Yesterday brought news from NASA scientists that they had evidence of flowing water on Mars
Liquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to researchers who say the discovery raises the chances of being home to some form of life.
…Scientists are unsure where the water comes from, but it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere.
“There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration programme, told the Guardian. “Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.”
You would think that this news, while exciting, would be politically uncontroversial. You would be wrong. In today’s America, nothing is beyond the paranoid fantasies of the right wing fringe. For example, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh does not believe there is water on Mars and thinks that this whole story is made up as part of a “leftist agenda”.
And what exactly would that agenda be and how could water on Mars be part of it? Well, he is not exactly certain but what he is sure about is that the truth will out eventually.
“Don’t know how long it’s going to take, but this news that there is flowing water on Mars is somehow going to find its way into a technique to advance the leftist agenda. I don’t know what it is, I would assume it would be something to do with global warming and you can — maybe there was once an advanced civilization. If they say they found flowing water, next they’re going to find a graveyard.”
But why would NASA make this stuff up? While Limbaugh may not be sure of what the left wing agenda is, it quickly becomes clear what Limbaugh’s own agenda is and that is to discredit any scientific achievements of NASA. He thinks that NASA must not be allowed to become more influential because that would make their warnings about global warming more credible.
“I said ‘look at the temperature data, that has been reported by NASA, has been made up, it’s fraudulent for however many years, there isn’t any warming, there hasn’t been for 18.5 years. And yet, they’re lying about it. They’re just making up the amount of ice in the North and South Poles, they’re making up the temperatures, they’re lying and making up false charts and so forth. So what’s to stop them from making up something that happened on Mars that will help advance their left-wing agenda on this planet?'”
Expect to see Limbaugh’s followers spread this message far and wide. As I said, we have entered an age where nothing is too stupid to not be believed by a substantial number of people. This will join the rest of the beliefs in their crackpot museum.
NASA, once the source of great and justifiable pride in America because of its role in space exploration, has now become yet another enemy of the right, part of the vast global warming hoax conspiracy, no doubt to be targeted for budget cuts or elimination.
Making up new conspiracy theories is a good way to make political capital (and money). New news stories, including scientific ones, are a fertile source of material. That’s it really, as, since conspiracy theories have no requirement to make sense, literally anything can be used for this purpose.
Thieves worry about thieves. They can’t help it. It is entirely normal for people to, outside of some careful self-analysis, to assume everyone is pretty much the same way they are.
Rush Limbaugh is an ideologue who has no compunctions about lying in support of the people who pay him. It is entirely natural that he would assume everyone, including NASA, has a similar willingness to dissemble to advance and protect the mythology supporting those who finance their efforts.
From a right-wing viewpoint, NASA has outlived its usefulness. It was created soon after Sputnik was launched out of fear of a “space gap” with the Soviets. We got to the moon first, the U.S.S.R. dissolved, and we voluntarily shut down our manned space program. Now that we are no longer in the business of rubbing those godless commies’ noses in American greatness, there’s no reason for NASA to exist, or to keep striving in something only elite eggheads care about, like protecting the environment, keeping our air travel industry from falling apart, learning about the Universe, etc.
Moarscienceplz, as a lifelong space-enthusiast it seems to me that most Americans, not just right-wing, believe that the space program outlived its usefulness after Apollo, and would happily shut everything down except weather, communications, and GPS satellites (and maybe Google Earth). (The Russians only had the Salyut program to help pretend the Soviet lunar program never happened, and the shuttle program only happened because the Russians were still in space. The pattern continues.)
@ ^ Robert,+not+Bob : Two words there : Satellite TV!
Seriously I hope you are wrong and that the US Public aren’t that silly -- hoping against hope maybe.
Meanwhile we all benefit from advances such as this :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-30/new-satellite-technology-means-better-weather-forecasts/6815922
Thankyou Japan and thankyou to all of Himawari-8’s predecessors n the wetaher observing business. Among so very much else and more.