On 4 Mar 2004 at
Perverting science for politics
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One reason suggested for less funding on quantum physics is that those scientific results are in direct contradiction to Genesis. How dare we challenge teachings of the Bible. Slowly, more advanced physic research is moving to Europe and Japan where funding request need not be written to avoid religious overtones. Can we point fingers at specific lawmakers? No. But many science projects based on concepts contrary to Genesis have suddenly lost funding only recently. One example cited here is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) which would have asked questions about the Big Bang - a concept that violates Genesis.
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And so the AMS has sat quashed until we finally removed a wacko extremist from office. Suddenly, a critical experiment addressing quantum physics is acceptable again. Dr Ting's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is now scheduled for a very last space shuttle flight. But more interesting, it will do science where no virtually no science is performed - ISS.
Manned spaceflight, which takes almost all of NASA's budget, does almost no science. Almost all science is performed by robots and machines for very little money. Which is why Man to Mars is also so obviously rediculous.
AMS needs no manual intervention. It only requires a vehicle to carry it. And that will be ISS. ISS does so little science (due to men being on it) that the AMS is a very welcome attachment. At least astronauts can be adjacent to science that works just fine without them.
AMS was killed off in 2003. From the New York Times of 18 Nov 2010:
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Dr. Ting fought back. In 2005, invited to address a Senate committee on the state of American science, he used his five minutes and nine transparencies to mount a rousing defense of basic science and of his experiment. “They were surprised to hear that the space station can do good science,” Dr. Ting recalled.
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And still, Dr Ting's AMS, which must answer a critical quantum physics question about positron numbers, could not get a ride until the very last Shuttle was looking for a payload.
By putting too many men in space, therefore too little science gets done. AMS is more science planned in the 1990s, essential to answering fundamental science questions, and will finally get launched in 2011. Meanwhile we built an ISS that does almost no science; all for the glory and myths of man in space.