That's astronaut Dave Williams on the right. He's a University of Toronto adjunct professor of surgery. According the the University of Toronto press release,Williams was a Professor here in emergency medicine until he was selected for the astronaut training program in 1992 [U of T professor to walk in space].
Sunday, August 12, 2007
University of Toronto Professor in Space
That's astronaut Dave Williams on the right. He's a University of Toronto adjunct professor of surgery. According the the University of Toronto press release,Williams was a Professor here in emergency medicine until he was selected for the astronaut training program in 1992 [U of T professor to walk in space].
Whatever do they want surgeons in space for? “Surgery professor stitches up tear in space-time continuum” So what’s NASA been up to then? Didn’t the Americans cause enough damage to the space-time continuum with the ‘Philadelphia experiment’?
ReplyDelete(There you go, Larry; whenever anyone Googles ‘Philadelphia Experiment’ your blog’s now going to come up, so beware of an influx of kooky conspiracy theorists!)
Well that’s very nice for him I’m sure. But um... what exactly is he doing in terms of real science? What exactly is anybody on the ISS doing in terms of real science?
ReplyDeleteThe fact of the matter is that serious space science is almost exclusively being done by robots. For example, the glorious Voyager missions that completely rewrote our understanding of the outer solar system, or the rovers Spirit and Opportunity - both still working even after three and a half years crawling about the surface of Mars, or the magnificent Cassini probe in orbit right now around Saturn and the Huygens lander on Titan. This is where the real science action is and will be for the foreseeable future – and all for a fraction of the cost of the ISS.
real science?
ReplyDeleteLife science for space environments, I imagine, but I hear it has little resources.
The question could be reformulated as why men want to go into space, and if public money should support it. I would suggest in-place exploration, resources and adventure as reasons for the first. And public or rather political support for the two first is essential for the first and beneficial for the other.
Taking advantage of the adventure angle would shore up public interest in paying I would think, also for science. But the economics of space is suspect as in most political settings. And if we can show that in the long run human exploration has detracted resources from science, it would be a conflict.
But can we do that? Couldn't it as well be the other way around; would science in space had access to the money flow and technical resources it now has if men didn't want to explore space personally as well? Has say, "commercial" Ariane really paid back the investments, and if so how many years delay would relying on this launch system have meant?
OTOH, personally my interest for any single project is minimal, on the level of idly following sports I don't participate in.
That reminded me of a similarity - as in international sports, ISS has brought nations together on a project with a larger public interest (than, say, the LHC). But the main reason for ISS strikes me being as flimsy as the design criteria for the space shuttle or the future Moon project. However doing something seems to be a lot better than doing nothing.