SMART BOMBS and CRUISE MISSILES … which were used with clear success to devastate Saddham’s air force, command and control facilities, communications networks, etc., etc.
….That’s serious? I guess I’m just a seedy-podunk poor gum chewing sod. Hoagland proclaims it so it MUST be so! He uses a lot of ALL CAPS when he writes too, that must mean something important!
I replied;
Whew! You are certainly good at painting a succession of wonderful pictures. Let’s just assume for a moment that I don’t comprehend the huge difference between the example you cite and the achievement of the Deep Impact probe.
No hang that sir! I am an experienced radar technician, I worked on high powered tracking and terminal guidance semi-active homing radar sets for the US military. Our job was to bring a payload moving around 900 MPH to within several yards of a moving target(around 400-500 MPH relative) at around sixty miles distance. What we did was about 100 times more difficult to accomplish than your example and we used 1960s technology (this was in the early 1980s.)
They were steering a missile around the same mass as ours, into an object that was around 536,800 miles away around four miles across moving at a relative velocity of about 6 miles a second. I would say that this much more difficult than what we used to do and thousands of times more difficult than just dropping a dumb bomb on a fixed structure. People shooting notwithstanding.
In other words Mr. Hoagland. You may think this is like falling off a log, I know better.
(this was corrected for typos, I bashed it out too fast apparently.)
He replied.
I didn’t say this was “easy,” I said it was “state-of-the-art.” Big difference.
I’m honestly impressed with your personal, technical experience in this type of endeavor … and must say, it TOTALLY proves my point.
If you could do something like that — using ’60’s technology (WOW!! My hat’s truly off to you …) — and in 1980 (or, thereabouts), with Moores Law alone just extrapolate what could be done NOW …. [I have friends at Raytheon, setting up similar experiments back then, using such “60’s technology,” so I KNOW what you accomplished …. 🙂 ]
The “big numbers,” “closing velocities,” “size of target,” etc., are all bigger … yes … but NOT … compared to the vast improvements in computer size, power consumption, processing power, sensor technology, thruster capabilities, etc., etc., etc.
And, the BIG factor I tried (gently) to underscore: with Deep Impact (except for those last 30 minutes) they had ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD (~ six months in “cruise”)to track the spacecraft, refine the trajectory, update the on-board guidance computer, burn, track again, update, etc., etc., etc.
Like you, I’m NOT a novice at this stuff (check my bio). And, I know when NASA is, again, practicing “artful mis-direction.”
Frankly, compared to actually HITTING the Comet, acquiring the information we’re all (still) waiting for was MUCH, MUCH harder — with NO ROOM for a “second go around” …).
For which I give A’Hearn’s Team full credit.
Now, if they would only SHOW us what they’ve got! Because, again, once this data’s on the ground, analyzing it is NOT (sorry …) “rocket science.” (I mean, look at all the OTHER teams — including those downlinking satellite numbers — which have managed to put up ACTUAL data on their websites … including SPECTRAL data …). 🙂
No, there is something definitely fishy going on here, which “wowing the public with Big Numbers” only serves to obfuscate.
To which I replied
“I’m honestly impressed with your personal, technical experience in this type of endeavor … and must say, it TOTALLY proves my point.”
Sarcasm noted. ) ; )
(check my bio). And, I know when NASA is, again, practicing “artful mis-direction.”
Um, Sir, these were not experiments. This was a long range SAM system mounted on a US Navy vessel. We did live fire shoots about twice a year and simulations daily. The Military does not work under Moore’s law–like NASA as you know, more like Murphy’s law. For example; the Space Shuttle still uses relatively primitive computers compared with that thing sitting on our desks.
I’ve never accused you of being a novice. You have written several popular books on the subject and ‘ve read the claims on your web page many times. I would submit however that, you probably have as much experience with sending a probe to a comet rendezvous as I’ve had.
That aside, I’m more concerned with the common thread that runs in all of your writings, that of suggesting huge government conspiracies in the space program and many other things. Deep impact is just a recent example, you really think that two weeks is a long time for data to trickle out of the program? Is that unusual? How long did it take for chemical data to emerge from the recent Mars landers? What about the Titan lander? Did spectrograph data get released instantly? Perhaps you could compare the relative time-flow of information because truly (even though I’m ‘jest’ a novice.; )) I really don’t see the big problem with waiting a few weeks.
20/7/05 9:34 AM