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> And don't send these folks money that could do real good elsewhere until they give at least some small reason to expect that it's not a wild goose chase. Is

by yohui 11y ago

> And don't send these folks money that could do real good elsewhere until they give at least some small reason to expect that it's not a wild goose chase. Is it even possible to give them money? I wasn't aware that NASA accepts earmarked donations, or contributions from private individuals in general.

Steuard 11y ago
In the back of my mind, I suppose I'm hoping that some administrator involved with the NASA budget is reading my comment. (Just for instance, I would say that the possibility that we could find life on Europa or the other outer moons is many, many orders of magnitude higher than the possibility that these drives turn out to be even a little bit worthwhile.)
- pavlov 11y ago
  Are you serious? If you had the power, you would actively prevent NASA from doing these experiments and trying to falsify the claims? I could somehow understand that if the experiments cost a billion dollars. But they don't. Any Europa mission is in no way related to nor threatened by these drive tests.
  - Steuard 11y ago
    Yes, actually. Every dollar that NASA spends has the potential to accomplish something for humanity. To my eye, even the vast potential benefits of this technology are more than washed out by the tremendously low probability that it will turn out to be real. I absolutely do not want NASA to give money to every person who comes to their door claiming to have a recipe for a warp drive. There has to be some threshold of viability, or else all of the folks with home-brewed theories of everything who spam my inbox (I'm a theoretical physicist) could secure their own grants. I honestly have no idea what about this project put it over that threshold, but it seems to imply that the threshold is too low. I want NASA to spend some money on speculative ideas! But surely there are speculative ideas out there that don't require us to rewrite all the laws of physics. Let's fund those.
    - syncsynchalt 11y ago
      Given the small amounts involved, it's worth the money just to figure out the source of experimental error. NASA isn't giving money to random kooks off the street, these are actual physicists in labs doing the work.
      - waterlesscloud 11y ago
        Not only is it not random kooks off the street, it's the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory, a group NASA set up for the express purpose of exploring exotic and unlikely propulsion concepts. They've done a small experiment on this particular concept and gotten interesting results. It would be utterly baffling if a group set up to explore such things explored them and then quit when they got interesting results.
      - scott_s 11y ago
        Steuard is too polite to point this out himself, so I will do it for him: he is a physics professor. That the amount of money is small is a measure of how incredibly unlikely he thinks any useful result would come from the experiments.
        syncsynchalt 11y ago
        Thank you for the pointer, I have a bad habit of not noticing usernames anyway. That said I still think my argument is valid, if you are seeing an incorrect result in a simple experiment it's still worth lab time figuring out which of your instruments or equipment is introducing it, even if you have 0.00% confidence that it's anything special or interesting.
        Intermernet 11y ago
        Steuard himself would hopefully point out that although being a physics professor grants his opinion a greater weight than those of us who are less informed, to claim that he is automatically correct would be fallacious. Politeness in this regard is preventing appeals to authority. I personally disagree. The money has been allocated to a section of NASA designed to research exactly this sort of theory. Pulling funding from these people would be like telling Ernest Solvay to put away his wallet.
dandelany 11y ago
They don't accept earmarked donations, but they do accept unsolicited and unconditional private contributions. http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PD_1210_001G_ http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PD_...
- yohui 11y ago
  I suppose "unsolicited" is why I've never heard of this. Thanks, learned something new today.

by yohui 11y ago

Steuard 11y ago

In the back of my mind, I suppose I'm hoping that some administrator involved with the NASA budget is reading my comment. (Just for instance, I would say that the possibility that we could find life on Europa or the other outer moons is many, many orders of magnitude higher than the possibility that these drives turn out to be even a little bit worthwhile.)

pavlov 11y ago
Are you serious? If you had the power, you would actively prevent NASA from doing these experiments and trying to falsify the claims? I could somehow understand that if the experiments cost a billion dollars. But they don't. Any Europa mission is in no way related to nor threatened by these drive tests.
- Steuard 11y ago
  Yes, actually. Every dollar that NASA spends has the potential to accomplish something for humanity. To my eye, even the vast potential benefits of this technology are more than washed out by the tremendously low probability that it will turn out to be real. I absolutely do not want NASA to give money to every person who comes to their door claiming to have a recipe for a warp drive. There has to be some threshold of viability, or else all of the folks with home-brewed theories of everything who spam my inbox (I'm a theoretical physicist) could secure their own grants. I honestly have no idea what about this project put it over that threshold, but it seems to imply that the threshold is too low. I want NASA to spend some money on speculative ideas! But surely there are speculative ideas out there that don't require us to rewrite all the laws of physics. Let's fund those.
  - syncsynchalt 11y ago
    Given the small amounts involved, it's worth the money just to figure out the source of experimental error. NASA isn't giving money to random kooks off the street, these are actual physicists in labs doing the work.
    - waterlesscloud 11y ago
      Not only is it not random kooks off the street, it's the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory, a group NASA set up for the express purpose of exploring exotic and unlikely propulsion concepts. They've done a small experiment on this particular concept and gotten interesting results. It would be utterly baffling if a group set up to explore such things explored them and then quit when they got interesting results.
    - scott_s 11y ago
      Steuard is too polite to point this out himself, so I will do it for him: he is a physics professor. That the amount of money is small is a measure of how incredibly unlikely he thinks any useful result would come from the experiments.
      - syncsynchalt 11y ago
        Thank you for the pointer, I have a bad habit of not noticing usernames anyway. That said I still think my argument is valid, if you are seeing an incorrect result in a simple experiment it's still worth lab time figuring out which of your instruments or equipment is introducing it, even if you have 0.00% confidence that it's anything special or interesting.
      - Intermernet 11y ago
        Steuard himself would hopefully point out that although being a physics professor grants his opinion a greater weight than those of us who are less informed, to claim that he is automatically correct would be fallacious. Politeness in this regard is preventing appeals to authority. I personally disagree. The money has been allocated to a section of NASA designed to research exactly this sort of theory. Pulling funding from these people would be like telling Ernest Solvay to put away his wallet.

dandelany 11y ago

They don't accept earmarked donations, but they do accept unsolicited and unconditional private contributions. http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PD_1210_001G_ http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PD_...

yohui 11y ago
I suppose "unsolicited" is why I've never heard of this. Thanks, learned something new today.