Alphabet Soup
Our wacky priorities
Two random but entangled articles in the NYT 9/24 caught my eye. The FAA administers the air traffic control system. A recent survey found that it is obsolete with 50-year-old components. Fifty-one of 138 systems were considered unsustainable. The neglect raises public safety concerns. Bringing it up to speed is likely to take ten years.
Then we have NASA’s $5 billion project to evaluate the habitability of one of Jupiter’s moons. Given the destruction on our planet attributable to climate change and the self-inflicted degradation, ubiquitous invasive plastic pollution, for example; spending $5 billion to check out water quality on one of Jupiter’s moons seems like a fools errand. We might wonder whether our societal priorities need some adjustment and tuning.
Your Alphabet Soup, Sheldon, is savouring our crazy priorities. The 50-year-old air traffic equipment of the FAA is disintegrating (51/138 systems toast; 10-year fix?), and NASA wastes $5B of its money by testing water on a Jupiter moon on the trash pile and plastic scourge of the Earth. Fools' errand? You bet priorities are crying out to reset.
In 26, that FAA/NASA merger will still hurt, and the air skies will be even busier, and space contests will be on fire. Questions: Any FAA upgrades so far landed or still winging it? Squat findings in the moon hunt by NASA, or climate cash stolen? Did Trump chop his axe on the spending that is woke, or make this soup, or not wake? Your 90+ radar pings nonsense, such as nobody ever has, delivers seconds?