Once while camping in northern Saskatchewan, we had the aurora directly overhead. That was the usual "curtain" type, and it was like being a tiny ant looking up at a glowing theatre curtain. The most amazing display I ever saw was back in the mid-1980s outside my apartment in Saint Paul when the whole sky was filled with moving colors. It was almost scary but mostly breathtaking.
Some science fiction (e.g. "Blade Runner" and "Firefly") has pictured a future where China is a dominant force — in some cases, more dominant than the USA. It seems P47 is down with this idea and trying to make it happen. If he persists, the USA will become a second-world country.
sad to read about budget cuts at NASA...i had an internship there back in the early 1990's and that was similar to the reason given for not hiring me when i graduated :-( however, just because NASA isn't getting funded to explore, does that mean we (the usa) won't be exploring other worlds? there's a certain new city in texas that seems to be shooting a lot of rockets off...
SpaceX are doing a good job on the human spaceflight side, and though they still get a lot of income from NASA, they do also have a lot of money coming in from Starlink. So I think they will keep going in some fashion regardless of what happens to NASA. But I doubt they would step up to replace the astrophysics funding. SpaceX is not really in the business of building the next James Webb or operating probes in the outer solar system. I do sometimes wonder if a commercial model could work for astrophysics, but at the moment the whole field is only supported by government research funding and losing two-thirds of that money would be a big blow.
I might have missed the aurorae entirely, when they were active over the US Pacific Northwest last year, had not my neighbor pointed out that our mobile phones were much more sensitive to low light than our unaided eyes. The difference was like night and day! :-)
Once while camping in northern Saskatchewan, we had the aurora directly overhead. That was the usual "curtain" type, and it was like being a tiny ant looking up at a glowing theatre curtain. The most amazing display I ever saw was back in the mid-1980s outside my apartment in Saint Paul when the whole sky was filled with moving colors. It was almost scary but mostly breathtaking.
Some science fiction (e.g. "Blade Runner" and "Firefly") has pictured a future where China is a dominant force — in some cases, more dominant than the USA. It seems P47 is down with this idea and trying to make it happen. If he persists, the USA will become a second-world country.
sad to read about budget cuts at NASA...i had an internship there back in the early 1990's and that was similar to the reason given for not hiring me when i graduated :-( however, just because NASA isn't getting funded to explore, does that mean we (the usa) won't be exploring other worlds? there's a certain new city in texas that seems to be shooting a lot of rockets off...
SpaceX are doing a good job on the human spaceflight side, and though they still get a lot of income from NASA, they do also have a lot of money coming in from Starlink. So I think they will keep going in some fashion regardless of what happens to NASA. But I doubt they would step up to replace the astrophysics funding. SpaceX is not really in the business of building the next James Webb or operating probes in the outer solar system. I do sometimes wonder if a commercial model could work for astrophysics, but at the moment the whole field is only supported by government research funding and losing two-thirds of that money would be a big blow.
Do you believe?
https://open.substack.com/pub/abforbes/p/yes-we-did-go-to-the-moon?r=yn8c0&utm_medium=ios
I might have missed the aurorae entirely, when they were active over the US Pacific Northwest last year, had not my neighbor pointed out that our mobile phones were much more sensitive to low light than our unaided eyes. The difference was like night and day! :-)