Several people I have talked to have complained about the resolution of the pictures and quantity of pictures released to the public for Deep Impact.

Can anyone here enlighten me on why the pictures are so sparse and crappy? What about all the spectral data? will that be made public?

They are all conspiracy concerns of the people I have talked to, but I'm just curious.

MolBasser

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

This was discussed in their FAQ.

http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html#q10

Basically they took more images at lower pixel resolution to get better time resolution.

Although I was not directly involved with DI, I can tell you from personal experience that NASA/JPL PR people don't like releasing spectra, they want to keep releases at an 8th grade level.

Thanks for the link.

I understand their wants to not put difficult to understand stuff on their site, but given that we all paid for the experiment, don't you think we should get to look at the raw data?

Sorry if that sounds woo wooey, but I have an honest interest. It is a cool experiment.

MolBasser

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

the question is, how many of us would understand the raw data? yes, we paid for it, but we're also paying for those scientists who know a heck of a lot more than the majority of us to analyze it and, using those skills, provide us with what it means. if all they released were raw data, it wouldn't be as useful to the public at large as, say, the statement that comets, far from being mere dirty snowballs, contain a creamy nougat filling, or whatever woo other, less qualified people might derive from the data.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

So how do you get scientists to commit to investing their necessary time and expertise for the mission, up front, in contracted exchange for, among other considerations, first crack at the data (usually many months in which to analyze and publish), if you release all the raw data generated immediately to anyone who is interested?

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Sure, but all it does is fuel the fire of people screaming "Censoship" "Hiding Critical Data" etc.

Just release it I say, but that is me.

I'm not looking to prove anything, just curious. I get bitter when things are in an Us vs. Them. I prefer to modify my world view based on data.

Its tough to make decisions if you don't have the data.

I'm taking a bit of a devil's advocate position here as I am a mainstream guy, but it is a point the woo woos feed on.

MolBasser

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

That is a EXCELLENT point 01101001. That one comment changed my view very dramatically. Thank you. I have been too long separated from my achedemic science time (RNA biochemisty). I have forgotten the pressure and competition to publish.

But maybe there could be a more public disclosure to protocols for the experiments so people could know what to expect and when. Maybe that would help.

After the work is published there is no excuse not to release the data, and in fact it would be scientific misconduct if you did withold the data after publication.

MolBasser

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

They will release it all, eventually.

If you always release immediately, what's to stop the likes of A'Hearn et al from thinking: Why should we bother to design a mission? Let some bueaucrats do it and then we'll just grab the resulting data -- if any gets generated -- at the same time everyone else does.

I guess you could change the contracts to give them big piles of money to get them interested, but is that worth it to instantly gratify our curiosity?

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Please see my above edit.

Thanks for the snap to reality....I've been spending too much time on ATM forums.

MolBasser

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

Back in the early MER days, when people were clammoring for data, I found it useful to whip out the MER data publication plan, for releasing data to the Planetary Data System (PDS), a document I found on the web someplace (uh... PDF here, referenced, at least, in this article).

I wish I had a pointer to a similar document for the Deep Impact mission. I have a feeling it is going to be useful to help people understand why they can't see today's data today.

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I'm not sure what their schedule is, but I would expect calibrated data to be filed with PDS within 6 months to a year. The raw data might be fun to look at, but you can draw a lot of wrong conclusions without having access to the stacks of calibration documents and having the builders of the experiment verify that everything is working.

Yeah,

The problem is that achedemia is achedemia. No one cares if their tax money is paying for studying the Flying Stink Beetle Mating Habits and they don't get the data instantly. Suddenly if they think that it is proof of a woo woo theory they should have the data NOW!!.

Both researchers want to publish, and get credit for, their work.

Anyhoo, thanks for that bit of perspective.

MolBasser

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

The most amusing point is......

Does it matter if the data comes out slow? The Woo Woos say that:

A) We deserve the data now.
B) holding the data says your hiding something.
C) the data released is fake.

OK....

A) No, the researchers deserve first crack and publishing rights to the data.

B) No, see A, and what would stop us from giving you misleading data if we wanted to anyway.

C) You'll never believe anything we give you if it doesn't support your theory.

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Molecular Basser
"The Science of Fishing"

We all know that the conspiracy theorists don't care for the information. They seem to have two, maybe three "modes":

1) "They're Hiding Something" mode, when they don't get all the information immediately. They believe that the "delay" in releasing information means that the information proves their particular fantasy (notice the self-centered nature - "It probably proves my theory."). Generally, they believe that the information will never be willingly released.

2) "They're Lying" mode, when the information is released. They believe that because the information was released, and doesn't support their fantasy, that it must be fabricated, because "everyone" knows that their particular fantasy is the truth.

Some of them have a third mode, "Spin Cycle". Once the information is released, they spin said information to support their fantasy. Oddly, these folks are probably the same ones who claim "they're hiding something" before the information is released. They claim that the information proves their particular fantasy, and at the same time preach their pre-conceived distrust of the source of that information.

My head hurts...

Thanks to Google, my wish came true (but it was luck, I think, for the document seems to be provided by PDS as an example for other archivers).

Deep Impact Project Data Management Plan (Microsoft Word)


From table of contents:

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