Here’s a link to the first photos from my mission to the sun, written about here.
Subscribe2
Photo Memory of the Week
Posted: 2024 Oct 012
Music of the Week
Posted: 2024 Oct 12
Poetry of the Week
If
- by Rudyard KiplingIf you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise . . .
Posted: 2024 Oct 12
Notices
All text and photographs are protected by copyright. This site collects anonymous user data for Google Analytics.
As I grow older, my emphasis seems to be shifting from “What do I know?” to “What difference does it make?” This applies particularly to religion; I have a friend who insists that Jesus is God, or God is Jesus, and I ask, “What difference does it make?” If it doesn’t affect his relationship with the cashier at the grocery store, it’s meaningless. I ask the same question of the NASA solar mission (even though I admit to being fascinated by such things as the sun getting hotter as you move away from it) but I wonder what difference that knowledge will make to us humans on this earth. Will it change the way I live? Will it change the way I interact with you, say, or with my grandson? I’m not saying that NASA shouldn’t have done it, but I’d like them to spell out how this new (and unspecified) knowledge that they expect to gather might make a difference.
Jim T
Jim T – I don’t know whether NASA could put forward a compelling case for this mission. I think in general it’s hard to argue for basic research on practical grounds – at least, on specific and practical grounds. My impression is that they often don’t know what will come of a line of enquiry, but they’re pretty sure that something will.