This morning I woke up to some boffin getting tremendously excited about another squillion-zillion quids worth of junk metal hitting planet Mars. Let's face it, if we leave much more scrap iron lying around on that misbegotten planet the Greenies (and I don't mean the local inhabitants - if there are any!) are going to kick off with demonstrations and accuse us all of being litter-louts. Also, I can see that dip-stick Greenie MP standing up in parliament and wagging her finger at us all in case one of those bits of old junk hits a cuddly-wuddly microbe and gives it a headache!
Of course, the particular 'brainiac' on the radio this morning was getting terribly excited about hurling his latest bit of junk onto Mars despite the fact, if I recall exactly, the last clapped-out old banger they left lying around up there never sent back a single message - not even thanks for the ride! These boffins keep hinting that there might be signs of life on Mars although every picture I have ever seen makes it look like a South Shields beach in January, than which there is nothing emptier!
Needless to say, the BBC interviewers, being greedy consumers of public cash themselves, did not stoop to ask just how much it was costing for all this fly-tipping on Mars. Just as well, I suppose, I really do not like to start the day with a headache and acute dyspepsia!
ADDITIONAL: Courtesy of The Coffee House, Dr. David Whitehouse blows away the Martian myths and several of 'The True Believers'. Well worth a read, not least because he, at least, seems to know what he is writing about!
Beer batter preferably.
Posted by: Doonhamer | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 10:14
Some day, if they keep throwing hard things at it, the little green persons [it is not pc to say green men] will get really pissed off and then we'll be in trouble.
Then again the scientists [?] could do something useful and send Mr Corbyn, Leader of Her Maj's Loyal Opposition, up as an envoy.
Posted by: AussieD | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 10:46
I understand that Mars is the only planet in the solar system to be inhabitated by robots. If any woman called Sarah Connor is reading this, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Posted by: Penseivat | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 11:48
If there is decent fishing on Mars, I might go. I suspect they would only have one species of fish though. Fried fish.
Posted by: Whitewall | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 12:29
Dr. David Whitehouse is both knowledgeable and self-indulgent. Any serious person working on a Mars project knows the current state of science concerning the planet. Unless we off ourselves first, humans will eventually go to Mars for the same reasons Europeans went to the Americas, even though they already had a perfectly fine plot of Earth to fight each other over.
Posted by: Bob | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 17:18
Edgar Rice Burrows explained many years ago what was what on Mars.
Petunia in Tenerife.
Posted by: Backofanenvelope | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 22:33
I couldn't give a damn about Mars. If there's no wine there I ain't going!
However, I am very concerned about the Russian sub off Scotland and the huge-eyed monsters. What's going on there?
Jimmy??
Posted by: Andra | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 22:49
PS - Your Whitehouse is dead.
Posted by: Andra | Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at 23:35
David,
I think you are being a bit short-sighted here. The Mars landings are just the latest in a long list of "big iron" (albeit expensive) research and development efforts that have brought us the world we inhabit today. And if you are of the opinion that you would rather live in the old version of the world (let's say prior to World War Two), then we have nothing more to discuss. But if that is indeed the case, I think you are sadly mistaken.
Just to take one example, when IBM lead the way with big-iron mainframe computers in the 1950s, no one could even dream of the kind of smartphones that millions (perhaps billions?) of people the world over could not live without today. And what about the billions of dollars-worth of research that have been invested in big medicine, none of which could have been accomplished without the technology brought about, in part, via the space missions to the moon, the other planets, and even some asteroids and comets. Could you have lived without those pills you undoubtedly take with you on vacation? I couldn't.
Posted by: TheBigHenry | Thursday, 20 October 2016 at 00:38
What Andra said. Wrong Whitehouse, I suspect.
Posted by: H | Thursday, 20 October 2016 at 11:06
Andra dinnae worry we have subs off the Russian coast and they have rust buckets hanging around Scotland the crews waiting for asylum. The huge eyed monster is Alec Salmond the great socialist!
Posted by: jimmy glesga | Thursday, 20 October 2016 at 21:44
No, Henry, I am not wishing to return to the world of 1939 (when I was born) and I am delighted to be living in a world full of scientific wonders. All I am doing is pointing a questioning finger at all these space fanatics who spend eye-watering amounts of my money for very little in return. It was Kennedy, I believe, who was galvanised to send an American into space at enormous expense simply because the Russians had done it first! 'Oh vanity, vanity, thy first name is space exploration'!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 21 October 2016 at 08:12
Apparently ET is trying to signal to us in Morse by turning the lights on and off: -
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/aliens-proof-evidence-facts-stars-scientists-extraterrestrial-life-et-intelligence-a7377716.html
All that wonga, and all we needed was a telescope.
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Wednesday, 26 October 2016 at 22:39