EXPLORING MARS ROVER STYLE

Despite everything else I have to think about (see other posts for that) I do try to keep up with certain things that do interest me. This is, at times, annoying and frustrating and over the years there have been many things that have passed me by relatively unnoticed.

The latest Mars Rover I HAVE noticed and I am extremely excited, when life allows me to be, at what will be discovered and I have a good feeling about this particular science project.

Astronomy is a field I would give my right arm to work in and this has never changed since I was about 7 years old, so around 35 years!! In all honesty I am always awaiting the day when I am in a position to be able to do this seriously even if only on an amateur level, expensive as it may be.

I am a strong believer in research into science and it has become somewhat heart breaking at times to see the various budget cuts and lack of moving forwards as well as going backwards even with technology, a la Concorde!

All my life I have witnessed an absolutely serious waste of money in an inexhaustible amount of areas and it also is upsetting as well as mind boggling when I see a great deal of areas become static while large portions of societies are obsessed with warring and money wasting when it comes down to deities! I find it strange that in this day and age so much time, effort and money gets wasted on things that are scientifically not provable in any way shape or form. I do even find it some what hypocritical, if I am honest, when scientists have disagreed in documentaries about the viability and possibility of any of these deities and using science to prove them. That is just bizarre. But then this could also apply to many other areas too that are close to my heart, like fairness and society which is the only thing that would lead to any chance of peace, despite which country it is and Burma has been the one enlightening aspect in the world today and that this is the last place I would expect to see it. Homelessness too and dishonesty and disregard for each other is rife wherever you look while being bombarded with news bulletins stating there simply are too many of us.

Although that last paragraph sounds like I am leaning from science to politics, I hate that word, the truth is it is science we, or at least used to, look at for answers and solutions and this has slowed somewhat in recent years. Concord being grounded and now the Space Shuttle are prime examples of the steps backwards I refer to. When I see aircraft over head the appear no different to those I watched with awe as a child and grew up wanting to be a pilot and playing a lot of Flight Simulators.

Unless there is a RIDICULOUS amount of money involved no one wants to do it and we have become stagnated. Unfortunately this has been allowed to happen by governments and MPs that have shown quite clearly that they not only think they know MORE than their science advisers but even when they have been proved WRONG they will still expect these scientists to LIE for them. A prime example of this was the row over Cannabis here in the UK.

Now I am seen as cocky by some and a know all by others but mostly this starts of as being called a genius and many still refer to me as that. But the truth is I only pay attention to people speaking when I am sure they KNOW what they are talking about and have done something to prove it. In other words I DO listen to people but the ones I do not listen to are not around when I am listening so therefore they do not see it. My current landlord I used to listen to as did a damned annoying ex friend of mine with the former owning his own building firm and the latter being a business expert who was self made once who now runs a solicitors practise with his wife, the Solicitor, that I worked as a Personal Assistant to. Of course I would also listen to his wife too.

So it is not a speaking of political subjects but merely a fact that politics now ignores science and has been doing so for sometime. It is also a statement to my government for one that you have NOT nor never have PROVED yourselves and you need to stop being arrogant towards the British public, even more so when you were never quite voted in, in the first instance.

All my life it has been somewhat upsetting that we here in the UK have not had many science projects like that of other countries around the world. So many things have fallen by the wayside and I take a small piece of Solace in the fact that the Americans still do it. I say small as the Shuttle is now grounded and god knows if I will ever live long enough to see the next chapter in the exploration of space travel.

Still the new rover will keep me occupied and have on eye and ear on the news currently and already some interesting snippets are starting to appear. Of these is the seeming discovery of a riverbed and this is one thing I have been waiting to see if firstly it was discovered and secondly it was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it indeed was a river in the past, regardless of how distant it was but I hope that is discovered too!

I must admit that over the years and since a child I have often wondered why the Earth contains so much water while Mars has so little. I have often been of the opinion that the amount of water here could have been delivered by a great deal of comets, or a few big ones in the early eons of the solar system, but that Mars should have a fair amount too. There are, after all, the Pole Caps on Mars and it would have been so cool, probably literally, to have a Rover explore there not only for the images but that water contains and carries all kinds of material and seemed to me to be the obvious choice for science experiments. Still the current site is exciting enough and a damned good choice when I first read why they landed it there and interested to see if we one day discover there is a fair abundance of water under the surface and how widespread it is and why it moved from the surface down into subterranean areas.

Of course and along I dare say many other people the big one is a manned mission to Mars! I will admit I think I read as a child that they estimated we would achieve this in 2001 or 2004, I am leaning towards the latter here, and we would have flying cars, My Jupitas, and all manner of things going on. We are heading for ten years beyond this prediction and we are still struggling to produce electric cars let alone hovering or flying ones?! Also as I mentioned the aircraft look the same too! BAH HUMBUG!

God knows how frustrated Sir Patrick Moore has been at times over the years?!

I spent my life thinking that despite the other horrors that life throws at you, well evil people if I am honest, that I would one day witness certain scientific milestones in my life, as I was 2 months old I think when the late Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Now at my age I think ... maybe not.

The other big talk in these circles and has been for awhile now is the visit they would like to make to, drat which one was it, Europa! Seems very interesting and all for it but not so convinced on finding the things they expect to but I do think its not only entirely possible but a sure fire thing that some kind of organism is possible, albeit on a very small scale.

The ones I am waiting for and keen to see is the one that will skirt around Kuiper Belt objects, namely Pluto and possible others like Sedna. I think this one was referred to as New Horizons and they truly would be too! Also the orbiting eyes going up are of great visionary prowess and I think the James Webb Scope and another I cannot recall grabbed my attention and my imagination. But then for me that is what science is all about with the view to research and then discovery fires up our imaginations and sets us of dreaming of all the possibilities and then the discussions with other similar minded individuals.

Let us hope that the crap in our societies is one day dealt with and that we can go on to recapture the forward motion we once lost and that IF the military has been deliberately holding back technology that this global crisis teaches them that they cannot forcibly stagnate societies as this is not healthy for us looking for the next big thing, the next adventure and the next dream.

Amen to that!

A GOLDFISH, FISHFOOD & A MAKSUTOV-CASSEGRAIN 6 INCH PLEASE!

I was out with one of my brothers about a week ago on his little run around Tropical Fish stores in the South East about a week ago when something rather bizarre took place.

He had previously worked for a company called Gates as a salesman for Ford cars and had been there a number of years but started of his working life, as we all did in my family save one brother and sister, working with animals. The job he now does he had previously done prior to working for Ford and his old boss who had been friendly with our whole family wanted him back.

Since this had happened I had a few calls on some mornings asking me if I wanted to go out with him on his run and due to my lack of much to do, hence my other BLOG about Computers and Gaming, getting out and seeing what was around in the world of Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles was a good thing for me.

What happened a week ago is that we ended up in Leighton Buzzard and a nice store run by a couple of very friendly people. Impressed with the little store and the offers they had available I was wandering around from section to section and walked through a doorway to see the pond section. As I did so I looked immediately to my left and was presented with a variety of objects that caused me to freeze, do a double take and have me scratching my head while my jaw was now dragging around the floor.

There before me was a plimpf and atop it was a selection of telescopes, I I should say OPTICS. These were all of the Celestron variety and comprised of several reflectors along with a, guessing here, 6 inch Maksutov Cassegrain Goto Scope! There were also a few other choice things with one being a monocular and this would have been a good choice for any one of my brothers and me, any three of us, as we had recently got into birdwatching and had kitted ourselves out with binoculars.

We got chatting to the chap that ran the store about this curious inclusion of optical equipment in what is in essence a pet store? At the counter I was then presented with binoculars before I then realised there were several on the shelves behind the man I was talking to. He presented my brother with a Celestron Skymaster 15x70 Binoculars and I turned to my brother, who asked me if they were any good, and said err you know my Revelation Astros that are 15x70? He said 'yes' and I replied well they are the SAME binoculars! He looked puzzled and I said that these binoculars are all made by the same firm and that the casing coverings are then all put on by the different firms. Adler, Revelation and Celestron all use the same binocular and it has a good reputation especially for its pricing.

I have no idea what my brother thought when I used the words Maksutov-Cassegrain and Ritchey-Chretian among others as I had never really got that technical when speaking about scopes with him before hand. But then the subject was mainly about binoculars anyway though he does watch out for the Perseid Meteor showers each year.

So you can walk in and buy a Goldfish, an aquarium some fish food and a 6 inch Maksutov and then head home, safe in the knowledge that you can watch your goldfish swimming around when your not gazing at the Sea of Tranquillity, Orion's Belt of the Crab Nebula and dreaming of what is out there?!

As I stated the the people in the store that has NEVER happened to me before and I have been in thousands, literally, of Pet Stores and it made my day!