Tech_Philosophy t1_ivtgqkf wrote on November 10, 2022 at 2:19 PM

Reply to comment by OffEvent28 in We Need to Intercept Our Next Interstellar Visitor to See If It's Artificial, Astronomers Say in New Study by Gari_305

> This all sounds like a fund raising mission to me.

Fund raising for what? Unless you are alleging fraud, it sounds like the scientists believe in the mission, in which case it's not appropriate to criticize the fund raising, but the goal.

Scientists have no difficulty generating a paycheck. If they are bothering to fund raise, it's because of what they want to work on.

OffEvent28 t1_ivyo4u0 wrote on November 11, 2022 at 4:23 PM

Some fund raising is for purposes that most people support, some is for things that most people think is a waste of money. Even waste of money causes have to pay their employees salaries, retirement benefits, health insurance. No fraud at all.

Their project is one whose time I don't think has come yet. Lots of money to get some picture from a long distance fly-by that may or may not even conclusively identify what the object is. What would be needed would be an intercept and rendezvous that would require a probe that could match course and speed with the interstellar visitor. Don't think we can do that yet. At any sane cost anyway.