1/14    Today we get the first glimpse of Titan's surface! Huzzah!
        \_ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html
           \_ Why are the pics so crappy and colorless?
              \_ It's NASA.  You get what you pay for.
                \_ what the hell does that mean?
              \_ Early pictures are often lo-res.  What I find so fascinating
                 is how weathered the rocks are.
              \_ There's a color one now.
        \_ As expected, no outrage from teh supposedly "libertarian" crowd
           about being forced at gunpoint to pay for something which should
           have been done in the private sector.
           \_ I stated once space exploration belongs in the private sector.
              I think NASA is extremely wasteful and inefficient.
              What more do you want me to say?  I am not aaron, I don't have
              fits.  -- ilyas
              \_ You don't have fits?? You've had so many motd-purging fits
                 that your name is used to describe the fit: "ilyas the motd"
                 \_ Heh.  Meyers calls it a fit, and you repeat it after him.
                    The motd-purging I do is neither violent nor sudden.  I
                    explained very carefully why I do it.  I do not insult
                    anyone, or in fact do anything that would make it a fit.
                    Other than destroy motd posts.  It takes more than
                    killing some posts to make a fit.  You need to read some
                    old wall logs for good fit examples. -- ilyas
                    \_ You don't insult anyone?  BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA!  That's the
                       silliest thing I've seen on motd in months!  *gaspgasp*
                       BWWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
                       \_ When I delete?  I surely don't.  I just delete.
                          Do you just center in on keywords when you read
                          without regard for context or what?  -- ilyas
                          \_ when you have to delete, Delete, dont talk.
                             \_ There are two kinds of people in the world, my
                                friend, those who Delete, and those who walk...
           \_ Motd Libertarians only have a fit if some government program
              might benefit a poor person.  Space exploration does not, hence
              no complaints from this crowd.
           \_ While not mandated in the Constitution, I wholeheartedly
              space exploration, though I would like to know why it cost
              $3+ billion. Just look at Mars Observer in 93 to see what can
              happen to $1 bil in a blink without any accountability.
              \_ $1 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to 84 billion.
              \_ It shouldn't matter whether you support space exploration or
                 not.  The libertarian agenda states that anything worth doing
                 should be done by corporations or individuals, never by the
                 government, especially for something like space exploration.
                 \_ Hi, I have to pull a tom on you.  You are an idiot.
                      -- ilyas
                    \_ He may be an idiot, but he's summed your posts over the
                       last couple of years.  *shrug*
                    \_ ilyas isn't insulting you, he's making a statement of
                       fact! :-P
              \_ $3 billion is not a lot of money. A stealth bomber costs
                 about $1 billion. Not only do you have to design and
                 build a unique spacecraft, but you have to track it and
                 fly it for 7 years. Some of the science is also paid out
                 of that $3 billion. There's a lot of infrastructure to
                 be able to do something like this at all, from engineers
                 and scientists to security guards and janitors. It all
                 has to be paid for. Look at it this way: every senior
                 scientist and engineer costs $250K per year including
                 benefits and you haven't even built or launched anything
                 yet. To compare, MSFT spends $6-7 billion each year
                 in expenses and a lot of what they do is not as highly
                 specialized.
                 \_ NASA pays its engineers $250K/yr? Crap, I am in the
                    wrong industry.
                    \_ he said including benefits, which typically cost
                       a large percentage of the base pay in the first place.
                       but i doubt even their most senior technical
                       people get paid a whole lot more than 150K.
                       \- hola, if memory serves, NASA has a huge
                          number of old people on the rolls. few younger
                          people are begining their careers there anymore.
                          i suspect this means their avg costs [high salary,
                          high health care costs, looming pension costs]
                          are fairly high. ok tnx. --fmr nasa employee.
                          \- some stats: nasa employees under 30: 4%.
                             +60yr old : <30yrs employee ratio is 3:1 at nasa.
                       \_ Right. High-level scientists and managers might
                          get $250K, but most are in the $100-150K range.
                          However, there are good retirement benefits and
                          other perks. When I do my budgets I plan about
                          $250K for a senior person, because of the
                          overhead. They aren't getting that much in their
                          pockets, but it is still spent. BTW, there has
                          been a lot of hiring of young people in the last
                          5 years or so as NASA tries to reverse the
                          trend. There are also a lot more PhDs now than
                          there were in the 1970s.