Accuracy in Media

[Maitre]

Hi,
Yes it is (although the flag screw up is pretty good, too). Putting a man on the moon is a political dog and pony show. And that it had already been done half a century before the Chinese project will come to fruition makes its purpose moot.

Now, building a scientific and engineering colony on the moon, that would be a worth while goal. Using the mass of the moon to build an environment were reasonable shielding from radiation is possible. Using the reduced gravity to build space probes, telescopes, etc., easier than on Earth. And taking advantage of the lower (1/6th IIRC) gravitational curb to stage and launch more payload on missions would make planetary exploration (and, eventually, colonization) a real possibility.

But to send a 'visitor' to the moon to get some form of international recognition for their technical prowess? Now that's funny. And a stupid waste of resources. Just as it was when we did it.

Back on topic; the dozen or so times that I've been involved or at the scene when something was recorded have a perfect average. Zero percent accuracy. From discussions with others, this is common. And yet people still buy newspapers, listen to radio, and watch TV news. Why? You start out ignorant, then the media misinforms you. You then know less than you knew before. Freedom of the press? They're out to educate and inform? Give me a break. The only freedom the press seems to want is the freedom to #$%& up.

--Pete

I only watch local news for the entertainment value now. I'm tired of the stories on how the emissions from the local dry-cleaner will kill me, but I do find the stories on local prostitution rings interesting (though they don't seem to come up frequently anymore). Oh, and if one more channel does an expose on internet predators, I'm going to start stalking TV "news magazine" (lack of-) personalities.

One thought on lunar machine shops: wouldn't the raw materials have to come from Earth anyway? I'm no rocket scientist, but would there be advantages to sending raw materials into space for additional assembly (i.e., would 25 small shipments add up to lower total fuel requirements than 5 big shipments?) More than willing to take your word for it on this one Pete, I just wanted to make sure that I understood the theory. Oh, and if we go to the trouble of building a machine shop on the moon, we should definiately build the engineering bay: what's the point of siege tanks without the deploy ability?