Look forward to the first pictures from the surface. I'm at the Division on Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting [3] in Tucson at the moment, and there are already incredible results being presented based on data acquired by Rosetta. Stay tuned for a whole lot more!

[1] http://exploration.esa.int/mars/46048-programme-overview

[2] http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo_...

[3] http://aas.org/meetings/dps46

Science data has been downlinked, so fingers crossed we'll get some nice images from the surface pretty soon! There's a nice shot of the lander on the way down released already [3].

Sources:

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30031531

[2] Personal communication from ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany

[3] https://blog.flickr.net/en/2014/11/12/rosettas-philae-probe-...

  ALICE , MIRO, and IES will provide information about the 
  dynamics of comet C-G: how it develops its coma and tails,
  and how its chemicals interact with each other, and with 
  radiation and the solar wind.

and a glossary of the various terms used.

http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/rosetta-glossary.

( Only adding because I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere. Not for the sake of partisanship or to take away from ESA's grand accomplishment. )

Once again the light of reason continues to chase away humanity's ancestral boogiemen.

Too often the gravity of such endeavors is lost too quickly, from our collective imagination.

We need to reanimate the sense of wonder among the non-science inclined people everywhere, to make more of these efforts possible.

Live feed of the press conference which should start in a bit:

rosetta.esa.int

Some cool links:

http://wpc.50e6.edgecastcdn.net/8050E6/mmedia-http/download/...

http://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/avZGG4q_460sa_v1.gif

http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/

It's going at 18km per second, so around 65 000 km/h (40,000 mph).

People manage to land something that left from earth starting at a speed of 0.00km/h and then traveled 6.5 billion km to an object going at that speed, all of this happening 500 million km away. It is amazing!

Earth moves at about 30km/s relative to sun. So that's your minimal starting speed.

Boogiemen like the belief that humans are more than collections of atoms and random emergent behaviors? Because if those are your boogiemen, there's no particular reason to rejoice in reason, or anything else for that matter - it's all ashes in the end, and nobody will be left to care, whether we colonize Andromeda or blow ourselves up this afternoon.

Science is a collection of methods for determining facts. I find it odd when people describe it in religious-sounding terms and simultaneously scoff at religion.

But perhaps I misunderstood you?

Comets used to have a bit of a bad reputation, as harbingers of doom. I think there's one in the bible, one appeared before the Great Plague of London, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plague_of_London

"During the winter of 1664, a bright comet was to be seen in the sky[7] and the people of London were fearful, wondering what evil event it portended."

Saying science thinks we're just atoms and "random emergent behaviors" is no better than those pushing intelligent design saying evolution is a "random" process. It shows gross ignorance of how order can emerge from chaos, and the processes we already understand.

And, as best as I can tell, nobody would care if we disappeared tomorrow. The universe would keep on universin' as it always has. The reason to rejoice thinking this way is because of how amazing it is that we have the ability to know this and do things to prolong ourselves and our species.

I hear this sort of thing quite often and I am never convinced that it makes any sense.

The underlying, unstated assumption seems to be: Whether we care about something now should depend on what will happen in the infinitely distant future.

But why?

What's supposed to be wrong with rejoicing now in the discoveries we're making now (and the ones in the past that have affected us, and the ones in the nearish future that our work may contribute to)?

Why should something millions of years in the future that I can't do anything about determine what I care about now?

(Of course maybe we can do something about it; maybe some amazing future discovery will allow us to extend the lifetime of the sun, or escape to another universe, or something. But for present purposes I'm granting the premise that we can't do anything about it, and that it inevitably is "all ashes in the end". If not, obviously the argument nathan_long is making gets even weaker.)

"Behind all of these dehumanizing practices is the idolization of science, an attitude that results in the attempt to reduce all things to the level at which they will be fit objects for study according to the canons of natural science. The massive material success of science has made it seem to many a panacea. It suffices to claim that a thing must be attempted for the sake of science in order to silence all abjections. Nonetheless, although the achievements of science are in themselves great and great are its benefits to mankind, it is absurd to believe that science is man's highest good, let alone the highest good in itself" (Hildebrand, "On Science Fetishism").

Now the Almighty demands, "Why do this people approach With their mouth and their lips, To pay honour to Me, While their heart is far off? Their reverence is worthless to Me;-- It teaches the doctrines of men!

"So on this Race I lay wonders, Add wonders to wonders, Destroying its scientists' science, And baffling its scholars' researches." Fools! Is the Formed thought its Framer? Can the Work tell the Workman, "You never made me?" Or the Made tell its Maker, "You do not know how?"

Isaiah 29:13-16

>Once again the light of reason continues to chase away humanity's ancestral boogiemen.

"It is a characteristic symptom of immaturity to feel oneself more mature and independent than men of previous times, to forget what one owes the past, and, in a kind of adolescent self-assertion, to refuse any assistance" (Hildebrand, "On Temporal Parochialism").

http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2013/10/Rosetta_s_tw...

* Further image analysis has shown that Comet 67P likely has very low strength, perhaps in areas even just powders held together by van der Waals forces

* The Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) has clearly detected water (+ isotopes) in the coma of the comet. MIRO results indicate that the top layer is dusty and loose.

* There is a clear thermal signature from the neck of 67P that doesn't match expected results.

* Magnetic field variations in the neighborhood of 67P pose an interesting puzzle that will hopefully shed more info about the core (http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/11/the-singing-comet/).

There were also a few sessions on other comets that have made the news (e.g., Siding Spring which had a close encounter with Mars recently)[4]-[6].

To address the issue of why any of this is important at all. It hits at the heart of our quest to understand the world around us. Although it's often hard to pinpoint everyday impact of this and related research, it is undoubtedly the case that it forms a vital piece of the puzzle of where we came from and where we're going.

[1] Rosetta 1: https://guidebook.com/guide/26449/event/9876531/

[2] Rosetta 2 / Comet Coma Chemistry and Nuclear Outbursts: https://guidebook.com/guide/26449/event/9876560/

[3] Hot Facts About Cool Comets: https://guidebook.com/guide/26449/event/9876955/

[4] Comets K1 (PanStarrs) and A1 (Siding Spring): https://guidebook.com/guide/26449/event/9876530/

[5] Sun-grazing Comet ISON: https://guidebook.com/guide/26449/event/9876567/

[6] Comet Dust, Tails, Trails, and Oddballs: https://guidebook.com/guide/26449/event/9876561/

If you were designing a mission like that, wouldn't you want to have first-hand knowledge about the comet's surface?

This is also a baby step. We now feel more confident about landing equipment on irregularly shaped, rapidly spinning objects with negligible gravitational fields. Conservative estimates about the aggregate value of all of the rare heavy metals available inside a near-earth asteroid go into the trillions of dollars.

[0] http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jmelosh/HazardsDeflect.pdf

Going to space for science (or beating the Russians) is one thing, going there for profit is a completely different matter and will attract heavy investors.

You can't just make up stuff like this... sure, it could happen but you have to go off probability. What's the probability an asteroid will end all life on earth in the next thousand years? I'd guess not very likely.

Plus, to be rational, you have to evaluate not only probability but also potential losses, and multiply the two. A messed-up climate causing crop failures and population reverting to, say, middle ages counts would cost, say, 100 years' worth of 95% of current world GDP. Human extinction, from a human point of view, has infinite cost.

Amazing landing, whether or not the screws are in: hitting the comet is already amazing!

I wonder if it's different in the US because it didn't come from NASA. (I'm just as happy enjoying the science with someone else footing the bill)

Look at the fallacious arguments you put forward:

- Nations have a long history of funding exploratory ventures. (appeal to tradition - doing something for a long time does not make it right to keep doing it)

- it creates jobs (unseen consequences - it destroys more needed jobs that would have been created or maintained had this money been used by those who earned it)

- there is a small chance that something practical could be discovered (citation needed; also, not a good enough reason to justify mass extortion)

- it satisfies a basic human need to know more (at what price? how much money is it fair to steal from the population in order to indulge the curiosity of those who largely can't be bothered to finish a book?)

- surely that's worth spending some money on? (no one is saying you can't spend your money on it. knock yourself out)

- but a world without curiosity would be pretty sad (appeal to emotion and consequences - this is coming from someone not curious enough to know how money works and why public works projects are the same as the broken window fallacy)

- Because it has huge benefits (citation needed)

- one could argue that the money that was funneled into NASA during the moon landings gave tax payers much more bang for their buck than all kinds of other research, social programs, bank bailouts, etc. (please go ahead and make that argument)

- These sorts of human achievement defining missions are really hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering dedicated to solving some of the hardest problems we can dream up. (Keynesian misattribution of value: "it takes a long time and a lot of effort so it has to be worth something!")

- You are way too short sighted (ad hominem)

- This opinion is short-sighted. (ad hominem)

- There may be zero practical attributable scientific or engineering benefits, though I am sure there will be plentiful. ("trust me, I know more than you do")

- However, such epic events are extremely inspiring! (appeal to emotion)

- This may be a single trigger that will send many curious young guys and girls towards STEM professions. (anything mya be a trigger to anything until proven to be the case or not; if we're looking for triggers to sent guys and girls to STEM we should survey the alternatives and pick the most cost effective one; this is an improvised excuse for carrying on with public works projects)

- I 'd dare you to specify what's more important where your money should be spent. (stolen money should not be spent in more or less important things, it should be returned to their rightful owner so they can choose what to do with what they've earned)

I suggestion you take your arguments to an economics and politics blog. In the meantime, unless you are a completely dishonest hypocrite, you will stop using everything that has been funded by the coercive taxation you so incoherently decry. That would include most medicine--including vaccines and anti-biotics--as well as a good deal of dentistry, GPS, cell phones, computers, and indeed all semi-conductor technology, as well as roads, railways, airplanes, radio, sailing ships, and almost everything else.

While almost all technology has a private component in its development, it almost all has a fairly significant component that was funded by coercive taxation. Since you believe for some reason that coercive taxation is a bad thing--despite it being responsible for massive increases in human well-being. It seems a bit odd to be against something that has been, empirically, unarguably, responsible for so much good. It's a bit like being against capitalism, or free trade.

A very large percentage of people believe that having a functioning government is necessary and taxation is a necessary component for this. There are no examples of large populations of humans (many millions for the definition of large) living well without government. There are lots of examples of the reverse being true. That is, finding places where large populations live quite well with a government. Correlation not implying causation and all that, one can reasonably conclude that a functioning government, and hence taxation, is a necessity for large populations to live well.

There are lots of examples of functioning governments performing badly and subjecting large populations to miserable conditions. This means that people need to be vigilant with regard to the governance. It's good for people to question the decisions their governments make and people at the fringe can provide nice counter balances to group think and a herd mentality. Calling taxation theft might be a bit too extreme though.

Overall I think your view of each individual funding themselves only what they feel deserves funding is highly impractical and ignores human nature. Specifically it ignores the free rider problem. It also ignores that such a method is highly inefficient. Government is much more efficient than the solution you posed in another post of yours.

It is nice to fantasize about being like Daniel Boone and going it alone without need for government but in a nation of 350 million people that ability does not exist for any but a very few. The go it alone mentality does not scale well to large populations and have the net effect of making us all poorer.

> There are no examples of large populations of humans (many millions for the definition of large) living well without government.

That there are no examples means nothing. Would you say if most of the world were enslaved that because there are no examples of a free people, it's not worth while to try? You end violent institutions because they are immoral.

I'd start with Rousseau's 'The Social Contract,' Locke's second treatise on government, Hobbes' 'Leviathan', John Stuart Mill's 'On Utilitarianism,' Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Hume's Political Discourses.

I do. I also make it a point not to seek out ways to decrease the taxes I'm obligated to pay.

I'd probably donate directly to some governmental agencies if I knew of such a mechanism.

There. Now you know someone who does.

So are laws. Your right to kill me is impeded by the justice system's threat of force to imprison you as a result. This is where most rational people come to understand that personal freedoms must be limited for the sake of peaceful co-operation.

But good luck establishing your Utopia without Laws and Taxes. I look forward to reading about it in the news.

No it's not. It's the threat of force against people who use that market and then refuse to pay the fees they owe. Any service can (and would) do the same via the legal system. I've never paid the US government a penny, because I don't use their market.

> We were born into this system and we never agreed to it.

You certainly have the option of leaving that market if you don't like its fees. Or of attempting to get them changed by voting for a representative that shares your views.

> Would you say if most of the world were enslaved that because there are no examples of a free people, it's not worth while to try?

If all the examples of 'free people' were actually living in much worse conditions than the so-called 'enslaved' ones, I'd certainly stop to question the definitions of 'enslaved' and 'free'.

> You certainly have the option of leaving that market if you don't like its fees.

For a price, and then only to enter another country.

Yeah, what would you expect? If you leave the social contract, you have all your rights back. Then again, you are no longer entitled to the protections society affords you. In an abstract version of this, upon completely leaving the system you were born into, you are subject to the state of nature and so the state can kill you if it feels like it. Or it can enslave you, or take all your property; what are you going to do about it?

You don't have to pay taxes, though.

This is a meaningless objection: no two things are exactly the same, but it can be useful to consider how they're similar.

> You may not be using the US government's services, but you're probably using your own government's.

Yes, and then I pay for them.

> Forcing a service on people (say the War on Drugs) and then demanding payment through taxation is different from competing in the market.

No it's not. Many companies take the money I paid for their service and use it in ways I don't like. I get far less say in their use of this money than I do in my country's government.

(My government doesn't have a monopoly on road building - I had to pay for the road up to my house - so I don't know what that refers to)

> You must follow things back to the origin.

Not really. While it may be interesting to find out the origin of certain rules and customs, it makes little difference to the way they are now.

> For a price, and then only to enter another country.

True, nothing in life is free; that's why it's a good general rule that poor people shouldn't pay taxes. But there are countries without governments and there are unclaimed territories around the world - they're just not very nice places to live.

As for non-government stuff, you vote with your wallet.

This is akin to complaining about being born a human, or with two arms, or a white boy.

Just to be clear.. Your issue is not that money from taxes is spent on scientific research and space exploration, but really that you have to pay taxes?

My issue is that running to the government, just because it already has guns in place pointing to every individual's head in case they don't pay, and saying "we'll steal just 20 more cents but really it's nothing! it's so little! just let us have these 20 cents so we can do this for you, folks. for you!".

C'mon, if it's for our benefit, then convince us of it, lead by example, and ask for money peacefully without using the extortion machine of the government.

I may personally agree with libertarians that the current system is far from ideal. But where we critically disagree is that a private system would ever come anywhere close to the level of civilization we currently enjoy. If you read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, almost nowhere do they talk about economics (other than taxation without representation etc). That’s because a wild west style free market is the most basic form of trade above barter. We see it everywhere, from third world villages trading with one another, to banana republics, to the startup community. It doesn’t need a specific mention, just as we don’t need to bother saying the Earth is round or gravity exists.

The free market is the basis of economies, just as evolution is the basis of the laws of our universe.

So trying to place it above things like human rights or progress in things like public health or education is just bizarre. The idea that we’ll stop paying taxes and turn every road into a toll road, charge tuition for public school, or fight the bad guys with our own handguns when they come surging over the border is.. sophomoric. And what really sucks is the more libertarian a stance the population takes, the more we see concentrated wealth and power undermine the public good, as we just witnessed in the midterm election. Why would we elect people to office whose campaign slogan is that government is bad? That’s like hiring an undertaker as your doctor. Yet we see it over and over, to the point where ideology is given equal weight to pragmatism.

So to get to the point of why paying taxes for government space exploration is a good thing: because if we didn’t, we would be paying the entirety of our incomes as debt service to a central private bank that spends the money suppressing us (the end result of global fascism). We lucked out that a slight majority of the founding fathers were more in favor of government by the people (wherever that may lead) and were willing to fight and die for that rather than fall back to the default position of oligarchy that previous governments had used for thousands of years. Yet here we are again, where wealth inequality from free market policies has reached such a degree that the scales might tip back to a government that only serves the financial elite.

The person votes for it, and by extension YOU vote for it. Nobody's stealing anything; you voted to give it to them.

Extreme libertarianism is awesome in theory, but fails hard in reality. Income tax, when used smartly, can be one of the greatest things a nation has at its disposal.

A nation is just its people. People are already in possession of this money before the income tax takes it from them. I agree that this money can be one of the greatest things that people have at their disposal, which is why I'm arguing we should not let government handle it.

Why are you against peacefully convincing people, making your case, asking for money, and then using that money for what you want? Don't we see time again with kickstarter that this works? Why do you cling to old economic ideas of redistribution of wealth to fund space programs which are supposed to be forward-thinking and future-looking? You don't think the future is decentralized, including the funding of big projects? Wow.

a) That's what elections for. Start a party to abolish taxes and see if any people vote for you

b) HN isn't really the place for political ranting - there are other forums

Nowhere did I say that. I think there is room for both. You seem to think there isn't.

End of next year I'm going to have to job hunt again and I'm thinking of trying to crowdfund a postdoc position.

So in short, I think the transition to more crowdfunded science will happen, but as with many things that change the foundation of how science is done, it's a gradual process.

[1] https://experiment.com/

I do actually think you have a bit of a point. It would probably be more ethical to spend the space exploration money in other areas. However, there is much lower hanging fruit for things to cut out before we reach space exploration (warmongering and defence budgets for example)

So it's not I that have to move somewhere else. I've already moved. I've moved to where there can be Freedom, and where there once was. I'm here because I believe in Freedom and I think we can get it back, no thanks to people like you that are OK with the erosion of this most Enlightened idea.

The real question is, those who don't believe in freedom anymore, why don't they move to Europe or something? That's what Europe has always been, so go there. People came here from Europe so they could be free, and you're spoiling it for us. This is a land of immigrants that want to be left alone. If you're not that, then at least don't complain, and it would also be nice to stop silencing those that still think this is a good idea.

To your other points, what you mentioned aren't the lower fruits, those are the most high up fruits. Lower fruits are things that can more easily be decoupled from the scope of the government. ARKYD and similar projects prove there's no need for government in sending things to space, plus all the work by Virgin and Space X. So this is a low hanging fruit and people need to understand we need to decouple this from the government purview. Defense is super hard to decouple, requiring the whole population to be armed as you have in Switzerland.

I am there!

> This is a land of immigrants that want to be left alone. If you're not that, then at least don't complain

You mean the native Americans?

Science has, many times in the past, embarked upon a path to which there was no obvious benefit, yet ultimately came upon a discovery or application which improved the lives of humans immeasurably. Could Halley have had any idea how large the impact would be when he coerced Newton to record calculus and the laws of gravity in a book? What about Michael Faraday's fascination with electricity, generously supported by the Royal Society?

People aren't, as a whole, equipped to understand the long-term consequences of our actions. Predicating funding for something so essential to all of the progress made in the last few centuries on this faulty understanding would cripple our development. A government which attempts to offset the massive social cost of such a missed opportunity with speculative research is doing its duty to its citizens. We don't know what we don't know; evaluating scientific research with your limited cost/benefit analysis fails to take into account the enormous opportunity cost of a lost discovery.

As others have noted, taxation which funds things you don't agree with is a basic fact of modern life, but it has benefited you immensely - complaining about this funding model while you enjoy its output seems disingenuous.

Why exactly?

Given that we all owe our existence (and current level of comfort) to the social responsibility born by our progenitors, we must shoulder that same responsibility for the sake of our peers and our descendants. Someone who does not wish to take on that responsibility has no reasonable claim to the continued benefits of society - e.g. if you won't foster an environment in which medicine can be studied, then you do not deserve to benefit from the years of medical study prior to your interference.

This is a fundamental value for me; I'd be interested in hearing a counter-argument, but I highly doubt that I could be dissuaded.

The job of democratic government is to take responsibility for the things that the people choose to delegate to it.

I am not a doctor, a scientist, a hydraulic engineer, a military officer, a policeman, a lawyer or a civil engineer to name just a few relevant specialisms. I don't have the time, expertise or inclination to get involved in choosing how government should address all of the services it provides. Therefore I am happy to participate in choosing political leaders who I and my fellow citizens delegate to make those decisions for me.

I do not think it is reasonable or would be beneficial for every single citizen to have to decide how every single penny of tax money should or should not be spent. I cannot believe that a system organized in that way could ever be made to function no matter what modern communications and decision making (voting) technology we used.

Finally, living in a society ruled by laws is a system of coercion. Our fellow citizens are coerced into not robbing each other, not murdering each other, not driving their cars the wrong way down one way streets, and yes not avoiding paying tax. If you don't like that, tough.

Some people just don't find value in sustaining. This is why we are no longer hunters and gatherers or simple plot farms anymore. Is this good or bad? That's not really a good question, because it is an is; it's neither good nor bad.

I'm sure I'll get downvoted to hell for this, but why should my money be funding this? Sorry, but it has no benefit whatsoever.

edit: Instead of downvoting a dissenting voice, why not argue your case - why should taxpayers fund space toys?

edit2: Well, looks like I'm banned from commenting. Good job dealing with those that don't agree with you...

There's a famous example where a US Senator asked a similar question of a research physicist prior to the establishment of Fermilab, specifically tailored toward defense application [1].

SENATOR PASTORE. Is there anything here that projects us in a position of being competitive with the Russians, with regard to this race?

DR. WILSON. Only from a long-range point of view, of a developing technology. Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about.

In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.

To address your concerns more directly: Basic and exploratory research pushes scientists to extract the very highest performance one can get from known technology. On occasion, that technology can do something exceptional (precision timekeeping, GPS, vaccines, medical imaging, etc.). The highly-motivated people who do this work tend to be willing to do it at low salaries and with limited chance for advancement, simply because they love the field. You can think of it as a low-cost government-run VC fund that aims for the occasional spectacular payoff at multi-decade timescales.

Another key benefit is education: research funding underpins the post-graduate education of most people in the physical scientists. Funding basic research, which companies won't usually touch, furthers the continuous supply of a top-notch skilled workforce for industry nationwide.

Furthermore, in many fields, retaining a trained and knowledgeable corps of scientists is an efficient way to retain the capability to respond to sudden and important societal needs (Manhattan Project, Ebola, asteroid mitigation, Fukushima, etc.).

I'm biased, as taxpayer dollars pay for my work, but I think you're getting a reasonable-to-excellent return on your investment.

[1] http://history.fnal.gov/testimony.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q

For anyone who's wondering, we haven't banned this account. What happens is that when karma gets low enough to be in outlier territory, comments get auto-killed. This is a longstanding anti-troll measure.

In the future, we plan to have a "moderated" status for comments, rather than "dead", so that the community will be able to fix cases where the commenter is not a troll or has corrected their ways. In the meantime, if you ever notice something being [dead] unfairly, emailing [email protected] is usually enough to correct it. (Edit: but do please allow for the variable latency of our email stack. We will get back to you, but there's no SLA on when.)

Landing on comets and knowing what materials are there (and how to detect that from distance) will eventually let humanity explore solar system. In next 10000 years it's almost sure there will be at least one global cataclysm (huge asteroid impact, ice age, global warming, methane-producing bacteria boom, some supervulcaon could go off). It's just statistics, we're in borrowed time anyway.

How much would you pay to save human race?

We are not talking about throwing away everything to insure ourselves against future catastrophe, we're putting a small portion towards a bit of futureproofing. Seems smart to me.

There are things we need to prepare for and there are advantages to starting now. Every advance we make is a foundation for something else. I think there are things we take for granted today that only exist because of some urge to explore and learn thousands of years ago.

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

To be selfish, I'm keen to see what we can find out about our world (including beyond Earth obviously) in my lifetime. Something like the comet landing is a step along a far bigger path to getting all our eggs out of a single basket situation.

Besides, it looks like our own behavior is going to do it for us, so might as well "love the bomb".

Besides that, I think that personification of "Mother Universe" is just a xenophobic form of human fear of the "otherness" surrounding us. There is no monolithic Mother Universe, more probably, there is a mesh of living creatures and natural phenomena we are a part of.

We are a part of Mother Universe.

I hope it could be us that will do those amazing things you mentioned.

You are way too short sighted if you cannot imagine the enormous benefits of having dedicated engineers, scientists and researchers working on difficult problems that don't have model-able, short-term returns. The exact types of problems that people only concerned with short-term balance sheets avoid like the plague. The exact types of problems that propel our entire civilization into new ages of discovery and technology.

I don't think you need to subsidise science like this.

Did we really get "propelled" into new age of technology half a century ago? Did the moon landing really change anything here on earth? Technology would have advanced just fine without it.

The engineering effort of NASA took a bunch of disparate scientific discoveries and pieced them together to land humans on the moon. Don't tell me you don't think that sparked major economic development in this country for decades. One of the largest reasons America is an international economic powerhouse is the space race and the need for technological innovation during the cold war.

The entirety of humanity has been involved with exploring our curiosities. Exploring our curiosities tends to lead towards societal/scientific progress. Space is one of those.

>The entirety of humanity has been involved with exploring our curiosities. Exploring our curiosities tends to lead towards societal/scientific progress. Space is one of those.

I think this is almost certainly false. Very little of humanity has been involved with exploring any curiosity. Go to a third-world village and see how much curiosity is being explored.

It's also disingenuous to claim that NASA is some grand scientific curiosity mission. NASA is part of the military-industrial complex and operates as a slightly more palatable alternative to designing ICBM's directly. This is sort of like how mathematicians work for the NSA studying problems that are sanitized to be unrelated to the actual problem the NSA is trying to solve. It's a modern, scientific equivalent of a blank round in the firing squad.

Personally, I think that space exploration is a good thing because having all your species-level eggs in one planetary basket is a bad idea, but these are not compelling arguments in favor of space exploration, and they don't stand up to very easy to form arguments.

Throughout human history the vast majority of the population did nothing to contribute to the progress of society, except doing their job to keep their current society running. Eventually we figured out how to produce enough food without having everyone work all the time. The new free time could be used for arts and science; progress became possible.

But I think it's wrong to dismiss all the people who produce neither art nor knowledge. Without them, humanity couldn't afford to feed poets and scientists.

Steve Blank (its author) did a nice job marshaling evidence for just how much the Silicon Valley of today has depended on technology advanced through big government programs.

[1] http://steveblank.com/secret-history/

I'm an American, and I'm fascinated by space exploration. These kind of endeavors bring people together and make us look at the Earth as one entity that we all need to live on. It brings people together by strengthening trust through a common goal and achievement.

Now, as far as the "hur-dur my tax monies..." argument. I wonder if he has heard of the asteroid mining company in the US. Planetary resources speculats that a single 30 meter diameter asteroid could have over $50 billion[1] worth in platinum. Developing technology like ESA has done obviously helps advance a companies that can bring these resources back to Earth. So, I feel like he has to be trolling unless he really just hasn't had ANY interest in space exploration from the start. But, if he is going to out-right dismiss the program, he needs to have done some searching to at least form an opinion for why it is bad. Very untactful.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-space-asteroid-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

Subsidizing research, no matter what that research is, offers tremendous value to society, and we've benefited immensely from it!

science benefits us as a whole while most subsidies programs benefit a particular group or interest.

They're scientific research, not 'toys'.

You have the right to feel however you want, but a world without curiosity would be pretty sad; the internet wouldn't even exist for us to have this discussion.

The comment-parents viewpoint is perfectly valid, but has been censored because of disagreement within the broader HN community.

For all the talk about "free speech" that HN does when the topic is, say, not objectifying women, or making racial minorities feel included in tech, it certainly seems to perform an about-face when confronted with... objecting to space science as a policy.

1. Doesn't it seem a little outlandish to have your priorities so far out of whack with respect to the number of non-whites in the world, versus the number of space scientists in the world?

2. Why should the comment-parent be flagkilled for expressing an unpopular opinion?

A comment shouldn't be killed for expressing an unpopular opinion and I don't think this one was.

That comment is a perfect example of how not to state an opinion, unpopular or otherwise.

It states an opinion as absolute and demands proof otherwise while providing none of its own. This is recognized as awful, trollish behavior on any forum.

Further, the opinion stated is derisive and emotional. Finally, the it begs for downvotes repeatedly.

This is exactly the sort of thing that should be killed regardless of the view expressed.

The treatment of women and exclusion of minorities in this field is incredibly distressing. The thought of how many brilliant minds we could be turning away (not to mention the basic empathy I feel for their suffering) makes me sick. I look forward to a more enlightened age when these people will be welcomed with the basic respect and dignity they deserve.

...but, apathy towards education and scientific progress is also incredibly distressing - that a smaller absolute number of people are affected does not make the issue less important. Climate change denial and lack of enthusiasm for clean energy are complicated phenomena, but are (in my opinion) partially influenced by a culture that devalues science and education (in addition to outright manipulation by insidious parties). If you want proof of how dangerous this is, look at Mario Zervigon[0], a campaign-finance director for a pro-solar candidate - his house and cars were firebombed last week. This (admittedly unusually extreme) resistance to the idea that we should be taking care of our environment is mind-fuckingly insane. The library of Alexandria is still very much in peril, so to speak.

So...us freaking out about this doesn't mean we do not care about the exclusion of minorities. It's ok to be worried about multiple things; there are more than enough causes to go around. We live in a sick, sad world[1].

[0]: http://fusion.net/story/26335/car-bomb-house-explosion-rock-...

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W4Loj8k2Dk

re "free speech" a corollary is that those reading said speech are free to call it dumb

A cursory Google search returns all kinds of counter-points to your claim. If you really do believe this, perhaps some brief research of your own will change your mind..

Perhaps then you'll understand why we're against this.

You can do two or more things at one time, especially when they are totally unrelated.

I've heard this argument over and over during India's Mars mission on News debates, where people come on prime time television and complain health care, education or other sectors aren't doing enough progress so why go to Mars.

So what should those people do? If others don't do their job properly should they stop doing theirs? If there are other aspects of society not doing enough progress, lets fix that instead of stopping hardworking people from making progress else where.

However, such epic events are extremely inspiring! It is massively televized, broadcasted, discussed on social media and news aggregators. This may be a single trigger that will send many curious young guys and girls towards STEM professions. And we need them inspired, motivated and engaged to build a better world for all humanity.

So yeah, it has at least ONE benefit.

The US plans to buy 2443 such aircraft (of course, financed by the tax of US citizens). Do they really need so many of them?

The military budget of the US was recently around 660 billion USD per year, that is, the US could finance some 600 Rosettas (each a multiple-decade project) every year with its military budget. Approximating the Rosetta life to 10 years, in these 10 years the US spent 6000 Rosettas for military. Or 18000 of F-35 fighter jets.

"Why should we all work harder so you can learn to fly higher?" roared a huge tyrannosaurus, and bit the pterodactyl's head clean off.

So their kind never discovered ways to fly higher, and out of the atmosphere, and all the multitude of skills required detect comets and fly spacecraft to them to find out what they were made of.

And then a comet hit them and they all died.

The strong and mighty individualist T-Rex was enslaved by the communist mammals. The once idealistic Pterodactyl was forced to evolve into a chicken, bereft of its flight, today kept in captivity by the trillions, bred by robots, for meat and eggs. Their feathers fill our pillows. How ironic that Mankind's dreams are birthed atop their crushed wings.

What gives us the right to land on this comet?

Weren't the dinosaurs there first?

What about our robots? Who fills their pillowcases?

Or, as Eddy Lizzard once wisely said,

"Do you have a flag?!!"

You could do a better job just taking the money spent on space exploration, and opening some innovation/invention centers.

edit: banned now, so I can't add any comments. It's really surprising just how extreme the religion of science is sometimes. Scary.

Humanity cannot survive on the Earth for eternity. Eventually we will have to move on to other habitable worlds. Doing so is an almost unimaginably difficult engineering task. This reason alone is sufficient to justify space exploration in my mind.

On a shorter time scale, there are massive amounts of resources in space that, with better technology, we could theoretically harvest for our use here on Earth. Once again, this is incredibly difficult to accomplish and won't happen without learning from experiments.

In the present, satellites are extremely beneficial to humanity, and factor into our everyday lives. In addition, space telescopes and space stations facilitate research that couldn't be done on Earth.

That is an extraordinary claim that I'd like to see some evidence of. Having an end goal presents you with a number of problems to solve, which then give you an opportunity to innovate. Simply throwing money at somebody and asking them to come up with something doesn't seem like it would be nearly as productive as saying "We need to put a man in space and have him not die and then have him come back to earth and not crash" and then breaking that down into the smaller set of problems which need to be solved for that to happen.

How about, governments shouldn't require protection money from its citizens? The way it used to be before 1913.

Space toys and exploration are fun for those working on them, but will this event transform civilisation? Nope. Did the moon landing really transform civilisation? Nope.

What about all those scientists who learned to build rockets, who would later go on to help NASA launch the first weather satellites? What about the work done that led to the formation of the global positioning system? Are you sure it would have happened in the same timeframe by some other actors if NASA hadn't gone to the moon? Where would the scientists have gotten their training? What would have been the economic rationale for doing it?

Remember, too, that the moon landings were not scientific exploration. It was a military operation to prove supremacy. The russians put a man in space one month earlier, so Kennedy basically said "Yeah? you put a man in space? well we'll drop one on the Moon and then bring him back!"

It was an insane commitment to proving our supremacy. We sent fighter jet pilots on the first several missions, and didn't send a single scientist until several missions in.

Meanwhile, exploring the origins of comets helps us understand how the early solar system formed, which helps us understand how the universe formed, which helps us understand physics at a fundamental level, which helps us make better microchips, solar panels, and superconductors that make the tech in our world better at serving our needs.

It has nothing to do with "fun for those working on them", though I'm sure they have fun. Truck drivers probably have some fun too, but that doesn't mean delivering goods isn't worthwhile for legitimate economic reasons. Hard science is the same - it costs relatively little and the payoff, while abstract, is huge.

If you want to complain about spending, complain about military spending. In the US it is 70X NASA's budget, and 2x the military budget at the beginning of 2001. THAT is bloat. We know how to manufacture bombs. Making more doesn't do much for innovation. Funding science does.

"We Stopped Dreaming - Episode 1": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc

"We Stopped Dreaming - Episode 2": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc

Simply put, Rosetta's budget was about 70m Euros per year over 20 years. That's like funding maybe two schools, or one hospital ward, spread over the whole EU. None of these enrich humanity as much as Rosetta is.

As for employment, well, the project is creating exactly the right sort of jobs for the European economy - that money is being spent in Europe, helping to usefully occupy the European aerospace industry, and thereby keeping engineers and scientists in work.

Really? You're basically saying you'd prefer a robot on a comet over thousands of healthy and educated peers. Who are you to decide this?

Coming from an American this is pretty ironic. The choice in ESA-funding countries isn't between two schools and illiterate children, it's between further improvement to two good schools already affording excellent social mobility and a comet landing.

As for who decides this, the voters do as part of the democratic process.

And that's more than enough reason in itself.

Welcome to democracy.

http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/benefits.html for some. A comment above has many others listed.

But most importantly it bothers me that you think that risking a relatively small amount of money to expand our limits is not important. IF it were a "showoff" mission or a re-enactment of the moon landing, i would agree with you but this is about going into unknown territory. When Columbus set off to find a short path to the Indies, i bet someone would think the money was frivolously spent, but this guy never made it to the history books.

If you insist that we shouldn't take risks like this, you are literally asking the civilization to stop.

Also let not forget that NASA only represent 0.5% of the US federal budget. Do you really want to lower your federal tax by 0.5%? Seriously? Please lower your entertainment budget, stop alcohol and coffee consumption and donate all that money to a charity. If you actually believe that 0.5% should be put somewhere else because you doesn't believe they really transform civilization, then all that money that you use would probably be better somewhere else too.

Why don't I donate all to NASA? Because I never said that it was worth our money more than something else that worth more than what my entertainment is worth. (Sorry if it a little hard to understands, english isn't my first language, I'm still working on it).

Also I never said that it has so much potential, I'm curious to know where you found this in my comment. What I said is barely enough to said that it can actually compete against his alternative, I was really counting on the fact that it was only representing 0.5% of the budget to make it seems worthwhile.

EDIT: Hopefully you still haven't read this comment, I found a better way to explain what I said.

He said that it wasn't worth it because it doesn't really transform civilization.

I said that it was clearly worth its 0.5% of the funding.

I also said that if it's not worth it because it doesn't really transform civilization, how could his own budget can be justified (and to avoid him answering that in a way, his job does transform civilization enough to be worth his salary, I only included expense that could be avoided without affecting too much his job).

What. The first two sentences of your comment:

> Does space exploration has the potential to transform civilization? Yeah it actually does.

The point is that the criteria for the State/government doesn't have to be the same as the criteria for personal expenses.

I was just using a similar argument, to show that they're both flawed.

Space exploration for it's own sake is a self-perpetuating relic of the cold war.

-----------------------

1) 3km above comet:

https://twitter.com/DLR_de/status/532587248555143169

2) Few seconds before landing:

https://twitter.com/nanotousch/status/532593372218023936

3) First surface image?

http://i.imgur.com/0XK8Ar4.jpg

4) Possibly a new image from the descent?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2QySLrCUAAZbEL.jpg

Edit: no, here is the source (Rosetta's NavCam from yesterday):

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/NAVCAM_top_1...

-----------------------

Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS)

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experimentDisplay.do?id=PHILA...

  More analysis of @Philae2014 telemetry 
  indicates harpoons did not fire as 1st thought

edit - the landing is confirmed, however the harpoons did not fire: https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/532579871202238464

Ulamec: signal kept coming and going "but we always got it back." Possibly indicates unstable, or tilted.

Ulamec confirms the harpoons did NOT fire. There is much they currently do not know.

Ulamec: a central rod was pushed into lander 4 cm by landing. Indicates soft rather than hard surface (rod would've pushed more into lander)

Just had a chat with Mark McCaughrean and I feel a bit calmer....

McCaughrean: @Philae2014 is down on the surface of the comet and it is transmitting signals. Science instruments are getting data.

Yes, McCaughrean confirmed this. RT @JPMajor: @elakdawalla So the ice screws on the lander's feet have at least dug in I assume?

https://twitter.com/elakdawalla/status/532578862086250497

------------------------------------------

And overview of the German DLR stream's briefing (via reddit live stream):

Good news:

--- Touchdown, all the signals that trigger on touchdown worked.

--- Still communication, which means the lander did not tilt or topple.

Bad news:

--- ADS thruster did not fire, that is the issue was already known beforehand.

--- The anchors did not fire, this confusion was due to the rewind motors for the anchors going into action, but the harpoon wasn't actually fired.

--- Team doesn't know if it rebounded or not / if it's on the surface. Thus they don't dare issuing a re-firing signal for the harpoons, because they don't know in what position the lander is. Current Situation:

--- The arm that damped the landing force only moved very little, which indicates a very soft surface. Which might mean if it rebound the rebound was very soft as well and in this case might settle down again.

--- On board computer is waiting for new commands.

--- There will be more telemetry in 30 minutes, but contact lost in 120 minutes, so the final verdict could be known only tomorrow.

http://www.reddit.com/live/tw0cnch7nxjx/

> It looks like @Philae2014 made a fairly gentle touch down on #67P based on amount of landing gear damping #CometLanding

but the harpoons may have failed to fire.

those harpoons are what is supposed to anchor Philae to the comet. the problem is the reaction thruster, the thruster that counteracts the force generated by the harpoon shot, (to satisfy Newton's 3rd law) is faulty.

So they're hoping that when they reshoot the harpoon, the foot screws will be anchored enough to hold it in place. If not, theyre hoping that Philae won't launch too far off the surface so that they can just "reel" Philae back in.

And I replied to a comment which said "land".

Can it stay on the surface without the harpoons?

technically yes. Philae has harpoons along with foot screws to secure it to the comet, but if harpoons are super glue, foot screws are tape.

Firing the harpoon would also be enough to launch, but at least the hook would grab the surface and pull the lander back down, giving enough pull to drill viable long-term anchors.

See this video that explains how Philae foots work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77-Z_DHTlY#t=84

ESA says it landed gently on the surface: https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/532575615527170048

I'm really curious to know how different it is from the web or enterprise development worlds.

* The Rosetta probe ultimately runs SCL (Spacecraft Command Language) [1], a COTS spacecraft programming language developed for sale to the military [2]; SCL is based on the syntax of Ada 83, which has a long legacy in spaceflight and other real-time applications (e.g. Boeing 777) [3]. However, what are known as Flight Control Procedures (uploaded commands), are written using another language and transformed and compiled into SCL in a two-step process that involves XSLT [1]. On-board Control Procedures, which are procedures the probe decides on its own to run, and handle tasks such as receiving FCPs and sending back telemetry, are written in SCL [1].

* The Mars rover Curiosity is programmed in C and uses the VxWorks RTOS [4], which is very much like many commercial embedded systems. It has about 2.5 million lines of code, much of it autogenerated. Curiosity's predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, used the same software stack, as did their predecessor, Sojourner [8].

* The Voyager probe, which has now left the solar system and entered interstellar space, uses "...interrupt driven computer[s], similar to processors used in general purpose computers with a few special instructions for increased efficiency. The programming is a form of assembly language." [5]

* The Space Shuttle was programmed in a custom language called HAL/S (High-order Assembly Language/Shuttle) [6], as was the Jupiter probe Galileo [7]. The language is descended from PL/I and its compiler is written in a subset of PL/I called XPL.

[1]: http://www.rheagroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/SpaceOps...

[2]: https://www.sra.com/scl/

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)

[4]: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/159638

[5]: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html

[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL/S

[7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(spacecraft)

[8]: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/159687

Which makes me wonder, since this is HN after all, if Rust wouldn't be an ideal candidate for coding this kind of layer in the future. Maybe a compiler targeting VxWorks is in progress somewhere.. ? :))

C and languages that compile to C (Fortran is used as well) are often employed since you have powerful control over memory usage.

Source: I work in the aviation industry, where the technologies are different but the lifecycle concerns are very similar.

Science fiction has some great depictions of interstellar communications, such as my favorite by Vernor Vinge, the Hugo award-winning novel A Fire Upon the Deep. It is a most excellent space opera that prominently features an interstellar system like Usenet as part of the plot [3], as well as superhuman intelligence, physics, and all sorts of other wonderful bits.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep

eg: "The on-board software of the central computer of the Philae Lander consists of a real-time operating system and 8 application tasks. All these software modules are specially developed by our team for the Harris RTX2010RH microprocessor. The co-ordination of the scientific program and the overall control of the algorithms used by the application tasks are done by the MSO modelling language."

http://www.hiradastechnika.hu/data/upload/file/2004/2004_12/...

Also the "scheduling system, called the Rosetta SGS Scheduling Component" is discussed here:

https://ai.jpl.nasa.gov/public/papers/chien_iwpss2013_schedu...

which uses a framework called APSEN written by NASA:

http://aspen.jpl.nasa.gov/

which takes code like this:

Activity prevalve removal {

duration = 15

slot subsystem

after prevalve prep with (subsystem == this.subsystem)

before prevalve replace with (subsystem == this.subsystem)

Reservation hydraulic lift usage {

resource = hydraulic lift; usage = 1;

duration = 5;

requires state prevalve-purged TRUE

requires state prevalve-illuminated TRUE

to control the thing

http://metahack.org/isairas97-aspen.pdf

No idea how relevant it is today, or any differences between the shuttle team and whoever's building/built the software for this lander, but it's definitely worth a read.

http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html

I'm not sure how I stand on "w/ a great language one does great things" vs "great engineers do great things with any tools they have" debate.

* VxWorks for real time operating system (proprietary)

* Ada/C++ for programming language.

The last answer here has a lot of links for the Curiosity Rover: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/159637/what-i...

The ESA live feed at most times show people in some kind of control room staring at screens. There is no apparent way to see any highlights, unless I want to try scrolling back and forth through the hour-long video stream.

At any given time, various forum threads seem to have more information than the ESA site, which seems to communicate mostly through either lighthearted tweets, one-line headlines, or general background articles.

All I want is a simple timeline of events, constantly updated with latest news and images. Instead we have forum threads where you have to dig through comments to find out what is the newest info.

OT but it's kind of amazing that this is actually a simple request these days.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/live/...

So they disabled the orientation system to save energy, but first they made the probe rotate quickly to stabilise it like a gyroscope.

That's stuff from sci-fi books / Mc Gyver movie :)

Thanks @brianpgordon - Check out this gif of the orbital maneuvers required for Rosetta to reach its destination: https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif

Live twitter feed of ESA https://twitter.com/esaoperations

It looks like @Philae2014 made a fairly gentle touch down on #67P based on amount of landing gear damping #CometLanding

http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/

pretty mind blowing for me to plan ahead 10 years

Edit: Thanks for all the replies! I'm at work now but will take a look at them this evening.

Instead it gave us seemly random things, that we were looking for, but are beneficial nonetheless and some which may not come out right away.

The Apollo Mission gave us

ASICs, Cordless Tools, CAT scan, Ear Thermometer, Smoke Detector, Shoe insoles, carbon based water filters, satellite television (boardcasted, not passive reflected), Scratch resistant lenses.

These things aren't why we went to the moon. Inventing them kinda just happened to see the program though. Space travel challenges the status quo of technology. Its really REALLY hard. So when ever we (humans) do it, we face new problems, and our solutions sometimes have effects for those on earth.

I wouldn't be a programmer with the space program, it inspired a life long love of science and technology.

Sarcasm aside, this is more due to Geneva Conventions rather than actual lack of Death Crystals on the moon.

https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif

This probably won't be very impressive in a few hundred years, but for now it's a remarkable engineering achievement.

Scientific:

* Comets may show us early composition of our solar system since they change less than planets. This may help answer questions related to where water came or where DNA/RNA molecules came from.

* Lessons learned here will directly contribute to the success of future missions on both mars and the moon

* Solar cell technology was directly advanced, helping push forward solar energy

Political & Social:

* Brings governments closer together These types of missions require a great amount of cooperation and help stabilize and improve the international political landscape. Around 20 countries cooperated in this mission.

* Inspire more people to enter science, math and engineering

* Increase collaboration of universities and industry, helping close the gap between theoretical and applied science.

[edited to fix formatting]

Achieving engineering capabilities required to land on comets is a step forward for human civilization.

I consider the above to be actual real world benefits. If they are not, I'm not sure where the boundary of the real world is and where the imaginary world begins.

Edit: Several downvotes even though I tried to make it clear I'm FOR this kind of spending. My problem is basically how do you explain to someone on the street why spending $1bn on a mission to a comet is worth it when we don't know what benefits it will bring.

Second, having all of humanity live on a single speck of rock puts us in a very precarious position as a species and introduces a single-point of failure to our civilization. Therefore, the development of technical capabilities to move freely around the solar system and eventually beyond is also an objective for humanity. Again, I admit, it is a long-term one without short-term urgency of say, getting rid of Ebola.

So the whole issue is essentially a question of the right balance of the amount of effort we invest in working on our short-term urgent objectives and the long-term ones.

With world GDP in excess of $70 trillion per year [1], spending 1 billion EUR ($1.25 billion) for a decade-long mission does not seem like extravagance.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product

EDIT: To further put the cost of the mission into perspective: assuming the contributions for the mission came from about half a billion people (EU population) over a decade this translates into about 20 euro-cents per year. Seriously, this is not extravagance. In fact, given that the mission cost is over 20% of ESA's yearly budget it makes me think Europe is under-investing in its space capabilities and scientific research. Nitpick: ESA member states don't overlap with the EU exactly, but it is a good enough proxy. More accurate figure would allow for American and other contributions to the on-board instruments so would be even less than 20 euro-cents/year/person.

Military: $640bn (per year) War on drugs: $41bn (per year) Health-care overcharging & overtesting: $1200bn (per year)

And this is just the US, now imagine those costs worldwide.

So, in contrast, this is a first-time-experiment where we get to do something never done before, using a lot of tech in brand new conditions (for us) where thousands put to test their knowledge of physics, electronics and astronomy. In such light you might understand why you are being downvoted.

One of the initial motivations for this mission was to learn more about our solar system's origins by studying a comet up close. Many engineering challenges were also overcome in the process, which will lead to positive side effects for future space missions and related areas, but one of the primary scientific questions this mission attempts to answer is "why is our solar system the way it is?" Answers to that question will likely help us better understand our place in the universe, and possibly shine a light on other solar systems as well. Maybe even give us a better idea how likely we are to encounter life in other solar systems, and what that life might be composed of.

Ironically, compared to questions of cosmic significance like these, short term concerns like treating present diseases or improving the current economic environment are petty and irrelevant by comparison. These are issues that science and government can tackle on earth, and issues where throwing more money at the problem doesn't always help. It is a fallacy to think that because space travel requires money, that earthly needs will go unfulfilled. It's deeply short sighted, in fact.

Your comment seems to be rooted in a deep misunderstanding of the nature of science. Science does not proceed by first devising a list of improvements to human wellbeing that will result from an experiment (though the grant application process in universities sometimes encompasses this task--with a lot of handwaving as a result). Science is about expanding our sphere of knowledge. By definition, we don't know what will result, or if it will have a positive impact. But we are trying something that has never been tried before, which is deeply interesting, and which has the potential to greatly expand our knowledge of the universe. Science is fundamentally a research activity: you can't know in advance what you will find. Asking what we will find before performing the experiment is pointless. The "might find" category for a mission like this is enormous, however.

I'm not sure how Rosetta was run; it had a longer germination time than many missions.

But for a typical science-driven mission, there is a thing called a "Science Traceability Matrix", or STM, that has science goals down one side and measurements down the other side. Every science goal must be traced to one or more measurements that will achieve it, and every measurement must correspond to some goal. If the linkage is not clear, the measurement (i.e., instrument - one spacecraft typically has many instruments) will be booted.

For more: http://csc.caltech.edu/references/Grogan%20STM.pdf [page ~8 has a matrix]

The science goals, in turn, are arrived at through National Academies studies, typically Decadal Surveys, done once per 10 years (often with a midpoint course correction). Membership in the NAS is a very big deal that few scientists achieve; the expertise of these people is unreal. That is:

  state of science knowledge -> 
  decadal survey ->
  science goals ->
  traceability matrix ->
  specific instrument choices

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13405

One of the outcomes of all the space funding over the years is that there is now a somewhat orderly process for attacking big questions systematically.

Thank goodness at least some of our money is spent on things which might benefit humanity in the long term, like discovering how the solar system was formed or whether life was formed on earth or elsewhere.

As for your long term benefits:

Great so we find out how the solar system is formed or where life was formed - now what? Those are really cool things to know but what do we do with that information? The reason I'm curious about this is that although I want to see more of these missions and I think it would be great to have answers to those questions I find it difficult to actually justify spending that money on answering questions. There must be some tangible benefit. Other responses to my question have provided me with answers to that.

Maybe they haven't been discovered yet. Application can lag theory or basic experiments for a very long time. Did the car come right after the wheel? Did the iPhone come right after Ohm's Law? Maybe this will aid comet/asteroid mining missions. Or optical image processing. Or orbit optimization for long solar system traverses. I think it's very shortsighted to pursue only research that has visible short-term benefits, because you could be missing out on countless innovations that are below the horizon. We can't predict the future. But I also think application is unnecessary, and that there is inherent value in understanding our world.

In any case, while I don't know how much the average European pays for ESA in taxes, I do know the average American pays something like a few bucks to fund NASA. So you're quibbling over the use of a tiny proportion of resources to answer some big questions.

Which you then contradicted by whining about not seeing the benefit of it; you're clearly not all for this mission or you wouldn't have derailed this top thread with your concern troll.

There doesn't have to be a tangible, short term benefit for these missions to be considered worthwhile by the majority of humanity, so your question is irrelevant to them. If you can't see the benefit to us of finding out when and where life was formed, I can't help you.

That's fine. There are plenty of other answers to my legitimate question (certainly wasn't trolling) and those were able to help me.

The LHC took over $13B to discover Higgs. It's a bit of a stretch to call it a discovery, it was really a confirmation of what we were already pretty sure of. But, that money didn't just disappear; it went into building a tech industry which is pretty valuable to have. And a better understanding of our universe has a funny way of being really useful down the road.

  Ernst Stuhlinger wrote this letter on May 6, 1970, to Sister Mary Jucunda, a nun who worked among the starving children of Kabwe, Zambia, in Africa, who questioned the value of space exploration. At the time Dr. Stuhlinger was Associate Director for Science at the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama. 

The detailed dynamics are yet to be determined, but since the comet has an orbit that takes it from as close to the sun as Earth and as far away as Jupiter, this signal should change as it travels. Or maybe it doesn't, and if so, that would be a mystery worth investigating. This is a completely unexpected discovery that enables us to study a comet's magnetic field, and how it interacts with the solar wind.

Here are some possible benefits just from this one discovery:

1) The instruments necessary to even detect this signal are very impressive by themselves, developing them has probably improved a number of instrumentation technologies on Earth already.

2) The lander's instruments cannot penetrate the surface very far. The fact that this comet even has a magnetic field (however weak) is interesting. It could mean that a significant portion of the comet's interior is composed of iron, nickel, cobalt, or rare earth metals, which would be useful knowledge for people like these: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-b...

3) If future missions to comets find a different type of signal, which in turn leads to a different type of internal composition, the differences in a comet's magnetic field could be used to infer the composition of its interior from a distance, without sending any probes to the surface at all.

Some believe that water or other materials from comets were fundamental in the origination of life here on Earth.

It also gives us more understanding on the material composition of the rest of space - which might be of more practical use once we start mining space, for example.

> elemental, isotopic, molecular and mineralogical composition of the cometary material, the characterization of physical properties of the surface and subsurface material, the large-scale structure and the magnetic and plasma environment of the nucleus

Amongst other things, they'll be looking for complex organic molecules.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(spacecraft)#Search_for...

A senator (ENLOW) has put an anonymous hold on building a supercollider, the white house deputy communications director (SAM) wants to help his old professor (MILLGATE) get the budget approved for it, and this is near the end of the episode:

  ENLOW
  I'm a Democrat, Sam. How's a 20 billion dollar astronomy lecture gonna help
  the President get elected?
  
  SAM
  It won't. "We've discovered a seamless, intellectual framework for the
  universe" isn't a good 30-second spot.
  
  ENLOW
  If only we could only say what benefit this thing has, but no one's been 
  able to do that.
  
  MILLGATE
  That's because great achievement has no road map. The X-ray's pretty good. 
  So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in 
  mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And 
  now, we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never 
  studied the classics. They couldn't. They invented them.
  
  SAM
  Discovery.

  MILLGATE
  What?

  SAM
  That's the thing that you were... Discovery is what. That's what this is used 
  for. 
  It's for discovery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGK96-WixU

"The history of man is hung on the timeline of exploration and this is what's next."

sigh A man can dream.

See, that's what you should've mentioned the first time. :P

I'm cool with that dream. I just thought you were hoping to get stuff faster by dropping it on our heads.

And not everything is done as a benefit/loss game - I would personally invest significant time and money into finding out how the universe came about, even if such knowledge doesn't do anything for starving children in Nigeria. However, the beauty of it is that you on the other hand can go and spend YOUR time and YOUR money on whatever YOU please. As for public spending - if you don't like it, go and vote.

However, your children, and their children, and so on will likely see benefits from it. The future is impossible to predict, however, so nobody can say what they will be. The principal benefit of missions like this is the new knowledge they generate. That knowledge is then the intellectual heritage of humanity for eternity, and can be used for any number of inventions, benefits, and future discoveries.

You are thinking too small. Even if somehow nothing ever comes of this mission, this is the sort of thing that humanity does not because it has survival value, but because it gives value to survival.

On top of that it's the biggest acchievement of the European Space Agency.

And landing on a 4 km small rock 500,000,000 km from Earth after 12 years of travelling is in itself remarkable.

As someone's who's worked on a few spacecraft project I feel really bad for the team(s) (recently worked on one which didn't go so well, years of work down the tube). Even if it didn't go perfectly I hope they're commended for the work they've done so far & the landing they achieved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77-Z_DHTlY

To add to what everyone else mentioned: Philae's science mission is slated to last for 2.5 days - the batteries have ~65 hours of charge, that's it. The hope is that they may be able to charge it and keep gathering data afterwards.

So it's not going to last nearly that long.

Still can't believe ESA planned and landed a robot on a comet. Bravo!

mind blowing

I'm in agreement w/ all the downvoters here - you are absolutely entitled to whatever opinion you desire to hold, but if you're going to be sharing it in a public forum, deliver sound criticism or don't bother.

Your comments are beneath the quality of conversation expected at HN.

Also, speaking for Italy, I don't think we need more money if we're going to waste it. We need to make reforms, stop wasting a LOT of money and so on

Instead they focused on science and we don't need slaves nor peasants anymore.

(Edit: Not intended to be snarky; I just think people do ask those questions all the time, and this xkcd answers it well.)

IMHO, It is quite simply a travesty that there is still so much absolute poverty and deaths (through malnutrition easily curable and/or preventable diseases) in the third world. Many of these problems were solved in the early 20th century- It is a lack of political will of governments and the collective apathy of its citizens, who are engrossed in their own first-world problems. To answer the xkcd comic: Yes. 15 years should be enough to at least halve world-wide deaths due to hunger and diseases like Malaria and Cholera, If the citizens of the first world make it a voter issue. Such endeavours will pay themselves multiple times over. (increased human output, new trading markets for companies, reduced population growth) And you don't need to sacrifice funding for scientific research to do it(coughs military budgets).

I am wondering what this will mean for humanity. Do you guys think the insights we gain from Philae will be as impactful as the ones from other space missions?

To me, no other statement could be more impacting. Earth is finally sending motherships to space. feeling mind-boggled

Silencing diverse opinions is quite possibly the worst facet of HN.

I'm not settled on where I stand with that (I tend towards cooperative and communist ideals) but I certainly don't stand on the side of "those expressing these views need to be censured" (nor censored as it happens); which is what appears to be happening.

It's possibly that I'm being over-sensitive towards the failings of the HN UI as much as anything.