What we do now is buy rockets from the Russians, sell technology to the Chinese, and fill potholes with marijuana. After smoking ourselves stupid.

Oh, yes. And we commit ourselves to the F-35, nominate Donald Trump, spend a trillion dollars bringing democracy to the Middle East, and move from a nation of laws to a nation of torture and assassinations.

And we’re perfectly comfortable with that. A nation gets what it deserves and I think we deserve Donald Trump as President. He blames Muslims and Mexicans for our modest station. Wants to make America great. By bombing small countries, civilians and all. (That’s not the America in which I grew up, but it’s what we’ve become!)

I don’t think that the rest of the world deserves a sick, weakened, lazy, stupid USA, however. It doesn’t smoke as much weed.

Incidentally, different hemispheres look at different SKIES at the SAME time. The ideal spot, weather and insolation-wise for a big new optical instrument is a high mountain on an oceanic island in the trade wind zone, a southern hemisphere analog to Hawaii. I don’t think there is a viable candidate. Chile is about the best we can do.

BTW, you might want to review my previous post. I added some edits while you were typing.

I was there during the Outrigger debacle, and I was STUNNED that the powers that be actually thought they had a chance in hell of building the TMT there…

The best spot for a telescope in the WORLD is Antarctica… and Penguins don’t protest…

There’s no reason the US couldn’t build another big one in Chile, Australia or South Africa, like the Europeans have been doing. Its not just the protestors, its funding, too. Its getting harder and harder to convince Congress to invest in big multi-billion dollar science projects, whether they be observatories, space missions, or big accelerators. They are not considered “cool”.

Sure, money’s tight, and we have to prioritize even the worthiest projects. But Big Science has always been seen as another extravagance for science pansies and nerds. In the meantime, we keep on building sports stadiums aircraft carriers and theme parks at public expense like mad fuckers, presumably because of their “economic benefits”.

Hell, Congress won’t even spend money on our decaying infrastructure, which everyone will benefit from, and which is going to have to be done sooner or later anyway. (Not to mention the longer we wait the more it will cost in these days of low interest rates and inflation.) And why? Because the boost in employment and to the economy might make Obama look good. We certainly can’t have that now, can we?

While we’re on the subject. Let me make a prediction. In the event Mr Trump wins the next election, and assuming the GOP still controls Congress, you’re going to see an orgy of public works spending (not to mention tax cuts and military programs). There will be a stampede of pork, with little consideration as to the value or collateral benefit of the public spending, and no integration into a coordinated economic plan. There may be a temporary spike in the economy, which the White House will take credit for, but when the inevitable cost and inflation catches up to us, it will be all conveniently blamed on the last Democratic administration.

I think I have the SOBs figured out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Meter_Telescope_protests

The US will open it’s eyes one of these days and recognize that it’s no longer a first rate power, that several are more advanced. Except in how much it spends on it’s military. And gets second-rate weapons in exchange for hugely inflated costs.

It was bound to happen. (And oh, yes.) Trump wants to make America great again by invading very small third-world counries. Seriously, bombing the hell out of the third world is the way to get great. He, and his followers, are sick folks. Very sick.

And it would be nice to have a space program, too.